“Li…..”

“Li Xiu!”

One call after another came from afar.

Li Xiu took a sharp breath. When he suddenly leaped up uncontrollably, the loud noise startled the people standing next to his table.

“What’s wrong with you?”

As he heard this person’s exclamation, the familiar classroom came into view. Li Xiu gasped for air and realized that everything just now was only a dream.

The person who woke him up was a male classmate he didn’t know very well.

“Right, sorry, I fell asleep,” Li Xiu murmured, his voice a little hoarse.

Even now that he was awake, the cold and unpleasant feeling from his nightmare still lingered on his body.

“Eh, um.” The classmate lowered his head. His lips curled out of Li Xiu’s sight, and he said: “The math teacher asked you to go to the copy room and get the newly printed papers.”

“Ah?”

“…..The teacher said you should take them back to class and distribute them. He’ll use them in the next class.”

Li Xiu rubbed his temples.

“Okay.”

His math scores were among the best of his subjects, so he usually dealt with his math teacher a lot. Li Xiu naturally didn’t think too much at this time, and went directly to the school’s copy room per his classmate’s words.

The second he walked in, Li Xiu realized that something was wrong.

There were no papers in the copy room at all, only a boy leaning at the door, immersed in playing on his cell phone as usual. The external sound effects were the harsh electronics of a video game.

It was Fang Qian’an.

With no hesitation, Li Xiu turned and fled from the copy room. However, Fang Qian’an moved much faster than him. While playing on his cell phone, he kicked the door with his foot, blocking off Li Xiu’s escape route with the Game Over sound effect.

“Fang Qian’an, what are you going to do?”

Li Xiu sucked in a deep breath and forced himself to calmly look at Fang Qian’an.

When he lost another game, Fang Qian’an’s lips curled as he casually put his phone back in his pocket, then raised his eyes to look at Li Xiu.

As always, those light-colored irises and small pupils made Li Xiu feel uncomfortable.

At the same time, a strong sense of self-loathing arose. Li Xiu cursed himself several times as a fool — his feet were cumbersome, and the teacher would never make Li Xiu carry heavy objects, so how could he make him carry papers?

Even if it was moving exam papers, it was impossible for Li Xiu to do it alone.

If he hadn’t been distracted by the low-grade fever and nightmare today, he would have thought of it.

The was a trap set by Fang Qian’an specially for him.

“Tell me, what am I here for? If a puppy bites someone, how should it be dealt with under normal circumstances…..” Fang Qian’an said this and raised his hand toward Li Xiu.

There was still gauze on his index finger.

“I can’t press the buttons flexibly when my finger is covered in gauze. Don’t you know that from yesterday to today, I’ve been pressing the buttons without feeling them?”

The boy said this to Li Xiu with a chilling tone of resentment in his voice.

To tell the truth, if Fang Qian’an had spoken harshly to Li Xiu like Wang Rongfa, or Song Cheng this morning, Li Xiu would not be as upset as he was now.

But the way Fang Qian’an was speaking now…..

Li Xiu felt goosebumps rise.

He was also aware that he had really offended Fang Qian’an the other day.

That moment in the villa, Fang Qian’an saw real blood. When Li Xiu went home at night and brushed his teeth, the taste of another person’s blood lingered in his mouth.

And Fang Qian’an also said yesterday that he would have a “chat” with Li Xiu the next day.

The matter of biting Fang Qian’an would not be that easy to move past. Li Xiu had expected this. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had sleep paralysis that morning and dreaded coming to school. But he hadn’t expected Fang Qian’an to emerge so quickly.

Or….

That he would come in person.

He had been harassed by Wang Rongfa and that flock of idiots for so long, and Li Xiu could more or less see that Fang Qian’an actually looked down on the people around him.

It was said to be a close group, but in fact, they were all seeking benefits by getting closer to Fang Qian’an. The great young master only tolerated them reluctantly, and was too lazy to drive those doglegs away. This was how this group of people had become so domineering and reckless at school. 

In his limited memory, no matter what happened, Fang Qian’an just maintained his distance and played on his phone.

Sometimes Li Xiu couldn’t help but have the illusion that for Fang Qian’an, those who bullied others and those who were bullied were actually the same to him.

And at present, Fang Qian’an, who always watched these farces indifferently, seemed to have suddenly walked out from behind a glass wall and come directly to Li Xiu. 

Li Xiu’s face went tense, and a layer of cold sweat formed on his back.

Some disgusting memories suddenly resurfaced. Under the mental stress, an inexplicable dull ache began in the ankle that Fang Qian’an had kneaded wantonly yesterday.

“I can pay for your medical expenses,” Li Xiu said.

“…..Ha?”

When those words fell, even Fang Qian’an wore a dumbfounded expression.

Li Xiu had no doubts at all that Fang Qian’an had never heard similar words in his life.

He, Li Xiu, had offered to pay the medical expenses for the Fang family’s prince.

Let alone Fang Qian’an, Li Xiu also felt it was laughable after he spoke.

The scrawny, gaunt, crippled boy’s eyelashes twitched slightly due to his nerves, and he lowered his head uncontrollably to stare at Fang Qian’an’s hand.

After a night, there was still a hint of dark red under the bandage on the tall boy’s index finger.

As expected, after a brief silence, Fang Qian’an laughed.

“Pfft….wait, do you think I’m lacking your family’s medical expenses?”

Fang Qian’an crossed his arms with a light scoff and walked directly in front of Li Xiu as he leisurely spoke.

As Fang Qian’an approached, Li Xiu swallowed dryly and began to instinctively retreat.

He glanced surreptitiously at the environment in the copy room. The door was being blocked by Fang Qian’an, but the window was open, and the copy room was on the second floor…..

If he were a healthy person, he might consider jumping out the window to escape.

Unfortunately, Li Xiu was not.

He was a cripple who even ran crookedly.

He felt that pressure in his chest once again, a strong self-hatred.

Then Li Xiu began to look for things at hand that could be used to protect himself. It was truly a pity that in the copy room, apart from the copy machines and piles of textbooks and copy paper piled on the metal shelves, there weren’t any useful weapons.

And during the brief time Li Xiu spent trying to find a way to defend himself, Fang Qian’an had unknowingly forced him into a blind corner.

In addition, Fang Qian’an was much taller than Li Xiu.

Li Xiu’s body was comparatively thinner, and Fang Qian’an’s, even among well-developed high school students, could be considered the most outstanding.

A height of nearly 1.9 meters allowed him to dominate the basketball team.

It was said that for safety, he was also very good at Muay Thai and Taekwondo.

He was called a prince not entirely because of his financial backing, but also because his fists were very ferocious.

And when such a person leaned directly over Li Xiu, that sort of unbridled aura like that of a carnivorous beast became even stronger.

Fang Qian’an’s large shadow fell over Li Xiu’s eyes.

At this moment, that shadow completely engulfed the pale, thin boy.

Li Xiu bit his lower lip.

“Then what are you going to do? Beat me up again?” A strong sense of crisis, the dizziness from his low-grade fever, and his extreme resistance toward strong males combined to make the boy’s voice come out sharp. 

He raised his head and glared at Fang Qian’an, his eyes bright and fierce.

“Otherwise, how about I reach out and you bite me back?” He scoffed coldly, a hint of malice in his tone.

He raised a hand toward the very close Fang Qian’an.

Hadn’t Fang Qian’an said he was a dog?

Then if a dog bit a person and couldn’t afford compensation, was it possible for a person to bite the dog back?

After hearing Li Xiu’s reply, Fang Qian’an paused his movements, and his whole person hesitated subtly.

“You—”

Just as he was about to step forward and grab the reckless cripple, a buzz suddenly sounded in the copy room, which held just the two of them.

All of a sudden, the copier placed in the center of the room started up automatically.

Zizi—zi—

With the starting of the copier, a large amount of copy paper began to spray out at an abnormal speed.

Before Fang Qian’an could react, there was a sudden gust of cold wind in the room.

Rustle—

In an instant, the paper on the copy tray rolled up as if a heavenly maiden was scattering flowers.

Fang Qian’an stared at this scene in astonishment. There was a sudden pain in his cheek, which turned out to be a piece of copy paper that directly slashed across him, making a cut on his skin.

He grabbed the piece of paper reflexively and looked down. It still carried the heat from the copy machine, and the paper was pure red.

Fang Qian’an thought to himself in some confusion: Wait, wasn’t the school’s test paper copy machine supposed to print in black and white? Since when did it print in color….?

Before he knew it, at the same time Fang Qian’an was distracted by the copy machine, Li Xiu didn’t think too much of this at all and suddenly ran out from under him with his back arched.

“You dare to run?!”

Fang Qian’an abruptly returned to his senses. Inexplicably, he disregarded everything else and directly reached out to hook Li Xiu.

But Fang Qian’an was entirely unaware that the moment he took action, the shelf used to store paper and materials in the copy room fell directly toward him.

Li Xiu didn’t know why he looked back.

This was obviously such a good opportunity…..

However, at that moment, a chill came over his soul and Li Xiu suddenly turned around for a reason that couldn’t be explained.

Just in time to see the solid, heavy frame collapse behind Fang Qian’an.

“Look out!”

Li Xiu subconsciously stretched out his hand.

Fang Qian’an had originally intended to yank Li Xiu back, but when he raised his arm, Li Xiu was the one to pull him forward hard.

He didn’t expect that Li Xiu would turn around and pull him, and without a halt to his steps, he hit Li Xiu directly and the two fell to the ground.

Boom—

What sounded at the same moment was the deafening roar of the iron frame impacting the ground.

……

In the next few seconds, Fang Qian’an was somewhat unable to return to his senses.

Several textbooks had smashed onto his feet, and his calves felt raw, as if he had been kicked many times when playing ball.

But that was nothing at all, because the overturned metal frame was now lodged next to the sole of his shoe.

If Li Xiu hadn’t grabbed him just now and made him fall forward a few more steps, the metal frame wouldn’t have just missed hitting him.

The textbooks and paper at school were not flimsy things, so the copy room used solid steel shelves that reached to the ceiling.

Such was the weight that if he was really smashed hard, Fang Qian’an might have been directly smashed into reincarnation.

Even the mind of the most lawless prince of a powerful family would go blank for a moment when encountering such an accident.

“Ugh…..”

Then a muffled groan came from beneath him.

Fang Qian’an turned to look at the young man directly below him.

Li Xiu’s face was pale, his forehead was covered in cold sweat, and there was a bright red wound on his lip that was oozing blood.

That had been scratched by the pendant Fang Qian’an was wearing around his neck when he fell down.

That flash of red fell into his eyes, and Fang Qian’an felt his heart suddenly shrink. He couldn’t help but ask nervously, “A….are you hurt?”

“You’re okay…..”

Li Xiu endured the pain and didn’t care about anything else, rolling his eyes at Fang Qian’an. “Did you…..grow up eating pig feed? Get…..off me…..”

Not every frail youth could bear the full weight of an adolescent boy standing nearly 1.9 meters tall.

When Li Xiu was pressed down by Fang Qian’an, he felt as if his internal organs were about to be squeezed out through his throat.

Once Fang Qian’an hurriedly lifted himself from Li Xiu, the originally tense atmosphere between them became a little more subtle.

Li Xiu had fallen and become Fang Qian’an’s flesh pad, and couldn’t get up for a while. He could just barely sit up halfway to lean against the wall, staring dazedly at the absolutely chaotic scene before him. 

Fang Qian’an stared at Li Xiu’s ugly expression. After a moment of hesitation, he said very stiffly: “Hey, um…..are you really okay?”

He recalled that Li Xiu was a cripple. Seeing that he couldn’t stand up, he proceeded to reach out toward the leg of Li Xiu’s trousers.

Pa.

Then the back of his hand was slapped fiercely.

“Scram.”

The youth’s merciless scolding came to his ears.

Fang Qian’an let out a tsk and abruptly stopped his hand.

“Fuck, isn’t it good that laozi is concerned about you this time?!” he muttered, but his voice was less than strong.

There was even a bit of…..a strange and unfamiliar guilty conscience.

Likely because Fang Qian’an hadn’t expected that Li Xiu would take action to help him.

There was still a bloodstain at the corner of Li Xiu’s mouth, and due to the injury, his originally pale lips looked particularly plump, with a garish beauty.

Fang Qian’an’s eyes remained disobediently on that red hue. In addition to the previous fright, there was an inexplicable gloom in the pit of his stomach.

“Cough.”

Li Xiu tried his best to calm his breathing, then raised his head to look at Fang Qian’an.

“We’re even now,” the boy said quietly.

Fang Qian’an stared blankly for a moment: “What?”

Li Xiu raised his hand, straightening his index finger: “Actually, you deserved it for bullying me at school. But…..forget it. Anyway, I saved your life just now, so let’s consider it a clean slate, okay?”

“It’s not me who made people bully you, other than…..”

Fang Qian’an became increasingly fidgety when he saw Li Xiu’s appearance of giving way to the enemy.

“Come on…..it’s rare for me to fuss over a cripple like you,” he grumbled.

In order to relieve the particular discomfort filling his body, Fang Qian’an turned his head to look at the copy machine that had malfunctioned previously.

“So this kind of garbage is still used in rural schools…..”

He thought: all of this trash would need to be replaced.

A small breeze blew, and another sheet of copy paper fluttered to his feet.

Glancing at it, Fang Qian’an couldn’t help but let out a “Yi.”

Li Xiu glanced at him. 

“I’m fine, I just remembered…..”

Hadn’t these copy papers been red before?

But at present, all Fang Qian’an saw were boring test questions with black characters on a white background.

Fang Qian’an didn’t continue to speak, because Li Xiu wasn’t saying anything at all. Only then did he realize that there was no need to explain anything to the little cripple in front of him.

As for his confusion between memory and reality, couldn’t it be that he saw wrong just now?

Fang Qian’an was distracted by Li Xiu, so he didn’t think overly much at this time.

The overturning of the copy room shelves caused quite a stir, and very soon, teachers and students on duty came to investigate.

Of course, with Fang Qian’an’s abilities, he should be able to calm the situation down quickly.

Li Xiu wasn’t worried about this…..or rather, he didn’t have the chance to worry.

Because when the outsiders arrived, Fang Qian’an had someone take him directly to the infirmary.

His euphemistic words were: “This guy looks really bad. It’s best to have him checked out before he brings bad luck in front of me.”

A moment later, the haughty, arrogant school bully wiped at the long-dried blood on his face again and added dryly: “I need to find someone to put medicine on this face.”

……

Then, he left with Li Xiu.

Therefore, neither Li Xiu nor Fang Qian’an knew that after the noisy crowd dispersed, the teachers locked the door temporarily.

Silence returned to the copy room. The copier, which was unplugged from the power supply and had been deformed by the metal shelves, started up again with a sizzle.

There were small, densely-packed characters on the paper.

It’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme It’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme

It’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme It’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme

It’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme It’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme

It’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme It’sme it’sme It’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme It’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme

It’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme It’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme it’sme

[A-Xiu]

[It’s me]

---

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Chapter 6 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 8

Li Xiu didn’t sleep well that night.

All through the night, there were nightmares.

In his dreams, he seemed to have returned to the Xiao family villa at dusk.

Slimy, twisted monsters surrounded him, entangling him with their deformed tentacles. The stale smell of the fermentation of dust and mold in the room was like gangrene in the bones, and Li Xiu almost couldn’t breathe.

[Shhhh—]

Was this the sound of the wall covering peeling off? 

No, that wasn’t right…..

[Shhhhh…..shh…..]

It was the sound of something huge squirming, the moist sound produced by the friction between the mucus on the body and the ground’s surface.

Li Xiu opened his eyes wide and looked at the window of the old room.

The sun set in the west. Its light was red, and it stretched the tall, thin shadow of the school janitor outside the window. Then…..the janitor changed little by little before Li Xiu’s eyes, turning into something twisted and evil that could not be described.

It slipped in, and Li Xiu saw its mouth open slightly. Scarlet lips grinned all the way to the ears, revealing teeth that had been carefully cared for since childhood, exceptionally white and neat.

The monsters had already been eaten by it.

[Zzz…..A-Xiu…..]

A vaguely familiar voice sounded next to Li Xiu’s ear.

The voice was odd and mechanical, with the characteristic aspect of an animal imitating human intonation.

[A-Xiu…..my A-Xiu, ah…..]

[You look so good when you cry.]

The monster’s touch was cold, like leather dripping with sticky juices.

Li Xiu couldn’t move. 

He only felt that his body was being constricted by the other party little by little, and his consciousness within the nightmare gradually became blurred.

The last thing that stuck in his mind was a glimpse of the wall of the room he had seen before he was completely swallowed up by the monster.

In reality, behind the wall covering were densely-packed talisman papers pasted in number. But in his dream, Li Xiu saw countless eyes.

There were no whites in those eyes, just pure black pupils.

Every eyeball moved nimbly, staring at Li Xiu with intent.

*

“Wu, it hurts to death…..”

When he got up the next day, Li Xiu still felt that sticky feeling on his body left over from the nightmare.

He soon discovered the source of this unpleasant feeling—he had sweated so much last night that his pajamas were soaked.

Fortunately, the handful of pills he casually took the night before were effective, and when Li Xiu woke up, his low-grade fever had subsided. The pain that had even kept him from breathing too hard had faded quite a bit.

Even the bruises on the corner of his mouth and his forehead, which he had thought would turn shocking overnight, did not look too exaggerated at this time.

Li Xiu’s health was much better than he had expected the day before.

However, when he thought of having to face Fang Qian’an’s group again today, emotions as turbid and heavy as mud spread from the depths of the young man’s body like a levee.

He knew very well that if he didn’t leave quickly, there would be no way to ensure that he entered the classroom before those people stopped him, but his body refused to listen to him and stopped on the bed in the same position as when he sat up.

It wasn’t until there was a slight noise outside the door that the overwhelming “sleep paralysis” feeling finally dissipated.

Li Xiu was taken aback, thinking that his grandmother had come to wake him up. But in the last few years, as the elderly woman grew older, she rarely woke up so early anymore. There were an occasional few times when Li Xiu saw his grandmother in the kitchen when he woke up. It was likely because the old woman became confused again and misremembered the time.

He didn’t want his grandmother to notice anything unusual about him.

Li Xiu took a deep breath. He rallied himself, got out of bed, and walked out of the room.

“Grandmother, stop working, go to sleep—”

He lowered his head in order to prevent her from seeing the abnormalities on his face, planning to persuade his grandmother to return to her room and sleep.

But when he reached the door of the kitchen, Li Qiu was stunned.

The soundproofing in the old house was not good. Li Xiu had indeed heard the movement of dishes and chopsticks in the kitchen.

But now, the early morning light fell on a cold and silent kitchen.

“Hu…..hu….hu…..”

His grandmother was still sleeping.

In the poorly soundproof rooms, the old woman’s dull snores were clearly audible at this moment.

Li Xiu frowned and looked at the kitchen chopping board.

An empty bowl lay there.

That was a bowl Li Xiu could never mistake.

A bowl that only his “gege” could use.

Li Xiu clearly remembered that after “feeding” his gege the other day, he washed the bowl as always and placed it deep in the cupboard.

In recent years, his gege’s things had become more taboo to his grandmother, and the ordinary rice bowls used by their family to eat were always kept separate from his gege’s bowl. 

But presently, the bowl he had washed with his own hands had a layer of dried brown filth in the bottom of it.

Just as the neighboring auntie had complained to the tenant, Li Xiu’s grandmother was indeed a “witch” who set up a mourning hall in her own home.

As for the neighboring auntie calling her a fraud, Li Xiu couldn’t argue with her. After all, he could see more clearly than others that his grandmother was indeed pretending. 

But for so many years, his grandmother had struggled to support Li Xiu by relying on the meager funds she obtained through that pretending. 

Growing up, Li Xiu often saw his grandmother tinkering with all kinds of strange things at home, and had also seen many of the things she used to fool people.

So this morning, Li Xiu didn’t think too much about it after being dazed for a long moment, and directly came to the most reasonable explanation.

The noise he heard had probably come from next door, and as for the empty bowl with filth in it, it must be that his grandmother was confused again last night and accidentally took his gege’s bowl to mix something.

Although there was still a lingering chill on the back of his neck, Li Xiu’s instincts still led him to choose the most normal and reasonable guess to explain this morning’s episode.

Li Xiu pursed his lips and quickly washed the bowl again, putting it away. Then he carried his school bag and left the house.

Click—

The moment he closed the door, Li Xiu was in a trance, and seemed to hear some strange and off putting noise in the kitchen again.

He thought about opening the door to investigate, but when he glanced at the time, the uneasiness in his heart was replaced by panic. 

He was almost late.

*

Through the thin door, the boy’s panicked footsteps quickly disappeared.

In this dilapidated old house, only the old woman’s snoring remained.

Li Xiu was in a hurry to catch up with his morning self-study, and naturally had no idea that after he left, his grandmother’s bedroom door suddenly cracked open with a creak with nobody touching it.

In the pitch-black bedroom, the old woman’s originally regular snoring was suddenly replaced by wild, beast-like sleep talk.

“Rice is delicious. Come, little baby, come and eat, you will be full and fat…..”

“Eat more…..grow taller…..”

Although it was completely out of tune, if one listened carefully, it could still be discerned as a nursery rhyme.

Clink.

On the empty kitchen table, a clean porcelain bowl tipped onto it with a crisp sound.

*

Qiming Secondary School—

“Hey, cripple.”

A hand was placed on Li Xiu’s shoulder, nearly making him stagger.

Li Xiu abruptly stopped walking. Gasping for breath, he turned to look at the two boys beside him with a tense expression. 

Even though he had expected it, Li Xiu was still fretful when he was blocked by these guys downstairs because he had left too late.

“It’s strange, ah. Shouldn’t you be like a turtle with its head in its shell today?”

When he turned around, someone raised his feet and stopped in front of Li Xiu, blocking the way.

That boy was a head taller than Li Xiu and had hair like a mess of weeds. The odor of cigarette smoke in his mouth when he spoke made Li Xiu grimace.

Li Xiu knew this person. He was Wang Rongfa’s loyal little brother, named Song Cheng.

And behind Li Xiu was another “friend” of Song Cheng’s. This guy was just like Song Cheng. He was on the lower rung of this small group, and his characteristic was that his face was full of pockmarks. Li Xiu didn’t know his real name. He only knew that Wang Rongfa and the others all seemed to call him by his nickname, Amazi.^[1] 

Li Xiu kept his eyes lowered and didn’t look at him, for fear of making himself sick.

“Hey, speak up. Weren’t you really brave yesterday? You dared to bite Fang-ge.”

“That’s right, we haven’t settled yesterday’s account with you yet.”

In his impression, these two people were not qualified to be close to Fang Qian’an on normal days. Li Xiu could guess that these two were so invigorated and came to block him early in the morning just to please Fang Qian’an.

Li Xiu narrowed his eyes.

Surrounded by two guys with malicious intentions, Li Xiu took the time to glance around.

The bad news was that this place was in a blind spot, where few students would pass by. It would be difficult to attract the attention of a patrolling teacher even if he shouted at the top of his voice.

And the good news was…..

Other than Song Cheng and Amazi, there was no one else.

Fang Qian’an hadn’t come, and neither had Wang Rongfa.

This actually let Li Xiu breathe a small sigh of relief.

“What are you looking at, little cripple? Are you thinking of going to complain to a teacher?”

Song Cheng noticed Li Xiu’s small movements and sneered mockingly.

Li Xiu remained silent.

The young man’s expressionless face fell into Song Cheng’s eyes and made him even more agitated.

What he hated the most was how Li Xiu seemed to not care about anything.

He was just a cripple, yet acted so high and mighty.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.”

Song Cheng took a step forward.

Then he saw Li Xiu raise his eyes and look past him, his eyes lighting up slightly.

“Teacher Chen—” Li Xiu called.

Song Cheng subconsciously froze when he heard Li Xiu call to a teacher, and in the next second, he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen as Li Xiu elbowed him hard. It could be said that this cripple was crafty. He knew he wasn’t strong enough, so he used an elbow instead of his fists.

Then, while Song Cheng was bent over in pain, Li Xiu picked up his school bag weighing dozens of kilograms and hit Amazi on the head. Seeing that Amazi had been dazed by the blow, he began to run while dragging his leg.

“Fuck your mother, you really have a death wish—”

Amazi covered his nose and wiped away the heat flowing from his nostrils. Furious and spluttering, he reached out to grab Li Xiu.

Li Xiu’s back tensed, and he felt his school bag being grabbed.

Then, as the strap of the school bag loosened, something seemed to be thrown out.

“Ahhhhh—”

He heard two screams.

Glancing from the corner of his eye, Li Xiu saw Song Cheng and Amazi flapping their arms as if frightened as they jumped on the spot.

This was…..wait…..

Li Xiu quickly realized that what had flown out seemed to be the bag of rice he had put in his school bag the day before and had planned to dispose of at school today.

Heaven knew what Song Cheng and Amazi thought of the rice, but it was clear that they were frightened.

Was it necessary to scream so miserably?

This thought flitted through Li Xiu’s mind.

He didn’t even look back. Taking advantage of the brief period where the two were scared, Li Xiu ran as hard as he could.

The crippled Li Xiu ran very slowly and staggeringly.

Fortunately, after escaping the blind spot, he immediately saw the grade supervisor doing inspections.

…..Likely for this reason, Song Cheng and Amazi huddling in the corner didn’t catch up in the end.

*

Li Xiu successfully arrived at the classroom before morning self-study began.

Unfortunately, he was stopped before entering the classroom.

Li Xiu turned around to see a handsome young face — this man had graduated from a top foreign school, and the principal had recruited him from a well-known elite school with great difficulty. Now, he was the head teacher of Li Xiu’s class.

Compared to other teachers, he was so handsome that he almost appeared out of place in the school.

But among the students, he was good-looking, his teaching was relaxed, and he had a humorous speaking style. Even online, the man could be considered an internet celebrity because of his appearance. 

He never put on airs as he taught, unlike other teachers. But when he saw him, Li Xiu’s movements reflexively tensed.

“Teacher Ouyang, good morning.”

As quiet as a mosquito, Li Xiu gave a quick hello and turned to slip into the classroom.

But Teacher Ouyang’s palm pressed down on his shoulder.

The man regarded Li Xiu with great concern.

“I heard that you had a dispute with some classmates recently?”

As always, the young teacher sensitively took into account the fragile and sensitive self-esteem of the adolescent students, and even the rumors of bullying he had heard became less harsh in his mouth.

Li Xiu avoided Ouyang’s gaze and said softly, “…..I didn’t.”

His resistance caused a look of helplessness to flash across the man’s face.

“En, that’s good. If you encounter problems in your studies or in life, you can come to me.”

“En, thank you, Teacher,” Li Xiu said quickly. “I’m really fine.”

Then he grasped his school bag tightly and inconspicuously shook off the man’s hand, walking swiftly into the classroom with his head lowered. 

Since he was a child, his physical disability had made him very sensitive to the gazes of others. Thus, he could clearly sense that after he turned around, Teacher Ouyang’s eyes remained focused on him for a long, long time.

Just like a good teacher who cared about his students.

*

“What’s wrong with you?”

When he sat down, the female classmate next to him caught a glimpse of Li Xiu’s unzipped school bag, then saw the injuries on his face.

The girl frowned as she questioned him.

“Did those two idiots go looking for you again?”

Sensing the girl’s concern, Li Xiu pressed his fingertips lightly but still shook his head.

“No.”

When his words fell, the boys behind them who had heard their conversation laughed.

…..It was practically an open secret that Wang Rongfa and several others bullied Li Xiu on campus. To them, Li Xiu’s answer just now sounded utterly ridiculous and pretentious.

Before Li Xiu could say anything, the expression of the girl at their shared table became ugly.

“Li Xiu, why not go and find a teacher? I can help you testify—”

Li Xiu opened his school bag with a rustle. When the wrapped up rice bag had become loose, rice mixed with ashes was scattered everywhere inside.

He gathered the rice with lowered eyes, tied the bag again, and took out his homework.

“Do you want to copy it?” he asked.

“Ahhhh, yesyesyes. Li Xiu, you are my god. My eternal god. How did you know I didn’t complete it—”

As expected, the girl’s attention was diverted, and she didn’t ask about Li Xiu’s bullying afterward.

For a girl whose hair pins cost several months of living expenses for Li Xiu, the things that happened to Li Xiu were indeed a bit too distant.

He breathed a silent sigh of relief.

*

Song Cheng’s and “Amazi’s” seats were empty until morning self-study ended.

Li Xiu didn’t care.

Whether it was Fang Qian’an or Wang Rongfa, the people in the small group around them were generally the same.

Either their family was rich, and it didn’t matter how well they did on the university entrance exam since they would be going abroad anyway, or their family was completely rotten and they didn’t care about it at all. As for the teachers of Qiming, they already let these people do as they pleased.

It was common for them to skip classes, and uncommon for them not to skip.

In any case, Li Xiu felt a little more at ease now that there were fewer people in class who were full of malice toward him.

The effects of the medicine subsided a little after he got to school. After the second class, Li Xiu realized that he once again had a low-grade fever. With his body feeling so uncomfortable, he really didn’t want to dedicate any more energy to such tedious people.

He was different from them.

He had no father, no mother, and no money.

He needed to work harder than normal people, and could only barely maintain this fragile life.

The debuff brought on by the low-grade fever was stronger than Li Xiu had thought.

He had originally planned to write half of his paper during class, but accidentally fell asleep.

Still, there were nightmares.

He dreamt of Song Cheng and “Amazi” still standing in the shadowy corner of the stairwell. Whining sounds came from the tall boys’ mouths, as if they were screaming and crying. However, their mouths were blocked by something, and all that came out in the end were indistinct whimpers.

As if they were aware of Li Xiu’s presence, the two suddenly turned their faces.

[Wuwu…..]

The boys’ faces were swollen and distorted. They really were crying.

However, what seeped continuously from their eyes were not tears. Instead, what fell were tiny maggots, squirming unceasingly in thick blood.

Groups of small bulges rose and fell under the boys’ skin.

Their mouths stretched open.

Even more maggots spurted out.

Li Xiu stepped back at once, and in the next second, fell into a cold embrace.

The person was much taller than him.

The other party’s body was so cold that Li Xiu couldn’t help but tremble.

The person placed their cold hands gently on Li Xiu’s shoulders.

[Zizi…..Ah…..Ah-Xiu…..]

He couldn’t say what that sound was.

It was low, gloomy, wicked.

But there was an indescribable familiarity to it.

Li Xiu froze entirely, instantly overwhelmed with terror.

[…..So pitiful…..so pitiful to be bullied, ah, A-Xiu.]

[My Ah-Xiu.]

---

[1] To my uncultured beginner-Mandarin self, this seems like an acne joke. (阿麻仔) Like, A-Pockmark. Please correct me if I’m wrong. ⮐

---

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Chapter 5 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 7

Li Xiu was stunned for a moment before he realized what had happened.

Looking at the rice scattered everywhere on the floor, he just felt tired.

The rats have come again, he thought.

This was not the first time Li Xiu had encountered rats in the room—in places like shantytowns, putting a bowl of rice under the bed every day attracted more rats than ghosts.

Several times before, when Li Xiu was delivering food, he could see something pass through the shadows under the bed when he lowered his head. Li Xiu tried to strike it at first, but gave up after several attempts. If the clutter in this house was not cleaned up, not to speak of a human being like Li Xiu, even a cat would probably be powerless against the rats.

Speaking of which, considering the location of Li Xiu’s home, only seeing a rat now could already be considered a rarity. The sanitary conditions of the shantytown were inherently poor, and the area where Li Xiu and his grandmother lived happened to be the dirtiest and messiest location in the area.

Even a reserved teenager like Li Xiu, who rarely interacted with others, often heard neighbors complain about rats and cockroaches in their homes over the years.

However, in the early years when the neighbors’ houses were in a mess due to rat infestations, Li Xiu’s house was always very clean.

Not to mention rats, there were not even many mosquitos in the summer.

Now that he thought about it, it was actually the previous situation where mosquitos would not enter the house that was abnormal.

He would buy some rat poison another day.

Staring dazedly, Li Xiu vaguely noticed that something wasn’t right. But his health was currently very poor, and he couldn’t squeeze out the energy to care about what might or might not be there.

Li Xiu left the room. 

After being perfunctory with his grandmother, he secretly took a broom and returned to the room. Once he had cleaned everything up, he tiptoed out.

After packing the rice mixed with ashes into a red cloth bag, Li Xiu was about to dispose of it when an old, hoarse voice suddenly came from behind him.

“A-Xiu, why were you back so late?”

Li Xiu’s hands shook, and he reflexively hid the cloth bag in his school bag.

He turned around to meet his grandmother’s wrinkled face.

As a person aged, their eyes became cloudy. His grandmother’s eyes looked hollow in the dim light, like two polished glass beads.

She had been standing there looking at Li Xiu for who knew how long.

Li Xiu’s fingertips curled, and he tightened the strap of his school bag.

“Grandmother…..”

Just as he was about to speak nonsense, his grandmother’s voice became rapid and high-pitched.

“You came back too late, he should be hungry…..deliver food. A-Xiu, you must hurry and deliver food to your gege.” 

Li Xiu’s voice immediately stuck in his throat.

After a brief pause, he took a deep breath and said calmly: “En, don’t worry, I’ve already brought food to Gege.”

When his grandmother heard this answer, a trace of confusion flashed in her eyes. The old woman seemed to parse this sentence after a while, and forced out a tremulous smile.

“That’s good, that’s good. You must remember to deliver meals on time in the future.”

The old woman continued to repeat herself. After heaving a long sigh of relief, her shoulders shrunk, her whole body sinking as she staggered out of the kitchen.

Looking at his grandmother’s back, Li Xiu pursed his lips and said no more.

His grandmother’s confusion had grown increasingly serious.

This was why Li Xiu hid the spilled rice.

Since he was a child, Li Xiu would bring his gege a meal every night according to the rules, then take the bowl back from under the bed before going to school the next day.

The uncooked rice his gege hadn’t “eaten” was put away in a red cloth bag and regularly taken to the park to scatter for the fish. Of course, in his grandmother’s words, it was best to burn the uncooked rice to ashes along with the red bag.

“That way, it’s less likely to lure dirty things.”

Li Xiu remembered his grandmother saying this to him once.

But after several instances of burning it, the neighboring auntie thought that burning things was inauspicious and smoky. And in order to avoid causing further trouble, Li Xiu later compromised by simply leaving it to the koi in the park.

The first time a rat knocked over the rice, Li Xiu was at a loss, not certain what to do with it.

He didn’t think too much about it, and just informed his grandmother and asked her what to do. It was such a simple question, but when his grandmother heard this, she became exceedingly strange.

It was just some rice knocked over by a rat, but the old woman cried and made a fuss for a long time, as if she had gone crazy. What she said was inconsistent with her previous and future words, saying that she felt sorry for Li Xiu, that she was greedy and brought home an evil ghost, and now it wanted to kill Li Xiu…..

The old woman’s agitation at the time really didn’t frighten Li Xiu. He didn’t even have time to ask her why she was so scared before she directly fell asleep, and when she woke up again, she had completely forgotten her previous madness.

“Send food, A-Xiu, ah. Send food to your gege.”

She just continued to remind Li Xiu.

“You must not starve your gege, ah.”

……

Out of some sort of intuition, Li Xiu did not continue to ask.

And from that day on, Li Xiu never dared to let his grandmother know that his gege’s share of “food” placed under the bed would occasionally be knocked over by rats.

He felt that it was very possible that his grandmother had Alzheimer’s disease.

Each time Li Xiu thought of this, it felt as if a block of stone was pressing down on his body, and he almost couldn’t breathe.

In fact, he often heard discussions about him and his grandmother from his neighbors. In the eyes of outsiders, his grandmother didn’t actually treat A-Xiu very well.

The reason his grandmother had adopted Li Xiu was purely because her own biological daughter had severed ties with her.

In order to have someone to take care of her at the end of her life, his grandmother had adopted the crippled Li Xiu.

She had a bad temperament and seldom looked after Li Xiu.

But……

Even if his grandmother was cold and strict, she was Li Xiu’s only relative in the world.

When his grandmother completely forgot him due to Alzheimers, Li Xiu didn’t know what he would do.

*

At night, Li Xiu’s low-grade fever became serious.

His head ached. His vision also went dark for a while.

Li Xiu realized that his physical condition was suboptimal and quickly grabbed some pills from a drawer, swallowing them down. After returning to bed and lying down for a while, Li Xiu broke out in a cold sweat. Even his pajamas were soaked through.

The biting cold continued to spread from the marrow of his bones, and the swelling of his skin continued to emit a high temperature like a branding iron. Li Xiu tossed and turned in bed, feeling cold and damp beneath the quilt. Once his consciousness became blurred, a stale odor like dust and rust rose from deep inside the quilt, threads of it climbing out to wrap around Li Xiu’s body.

……That was the unique smell in the old rooms of the Xiao family villa.

Li Xiu was uncomfortable, and didn’t sleep well.

In the end, Li Xiu couldn’t take it anymore. Even though he felt so uncomfortable that he almost fainted, he gritted his teeth and went to the bathroom to bathe.

*

The bathroom, like the rest of the house, was cramped, dark, and damp.

Click.

With the flip of a switch, a dim light turned on, gradually turning the humid water vapor rising in the bathroom yellow.

Li Xiu’s breathing was heavy, and he felt weak all over. He could barely stand upright, and his body incrementally pressed completely against the wall.

The hot water was turned to the max. In the steamy bathroom, he still felt cold.

Especially the right leg, which he washed and washed many times. Even after washing it with soap for a long time, Li Xiu still felt that it was covered in the sticky sweat that the boys had smeared on his calves and knees during their excitement in the evening.

“Bleh…..”

The boy’s suppressed retching sounds echoed in the bathroom.

After a long while, Li Xiu turned off the water.

He hung his head and stood under the showerhead for a long time.

All he could see was his disgusting, deformed leg.

So weak that it didn’t even have the strength to kick someone.

Unable to run or jump.

This leg was useless.

Drip……

The water vapor condensed on the ceiling and fell down again.

Cool water droplets slowly flowed down along Li Xiu’s bony back.

All at once, Li Xiu shuddered.

Just now……it was as if cold fingertips were sliding along his skin.

Li Xiu turned his head to glance at the cracked tile wall behind him. His shadow was reflected on the yellowing tiles.

He couldn’t say why, but he was a little flustered.

Still due to the low-grade fever, as soon as the hot water was turned off, the bone-piercing coldness swept over him again.

As Li Xiu’s body trembled, he wiped his body with a dry towel. His eyes inadvertently glanced at the bathroom mirror, and at the same time, he felt as if he had rubbed something through the towel.

He seemed to have……touched a pair of hands.

Li Xiu’s pupils suddenly constricted.

At a glance, he saw a tall, slender shadow standing behind him.

And the arms of that shadow were pressing on his shoulders.

His own hands happened to cover those of the shadow.

“Hiss—”

Li Xiu threw the towel and staggered back.

He hit the wall hard with a bang. Bursts of pain erupted where he had been beaten in the afternoon, and Li Xiu nearly lost consciousness. 

His heart was practically beating out of his chest.

After standing there for a moment, Li Xiu hugged the towel to him and looked around.

Of course, Li Xiu didn’t see anything. All that was before him was the familiar old bathroom he had seen for countless years.

Once he calmed down, the pale-faced Li Xiu wiped off the fog on the mirror. Only then did he realize that he had just seen the pattern on the old ceramic tiles caused by water stains as a human figure.

As for the thing he had touched through the towel just now, well, it was himself.

The places where he had been beaten were covered in terrible black and blue marks. His skin was completely numb, and almost felt like it belonged to someone else.

Li Xiu thought hard. The low-grade fever made his thinking a little chaotic, but this did not hinder him from making a judgment.

“That’s what it was.”

In a daze, Li Xiu felt a little ashamed of his small mistake.

But he had to admit that at that moment, he did feel an unspeakable chill up his spine.

It must have been because of the fever.

The young man tried his best to comfort himself. Although Li Xiu had clearly come to his senses, his heart still jumped wildly.

He became increasingly dizzy.

Without too much thought, Li Xiu hurriedly dressed and left the bathroom. He knew he should rest as soon as possible. Otherwise, he would have no energy to deal with the bullying at school the next day.

It was precisely this anxiety that made Li Xiu completely unaware that after he left the bathroom, the previously closed bathroom door opened a crack.

Above the door, something flickered in the gap.

…..Like a pair of eyes, looking deeply at Li Xiu through the crack in the door.

---

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Chapter 4 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 6

In an exquisite garden in the capital, the sound of breaking porcelain was suddenly heard.

An elegantly dressed woman withdrew her hand, and the person next to her stepped forward to give her a handkerchief to wipe the tea from her hand. The woman suppressed a cough, exuding an ice-cold aura of intimidation even without anger.

The person kneeling below trembled endlessly. There was a bloody mark on his forehead, which had just been cut by the broken teacup. He said in a fearful voice: “Master, spare my life.”

The woman gave him a cold look, and it seemed as if his life or death would be decided in an instant.

The person waiting quietly to the side stepped forward to say: “Master, calm down. They are not to blame for this. It is that gang of rebels who were so useless as to be captured so easily.”

The woman moved her eyes to glance at them. “You still care to intercede for others? Your adopted son also helped Huo Fenglie a lot in this matter, otherwise how could he have defeated me so quickly!”

Zheng Wei said: “Master, my adopted son was also raised according to the upbringing of the Dongchang. Didn’t you say that he is too close to Huo Fenglie, so it wasn’t convenient for the time being…..”

“There is no time left. When he returns, if he can be used, then use him. If not, you can find a way to deal with him so that he doesn’t become a threat,” the woman said directly.

“Yes, this servant obeys.”

The only young man seated there could not sit still. “What should be done next? Before, you sent a message to the Western Shu Kingdom to…..”

The woman collected her breath and sat down slowly to view the beautiful scenery. Her tone became as gentle as the breeze again. “The plan naturally needs to be adjusted, and we must prepare ourselves for any eventualities. If we wait for them to ruin one plan before changing to the next one, it will be too late.”

“As expected, Master predicted the enemy’s movements. The emperor will definitely send Huo Fenglie to Nanfeng City as you wish,” Zhang Wei said with a smile.

The woman slowly closed her eyes: “Then there must be no unforeseen events with the Western Shu Kingdom. Don’t you think some people are doing too well?”

“There are some servants who have been away from their master for a long time, and naturally, some alienation arose. Would you like me to send someone…..”

“Go ahead.”

. . . . . . . .

“Your Majesty, the books on Western Shu that you requested have been sorted out for you,” Bai Su said as he stepped forward.

Inside the palace, Yuan Jue was touching his jade thumb ring in meditation when he heard this voice. He looked up with a smile and waved his hand for Bai Su to stand, saying: “Bai-daren should enter the court as soon as possible. You get things done much faster than the other scholars.”

Bai Su immediately saluted and thanked him.

Yuan Jue saw the bruises on Bai Su’s face and asked: “You are injured?”

Bai Su lowered his head quickly. “There is no problem with this servant.”

“Xia-daren’s actions were rather serious,” Yuan Jue said suddenly.

Bai Su’s expression changed slightly, and he immediately knelt down.

Yuan Jue waved his hand and said: “Don’t be like this. I don’t object to you investigating that person’s affairs privately, but other people won’t look well upon you if they find out.”

“This servant…..this servant only wants to fulfill his brother’s last wish.”

“I know. You are as stubborn as your brother was. Ever since you reported to me honestly, I knew that you would investigate. This is also likely why you were willing to serve as a court official.”

In fact, it was also because when Bai Su was reporting the situation to the emperor, the emperor revealed no resistance or refutation of the truth. This made Bai Su willing to take the risk of entering the palace to investigate.

“This servant dares not deceive the Holy Majesty. This servant also understands that time has passed, and it is difficult to find any evidence to clear that person’s name. This servant only wants to do his best and leave the rest to heaven’s will, and it is not in vain that this one took up the post of historian.”

“Fine, you have your convictions. I do not object. I also wish to know how sincere he was toward me back then,” Yuan Jue said in an unidentifiable tone.

Bai Su felt that the emperor should also value righteousness and ties of family and friendship, which was why he acquiesced in his behavior. This also showed the emperor’s generosity, and Bai Su felt extreme gratitude and admiration.

“With Zhanyuan going to Nanfeng City this time, he likely won’t come back to reunite with you until the end of the year.” Yuan Jue brought up personal affairs.

“General Huo will definitely deal with Your Majesty’s worries,” Bai Su said.

“He has indeed shared my worries. In the past six months, I really didn’t expect that my good brother, a military commander, would deal with everything so efficiently. It really surprised me. It’s not that I think Zhanyuan is unable to handle these things, only that he is better at riding horses and fighting. If I hadn’t found this matter troublesome and could only ask him, whom I trust the most, I wouldn’t have sent him to do it. But he is unexpectedly resourceful. There seems to be a strategist behind him, likely you brothers who came together to give him suggestions.”

Bai Su had just wanted to reveal the existence of Liu Zhenqing. After all, he had played a big role in these matters, and Bai Su considered mentioning him to earn him merit. But remembering that the person before him was the emperor, his clever mind stopped him from doing so in the end.

After all, Liu Zhenqing was considered a fugitive before, and although the emperor turned a blind eye to Huo Fenglie’s private life, it was not a good idea to speak of it openly. Thus, it was better to wait for Huo Fenglie to return and bring it up himself.

Seeing that Bai Su had nothing else to say, Yuan Jue slowly turned his jade thumb ring. Was he worrying too much? Was there not a strategist at Huo Fenglie’s side? Or was it that Zhanyuan usually hid some of his capability around him? After all, according to Yuan Jue’s estimation of his overall prowess, these things should not have been completed so quickly and smoothly. He couldn’t do this. It had all gone too fast.

Soon after, Yuan Jue received a secret letter. Qin Yu and He Lan were rushing back to the capital one after another, and Huo Fenglie was taking Liu Xiaozhu and the King of Hell on the road together, heading toward Nanfeng City.

When Yuan Jue read this, his eyes couldn’t help but circle around Liu Xiaozhu’s name. The Liu family had been released, and the news had been spread. Why was Huo Fenglie still taking the young master of the Liu family with him? 

Huo Fenglie, Liu Zhenqing’s cousin, and Liu Zhenqing’s apprentice were traveling together. Yuan Yue twisted his jade thumb ring again, deep in thought. 

Forget it, he would see if Huo Fenlgie was so capable alone. If so, he had underestimated Zhanyuan.

Then Yuan Jue looked through the information on the Western Shu Kingdom again. “Western Shu has produced a great king.”

Reading the confessions, there were people from Western Shu in the group of rebels.

Yuan Jue didn’t bat an eye, and just gave a contemptuous smile, saying: “Could this great king really be an obedient dog?”

. . . . . . .

“It’s really amazing……”

In the carriage, Liu Zhenqing looked through all of the collected information Song Xingmu had provided to him before they left. 

“It is indeed amazing,” Huo Fenglie said. “The Kingdom of Western Shu was originally the weakest among the southwest kingdoms. After that battle, Western Shu also suffered the most serious losses. It had begun to split internally, but unexpectedly…..”

Huo Fenglie put down the map and said with a serious expression: “Their new king should be very young.”

“He could put internal affairs in order before the age of twenty, rebuild the land, and continuously annex the territories of the two neighboring countries. Not only is he good at managing politics, but he is also good at fighting. According to his tendencies, he is indeed ambitious.”

Huo Fenglie said bluntly: “They also favor slavery, and their territory and citizens are limited. To be able to grow to this extent is already excellent.”

“It can be said that the current king of Western Shu has made the wisest decision, which is to maintain friendly relations with Great Zhou thus far. It hasn’t invaded Great Zhou’s territory again, and even participates in friendly trade with Nanfeng City.” Liu Zhenqing smiled and said: “This development was initially very good, but they happen to be involved with the rebels. Yuan Jue was already wary of their swift development. When he gets this information, he will have to keep a close eye on them. They are clever, but also not, always so confident that they can fight against Great Zhou. Is it because the new king thinks he can compete with you?”

“Not to mention me, General Dai who is currently stationed in Nanfeng City is not an easy military commander to defeat.”

“The Dai family finally has a general and he’s in Nanfeng City? After so many years, the little fellow has grown up. The last time I saw him, he was a little bean curd,” Liu Zhenqing said with a sigh. He hadn’t had many people to use back then. “The Dai family’s training of generals is second only to your Huo family, but their population is gradually declining, one batch worse than the previous one.” 

Liu Zhenqing raised an eyebrow and looked at Huo Fenglie, saying: “The same goes for you generals. Even if you have no heirs, you should recruit more disciples and successors. Otherwise, how will you pass on your skills and experience? Fenglie, have you ever accepted a disciple?”

Huo Fenglie shook his head.

Liu Zhenqing couldn’t help but tilt his body, leaning toward the upright Huo Fenglie. He said with a bright smile: “Anyway, you won’t have children in the future. Consider taking on a disciple as soon as possible.”

Huo Fengle was taken aback, looking down at Liu Zhenqing as he leaned over. Seeing his features become more charming, like the peach blossom eyes of the past, his heart throbbed and he lost his words. He could only give a slight nod.

At last, Han Ye, who was sitting opposite them and reading medical texts, opened his mouth to say: “Why are you cursing others…..”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he saw his master leaning frivolously on the general. His cheeks flared up and he instantly could bear to look.

Yes, he had already come to terms with the facts. Since he was entangled with his master, it was indeed impossible for him to have any descendants.

Liu Zhenqing took the opportunity to look at Han Ye and say: “By the way, is the lord of Nanfeng City still Tan Mu? How does he get along with the Dai family?”

“Why are you asking me?” Han Ye said, not understanding.

Liu Zhenqing gave him a puzzled look: “Medical Valley is near Nanfeng City. Didn’t you go there when you needed daily necessities in the past?”

Han Ye stared blankly for a moment, then said with an ugly expression: “I don’t know about others, but in any case, Master and I have never been there. We went to other cities.”

“Ah? Why go so far away when you could be close?” Liu Zhenqing asked with bafflement in his eyes.

Han Ye rolled his eyes at Liu Zhenqing, as if he couldn’t be bothered to explain. Just as the carriage stopped, the driver outside shouted: “Gentlemen, there is a stream and a waterfall here that is suitable for a rest stop. Would you like to stop here?”

“Yes,” Liu Zhenqing responded.

When he got off the carriage, Han Ye saw that the surrounding environment was good, so he took the medicine boy to go look for any medicinal herbs. The driver began to catch fish to prepare food.

The ice in the carriage had run out not long ago, and the weather in late summer was really too hot. In a moment, one would be covered in sweat.

Huo Fenglie and Liu Zhenqing walked to the stream. At once, Liu Zhenqing began to remove his clothes.

Huo Fenglie said in bewilderment: “Qing-ge?”

Liu Zhenqing said without looking back: “Isn’t it hot? It’s rare to encounter such a clear stream, let’s get in and cool off.”

As he spoke, Liu Zhenqing left only his under layer, tied up his hair, and jumped into the water. His slender white form swam in the shallow water, his smooth waistline swaying like a silvery-white mermaid.

Liu Zhenqing swam for a while, and when he looked back, Huo Fenglie was standing on the shore instead of getting in. He just looked at the other man and raised his eyebrows slightly.

He swam closer and lay down on a stone, looking up at Huo Fenglie. “Come in, ah.”

Huo Fenglie instinctively avoided looking at the stark bite mark on Liu Zhenqing’s shoulder. “I’m…..I’m not hot.”

Liu Zhenqing narrowed his eyes. The raised corners of his mouth sank, and he said in a heavy voice, “Was it because of me that Master and Xiao Ye didn’t go to Nanfeng City?”

Huo Fenglie froze for a moment. Looking at Liu Zhenqing, he found that the other had his back turned to him.

He looked at his back with some worry and said: “I don’t know.”

“It probably was. I left behind such a bad reputation back then. Judging from the situation elsewhere, the people in that city still resent me now. If they went to that place often, they would certainly hear people curse me often, and naturally wouldn’t be happy to go.”

When he was done speaking, Liu Zhenqing let out a sigh and swam away.

But after swimming for a while, he stopped and stood blankly in the water. With his back to Huo Fenglie, he seemed very lonely.

Standing there in the water, Liu Zhenqing counted silently. It was not until he counted to ten that he felt the water ripple around him, and the corners of his mouth rose when he heard a voice sound from behind him.

“They knew it wasn’t true.”

Liu Zhenqing turned around to find that Huo Fenglie had joined him in the water. Seeing that he was dressed in the same way, he was instantly satisfied. He asked with a serious expression: “You all obviously didn’t know anything, so how did you know it wasn’t true?”

“Because we believe in you,” Huo Fenglie said sincerely.

With a moved expression on his face, Liu Zhenqing rushed forward and hugged Huo Fenglie tightly. “Er-gou, you’re so good.”

Huo Fenglie was stunned by Liu Zhenqing’s show of emotion. Being hugged was also a bit awkward. After all, he had been trying to keep a distance from Liu Zhenqing, not to mention that now…..they were unclothed. It was difficult to push away an unhappy Qing-ge at that moment, but he didn’t dare hug him back, so he could only allow Liu Zhenqing to hug him tightly. Liu Zhenqing’s secretly raised lips remained unseen.

And Han Ye, who returned at this time, felt as if his eyes had been stung. Even the young medicine boy let out an exclamation. Who could bear to see two men embracing each other like this in broad daylight?

Feeling so many eyes on him, Huo Fenglie couldn’t take it anymore and could only push Liu Zhenqing away. But as he was pushed away, Liu Zhenqing’s hands remained to touch his abdomen.

All of Huo Fenglie’s muscles instantly tensed, and he looked at Liu Zhenqing with some embarrassment.

Liu Zhenqing said with a smile: “I’m so envious. I also want such good-looking abs.”

Huo Fenglie could only take a step away. 

Liu Zhenqing clicked his tongue twice and said: “It’s a pity.”

Huo Fenglie gave him a doubtful look.

Liu Zhenqing said with regret: “It’s a pity that the water isn’t hot. I didn’t see your tattoo in the bathtub before, and there’s no telling when I’ll get to see it next.”

Back then, he only had time to see a leaf on Huo Fenglie’s shoulder. It was probably a leaf, but his memory was a bit vague and uncertain. 

Huo Fenglie suddenly had a complicated and uncomfortable look on his face. Liu Zhenqing was bound to think of something if he was mentioning it like this. When he saw Liu Zhenqing direct another smile at him, he really couldn’t bear it anymore and could only dive into the water for a swim.

Smiling, Liu Zhenqing said: “Wait for me, let’s have a swimming competition. I’ll swim one lap and you swim five, and you win only if you catch up with me in the end. If you win, you will be rewarded, and if you lose, you will be punished.”

Han Ye ridiculed: “You couldn’t win even if he did ten laps.”

As expected, Huo Fenglie won in the end. Watching him emerge from the water, Liu Zhenqing raised his eyebrows and chuckled. He really looked a bit youthful, especially with how the contours of his body were sparkling with water droplets as they were illuminated by the sun. It was extremely…..eye-catching.

The two of them were tired of playing in the water. It was time to get and change clothes and eat. Huo Fenglie used his internal force to dry Liu Zhenqing’s hair, and then asked Liu Zhenqing to board the carriage first. Liu Zhenqing said with a smile: “Let’s go in and change together. At least we can sit down.”

Huo Fenglie said resolutely: “I’ll dry my hair first. Then I’ll go in.”

Liu Zhenqing raised an eyebrow, then directly went in. Huo Fenglie was standing guard by the carriage when he suddenly heard a thud from inside, as if something had impacted the wall of the carriage. Then Liu Zhenqing let out an aiya.

Huo Fenglie instantly rushed into the carriage, and when he opened the curtain, a pair of hands reached out, hooked Huo Fenglie’s neck, and drew him inside.

Of course, Huo Fenglie immediately understood what was going on. He wanted to evade, but his neck had already been hooked. It was not easy to break free, for fear of hurting Liu Zhenqing, so he was pulled down just like that.

There was a bang, and the carriage shook. Huo Fenglie’s arms reached out to the sides to support himself, controlling his weight so as not to crush Liu Zhenqing below. He was still pressed down slightly, but when Huo Fenglie reacted, his face instantly turned red. Because Qing-ge wasn’t wearing any clothes.

Huo Fenglie tried to lift his body, but his neck was still pulled down.

“What are you hiding from?” Liu Zhenqing asked with dissatisfaction.

All of the curtains in the carriage had been lowered. The light in the carriage was not very bright, but he could still see Huo Fenglie’s cheeks gradually turning red, and even his breathing was altered.

“Qing-ge…..you…..”

Liu Zhenqing said with a chuckle: “I have something for you. As I just said, I’ll give you a reward since I lost.”

Huo Fenglie stared blankly. Just as he looked at Liu Zhenqing, he felt his belt loosen and his expression immediately changed. His hands were originally supporting him on both sides, but now he could only use one of them to hold himself up as he quickly stopped Liu Zhenqing’s hand with the other.

“Qing-ge!”

“What? Don’t you want it? It’s been so many days,” Liu Zhenqing said softly. When his hand was caught, he took Huo Fenglie’s hand and moved it toward him. “But, I want it, ah…..”

Feeling the touch on the back of his hand, Huo Fenglie instantly froze.

Liu Zhenqing really felt like a scoundrel, but looking at Huo Fenglie’s earlobes that were so red they were practically dripping blood, his heart itched.

He saw that Huo Fenglie was still frozen, his eyes quivering as if he was struggling with something. Then he raised his leg and used his knee to stimulate him. He didn’t believe that Huo Fenglie could still resist when he had already experienced it.

In the end, Liu Zhenqing had underestimated Huo Fenglie’s determination, as well as the surrounding environment, and heard a shout from outside that the fish had been roasted.

Huo Fenglie suddenly returned to his senses and raised his body. Liu Zhenqing couldn’t hold him back even if he wanted to, and Huo Fenglie picked up the package beside him before disappearing in a flash.

Liu Zhenqing stared blankly at the hanging carriage curtain, almost angry enough to vomit blood.

---

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Chapter Ninety-Nine << Table of Contents >> Chapter One Hundred One

Laurel was the hottest nightclub in Wancheng.

Whether in environment or in service, it was first-class in the industry, with various forms of entertainment coming out one after another. Every night, it was the most popular gathering place for young people in the city.

He Chuzhou took this person home to change into formal clothes before heading over. The two of them went in through the main entrance, walked through the bustling hall, and arrived at a spacious booth in the corner.

A mid-height partition of greenery blocked the many eyes that were glued to the two people behind it.

There were already many people sitting in the booth, all of them Wu Qing’s companions.

When He Chuzhou arrived, the nightclub prince was eating the duck tongue fed to him by his little lover, holding his cell phone in his hands as he typed vigorously.

When he finished typing, He Chuzhou felt two more buzzes in his pocket.

“Okay, I’m already standing here, yet you’re still hurrying me.”

The temperature of the indoor air conditioning was a bit high. He took off his jacket and held it casually in his hands, wearing only a dark casual shirt underneath.

His superior body proportions had an indescribable appeal under the oversaturated lights, relaxed and attention-drawing.

The little lover next to Wu Qing was different. This one was not as well-behaved as the previous, and when He Chuzhou appeared, his eyes were unswervingly glued to him.

Wu Qing was so thick-skinned that he didn’t notice. After waiting forever, this person had finally arrived.

He immediately picked up a pair of strange-looking glasses on the table and handed them over: “You haven’t seen these before, right?”

“Come on, let me introduce it to you. These are the latest 4D projection glasses, high-tech and with large-scale production. You can bring them—huh? You brought someone with you, ah?”

He belatedly realized that there was a figure following after He Chuzhou. He turned his head, and when he saw who it was, his eyes widened.

“Pei Xi? Fucking Pei Xi?!”

He grimaced and lowered his voice, his expression one of having seen a ghost: “What’s going on with you? Why did you bring him here?”

“No, how did you bring him here? How could he come with you?”

“Am I dreaming? But I haven’t started drinking yet.”

He Chuzhou: “I advise you not to ask. We just bumped into each other along the way and came over to have a meal together.”

Wu Qing was in disbelief: “Along the way? Along the way? A chicken and a weasel could bump into each other along the way, but you two can’t, ah. Brother, by making up nonsense here, are you trying to fool people into thinking that I have no brain?”

He Chuzhou: “Move first, you’re in the way.”

Wu Qing: “……”

He took a step back, watching helplessly as He Chuzhou brought this famous cold beauty to a seat and sat down. Anyone would be turned into a fool by this strike of lightning from the sky.

But he soon discovered that this reality was not the most shocking, and it only got worse from there.

—He Chuzhou actually put on gloves and tore up…..a duck head…..for Pei Xi?

“No way, what’s wrong with you?”

The corners of his mouth twitched. For a moment, he didn’t know whether to scold He Chuzhou for tearing up the duck head or for tearing it up for Pei Xi.

“Do I need to give you the entire eight pieces of duck?”

“This is a duck head, not a crab. Do you think you’ll be stabbed to death if you bite it directly?”

He Chuzhou said concisely: “That will dirty the hands.”

Wu Qing: “……”

Something was wrong.

There was a problem.

Something definitely wasn’t right.

Were these old wall sconces casting black magic at them?

He cast his gaze toward He Chuzhou’s side, where Pei Xi sat with lowered eyes, watching intently as He Chuzhou peeled the duck head. His demeanor and mannerisms all revealed an unusually quiet and well-behaved nature.

This was the complete opposite of the Pei Xi he knew. Those not in the know might assume this was a twin.

“Um, President Pei?”

He called out tentatively.

However, the other just raised his eyes and gave him a neutral look, and after a moment, lowered them to continue to watch He Chuzhou dismantle the duck head.

This cold and condescending energy, as if he despised all living beings, was the same as before…..

No way, what exactly happened?

Wu Qing was confused and curious to death, but it was a pity that He Chuzhou had no time to pay attention to him at the moment.

After tearing up the duck head, he pushed the plate of meat in front of Pei Xi and handed him a pair of disposable chopsticks: “Come on, try some and see if you like it.”

Pei Xi took the chopsticks, selected a small piece, and placed it into his mouth.

He Chuzhou: “How is it?”

Pei Xi chewed slowly, swallowed, and then his eyes lit up a bit: “It’s really tasty.”

He Chuzhou looked at his appearance of having discovered a new world, and the corners of his mouth curved slightly: “Now you have an appetite?”

Pei Xi nodded: “En.”

He Chuzhou: “Then eat more, slowly. Tell me if you don’t have enough and I’ll tear more up for you.”

No matter when or where, Pei Xi always ate in a polite manner, and telling him to eat slowly was nothing more than extending the time to entertain onlookers.

Light moved to the rhythm of the music, constantly sweeping over his forehead and the tip of his nose, and occasionally casting the shadow of long eyelashes under his eyes.

Pretty, quiet, and incredibly well-behaved.

In an environment with tangled silhouettes and chaotic lights, he maintained an attitude of indifference to everything around him, but was willing to speak softly only to He Chuzhou and stay by his side with full dependence.

Like a cat that had been spoiled by luxury. It would run up and down its nest when at home, but would be wary of the unfamiliar world when it came out and wouldn’t take a step away from its person.

When He Chuzhou looked at such a Pei Xi, something seemed to scratch his heart lightly, and another piece of an unstable tower silently collapsed.

His deep, handsome features were softened under the dim light. As if on a whim, he suddenly whispered: “Xinxin?”

This was the first time he had addressed him so after Pei Xi corrected him.

The two not-uncommon characters were folded together affectionately, and it was not as difficult to say as he had imagined. Instead, there was an indescribable sensation, an electric current quietly flowing from his mouth.

Especially so when Pei Xi raised his head to look at him and said, “En?” in a questioning tone.

The corners of his lips lifted uncontrollably, and he asked in good cheer: “Would you like some crayfish and river crabs? I can peel some for you.”

Pei Xi glanced at the plate of brightly-colored crayfish on the table, then back at He Chuzhou before finally nodding: “Okay.”

He Chuzhou put a whole plate of crayfish in front of him, like a doting parent happily implementing his feeding plan.

Wu Qing just watched from the side, his mouth never closing from beginning to end.

What the hell?

What was this performance?

What was happening?

He didn’t get it, but he was greatly shocked.

He didn’t even bother to coax the little lover next to him, who was in a temper after being ignored. As he discreetly scooted closer to He Chuzhou, his elbow accidentally nudged a cell phone on the couch and its screen lit up.

—-His baffled shock increased once more.

“Y-y-y-you two…..?”

Such was his shock that he temporarily lost the ability to speak. He picked up the phone, pointed at the screen, and asked He Chuzhou: “T-t-t-this? ? ?”

He Chuzhou took some time out of his busy schedule to look over. The curve of his lips deepened, and when he opened his mouth, his voice was obnoxiously boastful: “What, isn’t he cute?”

When he saw this after getting up that morning, he almost died from the cuteness.

Pei-calico didn’t know how to take selfies, but with a face blessed by the heavens, why would he need any selfie skills? With just a random shot, he was like an immortal descending from the sky.

Under the bright light, although there was no smile on that cold and aloof face, when paired with an unpracticed V sign he was holding up, he was cute enough to make He Chuzhou a complete mess.

It was a pity that Wu Qing didn’t seem to think so.

He looked at He Chuzou, then at Pei Xi, and his entire face uniformly twitched: “Cute? Where is he cute?”

“And how is ‘cute’ the point of focus? ? ?”

But it was indeed He Chuzhou’s point of focus.

“He can’t be cute?” He Chuzhou couldn’t help but frown.

Couldn’t this be called cute?

It wasn’t just the photo. He even felt that Pei-calico exuded unrestrained cuteness at all times.

Cute when eating and cute when sleeping.

Cute when happy and cute when unhappy.

As soon as he woke up, he cutely called him, and made him a cute sandwich that didn’t look or taste good.

Even when he woke up in the morning and kicked him angrily, it was a cute kind of violence.

“There is something wrong with your eyes.”

After a show of thinking, he came to a conclusion: “Go to your cousin’s place for eye treatment when you have the time.”

Wu Qing: “? ?”

Wu Qing: “There’s something wrong with my eyes? You’re crazy, I see that yours aren’t working right.”

Wu Qing: “Ai, what the hell, my cousin treats the brain, not the eyes.”

He Chuzhou didn’t care whether or not his cousin could cure his eyes. There were a lot of bones and peeled shrimp shells under his hands, and when he saw that this person was finished eating, he removed his gloves and withdrew with him.

Wu Qing was entirely dumbfounded.

This rude fellow invited that person here for dinner?

Not even to drink!

What was this, he hadn’t even asked anything yet, so why did he run away?!

*

*

“Do you want some milk tea?”

Just around a left turn not far from the bar, there was a milk tea shop that they had to pass in order to reach the parking lot.

“You just ate so much spicy and salty food, how about balancing it out with something sweet.”

Pei Xi thought for a moment, then agreed. Just as he was about to walk to the milk tea shop, he was stopped by He Chuzhou: “There are too many people. I’ll stand in line, you go and wait for me in the car.”

Pei Xi visually inspected the parking lot that was still some distance away and didn’t want to walk that far alone: “Can I wait here?”

“That’s fine, I’ll be right back.”

He Chuzhou moved him away from the insect-attracting street lamp and turned toward the milk tea shop.

The store was very small, and the staff were very young. Those waiting in line were also young girls, holding hands and chattering about girly things.

In this instance, a man’s appearance seemed rather abrupt, easily attracting the attention of the people around.

To say nothing of his clothing and temperament, he looked very out of tune with everything around him. Rather than queuing up to buy a sweet drink with too much sugar, it seemed more suitable for him to hold champagne while talking and laughing with people in a banquet hall.

But here he was.

He was not conscious of being surrounded by a bunch of amazed young girls, and calmly asked about the ordering steps before scanning the code and choosing carefully.

In the end, he got stuck on the confirmation option, undecided between 30% sugar, 50% sugar, 70% sugar, or 100% sugar.

“This one tastes better when it’s sweeter.”

A young girl with short hair boldly spoke to him: “If you like sweets, you should choose full sugar or 70% sugar.”

The man smiled mildly and thanked her.

With reddened ears, the young girl had just said “you’re welcome” when she saw the man tell the clerk “wait a minute” and walk down the stairs toward the roadside.

Only then did she realize that there was a student-looking boy standing there.

The distance blurred his face, but it was still difficult to hide his breathtaking aura. It was just that his figure was slender, and exceptionally slender compared to the man. 

The two exchanged a few brief words.

Before leaving, the man leaned down to help the student put on the hood of his coat, then carefully arranged the brim of the wool hat to block the cool breeze passing by on the street.

“Full sugar, room temperature, please.”

When the man returned, he placed the order again and paid. The moment before he turned off his phone after successful payment and left, a wallpaper of the student outside flashed.

The young girl looked at the man, then at the student waiting by the roadside. The warmth on her ears receded, but her eyes were a few degrees brighter than before.

The nighttime encounter was brief.

As soon as his milk tea was ready, he left with the packaging bag.

While her friend was still praising the man’s appearance, she turned to watch as the man took the milk tea out of the bag, inserted a straw, and handed it to the student.

Then the two walked toward the parking lot in the opposite direction from her.

There were not many vehicles that night, and the streets were quiet.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, with their elongated shadows moving neither fast nor slow, they held hands from beginning to end.

---

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Chapter 19 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 21

Li Xiu limped toward home.

He looked quite embarrassing now, with his body covered in dust from the old villa and his school uniform kneaded up and down until it looked miserly.

The corner of his mouth and his forehead were warm, distended and hot. He supposed they were swollen. There was a faint dampness flowing down his temple, likely blood. Because he was just walking on the street like this, Li Xiu could sense people looking at him from time to time. But at this moment, his entire body was practically numb from the pain, and he couldn’t care less about the looks of those people.

However, out of deep-rooted habit, Li Xiu subconsciously chose a more remote and uninhabited route on his way back. Dodging and evading, he clung to his strength and finally arrived downstairs at the familiar residence.

The small building where Li Xiu and his grandmother lived was actually not far from the school. The location was the sort of shantytown that existed in every city and gave city managers a headache. The narrow streets were rampant with sewage. On wires that stretched like spider webs, cheap underwear clamped to them dripped with water, and various illegal buildings filled the already narrow alleyways.

Li Xiu walked very slowly today. By the time he finally reached the downstairs of his home, the afterglow of the setting sun had completely vanished from the sky.

The light dimmed completely.

He was late.

Li Xiu looked at the time, and his already unsightly face became increasingly dark and somber.

He unconsciously sped up his pace, even though it caused his overburdened right foot to burn increasingly with pain.

In his panic, Li Xiu accidentally bumped into someone.

“I’m sor—”

“Aiyo, fuck your mother, will you grow a pair of eyes?!”

Before he could apologize, Li Xiu was greeted with a series of thickly-accented curses.

The person’s face was familiar. She was Li Xiu’s neighbor.

…..And their relationship was very bad.

The auntie was startled at first when she saw Li Xiu, clearly shocked by his miserable appearance. Then in the next second, her face scrunched up in disgust as if she was looking at something truly wretched.

“Li Xiu, ah, did you get in a fight? Tsk, you haven’t learned well at your age,” the auntie scolded. Then she raised the plastic dustpan and broom in her hand toward Li Xiu. “I can’t be bothered to go upstairs. You go up and tell your grandmother not to burn these messy things at the door. How many times have I said this? Yet it’s still like this, burning and burning every day. Your family may not be afraid of bad luck, but we still are—”

Another resident happened to pass by at this time. The auntie made a quick decision and raised her voice again, as if speaking to that person: “We live in a new society now, yet some people still have superstitions. If we hadn’t lived as neighbors for so many years, I would have long since called the police.”

“En, I’ll remind Grandmother.”

Li Xiu had already lowered his eyes when the aunt continued to yell, and didn’t pay attention to the other party for long. He responded in a toneless voice, then walked into the dark, narrow alley with a face like a board.

He left so neatly that when the auntie returned to her senses, she had no time to stop him. She could only lower her voice angrily: “Pretentious little cripple. He’s exactly the same as that ghastly old woman with one foot in the grave, so determined to engage in these mysterious things. Living with such people is enough bad luck for eight lifetimes…..”

“Isn’t the school uniform on that young man rather impressive? Wasn’t Auntie Tang too mean to him?” The person passing by couldn’t help but ask this as they listened to the auntie’s muttering.

When the auntie raised her eyes, she found that the person talking to her was a tenant who had recently moved in. Her stomach full of complaints suddenly had an outlet. Glancing toward the direction Liu Xi had gone in her peripheral vision, she quickly grabbed the middle-aged woman and began to speak: “Aiyo, Liu-meizi, let me tell you, you must not interact with that family. Their brains aren’t quite normal. The younger one keeps a blank face all day and doesn’t look at or speak to anyone when he meets them. The old woman in that house pretends to be in contact with the supernatural every day and burns things at the door, making the place all smokey.”

When she heard the auntie’s words, the tenant’s face became a bit stiff and she said, ill at ease: “Then she’s a fortune teller?”

In the next second, she watched as the auntie slapped her thigh fiercely, raising her voice again: “Ptooey—”

The auntie spat and cursed: “What fortune teller? That old woman is a notorious fraud. If you don’t believe me, just ask, everyone knows. Even that family’s girl said that her mother only knows how to defraud people outside every day…..”

The tenant listened to that family’s story with great interest: The fraudulent witch and her daughter had a falling-out because of this deception. In the end, the daughter severed ties with her, to the point that the lying old woman had no choice but to pick up a crippled baby from the street to support her in her old age.

In the auntie’s words, both the fraudulent witch named Qi Po and the boy named Li Xiu were the same sort of bizarre people who couldn’t tell the good from the bad.

But when the tenant thought of the boy she had seen just now, she couldn’t help but murmur to herself that having been beaten like that, the Li boy looked rather pitiful…..

*

Li Xiu, who seemed rather pitiful to outsiders, was nearly out of breath when he climbed the steep, narrow stairs to his home.

When opening the door, he accidentally kicked something placed there.

It was a pair of beige women’s high heels that looked slightly old. They fell crookedly after being kicked by Li Xiu.

It looks like Grandmother has a guest today, Li Xiu thought as he opened the door with a pale and expressionless face.

With the door open, the familiar scent of low-quality sandalwood instantly enveloped Li Xiu. The entrance hall of Li Xiu’s house (if this place could truly be regarded as an entrance hall) faced the narrow, lightless kitchen. To the right was a small hallway that connected the so-called “living room” to the same narrow kitchen on the left.

Past the kitchen and behind the skewed dining table was a narrow and slightly crooked hallway connecting different rooms. Obviously, such a layout made the home look extremely cramped and depressing. But Li Xiu had lived here as long as he could remember, and didn’t think he had anything to complain about.

If there was anything that really bothered Li Xiu…..

It was that his grandmother didn’t like to turn on the lights much. He couldn’t remember when that had started.

It was the same at present.

The sky was pretty much completely dark, but there were still no lights on at home. There was only the red light emitted by the electronic candle in the shrine place deep in the living room, adding a weak glimmer to the residence.

“Wuuu…..wuwu…..”

A continuous faint cry sounded from the living room.

Li Xiu glanced toward where the crying was coming from and saw his grandmother sitting behind the square table as usual. Another middle-aged woman was hunched over, facing away from Li Xiu as she suppressed her sobs.

Li Xiu thought of the women’s shoes at the door and didn’t pay much attention to her. There were not many customers who came to see his grandma, and this middle-aged woman seemed to be the one who came most often. In any case, Li Xiu would hear her crying at his grandmother’s place from time to time.

“I’m back,” Li Xiu whispered toward the living room with his head lowered.

Since he was a child, he had developed the habit of never disturbing his grandmother when she had guests.

He had initially thought that his grandmother would ignore him like she usually did. But this time, his grandmother stood up directly and tottered over to open the beaded curtain at the door of the living room, poking her face out at Li Xiu.

“Why are you back so late?!” The old woman’s voice was particularly sharp amongst the shadows.

“I…..”

Liu Xiu took an unconscious step back, fearing that his grandmother would see the injuries on his face.

Of course, he soon discovered that his nervousness was unnecessary.

Although the pair of cloudy eyeballs wrapped in fine wrinkles were pointed directly at Li Xiu, his grandmother didn’t ask about Li Xiu’s injuries at all.

“Hurry up and deliver food to your gege!”

“Quickly, quickly!”

“What will you do if your gege is hungry?!”

“You told me you would get out early at the new school and come home to deliver your gege’s meal! But look at you, only coming back just now—”

Li Xiu pursed his lips under his grandmother’s rapid urging.

“En, I’ll come back early in the future,” he said in a low voice.

The light in the room was dim and his grandmother’s eyesight wasn’t good, so she probably couldn’t see the injuries on his face.

Li Xiu told this to himself as he dragged his feet, limping into the kitchen.

He was supposed to be delivering food to his gege, but Li Xiu didn’t start the kitchen fire.

He just deftly scooped two handfuls of uncooked rice from the rice bucket and placed them in a porcelain bowl.

Then he took an inconspicuous jar from the shelf, and after opening it, shook the bottom of the jar to take out some fine black powder.

This was the incense ash he had prepared beforehand.

When he had mixed the incense ash and uncooked rice evenly, Li Xiu held the bowl in one hand and walked through the long, narrow hallway to the small room at the end.

Creak—

It was pitch dark in the room, which had no lights or open windows all year round.

However, the neighbor next door had turned on a light, and faint illumination came from above the old window at the corner of the wall that had been plastered into opaqueness.

The room was messy and filled with all sorts of things. There were some plastic bottles and cardboard boxes that his grandmother collected from the community, as well as some cheap incense burners, evil-suppressing Bagua mirrors, and so on.

In the shadows, the crude and exaggerated deceptive props of the past inexplicably gained a slightly genuine and sinister feel.

In the corner of the room was a double bed that had been picked up some time ago. It was also full of clutter.

Li Xiu lowered his eyes and walked to the bed.

He halfway knelt and placed the rice bowl in his hand under the bed.

As he did this, his injuries flared up. His entire body shook with pain, and he almost lost all strength and fell to the ground.

Fortunately, at the last moment, he managed to maintain his balance. “Ge, eat.”

Because it hurt so much, he was a little perfunctory when greeting his gege for dinner today, and just gave a low mutter.

The boards of the old bed were covered in dust.

The shadows under the bed were dark.

The room was very quiet, so quiet that he could faintly hear the conversation between his grandmother and the guest in the living room.

“Ai, tell me about it. He really doesn’t like to talk…..and also has a lame leg…..”

“What can be done about this? I told you back then, and it’s you who didn’t listen…..”

“Forget it, forget it, I don’t actually expect him to take care of me in my old age…..”

Maintaining his previous position, Li Xiu placed his hands on the ground and slowly slid down to sit next to the bed for a moment.

The places where Wang Rongfa’s gang had beaten him before were getting hotter and swollen. Li Xiu couldn’t care less about the pain right now, and could only pray desperately that no bones were broken. After all, there would be a mock test soon, and according to the contract he signed with Qiming, he would have to reach the top five in his age category before he would be guaranteed living expenses and award money.

If there was really a break, it would delay his exam too much.

The family next door must have finished their meal and turned the TV on. Inane soap opera dialogue was accompanied by laughter and talking from time to time. It was clearly audible, but was so far away that it seemed like it was coming from another world.

Li Xiu himself was unaware that his face was as pale as a sheet of paper gradually soaked with water.

At last, he no longer had the strength to support himself. His bruised body hunched over, and he fell silently to the room’s dirty floor.

Turning his head, he could only see the dark shadows under the bed.

And the bluish outline of the bowl of white rice amongst those shadows.

“Ge…..” Li Xiu murmured in the lowest possible voice.

“I was bullied by those guys again today.”

……

“I tried to fight them, but I couldn’t.”

……

“It hurts so much.”

……

No one responded to Li Xiu’s tremulous whispers.

There was still only dead silence in the room.

Due to the extreme fatigue and pain, Li Xiu unknowingly began to lose consciousness.

It was the sound of the door closing when the guest left that suddenly woke him up. Only then did he realize that he had accidentally dozed off in the room.

Damnit—

Li Xiu cursed inwardly, and was about to get up when he heard his grandmother’s aged voice chiding sternly: “Li Xiu, why are you still in there?! How many times have I told you, come out once you deliver the food, come out once you deliver the food! Your gege is most afraid of noise, what are you doing in there?!”

His grandmother never liked Li Xiu spending too much time in this room—the room that belonged to his gege.

In fact, Li Xiu himself was the same.

After witnessing the many tricks his grandmother used to fool her guests, Li Xiu didn’t actually believe in the supernatural from a rational point of view. But he also didn’t know why he still couldn’t adapt to the overly silent atmosphere in this room after delivering meals to his “gege” for so many years since childhood.

Li Xiu attributed his maladjustment to the psychological shadow of his childhood.

He still remembered the first time he came to the room to deliver food as a child. He was so frightened that he cried all night, and then had a fever due to the fright. In the end, even when his fever reached 40 degrees and he could hardly walk, his grandmother would still drag him out of bed regularly every day and force him to deliver food to his gege.

Li Xiu no longer remembered what frightened him into such a terrible state when he was young, but that feeling of trepidation and fear that made his internal organs tighten up still remained deep-rooted in his heart.

It was just that today…..

After being beaten to such a horrible state, perhaps he wasn’t right in the head. So he huddled there inexplicably, airing his grievances like a madman to a nonexistent “gege.”

Li Xiu seemed to hear a voice within him make a self-deprecating sound.

Thinking of his weak actions just now, Li Xiu couldn’t help but scoff. He raised a hand to wipe the corners of his eyes, then stood up and walked toward the door.

Li Xiu knew better than anyone that this “gege” would never be able to help rid him of the bullies in his class like a real “gege.”

Because Li Xiu’s gege was just an urn placed under the bed.

His grandmother once said that if she had any other choice, she would never make Li Xiu deliver food to his “gege.”

“Only that child is so fierce…..ai…..”

Li Xiu no longer remembered the specific day his “gege” arrived home.

He had a vague impression from when he was very young. One day, a group of people suddenly came by in a grandiose manner, crying and kneeling, and his grandmother was forced out the door that day.

A few days later, when his grandmother came home again, she brought back his “gege.”

—For the sake of wealth and fame, these rich people who already had great influence did not hesitate to use crooked methods, and in the end, they even sacrificed their innocent child in a frenzy.

However, it was just as depicted in many stories.

What awaited the greedy and powerful was not just the overwhelming power they had dreamt of, but also an extremely cruel and tyrannical evil spirit.

“……Evildoers.”

His grandmother never spoke of those days again, but every time she mentioned his gege, she couldn’t help but lament.

She placed the urn under the bed in the corner of the room, and Li Xiu was given such a seemingly bizarre task.

Every day, he would come home on time and bring a bowl of rice mixed with ashes to the dusty urn under the bed.

Back then, his grandmother was much more energetic than now, and her temperament was far less eccentric. So on occasion, she would still patiently explain some things to Li Xiu.

His grandmother said that placing a bowl of uncooked rice under the bed was actually making an offering to the ghost and eliminating its hostility and bad karma.

She said that since Li Xiu was a boy, there was no need to worry about the ghost getting into his belly.

“…..And if you bring him food every day, he will recognize you and treat you as family.”

“Right, and according to age, you should actually call him ‘gege’ since he’s older than you.”

“From now on, when you deliver meals each day, call him ‘gege.’”

“A-Xiu, ah, listen up. Once you become family, not only will he not harm you, but he will protect you always.”

When exactly would that be? Li Xiu had never asked his grandmother.

He just repeated the act of delivering food to his gege day after day.

For him, “gege” represented the shadows under the bed and the darkness of the room.

As for the rest, Li Xiu felt nothing.

He also didn’t understand at all why, as the years passed, his grandmother became increasingly afraid of this room to the point that she didn’t even dare to open the door. Even moreso, he was unable to understand the fear that flashed in her eyes when “gege” was mentioned.

The “gege” that didn’t exist at all.

Clack—

The moment Li Xiu was about to open the door and leave the room, he suddenly heard the crisp sound of porcelain colliding with the ground.

Startled, he turned his head in bewilderment.

Then, he saw an empty bowl spinning out in an arc from under the bed.

The rice under the bed was scattered all over the floor.

---

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Chapter 3 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 5

If there was really a so-called prince of Qiming Secondary School, then that prince was undoubtedly Fan Qian’an.

Wang Rongfa led a group of people to run rampant at school every day and strut about, but next to Fang Qian’an, he was just a bootlicking lackey with no rank.

Such was Li Xiu’s rudeness to Fang Qian’an that he was prepared to take a violent beating from the young man. But unexpectedly, the anticipated pain did not come.

On the contrary, the bodies of the boys holding him abruptly tensed, as if they were more nervous than Li Xiu himself.

After a brief silence, Fang Qian’an raised an eyebrow and said to Li Xiu, “Tsk, you have such a bad temper.”

Just as before, there was still a faint smile on his lips. There was not the slightest smile in those amber eyes. Looking at such a Fang Qian’an, a subtle dread suddenly flashed through Li Xiu’s  heart.

Then he heard Fang Qian’an say slowly and deliberately: “I heard that you didn’t respond to Lao Wang’s bullying before, but then they joked about taking your pants off and you went crazy. With such fear of others seeing your body, are you actually a girl?” The princely young man turned his head, regarding his little followers with a smile. “Let’s check it out, shall we? Oh, right. Song Chen, I heard that the camera function on your new cell phone is particularly good. Don’t waste such a good new feature. Turn the camera on, ah.”

All of Fang Qianan’s words and actions caused Li Xiu’s pupils to suddenly shrink.

“You—ugh…..”

Before he could resist, Li Xiu was forcibly pulled up from the ground by several people, and someone else reached out and removed his school trousers. The cold air infiltrated Li Xiu’s skin, and he couldn’t help but tremble uncontrollably in abject disgust. The intense emotions caused his vision to distort, and his memory began to become blurred. Warm hands licked his thighs. Someone deliberately yanked his poorly-developed ankle and watched him fall to the ground when he lost his balance. Others snickered and leaned over behind him, putting on a deliberate show.

“Wow, take a look at these legs…..”

“What a pity, ah, he really is male.”

“Hehe, you don’t know this, but men can also do it…..”

In order to please Fang Qianan, the boys picked on Li Xiu harder than usual.

But unwittingly, this kind of teasing gradually grew a little out of control…..there seemed to be a sort of unique atmosphere in this room, which amplified the twisted malice hidden in their hearts that they may not have been able to detect throughout their entire lives.

Li Xiu instinctively sensed the danger. He struggled desperately, and in his reddened field of vision, the shapes of the boys around him seemed to unconsciously change into white-faced monsters.

The last person to approach him was Fang Qian’an. The boys weren’t aware that he had come closer. In the chaos, he half-crawled on the ground like a pig or a dog, with one hand on the ground and the other hand raised, stroking Li Xiu’s face.

“Wa, you’re crying?”

Li Xiu looked at him and found that Fang Qianan had an actual sincere smile on his face, but the corners of his mouth were stretched too wide, reaching almost below his earlobes. Between those scarlet lips were rows of fine, snow-white teeth. In Li Qiu’s blurry, tear-soaked vision, those teeth seemed to gradually turn into sharp, slender fangs.

“You look really good crying, hiss.”

Fang Qian’an’s voice seemed to have changed. His voice was murky and panting, more like some kind of wild beast imitating human speech in a different language.

Li Xiu felt Fang Qian’an’s fingers, as ice-cold as those of a dead person, press against his lips as if they were about to penetrate into his mouth in the next second.

I’m going to be devoured.

The moment this strange thought flashed through his mind, something in Li Xiu seemed to snap.

Li Xiu abruptly opened his mouth and bit Fang Qianan’s fingers.

He bit hard, and the taste of blood instantly exploded in his mouth.

The bitten Fang Qian’an began to bleed at once.

“Fuck—”

Fang Qian’an let out a scream and jumped up.

He pulled out his hand, and most of his palm was stained red. The teeth marks on his fingers were deep enough to reveal bone, still dripping with blood.

“Damn, Fang-ge, are you okay?”

“This little bastard really dared to bite?”

“This guy has a death wish!”

Accompanied by loud curses one after another, kicks and punches rained down on Li Xiu’s body in a violent deluge. Severe pain struck, and Li Xiu almost passed out.

But strangely, despite the pain, Li Xiu breathed an inexplicable sigh of relief. 

Everything was normal.

In other words, the illusion that had occupied his mind was gone at last.

The boys who were beating him became the same as they should be in his memories, and there was no longer that sticky, twisted atmosphere in the room.

The only issue was that when they saw that Fang Qian’an was injured, the other boys in the room panicked, and the beating that fell on Li Xiu was almost out of proportion. Very soon, Li Xiu could no longer maintain his spirit. Even the strength to shield his head and hunch his body was gradually fading, and his entire consciousness blurred incrementally.

Would he be beaten to death here?

Just as Li Xiu thought this, a rustling sound suddenly came from the corner.

Something was moving.

The sudden movement momentarily silenced the chaotic scene. Everyone reflexively looked up in the direction of the sound, and under the boys’ gazes, the thick old wallpaper curled and peeled off the wall.

More than a decade ago, the wallpapers used by wealthy people were actually “wall coverings.”

Top wealthy families like the Xiao family were even more particular when choosing their decoration materials. All embroidered wall coverings used genuine materials with a thick texture, and when it peeled off, it fell off in one piece with a movement that was rather loud.

In fact, this was no big deal. As was said before, no one had taken care of this villa in the Xiao Family Gardens in many years. After water seeped into the walls, the glue behind the wall coverings became damp and aged, losing its stickiness. In addition, the weight of the wall covering was so heavy that it was normal for the whole piece to fall off like this.

But at this moment, the boys present looked at the fallen wall covering and automatically took a couple of steps back, revealing expressions of revulsion.

“What the fuck is this…..”

Before it came off, it looked like an old, faded wall covering, but after, another disgusting side was revealed.

Long-term dampness had caused dark green mold to grow on the back of the wall covering. Just looking at it made a person feel uncomfortable. And what was even more concerning was that when the covering fell off, the wall was exposed to everyone.

Densely-packed talisman papers covered the entire wall of the room. They had also been severely affected by the moisture and were covered in mildew. The runes drawn on the talisman paper were naturally blurred by water marks.

One after another, water marks had dripped down the wall, and after soaking the red paint of the talisman papers, the water marks looked like bloodstains.

Indeed, it suddenly seemed as if blood was oozing out of the entire wall.

“Fuckfuckfuck, is this place really a haunted house?”

Once they returned to their senses, there was a commotion amongst the boys.

“I heard that after what happened back then, a shaman was invited to come and practice here…..”

“The school seems to have dealt with this place too. They must have been left behind at that time, right?”

“Why do ritual talismans have to be put up like this, ah? It’s so scary.”

“You’re still afraid of this? I don’t get it, ah.”

Not everyone was afraid of the strange talismans suddenly revealed before them.

However, the most taboo thing for seventeen or eighteen-year-old boys was to show timidity in front of their peers, so even if someone was actually afraid, they could only grit their teeth at this time and don a nonchalant expression. 

Knock knock knock.

At this moment, a timely knock on the window rescued the group of boys.

“Which class are you in? Didn’t your teacher tell you that students aren’t allowed in the Xiao Family Gardens?”

A school janitor held a long-handled flashlight in his hand as he stood outside the dusty window, looking into the room. The boys in the room looked at each other when the faint voice sounded, then leaped up collectively.

“Why is the school still patrolling here?”

“Quick, quick, go out through the balcony.”

“I blocked the front door way before, so he can’t get in.”

“It’s fine, this guy can’t catch us.”

In fact, everyone knew that with Fang Qian’an there, even if they really were caught by the school janitor for a disciplinary offense, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But now, everyone tacitly ignored this. Using the excuse of the school janitor’s appearance, they quickly left the old villa.

Even daring high school boys with nerves as thick as wires, who sought death in all kinds of ways, vaguely felt that unique pressure.

Something was truly wrong with that wall.

“You got lucky, little cripple.”

“We’ll have a good chat with you tomorrow.”

Naturally, before they departed, they did not forget to speak harshly to Li Xiu, who was lying in the shadows with a bloodied head.

Li Xiu lay motionless on the ground, listening as the disordered footsteps of the boys gradually disappeared.

During this time, he could sense that the school janitor standing at the window had remained in place, looking at him through the glass. Perhaps even the school janitor was aware of Fang Qianan’s special status, and had no need to chase him.

It seemed Li Xiu was the unlucky one in the end…..

He still remembered that when he transferred schools, the teachers emphasized many times that students were absolutely not allowed to enter the Xiao Family Gardens without permission. Once discovered, the student would be given a demerit.

Li Xiu gave a bitter laugh, and gasped a second later due to the wound at the corner of his mouth.

It hurt.

Hopefully this wouldn’t affect the exam money.

He tried to get up, but after the group of people who had beaten him left, the pain that was originally bearable became even more severe. At this point, Li Xiu was already exhausted.

He simply lay on the ground where he was, breathing heavily as he numbly watched the shadow outside the window fall on the nearby wall.

The talismans on the wall were still dripping red water. The mottled runes seemed to sway in Li Xiu’s peripheral vision, appearing very abnormal and strange.

But Li Xiu only had to look closely to realize that it was an illusion.

Those things were weird, but Li Xiu didn’t find them frightening.

He bit the tip of his tongue, sucked in a cold breath, and shakily fastened up the trousers that had been pulled off by the others before. It was clearly a very simple movement, but he had difficulty completing it due to the continuous trembling of his fingers.

And with only that slight movement, Li Xiu couldn’t help but feel the urge to vomit, and his body began to feel chilled.

He hadn’t guessed wrong. He had likely been concussed by Wang Rongfa and Fang Qian’an’s group, Li Xiu thought.

“It’s time for you to go.”

A faint and unclear whisper suddenly sounded.

Li Xiu was startled. When he turned around, he happened to see the school janitor — he was standing in the corner of the room with his head lowered, muttering to Li Xiu.

When had he come in?

Li Xiu was a little puzzled, but he remembered other students saying that the school would occasionally send people to check on the condition of the Xiao family villa, and was relieved: maybe the school had given their staff a key. And he was in a daze when the other person opened the door and came in, so he hadn’t noticed.

“I apologize.”

Gritting his teeth, Li Xiu used all of his strength to slowly rise from the ground.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s time for you to go.”

The school worker abruptly cut though Li Xiu’s weak explanation, repeating himself in a voice that lacked any fluctuation.

The sky was dark, but the man still wore the standard peaked cap of the janitor’s uniform on his head. He was also standing in the shadows in the corner of the room, where his face became increasingly blurry.

Looking at the school worker, Li Xiu’s eyes flickered. He had initially thought that the other party would note down his information, but now it seemed that he didn’t want to get him in trouble.

He could only breathe a sigh of relief: “En, I’ll leave right away.”

Holding on to the last of his strength, Li Xiu staggered to his feet and limped out of the abandoned villa.

The school janitor seemed to be very satisfied with Li Xiu’s tact. As soon as Li Xiu walked to the villa’s foyer, he heard the room door creak and then slam shut behind him.

Huh?

Li Xiu turned around subconsciously.

The janitor was still inside. Maybe he was checking the fallen wall covering…..from Li Xiu’s perspective, he could only see the blurry rear view of the tall janitor.

At this moment, he was standing upright in front of the rune-covered wall, motionless.

*

“Ugh…..”

At the same moment, inside a moving luxury car, Fang Qian’an suddenly let out a muffled groan.

“Young Master Fang, are you really okay? How about you get that checked out carefully?”

Another boy in the large compartment noticed Fang Qian’an stir, and frowned with some worry at the sight of the young master’s still bleeding fingers.

After leaving the old Xiao family villa, the strange and oppressive atmosphere of terror had faded away, and everyone belatedly came to their senses — things had gotten a bit serious.

Fang Qian’an was the most precious young master of the Fang family, but now he had been bitten by a poor wretch, and there was even blood.

God knew how troublesome this would be if the adults found out about it.

Fortunately, while everyone was extremely anxious, Fang Qian’an himself had a very understated reaction.

He simply told a younger brother to go to the drugstore and buy some gauze, and after wrapping his fingers, he didn’t bring it up again.

When he heard this younger brother worry about his fingers again, Fang Qian’an waved his hand casually: “…..It’s just a finger injury, don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. And don’t be awkward, it annoys me.”

Seeing Fang Qian’an like this, the younger brother who was lucky enough to follow Fang Qian’an into the vehicle didn’t dare to say more about it, and could only respond: “That’s right, Young Master Fang is magnanimous…..but that cripple really deserved a beating.”

When he heard Li Xiu mentioned again, Fang Qian’an narrowed his eyes.

Fang Qian’an raised his hand and glanced at the gauze on his fingers, murmuring: “Hm…..that guy.” He snorted. “He’s like a puppy.”

---

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Chapter 2 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 4

When Li Xiu transferred to Qiming Secondary School, he noticed a large swathe of desolate land covered in weeds behind the campus. 

As the default top school for the entire upper class in City A, Qiming’s location was right in the city center, where every inch of land was valuable. And yet, such a large piece of unused land was empty. People not in the know would really feel that it was a pity when they saw it.

However, the locals of A City were not surprised by this scene.

After all, on that land…..was the Xiao Family Haunted House.

To put it plainly, the land behind Qiming Secondary School was not really a wasteland in the true sense — many years ago, the Xiao family was the most prestigious family in City A, and built a large villa complex for the family at a high cost.

However, not long after they moved into the Xiao Family Gardens, the family encountered a bizarre massacre that shocked the entire country.

Ever since then, the land had been completely empty.

Likely because of its “inauspicious reputation,” in an era where real estate development was in full swing, the Xiao Family Gardens took up so much land, but no one took over its development.

The Xiao family villa still stood there to this day, and in that majestic structure, one could still see the beauty, luxury, and style of those years.

However, after so many years of neglect, no matter how luxurious the Xiao Family Gardens were, it had become the terrifying and dilapidated “Xiao Family Haunted House.” As for the courtyard around the villa, it had long been covered by wild vegetation.

There were layer upon layer of dense, wild trees, and even at noon in the summer, it was difficult for the sun to penetrate into the forest through the dense branches and leaves. Combined with the various horror legends about this place, the Xiao Family Gardens always seemed dark and damp, and it seemed as if there was always an inexplicable and imposing aura of death.

At least, the fearless, hot-blooded boys of Qiming Secondary School were not afraid of the rumors and gloomy atmosphere of the Xiao Family Gardens.

The school was not strictly managed, and some particularly unruly students would sneak into the Xiao family villa to find places to smoke during recess……but Li Xiu had nothing to do with that sort of thing.

Li Xiu had always instinctively hated that sort of gloomy place.

If possible, he would never step foot into the Xiao family “haunted house” in his life.

But currently, Li Xiu was being held down and pressed directly onto the floor of an abandoned room in the Xiao family villa. 

—Thud.

A muffled sound.

The odor of dust and mold poured into Li Xiu’s nose. He put up a struggle, and was hit hard in the back.

“Why are you flailing around?! It’s come to this point, and you’re still trying to run away?!”

Someone curses in a rough voice over his head.

“Pfft, Wang Rongfa, why are you so nervous? He’s a cripple. If you let go of him and let him run, is it possible for him to actually run away?”

Immediately after, another boy scoffed.

The boy named Wang Rongfa pressed harder on Li Xiu’s back.

“Song Chen, you don’t know, but this cripple is very cunning. If it weren’t for our Fang-ge this time, I would have almost let him get away—”

As he spoke, Li Xiu suddenly broke free and raised his arm, elbowing Wang Rongfa. Taking advantage of the boy’s pain, Li Xiu abruptly ran toward the door.

However, as the boys surrounding him had said, Li Xiu’s lame leg truly made it difficult for him to maintain his balance. A normal person might have had a chance of escaping, but Wang Rongfa’s friends caught up with him before he could even take two steps. He was punched in the stomach and thrown back onto the dirty floor.

“Fuckfuckfuck—”

Wang Rongfa covered his face and cursed several times in one go.

“I’m telling you, you deserve a beating—”

He rushed forward and kicked Li Xiu violently.

Lying on the ground, Liu Xi’s body suddenly arched up as the terrible pain came. A trace of blood overflowed from his lips, but he clenched his teeth and didn’t even groan.

Such a tough reaction even made the boys who hit him issue sounds of surprise.

“This sissy good student can still handle pain pretty well,” someone muttered.

In the shadows deep in the room, Li Xiu hunched over. The skin exposed outside the school uniform was so white that it seemed transparent. His jet-black hair was the black of crow feathers and messily stuck to the fine, cold sweat on his face, covering his eyes. 

Even if he couldn’t compare to the strong, tall boys next to him who were holding cigarettes and had reached the end of puberty, revealing their adult figures, for a teenager this age, Li Xiu’s figure could be said to be overly delicate.

Compared to his peers, Li Xiu obviously looked much thinner. However, the body shape that should be undesirable, paired with an almost beautiful face, created a subtle and indescribable attraction — at least for the girls of Qiming Secondary School.

There could be no doubt that as a taciturn transfer student from a poor family, Li Xiu became rather popular with the girls when he arrived at Qiming. It had nothing to do with ambiguity between innocent boys and girls. As long as Li Xiu sat in the classroom, the girls would inevitably show him unconscious preferential treatment and affection.

After all, few girls would dislike a quiet, pretty, and intelligent adolescent boy with an obvious physical defect. 

However, this special kind of tenderness was an extreme eyesore to some foolish and reckless boys.

*

Li Xiu’s body involuntarily spasmed, and his vision went a little dark. There was a fishy, metallic taste in his throat. He panted silently with his mouth slightly open, trying to recover from the biting pain in his stomach and back. 

At the same time, hearing the ugly shouts from Wang Rongfa and his lackeys, he felt a bit irritable.

He never wanted to have a conflict with such idiots.

The reason Li Xiu transferred to Qiming at this time was purely so that he could get the school’s top scholarship.

In the early years, Qiming followed the path of international schools, and there was no need for a multitude of students to vye for a narrow, single-plank bridge. However, national policies had changed drastically in the past few years, and even students from Qiming Secondary School had to take the university entrance exam. In order to improve admission rates, Qiming recruited top students from other schools.

Li Xiu was among those who were recruited by Qiming for money.

Yes, Li Xiu’s grades were very good, so good that the people in Qiming’s admission office could ignore his inconvenient right leg. According to the signed agreement, Li Xiu would receive a substantial “bonus” as long as he achieved the required high scores in the school exams, the unified city exam, and the university entrance exam.

Li Xiu did the math. With this money, he would not have to borrow money to pay for his university living expenses from relatives and friends he had long lost contact with, and also would not have to worry about the money for his grandmother’s hospital medical treatment.

From the moment he entered the school, he knew that he was not from the same world as the group of elite children there. 

He only came to Qiming to get money, and never thought about making friends with these people.

He originally intended to just peacefully wait until the university entrance exams were over, and based on his results, take the money and leave. As a result, Li Xiu never could have expected that he would become a thorn in Wang Rongfa’s side after just answering a few questions from girls at the same table.

In fact, things weren’t so bad in the beginning. After all, when Wang Rongfa cursed at him initially, Li Xiu simply held himself back and ignored him. But one time in the men’s room, Wang Rongfa seized the opportunity to try to take Li Xiu’s pants off in front of his friends, saying euphemistically that it was to see if Li Xiu was a boy. Li Xiu was unable to hold back, and with absolutely no expression on his face, directly grabbed the mop in the corner and laid into them. 

Then came the part that Li Xiu was not unfamiliar with — a stupid school bullying scene.

It was still fine during class. Although there were very few teachers at Qiming who strictly managed this group of students who came from wealthy families, with Li Xiu’s grades and body, even the coldest and most snobbish teachers had to be somewhat considerate.

But after school, Wang Rongfa summoned his gang of scoundrels to chase after Li Xiu.

Sometimes Li Xiu could find a way to escape, and other times…..he would be caught by Wang Rongfa and his gang. Just like today.

It was unfortunate that today, Wang Rongfa seemed to be more agitated than before. It was unknown if his brain, which was as small as a mung bean, had squeezed out some new ways to give him a hard time.

Li Xiu felt the severe pain spread throughout his body and pondered indifferently.

In the past, the methods of bullying Wang Rongfa thought up were nothing more than dragging him into a corner and pouring cold water on him, or elementary school tricks such as deliberately dirtying his desk and pouring some garbage into his school bag.

But this time, Wang Rongfa directly dragged Li Xiu to the abandoned villa in the Xiao Family Gardens.

“Sure enough, just looking at this guy’s face puts you in a bad mood.”

Wang Rongfa kicked Li Xiu, and the harsh cursing drew Li Xiu’s attention back.

“Come on, Lao Wang, you’re just jealous of other good-looking people. Zhang Yan isn’t blind, this cripple’s face is definitely more eye-catching than yours, hahaha…..”

“Hahaha, that’s right. The Zhang family isn’t short of money, so they might just want to raise a pretty boy.”

The group of boys laughed uproariously around Wang Rongfa and the immobilized Li Xiu. In the end, Wang Rongfa’s face turned red. He flew into a rage out of humiliation, shouting to drown out the others as they escalated their mockery.

“Where is that place? Didn’t you say you found a darkroom? I want to see if this guy can still pull off such a blank face when we come back tomorrow.”

Li Xiu’s expression froze as he heard the conversation between Wang Rongfa and the others.

When he noticed Li Xiu’s tension, Wang Rongfa grinned: “Yo, are you afraid now? That can’t be right, ah…..doesn’t your family specialize in this kind of feudal superstition? What, are you really afraid of ghosts?”

Li Xiu continued to remain silent.

*

When Qiming Secondary School was established, the massacre of the Xiao family had already occurred. There was no one in the entirety of the school who didn’t know the legend of this haunted house.

For example, it was said that in the early years, Qiming had evening self-study classes like other schools, but they were quickly discontinued by the principal not long after. The reason was that students who studied at school in the evenings could clearly see the brightly-lit villa in that deserted garden.

Through the glass was covered in cobwebs and dust, they could even vaguely glimpse shadowy figures inside.

On the night wind, there were even faint old songs that had long been outdated.

Some people also said that in fact, the land Qiming Secondary School was built on was originally part of the Xiao family haunted house. After the school was built, the old villa was renovated and used as a dormitory for workers at the school.

As a result, the school janitor didn’t even stay a full week before escaping from the villa in a mess. It was said that every night, this old villa was full of ghosts.

There were clearly only two people in the dormitory, but after waking up in the middle of the night, they would feel that the whole house was so crowded that they could hardly stand.

*

There were countless legends like this.

As for Wang Rongfa’s method of punishing him this time, it was also very simple and crude.

A few days ago, when some of his friends were looking for a place to smoke in the old villa, they happened to discover a very small, closed darkroom with no windows at all. If they locked someone in there for one night, they would probably be frightened to death once they were released.

“……Let’s see how long you can be proud in front of me!”

The thing Wang Rongfa hated the most was Li Xiu’s expressionless face. It was obvious that he was the one being bullied on campus, but when the crippled little sissy boy looked over the crowd indifferently, Wang Rongfa always felt like a contemptible clown.

At last, this time Li Xiu finally showed the panic he wanted to see after hearing his plan.

“Let me go back.”

After such a long time dragging him here, Wang Rongfa heard Li Xiu’s hoarse voice for the first time.

Li Xiu’s face was very tense.

Indeed, Li Xiu was anxious at this moment.

He actually didn’t care much about Wang Rongfa’s clumsy bullying. However, being locked in a place like this was another matter.

If he got home late and delayed doing “that thing”……

He gave an involuntary shudder.

“Tsk, tsk, this is rare, ah. Wait. Cripple, are you really afraid of ghosts?!”

After mocking Li Xiu, Wang Rongfa turned to urge the others on.

“Hey, hey, you still haven’t opened the door?”

The people who had been following him had their butts stuck out as they roughly rummaged through discarded debris that had been piled up in the corner of the room for who knows how long. When they heard Wang Rongfa’s question, they also muttered in confusion.

“That’s weird. Weren’t we here two days ago? That door was really conspicuous…..”

The boys looked at the wall in confusion after the debris was pushed away to expose it to everyone’s sight.

Over the years, moisture had unknowingly infiltrated the interior brick walls, and the lower part of the old, luxurious European-style wallpaper had long been occupied with spots of dark blue mildew. The boys remembered clearly that it was here where they had discovered the strange little scarlet door that was only half a person tall.

It looked a lot like the door to a storage room, although it was a bit strange to have a storage room in this location.

Behind that door was the narrow, airtight darkroom they had told Wang Rongfa about before, which could be locked from the outside.

The boys remembered it very clearly. After all, the door was so strange that it would be difficult to forget it even if they wanted to.

But now that they had been looking for so long, there was only a wall in front of them full of mold and water stains, with no trace of the door at all.

“Are you joking? You really can’t find it?”

“Did you remember the wrong place? There are too many rooms in this shabby house…..”

“How is that possible? There are cigarette butts on the ground.”

“It’s almost like a ghost came.”

A certain boy blurted this out unthinkingly, and everyone suddenly stopped talking.

After a brief silence, their expressions became a bit strange.

No one revealed their true fear, but the atmosphere became inexplicably tense. Only Wang Rongfa, who was still immersed in his resentment toward Li Xiu, continued to holler for the others to keep searching. In the end, this slightly aroused the anger of several of them.

The group of them questioned and cursed at each other in the dilapidated room.

“Ah……”

Then one person’s yawn interrupted the boys’ hoarse shouting.

Wang Rongfa’s voice suddenly got stuck in his throat. At the same time, all of the boys in the room seemed to have received some kind of command, and fell silent. For a moment, everyone focused their attention on that person.

It was a handsome young man with a tall stature.

Unlike Wang Rongfa and the others, he was not wearing expensive and conspicuous fashion brands, and was wearing the suit-style uniform of Qiming Secondary School like a good student. But for some reason, wearing the formal British-style school uniform made by a famous designer still gave him a lingering sense of dissoluteness. 

The color of his hair was very light, the same color as his eyes.

Under the setting sun, the boy’s eyes were light yellow like some kind of feline, with only thin black pupils in the middle.

“Young Master Fang, what do you think—”

Several people swallowed mouthfuls of saliva and carefully observed the expression of “Young Master Fang” when one of them asked this.

When they were beating up Li Xiu, this “Young Master Fang” stayed out of the incident, sitting cross-legged on the window sill of the haunted house as if he was an outsider, immersed in playing a game on his cellphone.

“Fuck, dead again…..is this tower being used as a tomb?”

And it was only then that he raised his head from his phone to frown at Wang Rongfa and his group.

Fang Qian’an complained and tossed the phone aside.

Someone immediately stepped forward to help him put it away.

Fang Qian’an jumped off the window sill and stretched like a big cat. He seemed to finally realize what had just happened here, and glanced sideways at Li Xiu, who was being pressed to the floor with a dust-covered face.

“Hey,” he murmured to Li Xiu, tilting his head.

“Just apologize,” he said.

Li Xiu realized that Fang Qian’an was speaking to him, and raised his head with difficulty to look at him.

Meeting Li Xiu’s gaze, Fang Qian’an yawned again out of boredom.

“Lao Wang doesn’t have any bad intentions. It’s normal for him to be unhappy when seeing someone like you near his goddess. You provoked him so many times after, always making him screech in anger. You don’t bother me, but he’s annoying.” Wang Rongfa moved his lips angrily when he heard Fang Qian’an’s words, but he didn’t make a sound. Fang Qian’an didn’t notice the stiffness of the boy next to him, and continued with that same languid appearance: “Just apologize to him and say you won’t be an eyesore again, and the matter will be over.”

After speaking, he shrugged his shoulders.

“Lao Wang will never trouble you again.”

Li Xiu stared straight at Fang Qian’an. After a moment of silence, the corners of his mouth twitched.

Ptui.

Li Xiu spat at Fang Qian’an.

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Chapter 1 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 3

T/N: This is a collection of 3 interconnected horror stories.

Don’t worry about this chapter’s 2nd person present tense POV. Other than the chapters like this that connect the three stories, everything else is in 3rd person past tense POV. This is a new format for me, so I hope you enjoy reading!

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It is your first day at work.

The corporate office is on the thirteenth floor of a residential building.

This old high-rise building was built in the city center many years ago, and there is no telling how many trials and tribulations it has gone through. The people who built it back then had no planning awareness, nor did they spare a thought for maintaining or renovating the building. By the time you get there for work, the building is old and dilapidated.

The elevator here is filthy, and constantly issues a harsh rattle when it runs. When you take the elevator, you are on tenterhooks for fear of it breaking down.

Fortunately, this time the elevator successfully sends you to the thirteenth floor.

When the elevator doors open, you walk out quickly.

The instant you look up, you see a long corridor. Poor design has left this corridor completely devoid of natural lighting, and the only illumination comes from a few dim incandescent lamps overhead.

There are rows of symmetrical red security doors on both sides of the corridor. It appears that there are a great many rooms, but you never see anyone come out of those doors. There are pink building management notices on many of the doors. You take a look and realize that the date in the lower right hand corner is four years ago.

The floor is dirty, and the areas near the walls have turned black. Only a small area in the middle just barely reveals the original color of the beige floor tiles.

As for your new business location, it is right at the end of the corridor.

You duck your head and walk into your corporate office without many expectations. It is said to be a corporate office, but this office was actually converted from an ordinary residence. It is probably because of this that this place makes you feel suffocated and crowded…..although there are actually not many employees here.

This is certainly not the sort of work environment you want.

But…..

Ai, in this world, having a job is already pretty good.

You strive to comfort yourself.

The person who interviewed you before was a middle-aged man with a gloomy face. You had originally thought he was in HR, and didn’t expect that he would turn out to be your boss. When he sees you, he brings you to the workstation.

Your desk is very worn out, and looks like it came from a second-hand store.

But your computer is even worse. Judging from the shiny patina on the keyboard, it has already gone through many hardships. You are simply astonished at how old the computer is, and just as you’re wondering if it can still turn on, the computer starts up with a buzz.

You sit tremblingly in your seat, and when you reach out to touch the keyboard, you inexplicably shiver from the sensation. This is not because of the sticky feel of the keyboard, but because when you touch the keys, a slight warmth spreads from your fingertips…..as if you are touching something alive.

Tsk, you’re really thinking too much.

You quickly return to your senses and get to work.

Okay, la, from now on, you have officially become an editor under the Pheasant multi-channel network.

Of course, you can tell by the channel’s environment that the company basically can’t bring in any traffic at all, so your main job is to post some incomprehensible text content to the company’s account like a robot. As if anyone actually looks at this account.

You certainly feel like you’re wasting your life. And on this day, you inadvertently click a note on the outdated computer. Then you see an unfamiliar account and a password. 

You could actually ignore that account.

You will think of this boring afternoon many times afterward.

You will think, it would have been better if you had just closed that account…..it’s only a pity that there is no medicine for regret in this world.

At this time, you just log into the dusty account neglected by the company out of boredom.

“Happy Event Bot”

There is nothing memorable about this name, nor does it mean anything.

When you see the number of followers on the account, you can’t help but gasp. You can be sure that this must be an account created in the company’s early days. Otherwise, it would be impossible to spend money to buy such an exaggerated amount of zombie fans.^[1]

And when you see the account’s content, you raise an eyebrow.

Hm, how should you put it? Not long ago, content had also been posted on this account by who appeared to be your predecessor. 

It was just that those sentences seemed to have a bit of a mismatch between the preface and the content.

Of course, the content of this account is very ordinary in the beginning, no different from those meaningless and unauthorized reposts you’ve submitted.

Afterward, this account seems to have changed its direction and begun to make bot submissions. You scan it and feel that it is all nonsense.

But gradually, incrementally, in addition to submitting articles, the content published by this account becomes strange.

[@Happy Event Bot: What exactly is it that you do?]

[@Happy Event Bot: Stop posting, I won’t read it.]

[@Happy Event Bot: Is it fun to pretend to engage with the supernatural?]

It seems that this person had been harassed by private messages. However, while various submissions were rejected, the account was regularly sending various submissions.

And the various personal messages sent by the account owner during this time gradually became eerie.

[@Happy Event Bot: Please forgive me, okay? I didn’t mean it.]

[@Happy Event Bot: I know you’ve been watching. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’ve been obedient, I’ve done everything. I beg you, please spare me. I can’t take it anymore.]

And the final personal message was sent just a few months ago.

[@Happy Event Bot: I know I have no hope you’re coming right you won’t spare me at all I’m not afraid anymore winter is the eyes of autumn this apple is delicious the butterfly flew away Italian pasta saw you and I both know this phrase]

As you look at that Weibo message speechlessly, wondering what kind of crazy new literature this is, you hear the sound of a private message in the background.

Only then do you realize that countless unread messages have accumulated.

When you click in, you realize that these are all messages sent by other people.

Seriously, ah? The company gave you so many zombie accounts, but hid the accounts with such high activity? It is inevitable that you’re a little displeased, and as you think, you click on a submission.

You initially just wanted to take a casual look, but unexpectedly, as soon as you read it, all of your attention is drawn to the content of the submission.

The article submitted by this author is about the “gege” under his bed.

[…..Grandmother told me that he was my gege.]

[When I was a child, I really didn’t understand why I called the skeletal remains in the burial urn “gege,” or why I had to put food under the bed every day and say that I was sending food to gege.]

[Actually, I had always been afraid of my gege. After all, it was a burial urn. But my grandma kept telling me that I was the only one in the family who could deliver food, because I was male and didn’t have to worry about childbirth.]

[Grandmother always said that as long as my gege was there, I didn’t have to worry about anyone hurting me. But I later discovered…..]

[She was lying to me]

*

@Happy Event Bot: Submission #1114

<<Ghost Gege>>

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[1] Zombie fans — inactive or fake users on social media. ⮐

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Table of Contents >> Chapter 2

Author: Black Cat White Socks (黑猫白袜子)

Someone told him, 

Meet them…..

And you will encounter a “happy event”

– – – – – – – – – –

[Gege]

His grandmother told A-Xiu that he had a gege, an older brother.

As a child, A-Xiu didn’t understand why he had to call the skeletal remains in the urn “gege.” He also didn’t understand why he put rice under the bed each day for the other person, as if it was really his “gege.”

He felt that it was all just his grandmother’s delusion.

Then when his grandmother passed away, A-Xiu staggered to the bed and cried endlessly. And a tall, cold figure leaned over A-Xiu’s thin body, uttering a hoarse and twisted whisper.

“Don’t be afraid. Gege is still here.”

A-Xiu finally understood his grandmother’s painstaking efforts.

It turned out that only by becoming a “family member” would “it” not hurt him.

But his grandmother seemed to have forgotten that if one wanted to be a family with such a thing, one must pay a price……

– – – – – – – – – –

[Dragon Marsh Village]

Jiang Chuyan always thought that his childhood experience was just an absurd and distant dream.

In the dream, in order to keep his frail, sick self alive, his mother “married” him to a “Dragon God” deep in the dragon marsh.

The ignorant and superstitious village witch said that after marrying the Dragon God, Jiang Chuyan would no longer be a person of this world. His life and soul belonged to the nameless god, and he naturally no longer had to worry about the fate of early death that was destined for him.

When he grew up, Jiang Chuyan returned to the mountain village he had long been away from for his university elective course’s folklore assignment.

He thought this would just be an ordinary trip back home, but never thought that with his return, the horror and death he had overlooked in his childhood would come in droves. 

And the only person he could rely on inadvertently exposed his horribly deformed and scaly tail.

– – – – – – – – – –

[Meat Soup]

Gu Hezhi lay dazed in his room for half a month until his roommate dragged him out.

“Come on, come on, try the soup my girlfriend made.” The roommate greeted everyone with a bright smile.

Everyone in the shared house gathered around the table and politely drank bowl after bowl.

Gu Hezhi also drank.

The soup was delicious, and the meat inside was especially tender and tasty. Someone at the table asked what kind of meat it was. The roommate stared blankly, and just said with a smile that he had taken it from Gu Hezhi’s refrigerator. 

“I’m sorry to trouble you. Since you’ve been going directly to bed, I let her use it first, and planned to settle the bill with you afterward.”

Gu Hezhi’s bowl fell to the ground.

He lost his temper at the table and rushed to the toilet to vomit. However, the meat seemed to have melted into his body, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not spit it out.

And that night, while half asleep, Gu Hezhi smelled a familiar scent.

A familiar man with a lingering chill on his body leaned behind him and placed his hands on his shoulders.

“A-Zhi.”

The man’s mutilated face smiled in the darkness.

“Don’t hide…..let me hug you.”

“Will you let me out…..”

“I’m cold.”

——-

Once sentence summary: Don’t be afraid, they love you.

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Tags: Horror, romance, bullying, hints of wife-chasing?, multiple stories, weird shit, more tags to come as I actually read the rest of the stories

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Chapter 1	Chapter 29	Chapter 57	Chapter 85
Chapter 2	Chapter 30	Chapter 58	Chapter 86
Chapter 3	Chapter 31	Chapter 59	Chapter 87
Chapter 4	Chapter 32	Chapter 60	Chapter 88
Chapter 5	Chapter 33	Chapter 61	Chapter 89
Chapter 6	Chapter 34	Chapter 62	Chapter 90
Chapter 7	Chapter 35	Chapter 63	Chapter 91
Chapter 8	Chapter 36	Chapter 64	Chapter 92
Chapter 9	Chapter 37	Chapter 65	Chapter 93
Chapter 10	Chapter 38	Chapter 66	Chapter 94
Chapter 11	Chapter 39	Chapter 67	Chapter 95
Chapter 12	Chapter 40	Chapter 68	Chapter 96
Chapter 13	Chapter 41	Chapter 69	Chapter 97
Chapter 14	Chapter 42	Chapter 70	Chapter 98
Chapter 15	Chapter 43	Chapter 71	Chapter 99
Chapter 16	Chapter 44	Chapter 72	Chapter 100
Chapter 17	Chapter 45	Chapter 73	Chapter 101
Chapter 18	Chapter 46	Chapter 74	Chapter 102
Chapter 19	Chapter 47	Chapter 75	Chapter 103
Chapter 20	Chapter 48	Chapter 76	Chapter 104
Chapter 21	Chapter 49	Chapter 77	Chapter 105
Chapter 22	Chapter 50	Chapter 78	Chapter 106
Chapter 23	Chapter 51	Chapter 79	Chapter 107
Chapter 24	Chapter 52	Chapter 80	Chapter 108
Chapter 25	Chapter 53	Chapter 81	Chapter 109
Chapter 26	Chapter 54	Chapter 82	Chapter 110
Chapter 27	Chapter 55	Chapter 83	Chapter 111
Chapter 28	Chapter 56	Chapter 84	Chapter 112