Chapter 11: Eat Together?
It was said that Lan Yu had caught a cold.
After all, the dormitory wasn’t large, and Lin Zixi lived right there, sleeping in the bunk opposite Lan Yu. No matter how many precautions they took, Lan Yu eventually took a hit. He already had a broken leg, and now with a severe cold on top of it, his luck could be considered terrible.
Duan Gaozhi’s cold was already at its tail end. He had recovered well after resting at home for a few days. When he heard the news that Lan Yu wanted to take sick leave, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but he eventually found time to visit the dormitory.
As soon as Duan Gaozhi arrived at the dorm, he watched helplessly as he spotted a round mirror taped to the door with plastic adhesive. Duan Gaozhi blinked, deciding to ignore it for the moment.
Pushing the door open, Duan Gaozhi’s peripheral vision immediately caught a strange object resembling a talisman pasted blatantly on the wall by the doorframe. Duan Gaozhi frowned slightly.
Taking a step inside, he then spotted a very bizarre handmade prop placed on the sink: a plastic bottle filled with a pile of grit and sand, with a stalk of wild grass planted inside. It sat right in the basin, and the sink’s drain was sealed, filling the basin halfway with water. Duan Gaozhi’s expression became complicated.
When he finally entered the room fully, he stared blankly at the red strings tied to both Lin Zixi’s and Lan Yu’s beds…
“What… are you guys doing?” Duan Gaozhi could no longer pretend not to see.
The entire dormitory could be taken in at a glance. Lin Zixi, who was on the evening shift today, hadn’t left yet. However, Lan Yu’s bunk was tidied up very cleanly, the quilt folded neatly. At first glance, Duan Gaozhi felt that out of all the beds in the dorm, only Lan Yu’s looked the most orderly.
“Where’s Lan Yu?” Duan Gaozhi asked.
“He said he wanted to go home this morning, so I let him go,” Lin Zixi said.
“His leg is still broken; where can he run off to?” Duan Gaozhi pulled up a chair randomly and sat down.
Lin Zixi replied truthfully, “He had a fever last night, and his cold is pretty bad. He said if he stayed in the dorm, we’d just keep cross-infecting each other endlessly, so he went back to his rental.”
“You didn’t go see him off?” Duan Gaozhi raised an eyebrow.
Lin Zixi looked helpless. “I wanted to, but he was dragging that cast around more nimbly than I can walk.”
Duan Gaozhi thought of Lan Yu, who over the past two days had completely mastered the usage of a wooden stick and a plaster cast. The kid was full of energy; usually, you couldn’t even tell Lan Yu was injured.
Finding it inexplicably funny, Duan Gaozhi looked around the dormitory and asked, “What exactly are you guys cooking up in here? Making the place look like a mess with all this stuff.”
“Well, because we felt the yin energy was a bit heavy, we tried all sorts of methods. Lan Yu suggested them; he seems to be particularly afraid of these things,” Lin Zixi said.
Duan Gaozhi recalled Lan Yu mentioning the haunting a while back and his mouth twitched. “Where did you find these methods?”
“Online.”
“Where did you buy the talisman?” He didn’t get scammed, did he? Duan Gaozhi wondered.
“Lan Yu searched for images online, bought yellow paper and cinnabar, and drew it himself,” Lin Zixi said, recalling Lan Yu’s extremely pious and serious demeanor while drawing the talisman. “He even went to the trouble of scrubbing himself clean in the shower, ate vegetarian food for a whole day, and then put brush to paper precisely at midnight.”
Duan Gaozhi remained silent for a long time. He sat in front of Lin Zixi and scratched his hair. “He cares that much?”
“He’s extremely paranoid,” Lin Zixi rubbed his chin as well.
“Alright, I can’t blame him for being sensitive. Actually, I also feel it’s a bit strange. When I drove Lan Yu back before, I also seemed to see something strange in the rearview mirror.”
“…No way, really?” Lin Zixi took a moment to react, feeling layers of goosebumps rising all over his body. “I just thought catching a sudden cold was weird, seeing as it isn’t even cold weather.”
“So, after you guys messed around with all this stuff, are there no more ghosts?” Duan Gaozhi tugged at the matching red strings on Lin Zixi’s and Lan Yu’s beds.
“Well, I haven’t seen anything, and I haven’t heard Lan Yu mention it. I guess they’re gone?” Lin Zixi scratched his cheek. He actually thought Lan Yu was making a mountain out of a molehill—maybe it really was just a pure accident—but he didn’t plan on saying that to someone who was afraid of ghosts.
“Is that so?” Duan Gaozhi looked at the room full of items and started considering setting something up at his own home, just in case. “Alright then, I’ll just give Lan Yu a call. Don’t be late for work later.”
“Got it,” Lin Zixi said.
“Learn from Lan Yu. Look at his living habits, then look at your bed—it’s like a pigsty.” Before getting up to leave, Duan Gaozhi didn’t forget to roast Lin Zixi.
Lin Zixi just giggled foolishly, not taking it to heart.
Within just a few days, Lan Yu had become very accustomed to using the wooden stick. Plus, with the support of the cast for his hairline fracture, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t walk at all; as long as he controlled it well, taking a few steps was no problem.
The reason Lan Yu trained himself so hard in the “three-legged” walking method was so that the next time he saw a ghost, if he was in an open space, he could at least run.
Thinking about it this way, Lan Yu felt he was quite impressive. Even though he was super afraid of ghosts, he would rather confront a ghost than go home. He was touched by his own firm determination and perseverance in pursuing happiness.
Although he didn’t know if the exorcism methods he used had worked, he really hadn’t encountered any ghosts in the past two days.
The urban village lacked proper planning, and at this hour, many people were setting up stalls by the roadside. Lan Yu bought some vegetables, then purchased twenty yuan worth of ribs and ten yuan worth of pork belly from the butcher shop. He decided to cook something nourishing for himself. Although the restaurant provided meals, because there were so many people, the staff meals were mass-produced “big pot” food. The taste was far inferior to the food made for customers, and even inferior to what he could make himself.
Lan Yu actually enjoyed cooking quite a bit. In his past life, he never had the chance. After transmigrating, he cooked at Zhou Hesheng’s house. Zhou Hesheng wasn’t very attentive and never realized that Lan Yu initially couldn’t even identify the seasonings and relied entirely on phone recipes. Later, Lan Yu secretly learned a few tricks from the chefs in the restaurant’s back kitchen. To his surprise, he was even praised by Zhou Hesheng, which was an unexpected delight for Lan Yu.
Finally returning to his rental unit, Lan Yu was sweating from exhaustion. Dealing with a broken leg and a cold was hard to withstand after all.
Lan Yu took his temperature: 37.2 degrees Celsius. Not quite a fever.
Looking at the comfortable little rental room he had set up, only a dozen or so square meters, Lan Yu felt incredibly satisfied.
“I’m back,” Lan Yu said to the original host as he lit incense for him, not forgetting to chat. “Your parents treated you badly, so from now on, let’s just live well by ourselves. Stop thinking about that Lingxi guy; he can live a good life without us.”
“Your parents are a bit scary. Is your family professional demon hunters or something? How can they release ghosts to urge someone to come home? They shouldn’t be working regular jobs; they should go directly into debt collection. If they changed careers, they’d make a killing. Why would they even care about the little bit of money I have?”
“If you died, then aren’t you a ghost now too? Please, I beg you, bless me. Can you make that ghostly thing stop appearing in front of me? My heart can’t take it.”
“When I have more money in a while, I’ll get you a beautiful altar table. Don’t say I don’t think about you.”
Lan Yu muttered to the original host while washing the meat and vegetables. It was about time to start cooking. He only had one induction cooker and one rice cooker. Making ribs and pork belly took time, so he had to start early.
His phone rang. Lan Yu glanced at it and picked up immediately. “Hello? Brother Duan?”
“How are you doing?” Duan Gaozhi’s voice came from the other end.
“Pretty good. What’s up? Is something wrong?” Lan Yu was worried he was being called back to work.
“Nothing, just asking. Isn’t your leg still bad? Yet you’re running around everywhere.” Duan Gaozhi didn’t speak loudly, but he sounded authoritative. Lan Yu felt a bit guilty listening to him.
“It’s fine, I’m safely home now,” Lan Yu said immediately.
“Alright then, just checking. You sound like you’re in good spirits. Ah, to be young.” Duan Gaozhi laughed.
“This is nothing.” In his past life, Lan Yu was hospitalized daily; he wasn’t there for fun. The suffering was real then. Now, this little cold didn’t even count as a minor scrape; he was completely fearless.
“Then take care of yourself. Call me if anything happens,” Duan Gaozhi said.
After hanging up, Lan Yu hugged his phone, feeling like he had met a god-tier manager. He even cared if he got home safely. It was a world of difference compared to that “Mom” who mentioned money within two sentences.
He would be an idiot to leave a city with a good big brother and a good boss, and a job where he could save his own money, just to run back and ask for trouble.
Thinking about how he had blocked his “parents,” Lan Yu was in a great mood.
In the small room, a simple cabinet stood in the corner, holding the induction cooker and pot. Lan Yu had pasted protective film on the walls to prevent oil splatters. There was no range hood, so having the wok right by the window allowed the fumes to vent out.
The pork rib and corn soup bubbled, releasing steam and blending the sweet scent of corn with the aroma of meat. Lan Yu had already sneaked several sips before taking it off the heat. Rock sugar went into the pan, and the fatty pork belly rolled in the wok, stir-fried until it took on a caramelized color before being stewed. The rice cooker, freed up after the soup, finished steaming the rice.
Finally, he simply stir-fried some small green vegetables. The emerald leaves tumbled quickly in the hot oil, sprinkled with a pinch of salt. Three dishes were set on the table. Even though the food belonged entirely to him, Lan Yu was anxious, his hands trembling as he scooped the rice, terrified someone would snatch his meal.
Lan Yu had never told Zhou Hesheng, but every time he finished cooking and looked at a table full of food, he desperately wanted to eat it all by himself!
But when he turned around holding his bowl of rice, Lan Yu froze.
In broad daylight, under the noon sun, the room was bright even without lights on. Yet, in this brightly lit room, layers of black shadows were constantly condensing. A tall, humanoid figure appeared right there in his small rental, instantly squeezing the already cramped space, devouring the light while asserting a powerful, impossible-to-ignore presence.
Lan Yu looked down at the dining table he had just set, then looked at the black shadow, unable to tell if it was dangerous or not.
He tried his best to force a smile, though it looked more like he was about to cry.
“Eat together?”
Translator’s note: I have to stop translating this because I realized this is being translated by someone else. You can read it here: Velicresrealm
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