“What are you doing, are you trying to scald me to death?!”
A furious roar suddenly burst out from inside the restaurant’s private room, instantly drawing the attention of dining customers and staff.
At the front desk, Lan Yu was familiarizing himself with the computer system and practicing how to use the cashier. Hearing the shout from the private room, he saw the receptionist beside him head over to check and he hesitated for a moment, unsure whether he should also go take a look or stay at his post.
But the shouting grew louder and louder. It was only an unfamiliar male customer yelling and from the sounds of it, the person being scolded was one of their service staff. Lan Yu saw Duan Gaozhi walk over quickly to handle the situation.
“What happened?” Lan Yu asked when the front desk staff returned.
“When the dishes were being served, a kid ran around and bumped into Xiao Lin. Xiao Lin couldn’t hold the plates steady, they flipped over and one of the guests got splashed.”
Lan Yu’s heart skipped. “Was he badly scalded?”
“No, the chair back blocked most of it, just a splash. The guy’s been drinking though, so he’s probably looking for trouble.”
Hearing this, Lan Yu relaxed slightly. With the restaurant serving all kinds of customers every day, incidents were common. Fortunately, Duan Gaozhi was very good at handling guests.
But this time, the situation did not resolve quickly. Lan Yu heard another bellow coming from the private room:
“Waving the bill won’t make this magically disappear! What kind of training do you give your staff? They can’t even hold a dish properly! Useless trash… And what do you mean my kid bumped into him? Is he blind that he couldn’t see a child running? Useless and blind and still allowed to serve customers? Your crappy restaurant must think your guests are easy to bully, huh? Let me make it clear, I got scalded! If you don’t compensate me, don’t think I’ll let this go!”
“It was clearly your child… ”
Lan Yu vaguely heard Lin Zixi trying to defend himself but his voice quickly faded. Obviously, he couldn’t argue with the customer.
Lan Yu grew anxious. Unable to hold back, he grabbed a wooden cane beside him and stood up, wanting to go check on Lin Zixi and Duan Gaozhi.
As he reached the doorway of the private room, a thick wave of alcohol fumes mixed with the man’s angry shouting rushed out first. Lan Yu stepped forward twice and finally saw the disruptive customer inside.
The man was middle-aged, around thirty or forty, with a beer belly. He was tall and heavily built, standing near the doorway with an oppressive presence. His face and neck were flushed, making him look less angry and more completely drunk.
The man held an empty beer bottle in his hand, pointing it threateningly at Lin Zixi while yelling, “You, get over here!”
Because the customer was holding the beer bottle like a weapon, Duan Gaozhi and the others kept a safe distance, avoiding provoking him further.
Lan Yu looked around, the other people sitting at the same table as the man were completely indifferent, watching him make a scene with cold expressions. None of them tried to intervene. They didn’t look like close friends and the situation had reached a stalemate. Only Duan Gaozhi was still trying to calm the man down.
“Talk talk talk, that’s all you do! Get lost!” The man’s temper only worsened, Duan Gaozhi’s attempts at soothing him acting like fuel poured onto a fire.
Lan Yu saw the constantly swinging beer bottle and grew even more nervous. “Manager Duan… should we call the police…?”
The moment Lan Yu’s voice fell, the man suddenly smashed the beer bottle against the table beside him with a loud crack. The bottle shattered, fragments scattering everywhere. He lifted the jagged, broken bottle and pointed it toward Lan Yu, roaring, “Mind your damn business!”
Lan Yu stood three or four meters away. The broken glass posed no real threat from that distance but Duan Gaozhi immediately stepped in front of him protectively. “Go back, ”
Before he could finish, a piercing scream erupted.
“AAAAAHHHHH!”
It was the male customer.
The sudden, sharp scream made everyone present flinch. Lan Yu also jerked in shock.
Everyone thought the man was about to go berserk but instead, the broken bottle slipped from his hand and clattered onto the floor. The man crouched halfway down, clutching his wrist with both hands, howling in pain. It wasn’t madness, it was a raw, agonized wail.
“My hand, my hand! Ahhhhhh, my hand!!!” The man screamed, gripping his own arm like his life depended on it.
Lan Yu noticed it immediately…
The man’s hand was broken, completely broken. His forearm bent at a grotesque, unnatural angle. Blood streamed down along his sleeve. If not for his long sleeves, Lan Yu felt he might have been able to see the actual bone.
“What happened? Call emergency services now!” Even Duan Gaozhi was stunned.
No one had touched the man yet his hand had broken, suddenly, violently, grotesquely. It was too abrupt, too bizarre. Everyone around was shocked silly, panicking as chaos filled the room.
After Duan Gaozhi rushed the man to the hospital with help, only a mess was left behind, food spills, fragments of glass and streaks of blood staining the floor.
“No one touched him, right? He broke his hand himself, obviously. Must’ve twisted it, smashing the bottle,” Lin Zixi said after they returned.
He couldn’t sleep at all. Even though the restaurant continued operating normally until closing, he couldn’t shake the incident from his mind. “And it was his kid who ran into me! How is that my fault? The kid hit me from behind, I don’t have eyes on the back of my head!”
“Mhm. Mhm.” Lan Yu didn’t fully understand the complicated situation either but he could feel Lin Zixi’s anxiety. Lin Zixi was clearly shaken.
He had already repeated the same few sentences several times. Lan Yu wasn’t good at comforting people, so all he could do was listen and give simple acknowledgments.
Manager Duan still hadn’t returned from the hospital and they had no idea how the situation would end up, so it was no wonder Lin Zixi couldn’t rest.
“You think his arm was just that brittle? Maybe he already had bone problems before this. Maybe he was trying to scam us!” Lin Zixi said again.
“I don’t know but it was definitely strange.” Lan Yu nodded once more, because it was the truth.
“Do you think this could be considered my fault?” Lin Zixi grabbed his hair in frustration.
“I don’t think it was your fault… ” Lan Yu said again. No one had eyes in the back of their head. Carrying heavy plates and suddenly getting hit from behind, no one could guarantee what might happen.
Lan Yu also remembered that while the man was screaming earlier, the child had curled up in a woman’s arms, the boy’s mother, apparently, who showed no reaction at all to the man’s aggressive behavior.
“Right? No one touched him, yeah? His hand broke on its own, right?!” Lin Zixi sought reassurance once again.
“Mhm. It broke on its own.” Lan Yu nodded firmly.
From his angle, the man had still been raising the broken beer bottle, steady enough to aim it at him. How could a hand be strong enough for that one second, only to snap the next?
In front of so many witnesses, the angle of his arm changed abruptly, his forearm slackened, dropping completely out of his control and just… broke.
If one insisted on claiming it happened when he smashed the bottle… Why the strange delay?
Lin Zixi sighed again, he didn’t even know how many times he’d done so.
“Sorry,” he said, “I’ve been clinging onto you like this. You’re still injured too.”
“It’s fine.” Lan Yu’s injured leg rested on the bed; talking didn’t make it hurt.
“You’ve been listening to me rant this whole time.” Lin Zixi checked the time. They had been back for over an hour and Lan Yu had listened to this same topic for the entire hour. Feeling a bit embarrassed, his gaze drifted and landed on the snack bag hanging at Lan Yu’s bedside. “You don’t like snacks?”
“I do.. ” Lan Yu replied.
“Then why aren’t you eating the ones I bought you? With that amount, I’d finish everything in two or three hours,” Lin Zixi said.
“Because I like eating them, I want to save them and make them last.” Lan Yu answered honestly.
Lin Zixi opened his mouth, wanting very much to tell Lan Yu that if he finished them, he could just buy more but then he remembered the looming question of whether he would have to pay compensation and his words died in his throat. His mood sank a little.
Just then, the dormitory door suddenly opened. Lan Yu and Lin Zixi both turned to look and saw Duan Gaozhi returning.
“Brother Duan.” The moment the previously grumbling Lin Zixi saw Duan Gaozhi, all of his bravado instantly deflated. He asked anxiously, “How… how did things go?”
“Ahh.. hard to say.” Duan Gaozhi began taking off his jacket as he spoke. “I’ll take a shower first.”
There was actually a bed for Duan Gaozhi in this dorm as well but he practically never stayed here. Only if it was far too late to bother going home would he sleep here for a night.
Tonight, the other dorm mates had all left, leaving only Lan Yu and Lin Zixi. Seeing how nervous Lin Zixi became when Duan Gaozhi returned, Lan Yu couldn’t help growing tense as well.
Duan Gaozhi came out of the bathroom wiping his hair carelessly, steam still clinging to him as he sat down on the bed.
“There’s surveillance footage and it’s clear. The matter isn’t easy to handle. Even though the guy was unreasonable and making trouble, the injury did happen inside our restaurant. Eight or nine times out of ten, we’ll have to compensate him. We still have to discuss it further.”
“Brother Duan… will I have to pay?” Clearly, Lin Zixi was terrified.
“Can you afford to?” The words weren’t pleasant but Duan Gaozhi wasn’t mocking him, just stating the simple truth.
“I… I can’t afford it.” Lin Zixi scratched his head in misery. “My family doesn’t care about me at all. If I really had to pay, I’d have no choice but to take on the debt.”
After living with Lin Zixi for a while, Lan Yu knew he was the only one who hadn’t rented a separate place and lived directly in the dorm. He had no financial planning.
Whenever he received his salary, he would spend freely for a few days and then live in poverty for the rest of the month. He had no savings whatsoever. Lan Yu had never seen him contact his family either.
“Forget it, sleep. Don’t think about it too much.” Clearly irritated and exhausted, Duan Gaozhi didn’t even wait for his hair to dry before turning off the lights and going to bed.
In the darkness, Lan Yu and Lin Zixi exchanged a look. Lin Zixi whispered, “Do you need any help with anything?”
“No.” Lan Yu touched the leg encased in plaster. He didn’t have anything he needed help with.
“Then… I’ll sleep.”
Lin Zixi lay down but Lan Yu could easily hear the disappointment in his voice.
Lan Yu lay down too but he didn’t feel sleepy at all. Because Duan Gaozhi was there, he felt too self-conscious to pull out his phone and watch computer-learning videos and hearing Lin Zixi tossing and turning in frustration beside him, he didn’t dare make a sound either.
Lan Yu blinked in the darkness, his thoughts drifting back to the bits Lin Zixi had let slip about his family. Was the world really full of parents who didn’t care about their children? Lin Zixi was one example and so was the original owner of this body.
Lan Yu thought again of the constant whispers he’d been hearing, “go home.” He had considered it many times, wondering if perhaps the original owner was trying to hint at him, urging him to return but the voice clearly felt like something… someone… else entirely. Another presence speaking to him.
Lan Yu didn’t want to go back.
From the original owner’s perspective, Lan Yu didn’t believe the original owner would have wanted to go back either.
Even setting aside the original family’s cold neglect and lack of affection, even if it had been a warm and loving home, Lan Yu still wouldn’t want to return. That wasn’t his home. Even if love existed there, he wouldn’t be able to accept it.
Since he was the one living now, he didn’t want to go back at all.
He thought of the little heart the shadowy figure had drawn for him… and refused to think deeper.
As he lay there, he slowly retracted his hand beneath the blanket. After some time, he pulled the covers over his head as well.
Half-asleep, half-awake, Lan Yu slowly felt the air around him growing colder and colder.
✦ ✧ ✦
Cresvynia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
The translator has entered their coffee-deprived final form. (╥﹏╥)
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
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ChaptersChapter 1 · Who wants to go back to be a minor plot device?Chapter 2 · StartChapter 3 · I’m terrified of ghostsChapter 4 · Do ghosts exist in this world?Chapter 5 · ShadowChapter 6 · There’s something wrong with how this book is dressedChapter 7 · The ghost drew a heart for himChapter 8 · Make troubleChapter 9 · Don’t scare me!Chapter 10 · I’d rather be scared to death than go backChapter 11 · Want to eat together?Chapter 12 · A cleaning ghostChapter 13 · Regret it now?Chapter 14 · ParentsChapter 15 · Find FaultChapter 16 · Ghostly photos?Chapter 17 · Nickname: White ShadowChapter 18 · A haunted taxi?Chapter 19 · Extreme fear turns to angerChapter 20 · I used to be a messChapter 21 · Best friendChapter 22 · Turning pointChapter 23 · The threat of ghostsChapter 24 · It’s not a ghost, it’s eerinessChapter 25 Part 1 · First time entering the eerie houseChapter 25 Part 2 · First time entering the eerie houseChapter 26 · Borrow moneyChapter 27 · He’s jealousChapter 28 · RetributionChapter 29 · Revenge from a Strange SourceChapter 30 Part 1 · How could you be so carelessChapter 30 Part 2 · How could you be so carelessChapter 31 Part 1 · What would happen if I ran away from home again?Chapter 31 Part 2 · What would happen if I ran away from home again?Chapter 32 Part 1 · Firmly uphold the right to privacyChapter 32 Part 2 · Firmly uphold the right to privacyChapter 33 Part 1 · The brother who brought down death to protect his belovedChapter 33 Part 2 · The brother who brought down death to protect his belovedChapter 34 Part 1 · Being secretly massaged by a shadowy figure in publicChapter 34 Part 2 · Being secretly massaged by a shadowy figure in publicChapter 35 Part 1 · Go to my dear older brother and sister’s bedroomChapter 35 Part 2 · Go to my dear older brother and sister’s bedroomChapter 36 Part 1 · Being favored by everyone in the eerie houseChapter 36 Part 2 · Being favored by everyone in the eerie houseChapter 37 · We must protect our precious childChapter 38 · It’s too tragic, I can’t bear to watch anymoreChapter 39 · Because of the unique companionshipChapter 40 · The first meeting with the admirer of the protagonistChapter 41 · It’s eerie, but they’re all real family members!Chapter 42 · Using the eerie house to get a cheat codeChapter 43 · The baby’s crying after getting drunk is so cute!Chapter 44 · A traitorChapter 45 · All family members can help the baby.Chapter 46 · When the family is happy, they will hug their waistChapter 47 · Ear piercings were adornedChapter 48 · Treasure are the most precious itemsChapter 49 · Revenge is not an easy thing to doChapter 50 · Because I couldn’t see his faceChapter 51 · One of his brothers is a continuous mountain rangeChapter 52 · How could we possibly run into characters from the original storyChapter 53 · The gems my brother gave me piled up into a small mountainChapter 54 · One can feel an overwhelming sense of superiority.Chapter 55 · Sleeping with a shadowy figure means you won’t be afraid of ghosts at allChapter 56 · The fireworks display to celebrate my baby was absolutely devastating!Chapter 57 · It wasn’t this restaurant that treated us; it was another oneChapter 58 · His super-rich older sister paid for his treat!Chapter 59 · He’s different from beforeChapter 60 · It’s all so weird, isn’t it normal for people to want to disappear?Chapter 61 · Wen JieChapter 62 · Has the identity of this strange child been discovered?Chapter 63 · Those who make their child angry are unforgivableChapter 64 · Being too inquisitive about other people’s private affairs will bring you troubleChapter 65 · A person not to be covetedChapter 66 · Can you bridge the racial divide by staying close to your family?Chapter 67 · What to do if my child doesn’t want to celebrate their birthday?Chapter 68 · The baby is also a second-generation, a bizarre second-generation!Chapter 69 · We are clearly each other’s only friendsChapter 70 · The House of Eeries really did throw a ridiculously huge birthday partyChapter 71 · Why would he feel competitive towards his friend?Chapter 72 · Try to appease the jealous shadow.Chapter 73 · If you’re going to take revenge, you should do it in front of him!Chapter 74 · Now that things have come to thisChapter 75 · My baby’s travel is strange and worryingChapter 76 · One of the older brothers who crawled into the suitcase and followedChapter 77 · He resolutely refused to leave his abandoned brotherChapter 78 · I don’t want my baby to see my terrifying true formChapter 79 · I love hugging you like this.Chapter 80 · It’s a good thing to know you.Chapter 81 · Does my brother also want to go out and have some fun?Chapter 82 · His Older brother?Chapter 83 · Xiao Ming!Chapter 84 · I’m doing great as long as the original text doesn’t go crazyChapter 85 · What’s there to be afraid of when everything’s shrouded in eeriness?Chapter 86 · Let’s have a fight for the sake of the original ownerChapter 87 · How did they know he wasn’t the original owner?Chapter 88 Part 1 · Was the shadowy figure injured?Chapter 88 Part 2 · Was the shadowy figure injured?Chapter 88 Part 3 · Was the shadowy figure injured?Chapter 89 Part 1 · To inflict countless severe emotional blows on someoneChapter 89 Part 2 · To inflict countless severe emotional blows on someoneChapter 91 Part 1 · He was like a human in a supernatural taleChapter 91 Part 2 · He was like a human in a supernatural taleChapter 92 · Someone is secretly using underhanded tacticsChapter 93 · The right people I once followedChapter 94 · Let go of your prejudices against the protagonist.Okay! How come on one complain that we can’t right click the link and open a it in a new webapge??Chapter 95 · Favoritism from his current friendsChapter 96 · The baby is going to marry into our familyChapter 97 · The idea of falling in loveChapter 98 · Want to replace your baby?Chapter 99 · What’s wrong with double happiness?!Chapter 100 · It’s just a matter of raceChapter 101 · I need to balance dating and studying!Chapter 102 · After the shadowy figure gained a physical bodyChapter 103 · Confess your love to the eerie house!Chapter 104 · Even with such pampering, your baby still lacks a sense of security.Chapter 105 · How much help did he receive that he didn’t know about?Chapter 106 · You are not worthy to be the middlemanChapter 107 · Is there anything wrong with me being petty?Chapter 108 · You can have both love and studies!Chapter 109 · Suppressed and restrained desiresChapter 110 · What does an unforgettable yet ordinary date need?