Lin Huai fell into thought. “I see…”
“But if they want to ruin my reputation, kill my clones and stop me from completing my task…” Lin Huai let out a cold laugh. “Why should I negotiate with them? Even if they’re just clones, they’re still my clones. They’re my property. Since when did it become their place to deal with them? Oh, don’t misunderstand, you…”
Chu Tianshu spread his hands. “I’m on your side.”
Lin Huai paused. “…Mm.”
Since there was no conflict between his mission and Chu Tianshu’s, Lin Huai finally felt at ease. He gave Chu Tianshu a shove and said sincerely, “Right now, you’re the only normal person left by my side.”
He considered it carefully and felt that in a world like this, the existence of someone as normal as himself was something exceedingly precious. So he added, “Since they want to kill me, then I’ll have some proper fun with them. Come on, tonight, I’ll treat you to dinner…”
“How’s that one million coming along?”
Lin Huai quietly lowered his hand. “Still… still a little short…”
“A little?”
“Fine. A lot.” Lin Huai narrowed his eyes. “Up until now… mm, I’ve probably managed to get less than a hundred thousand.”
“A hundred thousand? That fast? Did you rob a bank?”
“If I could rob a bank, would I be this slow?” Lin Huai replied irritably. “The conditions are absolutely perverse. I can’t obtain it legally and I can’t rely solely on violence either. There’s also a mandatory requirement that I have to ‘toy with other people’s feelings.’ If it weren’t for that, I’d have already…”
“Toy with feelings?!” Chu Tianshu was greatly shocked and his face darkened almost instantly. “Whose feelings did you toy with?”
“Why are you reacting so strongly?” Lin Huai said lightly. “After school, I’ll take you to see.”
Chu Tianshu: …
He suddenly fell silent.
Lin Huai looked at his pensive expression and asked, “What are you thinking about?”
“Selling second hand cars,” Chu Tianshu replied.
Lin Huai blinked. “…Why would you sell second hand cars?”
“So that I can be deceived by you emotionally,” Chu Tianshu said swiftly.
Lin Huai: …
Thus, their utterly ordinary first day at Liangchuan Middle School came to an end.
The moment the dismissal bell rang, Gu Beichen and Ji Fengjian slung their backpacks over their shoulders and strode out of the classroom like arrows released from a bow.
Closely following behind them were Ye Xiangxiang and Qiu Ran. They seemed to share the same destination as Gu Beichen.
After Zhang Mingge also left the classroom, the only players remaining inside were Chu Tianshu, the Unorthodox master and the slow reacting Qu Mei.
The Unorthodox master watched helplessly as Chu Tianshu, who had been unusually silent ever since returning from the rooftop, tapped on Lin Huai’s desk.
“Let’s go,” Chu Tianshu said. “Let me see how you’re making money.”
“Oh, sure.” Lin Huai nodded. “But it’s not dark yet… Should we head to the commercial district first? I’ll treat you to a meal?”
“It’s not even dark yet… Do you have to wait until nightfall to make money?”
“What else?” Lin Huai looked at him as if the question made no sense at all. “There are certain things that aren’t very convenient to do in broad daylight…”
Chu Tianshu opened his mouth as if to speak, then stopped. He tried again, only to fall silent once more. In the end, he swallowed all of his complicated emotions and suffering back down into his chest.
As the two of them left the classroom side by side, the Unorthodox master could still hear their conversation drifting faintly through the corridor.
“Why does your face look so awful?”
“It’s nothing. I just think that after dark, boys really shouldn’t wander around outside too much…”
Their voices faded into the hallway.
The Unorthodox master turned to Qu Mei’s puppet. “We…”
“Let’s go back to the dormitory,” the puppet said in a dull, muffled voice.
“Huh?”
Behind the “Qu Mei” that ordinary people could see, there stretched invisible threads formed from condensed spiritual power. They passed through walls, extended into the sky and finally settled in the hands of a boy standing atop a building a hundred meters away, clad in a pitch black cloak.
The boy’s entire face was concealed beneath the hood pulled low over his head, revealing only a sharp, delicate chin. At his side stood another of his puppets.
If one did not look too closely, that figure appeared almost indistinguishable from a living person in life, his complexion even carried a healthy flush and his expression was neither stiff nor lifeless but quiet and subdued. He stood behind the boy like a silent sculpture.
Seated at the edge of the building, the boy’s eyes beneath the hood gazed toward the road below, where students were heading home under the glow of the setting sun.
On that road were the figures of Lin Huai and Chu Tianshu. They walked through a sea of gazes, some filled with envy, some with admiration, some with jealousy, others shadowed with darker emotions. The sunset stretched their shadows long across the pavement.
It should have been an exquisitely picturesque scene and yet, Chu Tianshu’s face was dark as the bottom of a scorched pot. Every time Lin Huai turned around to look at him, however, he would immediately produce a bright, hearty smile, perfectly timed.
“Heh heh heh… Hahahahaha…”
Qu Mei touched the scar on his neck. After spending the entire day in a sullen mood due to Chu Tianshu’s threats, he finally let out a laugh of genuine delight.
“Of course you choose to forgive him,” he curled his lips upward, revealing a look brimming with malice and schadenfreude. “I knew it, so that’s how it is…”
He was just about to burst into louder laughter when, at that very moment, the young man walking along the road below suddenly lifted his head and shot him a cold glance.
In that instant, it felt as though countless threads inside his mind snapped all at once. The boy screamed, curling up on the rooftop as blood poured from his nose and mouth. He nearly tumbled off the building.
A flash of murderous intent was caught by Lin Huai’s nerves.
He looked at Chu Tianshu. “What’s wrong with you?”
Chu Tianshu lifted his foot and glanced at the sole. “Accidentally stepped on an ant.”
“Oh?”
Lin Huai still looked slightly suspicious yet at that moment, from deep within a nearby alleyway, a sudden white flash flickered.
Lin Huai: …
“Wait here,” Lin Huai said briskly. “I’ll deal with something minor.”
Cracking his knuckles with sharp, crisp sounds, he sneered and strode into the alley.
A series of scalp tingling screams soon erupted from within.
A chubby otaku clutching a camera was kicked out of the alley, dragged by the collar in Lin Huai’s grasp.
“So it’s been you sneaking photos of me this entire week?” Lin Huai lifted the fat man by his ear and clicked his tongue. “Finally caught you.”
“Lin… Lin…” The bruised and swollen man stammered through split lips. “Spare… spare…”
“A digital camera? You can’t even afford a proper DSLR? If you’re going to stalk someone, at least do it properly. Being this broke is just laughable.” Lin Huai hurled the camera onto the ground and crushed it under his heel until it shattered completely. “Pathetic.”
With that, he planted his foot squarely on the stalker’s body. Lowering his head, he said expressionlessly, “If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
He lifted his foot but the fat man continued to mumble indistinctly, “Lin… Lin…”
“I told you to get lost. Didn’t you hear me?” Lin Huai sneered. “I’m in a good mood today, so I’m sparing your life…”
“N… no…”
“Don’t want me to kill you?”
The fat man struggled to raise his head, trembling fingers pushing up the broken frame of his glasses. In his eyes bloomed something like a flower of hope. “Don’t stop! Senior! Keep stepping on me!”
Lin Huai: …
“Step on me harder!”
“Bang!”
Chu Tianshu walked forward expressionlessly. After knocking the fat man unconscious with a clean strike, he dragged him over and tossed him into a trash bin, swiftly slamming the lid shut.
“Garbage disposed of,” he said, patting Lin Huai on the shoulder. Lin Huai was currently rubbing his shoe frantically against the grass, horror written all over his face. “Let’s go.”
“I’m contaminated. I’m contaminated… Wait… Did your hand just touch the trash can? You haven’t washed it, have you?”
Under Lin Huai’s increasingly panicked stare, Chu Tianshu slowly lowered his hand.
As he wiped his fingers, however, his gaze drifted toward a notice posted on the wall.
“Recently, residents are advised to return home early in the evenings. A red clad female ghost has been roaming the town committing crimes? If you have any information, please promptly notify the public security authorities?”
Beneath the text was a blurry photograph of a woman in a long dress.
He stared at the notice for a long moment, scratching his chin thoughtfully.
There’s another female ghost in this town?
For some reason… he couldn’t shake the feeling that something about this was strange.
Half an hour later, the two of them arrived in the bustling downtown district. The streets shimmered with dazzling lights and magnificent shopping centers lined the roads one after another.
Lin Huai stopped in front of a glass display window.
“Look at this,” he said, crouching down and pointing at one of the diamonds inside. “One hundred thousand. Tsk, tsk, tsk… If I could swindle ten of these, my mission would be complete…”
Chu Tianshu bent down as well, studying the pile of glittering stones in the display case.
“They’re really beautiful,” Lin Huai murmured again.
Chu Tianshu shook his head. “Too small. Look at this one instead.”
He pointed at the largest pair of gold set earrings in the window. “See? This one’s so much bigger. Same price but five times the size, way more cost effective and it’s set in gold. If you don’t want it anymore, you can melt it down and resell it. Though with a stone this big hanging from your ear, it’d probably feel a bit heavy…”
Lin Huai stared at him. “…What kind of straight guy aesthetic is that? I’m thirsty.”
“Oh.” Chu Tianshu scratched his head. “There’s a vending machine nearby. I’ll grab a couple cans of Coke?”
Lin Huai sat by the street, spacing out and basking in the steady stream of gazes directed at him from passersby. However, Chu Tianshu did not return for quite some time.
After driving away the fifth wave of people attempting to strike up a conversation, Chu Tianshu finally came back, carrying two bottles of Coke.
Along with him, he was also holding a tightly wrapped paper box.
“What’s that?” Lin Huai asked. “Don’t tell me you actually bought that giant gold thing to hang from my ears?”
Chu Tianshu grinned smugly.
He tore open the packaging and opened the box toward Lin Huai. “Look!”
Lin Huai fell silent as he stared at the pair of sneakers inside.
“…You,” he said carefully, weighing each word, “bought… a pair of sneakers? You… bought me… a pair of sneakers?”
“Yeah,” Chu Tianshu replied frankly. “You said your shoes got dirty, so I grabbed these for you while I was at it. I’m a pretty good bro, right?”
…Lin Huai lowered his head to glance at his canvas shoes. When he remembered the camera wielding fat stalker from earlier, he couldn’t help but shudder.
In the end, with a complicated mix of emotions swirling inside him, he slowly raised a thumb toward Chu Tianshu.
Chu Tianshu stood in the plaza drinking Coke while Lin Huai ran to the nearest restroom to change his shoes. When Lin Huai came out, Chu Tianshu immediately gave him another thumbs up.
“I told you this”
“Makes my legs look longer?” Lin Huai asked.
Chu Tianshu paused. “…They’ve got air cushions in the soles. They’re comfortable.”
Lin Huai: …
“Let’s go eat.” Lin Huai glanced around, only to be abruptly flashed again by a burst of white light.
This time, it was a boy with ear studs, his face twisted in resentment and disgust, holding up a phone.
Lin Huai considered it for a moment. Since he was in a good mood today, he decided not to make a fuss.
“Let’s go,” Lin Huai said after checking his phone. “Time to eat.”
“What do you feel like having?”
“Mm…” Lin Huai pondered. “Western food?”
The two chatted as they walked, brushing past the boy with the ear studs.
An hour later, they emerged happily from McDonald’s.
“It’s getting dark,” Lin Huai observed, looking up at the gradually dimming sky. A smile curled across his lips. “Time to find some unlucky rich sucker, lure him into an alley and then…”
Bang!
The explosive pop of a bursting Coke cup startled Lin Huai. He stared at the crushed and twisted paper cup that had slipped from Chu Tianshu’s hand. “What happened?”
“Too much pressure, I guess.”
Chu Tianshu released his grip, letting the mangled cup roll to the ground. Then he asked, “You said you were going to do what??”
“Huh?” Lin Huai looked at him, puzzled. “Then rob him blind. What else?”
Chu Tianshu: …
“So…” he began cautiously, “the thing you said couldn’t be done before dark, is this what you meant?”
“What else? Rob someone in broad daylight?” Lin Huai pointed at the wall. “It’s too easy for surveillance cameras to capture your face clearly.”
Chu Tianshu: …
…When you put it that way, it actually sounds pretty normal, Chu Tianshu thought and then, for some reason, he recalled a certain notice posted on a wall.
His expression twisted once more.
While the two of them were chatting, Ji Fengjian sat in the small garden at the center of the street, looking deeply troubled.
He held his phone in his hand. On the screen was an electronic copy of the student roster. It contained the students’ names, home addresses and two inch ID photos.
“…Not this one. Not this one either…” He scratched his head irritably. “Damn it, there isn’t even a student named Tomie here.”
But according to the examiner, “Tomie” was among these students. That meant she had to be one of the girls listed, just not directly named as such. In other words, he would have to identify the real Tomie from among several hundred female students.
“Pretty ones… pretty ones…” He scrolled impatiently, his brows knit tight. “Hm… this one looks decent.”
The screen paused on a second year student named Jiang Rou. In the photo, she wore her black hair at shoulder length. Her peach blossom eyes were soft and affectionate. Beneath the corner of her eye was a vivid red tear mole.
Aside from her, Ji Fengjian also identified several other beautiful girls who shared similar traits, long black hair, tear mole. After writing down their names in his notebook, he turned off his phone.
“I’ll check the first one today… do a little investigating,” he muttered to himself, then set off toward the home of the first girl on his list, Jiang Rou.
Jiang Rou’s home was located in a remote area. To reach it, he had to pass through several dark alleyways.
However, when he was still a few hundred meters away, he suddenly heard a scream.
“Ah!”
A woman’s scream pierced through the air, instantly triggering his nerves.
“Who’s there?”
✦ ✧ ✦
Cresvynia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
No pressure. Just a tiny coffee-shaped bribe. ☕
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 111 · Although the author really didn’t want to writeChapter 112 · An explanation of the main storylineChapter 113 · Lin Huai’s QuestionChapter 114 · Hello classmateChapter 115 · Let me introduce the protagonist’s family backgroundChapter 116 · The innocent and naive Lin XiaohuaiChapter 117 · The Trisolarans ArriveChapter 118 · He Isn’t Fighting AloneChapter 119 · Why Here?Chapter 120 · A World Where Everyone Is Sculpted in ClayChapter 121 · How Could It Be YouChapter 122 · I want to sell my carChapter 123 · The Mysterious Transfer StudentsChapter 124 · Gu BeichenChapter 125 · The Male Lead of This StoryChapter 126 · A Voice Never Heard BeforeChapter 127 · You’re Tomie, aren’t you?Chapter 128 · I’ll give youChapter 129 · I just want to be with youChapter 130 · The Principal’s OfficeChapter 131 · Chu: I Disbanded Your Hate GroupsChapter 132 · Speak ProperlyChapter 133 · A Trisolaran Enters the Grand View GardenChapter 134 · Ji FengjianChapter 135 · About Me and YouChapter 136 · Kayako Likes ItChapter 137 · YouChapter 138 · I’ll Beat MyselfChapter 139 · I Want to See MyselfChapter 140 · The Trisolarans’ First Experience of Love and SexChapter 141 · The Trisolarans Try Romance Once MoreChapter 142 · The Trisolarans Try Romance for the Third TimeChapter 143 · It’s All This Buff’s FaultChapter 144 · The Way You Straight Men TalkChapter 145 · Why are you taking it so seriously?Chapter 146 · Chu Tianshu Shows Off His MusclesChapter 147 · Enter the DreamChapter 148 · Leave a little secretChapter 149 · Shadow StreamerChapter 150 · Don’t Look at MeChapter 151 · The Trisolarans betrayed StalinChapter 152 · Then I WillChapter 153 · The Trisolarans rewrite the Book of Life and DeathChapter 154 · What Career Could Be More Important Than Your Wife?Chapter 155 · Aren’t We Already Together?Chapter 156 · MVP of the Entire FieldChapter 157 · Meeting the FamilyChapter 158 · A Phone Call Across Time and SpaceChapter 159 · Lu Jin, You’re So MiserableChapter 160 · The Lands Of DaughtersChapter 161 · The So Called Pregnancy StreamChapter 162 · The Street Where Only the Two of Us ExistChapter 163 · No bare faceChapter 164 · Question 1: Do you have hair loss?Chapter 165 · LaxativesChapter 166 · Where Exactly Do You Exist?Chapter 167 · Seven ZeroChapter 168 · The issue of 0 and 1Chapter 169 · Wind ChimeChapter 170 · Visa and Wind ChimesChapter 171 · Continue to persecute Lu JinChapter 172 · Examiner: I’ve fallen in love with himChapter 173 · Lin Huai intimidates scalpersChapter 174 · Night of EvilChapter 175 · Congratulations to the Male Guests on Successfully Finding Their PartnersChapter 176 · Before ThisChapter 177 · The gong says he is terrifiedChapter 178 · The Tasker CampChapter 179 · I’m So ScaredChapter 180 · The Final Transitional ChapterChapter 181 · Four Beauties Among the FlowersChapter 182 · Plum FragranceChapter 183 · Dry Weather and Flammable ThingsChapter 184 · The Heartless Sword ManualChapter 185 · Only MeChapter 186 · The North PoleChapter 187 · Let Brother Lin Learn to Meow Like a CatChapter 188 · Good Night