Jiang Luo still had a bit of vigilance leftover in his heart.
It was already very late. The policemen were very considerate. They had arranged a hotel for them to let them rest.
The moon was bright; stars were sparse1月明星稀 – an idiom that is just a pretty way of saying that it was night time. Originated from a poem.. Jiang Luo looked at the ceiling with his hands clasped behind his head. The memory of the boss’s wife flashed through his mind again.
Protection.
That was the only reason that could make a mother tenaciously crawl out and get up again to stand beside her child.
That sort of emotion was too unfamiliar to Jiang Luo. He didn’t have many friends, and he had never experienced any kind of familial affection. Of course, he also thought that he didn’t need friends and was extremely apathetic towards familial affection. Even the colleagues from the design institute whom he had gotten along with for a long time, Jiang Luo had a good relationship with them on the surface, but those colleagues had never tried to understand Jiang Luo’s private life.
Living alone, dying alone; one person to feed, no family to starve; for Jiang Luo, these were the best circumstances to live life.
He slowly separated himself from these heavy emotions that didn’t belong to him and closed his eyes.
It was a peaceful night.
The next day, when they went downstairs for breakfast, a young policeman who looked to be in his twenties sat at their table and greeted them, “Steamed buns, dough fritters, and Hot and Sour soup2胡辣汤 – Hu La Tang, not exactly Hot and Sour Soup since the latter is just a derivative; you okay with these?”
Jiang Luo took a stick of dough fritter and tore it into smaller pieces, throwing them into Hu La Tang to soak. The young policeman said, “The owner of Hotel 129 woke up. His current mental state is pretty bad.”
The policeman showed them a video clip. The boss was lying on the hospital bed while holding his child, not letting go. His face was full of tears, he was completely flustered and panicked. “Wife, I’m so sorry. Wife…”
The child was so frightened by his father’s appearance that he burst into tears, wailing. The boss immediately hugged his kid tighter. He continuously stroked the child’s thin, soft hair. For a while, his tears flowed down silently.
With the excuse of his career, the boss had in reality ignored his family many times. When he had money, he had no time to spend with his family; when he had no money, he was too anxious and impatient to spend time with his family.
One day, the boss came up with a new way of doing publicity.
He planned to bring his old mother, who he hadn’t seen in a long time, to the hotel; shoot a few interesting videos of the old lady; and turn the old lady into an internet celebrity to attract customers. In today’s video shorts, people were more accepting of children and the elderly. As long as there was a reputation, it was possible that his hotel could become popular again.
The boss brought the old lady back to the hotel. He hadn’t lived with the old woman for a long time; however, they were mother and son after all. As time passed by, he felt more and more that something was wrong. The boss, however, didn’t put much attention into the feeling. All his thoughts were on the business; he figured that nothing major would happen even if he left it alone.
It was because of his neglect, because of his half-hearted thoughts, that resulted in these kinds of consequences.
Jiang Luo stared observantly as the black mist on the child’s arm gradually disappeared from sight amidst the owner’s cries. He swallowed the last bite of his dough fritter before turning his head to ask Ye Xun, “Did you see that?”
Ye Xun put down his steamed bun and indifferently looked back, “See what?”
“Black mist,” Jiang Luo said, “on the child’s left arm.”
Ye Xun frowned and stared intently at the child in the video. After a while, he shook his head, “I don’t see anything.”
Jiang Luo fell into deep thought.
Someone as skillful as Ye Xun couldn’t see the black mist. Even the original person had never seen anything like it, so why could he see it?
The only difference between him and the original was their souls. There was also Chi You’s death.
Was this change caused by the exchange of their souls, or was it because Chi You was beside him that allowed Jiang Luo to see the black mist?
Jiang Luo hoped it was the former.
After all, who wouldn’t want to be a genius.
After they finished eating, the young policeman smirked. He picked up a backpack from under the table and passed it to them, “We did a background check on the severed-head ghost, it hasn’t committed any crimes. We’ve consulted with it, and it wants to be brought back by you guys for the school to raise.”
The bag was placed in Jiang Luo’s arms. Jiang Luo pulled open the zipper and looked down. A head with a deathly pale appearance let out a shy smile, “Little friend, this humble one greets you3小生有礼 – ‘小生’ a humble way of young scholars referring to themselves. ‘有礼’ means have manners/is polite..”
Jiang Luo threw the bag to Lu Youyi, and apathetically said, “You take it.”
Lu Youyi held the severed-head ghost and contemplated, “Raise it? How? Should we bury it in the soil?”
The severed-head ghost burst into tears, “Yesterday, you called this one Ning Xiu lao ge. Today, you casually throw this one aside. This is reality ; the more beautiful the person is, the more they know how to hurt this humble one’s heart.”
Lu Youyi’s ears hurt. He zipped up the bag, “You’re so noisy.”
The young policeman continued, “This morning we searched all the washrooms in each room of Hotel 129. In each room we found the wrapped joss money4冥币 – [ming bi] another term for joss paper/money. It’s fake money used as burnt offerings for the dead. in the toilet tanks. We’ll investigate their source of clientele later to find out who used these methods, but you guys don’t need to worry about these things.”
Ye Xun nodded, “The window on the second floor of the hotel violates Feng Shui and attracts bad things5犯了窗口煞 – commits window shame; basically means that it attracts misfortune like burglary or accidents, among other things.. Tell him to place an ornament of Long’s fifth son ‘Pa Fu’6龙五子‘趴蝮’ – Long Sheng, a dragon who had nine sons. There’s different names and order for them depending on the area. Several times when researching I saw that Pa Fu was the sixth son or the eighth. by the window, it will sever the attraction.”
The young policeman wrote down his words one by one, then said with a brilliant smile, “It’s been hard on you students.”
After saying goodbye, the three people slowly prepared to go back.
On their way back to the university, Lu Youyi and Ye Xun had their heads down, playing with their phones the entire time. Jiang Luo thought it was strange. He moved closer to take a glimpse and discovered that they were texting in a group chat.
The chat’s name was “Have problems, please burn incense“7It was supposed to sound more sarcastic. Like if you have problems don’t call us, just burn incense; the number of members displayed was eight people.
The more Jiang Luo looked, the more familiar it became. Suddenly he realized, wasn’t this the class group chat that was blocked by the original owner?
He turned on his phone, flipped through and found the class group chat, he clicked into it and saw that the chat’s notifications were already at 99+.
Jiang Luo scrolled upwards. Goodness gracious! These people didn’t care at all that he was still in the group; the chat messages were all gossip about things between him and Chi You.
[Zhuo Zhongqiu: When are you guys coming back? Before seeing the person in question, I refuse to believe what you guys are saying about Chi You and Jiang Luo.]
[Ge Zhu: How strange, how strange8怪哉怪哉 – ‘怪’ strange; ‘哉’[zai] – a sound of exclamation.. How could I not have seen that these two have such a fate?]
Lu You typed like rapid fire: [Chi You died, of course they have no fate. In fact, Chi You ge‘s attitude was actually really obvious. It’s only that you guys just didn’t notice it. To be honest, I had long vaguely sensed that something wasn’t right. I just didn’t say anything.]
[Ye Xun: You only had bad things to say about Jiang Luo.]
Lu Youyi’s heart skipped a beat. He carefully and cautiously looked up from his phone and glanced at Jiang Luo. When he saw that there was nothing out of place on Jiang Luo’s face, he let out a sigh of relief. In the past, he had indeed scolded Jiang Luo a lot, but now he felt extremely guilty and didn’t dare to let Jiang Luo find out.
Because Lu Youyi discovered that Jiang Luo was not actually as bad as he had originally imagined.
Jiang Luo finished scrolling through the new notifications. It turned out that Lu Youyi and Ye Xun had told the story of his mutual secret love with Chi You to everyone in the group.
The people in the group were flabbergasted, not daring to believe that what the two of them said was true.
Chi You had long been deeply in love with Jiang Luo? He even took the initiative to confess to Jiang Luo?
All the times in the past, when he made Jiang Luo stay behind for make-up lessons, it was just in order to spend time with Jiang Luo in a two-person bubble?
Hahaha, were Ye Xun and Lu Youyi stuck in a nightmare9In this case they’re asking if Ye Xun and Lu Youyi have been trapped in a nightmare/parallel world created by a ghost.?
Compared with Chi You and Jiang Luo mutually liking each other, they were more willing to believe that Lu Youyi and Ye Xun were making up stories to deceive people.
[Zhuo Zhongqiu: How could Chi You possibly like Jiang Luo?]
Lu Youyi weakly answered: [Think about Jiang Luo’s face.]
After a few seconds of silence in the group, Lu Youyi awkwardly added: [Actually, Jiang Luo is not that bad.]
Ye Xun said: [Lu Youyi is right.]
Under the firm and certain words of the two people, the group’s original attitude of “don’t believe, sneer in contempt” changed to “half-believing, half-doubting”. Jiang Luo glanced at Ye Xun and Lu Youyi with reassurance, and knew that he did not choose the wrong person.
It was easy to fool both of them, but hard to fool the rest of the class.
No matter if it was the original person or the current Jiang Luo, to the people of the class, they were both outsiders. Lu Youyi, who had always hated Jiang Luo, and Ye Xun, who was indifferent to others, spoke up for him. Under these circumstances, the people in the class were more likely to believe the information that “Chi You liked Jiang Luo”.
Obviously it was better than Jiang Luo making his own testament.
CPs—if such things didn’t exist, would the sugar10 If you’re a newbie; Chinese netizens usually call sweet moments or interactions between two people in a perceived relationship as sugar, or dog food. derived from one’s own brain, be more realistic?
They were about to reach the school, Lu Youyi wiggled his sore fingers and sent out one last sentence, [We will reach the school soon, if you really don’t believe it, ask Jiang Luo yourselves. Besides, even if you don’t believe that Chi You would like Jiang Luo, you should at least believe in Chi You’s aesthetics.]
Jiang Luo: “…”
After crossing over, he didn’t know how many times he felt grateful towards this face of his.
Jiang Luo put away his phone and contemplated for a while on how he should act so that he could not only portray his love for Chi You, but also show the resolution of a scumbag, prodigal son willing to redeem himself.
Unlike Ye Xun and Lu Youyi, three of the remaining five members of the class were not easy to deal with.
One was Ge Zhu, a Taoist disciple; another was Zhuo Zhongqiu, the daughter of Zhuo Family who practised body and soul cultivation and was one of the six major sects; and the last was Wen Renlian, who was forever smiling yet no one was able to see through his thoughts.
One relied on intuition; one relied on experience; and the other relied on reading people’s thoughts; all of which were not easy to cheat.
Ten minutes later, the three people arrived at the university gates.
When they got out of the car, they saw a handsome guy standing just outside the school gates.
The handsome guy11 帅哥 – handsome brother was wearing a casual, short-sleeve shirt and shorts. His two ramrod legs were whiter than those of girls. He wore a cap, leaning against the wall as he dealt with a group of girls that surrounded him.
When Lu Youyi saw the handsome guy, he was speechless, “Actually came to pick us up, really so damn nosy.”
Jiang Luo squinted to see who the person was, but before he could see clearly, the handsome guy discovered them. He walked out from the group of girls and headed straight to them. He skillfully stuck out his hand as he greeted them, “Why would you guys bring back something like a ghost?”
His voice was husky and very gender-neutral, like being soaked in tobacco and whiskey.
The handsome guy was looking at the bag on Lu Youyi’s back, which contained the head of the decapitated ghost. The ghost had not done anything to reveal itself, yet the other party had already discovered its existence.
Ye Xun and Lu Youyi were not surprised; instead, Ye Xun complained slightly, “It’s been pestering Jiang Luo nonstop.”
The handsome dude looked towards Jiang Luo. He was slightly shorter than Jiang Luo, and at that moment had his head slightly raised. Beneath the bill of the cap was a sharp yet feminine face.
His eyes were sharp and discerning; his facial features were indistinguishable between that of a male or a female, yet his facial structure still faintly carried a soft, feminine atmosphere. It was only then that Jiang Luo realized that the handsome guy was actually a girl.
Zhuo Zhongqiu’s gaze that was still on Jiang Luo’s body thoroughly sized him up. She suddenly let out a whistle, “Chi You’s eyesight is pretty good.”
The group of girls, who were left behind, timidly caught up. They stopped only two metres away, all their faces were slightly blushing. “Senior Sister12学姐 – like sunbae or senpai, only with a gender distinction.…”
Helplessly, Zhuo Zhongqiu turned around to face them and pointed back at Jiang Luo, “Little sisters, Senior Sister prefers this kind of type.” She paused, then smiled, “Even better if they have big breasts. After all, Senior Sister has a flat chest herself.”
The girls’ cheeks flushed red. They all dispersed within one breath.
Lu Youyi: “… I’m so jealous.”
Ye Xun quietly nodded.
*
Zhuo Zhongqiu felt very curious towards Jiang Luo. On their way back, she asked him many questions, “So you’re saying that Chi You’s death was not really an accident?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, rubbed her chin, and then suddenly laughed, “Interesting.”
Jiang Luo also thought it was interesting, but he couldn’t let it show. He smiled. Suddenly, off to the side, he saw a young couple who were being intimate in a small alleyway. With a flash of inspiration, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
Zhuo Zhongqiu followed his line of sight and immediately understood, “Did you guys go here on a date before?”
The dark-haired, beautiful young man smiled, “It wasn’t a date.”
Chi You had indeed brought the original person here before; however, it was to humiliate the original in front of those ordinary students.
Jiang Luo looked at the flower shrubs with gentle eyes. He liked plants. It was for this reason that he had switched to landscape design after finishing his second year in design fundamentals.
After removing the excessive arrogance and look of conceit, his expression made him look like a dusty jewel that had been wiped clean by a silk cloth. It was a kind of dazzling transfiguration.
His eyes carried tenderness; his smile was like dew in the wind13含风带露 – this author really like the wax poetic; it’s a play on two sentences from different poems.. He looked ethereal; an otherworldly immortal who had a bit of concealed demonic14妖(yao) – different from an actual demon, this is similar to folklore fae, like japanese yokai. aura hidden in his bones. It was a contradictory sort of charm.
Zhuo Zhongqiu couldn’t help but look at him a few more times, thinking that love could really allow a person to be reborn. Even Jiang Luo, the scumbag, had renounced his prodigal ways. Just that, although the prodigal son returned, the gold couldn’t be regained. Zhuo Zhongqiu was not the kind of person who would inflexibly judge others.
She mistook Jiang Luo’s show of tenderness as his yearning for Chi You. She glanced at Jiang Luo’s neck again, and said tentatively, “I heard from Lu Youyi, Chi You appeared last night?”
The paramedic staff had wrapped two layers of gauze around the black-haired youth’s neck. He looked somewhat abstinent. He raised his hand and touched his neck. He thought of the last time he met Chi You, yet the smile on his face grew bigger and bigger, “Yeah, he was looking for me.”
There was an evil ghost who wanted to kill him and even strangled his neck until it became like this, yet Jiang Luo could still laugh. Zhuo Zhongqiu completely believed that he was in love with Chi You. Zhuo Zhongqiu felt a migraine as she massaged the middle of her eyebrows, “No way, you’re still laughing? He came for you because he wanted your life.”
WIth an expression of ‘I won’t listen, I won’t listen’, Jiang Luo stubbornly said, “Chi You won’t do anything bad to me, he just misses me.”
Zhuo Zhongqiu: “…” It was really exactly the same as the love brains in the group chat who only have love on their minds.
Lu Youyi couldn’t stand it any longer; hesitantly, he said, “But your neck…”
Jiang Luo let out a sweet smile and gently spoke. “This was just because he was too excited. I know, he didn’t mean it.”
Zhuo Zhongqiu shifted over to Ye Xun’s side, and secretly pointed at her head, “Did Chi You slip him a bewitching potion15迷魂汤 – Another version of Granny Meng’s Soup that people drink after they die to erase their memories. This version is also used to mesmerise and bewitch people. or something?”
Ye Xun sighed, “He likes Chi You a lot and feels guilty towards him. I’m afraid that if Chi You really wanted him to die, he’d die without hesitation.”
“That won’t work,” Zhuo Zhongqiu made an immediate decision. “We must not let Chi You kill Jiang Luo.”
Even if it were just for the sake of Chi You, they could not just stand there and watch him do such a thing.
This was definitely not the other party’s original intention. Chi You had already transformed into a ghost. The idea of killing his lover and having his lover accompany him may have already become his obsession. They must stop Chi You, lest he remember his actions once he regain his senses and fall into the abyss of regret and suffering.
Zhuo Zhongqiu and Ye Xun looked at each other and nodded tacitly.
The old campus of Baihua University was located in the city centre. Since real estate in the city centre was invaluable, the area of the old campus was not large. The Faculty of Natural Science and Social Studies was in the deepest part. Jiang Luo followed them as they weaved left and right. He didn’t know how many corners they turned. Suddenly, a brand-new road appeared in a remote corner in front of them that he had not seen before.
Two words appeared in Jiang Luo’s mind: Spell Formation.
The small road opened up to a large and bright landscape. The tall and large academic building was built beside a semicircular, clearwater lake, forming the Feng Shui pattern of ”jade belt around the waist“16Explanation and pics here: https://www.fengshuied.com/jade-belt.
The location of every flower, plant, and tree were just right. Jiang Luo looked around. At first glance, he saw clouds of faint golden mist in the sky, an auspicious atmosphere that was particular to Feng Shui treasures.
Taking a closer look: the aura of the sky; the spirit of the earth; the sun and the moon; the mountains and rivers; the grass, trees, flowers, and plants; the vital and spiritual energy of all these things were gathered along the lake shore. It made the area have a faint effect of a ley line. It was a top-notch formation. The person who designed this university was definitely a great Feng Shui master.
Jiang Luo walked towards the classroom in amazement, while the people in the classroom were watching them through the window.
Ge Zhu, who was fully dressed in a loose Taoist robe with his hair pinned up in a bun, folded his hands together. With a smile, he looked outside at the three people who were getting closer and closer. His countenance was peaceful; his eyes, bright and pure. It gave onlookers a sense of unfettered detachment from secular things,
”Look, they’re back.”
The tall, stout man sitting opposite him responded silently and looked outside for a while. Suddenly, he said, “The doll in Ye Xun’s arms has been used.”
Ge Zhu was slightly surprised, “It’s just a commission from a small inn, but it actually needed the use of a Wraith doll?”
Kuang Zheng, who was as robust and dreary as a mountain, let out an “En”. He was an artifact refiner; he had the ability to deeply understand the tools that he refined himself. “Don’t worry, it’s just been used a little.”
Ge Zhu wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, “Scared this Taoist priest to death, and here I thought Xiao Fen had eaten random things again.”
While they were talking, the four people outside had already entered. Ge Zhu’s smile was as bright as the sun. He waved at them enthusiastically, “Welcome back.”
Kuang Zheng got up. He was obviously a big man, yet he seemed extraordinarily attentive. Without a word, he pulled out chairs for the few new people.
Jiang Luo glanced at the two classmates out of the corner of his eye. The Taoist priest with a friendly temperament was Ge Zhu, and the one with the wheat-colored skin and looked like a construction site manual worker was the refiner Kuang Zheng.
Kuang Zheng was actually an incredible person. In the field of metaphysics, there were fewer and fewer talents. The artifact refiner was a high-profile profession; however, Kuang Zheng was an especially strong talent in the field of refining. What was even rarer was that he himself had a straightforward disposition and was dedicated in his work. In the field of refining it could be said that he could ‘cross a thousand miles in a day’17一日千里: an idiom meaning doing a lot of things in one day..
Ge Zhu and Kuang Zheng were also looking at him. Jiang Luo sat down by the window. He propped up his cheek and faintly smiled at them.
Ge Zhu also had a small smile; his eyes were fixed on Jiang Luo.
A person was supported by his skeleton, just like a house, and the five senses of a person were the windows of the house. Therefore, when a physiognomist looks at a person’s appearance, he first looks at their bone structure and then their face.
Bones needed to be examined through touch, but faces did not. The facial features of a person gathered spiritual energy, and their five viscera18liver, heart, spleen, lung and kidney and primordial spirit19a concept in Taoism led to the face. Ge Zhu had been studying for a long time, and he could judge with a glance the successes or failures of an ordinary person’s life. At that moment, however, Ge Zhu could only see a dense fog covering Jiang Luo’s body!
He was completely astonished. He stood up, (his chair) making a ’screech’. He stammered, “Th-this, this…”
Jiang Luo curled a strand of black hair around his finger as he watched him with much interest, “Hm?”
Ge Zhu quickly walked towards him, and solemnly held out his hand. “Jiang Luo tong xue20同学: student/classmate, since it’s a form of honourific I will leave it as a pinyin, may this small priest read your palmistry for you?”
Jiang Luo smiled widely as he stretched out his left hand towards him, “Please.”
Ge Zhu held his hand.
His hand was delicate and smooth, soft as moss, with slender fingertips. It denoted the physiognomy of a smart and handsome person who had great wealth and great honour. This was only the most simple palmistry reading. Ge Zhu still wanted to take a closer look, but his eyes grew dizzy from the messy palm lines. His eyes widened to the size of copper bells, but he still couldn’t see a thing.
The people around them were quiet, for fear of disturbing him. After a long while, Ge Zhu, who was sweating profusely, put down Jiang Luo’s hand. He returned to his seat in a trance. He held up a thermos cup and feebly laughed, “No worries, nothing’s wrong. A person lives in the world; one must know that there are people outside a person and mountains outside the city. How can a person’s life be so easily read? Life can only be improved through hard work. Do not be disturbed by your heart; do not be trapped by your emotions. Brave through the cold, and you will usher in peace. One must know that a life that can be entirely seen at a glance could also be described as a horrific thing.”
The sound of laughter came from outside. “Ge Zhu, what kind of chicken soup for the soul are you stewing now?”
Before the person finished speaking, two people walked in from the back door. The speaker was a woman wearing a red dress with flowing, long hair. Her eyes narrowed with a smile. She had a beige-coloured shawl draped over her dress. She walked closer gracefully in a pair of high heeled shoes.
‘She’ was very tall, extremely tall. Much taller and slender than the blond, blue-eyed bishounen21Yes the author used bishounen. foreigner behind ‘her’. This pleasant to the eye, dignified and elegant beauty was the low-key and mysterious Wen Renlian.
A man with an addiction to women’s clothing.
Cyril, the bishounen foreigner standing behind Wen Renlian, scratched his head bashfully and in a foreign accent awkwardly said, “Sorry, we’re late.”
Ge Zhu sighed, “Wen Ren, you came.”
Wen Renlian pulled close his shawl. With a smile, he sat down across from Jiang Luo. When he squinted, his dense eyelashes meshed together, making others suspect that he couldn’t see clearly.
“Ge Zhu, did you see anything?”
“I can’t see anything,” Ge Zhu said frankly, “Would you like to try?”
What Ge Zhu studied was fortune-telling, while Wen Renlian studied divination.
Wen Renlian heard his words, but refused with his ever-present smile, “Even you can’t see it, so I won’t insult myself. Compared with these mysterious and mystifying things, what I want more is to ask Jiang Luo tong xue something.”
He mimicked Jiang Luo and propped up his cheek. The satin-like wig slid down his chest. Wen Renlian asked curiously, “Jiang Luo tong xue, have you ever slept with Chi You?”
——- ————-
The author has something to say:
Chi You: Does ghost-caused sleep paralysis22鬼压床: it the chinese term for sleep paralysis, the word ghost is in it due to the original theory that it was caused by ghosts. I added the ghost part to get across the pun. count?
2 thoughts on “Chapter 7 – Classmates”
Bahahaaaa wait wat o(*°▽°*)o
Thnx ya for the chappiiee~ （づ￣3￣）づ╭❤～
Thank you sm for the chapter! ?