Chapter Twelve: The Last Warmth
【Wang Buliu: Sorry, I don’t want to.】
Luxianbei replied a bit angrily to “One Hundred and Two Thirds of a Cat,” resting one hand on her chin while staring at the mobile phone screen, a cold smile rising in her heart.
Heh, this annoying group really knows how to play with people’s emotions. To deceive someone into falling for it, they do their background checks quite meticulously. I almost got fooled.
It’s a pity that I know very well how my father died. From what I’ve seen myself, the police records, and Water Brother’s recollections from the scene, it was just an accident.
An accident that happened because of me.
Luxianbei thought, feelings of self-blame and guilt surged from the sealed corners of her heart, the pain making her feel somewhat suffocated as her hands unconsciously tightened around the fabric of her chest.
If I hadn’t insisted on dragging my father along for my graduation trip, none of this would have happened, right?
She thought, her gaze deepening, as her mind flowed upstream against the river of time, reaching back to the past.
——————
During the first two years of high school, Luxianbei lived a life of “extravagance and indulgence.”
It wasn’t until the first semester of her senior year that she remembered the need to study hard and get into a college that was barely acceptable.
However, one ultimately has to pay for their youthful ignorance.
To be able to pass the entrance exams smoothly, she worked very hard during her senior year, under immense pressure.
Fortunately, hard work paid off.
When she received her acceptance letter, all the emotions that had been suppressed for an entire year were finally released, and she excitedly began planning the graduation trip route with her close friends.
When a person has been repressed for too long, they will desire stimulation.
Since she sought stimulation, she had to see it through!
Thus, almost every spot on the graduation trip route that Luxianbei organized satisfied at least one of the three elements: “strange,” “dangerous,” and “peculiar.”
However.
Perhaps because the nights had begun to linger longer, hinting at an impending impact on the world, along with Luxianbei’s overly “stimulating” itinerary.
Two days before departure, all of her classmates who had agreed to go with her cancelled at the behest of their parents, leaving her alone with her father for what became a father-daughter graduation trip.
————
On the day of the incident, the two visited the thrilling and exciting West Ridge rafting, which had a significant water level difference, and returned to the hotel in Jin Guan City early in the afternoon to rest.
After a light rain in the evening, the father and daughter, having rested all afternoon, decided to take advantage of the coolness after the rain and went out on the street.
After visiting several snack shops, Luxianbei suddenly proposed whether they should go to Mount Emei to see the sea of clouds at sunrise.
Mount Emei was not originally on Luxianbei’s planned route, but unexpectedly, her father was very supportive.
However, her father suggested that if they simply wanted to see the sea of clouds at sunrise, there was another place that was not fully developed yet. The scenery there had not been too artificially sculpted, allowing for a better appreciation of the grandeur of nature.
Dawazeng.
Located within the Qiong Mountains, its name means “Beautiful Sacred Mountain” in Tibetan.
At that time, both Luxianbei and her father shared a lively and perhaps foolish personality. When they decided to go somewhere, they would naturally set off that very night.
After confirming their destination, Luxianbei bought the tickets in just half an hour.
——————
The father and daughter left Jin Guan City at three in the morning on that bus; the timing was quite ambiguous, hard to tell if it was the earliest or the latest of the day.
When they arrived at the bus station, a light drizzle was falling, and the breeze dancing through the city carried a chilly chill.
Seeing the weather deteriorate, Luxianbei suggested postponing their trip, but her father’s remarks about “the precious summer vacation of senior year!” and “Now that we’re here!” left her speechless as they boarded the somewhat old passenger bus.
For some reason, as the bus gradually pulled away from the city, Luxianbei sensed a faint unease on her father’s brow.
Looking back now, it might have been the instinctive human reaction when sensing the approach of d*ath.
Once the bus completely exited the city limits and the scenery outside the window was replaced by steep green mountains, the sky gradually darkened, dark clouds began to gather slowly, and distant thunder could be faintly heard rumbling.
Summer rains often come unexpectedly; in the blink of an eye, a torrential downpour fell “in a whoosh.”
The inside of the bus was particularly quiet, no one spoke, but the oppressive atmosphere was palpable.
Everyone was afraid, including the driver.
The rain was heavy and relentless, visibility drastically low; the outside world looked as if it had transformed into one solely of water; if a school of fish swam past the window, it wouldn’t be surprising at all.
However, two people were exceptions: one was Luxianbei’s father, whose hands and eyes hadn’t left his phone since boarding.
God knows how his phone still had signal to keep playing that cute girl mobile game, the name of which Luxianbei couldn’t even recall, in such terrible mountain weather.
The other was a man who sat diagonally in front of them.
He was a large, burly man, dressed in traditional Tibetan clothing, wearing a very old pair of sunglasses, carelessly disheveled with dirt all over him, his skin color indistinguishable, exuding a strange odor.
He had been asleep since getting on the bus, snoring thunderously, as if the strong winds, torrential rain, thunder, and the risk of potential landslides had nothing to do with him.
The passenger bus continued on, enveloped in darkness and heavy rain, with the high beams illuminating only a small area ahead.
Under such circumstances, the driver had no choice but to slow down. In some rugged mountain sections, they were barely moving faster than walking.
The bus meandered along, and after an indeterminate amount of time, illuminated by the headlights, suddenly revealed a pair of young men and women who had become drenched, looking like tourists on bikes by the roadside.
The driver slowly pulled over and said to the passengers, “Being out here and encountering such terrible weather truly is unfortunate; if we can help, we should. Is everyone okay with that?”
After obtaining the approval of most passengers, the driver let the young couple board.
Perhaps due to the suddenness of the downpour, everyone was caught off guard.
Or perhaps the spot where they picked up the couple was near a hidden town deep within the mountains.
After picking up the couple, more people gradually boarded.
There were dark-skinned, simple-faced herdsmen, pale-faced sisters in Hanfu, and rural youths with hair in various colors.
Before long, the originally sparse seats in the bus were filled with people.
Among them, the one Luxianbei remembered most vividly was a man who was hunched over, with a high protrusion on his back, dressed in a pitch-black raincoat.
There were three main reasons Luxianbei clearly remembered him.
The first was that all the others were picked up voluntarily by the driver after he noticed them; he was the only one who suddenly jumped out from the bushes by the roadside to flag down the bus.
Fortunately, the bus was moving slowly; otherwise, in that rainy weather with a slippery road and low visibility, the man might have been struck down right then and there.
The second was that the man was terrifying. On his already unattractive face, a deep cut went from the corner of his eye to the corner of his mouth, as if he had two mouths: one vertical, one horizontal.
Moreover, that injury seemed fresh, not fully healed yet, the stitches still intact. Under the rain, the wound appeared white and slightly raised, as if that “mouth” might open at any moment.
The final point was that the moment the man boarded, the disheveled giant who had been snoring loudly suddenly woke up, stood up, pulled out a prayer wheel from his voluminous sleeve, shaking it while shouting in Tibetan at the driver, insisting to get off the bus, and no amount of persuasion worked.
Upon seeing this, the ugly man quarreled with the slovenly giant and simply sat in the space he vacated.
At that very moment, he turned back to look at Luxianbei, licking the wound on the corner of his mouth with his tongue. The pain caused his whole face to spasm, yet he forced himself to appear as if he enjoyed it.
Luxianbei met his gaze, feeling a wave of nausea rise, and this uncomfortable feeling was only alleviated when her father put down his phone and gave the man a middle finger.
Luxianbei vaguely remembered her father glaring at the ugly, somewhat neurotic man for a moment before gently patting his head, letting him lean on his shoulder for a nap.
Luxianbei didn’t know why at that moment; faced with her father’s “Water Brother” behavior, she surprisingly didn’t refuse, tilting her head to rest on his shoulder, feeling warm and safe, and soon fell deeply asleep.
At that moment, she had no idea it would be the last time she would experience her father’s warmth.
Had she known earlier, she certainly wouldn’t have fallen asleep so quickly.
She didn’t know what happened afterward. When she awoke, her eyes were plunged into darkness, her entire body in pain, lying in a hospital in Rain City.
It was only later that she learned that shortly after she fell asleep, the passenger bus had encountered a massive landslide, swept away by a mudslide, tumbling over a highway guardrail into a ravine a hundred meters deep.
The police officer informed her that the accident was extremely tragic; the entire bus had been turned into a sieve by the stones that fell from the mountain. Everyone on board, aside from him, had died; there were no survivors.
Later, Water Brother, who had rushed over, told her the same thing as the police.
Luxianbei had once thought that parting life and d*ath must be a tremendously painful experience, lacking not in weeping and wailing, ultimately falling into a state of depression and withdrawal.
However, when she actually went through it, she found that it didn’t seem to be that big of a deal; her mood was unexpectedly calm, and she didn’t even feel like crying.
She simply replied perfunctorily to Water Brother, who had come to help handle her father’s affairs, saying, “Got it, so please take care of it.”
This indifference lasted until she returned to Huacheng, moved into the old house, and one morning, woke up in the dark, shouting, “Dad, I want to eat steamed dumplings and tofu pudding for breakfast!” yet received no response for a long time, at which point everything fell apart in an instant.
Self-blame, pain, and grief… various negative emotions surged forth from the darkness, shattering her strong facade into a million pieces, leaving not a shred behind.
——————
Luxianbei meticulously recalled the past experiences, her brows unconsciously tightening into a knot.
Her father’s d*ath indeed had many elements that felt unusual, such as why would they encounter a girl in Hanfu by the mountain road in such weather, why the disheveled giant suddenly insisted on getting off the bus, and that strange man who resembled an urban legend.
What perplexed her even more was why, upon first encountering the Solar Eclipse Society’s totem, she saw some terrifying scenes.
From that forgotten elementary school memory, her father seemed to be a hidden spiritual ability user, and he had decent strength. Was it really so easy for him to d*e in an accident?
And if there truly were factors of an urban legend attacking involved in that car crash, did Water Brother notice? If he did, why would he conceal the truth?
After connecting with the world of spiritual ability users and urban legends, Luxianbei felt there were too many doubts surrounding that car crash.
However.
She believed that even if there were doubts, she couldn’t easily trust those whose origins were unclear and who could very well be urban legends.
Even if she wanted to gain information from them, she had to first ascertain their backgrounds.
————
On the other side.
The cat-eared girl waited for a long time without receiving a response from Luxianbei, beginning to feel a bit anxious, darting around on the windowsill, table, chairs, and floor next to the lanky man.
Finally unable to take it anymore, the lanky man interrupted, “Can you stop moving around? My head is about to spin from watching you!”
The cat-eared girl stopped, glancing at him with a displeased glare, and said, “Wang Buliu hasn’t replied to me for so long, I’m just too anxious! Can’t I move around a bit?”
“But you’re a cat!” the lanky man said with a pained expression.
“Hmph!” The cat-eared girl couldn’t find a retort, snorted coldly, grabbed the phone on the table, and was about to send another message to “Wang Buliu.”
“Wait a minute!” Seeing this, the lanky man stopped her, “Are you sure you want to send her a message?”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“What are you going to say? If she doesn’t even care how her father died, it shows how cold-blooded she is. Plus, with all her antics and trash talk, if you message her now, I think…”
The lanky man hesitated.
“What do you think?”
“I said, you can’t scratch my face! I still need to rely on this face to pick up girls!”
“Spit it out!”
“I think if you message her now, she’ll just see you as someone teasing her and get really pissed off.”
As soon as the lanky man finished speaking, “Swish!” a glint flashed through the air, and three new scratches appeared on his face—three on the left, three on the right—symmetrical.
“d*mn! Didn’t you say you wouldn’t scratch me?!” he complained, covering his face.
“Which ear did you hear that from?” The cat-eared girl lifted her chin slightly, turning the conversation, “Then what do you think we should do now?”
“Wait. I think she’ll be unable to contain herself and message you back soon.”
No sooner had the lanky man finished speaking than the cat-eared girl’s phone vibrated twice, receiving a message from “Wang Buliu.”
【Wang Buliu: I can cooperate with you, but first, you have to answer a few questions for me.】
————
【One Hundred and Two Thirds of a Cat: No problem, as long as I can tell you, I will speak without reservation.】
After reading “One Hundred and Two Thirds of a Cat”‘s reply, Luxianbei frowned, pondering for a moment, and lightly touched the input bar.
【Wang Buliu: First of all, does my father’s d*ath have anything to do with an urban legend?】
【One Hundred and Two Thirds of a Cat: Yes.】
【Wang Buliu: Does it have anything to do with the Solar Eclipse Society?】
【One Hundred and Two Thirds of a Cat: Sorry, I can’t tell you that for now.】
Luxianbei, “…”
Can’t tell me for now? That tone implies there’s something to it.
It seems this question can only be answered after certain conditions are met.
She thought for a moment and picked up her phone again.
【Wang Buliu: Last question, how can you prove that what you say is true?】
The person on the other end seemed to be considering something, and Luxianbei waited quite a while before receiving a response.
【One Hundred and Two Thirds of a Cat: We have our own special channels through which we obtain such information, and the sources are reliable, but right now we can’t provide you with proof. The choice between the truth and remaining in the dark is yours to make.】
Luxianbei slightly furrowed her brow.
Why did this reply suddenly sound so official?
From the looks of it, it’s a case of believe it or not?
【Wang Buliu: Since you can’t provide proof, then let’s use my method? We’ll both take a step back; I will continue to fulfill your review, but after the review is completed, you have to come to me to establish an ally contract. After that, I will ask you a few more questions.】
Over the past month, Luxianbei had been very idle, giving her plenty of time to study the ally contract with Jumeng.
From her observation, when she attempted to k*ll Jumeng, the mark on the back of Jumeng’s hand would glow particularly bright, and when she tried to deceive Jumeng, it would shine as well, just not as brightly.
Thus, she thought that, in a sense, the ally contract might serve as a lie detector.
As for the spell, it was a few simple lines; Luxianbei memorized it after hearing it once but had always struggled to find a target for an experiment.
Moments later, Luxianbei’s phone vibrated twice.
【One Hundred and Two Thirds of a Cat: I can agree to this, but on the condition that after you pass the review, you have to join us.】
【Wang Buliu: Don’t worry.】
【One Hundred and Two Thirds of a Cat: If you lie, watch out for being cursed!】
【Wang Buliu: Yes, I will definitely cooperate with you.】
Joining is impossible; at most, I can only cooperate. I didn’t deceive him… Luxianbei was grumbling to herself when her phone vibrated again.
【One Hundred and Two Thirds of a Cat: Dear Wang Buliu, tomorrow night you will undergo a second review for joining the group. Please go to the South Suburb Slaughterhouse at midnight and stay there with others undergoing the review until dawn.】
South Suburb Slaughterhouse? The one rumored to have a giant black pig that eats people?
Others undergoing the review? Aside from me, are there others too?
After reading the message, Luxianbei slightly furrowed her brow, followed immediately by a system prompt.
【One Hundred and Two Thirds of a Cat has added you to “The 104th Review Discussion Group.”】
Aside from that cat manager, there are four other people?
Poor little Li, please spare me? This person must have been frightened by that group!
Genius Mahjong Girl, Invincible King Master, Li Ge Live Streaming Outdoors…
Luxianbei silently noted a few people’s IDs and replied “Received” to “One Hundred and Two Thirds of a Cat,” putting her phone away.
