Chapter 31: She Will Definitely Go Out and Have Fun!
At four-thirty in the morning, Zhang Shan returned to the tube building. As soon as he entered his home, he rushed straight to the bathroom, splashed some cold water on his face, and felt a bit more awake before pacing back to the bedroom.
He didn’t know if it was because Lu Yibei had scared him too much tonight, but he felt a bit chilly.
Without any sleepiness, he lay on the bed in the bedroom and opened his phone, only to find more than ten unread messages and several missed calls.
Most of the calls were from his listeners in the same city, who he had once met for drinks offline, mainly inquiring whether he was safe and if he needed to call the police.
Flipping through the text messages and social media inbox, he found that they were all concerned messages asking why he had suddenly stopped his broadcast.
Looking at the missed calls and unread messages, Zhang Shan felt a surge of frustration.
He really wanted to call the police and have them arrest Lu Yibei, that troublemaker!
The story had just begun, and he hadn’t even gotten to the main point when he had to shut down the live broadcast because of Lu Yibei’s sudden call, and there hadn’t been time to explain to the audience.
All the hard-earned popularity he had was probably down the drain after such a mess!
Zhang Shan thought, his gaze sharpening, as he stood up indignantly and walked into the study, sitting down in front of the computer.
Since it had been a long time since his last broadcast, the computer screen had already switched to a live dance room.
Seeing the rising popularity of the dance live room, Zhang Shan became even angrier, hurriedly closing the screen and opening his backend.
After the homepage loaded, he casually glanced around and couldn’t help but freeze for a moment.
He suddenly found that the number of followers on his live broadcast station had skyrocketed to nearly five thousand while he had been out for just an hour, up from less than a thousand.
Not only that, but those listeners who had always been freeloaders were surprisingly generous, sending him hundreds of yuan in gifts.
Looking at the scene before him, Zhang Shan couldn’t help but be momentarily stunned, slowly exhaling a “Wow…” as he frantically scrolled through the b*llet screen records.
After reading the b*llet screen records and discovering that the surge in popularity was related to Lu Yibei’s phone call, he propped his chin on his hands and fell into deep thought.
This…
Is this her way of repaying me? I’ve heard that some urban legends will give reasonable returns after receiving help from humans.
Is that girl the type who repays kindness?
So far, she doesn’t seem to be a scary urban legend, at least!
In contemplation, Zhang Shan’s gaze inadvertently drifted to the manuscript on the table, which was based on Lu Yibei, then he lit a cigarette, picked up a pen, and began to write.
Was the previous story written a bit too hastily?
An urban legend that brings fright but also gives a return after receiving help, wouldn’t that be more three-dimensional, more substantial, and more favored by the audience?
Hmm! Let’s polish it some more! Zhang Shan thought, picking up the pen and writing on the draft in front of him.
[Legend has it that in a certain city, there exists an urban legend dressed in a large red and white coat, with long pink hair. It has a doll-like delicate appearance and a pair of terrifying eyes that are beast-like and bl**d red.
Every midnight, it randomly appears at a crossroads in the city, stopping passing vehicles.
It will ask the drivers for help, and if the kind-hearted drivers respond positively, it will get into the car and head to the most remote and peculiar corners of the city…]
……
In a corner of the city forgotten by people, buildings made of steel and concrete are piled together like toys of the gods.
The narrow alleys, dampened by fine rain, were stained with wet marks; the decaying brick walls on both sides were covered with moss, and the desolate autumn atmosphere danced and transformed in the air.
At the end of this long and lonely alley, a bar sign flickered as if it didn’t exist in this world.
A woman dressed in a black standing collar coat walked from the end of the alley, like a black rose floating through a dream, her back cold and desolate.
She stopped in front of the bar’s main door, looked up at the flickering sign in the hazy rain and mist, her dark eyes narrowing slightly.
[Chatterhouse] was the name of this bar, named after a short story collection by Liu Quan’s scholar.
The woman paused for a moment in front of the bar, stepped forward, lifted the windbreak curtain embroidered with lotus patterns, and entered the bar.
Inside the bar, warm-colored lights shone brightly, and several quaint wooden tables and chairs were scattered in front of the bar, where someone had been waiting for the woman for a long time.
It was a girl in a deep blue velvet pajamas, her plump and oversized pajamas completely enveloping her body, making it impossible to see her figure.
She sat with her legs crossed in a corner against the wall, wearing a mask resembling a shaman’s ritualistic mask, and in front of her was a large bowl of green porcelain filled with thick bone soup, exuding a savory aroma.
The aroma wafted into the air, swirling for a moment, condensing into struggling shadows of livestock, which quickly dissipated into nothingness amidst a faint sound.
Seeing the woman enter the bar, the girl put down her chopsticks, straightened up, and waved at her, “Oh? Lin Yiqi! You’re here? Come, sit over here!”
Lin Yiqi glanced at the girl with the peculiar mask, her eyes seemingly filled with resentment, and quickly walked over, pulled out the chair opposite her, and sat down.
“Want some noodles? Hu Boss’s cooking is still as good as ever!” The girl pointed at the bowl of noodles on the table casually.
Lin Yiqi shot the girl a glare, as if expressing her displeasure at her casual attitude, and then spoke in a solemn tone, “A new mythological species has been born…”
“Slurp——slurp——!”
Halfway through Lin Yiqi’s words, the girl lifted a corner of her mask, revealing half of her delicate and fair face hidden beneath the mask, and then she unceremoniously dove into eating the soup noodles, stopping Lin Yiqi’s words.
“Hmm…” Seeing Lin Yiqi stop speaking, the girl chewed on her noodles and mumbled, “Uh, you don’t have to mind me, I’ll eat my food, you talk about yours. It won’t interfere!”
“I’m really starving lately; you know me, I’ve never liked hunting. So starving, I can only come to Old Hu to eat a bowl of ‘longevity noodles’.”
Upon hearing this, Lin Yiqi paused and continued, “To be precise, she is still in the state of a witch species, not completely, but she intruded into the rumored location I’ve been operating for a long time… she…”
“Thud!” The girl suddenly put down her chopsticks, and Lin Yiqi seemed to have been startled, her body jolting slightly, and she fell silent, waiting for the girl to speak.
“You’re talking about that… uh, what was it called again?”
Lin Yiqi hesitated and said, “Shihhekou Middle School.”
“Oh, right, that’s the name.” The girl nodded slightly, “I’ve already told you not to cooperate with that group of scoundrels from the Solar Eclipse Society and do those inhumane things.”
“Is revenge really that important? Even going so far as to provoke a filthy little thing like Zigu.”
“Very important!” Lin Yiqi argued, “Moreover, you should know very well that in such times, only by constantly getting stronger can one survive, otherwise, the only outcome is being devoured by other urban legends! That’s why I…”
“There are many ways to become stronger.” The girl waved her hand to interrupt, “Didn’t I tell you before? You can come to the Peach Source and become my follower.”
“But your method is too slow; by the time I gain enough power to deal with Zhao Ke, the entire school will fall into his hands. I can’t let him enjoy that for so long!” Lin Yiqi said fiercely.
“Don’t get worked up! I didn’t say that your method was wrong.” The girl shrugged, “Humans, in situations where legitimate means aren’t feasible or progress is slow, tend to think of getting into some crooked paths. It’s understandable.”
As she spoke, she leaned back, her hands dangling at her sides, lazily slumped in the chair.
“Moreover, it’s quite reasonable in this world; cats eat big fish, big fish eat shrimp, and urban legends eat humans. I just don’t like it; I have no intention of forcibly restricting you.”
Lin Yiqi hesitated, fell silent for a moment, and her eyes flashed with a cold glint, “That guy disrupted my ritual and interfered with my connection to Zigu, but I may not be her opponent, so I’m asking you to help me with this!”
“Help you with what?” The girl tilted her head.
“Teach her a lesson.”
“You’re making it difficult for me.” The girl said, intertwining her fingers and propping her chin as she stared at Lin Yiqi, her brows furrowing discernibly through the gaps in her menacing mask.
“What do you want? I can give you anything!” Lin Yiqi gritted her teeth.
After pondering for a few seconds, the girl replied gently, “Given our years of friendship, I should theoretically help you.”
“But when you encounter difficulties outside, the first thing you think of is to seek help from those scoundrels in the Solar Eclipse Society rather than coming to find me, which makes me quite sad.”
The girl paused, a playful smile appearing at the corner of her mouth, “Are you afraid of owing me a favor?”
Lin Yiqi, “……”
She fell silent, but her expression had already completely betrayed her inner thoughts.
“Tsk!” The girl pouted, “I still don’t quite understand why you’re afraid of me. If you stay in the Peach Source, I can offer you protection from other urban legends, giving you enough time to gain strength and take revenge through gentler means.”
“Just like I heard you praying under the divine tree back then.”
“I…” Lin Yiqi opened her mouth, hesitated for a moment, and said, “What do I need to give you to get you to help me out of this?”
“Ah—!” The girl sighed heavily, “Lin Yiqi, I think you’ve been away too long and have forgotten what kind of person I am!”
Lin Yiqi paused, and as she snapped back to reality, she said solemnly, “Thank you! I will definitely repay you when I have the chance in the future.”
In that moment of distraction, she recalled what kind of person—or urban legend—this leader in the Peach Source was.
She was extremely protective!
After a pause, Lin Yiqi seemed to suddenly remember something important and quickly said, “However, I don’t know where she is hiding now, so it might take some effort on your part.”
“Eh! Don’t worry about it!” The girl waved her hand dismissively, “Finding a newly born little thing like this is really easy; it doesn’t take much effort at all!”
“Uh… huh?” Lin Yiqi looked at the girl in confusion. Although she knew the girl’s extraordinary powers, she couldn’t understand why she was so confident.
Seeing Lin Yiqi’s confusion, the girl sat up straight and earnestly explained, “Don’t you ever read stories? Uh, no, now they should be called novels.”
“In novels, those characters who just acquired great powers, aren’t they all arrogant, thinking they’re invincible, nearly offending all the strong in the world?”
“Such people are so easy to find, they’ll rush to where any trouble arises! Just like a lighthouse shining brightly on a pitch-black sea.”
Lin Yiqi, “……” She suddenly remembered that this leader in the Peach Source, besides being particularly protective, sometimes also had a bit of unreliability.
“But in reality, others have walked this path ahead of you for many years, so why should they casually be your stepping stones?”
“She met me first; that’s her good luck. She just needs to…”
The girl paused here and then burst into a mischievous laugh, “Hehehe, undergo a beating from society!”
“Leave it to me, she will definitely go out and have fun!”
