500. Mental Illness? 【4/40】
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Even though it was summer, by 7 PM the sunlight had dimmed significantly.
Streetlights flickered to life one by one, and students were wandering the streets like lost sheep, trying to find their way back from school. The once-silent back streets were now buzzing with life as evening settled in.
Chen Yao hurled two bags of trash into the urban village dumpster, covering his nose with one hand, and hastily turned to leave.
Every day at a set time, a trash truck would come by to collect the rubbish, but all it did was bag it up and take it away. The remnants of years gone by had turned the place into a stinking swamp. If Lilith had been around, she probably would still shiver at the thought of that pile of filth.
Word around town was that they had started garbage sorting, but this suburban urban village seemed to have been forgotten by the rest of the city.
Having disposed of his trash, Chen Yao rounded a corner from the alley and spotted Lin Nan waiting for him.
Fresh from her afternoon nap, Lin Nan was bursting with energy. As soon as she saw Chen Yao, she beamed at him and wrapped her arms around his.
“Let’s go!”
They were originally supposed to check out the otherworldly visitors at Li Na’s place, but Chen Yao felt a bit out of place. What if he discovered those tourists were all just talking nonsense? Some kind of quirky mental cases? No, thank you.
So, they decided to head to the new gym instead. If it looked nice, maybe they could get Chen Yao a monthly membership to combat his ever-increasing waistline.
Although they had already eaten dinner, Lin Nan couldn’t resist the call of street food, peering around for something tasty and then looking back over at Chen Yao with puppy-dog eyes.
“Go ahead and eat if you want, just don’t take a couple of bites and then hand it over to me,” Chen Yao said, turning his head away with a straight face, “Do you even realize why I’m getting fat?”
Lin Nan clearly didn’t, as she completely ignored him and boldly ordered three giant chicken skewers from the food stall.
Five bucks for one, ten for three—she thought she wouldn’t finish them anyway, but buying just one felt like a rip-off.
Standing at the stall as she waited for her chicken skewers, Chen Yao had nothing better to do than look around. He patted his slightly bulging belly and sighed, ‘Great, I’m definitely going to gain even more weight.’
As he scanned the area, he suddenly spotted Lilith proudly waving a little flag, smiling broadly as she led three bizarrely-colored-haired young men out of an alley on the opposite street.
He blinked a couple of times and squinted at the flag, only to realize it read “Earth Travel Agency” in bold letters.
What the heck?
Sure, he had seen these three guys at the train station when he was picking up Lin Nan, but back then he was busy admiring his girlfriend. Why would he bother about them?
Lin Nan’s skewers were ready. Holding three massive chicken sticks, she walked over to Chen Yao, munching away while following his gaze curiously toward Lilith.
Upon seeing the scene, Lin Nan instantly realized that Lilith had been coerced by Li Na to act as a tour guide.
But honestly, she looked more like a receptionist.
Lilith seemed to have hit it off with Li Na too and had gained some magical powers. It was easy for her to keep those three peculiar visitors in check, but the excited trio were still exploring every oddity, poking at this and that, almost reaching for whatever Lilith had on her.
“Behave yourselves! No touching all over the place! You’re gonna scare people!” Lilith shot a disgruntled look at the overly-curious blonde, then turned to kick the leering blue-haired one, saying, “Stop staring at my legs!”
“And you, brown-haired guy! Quit drooling over the snack stand! How embarrassing!”
The blue-haired guy took a kick but still wore a goofy grin, his eyes shamelessly glued to other ladies nearby.
These girls were so free-spirited in this world, dresses so skimpy! In his world, flashing a calf or arm was practically a crime. The most daring girls would only show a little ankle!
However, he met plenty of bold girls at his university who weren’t afraid of his ogling gaze. But soon enough, someone kicked him in the back of his leg for being too obvious.
The blue-haired guy nearly crumpled, confused, then turned around in a hurry, only to feel guilty as he recognized the one girl whose magic power could rival a saintess.
Next, she snagged the brown-haired guy who was transfixed by the snack stall and dragged him over to her side.
“How rude!” Lin Nan clapped her hands and looked up at Lilith with a smirk, “Can’t you control them?”
“I can’t just use magic on them!” Lilith replied, her expression a mix of frustration and resignation.
Her magical powers were currently limited, and she couldn’t just wave them around in public; not like Lin Nan, who had enough power in her to start a nuclear reactor and scare the daylights out of folks.
Thinking about it, all that magic energy belonged to Lin Nan. Lilith wondered if there was a way to reclaim some for herself; even a little would be great.
“Just shove them in that little courtyard and let Li Na break them in before letting them out.”
Lilith’s eyes brightened: “Break them in?”
Who knows what that girl was thinking!
Chen Yao, following behind, shot a strange look at the three guys—completely bewildered as to how Lin Nan had gotten mixed up with such troublemakers.
Not just troublemakers, they probably had some screws loose too.
One was drooling at a snack stall, another was blatantly staring at girls, and the last one, while he wasn’t too bad, couldn’t stop blabbering about common sense questions.
“Where did these lunatics come from?” Chen Yao asked Lilith, completely dumbfounded.
“The mental hospital!” Lilith replied, her eyes crinkling with delight.
After spending some time together, he and Lilith had sort of become friends. Mainly because, well, she was easy on the eyes and had long legs—nice.
He covertly glanced at Lilith’s slender legs before peering at Lin Nan’s more full-figured legs wrapped in denim, contemplating it all. Yeah, he thought Lin Nan’s slightly chubby legs were probably more to his taste.
Adulting 101.
“That wraps up the tour!” Lilith quickly accepted Lin Nan’s suggestion and called the group to follow her back into the alley, “Let’s go home for my special training!”
He thought these three were finally going to merge into society after a whole afternoon, but no—one by one, they still looked like fools wandering into a mansion, making total fools of themselves.
Even if they were dragged out, they’d probably attract the police.
Chen Yao watched as Lilith grumbled, leading the three men back to the alley again, and he felt utterly lost. He turned to Lin Nan, utterly perplexed: “What’s going on?”
“…” Lin Nan fell silent, her face a cloud of worry as she stammered, “Li, Li Na opened a mental wellness clinic, um.”
“???”
“These three clients just happen to be from our hometown. I brought them along while visiting!” With a story taking shape, Lin Nan’s narrative became more fluid, “You know, there are lots of rich folks in our countryside. Their family is super wealthy but didn’t want their mentally ill son to stay in a hospital, so they sent him over to Li Na for treatment!”
“Li Na’s got that kind of skill?”
“Isn’t that right?!” Lin Nan said with such unwavering confidence.
Chen Yao wasn’t buying Lin Nan’s wild tale about Li Na. He noticed she played with her clothing corners when she lied. But he put on a thoughtful expression, “What’s next, electric therapy?”
He recalled seeing an internet addiction rehab center once.
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Chapter Five Hundred!
