Heat rushed to Qin Shu’s face. He hurriedly let go of Pei Zhao, only to grab him again and pull him into a corner beyond the reach of the lights.
Leaning close to Pei Zhao’s ear, he whispered excitedly, “Zhaozhao, just now I was staring at you, and then I saw an injured dragon!”
“Mm.” Pei Zhao remained expressionless, and the accusation in his eyes had yet to fade.
Qin Shu coughed lightly. He reached up to rub Pei Zhao’s slightly reddened forehead, then smoothed out the wrinkles in his school uniform jacket, all while continuing to talk.
“He should be locked up somewhere really dark called the Nine Domains, but he’s still teaching people from there. I accidentally overheard something really important. He was talking about a divine ability I can use too. It doesn’t require spiritual power or spiritual energy—it comes from the power of the soul. The ‘See Through’ technique.”
Pei Zhao lowered his eyes slightly as he listened. “Since you can use it, practice more. The next time you run into danger, you’ll be able to run away faster.”
“Zhaozhao, other people use ‘See Through’ to kill enemies. Once you master it, you can fight multiple opponents at once. Why is your first thought always making me run aw—hiss! Fine, fine! I’ll run, I’ll run.”
Qin Shu had only gotten halfway through his complaint when Pei Zhao’s icy hand slipped without hesitation beneath the hem of his shirt and landed against his back with a slap.
An icy attack in the middle of winter was always devastatingly effective. Qin Shu jolted from the cold and immediately switched sides, agreeing again and again.
Pei Zhao was only concerned about his safety anyway. Compared with the distance between them when they had first met, even the ways Pei Zhao expressed displeasure were becoming more intimate.
This was a good thing!
Qin Shu was in an excellent mood. He carefully pulled Pei Zhao’s hand back out from under his shirt, enclosed it between his own hands, and kneaded it gently. Then he launched into an enthusiastic description of the dragonlike creature’s appearance, offering a stream of thoroughly sincere praise.
As Pei Zhao listened, however, his expression gradually became strange. He looked at the animated Qin Shu as though he wanted to say something, reconsidered, and ultimately said nothing at all. He merely looked away and silently let Qin Shu finish.
Until Qin Shu suddenly asked, “So? Don’t you think he sounded really good-looking?”
“Am I not good-looking now?”
Pei Zhao tilted his head and countered with a question. His translucent golden-amber eyes blended perfectly into the night, narrowing naturally beneath the moonlight like those of a wary, pure-blooded wild animal as he stared unblinkingly at Qin Shu’s expression.
“Huh?”
Qin Shu froze.
The heat that had only just faded from his face quietly began rising again, and he was struck by the subtle feeling that he had just been handed a question capable of getting him killed.
He immediately continued, “Of course you’re good-looking! How could you not be? If you grew scales, you’d definitely be prettier than him. If you got hurt, you’d probably even bleed more beautifully than he did—but we absolutely cannot go deliberately chasing after that broken, battle-damaged kind of beauty…”
“All right. Enough.” Pei Zhao turned his head away and interrupted Qin Shu’s increasingly nonsensical praise. After a long silence, he lowered his head and pinched Qin Shu’s finger. “I know.”
“…Mm.” Qin Shu leaned closer. “Why won’t you look at me?”
“I asked a stupid question.”
“You did not. Our Zhaozhao is the best-looking one there is. Ask me more often in the future and I’ll praise you more. I love praising you.”
“…Okay.”
Their heads drifted together again, and before they knew it, they were murmuring pointless little things to each other with their faces almost pressed together.
The dorm supervisor gave them several strange sideways glances. He even deliberately turned on his phone and played a television livestream out loud, but it did absolutely nothing to interrupt their conversation.
After enduring it for a long time, the dorm supervisor finally reached his limit and raised his voice. “You two over there! Lights-out is coming up. Whatever you need to talk about can wait until tomorrow!”
“—! Sorry, sir! Coming!”
Qin Shu instinctively straightened up, though he continued holding Pei Zhao’s hand as he openly escorted him all the way to the dorm entrance.
“Good night, Zhaozhao. Don’t forget we’re eating together tomorrow at noon!”
“Good night.” Pei Zhao nodded slightly, calmly walked around the visibly tense dorm supervisor, and disappeared deeper into the corridor.
Qin Shu watched until Pei Zhao vanished from sight. The lingering excitement inside him had yet to fade, and he cheerfully greeted the supervisor. “Good night, sir.”
The dorm supervisor stopped him. “Hold on. You’re Qin Shu, right? A senior who lives off campus?”
“Yes, sir. I’m Qin Shu. Is something wrong?”
The supervisor nodded, set aside the phone playing the livestream, and pulled a tiny notepad from his breast pocket. Frowning, he said, “Over the past few weeks, Student Pei has been asking me to sign more and more leave slips. Every so often he goes outside campus at noon or in the evening. That’s because of you, isn’t it?”
“Yes. We just go out to eat. We haven’t done anything bad.” Qin Shu scratched his head and answered with an utterly innocent expression.
“Here’s the thing. You seniors do have more freedom, and your homeroom teacher has already spoken to me about it, but that doesn’t mean you can leave campus every single day. This is the most important year. If something happens to you outside the school, that becomes very difficult to deal with.”
The supervisor opened his notepad and carefully counted Pei Zhao’s leave slips before continuing earnestly, “Student Pei is first in the grade, isn’t he? He might even become the top scorer in the entire city. The school leadership pays particular attention to a student that outstanding. They even came to speak to me specifically about him.”
Qin Shu strongly agreed. “Right. Pei Zhao really is incredibly outstanding.”
“But you know Student Pei’s personality. Even I’m a little intimidated by him normally, and no matter what I do, I can’t get in touch with his parents. Ah… Talking to you about this might actually be more useful.”
“…His family situation really is a little… Never mind. I probably shouldn’t say anything. What would you like me to do?” Qin Shu became somewhat more serious.
“It’s perfectly understandable for you two to occasionally eat somewhere near the school, get some better nutrition, and improve your mood. I’m not going to deliberately make it difficult for him to get permission to leave campus. But before the gaokao…”
The dorm supervisor reached this point, glanced left and right, then lowered his voice somewhat awkwardly. “Could the two of you maybe hold off on dating for now? Wait until university, all right? A couple of years ago, there was a girl whose grades were normally good enough for a top-tier university, but her boyfriend broke up with her two days before the gaokao. In the end, she only scored well enough for a second-tier university. What a shame.”
Elio’s Notes: The gaokao is China’s national college entrance examination. The older “top-tier/second-tier” distinction reflects the former admissions-batch system commonly called 一本/二本; the supervisor is using it to emphasize how badly the breakup supposedly affected the student’s results.
Qin Shu froze.
His head practically began steaming as his face turned red, and he hurriedly clarified, “No—wait, sir! We’re not dating!”
“Good. If you’re not dating yet, keep it that way for now. Remember, don’t rush into defining the relationship before the gaokao. You’re both still kids. You don’t even know which city you’ll end up in or what direction your lives will take. Whatever you do, don’t rush things during these last six months.”
“No, we… Forget it. All right, sir. I understand.”
Qin Shu had the distinct feeling that the more he explained, the worse the misunderstanding would become. He gritted his teeth and simply accepted it. At least this way the supervisor would not make things difficult for Pei Zhao and accidentally create even more bizarre misunderstandings.
Maybe there were other reasons too, though Qin Shu himself could not have explained what they were. Somehow, he discovered that he was actually rather happy to let the misunderstanding stand, and the longer the conversation went on, the more that inexplicable excitement inside him refused to disappear.
The dorm supervisor had no idea his lecture had produced exactly the opposite effect. Seeing Qin Shu’s cooperative attitude, he relaxed as well.
He waved Qin Shu off and urged him to hurry home. Then he turned around, picked up the phone from the desk, and resumed watching the Youth TV livestream with great interest.
The Detective for a Day livestream had been divided into two parts. The first half, covering the on-site investigation, had already ended. Now that most minors were gradually heading to bed, the second half was beginning to air as a special late-night segment.
Qin Shu listened to Liang Ming Yue’s cheerful hosting voice behind him, accompanied by the eerie background sound effects and Xing Yong’s occasional explanations, and found himself interested too.
He had been too dazed during the day to pay proper attention. Now the atmosphere was perfect. He could go home, soak in the bath, watch the livestream, and drive all the strange, jumbled thoughts out of his head.
He ordered a portion of fried rice noodles from a late-night food stall and sped home on his electric scooter.
Qin Shu switched on the bright living-room lights, took the centipede from his wrist and the eyeball from his pocket, and dumped both of them into the round little nest by the front porch.
Without looking back, he said, “I’m taking a bath. You two can come inside after I’m done.”
Rattle, rattle…
The little centipede could not be bothered with him. It became completely absorbed in a game of tossing the pearl around and even dragged the increasingly plump eyeball into playing along.
Qin Shu had no idea how the two of them communicated. After all, he had absolutely no intention of performing the whole blood-binding ritual on the eyeball. Until he traveled to Yuncheng for the joint burial, he regarded it only as a temporary partner.
But the eyeball seemed perfectly capable of understanding Yuanbao and was even rather indulgent toward the little centipede, happily accompanying it in its games.
Perhaps to the former Xu Qian, playing with the little centipede was not much different from keeping a pet. If it could reduce even a little of a malicious ghost’s resentment, Qin Shu was more than happy to see the two of them getting along.
He did not interfere with their entertainment. Instead, he hurried off to fill the bathtub, then wolfed down his fried rice noodles while immersing himself in the livestream playing on his tablet.
After thoroughly enjoying his food, Qin Shu carried the tablet into the bathroom and slid into the tub, letting the nearly scalding water envelop his entire body.
“Whew…”
He sighed comfortably, propped the tablet securely in place, tilted his head toward the ceiling, and emptied his mind. He lay there without speaking for a full ten minutes, listening only to the background audio from the livestream.
He failed completely at emptying his mind, because the day had simply been too eventful and scene after scene kept flashing through his head.
When Xing Yong’s voice came from the tablet, Qin Shu remembered the black handprint that had quietly disappeared from the detective’s body. He remembered Du Xiao Xue being taken away by the Blind Granny. He remembered Tang Rui Cheng lying amid bloodstains, the boy who had only just jumped from a building yet had already been forgotten by his classmates, and Pei Zhao silently eating an entire mountain of ice cream.
Only when his thoughts finally reached Pei Zhao did Qin Shu begin to feel a little better.
He had stuck his nose into one thing after another, yet looking back now, it always felt as though he had still not done enough, as though he had always been just a little too late.
Would he be like that again this year? He could only hope he would do better.
That faint anxiety and exhaustion only seemed to erupt when he was alone. Qin Shu himself had no idea how he was supposed to regulate it. He did receive regular psychological counseling every week, but Xu Min was not exactly the most reliable counselor.
Apparently, all he could do was think about Pei Zhao’s face a little more and cheer himself up.
If he kept lying there, he might fall asleep. Qin Shu reluctantly forced himself upright and slowly began lathering shampoo through his hair.
He had gotten up close and personal with so many huge yao cultivators today that if he did not wash his hair properly, he was worried his head might literally start fermenting by tomorrow.
“Jiangcheng Youth TV, Jiangcheng Youth TV! Hello, viewers, I’m Liang Ming Yue. It is now January first at eleven-thirty in the evening. Officer Xing Yong and I have finally received official approval and successfully arrived at the crime scene: the Blackhearted Paper Effigy Shop on Pedestrian Street!”
“As everyone can see, our hardworking forensic team has already gone home for the night, while the important evidence has been taken back to the station and sealed away. Now it’s my turn! Let’s head deeper into the paper-effigy shop and explore this hidden corner that even most Jiangcheng residents know little about, along with the folk crafts concealed behind this bloody case. Shh… keep your voices down…”
“Oh, and please pay attention to the police tape at the corner. Whatever you do, don’t cross the yellow line just because you’re looking for a thrill! Unless, of course, you’re particularly interested in seven days of boxed meals courtesy of the Jiangcheng Police Department. Hahaha…”
Elio’s Notes: “Seven days of boxed meals” is a joking euphemism here for spending several days in police detention after deliberately interfering with a restricted crime scene.
Liang Ming Yue remained as energetic as ever on the livestream. Dressed in a sharp blue police uniform with her Detective for a Day work badge hanging from her chest, she had been busy since morning yet showed no trace of exhaustion.
Qin Shu turned off the scrolling comments and watched the tablet while washing his hair. As the camera slowly turned toward the interior of the paper-effigy shop, the drowsiness brought on by his bath vanished instantly.
Lifelike paper effigies were arranged neatly throughout the deceptively spacious little corner shop.
There were chickens, ducks, cats, and dogs; ordinary incense paper and hell money; and even an entire box of dead man’s money steeped in ghostly aura.
If Qin Shu had not visited the ghost market that very night, he definitely would not have been able to tell the difference. But now he understood perfectly well that hell money could not simply be used directly for transactions.
Hell money that had never been burned by a living person and delivered to the underworld did not count as dead man’s money. Even wandering ghosts with no one to burn offerings for them could still obtain other forms of currency that worked much the same way.
For example, they could find a living person who possessed large quantities of paper money, gold, silver, jewels, and other valuables, brutally murder that person, and turn the property left behind into dead man’s money.
Or they could rob tombs. Grave goods could all be used in transactions among ghosts. If living people had once been buried as sacrifices inside the tomb, filling it with resentment, the value of the jewelry and precious stones would rise even further.
And inside this paper-effigy shop, Qin Shu saw genuine dead man’s money. A thick, already-opened stack of hell money had been casually abandoned deep inside a shelf as though the owner had simply tossed it there to gather dust, yet in reality, it gave off a chilling aura invisible to ordinary eyes.
There was also something deliberate about the decorations and furnishings arranged throughout the shop. Together they formed a feng shui formation specifically designed to draw in wealth, and anyone who stepped inside could potentially have their financial fortune siphoned away.
That kind of feng shui formation did not seem particularly effective against public officials, however. The police emblems on Liang Ming Yue’s and Xing Yong’s caps flashed faintly. A cold draft swept through the shop, shifted one of the ornaments on the table slightly out of place, and somehow broke the formation completely.
Qin Shu had almost broken into a cold sweat watching it. Only then did he finally relax a little, though not completely.
He quickly rinsed the shampoo from his hair with the showerhead, wiped his hands, picked up the phone he had left beside the sink, and hurriedly sent Xing Yong a message.
Even though the wealth-draining feng shui formation had been broken, there was no guarantee there were not other dangers waiting inside, because the owner of this paper-effigy shop was definitely no good.
Almost every decoration he had used in the formation was a burial object of unknown origin, each one carrying an even denser ghostly aura than the gold Qin Shu had seen in the ghost market.
Even the objects on the cashier’s desk—the ornament, account book, pen rack, paper knife, brushes, pigments, and water container—each felt wrong in its own way. Resentment, rage, pain, despair… Even through the screen, Qin Shu could almost smell the heavy scent of blood and the emotions left behind.
Even the most ordinary-looking fountain pen seemed as though it had once pierced straight through a living person’s body.
Qin Shu was almost certain now that the owner of the paper-effigy shop had had the fingers he relied on for his livelihood cut off in the middle of the night because he himself had secretly been harming people and had finally offended someone he should never have crossed.
He needed Xing Yong to get out of there immediately. At the very least, Xing Yong absolutely could not explore the place alone. The shop was far too sinister, and something unpredictable could happen at any moment.
But Xing Yong was not looking at his phone at all. He continued deeper into the shop before suddenly calling out, “Little Liang, look over here!”
“Coming, coming!”
Liang Ming Yue led the cameraman over, and her eyes abruptly widened. “Viewers, take a look! Beside the bathroom, there’s a hidden door only half a person tall! If we move the spare shelving unit aside and lift the door, we can see a staircase leading underground… Wow, the atmosphere is incredible. It looks like our funeral-goods shop owner had quite a talent for creating his own horror escape room.”
The camera focused on Xing Yong’s back, quietly filming him as he descended step by step toward the basement. From the recording equipment came the faint sound of barely audible giggles.
At the same time, Qin Shu stood straight up in the bathtub, his face tense, and immediately called Xing Yong.
A moment later, Xing Yong’s ringtone sounded through the livestream.
Normally, Xing Yong kept his phone on Do Not Disturb while participating in a livestream. But he had specifically exempted Qin Shu from the setting in case something unexpected happened and he needed to react immediately.
After glancing at the caller ID, Xing Yong’s expression changed slightly. He immediately turned his back to the camera, answered the call, and lowered his voice. “You’re watching the livestream? If something’s wrong, say it.”
“Brother Yong, don’t step on the paper figure beside your foot. Don’t talk. Look carefully—the basement is full of paper effigies.”
Qin Shu hurriedly wrapped a bath towel around himself.
“Their heads have all turned around. They’re staring at you now… Run!”
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