Qin Shu’s first reaction was that he wanted to strangle the bird to death.
An enormous wave of panic, fear more intense than anything he had ever experienced, and needle-sharp anxiety that seemed to burn straight through his heart all surged over him at once, pinning him in place like the Tightening Headband Spell.
Elio’s Notes: The Tightening Headband Spell is a reference to Journey to the West, in which the magical band around Sun Wukong’s head painfully constricts when the corresponding spell is recited. Here it describes Qin Shu’s sudden, crushing panic.
His legs went weak, waves of cold swept over his body, and his head hurt.
His temples throbbed especially badly, as though his heartbeat had somehow grown legs and was about to tear through his lungs and throat before bursting bloodily out of his skull.
Then the eyeball in his pocket twitched. Without the slightest hesitation, it launched itself out and slapped its soft, icy body against Qin Shu’s forehead with a smack. A bone-piercing chill stabbed straight into the center of his brow like an injection of adrenaline so painful that it could have killed him on the spot.
The sheer brutality of the pain forcibly shocked Qin Shu back to his senses. He watched with his own eyes as the little tentacle-like “tail” behind the eyeball tore itself free from his flesh, dragging a string of hot droplets of blood after it.
Apparently realizing that it had accidentally stabbed Qin Shu hard enough to draw blood, the eyeball immediately put on its blankest, most innocent expression and slipped back into his pocket to continue playing dead.
“Hiss… That hurts! You really went all out, Xu Qian!” Qin Shu finally lost his composure. He had no idea what exactly the eyeball had done, but the pain was unquestionably real.
It felt as though something had stabbed directly into his soul. His entire head burned with pain, and involuntary tears welled into his eyes, leaving them painfully dry and sore.
Holding on to a streetlamp, Qin Shu slowly sat down and took a moment to catch his breath. By the time he recovered, he found that he had become much calmer. At the very least, he was no longer going to lose his head, start imagining things on his own, and frighten himself half to death.
“Thanks, Sister Qian—no, Big Sis Qian. You’re basically my real sister. Pei Zhao is definitely fine. I’m just scaring myself… Let me check…”
Deliberately refusing to look at the little chick inside his jacket, Qin Shu closed his eyes, concentrated, and searched for the mark he had left on Pei Zhao.
A moment later, the crooked little cat he had drawn appeared clearly inside Qin Shu’s mind, glowing with an extremely conspicuous red light.
It was in the boys’ dormitory at Jiangcheng No. 2 High School, only eight hundred meters away from him.
“He’s fine, he’s fine. He’s sleeping obediently right there… Seriously, that scared me to death…”
Qin Shu drew a deep breath. Only now did he experience the drained, clammy feeling of cold sweat breaking out all over his body.
The wound between his brows had already begun healing, sealing the blood that had not yet had time to escape back beneath his flesh. The unbearable stabbing pain had disappeared, replaced by a persistent dull ache that throbbed again and again, constantly reminding him of what he had just experienced.
Using the streetlamp for support, he stood up and looked down at the skinny chick in his arms. His reaction seemed to have frightened the little bird as well. It had curled itself timidly into a ball, and the head it had only just managed to grow had disappeared again, leaving it looking like a pitiful little puff of feathers.
Qin Shu sighed, tucked it deeper inside his jacket, and leisurely resumed the walk home.
Jiangcheng’s winter is really cold.
Qin Shu stopped at a roadside food stall and ate a steaming bowl of beef rice-noodle soup. Ordinarily, something this hot would have left him feeling thoroughly comfortable, but tonight the food seemed completely tasteless.
“Little Qin, something happen at school? You look unhappy.”
The noodle-stall owner was a thin middle-aged woman who wore a baseball cap and a transparent face mask every day. Qin Shu had long since become familiar with her.
Although she operated a roadside stall from a pushcart, she worked efficiently and always kept the surrounding area spotless. Her stir-fried rice noodles were especially outstanding.
Whenever Qin Shu stopped for a late-night meal, he would chat with her while eating. By now, he had somehow managed to learn that her daughter was studying for a master’s degree and that her husband had broken his leg after falling at a construction site ten years ago.
Tonight, however, it was Qin Shu’s turn to provide material for their conversation. He ordered another bowl of beef offal, covered it with the spiciest sauce available, then lowered his head and rapidly demolished several skewers, his expression hidden behind the steaming mist.
“I thought my friend was dead, but he actually isn’t. Nothing happened to him at all. I got so scared just now that I could barely walk… Mm. Now I’m cold and exhausted. I wanted something to eat, but once I actually started eating, I lost my appetite.”
“He must be a very good friend, huh? Oh, then why don’t you call him? Hearing his voice will put your mind at ease.”
“Lights-out is coming up at No. 2 High School. I don’t want to disturb his sleep.”
“You kids think too much. Think too much and your hair starts falling out! When Auntie was young, I liked overthinking everything too. And what happened? I got bald patches. Took me ages to recover.”
The stall owner lowered her voice. “Auntie will tell you a secret. Even now, there are still a few places on my head where the hair never grew back properly. They look like patches of moss. So embarrassing! My scalp’s all patchy and my face is all pitted too. Auntie’s already married, so I don’t care anymore, but Little Qin, aren’t you scared of going bald?”
“…Ah. That… that actually is scary.” Qin Shu did not know whether to laugh or cry. He thought about it by himself for a moment and somehow found himself persuaded.
She had a point. I can’t keep everything bottled up and exhaust myself by overthinking it all the time. I really will get ugly that way. Look at Pei Zhao—he says whatever he wants, even the teachers are afraid of him, and that’s why he’s so good-looking!
“Auntie, your skin looks great. You don’t look any different from someone in their thirties or forties. Who’d believe your daughter is already that grown up? The first time you told me, I was shocked. Don’t talk about yourself like that.”
Qin Shu first flattered the noodle-stall owner into a cheerful mood, then paid and said goodbye. During the short walk home, he deliberated for a moment before finally taking out his phone and messaging Pei Zhao.
[Qin Shu: Zhaozhao, are you asleep? If you’re still awake… could you send me a voice message so I can hear you?]
[Pei Zhao: ?]
Pei Zhao immediately started a video call.
He was sitting at the edge of the dormitory rooftop, while Qin Shu stood on a dimly lit path. Both sides of the call were swallowed in darkness, making almost everything difficult to see.
Only their faces, illuminated by their screens, appeared close enough to touch. The night wind stirred Pei Zhao’s stray hair, and his normally sharply defined features were enlarged by the phone camera, taking on a rare hazy quality.
Qin Shu’s breathing faltered slightly. The lingering fear inside him finally vanished completely, like a heavy stone settling safely onto solid ground. He quickened his pace toward home. “Zhaozhao, where are you?”
“On the roof.” A scrutinizing look appeared in Pei Zhao’s golden-amber eyes as he quietly asked in return, “Where are you?”
“…Stopped halfway home for a late-night meal. I’m almost there. Zhaozhao, why are you on the roof?”
“I like looking at the moon.”
“I see.” Qin Shu paused, then suddenly realized something was wrong. “Wait. Isn’t the roof locked? How did you get up there?”
“The security bars outside my dorm balcony are broken. I never reported it, so they haven’t been repaired. I can climb up from the balcony.”
Qin Shu: “…”
Pei Zhao really had just calmly mentioned something astonishing as though it were nothing.
“You seriously climbed up from the balcony? You’re on the fifth floor. Isn’t the sixth floor still between you and the roof?”
“Mm.”
That single indifferent “Mm” caused Qin Shu’s brain to crash for several seconds. He could barely imagine that whenever Pei Zhao was somewhere beyond his sight and reach, he actually did dangerous things like this.
And judging by Pei Zhao’s perfectly calm expression, he obviously did not even think there was anything wrong with it.
“Zhaozhao, are you seriously not afraid of falling?”
“I won’t fall.”
“…What if your foot slips by accident?”
“There won’t be an accident either.”
Qin Shu was left speechless. He was still struggling over what to say when Pei Zhao raised his eyes slightly. “My turn to ask you. What happened to the wound on your forehead?”
“Ah, this. Here’s what happened.” Qin Shu coughed lightly and pulled open his jacket. “Thinking back on it now, it’s a little embarrassing… I thought you were dead just now.”
“…Hm?” Pei Zhao froze.
Just as they reached this point in the conversation, Qin Shu finally arrived safely outside his own house. The familiar streetlamp shone down and illuminated the chaotic assortment of things hidden inside his jacket.
With a whoosh, the little centipede darted out, its tail wrapped around the eyeball as it carried both of them over the gate. They landed with perfect accuracy inside the little white nest on the front porch and curled up comfortably together.
That left only the trembling headless chick, clinging to the edge of an inner pocket in Qin Shu’s school jacket without daring to move.
Qin Shu opened the door and went inside. Holding his phone in one hand, he used the other to grab the chick rather less than gently, then held it in his palm so Pei Zhao could examine it up close.
He carefully explained everything from beginning to end, including the part where he had gone “hunting” inside the school building late at night.
Qin Shu felt slightly guilty about that part, but fortunately, Pei Zhao was not someone with an expressive face. He simply lowered his eyes and listened quietly to the entire explanation without offering any judgment whatsoever about Qin Shu’s behavior.
“You’re saying it created my face.”
“Yeah. Exactly the same, not a single detail different. A ridiculously tiny, pretty little face…” Qin Shu carried the chick upstairs, began taking off his outer clothes, and turned on the bathwater while sighing gloomily. “For the first time in my life, I truly understood the uncanny valley effect. I need a bath to recover. It scared me half to death.”
Pei Zhao narrowed his eyes slightly and immediately seized upon the sharpest point. “So in your mind, you and I are close enough that a Jian could use my face as bait to lure you into a trap.”
“…Mm. Mm!”
Qin Shu felt a little embarrassed, but after thinking about it again, he decided there was absolutely nothing abnormal about that.
“I already told you we’re each other’s number one in the whole world. I wasn’t joking. Zhaozhao, I’m warning you now: if you ever encounter something similar and you don’t see my face, I really will throw a fit.”
He spoke with complete justification while propping his phone beside the bathroom sink. Then he filled the basin with warm water to make a tiny pool, put the trembling eagle chick inside, and tentatively scrubbed it a little.
Nothing dirty came off, but several pieces of down did. The chick became even more frightened, yet did not dare struggle free of Qin Shu’s hands, looking so fragile that it might faint on the spot.
Pei Zhao watched the entire process with a momentary expression of speechlessness before finally responding quietly to Qin Shu’s little warning. “But a Jian only copies the face of someone who’s dead. You’re not dead, so I wouldn’t see yours.”
“That’s true. Wait—then why was I able to see your face?” Qin Shu’s hands abruptly stopped moving as he raised an eyebrow at the screen.
Pei Zhao sat at the edge of the rooftop and tilted his head. With his free hand, he pressed against the tiles beside him and exerted a little force.
Then…
He casually pushed himself off the roof.
Without the slightest warning.
The image on the screen spun violently. The moon and the boy’s raven-black hair tangled together in the wind while his loose clothes snapped loudly around him. Qin Shu’s pupils contracted. He fumbled for the phone and tried to say something, only to discover that in a moment like this, he could not produce a single word.
Not merely a word—he could not even make a startled sound. His throat and vocal cords twisted into a tight, dead knot, pulling painfully against the arteries in his neck.
An instant later, Qin Shu heard an extremely soft landing.
The screen, still swirling like a whirlpool, was slowly steadied. Pei Zhao’s beautiful, pale face appeared once again.
He stood beside the dormitory balcony and calmly closed the security bars. With the wind now shut out, his voice was as clear as translucent jade.
“Maybe I really am dead.”
The two of them stared at each other through their phones. Silence spread in every direction like moonlight seeping through every crack, while the sound of water filling the bathtub gradually seemed to grow quieter.
Qin Shu drew a deep breath, exhaled without a sound, then repeated the process in silence until he had completely calmed himself.
Then he stared at Pei Zhao. “Pei Zhao, tomorrow I’m spanking you.”
Pei Zhao froze. He tried to process the meaning of that sentence but failed. “…Why?”
“To drive out evil. I’ve been observing you for a long time and still haven’t thought of another method.” Qin Shu propped the phone beside the sink again and pulled his hoodie over his head by the collar. “I’ll try it a few times first. Hitting anywhere else isn’t ideal. You could get hurt.”
There was nothing particularly unusual on his face, and his voice carried almost no emotional fluctuation, as though he were merely stating an established fact that was inevitably going to happen.
He was not angry, nor was he still frightened. He had simply run out of ideas.
Qin Shu’s bare upper body appeared on the screen. Since it was winter, the skin normally hidden beneath his clothes was somewhat paler than his face.
His build was balanced and athletic, with clean, well-defined lines beneath the bathroom light.
He had the classic broad shoulders and narrow waist of someone who exercised regularly. Pull-ups came easily to him, and he could perform all kinds of variations on push-ups. The chest, abdomen, and back normally hidden beneath his loose school uniform were solid and well trained, firm without any unnecessary bulk.
The traces of training that appeared when he tensed his shoulders were similarly restrained, emphasizing the clean lines of his collarbones and neck. Only the V-lines beside his lower abdomen disappeared gradually into shadow.
Everything else was practically in high definition.
For a moment, Pei Zhao forgot what Qin Shu had just said—or, perhaps more accurately, selectively ignored it altogether. It had been a long time since he had last seen Qin Shu without a shirt. Swimming outdoors in summer and seeing him inside a bathroom on a winter night created completely different atmospheres.
Pei Zhao stared at the screen in a daze for quite a while. It was only when Qin Shu actually lowered his head and started taking off his pants that he finally asked quietly, “Then why are you taking your clothes off right now…?”
“To take a bath.”
Qin Shu picked up the phone and sank into the bathtub. Wrapped in hot water, he slowly breathed out, only to abruptly sit upright again and look at Pei Zhao.
“Zhaozhao, I’m definitely going to have high blood pressure when I’m old. You’re responsible for me.”
Clear droplets of water rolled down the side of his neck, while the vague outline of his body shifted beneath the rippling surface.
Pei Zhao blinked, lowered his eyes, and answered softly, “Okay.”
“That easy? Trying to humor me won’t work this time. I’m definitely spanking you tomorrow.” Qin Shu tapped the back of his phone. “Where are your eyes going? Pei Zhao, look at me.”
“…”
Pei Zhao paused, then obediently raised his eyes and looked directly at him, cooperating perfectly.
“Can you tell me your little secret? Even if you can’t, at least give me the right direction to investigate you. Okay?”
Qin Shu’s expression became more serious as he laid the question out plainly. “I’ve invented so many excuses for you, listed one possibility after another, and asked all kinds of people. Maybe I’ve been lying to myself this entire time. Obviously, there’s something you haven’t told me, but I really don’t want to keep guessing blindly anymore, because I worry about you.”
“If I give you the right direction, are you still going to spank me tomorrow?” Pei Zhao asked quietly.
He remained unusually obedient and maintained eye contact with Qin Shu. His eyes glittered like gemstones, while his expression was obscured by the darkness around him. His voice, however, contained an unusually tentative note.
“…Don’t say it like I’m bullying you! How are those two things even related?” Qin Shu coughed. “I’m a man who keeps his promises, but that isn’t the point right now. Zhaozhao, at the very least, give me some kind of standard. Tell me clearly what kinds of things you can do without being in danger and what kinds of things actually put you at risk.”
“Nothing I do puts me in danger. Nothing you can think of is dangerous to me.” Pei Zhao moved his face closer to the phone, his voice slightly distorted by the microphone. “Qin Shu, you’re the dangerous one.”
His tone was distorted too, making it suddenly sound extraordinarily soft. Because that softness was so unlike him, it was almost eerie.
“…What does that mean?”
Pei Zhao curved his lips in the faintest smile, small but impossible to overlook. “Other than you—and lunatics… no one would hit me.”
“Only you’re allowed to.”
That smile is really beautiful, but this is getting weirder and weirder.
Qin Shu’s Adam’s apple moved slightly before he deliberately asked one more question. “Pei Zhao, are you serious, or are you calling me a lunatic?”
“Serious.”
“…All right.”
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