Qin Shu was frightening when he was unhappy. Although he rarely became genuinely angry, that had long been common knowledge.
Pei Zhao knew it, and so did plenty of students at Jiangcheng No. 2 High School.
If anything, that fact only made Qin Shu more popular.
Whenever No. 2 High School held a sports meet or ball game and they ran into opponents who played dirty and loved committing fouls… everyone desperately hoped Qin Shu would be on their side so he could scare the other team half to death.
Of course, as far as Pei Zhao was concerned, Qin Shu’s displeasure affected him rather more heavily than it did everyone else. After all, there was also a little “historical baggage” mixed into the matter.
So for the sake of enjoying a relatively peaceful high school life, Pei Zhao generally tried not to make Qin Shu angry.
Unless, for some reason, he suddenly felt like making Qin Shu angry.
Perhaps the previous night had been one of those occasions. Pei Zhao knew perfectly well that jumping down from the rooftop would make Qin Shu angry, yet he had pushed himself over the edge without the slightest hesitation.
The reason was actually very simple. After Qin Shu called and talked to him for quite a while, Pei Zhao gradually realized, as he listened, that he was not particularly happy.
It was a secretive, subtle, inexplicable kind of… unhappiness.
He had never experienced such a strange emotion before.
So Pei Zhao jumped from the rooftop. It was a very short and easy fall, only one floor plus half a balcony—five or six meters at most.
Once he had jumped and looked at Qin Shu’s expression afterward, he immediately felt much better.
As for how he was supposed to deal with Qin Shu the next day, when Qin Shu was still secretly angry without even realizing that he was angry… Pei Zhao knew better than anyone what to do.
Stroke him the right way.
Qin Shu was exactly the sort of person who could only be soothed by stroking him with the grain, which ironically made him extremely easy to placate. As long as the method was exactly right, his ruffled fur would smooth down in no time.
And so, by the time school ended that afternoon, Qin Shu had completely thrown the events of the previous night to the back of his mind, along with those messy nightmares.
He was now eagerly looking forward to his birthday present.
Pei Zhao had voluntarily told him that he had prepared a birthday present—and it was a surprise!
During the previous two years, whenever Qin Shu asked him in advance for a birthday present, Pei Zhao had always given him something expensive right on time… but there was a world of difference between being asked and taking the initiative himself!
“Tell me secretly. What are you giving me? Just one tiny clue is enough. I’ll guess the rest myself.”
“I’m not telling you.”
“Zhaozhao, please…”
“No.”
“Why not? Don’t you like me anymore?”
“…If I tell you what the surprise is, then it won’t be a surprise.”
Qin Shu pestered Pei Zhao the entire way home and somehow failed to squeeze even a single word of information out of him.
But that did nothing whatsoever to dampen his radiant mood, because Pei Zhao had voluntarily done something else that made Qin Shu extremely happy.
Pei Zhao had gone home with him! Pei Zhao was willing to live with him!
Qin Shu felt thoroughly content. The moment they got home, he immediately went to prepare the guest room he had set aside long ago.
The four-piece bedding set had been bought in advance. Taking advantage of two consecutive days of bright sunshine in Jiangcheng, Qin Shu had washed it, hung it out to dry in the backyard, and brought it back inside. When he made the bed, the fabric still carried the faint scent of sunlight.
Pei Zhao tried to help, but Qin Shu refused to let him do any of it and cheerfully pushed him back out of the guest room.
Staying over briefly and actually living together long-term were completely different things. Qin Shu could finally breathe a little easier now that one of his worries had been settled.
To tell the truth in secret, he really did not like Pei Zhao’s house.
There was technically nothing wrong with it. It was fully furnished, clean, and beautiful, yet whenever Qin Shu stepped inside, he always felt that… Pei Zhao’s house contained even less evidence of human life than his own did, not to mention the potential fire hazards. Bad. Very bad.
“Zhaozhao, do you still need to go home and bring more luggage over? I can help, or we can just buy new things if you’re missing anything.”
“No. Everything essential is here.”
Pei Zhao had brought a small suitcase. Qin Shu had snatched it away from him on the way home and weighed it in his hand. It was extremely light, containing almost nothing except clothes.
Only after opening it again in the guest room did Qin Shu discover two short down jackets cruelly flattened inside, one black and one white, pitifully squashed into a corner.
Imagining Pei Zhao flattening the jackets and stuffing them into the suitcase, Qin Shu could not hold back his laughter. “So cute… All right, Zhaozhao. I’ll hang your clothes in the walk-in closet, okay? The wardrobe in this room hasn’t been used in ages. It might be dusty.”
Pei Zhao had no idea what Qin Shu found so funny and answered with slight confusion, “Okay. Thank you.”
“Don’t talk to me so formally. I’m sleeping with you tonight!”
“You’re sleeping in the guest room with me?” Pei Zhao froze.
Qin Shu scooped up all the clothes from the suitcase at once and nodded. “Yep, yep.”
“Why?”
“I’m scared to sleep alone. I need company.” Qin Shu produced the excuse without a moment’s hesitation or the slightest trace of guilt.
Pei Zhao: “…”
Pei Zhao did not refuse.
For two perfectly ordinary high school students, living together was warm and uneventful.
They went to school together and came home together, took turns cooking, and took turns washing the dishes. Once they had eaten their fill, they would go out for a walk, then return home and spend the evening doing homework.
After showering, they could have a late-night snack, play a co-op game for a while before they got sleepy, then climb comfortably into bed.
Of course, there were also unusual circumstances, such as when Yuanbao and Coalball suddenly started clamoring that they were hungry… Even if Qin Shu had just eaten until he was completely full, their hunger would immediately make him ravenous too.
The worst occasion happened at three in the morning. Qin Shu had no choice but to throw on a coat and walk the streets at the hour when yin energy was strongest, hunting food for the two little monsters with his eyes barely open from exhaustion and the bizarre illusion that he was a starving refugee searching desperately for something to eat.
Unfortunately, they did not even like the same food. Yuanbao enjoyed eating all kinds of mountain spirits and wild creatures and showed little interest in ghosts that had once been human. Coalball, meanwhile… could only eat ghosts, and it urgently needed to do so, because otherwise it would never grow.
That was right. This timid little headless bird genuinely required proper, regular feeding, and the more Qin Shu fed it, the fatter it became. Raising it was almost no different from keeping a living pet.
In a way, that could also be considered a local specialty of Jiangcheng No. 2 High School.
Qin Shu had specifically consulted Boss Lin and Huang Yu Yuan about it, and both well-informed adults gave him essentially the same answer: there was something strange about this little bird.
Logically speaking, Jian did not reproduce among themselves. They should not require food this frequently either, much less evolve the ability to “copy human faces” specifically for hunting.
But Jiangcheng No. 2 High School was the strangest place of all. It clearly was not a ghost domain, yet it could trap wandering ghosts inside the school permanently while somehow remaining peaceful for years without ever suffering some catastrophic incident with massive casualties… That alone was a long-standing ghost story in its own right.
Compared with that, Jian that reproduced and laid eggs almost seemed ordinary.
Qin Shu did not mind hunting food for Coalball, since he needed to kill more ghosts anyway. It would make him somewhat stronger in preparation for the upcoming trip to Yun City.
His instincts told him that this short journey might not be as simple as it seemed.
＊
“Zhaozhao, Mushroom Bro bought us plane tickets for the fourteenth. Looks like I’m spending my birthday in Yun City…”
“Mushroom Bro” was the mushroom wholesaler who had remained in contact with Qin Shu after Liu Yang Yang disappeared.
The wild mushrooms Qin Shu had previously bought from him in bulk had been excellent. They tasted incredible both in hotpot and stir-fried over high heat with plenty of chili, and even Yuanbao had specifically flown over to steal a few bites.
Qin Shu had enjoyed them so much that he had bestowed this nickname upon the man for convenience.
“Don’t want to spend your birthday in Yun City?” Pei Zhao had been concentrating on the television. Hearing Qin Shu speak, he pressed mute. “We can change the flight.”
“That’s not necessary. But Zhaozhao… is my birthday present big? Is it easy to bring to Yun City? Am I going to find it while packing?”
Unable to suppress his anticipation, Qin Shu had progressed to probing openly. After firing off all three questions in rapid succession, he immediately followed up with another. “How about giving it to me early?”
“No. I can’t give it to you early.”
Pei Zhao rejected him decisively, picked up the remote, and turned the television sound back on.
“Zhaozhao, you’re so mean…”
“Shh.”
Qin Shu had only gotten halfway through his plaintive complaint when Pei Zhao directly covered his mouth with one hand. His palm was soft, cool, and smelled pleasant against Qin Shu’s lips.
Qin Shu immediately fell silent. He lightly held Pei Zhao’s wrist, using his actions to tell him not to take his hand away and to keep touching him a little longer.
Pei Zhao’s attention was already back on the television, but he did not withdraw the hand he had extended. He absentmindedly rubbed Qin Shu’s face, then patted his head, remarkably cooperative… as long as Qin Shu did not interfere with his television show.
Recently, Pei Zhao had been watching a wildly popular xianxia drama produced by Youth TV. It had a generous budget, lavish costumes and styling, and fast-paced plotting, although the story was slightly melodramatic.
Every episode made Pei Zhao frown as he watched, as though he had countless things he wanted to criticize, yet he still appeared in front of the television punctually every evening to catch the prime-time broadcast.
Before they actually lived together, Qin Shu had never gotten to see this side of him.
Those tiny, lively expressions—even the simple fact that “Pei Zhao also obsessively follows melodramatic television dramas”—were fascinating to Qin Shu.
Every night, watching Pei Zhao was much more entertaining than watching the drama itself.
What was even more amusing was that whenever Pei Zhao became sufficiently absorbed, he would instinctively accept absolutely anything Qin Shu handed him and keep holding it until the next commercial break.
Qin Shu had taken plenty of adorable photos that way: Pei Zhao hugging a plush toy, Pei Zhao holding up the neighbor’s teacup dog with one hand, Pei Zhao cupping Qin Shu’s face, and even the rare sight of Pei Zhao watching television while holding a kitchen knife.
Elio’s Notes: The Chinese source appears to contain a subject-name slip here: it says Pei Zhao took the photos, but the examples in the same sentence and the following line clearly make Qin Shu the photographer. The translation follows the intended subject.
Every time, Pei Zhao was speechless afterward. He also knew perfectly well that Qin Shu would do it again, yet not once had he actually stopped him… Ultimately, Qin Shu had become this spoiled because Pei Zhao himself allowed it.
If only days like this could continue forever. Sometimes Qin Shu could not help thinking that.
He did not need some mysterious surprise or an expensive birthday present. As long as they could keep living like this forever, experiencing the most boring, ordinary, uneventful life possible, that would be enough.
That being said, when their flight landed safely in Yun City, Qin Shu saw dense crowds of wandering souls roaming through the airport. Then, when he stepped outside, Mushroom Bro arrived to pick them up accompanied by the corpse of a tall, handsome, muscular man, who effortlessly picked up all their luggage for them…
Seeing the outside world once in a while really is pretty exciting.
“Good afternoon, you two. My name is Chen Shui—Shui as in the water in a swimming pool. Sorry I never introduced myself properly before. For the past few years, the elders in my family have kept restricting my social life. Ah, if I started explaining, I’d probably cry…”
As Liu Yang Yang’s relative, the mushroom wholesaler named Chen Shui indeed resembled him somewhat, while his talkative personality was practically identical.
Chen Shui drove while the muscular corpse he had brought sat silently in the front passenger seat. Its tall, broad shoulders blocked the afternoon sunlight and cast a patch of shade over the back seat.
Yun City was not hot in mid-January, but compared with Jiangcheng, where snow occasionally drifted down, the temperature was still more than ten degrees higher.
The sunlight was somewhat glaring. Chen Shui put on sunglasses and continued talking as he turned the steering wheel. “If Brother Liu weren’t still missing, there’s no way I’d have gotten the chance to come meet you two this time.”
“You still don’t have any news about Liu Yang Yang? Are you sure he’s okay?” Qin Shu rummaged through his backpack and took Liu Yang Yang’s phone from an inner compartment.
“Come to think of it, I still have his phone. Perfect timing. I’ll hand it over to you so I don’t accidentally see something I shouldn’t.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. As long as he didn’t manage to die, then he won’t die. One of these days he’ll crawl back out from between some rocks.” Chen Shui turned his head with a grin and gestured toward the corpse beside him. “Just give the phone to our A-Dou. Thanks for keeping it safe for so long, Brother Qin.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the muscular corpse raised its left hand and bent its forearm backward by a full one hundred and eighty degrees. In that grotesquely twisted position, it silently extended its palm toward Qin Shu.
Qin Shu fell silent for a moment before gently placing Liu Yang Yang’s phone into its hand. The corpse slowly curled its fingers around the phone, secured it firmly, then finally twisted its arm back into place.
So cool.
It was admittedly a little frightening, but back in the cathedral graveyard, Qin Shu had already met Mr. Litte with his head and body separated. Compared with that, Mr. A-Dou in front of him—with regular features, all four limbs intact, and not even a stitched seam around his neck—actually looked pretty handsome.
Coalball was fascinated by him too. It secretly squeezed out through Qin Shu’s collar, fluttered over to A-Dou’s shoulder, and began hopping around.
Not long afterward, something miraculous happened. The fluffy black ball slowly grew an entirely new head and transformed its features into an exact copy of A-Dou’s face.
Qin Shu: “…”
Chen Shui: “…”
“Um, B-B-B-Brother Qin… what is that thing…? Brother Qin, I’m scared of ghosts!”
Chen Shui happened to glance into the rearview mirror and nearly jumped out of his skin. His hands clenched around the steering wheel and his voice trembled uncontrollably.
“Don’t be scared. Coalball isn’t a ghost. It specifically eats ghosts.” Qin Shu coughed lightly and hurriedly explained while grabbing the frightening little creature back as quickly as possible. “Sorry, Mr. Chen. The kid was only born a week ago. It’s young and doesn’t know any better, so it’s a little mischievous…”
“Ahahaha. So that’s what it is. Of course, of course…”
For some reason, this explanation did not appear especially effective. Chen Shui was still visibly nervous.
His hands barely left the steering wheel after that. The car climbed higher and higher along the winding mountain road, moving faster and faster, while Chen Shui himself became noticeably less talkative.
Whenever Qin Shu and Pei Zhao exchanged a few quiet words, Chen Shui would instinctively tense for a moment before slowly relaxing again.
Scaring someone half to death immediately after arriving really was not ideal… Forget it. Qin Shu would try restoring his friendly image once they reached their destination.
The temperature dropped abruptly in the mountains. Low, thick white clouds accumulated around the mountainside in great clusters, resembling enormous piles of icy cotton candy.
“The altitude’s getting a little high. You two adapting okay? If you feel uncomfortable, tell me immediately.”
“Zhaozhao, how do you feel?”
“Fine.”
“Great, great.” Chen Shui breathed out in relief and resumed his duties as guide. “This is Jin’e Mountain, although all of us locals call it Eda Cenzi. The slightly smaller mountain next door is called Yinpeng Mountain. These days, that place is almost completely uninhabited and isn’t particularly safe.”
“Jin’e Mountain, Yinpeng Mountain… Is there a story behind those names?” Qin Shu asked curiously.
“There is. I heard it from the elders when I was little. It’s actually kind of cliché. Supposedly, back in ancient times, bandits seized the village and burned, killed, and plundered until the villagers had no way left to survive. Then a young woman from the village named Long E used Gu to kill the bandits. She kept killing for an entire month until blood ran like rivers, and only then could the villagers finally return home.”
“Wow, that impressive? That doesn’t sound cliché at all. I’m starting to suspect it really happened.”
“Ah, it would’ve been great if the story ended there. What happened afterward is the cliché part. Several years later, a drought struck the mountains. Even the springs dried up. Around here we don’t have a tradition of worshipping Dragon Kings either, only Mountain Gods and Cave Gods…”
Chen Shui became animated as he spoke, even slapping the steering wheel, apparently having forgotten his earlier nervousness.
Qin Shu could already roughly guess where the story was going and asked gloomily, “The ignorant villagers married Long E off to the Mountain God?”
“See? Cliché!”
Chen Shui shook his head. “And of course she already had a sweetheart. His name was Wu Peng, and he lived on the mountain next door. They were practically about to get married. So after the villagers killed Long E, her fiancé went mad with grief. Barefoot, he crossed the mountain in the middle of the night, quietly slipped into the village, and slaughtered every adult in one go. Then he threw all the children into caves and left them there to fend for themselves.”
“He massacred the whole village?”
“Exactly. After killing everyone, Wu Peng immediately slit his own throat to follow her in death. But ten days after the massacre, in broad daylight, Jin’e Mountain was drenched by a bloody red rain. It was like a bleeding sun, burning every plant on the mountain completely bare. Then at night, the bloody rain became scalding white water, dripping from the moon’s eyes until it turned into a mountain flood… and drowned every cave in the mountains.”
Qin Shu listened with great interest. “So the children thrown into the caves died too?”
“Actually, no. It’s a myth people have told children generation after generation, so it isn’t that miserable. According to the story, after Long E died, she became the blazing sun, while her man became the sorrowful moon. The tragic lovers finally reunited in the heavens, took revenge on the Mountain God, and forgave the children hiding in the caves. They let them float out with the floodwaters, regain their lives, and establish households of their own…”
At this point, Chen Shui lowered the car window slightly and pointed toward the mountaintop hidden beneath the mist. “After that disaster, my hometown finally gained its own name: Phoenix Village, symbolizing rebirth through fire. Brother Qin, look at those mountain ridges rising on either side. Don’t they look like wings? The children who survived back then became our ancestors. The Mountain God died, and only the Cave God endured.”
Elio’s Notes: 寨 can refer to a traditional fortified mountain settlement as well as a village. Phoenix Village retains the natural English sense of a living community, while the later walls, gate, moat, and drawbridge preserve its fortified character.
“I see. That’s a really good name… But Mr. Chen, I still have one question. The bloody rain and mountain flood happened ten days after the massacre. Could those children really have survived until the tenth day?” Qin Shu asked thoughtfully.
“?”
Qin Shu sat up straighter, genuinely considering the problem. “There was a drought in the mountains, so there wouldn’t have been water to drink to begin with, and probably nothing much to eat inside the caves either. And back then, surely not everybody knew how to swim? Even if they did, being caught in a scalding mountain flood sounds incredibly dangerous… Honestly, I think all of them died, and you also look a little…”
You also look a little dead.
But not completely dead. Just a little dead.
Qin Shu was not joking or deliberately provoking him. He could clearly distinguish between Chen Shui and the muscular corpse beside him.
When they first left the airport, Chen Shui had looked like an entirely ordinary young man—a living person. Yet as the car accelerated deeper into the mountains, as the altitude rose and they drew closer and closer to “Phoenix Village”… Chen Shui’s aura became increasingly similar to A-Dou’s.
Simply put, Chen Shui looked more and more like a dead person. And yet he definitely had not died.
Without showing it, Qin Shu rubbed his wrist and stared into the pair of eyes reflected in the rearview mirror. He decided to get to the bottom of this before the car entered the village.
“Brother Qin, you’re much sharper than I expected. Ah, fine. In the myth, those children really did die. As for me… here’s the situation. Once we enter Phoenix Village, all of us become dead people.”
Qin Shu narrowed his eyes. “What about Pei Zhao and me?”
“Ahahaha. You two will too.”