As everyone knew, Qin Shu had relatively high moral standards.
At the same time, however, those moral standards were also remarkably flexible.
For the past eighteen years, he had always worked hard to be a model student, a model friend, and a model child. He generally prioritized other people’s needs, and whenever he encountered injustice or danger, he would step forward without hesitation, caring relatively little about what he personally stood to gain or lose.
Of course, Qin Shu was not a good person because he enjoyed being one that much. It was because… he had actively chosen this way of life and personally believed it to be the correct path.
The only thing he especially enjoyed was sticking to Pei Zhao.
Qin Shu did not know how to explain that feeling. He simply wanted to. It did not matter what they were doing. Even when he imagined the worst possible outcomes, none of them produced any genuine unwillingness inside him.
Even if his career after graduation somehow turned out to be cleaning toilets, as long as he and Pei Zhao were cleaning toilets together, Qin Shu thought he would probably be perfectly happy.
Besides… judging from the currently unconfirmed information they had, this world already had several enormous holes in it. Apparently, things were rather dangerous. Apparently, something bad might happen.
In that case, even if Pei Zhao personally went and punched another hole into the world right now, it did not seem enough to make him some unprecedentedly evil person…
At least, Qin Shu did not see why it would be unacceptable. He briefly imagined the situation and realized his opinion of Pei Zhao would not change very much at all.
After hearing what Qin Shu said, Pei Zhao stared blankly for a long time. He genuinely could not think of any way to refute him, so he could only allow Qin Shu to start calling him Teacher Pei every few sentences.
Late that night, Pei Zhao lay beside Qin Shu but did not turn his head toward the sleepy birthday boy.
He stared into the darkness of the ceiling and suddenly wrapped his arms around Qin Shu’s arm, saying very quietly, “You saw through me. I’m a little embarrassed.”
“Mm… huh?”
A strange sensation pressed against Qin Shu’s arm. Through the soft fabric of their pajamas and beneath the thick quilt, his sleepiness instantly vanished by half.
Pei Zhao hugged him even tighter. With an expressionless face, he seemed to slowly shuffle closer until he had tucked himself directly into Qin Shu’s embrace.
He even pulled Qin Shu’s other arm over and wrapped it around his waist before saying thoughtfully, “It feels a little uncomfortable. I rarely get embarrassed.”
Qin Shu was dumbfounded. “…You—Zhaozhao, you… Where exactly do you look embarrassed right now? I’m the one who should be embarrassed!”
“I want to curl myself into a little ball and hide.” Completely unmoved, Pei Zhao naturally pressed his head against Qin Shu’s chest and settled there. “Bury me under the blanket.”
“Cough. Mm. Well… I don’t think that’s a great idea. Sleeping with your head covered can make it hard to breathe.”
“It won’t. Hurry.”
Pei Zhao poked Qin Shu’s waist, stubbornly insisting.
Qin Shu was almost sweating. It took every ounce of his self-control to pretend his body was not reacting at all as he obediently pulled the quilt higher and covered the head tucked against him.
Too close.
He could smell everything.
Touch everything.
Feel everything.
And by sheer coincidence, the two of them had been using the exact same body wash and shampoo lately.
The effect was far too devastating.
Qin Shu felt somewhat tormented… but asking him to push Pei Zhao away was absolutely impossible.
So he decided to endure.
He closed his eyes, breathed in the faint familiar fragrance surrounding him, wondered whether there was something psychologically wrong with him for reacting this way, considered how he might improve his ability to control his expressions…
Then promptly fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.
Whenever Pei Zhao lay beside him, Qin Shu fell asleep at an almost ridiculous speed. It was a sense of security so absolute that it could practically be called a trap, making him unconsciously lower every last defense.
It felt like coming home.
Tonight was no different from usual.
Qin Shu was responsible for enjoying his deep sleep, while Pei Zhao watched him for a while before silently beginning to do what he wanted.
The first thing was to eat.
…Or, perhaps more accurately, to raid Phoenix Village’s food stores.
Whatever the thing that had replaced the Cave God actually was, Pei Zhao still needed to eat. As far as he was concerned, it did not particularly matter whose hands he stole food from.
Any dead soul that could no longer enter the Six Paths of Reincarnation and be reborn could become food on his plate.
Elio’s Notes: The Six Paths of Reincarnation are the six realms of rebirth in Buddhist cosmology. Here, Pei Zhao is referring to souls that can no longer enter the normal cycle of reincarnation.
Pei Zhao had not originally intended to eat tonight. In fact, his interest in all the hidden affairs of Phoenix Village had been fairly limited from the beginning.
He had come here to travel.
He had only wanted to wander around the mountains and collect a few pretty, sparkling things. If there were spirit stones, he could dig up some spirit stones. If there were dragon veins, he could dig up a dragon vein… In short, he had simply planned to look around casually.
But even Pei Zhao had not expected that one night of talking seriously with Qin Shu would consume so much emotion, mental energy, and physical energy.
…He really had been embarrassed.
And he really was hungry.
Pei Zhao returned to the cave.
Zhang Mei Jiang was sitting on her coffin in a daze and did not look at him.
He walked directly past her, yet she did not so much as shift her gaze. She remained completely immersed in her own thoughts, as though Pei Zhao had never returned at all.
Deep inside the gloomy cave, the only woman who looked at Pei Zhao was that woman.
The woman whose lifelike face had been constructed from coffins of every color.
The woman named Long E.
The coffins stacked inside the wooden frames quietly produced several faint creaks, as though rocking gently in the wind. Age had corroded the black lacquer covering them, and large flakes suddenly fell away in complete patches.
Those patches were also Long E’s eyes.
Her black pupils slowly lowered and turned toward Pei Zhao.
“I’m hungry. Give me something to eat.”
Pei Zhao looked up and met her gaze, expressionless as he shamelessly held out his hand for food.
The request sounded absurd, yet the enormous, deeply unnatural thing before him showed no trace of anger. It silently confronted him for a moment before choosing to communicate directly.
A hollow voice that sounded neither male nor female flowed upward from beneath the earth. It was bizarre and eerie beyond description, yet somehow carried a faint trace of inexplicable irritation.
“You already took my Profound Yin Cold Jade. That still wasn’t enough? What else do you want?”
“That isn’t food.” Pei Zhao frowned, finding this thing somewhat difficult to communicate with. “I don’t like eating insects. Give me everything else.”
“What arrogance. What exactly are you?”
Pei Zhao considered the question. “Something prettier than you.”
The owner of the voice laughed from sheer anger.
Apparently, it was also beginning to lose its temper. The ground started shaking.
This time, the trembling was no longer subtle. Even Zhang Mei Jiang noticed it. She immediately flew upward in alarm and looked around frantically, yet discovered nothing.
“Yes. I can’t see your full form, and I know perfectly well that you must be extremely powerful and difficult to provoke. That’s why I treated you courteously before and allowed you to take something that belonged to me… But have you forgotten that I am the master of Jin’e Mountain?”
The instant those words fell, the rumble of falling rocks echoed like thunder throughout the enormous burial cavern.
Zhang Mei Jiang flew around like a panicked headless fly.
She could not see either party currently confronting the other, but she knew some invisible power was operating in the shadows and that whatever was happening was far beyond anything she had the ability to investigate.
Her expression deteriorated further.
Without hesitation, she reached out, pried open a corner of her own coffin, and disappeared inside with a bang, decisively beginning to play dead.
People really did end up with their own kind…
Her style was practically identical to that fat eyeball’s.
The corner of Pei Zhao’s mouth curved slightly as his gaze remained fixed on Long E’s face.
Her features began to deform.
The face had clearly carried the youthful smile of a young girl, yet little by little, that smile became distorted, bizarre, vicious, and sharply angular.
“The master of Jin’e Mountain should be more than three thousand years old by now. One look at you and it’s obvious you aren’t three thousand years old… How boring.”
Pei Zhao murmured thoughtfully, completely ignoring the danger of the cave threatening to collapse around him, and closed his eyes.
If it refused to talk properly, then he would simply take what he wanted by force.
Qin Shu did not like things that were too boring anyway.
Beneath Pei Zhao’s slender figure, a shadow slowly crawled outward.
Starting around his ankles, it silently spread farther and farther, resembling a pool of bottomless black ink.
Soft.
Dense.
Silent.
A shapeless, indescribable chaos.
It was cold enough to pierce the bones, and anything that touched it became contaminated. Fine strands of darkness seeped into every hollow and crack, rapidly soaking and spreading. At first, it seemed no more than a harmless nuisance, yet once it attached itself, it could no longer be easily shaken away.
One blink was enough for something to become completely covered.
Devoured alive.
Dismembered without realizing it.
Lost in confusion, it would ultimately become part of that blackness, reduced to an insignificant trace of dust.
In an instant, the trembling cave fell completely silent.
A faint wind swept away tiny fragments of sand and stone, and everything returned to stillness.
The “artwork” constructed primarily from coffins still stood perfectly intact where it had always been. It had not collapsed.
But the slightly twisted smile on Long E’s face was now permanently frozen in place.
Her lowered eyelids suddenly looked wrong.
Rigid.
Lifeless.
The vivid vitality they had possessed was gone, replaced by an entirely different kind of eerie atmosphere.
Only someone familiar with death would have recognized it.
The aura of death.
Everything appeared calm again, yet Zhang Mei Jiang had absolutely no intention of moving.
She was still playing dead.
There was another nearly imperceptible change that only someone thoroughly familiar with graves might have noticed.
The soil had changed.
In the previously barren ground, wild-grass seeds buried for some unknown number of years were quietly stirring and beginning to sprout. Perhaps when the warmth of spring finally entered the cave, they would seize the eastern wind and grow wildly.
All kinds of dried, dormant insect eggs were beginning to hatch. Near the cave entrance, earthworms eagerly turned over the soil and slowly began exploring toward the depths of the tomb.
Of course, Pei Zhao had never cared much about such trivial things.
He was more or less full now and had begun finding the entire trip dull.
He glanced toward the decomposing corpse inside the bright-red coffin and became thoughtful, apparently considering whether he should have just a little more…
Immediately afterward, the exceptionally gifted Grand Shaman inside the coffin somehow genuinely sensed that something was wrong.
He seemed to notice Pei Zhao’s dangerous gaze.
No.
He was absolutely certain that something terrifying was watching him.
Despite already being a dead soul on the brink of psychological collapse, the man immediately lay completely flat without the slightest hesitation.
He started playing dead.
Truly cut from the same cloth.
The corner of Pei Zhao’s mouth twitched.
That reaction actually made him give up on taking another bite. He turned and left.
The shadow beneath his feet remained inside the cave for a little longer, however.
It quietly gathered up every remaining piece of stalactite, pulling all of them into the ink-pool darkness where no light could penetrate.
A moment later, Pei Zhao was already lying comfortably in Qin Shu’s arms again.
He extended one finger and openly poked Qin Shu’s cheek.
Qin Shu’s sleep quality was so good it was genuinely infuriating. He showed no sign whatsoever that he might wake up. One arm simply shot out with a smack and instinctively wrapped itself around Pei Zhao again…
And somehow, Qin Shu began sleeping even more soundly.
The cool Phoenix Village night finally returned to complete peace.
After all, once Pei Zhao was full, he became too lazy to do anything else.
He slowly shifted around in Qin Shu’s arms, found the most comfortable position, and closed his eyes again.
＊
The next morning, Qin Shu’s phone nearly exploded.
Once again, he was buried beneath a flood of messages, every imaginable variation of “Happy Birthday.”
Perhaps because turning eighteen was especially significant, he received considerably more birthday wishes than in previous years. Some people had specifically mentioned him on Moments. There were even several-hundred-word essays about him on “Penguin Space”… and his classmates were reposting photos of him from his second year of high school, allegedly stolen from the campus confession wall.
Elio’s Notes: “Penguin Space” is the chapter’s joking name for Tencent’s Qzone social platform, playing on Tencent’s famous penguin branding.
There were candid shots of Qin Shu playing basketball, as well as pictures of him carrying a guitar onto the stage during a New Year’s event.
Qin Shu took the opportunity to save several of them. He suddenly realized that he really did look slightly more handsome than usual beneath stage spotlights. More importantly, however, the front rows of the audience had been caught in the wide-angle shots, and Pei Zhao appeared in one of them.
At the exact instant the photo had been taken, the two of them happened to be looking at each other.
Qin Shu remembered deliberately pulling a ridiculous face at Pei Zhao from the stage. Pei Zhao had answered with a thoroughly speechless smile, his beautiful eyes curving faintly and the tiny pixel-sized upturn at the corner of his lips exceptionally obvious.
Qin Shu enlarged the photo, specifically cropped out Pei Zhao’s figure, and set it as the new background for their chat.
Then Su Ting Lian called. Old Fu called. His parents sent him birthday red envelopes… Qin Shu carefully answered each message one by one before suddenly realizing that all his annoying relatives had somehow disappeared.
Several family group chats were as quiet as stagnant water.
Keeping things exactly like this was best.
Qin Shu pretended he knew nothing about those little groups, put down his phone, and stretched enormously.
“Zhaozhao—!”
“Mm?”
“I’m hungry. Wow, you look really good today. I’m so hungry. What are we having for breakfast?”
Qin Shu genuinely was not teasing him.
Pei Zhao really did look exceptionally good today.
He was wearing an ordinary white school-uniform shirt layered beneath a thin tea-brown crewneck sweater. Everything looked clean and neat, giving him the subtle air of an exemplary student.
The cashmere fabric for spring and autumn was light and soft. Qin Shu directly wrapped his arms around Pei Zhao from behind and happily squeezed and kneaded his waist through it.
“…Buns. Chen Shui said they’re called posu bao.” Pei Zhao could not be bothered with him. Without even turning around, he opened the steamer on the table and stuffed a steaming bun directly into Qin Shu’s mouth. “You can have all of them.”
Elio’s Notes: Posu bao are a Yunnan-style steamed bun made with flaky, layered dough. Savory versions are often filled with ingredients such as ham.
“Mm—hot, hot, hot! Delicious. The ham flavor is so strong… Food really does taste better now that I’m alive again!”
Qin Shu shamelessly finished both servings of breakfast and ate until his entire body felt thoroughly satisfied.
He had more or less figured it out by now.
Pei Zhao rarely ate meat that was not sufficiently fresh. Preserved foods that could be stored for a long time, such as ham and cured meat, invariably ended up in Qin Shu’s bowl.
Even when they ate fried ribs with mint at the village chief’s house the previous night, Pei Zhao had only eaten half a bowl of mint leaves.
No wonder his waist was so narrow. It felt as though Qin Shu could snap it if he used even slightly too much force…
Now full and satisfied, Qin Shu smoothly wrapped an arm around Pei Zhao’s waist again and tilted his head. “Then what did you eat this morning? Are you hungry?”
Pei Zhao shook his head and began walking toward the courtyard gate at an unhurried pace, dragging Qin Shu along with him where he remained attached. “I’m very full.”
“Oh. Chen Shui brought the buns?”
“He’s waiting outside.”
Chen Shui had successfully escaped yesterday.
Today, however, he had failed.
Village Chief Liu Bai Long had caught him and assigned him to continue serving as their guide.
Although the joint burial ceremony would not begin until tomorrow and today was technically free time for casual sightseeing, they could hardly allow guests to wander aimlessly through the village again. Somebody still needed to accompany them.
Liu Bai Long had strictly forbidden another incident in which the guests got lost.
Chen Shui’s objections were therefore overruled, and he had miserably returned to duty.
Today, he had not brought the car.
He and A-Dou were sitting together on stone stools outside the courtyard gate, staring vacantly into the distance. Only when Qin Shu and Pei Zhao emerged did he manage to force a smile.
“Morning. Did you two eat well?”
“Morning. Nice weather today. Mr. Chen looks pretty energetic too.” Qin Shu also smiled and inserted the main topic into the casual conversation with astonishing abruptness. “Could you take us to see your uncle? We have something we’d like to discuss with him. Oh, wow. A-Dou’s new arm looks great too. Fits perfectly.”
Chen Shui: “…”
“Um, Brother Qin. My uncle hasn’t done anything wrong, has he? He’s already over sixty. He has osteoporosis and coronary heart disease. He needs to sit down and catch his breath after walking just a few steps…” Chen Shui led them toward the square, speaking weakly as he walked and making one futile attempt after another to defend his uncle.
Unexpectedly, this only made Qin Shu even more interested. Still holding Pei Zhao’s hand, he strode closer. “The mighty Grand Shaman of Phoenix Village managed to get himself into that condition? Didn’t you say shamans are basically the village doctors? Could the pressure be too much?”
“Physicians can’t heal themselves. Come to think of it, my uncle wasn’t like this when he was young. He only became this way after taking over as Grand Shaman. Every year he has to preside over the rituals, and every year he goes into the Drum Tower alone to communicate with the Cave God. Of course the pressure is terrifying.” Chen Shui sighed and secretly observed Qin Shu’s expression from the corner of his eye. “Divine might is impossible to predict. None of us dare ask too many questions. Anyway, my uncle’s nearly bald now, and he walks around with a stern face all day. He isn’t especially easy to talk to.”
“Don’t worry. Pei Zhao and I both respect the elderly and care for children. We genuinely won’t hold a grudge against an elder just because he’s too stern.” Qin Shu naturally noticed Chen Shui secretly watching him and laughed. After a brief pause, he added, “And we don’t beat up old people for no reason.”
“Ahaha. Great, great…” Chen Shui laughed stiffly along with him. “Let me think where my uncle might be. In the mornings, he usually makes tea in the Drum Tower. I heard the big drum inside has been peeling lately and needs to be sanded and maintained. He’s been busy.”
Chen Shui patted A-Dou’s arm. “A-Dou, go check. If the door downstairs is open, don’t bother coming back. Wait there for us, and help Uncle pull up some of the new weeds while you’re at it.”
A-Dou slowly nodded with an astonishingly human quality.
Then, in the blink of an eye, it shot away like a rocket and disappeared from the three of them.
Chen Shui waited until A-Dou’s figure was completely hidden behind the towering Drum Tower.
Only then did he slowly turn around.
The stiff smile on his face was extremely difficult to maintain as he looked toward Qin Shu and quietly asked, “Brother Qin, why are you alive again too?”
Sharp.
As expected of someone from the Chen family.
Qin Shu’s brows twitched.
He suddenly realized that Chen Shui’s aura had become considerably more dangerous than before.
Much more dangerous.
The muscular corpse playing the role of bodyguard had only just left, yet Chen Shui’s entire body language had visibly relaxed. His expression remained stiff, but his waist and legs had naturally shifted into a posture ready for attack. At some point, even his fingers had disappeared beneath the cover of his coat, impossible to see clearly.
Daring to confront Qin Shu directly and openly display his vigilance meant that Chen Shui was confident he could still find a way to escape even if a fight broke out.
Interesting.
When A-Dou had been beside him, he had practically been cowardice incarnate…
Qin Shu had the distinct feeling that there was some history between the two of them.
A-Dou was probably not simply a corpse being ordered around everywhere.
Unfortunately, now was not a good time to ask.
So Qin Shu squeezed Pei Zhao’s hand and deliberately became mysterious. “Something happened. Last night, my heart started beating so fast that it beat me back to life… Mm. Spreading unverified rumors could cause public panic, so just treat that as private gossip.”
“Huh? Seriously?” Chen Shui froze. “B-beat you back to life?! Brother Qin, what on earth did you hear? Tell me!”
Qin Shu pretended to be troubled by the matter and nodded, quickly taking advantage of the opening to question Chen Shui instead. “I heard there’s a dangerous hole somewhere in Phoenix Village. Not the cave used for burials. Another hole. Have you ever heard anything about that?”
Chen Shui frowned slightly, then became thoughtful. “Brother Qin, you don’t mean the hole beneath the Drum Tower, do you? The one where you can’t see the bottom?”
“…There’s actually a hole beneath your Drum Tower?”
“Of course. How could that be dangerous? That’s where the Cave God lives. My uncle goes to the mouth of the hole every day to offer wine…” Chen Shui abruptly became nervous. “Wait. Why? What happened?”
That did not sound good.
Qin Shu and Pei Zhao looked at each other.
That really did not sound good at all.
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