Chapter 254: That's All For This Chapter! See You on the Next One!

Chapter 254: That's All For This Chapter! See You on the Next One!

The Daniel Wu of Peony Street – this is the very nickname jokingly given to Lu Yibei by his neighbours when she was still running about the old streets wearing open-crotched pants as an infant. During her time of boyhood, she was, indeed, adorable – with red lips, radiant teeth, and a chubby face. Compared to normal babies, he would be considered a high-quality, male-infant model.

Pity that her face would later become disabled.

She is, by no means, unattractive. In fact, both of her forms are higher than average. However, nobody has jokingly called her that very nickname for the longest time, and she guesses that her once-doting neighbours have forgotten that name too.

Therefore, when she heard Jiangli utter the nickname that even she had almost forgotten, she could hear sirens blaring inside her head.

I’m gagged. Did she do a background check on me? If I let her, something bad might happen sooner or later!

M-maybe, after she gets what she wants from completing the investigation, she will personally deal with me, and...

Her thoughts were uneasy as she shook her head, deciding to muddy the waters by saying, “The Daniel Who of Peony Street? I have never heard of anything like that in my life! It’s just a nickname, and I bet there’s many other nicknames like that in the Super Secret Underground Club – let me think... ah! The Cai Xukun of Changshou Road, or the Chris Evans of Tuanjie Village, or the Shun Ogori of Frog Town... ”

“Are you interested in meeting them?” she continued to yap on. “Tell them my name and they’ll give you a couple bucks off your drinks!”

“...No,” Jiangli sighed after a moment. “I know what they are like, and I am not interested.”

She’s trying to hide it. I know her old house is on Peony Street, and her family also owns a restaurant... wait, could it be...?

No... no. Although she and the man looks somewhat similar, their temperaments are the total opposite. Like father like son, correct? How could such a heroic man have such a cowardly son whose only talent is yapping garbage?

“Enough about that,” Jiangli changed the topic. “I’m curious – do you know why your laba is able to stop the urban legend’s own music? Is there anything special behind your instrument?”

“Well... it’s a long story...”

“Keep it short.”

“You know the saying ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry?’” Yibei said, pointing at the two empty bowls on the table. “You’ve already eaten two bowls of ramen! And I’m still starving! At least let me cook something for myself, and we can talk after we eat, okay?”

“Okay, but...”

“What is it?”

Jiangli paused before muttering, “Don’t you think it’s a little weird for you to be eating all alone while I watch?”

...I know what you are! You want to eat more! I can see right through you! Just say so, damn! What’s the need to beat around the bush?!

What’s gotten into her today?! It feels like I’m dealing with a second Gu Qianqian around here!

...

Half an hour later, they were done with their meals.

Yibei sat on the sofa, holding a warm tea cup in both hands as she took a sip of the Tieguanyin tea that she ‘borrowed’ from her neighbours. Taking a huge gulp, she couldn’t help but let out a satisfied sigh.

“Ah! Food does taste better when it’s free!”

Jiangli eyed the Witch in disgust as she sat opposite of her, and grumbled, “Now, can we finally talk business? Over the past few days, I have investigated various files regarding the Happy Community, including the death reports of the victims, and yet, none of the information I obtained talked about the jew’s harp in detail. Where did you get your information from?”

Yibei took another sip of her tea and replied slowly, “You see, some things can’t be found through files and reports – there is no harm in listening to first-hand experiences of the elderly. I mean, at your age, I’d imagine-”

Jiangli’s face immediately darkened as soon as she said that, and she immediately changed explained how she obtained her information instead.

“Alright – it all started three days ago when I was talking to an old man while drinking tea at the teahouse...”

...

The old man’s name is Tang Yao, who lives on the southern side of Peony Street. When he was younger, he would constantly meet up with another man named Liu Banxian. Together, they set up a stall on the overpass on the northern side of Peony Street, becoming Peony Street’s very own [Southern Tang and Northern Liu].

Liu Banxian was known for his fortune telling skills, while Tang Yao acted as his informant.

As a vagrant born and raised in Huacheng, he has been loitering around for more than 40 years. He has never done anything remarkable, but his main interest in life is to watch and join in on the excitement – in short, he’s a busybody.

When he was younger, whenever there were rumours of something strange happening somewhere, he would ride on his bicycle to check it out, even if it meant cycling dozens of miles away.

If he still had that kind of energy now, even having thirty lives won’t be able to save him from urban legends.

There is practically no urban legend that Tang Yao has never heard of. Hence, if you want to obtain information from him, you only need to treat him to a meal.

However, the older a person gets, the weirder their temperament becomes. When Yibei first found him, he refused to speak to him...

...

“Pause. If he refuses to speak, how did you get the information from him, then?” Jiangli interrupted.

“Tsk,” the Witch rolled her eyes. “You would know if you just continued to listen. You see, even as an old man, he is what I like to call a ‘penny pincher’. I heard that he paid money to eat at a buffet once, and to get his money’s worth, he ate until he was so full that he had to be sent to the hospital for a stomach pump – and this happened more than once.”

“I... understand. Did you invite him to a buffet?”

“No, I don’t think you understand. If I could defeat him with just a single buffet, I wouldn’t have to spend an entire day with him. I invited him to drink tea, and as long as somebody invites him to drink, he’ll definitely come.”

“Oh? And how did that go?” Jiangli tilted her head in confusion.

“If you take in a lot of liquids, you’ll have to go to the bathroom, correct?” the Witch smiled. “I simply locked all of the toilets surrounding the teahouse from the inside out, and every single time he needed to go to the loo, I would magically pop up there as well.”

As she spoke, she made a gesture to emphasize the phrase ‘magically pop up’.

“I won’t go into the details, but... by the time he drank his seventeenth cup, he finally opened his mouth.”

The old man was behaving strangely. He dug a hole, and set up the wooden board, but there were no bodies around. Aniu immediately felt that something was wrong, and didn’t stay any longer.

Since it was getting late and he was running low on money, he bravely decided to return to the abandoned houses. He found a relatively intact house, hid in it, and used a wooden stick to act as a barricade on the door.

Laying down on the musty bed, his eyelids grew more and more heavy, and gradually, they closed involuntarily. Just as he was about to fall asleep...

The windows to the house swung open, and a pale face appeared by the window.

It was the same old man from earlier.

He’s coming to get me!

The old man crept through the window, and snuck right up to the bed. He leaned down and stared right into his very soul – Aniu immediately closed his eyes, feeling that his heart was almost about to jump out of his throat.

At this moment, he could hear the old man cursing in a dialect, “Sonnie, ‘yer a human?! You almost scared the shit out of this ol’ man!”

Aniu was stunned for a moment, opening his eyes as he got up, “Mister, you’re human?”

The old man was visibly frightened as he took a few steps back, holding the hoe tightly in front of his chest, “Son, the hell would I be if I’m not human?”

“Well, I thought that you were a...”

“Ghost?”

Aniu didn’t respond. He simply stared at the old man in fear.

The two of them were in a staring contest, and the old man spoke, “Whatever. ‘Yer already here, and you can’t leave now that it’s late. I’m warning ‘ya – no matter what you hear outside... Stay. In. Side. If you don’t leave the house, you won’t run into... ya-know-what.”

After speaking, the old man turned to leave, but Aniu decided to pry more, “Mister? Why are you the only one here? Aren’t the houses here good enough to live in?”

The old man simply ignored him and cursed, “Son of a bitch!” as he kicked away the stick holding up the door, leaving.

...

“Ah, Aniu ended up ignoring his advice and left the house, didn’t he?” Jiangli interjected, sipping on her tea.

“Damn. How did you know?”

“Why wouldn’t I? The Night Div-”

“The Night What?” Yibei’s eyebrows moved, as if to say to her, “Yeah! Say it! If you say it, I’m the winner of this little game between us!”

Her eyebrows looked incredibly mean, and it made Jiangli want to punch her once on each eyebrow.

“...the Knight named Diff who mentored me said that among the various urban legends that he was exposed to, most of the victims that succumb to the urban legends were attacked because of their curiosity.”

In fact, a person without any psychic potential will most likely not run into any urban legends over their entire lifetime. As long as they don’t stick their noses where they don’t belong, or if they aren’t unlucky.

“How interesting!” the Witch nodded. She wasn’t sure if she was talking about how Jiangli was able to twist her words in such a short amount of time, or her knowledge of urban legends.

“Well, you’re right,” the Witch continued. “He did end up leaving the house. At midnight, he heard the percussions of gongs and drums, the plucking of a harp, somebody singing, and children laughing. At the time, the only entertainment he had was watching salesmen brag about their products, so how could he resist the temptation of song and opera?”

“He went into the woods, following the source of the music,” she continued. “And she saw a stage in the middle of where the old man set up the tombstone – as soon as he stepped in, the children’s laughter and the music abruptly stopped. On the dark stage, an actor stood in their costume, with their back to the stage, singing without any music accompanying them. He wanted to run away, but the actor turned their back to him and floated over – he stopped running out of fear, and the actor stopped too...”

“Pause. I get it – there are urban legends spanning across generations,” Jiangli interrupted. “Then, what happened? Why haven’t there been any sightings of urban legends among so many people?”

“That’s a story for another time,” Yibei said, grabbing the remote control on the coffee table and slapping it down. “Thank you for listening to today’s episode! We’ll be seeing you on the next one!”

“...”

“Come on, it’s getting late. Why don’t you go to bed?”

“...”

She sat motionless on the sofa, folding her hands over her chest as she stared straight at the Witch. She looked as if she is an unhappy child who wasn’t satisfied with story-time before bed.

“...fine,” the Witch scratched the back of her head. “To put it simply, somebody later sealed the urban legends away, and they would be forgotten over time, correct? However, when they were constructing the Happy Community, they accidentally dug the seal out, but there’s a whole other story to that, and I heard it from the old man who was driving the excavator. Care to listen?”

Seeing the gleam in her eyes, looking as if she was ready to yap on, Jiangli stood up and said coldly, “No,” before turning around and walking towards the bedroom.

However, she’s unexpectedly proficient at doing these sorts of things, she cursed inwardly.

“Hey! Come on... don’t sleep just yet! I have a lot more to say!”

Although Yibei wasn’t yapping about plain garbage this time, she felt unsatisfied that her story was abruptly cut short.

She chased her superior to the door of the bedroom, only to see her sitting on the side of the bed with a sweet ‘smile.’ Patting the bed, she said, “What? You want to sleep together?”

“...?!”

TRANSLATOR NOTES:

EDIT: Thank you Imp and Catventurer4 for the tips! Adjusted the TL to reflect the changes.

Not very happy with the translation on the first-half :v lots of things I wasn’t sure of (e.g., the Underground Club [地下人间会]? I’ve never seen this get mentioned before + the part of Tang Yao being a messenger [打听]). If there are any mistakes, I’ll fix them immediately, but OMG! That cliffhanger, and there’s only one bed... ????

As always, if you’d like to support the translation, you can do so by clicking the button below! ^.^ Have a great weekend!