Ch2 - Mr. Grim Reaper’s Damned Handsomeness

“Xu ge, you know him?”

“His advertisements are all over the street, you can try asking the entire country for anyone who doesn’t know who the Film Emperor Ji Xiunian is?”

“That’s true.” Xie An nodded in admittance. Even he had watched Ji Xiunian’s latest movie not too long ago. “I just finished looking over the files that HQ sent over. Seems like this person is really quite difficult…”

Lu Xu took the documents from Xie An, pulled out the chair beside him, and sat in it as he flipped through them. “Is that so?”

Xie An nodded. “Yeah. Think about it. He should have died 1800 times by now, but he’s still living so well. Doesn’t that mean there’s a problem with him?”

From the looks of the files, to say that Ji Xiunian should have died 1800 times by now was really no exaggeration.

“Falling down the stairs at 1 year of age, getting kidnapped when he was 5, car accident when he was 10, wire accident when he was 20…” It could be said that for Ji Xiunian to have survived until now, it must have been incredibly difficult.

“This brother is a little bit too miserable.” Lu Xu had seen all kinds of anomalies, and even he thought that Ji Xiunian being alive was a miracle in and of itself.

“That’s right, that’s right. He was supposed to have reported to our bureau when he was 1 years old, but he’s still living well right now. And we don’t know what method he used to hide from the heavens,” Xie An said.

Lu Xu flipped through the documents, but didn’t see a result of the investigation either. He raised his gaze to look at Xie An. “So he borrowed a life or what?”

Humans were greedy for life. Some could accept their fate calmly, but others wanted to defy it.

Lu Xu had handled quite a few situations like this, he just didn’t know what methods Ji Xiunian had used.

“That’s why I was urgently asking you to come back,” Xie An said, tapping his head in frustration as he continued, “The files in the archives from 20 years ago were destroyed by someone, they discovered this giant bug called Ji Xiunian when they were tidying it up recently…”

“Didn’t they send people to investigate?”

“They did, but none of them investigated anything.”

“Huh?”

Logically speaking, the capability of their bureau was quite decent, it didn’t make sense for such a long investigation to not yield results.

Xie An naturally knew what Lu Xu was thinking about, and had to suppress his laughter as he said, “We sent three colleagues over, but in the end all three of them became his fans. One of them even became a fansite master…”

“What the hell?” Lu Xu thought it was pretty funny upon hearing that. “Don’t tell me this Ji Xiunian knows some kind of spell?”

In the photo, Ji Xiunian’s looks were outstanding. His eyes were as clear as jade, and made people feel goodwill without even realising it.

Xie An regained his senses and shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it, but in a case like this, it’s hard to say. HQ’s hypothesis is that he could be a saint in his previous life, or he could be using some secret, horrible method to prolong his life. As for what the reason actually is, it’s up to you to find out, Xu ge.”

Lu Xu put away the files and nodded, showing that he understood.

While the two of them were talking, the orange cat had made its way to the corner of the room, where it sat by its auto-feeder munching away on cat food. Before Lu Xu arrived, Xie An had added some cat food for the orange cat and in the blink of an eye, half of the cat food was already eaten.

Xie An looked at the orange cat’s rotund body. As he listened to its chewing noises, he could feel a pain in his wallet. “The prize money for this case is quite high. Xu ge, you have to work real hard to solve it, or else you won’t be able to provide for Ba Mei.”

“Meow—”

Upon hearing someone mention its name, the orange cat called Ba Mei turned its head to glance behind. It plopped itself on the ground, its fluffy, soft body landing down. It raised its back leg to show off the symbol of its maleness to the two. It was obviously a male cat but it was always called ‘mei’, so it wanted to protest.

Lu Xu glanced at it, then chuckled. “Oh, you’re quite lively.”

His words were so light-hearted, that they obviously overlooked its protests.

Ba Mei put down its fat little leg, let out a lazy meow, then turned back around to continue eating its food. No one knew how big its appetite actually was.

Xie An watched the interaction between the two of them, and unconsciously wanted to laugh.

Ba Mei was picked up from the underworld road by Lu Xu, and was treated as a stray cat and adopted. Lu Xu was quite an informal person, and randomly picked the name Ba Mei for the cat. Even after knowing that it was a ‘little brother’, he was too lazy to change the name.

On the road to the underworld, seeing live creatures there was a very strange occurrence. Lu Xu didn’t care, but Xie An was worried. He made a special trip to the archives and discovered that there was no mention of Ba Mei in the files.

He originally wanted to advise Lu Xu not to raise it, but after touching Ba Mei’s soft tummy, and then looking at its pink toe beans, Xie An did not raise any objection in the end.

Seeing that it was time to get off work, Lu Xu opened his backpack and whistled at Ba Mei. Although Ba Mei was quite round, its movements were truly nimble. It wiggled its tail as it jumped into the backpack, the rotund figure drawing a ball-shaped parabola in the air, like an inflated ballerina.

Xie An walked him to the door, still thinking about Ji Xiunian. “Xu ge, you’re the hope of the organization. Don’t let the enemy blind you.”

Lu Xu put on his headphones and played a song, a thread of determined understanding flashing through his peach blossom eyes. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

The two of them weren’t able to say much more before someone came in from the street, looking to buy funeral supplies. Xie An busied himself with helping the customer and when he looked up again, Lu Xu had already left and was far away. He waved at Xie An, indicating there was no need to send him off.

As the capital of China, Dongcheng was well-lit day and night.

Even after night fell, the city lights made it seem not much different than broad daylight.

The streets were crowded, full of office workers who had just earned freedom from the workday. Lu Xu carried Ba Mei in front of his chest and stopped to take a rare, leisurely look at the mortal world.

Lovers were in pairs, their faces carrying unconcealable bashfulness and excitement. There were also friends meeting up to shop and eat, looking for recreational activities. The elderly walked hurriedly in groups of three to five to the small square, waiting for the dance workout to begin…

The ghosts who had stayed hidden within the shadows during the day diligently came out only at night to do their business.

Normally, people who died were guided away by grim reapers. However, there were many who died with resentment and remained in the mortal realm, reluctant to leave.

At this time, a ghost stood in the middle of the road, the blood on her body long dried-up, seemingly having died ages ago.

This ghost had died in a traffic accident over ten years ago, but the driver who committed the hit-and-run had not been caught yet, even now. She wore the clothes she had died in and stood at the scene of the accident, just for the sake of finding the person who had killed her. She would come up to every car that passed by and knock, her mouth muttering repeatedly, “Was it you? Not you?”

It was fortunate humans could not see her; otherwise, it would be very troublesome.

Lu Xu was thinking of going forward when his gaze coincidentally met the ghost’s.

The female ghost became nervous at the sight of Lu Xu and she unconsciously returned to her clean, non-bloody state. She had been at this intersection for over ten years and had crossed paths with this person many times, but seeing him every time made her excited—Master Lu Xu was really too handsome.

“Good evening, Master.”

Lu Xu smiled at her in greeting.

As soon as Lu Xu left, the female ghost fished out the iPhone 11 her family members had just burned as an offering and posted a status to the ghost social app—

‘Really happy running into Master Lu Xu again, he smiled at me today too!’

Very quickly, her post was filled with likes and comments from her fellow ghost sisters who had also suffered unjust deaths—

[Aaaaaaaa, I want to see Master Lu Xu too!]

[Jealous, I’ve become lemon essence at this point!]

[Woohoo, I’m declaring Master Lu Xu as my boyfriend!!!]

…

As the saying went, ‘Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated.’

Lu Xu returned home and settled Ba Mei down, then immediately took out his phone to research Ji Xiunian.

“Ji Xiunian, born in 1993 in Dongcheng, China’s famous film and television actor, also China’s youngest to win the title of Film Emperor…”

But, looking through his accomplishments, Ji Xiunian was undoubtedly a prodigious actor. He was popular since his debut at 17, relying on his first film to win the title of Film Emperor that year. The Ji Xiunian who had achieved fame at such a young age did not act arrogantly; not only did he complete his studies with distinction he also acted in several classic productions back-to-back, earning him the nickname of China’s ‘national treasure actor’.

Despite the success of his career, Ji Xiunian’s own fate was a bumpy road.

He was orphaned at a young age, and neglected by his relatives.

He did not even have a single scandal after debuting for ten years, and his relations with others were quite simple.

In order to investigate his background, he could only get the details from the man himself.

Just as Lu Xu was thinking of how he could get close to the target, an advertisement for a talent competition popped up—

[This summer, they will be sweating on the stage, chasing their youthful dreams. Who will be able to become the dream of tens of thousands of girls, who will successfully gain the glory of debuting, who will become the spokesperson of the next generation? Their futures are up to you, hurry and pick the contestant you like to debut. This summer, we will be waiting for you on ‘Birth of an Idol’. This summer, let’s not leave without meeting each other!]

Lu Xu was not interested in the advertisement. He was about to close the popup when he noticed the list of mentors and paused—

Of the four mentors, Ji Xiunian’s name stood out prominently at the top of the list, completely eye-catching.