CH 129

Translated by Crooked

Edited by Dust Bunny 

When someone was teased by a clear and sonorous voice brimming with attraction, it made them unable to help but want to rub their ears, like the words made them itch.

Gu Xizhou originally wanted to say something to Si Yu, but then he met the gaze of those deep and gloomy eyes. The corners of Si Yu’s mouth were slightly raised, and his expression was 7 points smiling and 3 points rascal.

Gu Xizhou: “……” It was unbearable. This was too attractive, even without eyebrows it was too attractive, how terrible.

Don’t be coquettish, don’t be coquettish, be afraid. 

Gu Xizhou stiffly changed the subject. “I’m- going to eat.”

“En.” Si Yu agreed with a deep voice, smirking.

Gu Xizhou put the egg fried rice on the table and started to eat. He didn’t know if it was because he was starving, but Si Yu’s egg fried rice tasted pretty good. He unexpectedly inhaled the whole thing in one breath.

Gu Xizhou set down his bowl and chopsticks and wiped his mouth. He said casually, “When you were cooking just now, I stood on the balcony and looked across the street. Those two buildings have 7 apartments with bright lights on, and the others are dark.

“En.”

Si Yu ate with a very refined look, making Gu Xizhou suspect that their dinner tonight wasn’t egg fried rice, but food from a three-star restaurant’s kitchen.

But after careful thinking, this might be Si Yu’s first time cooking. Gu Xizhou wanted to mock him, but he swallowed the words into his stomach. Eating other’s food softens one’s mouth. It was better to be as quiet as a chicken.

After Si Yu lay down his tableware, he looked out at the neighborhood through the living room window. It was still pitch-black, and they couldn’t see anything. Turning his head back, he went into the bedroom with Gu Xizhou. 

Looking out from the bedroom window, the neighborhood was as still as a pool of stagnant water. There was no movement and no sound, just the 7 fuel lanterns.

Si Yu lifted the room’s bed curtain. He leaned against the windowsill, his silhouette clearly bisected into light and shadow. The blurred light refracted, outlining his deep figure. He really was good-looking.

Gu Xizhou stood at the bedroom door, raising his eyes to look at Si Yu. Suddenly, he felt that he’d seen Si Yu’s profile like this somewhere before, and he felt like he’d seen it many times.

“So far there’s been no movement tonight. Looking at the situation, the NPCs haven’t shown up, and my guess is that this world might not have any,” said Si Yu, turning to look at Gu Xizhou. 

Gu Xizhou moved his eyes away from Si Yu and looked at the points of light outside the window. “No NPC… Then how are we supposed to know what to do?”

“It’ll come slowly. There are still 10 days; we have plenty of time,” Si Yu said indifferently. “Don’t worry, we’ll talk about it later tonight.”

Gu Xizhou hesitated, then he nodded. “Okay.”

There were no ghosts, and Si Yu still wouldn’t let him go out. After Gu Xizhou washed his face, he lay down on the bed and stared blankly on the ceiling until he eventually fell asleep until midnight. 

“Clang clang clang.”

“Clang clang clang.”

Gu Xizhou was woken up by a loud noise. The noise didn’t stop after he woke up. Instead, it grew louder and louder, now accompanied by a strange creaking sound of an old iron railing rubbing against its screws, like someone was using both hands to drag their nails down it like a chalkboard. The sharp sound pierced his brain.

“Clang clang clang!” 

“Clang clang clang!”

The ‘clanging’ in the neighborhood continued nonstop after it began. Gu Xizhou couldn’t help but feel twitchy. Si Yu beside him woke up as well. Gu Xizhou was just about to move when Si Yu stretched out both of his hands to cover Gu Xizhou’s ears and spoke in a seductive tone: “Be good, go to sleep. Don’t go outside; we’ll talk about it again tomorrow.”

As if afraid of him disobeying, Si Yu pressed closer to him as he spoke and then helped cover Gu Xizhou’s ears. “It’s not that I’m not letting you go out. I’m just worried about what might happen to you outside. Wait first, ba.”

Gu Xizhou looked at those two dark eyes and ‘en’ed. He knew the severity of the situation. There were no NPCs in this world and they hadn’t seen any teammates. This was already strange enough. Gu Xizhou also had a sense of propriety. He could calculate in his heart when he should listen to Si Yu and when he should make his own decisions. 

But in the face of Si Yu’s enigmatic smile, looking into his eyes, Gu Xizhou was afraid it would be like the time he got drunk and acted intimate with Si Yu. He turned over with his back facing Si Yu.

Someone’s body temperature stuck closely to his back, and two hands were gently placed over his ears.

“Clang clang clang!”

“Clang clang clang!” 

Even though Si Yu was helping him plug his ears, the noise persisted. Si Yu lightly approached his ear and whispered, “Close your eyes. You’ll fall asleep in a while.”

With his back to Si Yu, Gu Xizhou ‘en’ed.

“Jijcu mijcu mijcu!”

“Jijcu mijcu mijcu!” 

Coafg j ktlif, atfgf kjr j revvfc ibev ‘yjcu’, ilxf rbwfatlcu tfjns ojiilcu ab atf ugbecv. Coafg atja, jii atf cblrf rabqqfv jygeqais.

Vevvfcis, la kjr delfa. Ktfgf kjr cb wbgf cblrf lc atf cluta.

Ktf cfza wbgclcu, Xe Wlhtbe geyyfv tlr riffqs fsfr. Lf vlvc’a xcbk tbk tf ofii jriffq ijra cluta, yea ktfc tf kbxf eq, tf kjr riffqlcu lc atf mgbbx bo Vl Te’r jgw. Xe Wlhtbe ijs bc tlr rlvf, ibbxlcu ja Vl Te’r mifjc jcv oibklcu obgfjgw. Ktfc, tf rja eq ectegglfvis ogbw atf yfv.

Gu Xizhou stretched, still sleepy. Last night, the ‘clang clang clang’ lasted for about twenty minutes before it culminated in the ‘bang’ of something falling and everything disappeared. 

That night, it was like Gu Xizhou’s heart was scratched by a cat. He really wanted to open the curtains and look outside, but Si Yu held him in his arms and kept him from moving at all until the sound faded away. After the sound faded away, it still took a long while for Gu Xizhou to fall asleep.

When he was lying in Si Yu’s embrace in the middle of the night, he felt his breath on his neck. A wave of heat swept across his throat as burning hot air, and it spread out instantly on his neck into a kind of itching sensation. It was really uncomfortable!

After waking up, Gu Xizhou got out of bed and pulled open the window, glancing out at the neighborhood.

It was no different from last night. There still wasn’t a single trace of any people. The sky was already light now, and the neighborhood was shining bright. There was still a silver bread van downstairs, a pedicab, and an electric car. The neighborhood was a typical example of an old neighborhood that hadn’t been remodeled, filled with squalor. 

Gu Xizhou walked quickly to the living room to look out the window there, too. There was thick, pitch-black fog outside. It seemed like you could touch it if you only stretched out a hand.

He had just looked away when he saw Si Yu, rubbing the sleep from his face as he leaned against the wall with a quiet laugh. “Woke up?”

“En.” Gu Xizhou glanced at him.

Si Yu pushed back the hair by his ear, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and asked, “What did you find?” 

“There’s nothing inside the neighborhood. I thought I could see something if I opened the window, but nothing was there,” said Gu Xizhou.

Si Yu walked to Gu Xizhou’s side and looked outside. “We’ll look around the neighborhood. There’s no need to look outside. It looks dark and oppressive.”

With that said, Si Yu put his hands in his pockets.

Gu Xizhou nodded and went to the bathroom to wash up. After that, he took two steps outside the living room and opened the door. He didn’t go out; he just looked deeply at the black hallway. When he turned around to prepare to close the door, he noticed a small card on the ground. 

It was just like the little cards printed with pretty girls in bikinis one might see in small hotels, and it was printed with a scarlet 11-digit telephone number.

He clearly remembered that this wasn’t here yesterday.

When Si Yu came out after washing his face, he saw Gu Xizhou bent over, picking up something outside the door. His leaning posture happened to raise the hem of his clothing, exposing the muscles on his waist.

Because of working out all year round, even the most difficult to train muscles were very defined. There was even a bit of an inverted triangle below his navel. Gu Xizhou, who didn’t know he was exposing himself, looked down at the card as he picked it up and turned around to face a carnivorous gaze. 

Gu Xizhou: ? ? ? I didn’t kiss you this time!

The heated Si Yu saw Gu Xizhou’s blank and helpless expression and looked away from Gu Xizhou’s waist, moving his eyes to the thing in Gu Xizhou’s hand. He asked neatly, “What did you pick up?”

Gu Xizhou: “This.”

Gu Xizhou raised the little card in his hand. ‘Being lonely at home is too boring, please call xxxxx’. The phone number was red and extremely large, taking up the whole card. 

Si Yu took the little card from Gu Xizhou’s hand and glanced at it. “It’s very lonely,” he said quietly.

Gu Xizhou raised the corners of his mouth. With a glance at him, he laughed. “How about you call the phone number?”

“Okay,” Si Yu replied.

Gu Xizhou: “? ? ?” 

Seeing Si Yu pull out his phone, Gu Xizhou’s expression was now really shocked, shocked stupid!

“You really called?” Gu Xizhou rolled his eyes. He’d just spoken when he heard the phone in his pocket suddenly ring.

“Ringgg——”

“Ringgg——” 

Gu Xizhou: “……” What kind of devil is this?”

Gu Xizhou cursed darkly: Fuck, be careful your flirty ‘leg’ doesn’t get broken!

“Hurry, answer the phone,” said Si Yu mildly.

Gu Xizhou almost died of anger. He pulled out his phone and smashed the decline button, saying, “Screw off, you can’t use your phone casually in the mission world. Weren’t you the one who told me that? Or did you forget so quickly? Don’t you know there’s a time and place for coquetry? 

“Then when can I be coquettish?” Si Yu smiled without smiling, asking further, “In the evening, can I?”

Gu Xizhou was a little annoyed. “Can’t! Can you not make fun of me? I’m having a serious conversation with you!”

Si Yu snorted and said, “Relax, as long as we don’t dial this phone number, nothing will happen.”

Gu Xizhou stared coldly at him. “You know that?” 

As he finished saying this, Gu Xizhou didn’t feel like waiting for Si Yu’s explanation and turned around to go to the kitchen. Having no NPCs to cook for him didn’t mean he would eat breakfast. He went in to search for food.

Si Yu saw Gu Xizhou ignoring him and helplessly dropped his eyes to look at the little yellow card. With a twitch of his mouth, he threw the little card onto the living room table.

Gu Xizhou casually fried up two eggs, and the two ate a passable breakfast. Setting down the bowl and chopsticks, Gu Xizhou said to Si Yu, “Should we go out now?”

“En, the night is over, and we can verify that this world has no NPCs,” said Si Yu. “Wait for me to finish eating and we’ll leave together.” 

“Okay.”

After breakfast, the two took the house key and went out. The hallway seemed to radiate malice. Si Yu held out a hand to Gu Xizhou.

Gu Xizhou stared blankly. “What do you want to do?” he asked in confusion.

Si Yu looked at Gu Xizhou calmly and said, “I’m scared.” 

Gu Xizhou suddenly sank into self doubt: After getting drunk that day, did he kiss Si Yu too hard and addle his brains?

“Let’s go, ba.” Si Yu held Gu Xizhou’s hand and pulled him downstairs. The two people went down side by side.

Gu Xizhou stared at their interlocked hands. He didn’t know whether… they were still joining mission worlds because they didn’t want to die or because they wanted to date.

After they went downstairs, there was nothing unusual happening. Gu Xizhou followed Si Yu over to the stairs opposite theirs and walked up to the third floor. Si Yu paused, then he pulled Gu Xizhou over to the fifth door and knocked. 

“Knock knock knock.”

“Knock knock knock.”

After a while, suddenly, Gu Xizhou heard a clicking sound. He subconsciously tightened his grip on Si Yu’s hand and stared closely at the opening door, wanting to know if the one that opened it was someone or something.

The door opened with a creak, but there was no one on the other side. 

Gu Xizhou frowned. Apartment 305 was actually one of the 7 apartments he saw lit up last night.

He glanced inside the room. It looked very ordinary, but Gu Xizhou didn’t go in. In the previous snowman world, entering a strange room almost made him go cold. After that, he couldn’t guarantee whether there was something strange set up in this apartment.

“Don’t want to go in?” asked Si Yu, tilting his head at Gu Xizhou.

Gu Xizhou was forced to admit his own anxiety. “I’m afraid that if we both go in, the door will shut.” 

Si Yu said thoughtfully, “Then I’ll go in and look for clues. You guard the door and keep it open.”

“En… We can switch,” Gu Xizhou said quietly.

Si Yu spoke mildly: “No need, I can go in.”

Seeing Si Yu walk in, Gu Xizhou used his hand to stop the door. Suddenly, a force acted on the door, like there was an invisible hand trying to shut it. 

Gu Xizhou mentally cursed, ‘fuck!’. Luckily they didn’t go in together!

Luckily, the ghost wasn’t very strong. It tried to close the door, but it couldn’t. After about ten seconds, the ghost gave up.

Gu Xizhou looked all around the room and the hallway, but he couldn’t see anything. He anxiously called Si Yu’s name.

Si Yu came out from exploring the apartment’s bedroom and asked, “What is it?” 

“Something tried to close the door,” said Gu Xizhou, “but it didn’t seem very strong. I pressed against the door, and it gave up.”

Si Yu came over and shook his head at Gu Xizhou. “There’s nothing inside. Since it’s like this, let’s go upstairs first. There were two other rooms lit up in this building.”

“Okay.” Gu Xizhou naturally agreed. He wasn’t afraid of a ghost suddenly appearing, he was only afraid that it would use the rules against him, which would render him truly helpless.

At apartment 510’s door, Si Yu knocked on the door just like before, but this time there was no ‘ghost’ to open the door. 

Si Yu efficiently pulled out a hair clip from his pocket and, with practiced movements and a couple of clicks, the anti-theft door… opened.

Gu Xizhou had the urge to take Si Yu into the detention center.

Who knew what Si Yu’s subordinates would look like if they saw their boss skillfully opening an anti-theft door.

Gu Xizhou thought about this casually in his mind, but he soon derailed this train of thought. Si Yu didn’t find anything useful in apartment 510 either, so they went to the top floor to see apartment 713… 

Last night, they saw seven bright lights lit up in different apartments all night. Gu Xizhou raised an eyebrow. As a result, they looked for half a day and out of seven apartments they met six ghosts who either wanted to close or push the door.

Every time, after Si Yu went in, a powerful force would suddenly appear, and Si Yu would grab his hand and run away wildly.

Gu Xizhou wanted to beat up the ghosts, but the problem was that these ghosts were all cowards. They won’t show up at all, so how can he beat them!

After running out from the final apartment—— 

“No clues…” Gu Xizhou said, a little twitchy. “We’ve looked at all 7 apartments that were lit up.”

“There’s still a room we haven’t gone to.” Si Yu wasn’t worried at all. He pointed at the building that he and Gu Xizhou lived in.

Gu Xizhou looked at their building with a frown and said, “If we want to look at the lights in this building, we’d have to go outside and look every night.”

Si Yu smiled at Gu Xizhou. “Let’s go. It really doesn’t matter whether we look.” 

Gu Xizhou: “En? What doesn’t matter?”

Si Yu laughed. “Let’s go back first. I still need to confirm it. Come on.”

“Oh.” Gu Xizhou nodded and followed Si Yu without asking anything further.

They lived on the sixth floor, room 611. Gu Xizhou had just stepped into the sixth floor hallway when he couldn’t help but frown. When they went out, he remembered they closed the door, but now their door was wide open. 

Gu Xizhou and Si Yu exchanged glances. Gu Xizhou took a step forward. The inside of the room was in chaos, as if it was just ransacked by someone.

Fuck, this ghost actually took advantage of their absence to pillage their room!

“What was this ghost looking for?” Gu Xizhou scowled. Last night, he and Si Yu had already searched the apartment from top to bottom and scoured it inch by inch, but there was nothing there!

“I don’t know, but the little yellow card we put on the desk is gone.” Si Yu spread his hands and pointed helplessly to the dining table from the door. “Maybe the ghost was lonely.” 

Gu Xizhou clenched his fist and lightly thumbed Si Yu’s chest. “You’re still in the mood to joke around.”

“Yes, I lied to you.” Si Yu grabbed Gu Xizhou’s hand and said, “Actually, nothing we encountered earlier was a ghost.”

Gu Xizhou: “En?”

Si Yu said indifferently, “What we actually ran into were all people. It should be the mission takers from Building 2 Apartment 510 who ran over and rummaged through our room. Wait for them to go back and find they’re the same as us.” 

Gu Xizhou: “Hold on, why do I feel a little lost, ah.”

Si Yu thought a bit and said, “Simply speaking, this world’s mission takers can’t see each other. Only when they enter a fixed room and make a sound by moving things can they know the others exist.

“But because the mission takers are invisible, they can’t touch each other, so they automatically make the false assumption that the other apartments are haunted and think there are no other teammates in this world but themselves.”

“Wait, we’ve been together the whole time… how do you know this?” Gu Xizhou asked hesitantly. 

Si Yu said, “I just went into the kitchen of each apartment.”

Gu Xizhou: “? ? ?”

Si Yu: “They’re just like us… Eating a meal without washing the dishes.”

Gu Xizhou: “Is that it?” 

Si Yu winked at him. “After all, when ghosts ‘eat’ they don’t need bowls.”

Gu Xizhou really wanted to take a look at what kind of monster was in Si Yu’s head! You figured it out just looking at the two bowls in the sink?!

Speaking up to this point, Si Yu suddenly lowered his voice. “But now there seems to be a small problem. The mission takers in Building 2 Apartment 510 took that little yellow card away as a clue. I hope they didn’t call it.”

Gu Xizhou: “You think you can just change the subject and I’ll forget that you led me along and held my hand to run away five times?”