“…”
Fu Sang didn’t speak, just stared intently at Qi Changying.
Only when the ember on his cigarette was about to burn down to the filter did he seem to come back to his senses, casually flicking the ash away: “Qi Changying, how did you become a general?”
“What?” Qi Changying didn’t understand the question.
So Fu Sang asked more clearly: “Without a temper, how did you command your subordinates?”
Qi Changying was momentarily stunned.
Then he chuckled softly:
“You can’t rely on a bad temper in marching and warfare, nor in commanding troops and leading subordinates.”
“What then, by being a soft persimmon and winning people over with your noble character?” Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Of course not…” Qi Changying started, but paused, as if suddenly lost in thought:
“Someone once asked me that before.”
“Oh, and how did you answer him?” Fu Sang casually stubbed out the cigarette butt in the plastic ashtray.
“Do you want to hear it?”
“No.” Fu Sang cruelly rejected him: “I can’t be bothered to listen.”
With that, Fu Sang checked the time, stood up from the chair, walked past the boxes on the floor, and went to the back to grab his bag.
Huo Wei stood nearby with her arms crossed, watching the interaction between the man and the ghost with a mental “tsk tsk tsk”. She only came back to her senses when Fu Sang moved:
“Where are you going?”
“To school. I left some books in the dorm, and I need to return them.” Fu Sang brushed the dust off his clothes, which he’d gotten from moving goods. Not being able to get it all off at once, he simply changed into a different jacket.
Huo Wei perked up: “I want to go too!”
“Then you drive me.”
“What are you pretending for, don’t act like you don’t do this every time.”
Qi Changying couldn’t quite understand their conversation: “What is ‘school’?”
Huo Wei kindly explained: “It’s like… uh… a private academy?”
Qi Changying was somewhat surprised: “Fu Sang has already reached adulthood, yet he still needs to study at a private academy?”
Huo Wei was stumped.
She was a terrible student no matter where she was, and even talking to a thousand-year-old living fossil gave her a generation gap. After thinking for a long time without finding the right words, she simply gave up:
“Ask San You!”
“San You…” Qi Changying didn’t know who San You was, but based on what he’d heard before, he guessed that “San You” referred to Fu Sang, probably a courtesy name or something similar.
So he went to Fu Sang’s side and asked:
“Fu Sang, may I ask what ‘school’ is?”
“It’s my imperial palace.”
Fu Sang pulled out the snake bone nail wrapped in talisman paper from his bag:
“Come in.”
Hearing the words “imperial palace”, Qi Changying’s eyes widened, and his blood-red pupils contracted as well. Because of the striking color, this subtle change became particularly noticeable.
On his gray-white eyes, such an expression might have been a bit alarming, but all Fu Sang saw was one giant word:
Silly.
Qi Changying dissipated like smoke, as Fu Sang had requested, and retreated back into the pitch-black snake bone nail.
Huo Wei watched the whole thing, dumbfounded: “He, he’s that obedient?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Fu Sang formed a hand seal and cast a spell, and the snake bone nail shrank to the size of his palm, which he casually hung among the strings of copper coin magical artifacts at his waist.
Huo Wei hesitated, then lowered her voice to ask: “Do you… have something on him?”
“You could say that.”
“…No wonder he does whatever you say.”
“Oh, that’s not because I have something on him.”
“Then why?”
Huo Wei’s gaze toward Fu Sang suddenly held much more admiration:
“Could it be that you’ve developed some unique technique for controlling ghosts?!”
She thought of her friend, whose life was full of ups and downs. He’d once been the top genius of his sect, then a laughingstock everyone mocked and ridiculed, crawling his way through it all alone. Then, he entered the Hei Mountain Pass and found a great opportunity, and now he could not only see nether spirits but had also caught himself a seventh-rank Crimson Evil as a pet!
What was this called? Thirty years east, thirty years west, don’t bully a young man in poverty! Just wait and watch Zhuge Fu Sang fiercely reclaim everything that was rightfully his!
Huo Wei was getting more and more excited when Fu Sang shattered her fantasies with one sentence:
“Didn’t I just say? Because he’s a soft persimmon himself. Easy to squeeze.”
“?” Huo Wei elbowed him hard in the ribs:
“How can you be so vicious? He’s just good-natured and doesn’t get angry with you. How does that make him a soft persimmon? You’re bullying the honest!”
Fu Sang gave her a cold glance: “Is it your first day knowing me? Hello, Miss Huo, I’m Fu Sang. I’m very vicious.”
Huo Wei rolled her eyes:
“Does he really have to get angry with you? Could you be a bit gentler with him? What if he loses his temper and decides to claw you to death? This is a seventh-rank Crimson Evil!”
“Then I’ll kill him.”
‘Not only is this guy vicious, he’s also cold-blooded and ruthless. He’d even slaughter his own research subject without a second thought.’
Huo Wei suddenly felt a sense of common danger:
“If I make you angry someday, you won’t kill me too, will you?”
Fu Sang pushed her by the shoulders out the door, then turned back to lock up his little shop: “That’s right. Thanks for the reminder. Miss Huo, you’d better watch out.”
“You…!” Huo Wei gritted her teeth, wound up her arm, and slammed two heavy punches into Fu Sang’s back.
After she finished hitting him, she remembered something else:
“Hey, wait a minute. That nail was something you fished out of the well, right? It’s not even your magical artifact, so how come you can use it so easily?”
Fu Sang really couldn’t be bothered with her: “Do you think the talisman I stuck on it was there for packaging? Like I was putting a few layers of clothes on it because it’s cold?”
“But that artifact was refined for a thousand years using the Crimson Evil’s blood and life force! You think you can slap a few layers of talisman paper on it and it’s tamed just like that?”
“Which page says I tamed it just like that?”
“Either way, you seem to use it quite effortlessly.”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly:
“A minute on stage takes ten years off stage, or maybe I’m just exceptionally talented. Pick whichever version you like to hear.”
Huo Wei gritted her teeth: “You don’t want to give up either talent or hard work, do you?”
Fu Sang shamelessly nodded: “Yes.”
One Shop was located at the end of an alley on the old street. The alley wasn’t wide, barely enough for two tricycles to pass, and Huo Wei’s flashy big G-wagon definitely couldn’t fit.
The old city center of the capital, especially these aged alleys, always carried a strong sense of everyday life. You could still see classic Flying Pigeon bicycles leaning against the walls. At the mouth of the alley, there was the sound of “clattering” mahjong tiles.
Spotting the two of them from afar, one of the women at the mahjong table jumped up and hurried over in her slippers.
The woman wasn’t that old, just over thirty. She was wearing a flowery dress with a long padded coat over it, woolen socks with plastic slippers, and a bunch of curling clips on her head. From far away, she looked like one of those stone guardian lions standing outside a front gate.
She walked over with a cigarette in her mouth, smiling when she saw Fu Sang:
“Hey Sangzi, Big Sister just sent a customer your way. Did it work out?”
**”Zi” in “Sangzi “ is like an affectionate suffix.
She was Fu Sang’s landlady, people in the neighborhood called her Da Shuangxi. She had plenty of money and plenty of free time. Whenever she wasn’t playing mahjong somewhere in Blind Cat Alley, she was enthusiastically advertising Fu Sang as a “half-immortal” and had referred quite a few customers to him over the years.
You couldn’t exactly call her a professional shill, since she didn’t take a commission.
Fu Sang didn’t answer her directly, but slowed his pace and, as he walked, casually made a few calculations with his fingers, telling her:
“Don’t keep playing today. You’ll have better luck tomorrow, sit facing south.”
“Got it! Thank you so much, great immortal Sang! I’ll keep tricking people into going to your place when I meet them!”
“Don’t advertise me like that.”
Da Shuangxi ran off happily. Huo Wei watched her, popped a piece of bubblegum into her mouth, and heard her shout from a distance:
“No more playing today, no more playing today! Why? Sangzi said my gas is leaking. See you tomorrow!”
Huo Wei reached over and patted Fu Sang: “How come you don’t calculate your own financial luck?”
Fu Sang knew she was being sarcastic, but he played along: “First page of ‘Chronicles of The Spirit Master’.”
Huo Wei chuckled softly: “The one who guides others cannot guide himself.”
As one of the top universities in the country, Jingda was a famous spot for tourists in the capital, with several visitors even on weekdays.
Huo Wei parked the car in the parking lot near the dormitory area, got out, and accompanied Fu Sang on foot, asking as they went:
“How long will you be up in the dorm? I want to eat that spicy hotpot from your cafeteria!”
“Why come all this way to eat spicy hot pot when you can get it anywhere?” Fu Sang didn’t really get his friend’s occasional train of thought.
“How is that the same? The spicy hotpot at Jingda is infused with the flavor of knowledge! Who knows, maybe eating it will make you smarter.”
“Superstitious.” Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly: “Twenty minutes.”
“Alright! I’ll wait for you downstairs!”
It was afternoon class time, so there weren’t many people around the dormitory. As Fu Sang climbed the stairs, Qi Changying slipped out of the snake-bone nail and followed behind him, curiously looking around. He stared at windows and ceramic tiles for ages, fascinated by everything.
“The architecture here… is very different from a thousand years ago.”
“No kidding.”
“What kind of place is this used for?”
“Dormitory.”
Qi Changying understood the word “dormitory,” so he came back to Fu Sang’s side: “What are you here for?”
“To sleep.”
“You haven’t slept here for days.”
“They’re all my places. I’ll sleep wherever I want.”
“Fu Sang is very wealthy.”
“May your words come true.”
Fu Sang took out his keys and opened the dorm room door. Two roommates were inside, and both paused in surprise when they saw him.
One was a bespectacled young man of average height named Liu Ji. He saw he was alone and looked confused:
“Fu Sang? Who were you just talking to?”
Without answering, Fu Sang simply pointed to the Bluetooth earpiece hanging from one ear, indicating that he was on a call.
The other roommate, Wang Feihong, had slightly long hair and had been leaning by the window.
On hearing this, he turned around with a grin: “Fu Sang, is that your girlfriend downstairs? You two really are birds of a feather. Just standing there together, you’re like the ultimate non-mainstream couple. The number of people turning their heads to look was insane. She’s pretty, too, and she’s got a great figure. When are you introducing her to us?”
“She’s a friend.”
Fu Sang frowned and shot him a cool look.
“Is this your latest niche hobby? Standing by the window rating random passersby because you’ve got nothing better to do? What’s wrong with you?”
Wang Feihong looked a bit embarrassed: “I wasn’t specifically watching you. I was waiting to see Haozi. You just happened to walk by, whose fault is that?”
“Haven’t you seen Fang Zehao before?”
Fu Sang didn’t stay in the dorm often, so he didn’t have much stuff, making his desk look rather empty.
He pulled a few books off the shelf and flipped through them casually.
“What are you talking about, what’s so interesting about Haozi? I was waiting to see his girlfriend.”
“Oh, so this is your newly developed niche hobby: sitting around with nothing to do, watching other people’s girlfriends.” Fu Sang concluded.
“You…can’t you talk properly?!”
“You’re not doing anything proper, so why should I talk properly?” Fu Sang said indifferently, not even looking up.
Wang Feihong was choked up by this retort, and his anger flared even more.
His roommate had a strange personality and a sharp tongue, which he’d long since learned. Compared to the early days when he’d get furious after just two sentences, Wang Feihong felt he’d grown a lot, but every time he thought he could get used to staying calm, this guy always found new ways to get under his skin.
Fortunately, this weirdo didn’t stay in the dorm often, so they didn’t run into each other often, and it didn’t cause many conflicts.
“Hey hey… mainly, Zehao has been obsessed with some girl lately. He’s stopped drinking, stopped going clubbing, and he’s even staying in the dorm every day. Feihong was just curious about what kind of girl could make Zehao turn over a new leaf, and wanted to get a look at her. Don’t misunderstand, Fu Sang.”
Liu Ji had a friendly face and an easygoing personality. Seeing the tension rising, he quickly stepped in as a peacemaker.
“Oh.” Fu Sang didn’t want to continue this boring topic. Who was dating whom had nothing to do with him, so he just gave a casual grunt and let it drop.
At the same time, the sound of a key turning came from outside the dorm room door, followed by a “click” as the lock bolt opened and the door was pushed open by a crack.
Fu Sang’s hand, which had been flipping pages, paused.
He raised an eyebrow slightly, as if sensing something, and turned his head to look toward the door.
“Dinglang!”
As soon as the person stepped inside, the Weeping Soul coins and copper bells at his waist began shaking in unison, colliding with each other to produce crisp, ringing sounds.
