“What?”
Fu Sang frowned.
Huo Wei crooked a finger at him, telling him to come look at her phone.
The wind was strong tonight. The girl by the lake had her long hair and long dress gently lifted by the breeze. Although the image quality was blurry after zooming in with the phone camera, it was clear enough to see that the dark mass beneath her feet was indeed a shadow, not some plant, rock, or other random thing.
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow:
“Qi Changying?”
Qi Changying had been standing under the streetlamp studying this giant glowing iron pole. When he heard Fu Sang call his name, he paused briefly, then turned around.
“Stand under the light.” Fu Sang instructed.
“…” Qi Changying didn’t ask why. After only a moment’s hesitation, he dragged the iron chain around his ankle and shuffled two steps toward the light.
“Stand directly beneath the bulb.”
“Bulb?”
Huo Wei helped explain to this ignorant ancient ghost: “That bright, glowing thing right above your head!”
Qi Changying looked up and squinted against the harsh light.
He did as the two wished and stood directly under the light source.
As it turned out, even a seventh-rank Crimson Evil could not cast a shadow under direct light.
“So what are you trying to prove, Master San You? Unless exposed to ghost fire, ghosts can’t have shadows…that’s common sense, the most basic common sense! Admit it, that pretty girl is a living, breathing human. I don’t know where the yin energy on your roommate came from, but it’s definitely not from her.”
Having been cooped up in the car from day to night, then stalking people in the cold wind, Huo Wei’s anger level was steadily rising.
“Not necessarily.” Fu Sang said calmly.
“Where? Where is it not necessary?” Huo Wei was ready to shoot down every point Fu Sang raised, but he only gave her one word:
“Instinct.”
“Inst…” Huo Wei couldn’t believe her ears:
“You rely on instinct to catch ghosts???”
But Fu Sang had already gotten up and walked away.
“Hey!” Huo Wei really wanted to make some private deal with Qi Changying to stop him from being forced by Fu Sang’s tyranny to keep supplying blood to this guy.
This guy was already crazy enough in temperament and actions when he couldn’t see underworld spirits, and now that he’d opened up a whole new world, he was even more crazy.
“Wait for me!”
Winter had already set in in the capital for some time. With the cold front hitting these past two days, the night wind was biting cold enough to make people shiver, let alone walking along such a large lake.
As Fu Sang said, love can conquer all difficulties. The “young couple” wasn’t afraid of the cold, and the two of them strolling shoulder to shoulder by the lake in the middle of the night was quite romantic.
Unfortunately, people’s joys and sorrows were not the same. Huo Wei zipped her jacket all the way up. At this moment, she just wanted to kick Fu Sang into the lake.
The two of them had circled most of the lake from the other direction. Barring any surprises, they should soon run into Fang Zehao and his companion head-on.
Huo Wei could roughly guess Fu Sang’s intention. He felt that being too far away meant he couldn’t see clearly, so he wanted to get closer to check the specifics. But…
“Hello, what a coincidence.”
When they were about ten steps away from Fang Zehao, both sides could see each other clearly. Before Huo Wei could even think of an opening line, Fu Sang had already taken the initiative, walking straight toward Fang Zehao and the girl beside him.
‘This is too reckless!’
“Fu Sang? Why are you here?” Fang Zehao was very surprised to see him.
Soon, his gaze shifted to Huo Wei behind Fu Sang:
“And this is…?”
“Oh,” Fu Sang calmly dug a huge pit for Huo Wei:
“My girlfriend.”
“?!”
‘Excuse me?!’
But business was business. Even though she was thunderstruck, Huo Wei still managed to force a smile, walked over and linked her arm with Fu Sang’s, tilting her head toward him:
“Yes, hello. You must be Fang Zehao, right? San You talks about you all the time, haha.”
“Ah… is that so? Hello.”
After exchanging a couple of lines, Fang Zehao felt that the whole situation was drenched in a thick sense of weirdness.
He sized up the person before him.
Sure enough, a weirdo’s girlfriend was also a weirdo. She was quite pretty, but her makeup was strange; black eyeshadow and black lipstick. A gothic girl with a Daoist guy, wandering by the lake in the middle of the night…it was actually quite frightening.
Then he looked at Fu Sang…
Fang Zehao only then noticed that Fu Sang’s gaze had never been on him from start to finish.
“Hello, my name is Fu Sang. History major. Fang Zehao’s roommate.”
Fu Sang stared at the girl beside Fang Zehao and proactively extended his hand toward her.
The girl was tall and slender, with long, straight jet-black hair. Her skin was very fair, her features clear and striking, and her aura was comfortable…like some kind of aquatic plant that bloomed in high summer. Though it might not be the right description, looking at her did indeed give one a sense of refreshing tranquility.
Hearing him introduce himself, the girl seemed slightly taken aback.
She subconsciously glanced at Fang Zehao beside her before reaching out to shake Fu Sang’s hand, following his lead:
“Hello, my name is Wei Luyuan. I’m also in the Humanities College. I study philosophy.”
The girl’s fingers were very cold, and Fu Sang couldn’t tell if that was because of the cold weather or because she had no body temperature.
Throughout this process, Fu Sang kept his eyes on Wei Luyuan’s.
Perhaps feeling a bit uneasy, Wei Luyuan tried to withdraw her hand, but failed on the first attempt.
Only then did Fu Sang seem to snap back to reality and let go of her on his own: “Sorry.”
“Damn you… you can’t take your eyes off pretty girls, huh?!”
Huo Wei suddenly released his arm and shoved him aside:
“If you love looking so much, why don’t you just go with them? What are you still doing with me?! I knew you didn’t love me anymore…if you want to break up, just say so!”
“?” Fu Sang had no idea why Huo Wei had suddenly started acting.
He could only play along:
“Ah, sorry.”
Then he turned sideways and walked around everyone:
“I’m leaving.”
As he lowered his hand, he tapped the snake-bone nail at his waist very lightly.
That night, by the cold, silent lakeside, a wisp of smoke that the vast majority of people could not see drifted out from Fu Sang’s waist, carried by the wind to Wei Luyuan’s side, gradually coalescing into a human form.
“…Sorry about that, Yuanyuan. My roommate is just weird. He likes to stare at people, and is always gloomy. He didn’t scare you just now, did he?”
Fang Zehao didn’t know if today was just unlucky. Not only had he endured a bizarre conversation with that weirdo in the dorm, but he had even run right into him on his evening stroll.
‘Could it be…’
Fang Zehao had noticed that afternoon that Fu Sang was very interested in Wei Luyuan’s existence, and his attitude when they met just now was also strange. Wasn’t this guy not fond of interacting with people? And this time he was acting out of character. Could it be that… he’d taken a liking to Wei Luyuan?
Fang Zehao couldn’t help but glance back. He saw the two behind him pushing and shoving each other, still not far away.
“It’s fine.”
Wei Luyuan’s voice brought him back to his senses.
He subconsciously turned his gaze, about to say something, when he saw Wei Luyuan suddenly clutch her arm and shiver.
“What’s wrong? Are you cold? It is quite cold today. How about we find a warmer place to sit, or you could put my coat on too…”
In his nervousness, Fang Zehao forgot all about Fu Sang. He made a move as if to take off his down jacket, but Wei Luyuan refused just as he unzipped it:
“No need. It was just a sudden gust of wind that caught me off guard and gave me a chill. It’s fine now.”
“Oh, okay…”
Fang Zehao hesitated and zipped his jacket back up.
He looked at Wei Luyuan, wanting to say something, but he hesitated for a long time without being able to speak.
For some reason, he felt that Wei Luyuan’s complexion was very poor, as if she was a bit uneasy.
It must be all that Fu Sang’s fault.
Fang Zehao frowned.
But he couldn’t see that, though only the two of them were walking by the lake, the water’s surface faintly reflected the figure of a third person.
In the reflection of the water rippling in the wind, a Crimson Evil, dressed in red robes and surrounded by black smoke, dragged the chains at his ankles and followed half a step behind Wei Luyuan, keeping pace with her.
The ground lights by the lake flickered twice as they passed, then after a brief struggle, went completely dark.
Qi Changying lowered his gaze and saw the faintly trembling hand beneath Wei Luyuan’s sleeve.
So he raised his hand and gently patted Wei Luyuan’s shoulder:
“What are you afraid of?”
…
“I said, San You, next time you need to make up a lie, could you please give me some other identity? Like a sister or something? Suddenly dropping ‘girlfriend’ on me is enough to scare someone to death, okay? What if this setting gets out and affects my chances of finding a boyfriend? I’m telling you, it was only because of that bowl of spicy hotpot that I haven’t kicked you into the lake!”
Once they were a good distance away, Huo Wei started chattering. To fully express her anger, her words were interspersed with shoves at Fu Sang.
Fu Sang didn’t even look up. Only after she finished did he say: “Then next time you need to ward off unwanted suitors, don’t use me as a shield.”
“Oh, well, speaking of that…”
Huo Wei laughed dryly, glanced back, and happened to see Qi Changying, so she immediately changed the subject:
“Hey, our young general is back! So, is that girl human or ghost?”
Hearing this, Fu Sang stopped and glanced sideways.
“I don’t know.” Qi Changying explained:
“Her scent is strange…like a human, but more like a ghost. I can’t distinguish it accurately.”
“What does that mean?” Huo Wei was puzzled: “She’s either human or a ghost… How can there be someone who’s both like a human and like a ghost? And I also saw that she had yin energy on her, whose is it?”
“It’s similar to the scent on that young master. So it should belong to the same young woman.”
Just as Qi Changying finished speaking, someone suddenly let out a laugh.
Huo Wei looked over, but Fu Sang’s face was still cold, showing no trace of a smile.
“You just laughed, didn’t you?” Huo Wei pointed at him.
“Yeah.” Fu Sang admitted readily.
“Don’t you have a high threshold for laughter? Why don’t you laugh when I tell you jokes, but you laugh when the young general says something casually?”
“Is there a funnier joke in the world than ‘young master’?”
After saying that, Fu Sang asked Qi Changying: “What do you mean by both like a human and like a ghost?”
Qi Changying was stumped by the question.
His perception of scents was closer to a resonance of souls. It was hard for him to describe that feeling to Fu Sang:
“It’s just… There’s a human scent and a ghost scent, two kinds of odors intertwining and masking each other. It’s hard to tell which one she truly is. I only know that the part of her that belongs to the human has a bloody smell to it, which is not very pleasant.”
“…Now I’m curious. What do humans smell like to ghosts?”
Huo Wei had been a bit intimidated by Qi Changying’s identity as a Crimson Evil during the day, but now she was fully convinced that he was a good-natured being with a hundred times less aggression than Fu Sang. With no more reservations, she treated him as one of her own and asked whatever came to mind.
“It’s hard to describe. Human scents are very complex.” Qi Changying explained to her.
“Do they smell good?”
“Most of them don’t smell very good.”
“What about me? Do I smell good?”
“Not bad.”
“What do I smell like?”
After Huo Wei asked, Qi Changying thought for a moment, took half a step closer to her, and at a slightly respectful distance, lightly sniffed to confirm:
“A bit like the smell of copper and rust. Not unpleasant.”
“?” Huo Wei’s expression froze.
That was clearly not the answer she wanted to hear.
And in that brief moment, Fu Sang was successfully amused by the Crimson Evil for the second time.
Hearing Fu Sang’s laughter, Huo Wei gritted her teeth viciously and pointed at him:
“Well, I see you’re always sniffing him. What’s his problem? Does he smell like a landmine or poison? He’s such a money-grubber…doesn’t he have that copper-rust smell???”
“Fu Sang… he’s different.”
Qi Changying hesitated for a moment, then walked over to Fu Sang. He first tentatively looked up to gauge his reaction, and seeing no resistance, he lowered his head toward him, leaning in close to the side of his neck.
He had originally intended to keep a polite distance, just as he had done with Huo Wei. But the moment he caught Fu Sang’s scent, he couldn’t help but draw closer and closer, nearly burying his face in the hollow of his neck.
And Fu Sang didn’t refuse, only awkwardly tilting his head aside.
When Qi Changying drew near, he brought with him the low temperature of a ghost, which made Fu Sang a bit uncomfortable.
He turned his face away, his gaze falling on emptiness, waiting for this Crimson Evil’s sniffing ritual to end and then move away. But he waited and waited, and it didn’t come.
After a long while, all he got was a voice close to his ear:
“He… smells very good.”
