CH 14

Influenced by the words of a speech spirit, the rain finally came to a halt after two hours.

Ling Xiao and Chi Jiayan stood at a bus stop. There weren’t many passersby, and the air smelled like sweat and dust mixed together by the dampness. 

Chi Jiayan watched the curtain of rainwater drip. His heart was full of worry as he said, “I don’t know if Qiuqiu jie’s recital is over yet. Uncle Yu, he…”

Ling Xiao’s facial expression was grave. His mind was still uncontrollably fixated on how he’d said he was from hell earlier.

He said the place he came from was hell.

Actually, that was more of a description than anything. It was in accordance with where this world thought the Grim Reaper was from. 

Ling Xiao actually came from another high-dimensional world. As the earliest human beings who migrated to a higher dimension in ancient times, they had always been concerned about the low-dimensional world. No one knows who discovered the connection between the two worlds. If there was a mistake or disorder in the low-dimensional world, the high-dimensional world would be greatly affected. In order to ensure order, they invented the natal chart and assigned different people to carry out different tasks. Among them, Fate was the leader who came to the low-dimensional world to maintain order.

Over time, a few humans from the lower dimension found out about this. They embellished the truth, formed multiple religions, and therefore formed different gods.

Ling Xiao had one memory, and that was to oversee the human world’s hardest job—death.

He was without sadness, without happiness, without greed, without demands.

There came to be this one person, belonging to no one.

Fate told him he shouldered a heavy responsibility. He needed to persevere until the day of Great Harmony was reached, and once everything was tranquil, he would be able to rest.

Rather than the job itself, he felt like this was a type of punishment.

He couldn’t return to his own world, because his job had no end. 

He also had no way of integrating with humankind, because he didn’t share their emotions.

For Ling Xiao, his life was tantamount to nothing.

Thinking like that, without any end in sight, wasn’t that basically a hell in itself?

When they were still in Yu Congshu’s office, when he said he came from hell, it was only after he had spoken that he realized he had already unknowingly developed a kind of distaste towards his own existence. 

How had Chi Jiayan responded?

Oh yeah, that naive speech spirit had said, “So what? I’m willing to accompany Gege to hell. If I can’t, you have to promise to come save me. Dying on my own would be lonely.”

He had remembered up to this point when Ling Xiao felt himself being tugged on by someone.

“Gege, let’s go.” Chi Jiayan tugged on his sleeves. “The bus is here.” 

At some point, a bright red bus had stopped in front of them. After being washed by the rainwater, its color seemed even more vibrant.

Against the red backdrop, Chi Jiayan’s complexion looked even paler, the darkness of his pupils like condensed ink.

They followed the crowd onto the bus. The inside was even more crowded, so Ling Xiao held onto the bus handles. Since Chi Jiayan was short, he hugged onto Ling Xiao’s arm tightly, seemingly more affectionate than usual.

It was probably because Ling Xiao not only let Yu Congshu go, but also because he spared his life as well. 

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Chi Jiayan’s face suddenly flushed. 

“Speech spirit, what are you looking at?” Ling Xiao asked.

Chi Jiayan subconsciously let go of Ling Xiao’s arm and said what he was trying to hide. “No—Nothing. I wasn’t looking at you.”

Ling Xiao: “…”

Chi Jiayan looked very distressed. 

He lowered his head until only a pair of reddened earlobes could be seen against his black hair. “I—I just wanted to say thank you to Gege.”

Ling Xiao didn’t say anything.

“Because after I met you, it was always Gege accommodating me,” Chi Jiayan said. “Five years ago it was like that, this year it was like that, and just now it was like that, too. I know I affected Gege’s job, so I wanted to say thank you.”

“Mm.” Ling Xiao faintly knit his brow. 

He didn’t know why no matter which version of himself it was, it seemed that he was bound to be led around by the nose because of this boy.

He had to adapt to this change.

Chi Jiayan hadn’t finished speaking his piece when the bus came to a halt, and he stumbled a bit.

Luckily, Ling Xiao grabbed him by the collar before he fell. It was like he was holding a baby chick, light as a feather, practically weightless. 

After they got off the bus, Ling Xiao walked on ahead. Behind him, Chi Jiayan shouted his name.

Ling Xiao turned his head. Chi Jiayan was smiling, puffed up like he had gathered all his courage. “Gege, since you’re the Grim Reaper, we agreed that the next time we meet is when you have to definitely take me away. But I really wanted to tell you, meeting you…really was the luckiest thing to happen to me in this lifetime.”

Nobody had ever told the Grim Reaper that meeting him was lucky.

Ling Xiao’s pupils darkened. He walked away expressionlessly. 

He still had a lot to do. This world really had too many death instances to deal with.

—

The next time Ling Xiao saw Chi Jiayan was a month later.

That day, a construction site had a huge accident. Ten or so people were killed, all of them violent deaths. 

Lu Cheng received orders to provide assistance.

After sorting out the situation rather clumsily and messily, Lu Cheng started to tease. “Master Ling Xiao, now that you’re wearing human clothes, you look a lot younger than when you were wearing your black robes. Are you finally starting to let loose a little?”

Ling Xiao’s mansion in the underworld held innumerous black robes. All of them were given to him by Fate, and there were a total of about a hundred sets.

But recently, Ling Xiao bought a lot of black clothes, all in accordance with the latest fashion trends in the human world. 

Maybe subconsciously, he wanted to escape the lifestyle of a grim reaper already.

But these pesky thoughts were forcibly suppressed down by himself. Ling Xiao wouldn’t let himself express such a fluctuating state of mind, nor could he tell the next grim reaper in line, Lu Cheng, about this.

“Oh right, speaking of clothes, last time I was at Jiajia’s place, he was doing your laundry.” Lu Cheng snorted, almost rolling on the floor. “He’s so poor, he doesn’t even own a washing machine. He was sitting on a stool and using a big basin to wash. I bet he’s not even as tall as your clothes.”

Ling Xiao did indeed leave one of his black robes back in that messy as hell house. 

He took off his mask, phoenix eyes calmer than the sea. “Whose house did you go to?”

Lu Cheng clicked his tongue. “Ai, it was because of that Yu Congshu situation.”

That day, after Yu Congshu had attended his daughter’s recital, he sorted some business out in his car before accepting surrender.

People thought he had died suddenly, but only Yu Xiaoqiu knew what had really happened. 

Chi Jiayan had attended the funeral. He had only been watching from afar when Yu Xiaoqiu had spotted him. She had complicated feelings towards Chi Jiayan. She was thankful, but also sympathetic, but the pain of being orphaned made her want to think over the rumors she had heard about Chi Jiayan more.

Disaster star. Bearer of ill luck. Those descriptions were what everyone around him described Chi Jiayan as.

Yu Xiaoqiu never believed them, but now that she held contempt, she also had fear.

Lu Cheng brought his soul-devouring beasts with him to observe. He smoothly collected the spirit bead, and as he was about to leave, he saw a familiar figure. 

He thought Chi Jiayan would cry.

But who would’ve thought, with his eyes red, Chi Jiayan was able to smile, two dimples appearing on his face. “It’s okay. After all…Qiuqiu jie was never my friend.”

“She wasn’t your friend and you were still willing to trade your life for her dad’s?” Lu Cheng was astonished. “You’re way too saintly!”

“I don’t deserve it.” Chi Jiayan pretended not to care. “I guess I don’t deserve friends.” 

Lu Cheng continued to jabber on with Ling Xiao. “WTF, it was really just too fucking sad. Don’t you know, watching him smile like that was really too hard to look at. Is every speech spirit that miserable?”’

Ling Xiao summoned Cang Feng, climbing onto his back to sit up high. “Everyone has sins from their past to bear on their shoulders.”

Lu Cheng waved his hand. “Ei? The conversation suddenly got dark. Oh, last time you met with the Dream God to check his dreams, what did you see? They should be pretty interesting!”

“No comment,” Ling Xiao said. 

Cang Feng puffed out air from its nose. Its ears twitched and its claws flexed before soaring into the sky with Ling Xiao in tow.

The leftover Lu Cheng scratched his ear. He absentmindedly opened his sleeves and let his spirit-devouring beasts loose, still thinking, confused. Was that kid not all that met the eye? Why did Master Ling Xiao purposely want to see his dreams? Was there something he couldn’t say?

Chi Jiayan didn’t know there was someone spying and looking at his dreams.

He sank into his big, soft pillow. His black hair covered half his face, and his figure looked like a child who had yet to grow up. 

In the middle of the night, Ling Xiao arrived. He stood silently by the bed.

And the Dream God who accompanied him entered Chi Jiayan’s dreamland.

The Dream God held a crystal ball in her hand. It kept flashing fragments of Chi Jiayan’s dream.

The fragments were made of fantasy and reality, and it would take some effort to make sense of them. 

“Master Ling Xiao,” The Dream God said. “What are you looking for?”

Ling Xiao said, “…Me.”

The Dream God had always been taciturn.

Her rainbow hair was radiant, and when her eyes were closed, there were delicate butterflies on her eyelashes. 

Such a fairy-like figure created an extreme juxtaposition next to the gloomy Grim Reaper.

Hearing such a request, the Dream God almost wanted to ask more, but just as she opened her mouth, she was met with the Grim Reaper’s cold eyes.

Even though he was a fellow god of this world, the Dream God couldn’t help but tremble, feeling a little overwhelmed.

As the crystal ball spun, Ling Xiao saw many things he wasn’t aware of. He saw Chi Jiayan crying into a box of paper bills of different values. He saw Chi Jiayan secretly following behind Yu Xiaoqiu, blessing her again and again. 

Of course, he also saw glimpses of Chi Jiayan’s lonely life.

His parents had passed away suddenly. His classmates rejected him, and his teachers always ignored him.

He saw his cousin who would deliberately scold him from the stairwell, as well as those ghosts who would stare at him along the street.

Chi Jiayan lived in the cracks of life, but he had a strong ability to survive, like an ant who lived an ignoble existence. 

What’s more, Ling Xiao saw himself.

To be exact, he saw his future self.

The rainy road, the driver yelling, and the black cat.

The swimming pool under the sun, the near-death experience of almost drowning, and the boulevard they walked down together. 

Gradually, these fragments made Ling Xiao understand one thing. Every time the future self time-traveled, it was to the moment of Chi Jiayan’s death. Chi Jiayan was fully aware of this, which is why he said that the next time they met would be when he was taken away. From beginning to end, Chi Jiayan knew he would die by the hands of the Grim Reaper.

As for the reason why Chi Jiayan still tried to get close to him, Ling Xiao didn’t know.

He thought he would never see that child again.

TL Note: This is just a random tidbit, but as crass as Lu Cheng’s manner of speech seems, he refers to Ling Xiao with the formal “you”.