CH 11

On the second floor, the air conditioning had been turned to the lowest temperature possible. Even so, Pi Xiu almost completely undressed himself, wiped off the sweat, and walked to the air conditioner so that the cold air could hit him directly. Wen Xi followed him and asked again what Feng Du meant by those words.

“He said a lot. Which words are you referring to?” Pi Xiu reached out to wrap his arms around Wen Xi.

Wen Xi, however, jumped to the side: “You’re all sweaty!”

“So what? It’s not like I haven’t hugged you when I was all sweaty before. Besides, sweat is a manly characteristic.” Pi Xiu frowned and touched his hair. “Come here now. I’m too hot.”

“Then you will have to explain to me what Feng Du meant by ‘something extremely cold’.” Wen Xi raised his nose up high. “What did Feng Du mean by ‘his cause of death is unusual’ and ‘his soul has a heavy cold qi’?”

Pi Xiu: “You really don’t remember how you died?”

“I really don’t remember.” Wen Xi whispered. “I feel a strong headache every time I try to remember it.”

Pi Xiu pulled the ghost towards his own body, placed his hand on the ghost’s neck, and touched the ghost’s skull along the cervical spine. All of a sudden, Pi Xiu’s fingers touched a firm bulge. He asked: “Have you always bowed your head?”

Wen Xi: “Huh?”

“I can feel that your cervical vertebra is protruding, which only means that there was something wrong with your sitting posture. I’ll help you improve your posture tomorrow.” Pi Xiu loosened his hand to hug Wen Xi, and said carelessly: “Since it hurts to remember, don’t do it. What will you do if your souls scatter away? You won’t be able to reincarnate then.”

Wen Xi was so angry, he even gritted his teeth. Since he was unable to scold Pi Xiu, Wen Xi said: “You still haven’t answered my question.”

Pi Xiu: “Something extremely cold is, precisely, something extremely cold. A thousand-year-old Water-Essence jade or a ten thousand-year-old Chalcedony, a Zhulong1 Lung, and Merman Tears. All of those items are all good.”

“Were all of those things put together with my….bones?” Wen Xi asked cautiously.

Pi Xiu laughed: “In your dreams! Those items are priceless, and it’s really outrageous to use them on a mortal like you. However, your jade urn is also quite good. If you round it up, it can be regarded as a ten thousand year old chalcedony.”

“Where’s my urn?” Wen Xi hurriedly asked.

Pi Xiu raised an eyebrow: “I made it into a pickle jar.”

Wen Xi’s face turned pale, and stopped breathing.

“Not only is that jar just the right size, but it also maintains a cold temperature all the time. If you cover it and place it on a cool place, you can freeze pears and persimmons, saving electricity.”

Wen Xi clenched his fist: “That’s my urn, where my bones are, and you just….”

Pi Xiu: “Oh, how was I supposed to know if you didn’t tell me? I already made Lil Broom wash that jar six or seven times. It’s fully clean now! Besides, it’s not like we’re going to be the ones eating from the food inside it, right?”

After listening to Pi Xiu’s mocking words, Wen Xi turned around, grabbed the phone on the sofa, and began to dial a phone number.

“What are you doing?” Pi Xiu asked.

Wen Xi replied coldly: “I’m calling the Food Supervising Administration. I will report your unacceptable sanitary conditions.”

Pi Xiu angrily laughed: “You can’t understand a joke now? Do you really think I would want to pickle food in your urn, with your bone ashes? Not to mention that you can get sick, but the mere thought of eating something fermented in an urn makes me feel sick to my stomach.”

“Then where are my bones and my urn?” Wen Xi stared at Pi Xiu questionably.

Pi Xiu threw the phone in his hand to the side, frowned, and said: “I’m keeping it safe. It’s not like I want your garbage.”

“Really?” Wen Xi didn’t believe him.

Pi Xiu’s face darkened again: “You can believe me or not, I don’t care.”

Seeing the old demon’s face change, Wen Xi immediately changed his demeanor as well. He went from looking like an evil spirit, to being a gentle, tender creature. Then, Wen Xi took the initiative to hug Pi Xiu to calm him down: “Why are you angry again? I was simply scared by you.”

“Mind the proximity.” Pi Xiu pulled Wen Xi away from him. “Don’t let others misunderstand.”

Wen Xi sneered in his heart: ‘Weren’t you the one who tightly hugged me, no matter who was present? But now you want to push me aside and keep your distance? You really are something else, Mr. Pi.’

‘In the past, I was able to persuade my eccentric old grandfather to favor me over his own children and other grandchildren. So why should I fear an uneducated, thousands-year-old demon? I can always find more opportunities than difficulties, I just need to make better plans.’

‘Although that mud-headed demon has a really bad temper, this ice pillow has his own personal integrity!’

When Pi Xiu saw that Wen Xi obediently stepped aside and didn’t cling to him again, Pi Xiu was very satisfied that this little ghost, who was intelligent enough to understand. ‘When the summer is over, I will have to choose the perfect time to send him off to reincarnate. In any case, he will have a new life of wealth and good fortune.’

“I’m going downstairs for a bit, you can rest up here. Call me if you need anything.”

Wen Xi didn’t speak or look at Pi Xiu. Wen Xi simply stepped aside and stood with his head bowed down.

“What is it now?” Pi Xiu frowned and thought: ‘Is he sulking?’

Wen Xi inclined his head and replied: “You only think of me when you’re feeling hot. If you’re not heating up, you would throw me aside. When the time comes, you will put me back into my urn so you will never have to be seen with me again.”

Pi Xiu was stunned. Seeing how Wen Xi’s eyes began to redden, Pi Xiu panicked: ‘Could I have said something wrong?’

“I’m simply using you as an ice pillow. You need to understand your place.”

Wen Xi stretched out his neck to look at Pi Xiu, his eyes reddened even more: “Yes, I’m nothing else, but an ice pillow.”

When the two men’s eyes met, love and hate intertwined between them. Pi Xiu was in a momentary trace, feeling that he had walked into the wrong set, saying the wrong lines.

“What the hell do you want?!” Pi Xiu rubbed his short hair. “Don’t get mad at me.”

Wen Xi sneered and took two steps back to vividly show his frustration. The more Pi Xiu looked at Wen Xi, the worse Pi Xiu felt, and the more his temperature increased. In the end, Pi Xiu could no longer stand it, so he stretched out a hand to Wen Xi: “Stop making trouble. Come here and let me hug you.”

However, Wen Xi didn’t move.

‘You ignored me not too long ago, you can’t afford me now.’

Mr. Pi, who couldn’t afford Wen Xi, grabbed his hand, pulled him, and hugged him. As Pi Xiu gritted his teeth, he said: “Don’t provoke me.”

Wen Xi’s treacherous plan was successful, so his face relaxed: “You were the one who provoked me first. Not my fault.”

As the two non-human men hugged each other for a while, Su An called for Pi Xiu from downstairs three times. In the end, Pi Xiu let go of Wen Xi’s cold body to go downstairs. As soon as Pi Xiu arrived at the accountant’s room, Su An was staring at Pi Xiu with his dead fish-like eyes.

Compared to the two, Wen Xi’s smiling peach blossom eyes were more pleasing to look at.

“What are you staring at me for?” Pi Xiu’s expression was solemn as he assumed the posture of the Boss.

Su An raised his hand to look at his watch and said: “It’s been 15 minutes since I called you. You’re too slow, and the customers will complain if you make them wait.”

“Complaints, complaints! I don’t need ungrateful customers!” Pi Xiu didn’t care.

Su An pushed up his glasses: “But there’s a rule in the restaurant. If you don’t receive your order within the specified time, you can get a discount.”

A discount means less money, and less money means less meat. As soon as Pi Xiu heard this, he immediately headed towards the kitchen, swearing: “I’ll see who dares to pay less money.”

Pi Xiu’s signature dish, which was cooked only once a month, had always been a dish the glutton customers scrambled for. When you search it up on Xianyu2, you can find several scalpers selling queue tickets for the restaurant to get the limited dish.

Su An understood the importance of hungry marketing, so he had also signed up on Xianyu to sell information about the queue. Su An used the convenience of his position as a mediator to gain a differential price, which was then split between him and Pi Xiu. Over the years, Su An had managed to save some money, enough to have a family one day.

Every time Su An looked at the rising numbers on his account, he always sighed. ‘Indeed, working for a Pixiu can guarantee that you will earn lots of money.’

…

On the other hand, Pi Xiu was already in the kitchen, standing by the stove, heating up a pan and throwing the food inside it. From one moment to the next, Pi Xiu began to move the pan to the point where the food flew into the air, a meter away from the pan, swirling in the air and falling back into the pan. Even though this movement was constant, not a single drop or scrap of food had fallen out of the pan.

It was both entertaining and artistic, far beyond a culinary experience, moving in the direction of an acrobatic performance.

Qiu Fu stood next to the stove, staring at Pi Xiu’s movements in awe. In the end, he couldn’t help but ask: “Boss, who taught you this skill?”

Pi Xiu showed a rare humility, as if pretending to be a natural: “Nobody did. It’s just that I have a lot of experience with cooking”

‘It’s all that damn dog Taotie’s fault! If he hadn’t swindled me out of all my money, I wouldn’t have had to run around to make money. At one point, I ended up working in a human restaurant to survive. I went through so many painful situations, but there is no point in mentioning them now!’

“Boss Pi used to have a stall, in which he sold sugar fried chestnuts.” Ren Jiao didn’t give Pi Xiu face. “At the time, chestnuts weren’t selling very well, so he went to a theater troupe to learn stunts from them. Every time he stir-fried the chestnuts, he would make them fly a meter in the air, so the people around would reward him with a few hundred coins.”

Qiu Fu’s face suddenly turned pale, as he gave his brave Boss a sympathetic look.

‘As expected of such a powerful ancient demon! He can adapt to every circumstance. Even in difficult times, he’s prepared to sacrifice his image to get five buckets of rice. Such an open mind is something the foxes of Qingqiu mountains, including myself, don’t have! He’s indeed a role model for the demons!’

Pi Xiu glared at Ren Jiao with a grim face: “If you dare say more, I will peel off all of your scales!”

“Why did you come down so late anyways? Is it because of the one in your room that you don’t want to come down?” Ren Jiao laughed. “It seems the ‘old house is on fire3’, and you can no longer run away.”

Pi Xiu frowned: “Bullshit! It’s obvious that it was him who pestered me not to come down! Humans are all clingy and coquettish, who can’t change their natures even if they have already become ghosts. If I don’t want to hug him for a while, he dares to show a sulky face, looking as if I have wronged him!”

The pots and pans in Pi Xiu’s hands clanged, until finally, he scooped up the soup and divided it into thirteen bowls. Once finished, Pi Xiu told the Monkey waiters to hurrily take them to the tables.

Ren Jiao ‘tsk-ed’ next to him: “Two days ago, you said that you two had nothing to do with each other, but now he’s refusing to let you go?”

As Qiu Fu listened with a yearning face, he muttered: “When will I have someone who hugs me and refuses to let me go?”

Pi Xiu glanced at Qiu Fu and said: “Go out, turn right and walk one kilometer until you reach a cosmetic store. Once there, make your face look as beautiful as your siblings. Tomorrow, I’ll have Su An shoot a short video of you cooking, so you can become an online chef celebrity. Every time the humans see you, they will rush to greet you, increasing the restaurant’s customers.”

Qiu Fu blushed and asked shyly: “Really?!”

“Of course not!” Pi Xiu angrily took off the apron from his body and threw it aside. Ren Jiao had to hold him back.

Ren Jiao: “I’m going to give you back the urn you gave me. I have already confirmed what it contains, and the contents are just as you said. The urn is made from a thousand-year-old white chalcedony. The soul-calming incense was made by crushing as well as mixing Zhulong Lung and Merman Tears. He had been soaking in these items for hundreds of years, so it’s no wonder his soul has such a heavy cold qi.”

Pi Xiu frowned: “Where the hell could the Taotie get something as valuable as Zhulong Lung?”

Ren Jiao: “Could it be the stone lung you got from Zhulong?”

Pi Xiu: “…..”

‘It’s not unreasonable. After all, what monster wouldn’t suffer after being slapped by Zhulong? Of course he would use my stuff.’

‘But that little ghost has really been soaking in those precious objects inside his urn for hundreds of years.’ At this time, Pi Xiu began to think deeply about the reason why Taotie would send Wen Xi to his side. Pi Xiu first analyzed the debt relationship that Taotie had with him, followed by the many years they have known each other, only to end thinking about the red thread between Wen Xi and him.

Pi Xiu slapped his thigh and said with frustration: “Couldn’t it be that Taotie already knew about the red thread that linked me to that ghost, so he sent him to me as a child bride to cover his debts?!”

Ren Jiao immediately stood up and applauded: “Congratulations! You have managed to solve the puzzle!”

‘Dammit! What does Taotie take me for? Although I’m a demon, I’m a bachelor who exercises self-control to protect myself from immorality. A demon who cares about nothing else, and loves nothing more, other than money.’

‘A money debt should be paid with money! I don’t want a ghost!’