Volume 11: The Days of Traversing Through the Mirror
Courting Death1
Calm down! Calm down!
Shen Maomao was a little shocked.
She watched helplessly as that hand was crushed, letting out a “ji”2 shriek, and with a “shua”3, it shot back under the desk.
Hai Dongqing: “What was that?”
Shen Maomao: “…Er… it’s hard to say.”
Hai Dongqing lifted her bag to take a look, only seeing a small, glistening wet spot on the desk. Unconcerned, she put the bag back down and asked her, “What are you doing up on the desk?”
Shen Maomao: “The air is better up here.”
Hai Dongqing showed a confused expression.
Shen Maomao climbed down from the desk, went back to sit on her own bed, and said, “There’s something under the beds, under all three of them. There might be something under the desk too.”
Hai Dongqing’s expression wasn’t very concerned. Instead, she asked her, “Were you okay when you were in the room by yourself?”
Shen Maomao: “Something was happening, but after you arrived, it seems like it stopped…”
Hai Dongqing laughed, “So I have that kind of effect, do I?”
Shen Maomao gave her a thumbs-up.
Hai Dongqing turned to rummage through her bag, pulling out potato chips, jelly, cookies, latiao4, chicken feet, and other junk food, spreading them all over the desk as if setting up a street stall. Then, from the very bottom of the bag, she took out a bottle of red potion5 and a new pack of cotton swabs.
She twisted open the bottle cap and looked at Shen Maomao. “Come on, let me apply some to the wound on your leg.”
Shen Maomao was internally refusing: “I used an item. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Hai Dongqing showed a look of disapproval. “It might not hurt, but that doesn’t help the wound heal. It’s still better to treat it.”
Shen Maomao still wanted to refuse, but then she heard her say, “If you don’t use it, didn’t I buy this potion for nothing?”
Shen Maomao was silent for a second. “Then give it to me…”
The words had barely left her mouth when, unexpectedly, Hai Dongqing took a step forward, grabbed her ankle that was resting on the ladder, perched her butt on the edge of the desk, and then placed her jio6 on her own lap.
Shen Maomao was stunned. “What are you doing?!” she said, starting to struggle.
But the item’s debuff had already taken effect. The strength in her body vanished like flowing water. Hai Dongqing’s hand gripping her ankle was like a pair of pliers; she struggled a couple of times but couldn’t break free.
Hai Dongqing gently patted her leg. “Don’t move. I’m disinfecting it for you. I’m a professional.”
Shen Maomao stopped her useless struggles and just watched her with a scrutinizing gaze.
It was as if Hai Dongqing didn’t see it. She dipped a cotton swab in the potion and gently covered Shen Maomao’s wound, cleaning off the dust and bloodstains bit by bit, extremely meticulously.
Shen Maomao lowered her gaze to look at her serious side profile and suddenly began to doubt her own judgment. A sentence slipped out: “Are you—”
Before she could finish, Hai Dongqing raised her head, looked at her, and asked in return, “Am I what?”
“Noth—” Shen Maomao swallowed her words back down. “I just think you’re a bit like a friend of mine.”
“Then you and your friend must have a very good relationship, right?” Hai Dongqing lowered her head again and continued treating her wound.
The item’s effect hadn’t worn off yet, so Shen Maomao didn’t feel any pain, only a cool and itchy sensation crawling on her leg, like a diligent little ant.
“I guess so. It’s pretty good.”
Hai Dongqing asked again, “If your relationship is so good, why didn’t she come in with you?”
Shen Maomao looked at her sharply.
Hai Dongqing still didn’t look up, yet she said something that “Hai Dongqing” shouldn’t know: “If you ask me, I’m afraid she never considered you a friend at all.”
“If you keep chewing the root of the tongue7 like that, I’m going to kick you.” Shen Maomao was expressionless, looking quite intimidating.
Hai Dongqing let out a laugh. “Quite protective of your own, are you?”
Shen Maomao tilted her head slightly, sizing up the strange woman before her, trying to find some familiar shadow in her, but it was obvious she had failed. So she opened her mouth and asked, “How did you know my friend is also a player?”
“I was just taking a wild guess.” Hai Dongqing showed no cracks in her facade. “Looks like I guessed right?”
After disinfecting it, she wrapped gauze around Shen Maomao’s ankle, only wrapping it loosely twice, as if she knew that wounds on her body would easily fester if covered up. Then she let go of Shen Maomao’s leg, stood up straight, and clapped her hands. “Alright, I’m going to wash my hands and get some water for you to wash your face.”
Shen Maomao put her two legs down below the bed. That pale, bluish hand, perhaps wary because someone was there, made no move, but she still found it a bit creepy, so she switched to a cross-legged position. “Thanks, no need to trouble yourself. I can go myself.”
Hai Dongqing didn’t listen to her and went to the water room with a basin to get water.
The moment she was out the door, that teeth-grinding, bed-board-sanding sound started up again from under the bed. It almost made Shen Maomao laugh out of anger. “You think I’m easy to bully, huh?”
As if in response to her, the words had just fallen when that pale, bluish hand reached out from under the bed again, gripping the edge of her bed.
Shen Maomao took a closer look and discovered four round imprints on the hand. If you looked closely, they looked a bit like… they were made by the bottom of a Coke bottle.
Crap, I can’t feel scared at all anymore.
She pulled out her dagger and stabbed down at the four round imprints, hitting the bullseye.
The hand let out another “ji” shriek and shot back from the edge of the bed. The enemy was weak, and she was strong. Shen Maomao pressed her advantage, dagger in hand, bent over, and widened her eyes to look under the bed, preparing to give it two more stabs to send it on its way.
But under the bed was empty. There was nothing there.
Could that thing know how to pass through walls?
The dorm room door was pushed open. She straightened up and looked over.
Hai Dongqing was standing at the door holding a basin of water, looking at her. “Did that thing come out again?”
“It’s fine, not a big deal.” Shen Maomao looked at her, a certain probing thought suddenly rising in her mind. “After you left just now, I carefully thought about what you said, and I suddenly feel that you made a lot of sense.”
Hai Dongqing’s hand gripping the basin tightened, but then she nonchalantly walked to the desk and placed the basin on it. “How so?”
“Well, that friend of mine, she’s pretty amazing. She always said not accompanying me through instances was for my own good, but thinking about it now, maybe those were all just excuses because she despises me.” Shen Maomao’s expression was serious, not feigned in the slightest. “She has a really bad temper, and a cheap mouth8. You have to coax her all the time. Sometimes she pisses me off so much the roots of my teeth itch9, and I wish I could just give her two big slaps across the face right then and there. But the moment I think about needing to hug her thigh10, I can only swallow my anger and hold my tongue. Thinking about it now, I still feel a bit wronged.”
The corner of Hai Dongqing’s mouth twitched, and she seemed to squeeze out a smile.
Shen Maomao poured oil on the fire11, saying, “When I first met you, I thought you were a bit like her, so I wasn’t very friendly to you. But after spending a day together, I’ve discovered you’re not just millions of times better than her, if she had half of your gentleness…”
“Kacha—”12 With a sound, Hai Dongqing directly crushed the edge of the plastic basin.
Shen Maomao didn’t dare to say any more.
She had already confirmed who this person was.
But now that the person was confirmed, her life might be over.
She shrank back in a panic. “Calm down! Calm down!”
The corner of Hai Dongqing’s mouth twitched twice more. It looked more like a cramp than a smile, as if she couldn’t quite control her facial expressions. “Sorry, I didn’t control my strength… Did I scare you?”
Shen Maomao suddenly realized her premonition hadn’t been wrong. Her body had given her a warning the first moment she saw Hai Dongqing, telling her she would end up like this today, but she still managed to get the worst possible answer on an open-book test13.
She said in a small voice, “Aren’t you happy that I’m praising you?”
Hai Dongqing finally revealed a smile, saying through practically gritted teeth, “Happy… How could I not be happy?”
Shen Maomao, her skin itching for a beating14, said, “As long as you’re happy.”
Hai Dongqing brushed the broken fragments from her hand and walked towards her, stepping over the desk.
Shen Maomao kept shrinking back until her back was against the wall, with no path of retreat.
Hai Dongqing leaned forward, lifted her chin with her index finger, her features magnifying before Shen Maomao’s eyes, and said in a murmur, “Go on and ‘zuo’15… little ‘zuo’ spirit16…”
Hearing this familiar address, Shen Maomao’s eyes began to sting uncontrollably. “You…”
But before she could finish asking, the index finger lifting her chin was placed vertically before her lips. “Don’t ask. ‘It’ will notice.”
Shen Maomao blinked her eyes, indicating she understood.
It seems Lou Jingmo has to hide her identity for some reason. Who is this ‘It’ referring to? A ghost? Or that illusory and insubstantial creator?
She had no way of knowing.
But she knew that the distance between the two of them was very close, so close that their breaths mingled, and then they got closer and closer…
“Bang-dang—”
“We have some new—!” Bai Lu’s voice dropped, finishing the last two words, “…discoveries.”
“What’s wrong, xue—” Peng Xiaorui’s voice also paused. “…jie17…”
Shen Maomao’s old face18 flushed red. She quickly pushed Hai Dongqing’s shoulder and whispered, “Hurry up and get off!”
Hai Dongqing wasn’t flustered in the slightest. After standing up, she even smiled at the two in a good mood. “What did you discover?”
Bai Lu stood at the door, not knowing if she should come in. “Er…”
Shen Maomao smoothed her hair, saying uncomfortably, “What discoveries are there?”
Only then did Bai Lu come in, followed by Peng Xiaorui, whose eyes were about to pop out of her head.
Bai Lu went back to her own bed and sat down, saying, “Well… that Zhang Xiao led us to the gym, and then to express my gratitude, I treated her to a meal…”
As she spoke, her words became more fluent. “Then, during the meal, the two of us plied her with some alcohol. Once she drank too much, her chatterbox opened up19. She said the reason our exchange was so rushed was because something happened to the 12 people who exchanged with us. The dorm room we’re living in now was their dorm room. They were originally 12 people too, but in the two dorm rooms, one girl from each had an accident. One died from an asthma attack, and one jumped off the building. It made everyone in the original dorms panic-stricken20, and they couldn’t wait to run away.”
“What was the specific reason? The height of the third floor, how could someone fall to their death?” Shen Maomao asked.
“She didn’t die from the fall,” Peng Xiaorui said. “Zhang Xiao said she died of cardiac arrest. She was scared to death before she even jumped.”
The author has something to say:
Hai Dongqing: “Your friend never considered you a real friend at all.”
Shen Maomao: “Nonsense, what kind of friend would pin you on the bed and kiss you until you can’t get up??”
I took a look today and saw I actually have 10,000 collections. The tears immediately started falling. This book will have been serialized for almost a year on the 13th, and I fucking21 haven’t even finished it yet. As expected, as long as I can drag it out, I can break ten thousand. I’m really such a piece of iron trash22 55523. Thank you everyone, for being willing to collect my work even though it’s written so nonsensically24. 555 love you all!!
Also, the first one hundred comments on this chapter will get a small red envelope!
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