Chapter 4

Chapter 4

When I woke again, the sky had gone dark.

I was lying on the floor, still dizzy and disoriented.

In the dim living room, the wall clock was glowing. It was already seven-thirty at night.

Normally, Gu Yushu would still be working overtime at this hour.

I was just about to crawl back into the corner and curl up when another thought occurred to me. If he came home and saw that I hadn’t eaten either lunch or dinner, he would definitely be angry. Very, very angry.

With no other choice, I went to the fridge, took out a ready meal, and put it in the microwave to heat up.

No matter what, forcing down a few bites would be better than nothing.

But the moment I stuffed a mouthful of rice into my mouth, nausea suddenly surged up my throat. In the blink of an eye, I threw up everything, even the milk from that morning.

This… this strange feeling I’d never experienced before?

Could this be what it meant to have my vitality badly damaged?

I looked out the window again. A thin, cold crescent moon hung high in the sky, haloed by a faint, eerie ring of light, and a bold idea suddenly came to me.

Since I was a mushroom spirit, if I absorbed the essence of heaven and earth for a little while, would I feel a bit better…?

Fifteen minutes later.

I cautiously opened the door. Seeing no one around, I secretly ran downstairs to the flower bed and buried my bare feet in the damp, icy soil.

Unfortunately, it happened to be right after work.

People passed by in twos and threes on the path not far away.

When they saw me standing upright in the flower bed like a wooden post, they all started whispering to one another. Even more of them quietly raised their phones toward me.

“What’s she doing?”

“Did some family’s lunatic get out?”

“Sure looks like it!”

Listening to the scattered whispers behind me, I suddenly felt as if needles were pricking my back. A strange fear crawled over my whole body.

After the founding of the nation, animals weren’t allowed to become spirits anymore. Not even mushrooms.

Maybe doing this would bring trouble for Gu Yushu…

After thinking it over for a moment, I was just about to flee back home when a cool voice rang out behind me.

“What are you doing?!”

I looked up and saw that a certain someone had come back.

Joy welled up in my heart. “I’m basking in the moonlight! It feels pretty good. Do you want to try?”

But as Gu Yushu looked at me, a layer of despair quickly rose in his eyes.

“I’m begging you. Don’t do this.”

As usual, Gu Yushu didn’t scold me much.

After pulling me out of the mud, he scooped me up in his arms under everyone’s gazes and carried me all the way back to our room.

But for some reason, I came down with a fever that very night.

I really couldn’t understand it.

“Why do I still get fevers when I’m clearly a mushroom spirit?”

At the other end of the bed, Gu Yushu bent his tall frame and tucked my ice-cold feet into his arms to warm them, his expression rather helpless.

“Have you ever considered that maybe you aren’t a mushroom at all?”

“Haha!”

The moment he said that, I laughed. “How is that possible?”

Gu Yushu smiled too, but his smile looked worse than crying.

The faint sorrow in his expression was like a cloud heavy with moisture, swiftly covering the brilliant starry sky above my head.

I didn’t know what I’d done wrong.

All I knew was that his disappointment filled me with unbearable panic.

So I followed his lead and gave him a flattering, ingratiating smile. “Maybe… maybe I’m really not a mushroom?

“Then… then why do I have to insist that I’m a mushroom? That’s so…”

Before I could finish, panic suddenly seized my heart.

Right. Why was I so certain I was a mushroom?

Clearly, I broke out when I stayed up late, got constipated when I ate spicy food, and had even fallen in love with a strange, weird Gu Yushu like this.

Then… then if I wasn’t a mushroom, what exactly was I?

At that point, my thoughts suddenly cut off.

At the end of my chaotic memories, there seemed to be a twisted, monstrous shadow I could never escape no matter what I did. It circled me horribly, watching me from the depths with a cold, sinister gaze. Then my entire body was suddenly seized by an indescribable terror, and a shrill scream burst from my throat.

“No! I don’t want to!”

The man in front of me panicked. He quickly pulled me tightly into his arms. “Okay, okay, you don’t have to!”

“Of course you’re a mushroom. I saw it with my own eyes!”

A long time passed.

He held me tightly and comforted me until I gradually calmed down through my sobs.

“Really? You saw it with your own eyes?”

“I’m your husband. Who would know better than me?”

He spoke softly while sliding his hand around to touch my back. “You’re drenched in sweat from crying. It must feel awful, right?”

After a long while, I gave a muffled “Mm.”

“Come on. Your husband will give you a bath.”

Perhaps because I’d just let everything out, I suddenly felt unbearably exhausted. The fear from before gradually faded along with the drowsiness rising inside me, like a trapped beast hiding in the dark, slowly becoming impossible to see.

Seeing that I didn’t refuse, Gu Yushu carried me to the bathroom, lifted my loose, baggy pajamas, and used a soft towel to wipe away the sweat.

When he wiped down to my chest and abdomen and saw each of my ribs standing out clearly, he suddenly paused.

“…How are you getting thinner and thinner?”

“Am I?”

I thought I still looked fine, but he suddenly turned away and quickly wiped his eyes.

“You have to eat properly. If you get any thinner, you won’t be pretty anymore.”