Chapter 42
Chapter 42
Yun Jianyue hadn’t meant to touch Si Wuming there. Her hand had only brushed against him by accident while she was slipping the ID card into place.
If she’d deliberately decided to act like a pervert, she probably wouldn’t have been nearly this embarrassed.
“You…” Si Wuming stared at Yun Jianyue, the tips of his ears so red they looked ready to bleed. He opened his mouth, then stopped.
“I’m fine. Let’s head down first. It’ll be dark soon.” Yun Jianyue spun around and hurried down the mountain as if a debt collector were hot on her heels.
Halfway down, she remembered she hadn’t finished asking her questions. She skidded to a stop and waited for Si Wuming to catch up.
But when Si Wuming came within five feet of her, he stopped and refused to take another step closer. He looked like some poor innocent who had just been molested by a female pervert.
“I won’t touch you. I just want to ask: since you work for the Paranormal Bureau, forging an ID card should be pretty easy for you, right?” Yun Jianyue raised both hands, promising not to lay so much as a finger on him.
“It’s real,” Si Wuming muttered.
Yun Jianyue was suddenly overwhelmed by the guilt of someone bullying a puppy. But there had been something very strange about the conversation between Mo Chen and Si Wuming. She could only suppress her conscience’s vehement condemnation and press on. “What about past lives? Is it possible you met Mo Chen in a previous life?”
Si Wuming fell silent for a moment, then strode past her and continued down the mountain, clearly rendered speechless by the question. “I’m not letting you read novels anymore.”
What was that supposed to mean? Was he insulting her? Saying she’d read so many novels that her imagination had run wild?
Baffled, Yun Jianyue instinctively grabbed Si Wuming’s hand. “Wait! Lin Xiao, you’ve really taken passive-aggressive insults to a whole new level!”
Her warm palm closed around his cool wrist. Si Wuming shuddered, visibly startled.
He did stop, but then he stared at Yun Jianyue with wide, innocent, terrified eyes, silently accusing her: Hadn’t she promised not to touch him?
Yun Jianyue wanted the ground to swallow her whole. She truly hadn’t meant to molest Si Wuming. Her body had simply reacted faster than her brain.
She was just about to let go when she noticed the Red Thread of Fate around her wrist acting up.
As if it had just woken from a nap, the Red Thread of Fate wobbled through a leisurely stretch. Then it climbed up Si Wuming’s wrist and shamelessly tied itself into a bow.
Yun Jianyue: “…”
Si Wuming: “…”
“Remember whose Red Thread of Fate you are!” Yun Jianyue hissed through gritted teeth as she tried to yank it away. But the Red Thread of Fate seemed to possess a mind of its own, thrashing wildly to evade her grasp.
Worse still, it repeatedly wound itself around Yun Jianyue’s wrist until hers and Si Wuming’s were bound tightly together.
Staring at their hands, now wrapped up like a pair of rice dumplings, Yun Jianyue was utterly speechless.
Where the hell had this shameless Red Thread of Fate come from?!
By the time Zhou Benxin and Fang Lin’an finally caught up, they found Yun Jianyue’s and Si Wuming’s hands pressed tightly together. Both their expressions changed, and they cried out at the same time.
“You pervert! What are you trying to do to my Junior Martial Uncle?!”
“Show-Off King! Are you trying to take advantage of my senior?!”
Yun Jianyue and Si Wuming fell even more silent. How was she supposed to explain to two people who couldn’t see the Red Thread of Fate that she hadn’t been trying to cop a feel and that the thread was the one causing trouble?
In the end, Yun Jianyue came up with a dirty trick: she threatened the Red Thread of Fate.
A normal person wouldn’t talk to a piece of string, but Yun Jianyue was clearly no normal person.
“Keep this up, and next time I’ll tell Mo Chen on you.”
The Red Thread of Fate shuddered from end to end. It swiftly untangled itself from their wrists, then obsequiously rubbed against the back of Si Wuming’s hand before returning to normal and playing dead.
The four of them headed down the mountain. They had barely gotten into the car when Zhou Ruyan called.
Zhou Benxin left out the part about being killed several times and gave Zhou Ruyan a rough account of what had happened over the past two days.
Once she was certain Zhou Benxin was all right, Zhou Ruyan lectured him for a while longer before hanging up.
Not long after they returned to City A, word of Zhou Benxin’s immortality reached the Paranormal Bureau. The bureau considered recruiting him, but aside from being unable to die, Zhou Benxin knew nothing about the mystic arts. In the end, they dropped the idea.
Time flew by, and before long, the end of the year had arrived.
During that period, Yun Jianyue accompanied Si Wuming on several more missions. Just like before, she coasted through every one of them while Si Wuming handled everything.
University A.
“Darling, darling! It’s Christmas Eve today and Christmas tomorrow. Don’t you have any plans?” Lu Changxue chattered away, floating after Yun Jianyue as she bustled around the room.
Christmas Eve and Christmas happened to fall on a weekend, and all three of Yun Jianyue’s roommates had gone off to celebrate with their boyfriends. With Yun Jianyue alone in the dorm, Lu Changxue could speak without restraint.
Yun Jianyue continued packing her suitcase without looking up. “What plans? Burning some paper money for you?”
“A date! Go on a date with some hot guy!” Lu Changxue’s expression gradually turned suggestive. She seemed to have imagined something decidedly inappropriate and let out a couple of lecherous chuckles.
“I’m a married woman. Who am I supposed to date? My husband? Do you want to see him?” Yun Jianyue finally deigned to glance at Lu Changxue, her eyes brimming with menace.
Lu Changxue mimed zipping her lips shut.
Was she kidding? What self-respecting ghost would ever want to see the Evil God? Did she want to be crushed into the floor by his oppressive aura for another ten hours?
After finally finishing her packing, Yun Jianyue prepared to book a ride.
She had quite a few belongings in the dorm, so she planned to move some of them out during the holiday. That way, when her classes officially ended in another two weeks, she would not have to take as much with her.
Just as she opened the app, her phone froze for a moment and a call from Cai Zeyu came through.
“Hello? Your break’s started, right? Come to the Paranormal Bureau. There’s a job for you and Si Wuming.”
Before Yun Jianyue could respond, Cai Zeyu hung up.
A curse rose to her lips, but she ultimately swallowed it. The Paranormal Bureau paid her salary, after all, and overtime came with overtime pay.
Leaving her suitcase in the dorm, Yun Jianyue took a cab to the Paranormal Bureau.
The moment Cai Zeyu saw her, he thrust a file into her hands. “Take a look. Luci County submitted this request for support from our city bureau. You and Si Wuming are leaving for Luci County now.”
Si Wuming was seated at his desk with a copy of the same file in his hands, his head lowered as he read it intently.
Tuesday, December 13th. Luci County.
With winter setting in, dawn came late. At seven twenty in the morning, the sky was still dark, and the entire county was shrouded in fog.
Yu Lu drove the car her family had recently bought her along the main road from the county toward Guancui Village, yawning drowsily behind the wheel.
She was twenty-four that year and had graduated from college two years ago. Through a relative’s connections, she had secured a teaching position at Guancui Village Primary School.
This was her fourth month on the job. Since she commuted between Guancui Village and the county every day, her family had bought her a car back in August.
She had driven this road for several months straight and knew it like the back of her hand.
Yu Lu was tired after staying up late the previous night binge-watching a show. She yawned again and muttered to herself, “Thank goodness I got a car. If I had to take the shuttle into the village every day, I’d have to leave home at six in the morning.”
She failed to notice that the fog was growing steadily thicker.