Chapter 128
Chapter 128
Hands on her hips, Luo Yunmeng sucked in a ragged breath. “Getting a doctorate can win glory for the country too!”
Qiao Yu: “…Say that after you get accepted.”
As he spoke, Qiao Yu instinctively reached toward the diving head and caught it by the hair at the back of its skull.
Then he wrinkled his nose in disgust as though he had touched something filthy. “Seriously, can you wash your hair?”
“Eat, eat, eat… I’ll eat you…”
Before the head could finish, Qiao Yu smacked the back of its skull. “Is eating the only fucking thought in that head of yours?”
The slap left the head dazed. It stared blearily at them.
Qiao Yu thought for a moment and sighed. “Forget it. I’ll clean you up. That’s the kind of handsome, kindhearted man Qiao Xiaoyu is.”
As he spoke, he pulled a bottle of toilet cleaner from his Spatial Grid.
The head: ??
The instant Luo Yunmeng saw Qiao Yu, she emerged from her state of terror. She even had the leisure to pity the head. “…You carry that stuff through an Instance? How are you going to wash hair with toilet cleaner? Won’t it make him bald?”
Qiao Yu shrugged. “Can’t help it. It’s all I’ve got. I borrowed it back when I worked as a hospital janitor.”
Luo Yunmeng blinked in confusion.
What did he mean, when he worked as a hospital janitor??
She really was a student who had never left campus. Her eyes were as clear as Luo Ziwei’s-clear… and stupid.
His luck was pretty good this time, though. He had not been grouped with his dear son. Qiao Yu wondered whether the kid could clear the Instance on his own. He was a little worried… but not much.
-Pfft. “Everything can be borrowed” makes its glorious return.
-Washing hair with toilet cleaner. Incredible, hahaha!
-@Director Zhou, the hospital is missing a bottle of toilet cleaner.
-Director Zhou: Let it be missing. We still haven’t even paid his wages. Don’t bring it up. What if the streamer sees this and comes looking for me?
-Hahaha, yeah, you’d better be careful.
Qiao Yu put on gloves, upended the entire bottle of toilet cleaner over the head, and began scrubbing with industrious efficiency.
“Aah! What is that stuff?!”
The cleaner’s acrid smell nearly destroyed the head’s sense of smell. It began struggling violently.
Qiao Yu casually slapped it again. He was getting very practiced at this. “Shut up. I’ve lowered myself to wash your hair, and you still dare complain?”
The head screamed, “Help! I don’t need you to wash my hair…”
Annoyed by the noise, Qiao Yu pulled off his left glove and stuffed it into the head’s mouth. His right hand kept scrubbing and scrubbing until that glove nearly turned black.
Pitifully, the ghost’s hair fell out by the fistful, yet it could not utter even a single what the fuck.
How truly tragic…
“Oh! There’s no water.” Only after he finished scrubbing did Qiao Yu abruptly remember that he had nothing with which to rinse the head.
About three seconds later, he blinked. “No big deal. Find a water vat and soak yourself.”
He tossed the head onto the floor and sent it flying with one kick. “All right. Next.”
Luo Yunmeng stumbled back two steps in panic. “Boss Qiao, shouldn’t we find the exit first?”
“Oh? Not calling me Benefactor anymore?” Qiao Yu leisurely removed his gloves, smiling like a great villain.
“Never again. I swear.”
Qiao Yu stopped tormenting her. He crooked a finger, then continued into the seemingly bottomless darkness.
Shang Yan stood still in a place so dark he could not see his own hand. His gaze pierced the blackness and settled on a tiny white dot in the distance.
It looked like a lantern…
It was the only source of light anywhere nearby-an obvious trap intended to lure him forward.
Shang Yan sneered and walked toward it.
The white dot appeared close, yet it took nearly half an hour to reach. Only then did he discover that the lantern hung in front of a two-story wooden residence.
The small courtyard lay utterly silent, so desolate that not even a breeze visited it. It looked like a paper-cut picture, possessing only a surface without substance.
The next second, someone pushed open a window, revealing a vaguely familiar face.
The empress looked surprised to see him. She smiled and beckoned. “Princess Consort of Lanling, why are you here?”
She appeared to have just bathed. Her glossy black hair hung loose, and her smile was gentle.
“Come. Hurry inside…”
Shang Yan did not move. He merely stared at her, as if assessing what he saw.
When he remained still, the empress grew anxious. She urged him again, one arm resting against the window frame while her fingers lightly traced the side of her face. “Why won’t you come inside? Don’t you… love this face most of all?”
Shang Yan narrowed his eyes and scoffed.
The empress tilted her head. Mad giggles echoed beside his ears. “I know your secret. I know the emperor’s secret too, and every secret in this imperial city. Aren’t you curious how the Prince of Lanling died?”
After a brief silence, Shang Yan shook his head. “Not curious.”
He was not the real Princess Consort of Lanling. Why the hell would he be curious? Besides…
“I don’t love that face. I love it because it’s his face. If you’ve never heard the saying about trying to paint a tiger and ending up with a dog, surely you’ve heard about Dongshi imitating a beauty’s frown? Nine years of compulsory education should have taught you that idiom.”
The empress: ??
“If you still don’t understand, you’re an educational dropout.”
The empress: “…”
Shang Yan had dated Qiao Yu for seven years. After so much exposure, he had never encountered an opponent he could not out-insult-other than Qiao Yu himself.
Because Shang Yan had remained clearheaded and exposed her scheme, the empress’s face instantly stiffened like a discarded mask. Two circles of red slowly appeared on her cheeks, bright as the rouge painted onto a paper effigy.
In fact, she was transforming into a paper effigy. She stood from the chair and slammed the window shut.
Immediately afterward, the three-dimensional courtyard before him gradually flattened into two dimensions. The wind caught the thin sheet of paper and blew it out through the crack beneath the door.
Before him was the very door to the side hall he had just pushed open.
The instant he pulled it open, two sets of footsteps unexpectedly sounded behind him.
Qiao Yu and Luo Yunmeng appeared. Qiao Yu walked closer without any of the paper effigy’s affected smile. Tiny points of light seemed to flicker in his pitch-black eyes. He was so…
Smack!
Qiao Yu strode up and slapped the back of Shang Yan’s head. “Why are you standing here like an idiot? I’ve been calling you forever.”
So beautiful… No. So irritating!
He was unbelievably irritating!
“Why did you hit me?” Shang Yan pressed his lips together in displeasure.
Qiao Yu chuckled. “Sorry. I got used to hitting ghosts just now.”
Shang Yan: “…”
Then Qiao Yu’s smile slowly vanished. He looked down at the hand Shang Yan had seized, glanced at Luo Yunmeng, and awkwardly twisted his wrist.
But give Shang Yan an inch and he would take a mile. Shifting his fingertips, he threaded their fingers together and rubbed them with intimate slowness.
Luo Yunmeng made a disgusted, drawn-out noise and turned her head away.
Her mother had told her that lovesickness was contagious.
She would resist it at all costs!
Qiao Yu could not shake off this clingy nuisance. And since he felt guilty for smacking the back of Shang Yan’s head for no reason, he could hardly reject him now. He could only kick open the door before him to vent his frustration.
Soft light poured over them. Outside were those extras who were neither human nor ghost, but not a single other streamer could be seen.
“Where is everyone?”
Luo Yunmeng turned and searched the hall again. There was not a single figure in sight.
Had they vanished into thin air?
Qiao Yu stood in the doorway and thought. “Each of us entered separately. Maybe only people who successfully escape their Ghost can meet, and once three people gather, they can see the hall door? But… why three?”
As he spoke, his question gradually became a mutter addressed to himself, his entire forehead practically covered in question marks.