Lu Yan was, as ever, a terrible drunk.
After just a few mouthfuls, her gaze went glassy and her cheeks flushed a blotchy red.
Fortunately, Zhou Kai kept a close eye on her this time and didn’t let her pass out under the table.
Alcohol burned through the levees of reason, and the flood of emotion came pouring out.
Lu Yan first let out one long sigh after another, then buried her face in the crook of her arms, her shoulders beginning to jerk.
“Xiao Kai… I’ve let you down. I’m going to break my promise.”
“That major of yours… is too damn bizarre. I pulled every connection I had, and not a single company had even heard of it!”
“If it really doesn’t work out, I’ll have my dad arrange some idle position for you at the factory. You can just look at a computer and drink tea every day…”
“Wuu…”
Zhou Kai didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He reached out and patted her back, as if soothing a fortune cat. “Sister Yanzi, I’m already grateful that you’re willing to help me.”
“Don’t be upset over something like this.”
But Lu Yan could no longer hear him. Alcohol had magnified her guilt and helplessness, leaving her with no choice but to lie on the table and silently drop little pearls.
Ma Yifan sat uneasily to the side. He wanted to comfort her but didn’t know where to begin. After holding it in for a long while, he finally asked tentatively, “Brother Kai, what exactly did you study in university?”
He was genuinely curious. What kind of bottomless-pit major could leave even Lu Yan, a local with connections, completely helpless?
Zhou Kai said helplessly, “Classical Studies, with a focus on language and literature.”
Ma Yifan scratched his head. He recognized every word individually, but put together, they were even more chaotic than that plate of grilled pig brains just now.
But his mind worked quickly, and he immediately came up with a new idea. “Brother Kai, I’ve got a suggestion. Not sure if it’s appropriate.”
Zhou Kai lifted his chin. “Say it.”
Ma Yifan rubbed his hands together, as if he had thought of something interesting, his eyes lighting up. “A few buddies and I are all really interested in combat, martial arts, that sort of thing.”
“We just never had any proper access. Either that, or we ran into frauds doing flashy but useless stuff to scam money.”
“Look at you, Brother Kai. You haven’t even trained for that long, and those old hands from Falcon Wing still weren’t your match…”
“So I was thinking of putting together a group and inviting you to be our master. Teach us real kung fu!”
The more Ma Yifan spoke, the more excited he became, and the clearer his thoughts grew.
“Brother Kai, what do you think?”
Zhou Kai froze. A few seconds later, a smile slowly bloomed across his face, one that came from the heart.
“Sure.”
“Of course.”
Fate was a strange thing sometimes.
A casual dinner he had never intended anything from had actually solved his livelihood problem so easily.
At a time like this, there was no need to act coy and refuse out of some lack of worldly sense.
Zhou Kai reached out and firmly shook Ma Yifan’s hand.
“Brother Ma, thanks. You’ve helped me a lot!”
Ma Yifan smiled like a three-hundred-jin child. “Done! I’ll contact them right away and give you a definite answer within a week, Brother Kai!”
…
“If you ever drink yourself into this state again, I swear I’ll throw you straight into a roadside trash can.”
Zhou Kai supported Lu Yan and brought her back to the entrance of her apartment building.
Lu Yan was practically hanging off his arm, muttering half coquettishly and half threateningly, “You dare!”
“Your wings have hardened, huh? You don’t take your sister seriously anymore… Believe it or not, I’ll go complain to your sister!”
Zhou Kai pressed his lips together and said softly, “Which sister? Aren’t you one?”
Lu Yan’s body stiffened, and she suddenly stopped talking.
After settling her onto the bed in her bedroom and tucking her in, Zhou Kai turned to leave.
That strange feeling from when he had entered the dream last night was like a thorn lodged in his heart. He had to hurry back and investigate it clearly.
But just as he was about to go, Lu Yan reached out from under the quilt and grabbed the hem of his clothes.
“I promise, I won’t drink anymore.”
Zhou Kai nodded. “It’s a deal. I recorded that…”
Lu Yan still didn’t let go. She lifted her face, her eyes hazy under the alcohol and the lamplight. “These past two days… it’s like you’ve come alive again.”
Zhou Kai frowned. It was indeed true.
Perhaps it was the dual effect of the Moonlight Orchid and the clear-minded state. His emotions had become sharper, and the way he expressed them was more like a normal person, instead of the cold, walking corpse he used to be.
What was strange was that the clear-minded state had long since vanished, yet this vivid sense of emotion had settled into him.
“Maybe my body got better, so my mood improved too.”
“Sis, I’ll head back first. See you tomorrow?”
Lu Yan’s fingers suddenly tightened around the hem of his clothes.
Her lips moved, as if some words were on the verge of spilling out. But a few seconds later, she viciously flung his clothes away.
“Go, go, go! You’re exactly the same as your sister!”
“Get out, all of you! Hmph!”
Zhou Kai laughed and turned toward the door. “Provocation won’t work on me. Anyway, see you tomorrow.”
He had only said half of that.
The other half was hidden in his heart.
If tonight’s nightmare doesn’t grind me to pieces completely, then see you tomorrow, Sister Yanzi.
“Bye.”
The instant Zhou Kai turned and closed the door, the smile on his face receded like the tide, leaving only a steel-like calm.
“Light Steps” made his footsteps soundless, but his vigilance toward the unknown nightmare made every step feel as heavy as lead.
With a soft click from the door lock, his figure disappeared completely into the corridor.
Creak, creak.
Lu Yan sat silently on the bed, hugging her knees and rocking gently like an abandoned child.
What had she wanted to say just now?
“Xiao Kai, why don’t you move in with me? That rental of yours is run-down and small, the soundproofing is awful, and the utilities are ridiculously expensive.”
“And that heartless Zhou Qing has gone off fooling around with some bad woman, so the second bedroom is empty anyway.”
Saying something like that from the perspective of an older sister would be perfectly normal, right?
But I…
“Why couldn’t I say it?”
Her eyes grew moist again. Lu Yan rocked for a while.
Then she abruptly fell backward, pulled the quilt over her head, and shouted in self-abandonment, “So annoying! I’m drunk again!”
There were too many things to worry about. Sleeping was still the most practical thing!
…
Including the driver and passengers, there were only three people on the bus. Zhou Kai sat in the last row by the window.
Outside, the city under the afterglow of sunset looked like a fading oil painting.
He played with that black business card in his hand.
“To the Sleepless Dream”
“What exactly are you rats trying to do?”
The card flipped nimbly between his fingers, making crisp sounds.
If he called them good people, they had investigated his identity and followed him, using underhanded methods.
But if he called them bad people, they still had not taken any substantive action.
The world was never simply black and white. The vast majority of people and things were soaked in this chaotic gray.
“I can’t lower my guard… Once I deal with the trouble in front of me, I have to find out exactly who these people are!”
A thought stirred in Zhou Kai’s mind, and he remembered that elusive roommate from his university dormitory who was as hard to spot as a divine dragon showing its head but not its tail.
He had thought that after graduation, they would part ways into the vast jianghu and each live their own life in peace. He hadn’t expected there would be a need for that guy’s help so soon.
Fortunately, that fellow was more like a higher-dimensional artistic life-form living on the internet. It would be easier to find him online.
Suddenly.
Boom!
The bus slammed into an emergency brake, the piercing screech of tires nearly tearing through eardrums.
The immense inertia sent the entire carriage lurching forward.
If it had been before, Zhou Kai would probably have been flung out like a cannonball at this moment.
But now, things were different.
He gripped the metal armrest of the seat with one hand. Amid the violent shaking and swerving of the bus, his body did no more than tilt slightly forward, steady as a boulder.
His enhanced strength and physical coordination allowed him to achieve, with only one hand, an effect as if he had been welded in place.
A dozen seconds later, the bus, trailing black smoke, crashed headfirst into the roadside greenery and finally came to a stop.
The driver, his face purple from being strangled by the seat belt, unbuckled himself in lingering shock and scrambled off the bus to check the front end where the collision had occurred.
The bus was smoking and could catch fire at any moment. They couldn’t stay on it.
Zhou Kai stood up and, in passing, lifted the other young man on the bus who had fainted as easily as carrying a chick, then brought him off the bus.
“How strange… Where is he? The front of the bus is smashed up like this, so where did that person go?”
The driver covered his head with one hand and circled the bus back and forth, shouting nonstop.
The front bumper of the bus had caved in completely, and the windshield had shattered into a spiderweb. Judging from the marks, it had clearly slammed solidly into a person.
But… with the vehicle damaged like this, where was the blood?
Where was the person who had been hit and sent flying? There couldn’t be no bloodstains left behind at all, could there?
“Strange! This is too damn strange!”
The bus driver trembled as he called the police, called for a tow truck, and contacted the company…
He turned back, wanting to say a few words to the passengers, only to find it empty behind him. “You two handsome lads, someone will be here soon to… Eh, damn it, where’s the other one?”
Not far away, only the unconscious young man remained lying on the grass, while Zhou Kai had long since vanished around the street corner in the deepening dusk.