“Well then, that concludes today’s livestream!”
The adorable, ethereal fox immortal maiden waved with a smile at the camera.
“Goodnight, Ling Xian!”
“Goodnight, Ling Xian! With your healing voice, I’m sure I’ll break through to the next level!”
“Goodnight~ After listening to Ling Xian’s songs, I’m ready to conquer the canyon until dawn!”
Watching the flood of goodnight messages in the comments, Lin Xuan pressed the ‘end livestream’ button in the top right corner.
“Whew, it’s almost eleven. I have to wake up early tomorrow, so I should get to bed soon.”
Glancing at the clock on the wall, Lin Xuan had no intention of returning to her apartment complex tonight. After all, when she originally purchased this flower shop, the previous owner had given her the entire building.
Creak, creak~
The wooden stairs emitted a slightly sharp groan under Lin Xuan’s footsteps.
After turning off the lights, the darkened flower shop felt a little spooky, but Lin Xuan had grown accustomed to it.
Reaching the second floor, she surveyed the dim hallway. A flickering yellow light, seemingly with a loose connection, cast an erratic glow across the corridor, making it feel as though some eerie entity might emerge from the blind spots at any moment.
In reality, there was nothing to fear.
She had deliberated for a long time before opening this flower shop, finally finding this house in a slightly remote location at an astonishingly cheap price. She bought it with a loan without a second thought. Although, when signing the contract, the real estate agent had repeatedly warned her that the house was haunted and plagued by ominous rumors.
But as an atheist with a carefree disposition, Lin Xuan completely disregarded these warnings. And indeed, her experience proved them false. Since moving in, let alone ghosts, she hadn’t even encountered a mouse or an insect. The house’s interior was also newly renovated, making Lin Xuan exclaim what a steal it was!
She mused that the real estate agent’s dramatic warnings were probably just a ploy by the landlord, who regretted selling the property so cheaply, to back out of the deal.
Lost in these thoughts, she entered the large room on the second floor. Without even turning on the lights, she flopped onto the soft bed in the center, stretching luxuriously.
Ding-dong!
Her phone’s QQ app chimed with a new message notification. Though she had just declared her intention to sleep, her body, ever-obedient, picked up the phone and opened QQ again.
As expected, it was that chuunibyou chat group again.
[Linglong Xian: Is White Dragon going crazy again?]
[Hai Na Bai Chuan: ? What happened? Did they bother you too?]
[Linglong Xian: (Forwarded chat log)]
[Linglong Xian: Just read it yourselves… Õ_Õ]
Clicking on the chat log, Lin Xuan scrolled through it.
“Pfft, is this guy a clown sent by monkeys?”
Lin Xuan, who had been drinking soy milk, nearly spat it out. The chat log ended there. When she reopened the chat, she saw their latest messages.
[Linglong Xian: I can’t even talk to them anymore (facepalm)…]
[Hai Na Bai Chuan: Hahahahahahahahiahia~ (comical)]
[It’s Lord Shao Hao: (Video)]
[It’s Lord Shao Hao: Criminal executed (salute)]
A video suddenly popped up, and Lin Xuan instinctively clicked on it. Initially, it was just static, but soon a blurry image appeared.
Perhaps due to the dark surroundings, the faces of the figures in the video were unclear. However, she could vaguely discern a small, white-haired loli, about 1.4 meters tall, standing on a massive rock. With one hand, she clutched a young man’s throat, suspending him in mid-air like a dead dog. Her other tiny hand was clenched at her waist, striking an adorable pose.
Then, a clear, bell-like voice rang out.
“Inch Force, Heaven-Rending!”
Boom, boom, boom…
To Lin Xuan’s astonished gaze, a bright ball of fire suddenly ignited in the loli’s small hand, unleashing its full force upon the white figure. In an instant, the man was engulfed in flames, which blazed ferociously and fanned out. The sky before them was ignited in a flash.
The darkness was momentarily replaced by a brilliance akin to daylight. The adorable loli seemed to transform into a sun goddess, as the ominous clouds in the sky were scorched, churning and vaporizing.
Cool moonlight pierced through the dissipating clouds.
Amidst the overwhelming divine power, the figure thrashed helplessly like a tattered cloth in a gale, creating an incredibly spectacular scene!
[Bu Suan Alt Account: As expected, when it comes to courting death, he never disappoints us…]
“Incredible, these special effects are so realistic!”
As she marveled, Lin Xuan let out a huge yawn, turned off her phone, and finally went to sleep.
Just then, the QQ group chimed with a few more messages.
[Hai Na Bai Chuan: This abstract photography technique, could it be the East Sea Dragon King?]
[Tomb Robber Immortal Master: For this bold method of courting death, there are many flashy ways to build a coffin, over a hundred ways to cremate a body, a good way to bury a grave, and numerous ways to play a suona (comical)]
****
Night is always so fleeting. Lin Xuan felt as if she had barely opened and closed her eyes, not even getting a comfortable sleep, before her alarm clock blared.
Since her flower shop was quite far from school, she was forced to wake up at six. After a quick wash-up and applying a rather masculine makeup look, she headed out the door.
“Auntie Wang, six potstickers and a cup of soy milk!”
“Coming right up!”
Quickly taking her breakfast, she ate as she walked towards the main road. Lin Xuan had just finished hailing a taxi on her phone when a pile of strange messages popped up.
“Shocking! Mysterious black shadow appears during earthquake in Yamato Nation!”
“Frequent earthquakes in Yamato Nation, a shocking secret behind it all!”
Before she could examine them closely, her phone dinged with a flood of other bizarre news alerts.
Without a second thought, she swiped them away.
‘More clickbait, but crustal activity does seem a bit frequent lately…’
Just then, her taxi arrived. Lin Xuan quickly finished her soy milk, grabbed a potsticker, and got into the car.
She swiftly swallowed the potsticker, then, switching to her disguised voice, told the driver her destination. Lin Xuan then reopened her phone, taking the opportunity to browse.
“Last night, a divine light shot into the sky at the excavation site of an ancient ruin in the Western Continent. Eyewitnesses claim to have seen mysterious figures within the light pillar. Rumor has it, this could be related to the legendary myths of the Western Continent, possibly containing a great secret…”
Reading this, Lin Xuan couldn’t help but inwardly scoff at the editor’s imagination. Clearly, they had read too many fantasy novels. After finishing the entire article, she was even more convinced of her conjecture.
“Sigh, in this day and age, people actually still believe these strange, bizarre tales!”
Lin Xuan’s exclamation caught the attention of the taxi driver.
“Youngster, don’t be so quick to disbelieve. It’s quite possible that gods and ghosts truly exist in this world.”
Lin Xuan chuckled, not bothering to refute him. She had been debunking all sorts of ghost stories since childhood.
She recalled when she was little, in elementary school, rumors constantly circulated about the abandoned old teaching building being haunted. Disregarding the superstition, she brought a small stool and sat in that haunted house all night long.
And the result?
Not a single ghost was seen the entire night!
Due to her physical constitution, she had actually suspected the existence of supernatural phenomena in the world, but after several investigations, it proved that there was nothing. Therefore, she believed that her ‘mutation’ was caused by eating something wrong. As long as she didn’t eat indiscriminately, she would return to normal.
Well, it was normal for older generations to be a bit superstitious.
Seeing her skeptical expression, the driver suddenly became energized.
“Youngster, you just don’t know how deep the waters of this world run!”
“A while ago, you know that graveyard on North Mountain? It was inexplicably sealed off. They say there was something unclean in there.”
“Later, an immortal expert was called in and captured a ten-meter-wide spider spirit from inside…”
The driver lowered his voice conspiratorially, creating a somewhat eerie atmosphere.
Lin Xuan, however, smiled and shook her head.
‘Ten meters wide? Master, do you think this is a movie?’
Seeing Lin Xuan’s expression in the rearview mirror, the driver grew anxious.
“Alright, then I’ll tell you another secret. A while ago, I had a friend who drove a taxi in Xi’an. One night, while driving on a dark road, he encountered a woman who said she was lost and wanted to go home. My buddy, being kind-hearted, gave her a ride. But guess what happened?”
“?”
“Hiss, that wasn’t a person at all! It was some unclean thing that had tricked his eyes…”
“Luckily, people from the Huaxia Dark Department intervened and drove away the ghost, saving my buddy’s life!”
‘How is this getting more and more ridiculous? Ghosts and a Dark Department? Seriously, Uncle, is your friend also a novelist?’
“Uncle, I’m a high school student…”
Noticing that their destination was approaching, Lin Xuan decisively interrupted him.
“I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in these things.”
The car arrived at the school gate at that moment. Without another word, Lin Xuan opened the door, ready to get out.
“Youngster, even if you don’t believe what I just told you, we have a famous haunted place here. You can search online, it’s all documented…”
The driver uncle even rolled down his window and shouted after her, seemingly frustrated to encounter someone so impervious to persuasion. This drew the attention of quite a few students.
“Alright, haunted, you say? I’ll definitely go visit when I have time. If I get the chance, I’ll even share a drink with the ghosts!”
Lin Xuan waved back with a smile, an unconcerned expression on her face, as she walked into the school.
****
Appendix: Chat Log
[Idiot White Dragon: Linglong, Linglong, are you there?]
[Linglong Xian: ? I just came out of seclusion.]
[Idiot White Dragon: I love you, be my wife!]
[Linglong Xian: ………Huh???????????]
[Idiot White Dragon: What’s wrong?]
[Linglong Xian: No… I’m a little confused…]
[Idiot White Dragon: Be my wife, I’ll make you happy.]
[Linglong Xian: … (hesitates to speak)]
[Idiot White Dragon: Ah, what’s wrong?]
[Linglong Xian: I think, you’re a good dragon…]
[Idiot White Dragon: Eh? Why?]
[Idiot White Dragon: We’re clearly a perfect match.]
[Idiot White Dragon: Do you already have someone you like?]
[Linglong Xian: …………No… I’m just curious how many times you’ve said that.]
[Linglong Xian: How are you so practiced? (facepalm)]
[Idiot White Dragon: I’m not!]
[Idiot White Dragon: I genuinely like you!]
[Idiot White Dragon: We can take it slow!]
[Idiot White Dragon: It’s okay if you have someone you like! I can wait slowly.]
[Idiot White Dragon: As long as they die, we can be together.]
[Linglong Xian: ????? You’re not right?]
[Idiot White Dragon: But while you two are in love, I can’t guarantee that strange things won’t happen.]
[Linglong Xian: No… did something trigger you??]
[Idiot White Dragon: Remember, woman, you can only belong to me!]
[Linglong Xian: …………]
[Idiot White Dragon: So you choose to ignore me? Heh, an interesting woman…]
[Idiot White Dragon: You’ve successfully worn out all my patience. Do you know you’re playing with fire?]
[Linglong Xian: Is your brain okay?]
[Linglong Xian: (laughing and crying)]
[Idiot White Dragon: Woman, don’t provoke me so easily!]
[Idiot White Dragon: Know your place. It’s still not too late to come back with me! You’ll still be my Bai family’s madam!]
[Linglong Xian: Stop, stop, stop, you need to calm down!!]
[Idiot White Dragon: Heh~ I’m perfectly calm right now.]
[Idiot White Dragon: Many women want to get close to me. I’ll give you one chance, tell me, what do you want?]
[Linglong Xian: Emmm…]
[Idiot White Dragon: You’re acting this way, aren’t you just trying to get my attention?]
[Linglong Xian: You’re overthinking it…]
[Idiot White Dragon: Damn it, I, who disdains women, actually have a reaction to you!]
[Idiot White Dragon: I’ll make you change your mind, woman!]
[Linglong Xian: (≖_≖ )]