Chapter 109 Yin Peach Blossom (39) [So these all belong to Ah Tan...]
Xie Tan finally slid into the blankets, pulled them over himself, and refused to come out.
Lu Jinzhao pursed his lips, as if still savoring the moment. He leaned down and kissed Xie Tan's forehead through the blanket: "I'll go get the rice."
The bedroom door closed, and the person under the covers remained motionless. After a while, a pair of slender, fair hands grasped the edge and pulled it down a little. Xie Tan's face, which had been buried under the covers, was still flushed, looking more like a steamed shrimp.
He stared blankly at the ceiling, lost in thought. That last kiss... was too intense, and too long.
He could still hear the smacking sound of water in his ears. In his dazed state from the kiss, the guy... kept kissing him all the way down to his neck, biting and kissing him.
...Stop.
"..."
Ahhh. Xie Tan pulled the blanket over himself again and rolled around weakly.
Judging from the fact that someone was about to begin their elaborate plating routine before each meal, Xie Tan slowly sat up, pulled the blanket off, and touched his forehead.
Ah... it's already come down?
Come to think of it, my head hasn't been so dizzy since just now, and the chaotic pheromones seem to have been straightened out and are slowly receding, leaving me with a sense of relief.
He knew about intimate activities between alphas... especially genital swapping, which could alleviate the discomfort caused by the sensitive periods and heat cycles of both partners, but Lu Jinzhao was not an alpha.
If someone really has pheromones, they must be a top-tier Alpha born with pheromones... well, probably the kind of "top-tier dominance where Omegas' legs go weak and Alphas kneel down" that other omegas fantasize about?
In that case, not to mention their many close encounters, just living next door, every time he goes out or comes home, he might be triggered by this guy's scent and have his pheromones go out of control. How could they possibly wait for them to officially kiss?
So the inhibitor finally finished its work, and... even though he wasn't an alpha, close contact with someone he liked probably eased his physical and mental state.
Although Xie Tan was an omega born with pheromones, he only had a superficial understanding of this aspect.
After he tidied his clothes and hair and went out, Lu Jinzhao was already sitting on the other side of the dining table waiting for him, his arms propped on the table, his hands cupping his face, smiling foolishly, surrounded by what seemed like a radiant happiness: "A-Tan~"
"They're here."
After resting for a while after the meal, Xie Tan drank a small bowl of warmed white fungus soup and then checked his phone.
According to Lu Jinzhao, when he was unconscious, the young lady had already packed her things and gone home. So she left him a message on the chat app to thank them for taking them in and taking care of them during this time, and made an appointment to treat them to a meal. They also agreed in their group chat to rest for a while and then have a team-building dinner.
Then came the bank notification in my inbox, a generous payment from the young lady for her commission... double the amount.
Xie Tan stared at the string of zeros, remained silent for a moment, then clasped his hands together and bowed to the phone.
This is hardly the behavior of a young lady from a wealthy family.
This is the God of Wealth.
"Are you really leaving..." At the entrance of 701, Lu Jinzhao reluctantly tugged at Xie Tan's sleeve, shaking it playfully.
Xie Tan patted his hand helplessly: "It's just going home. I live across the hall from you."
He didn't tidy up Lu Jinzhao's own things much because someone kept causing trouble, and in the end he only took a few things he needed.
"Is it that close? The apartment across the hall is that far," Lu Jinzhao gestured with his arms outstretched, pouting as he said, "And if it were really that close, then we should live together even more, because it doesn't matter which side we live on..."
Xie Tan stepped forward and hugged the person who still had open arms, successfully silencing Lu Jinzhao.
Lu Jinzhao hugged Xie Tan tightly, clinging to him affectionately. Suddenly, he felt Xie Tan put something in the hood of his hoodie, which made a crisp sound.
"What did Atan put in?"
"It's a secret. Go back and see for yourself."
Tell me—
"...It's a magic that allows me to see you whenever I want."
After saying those comforting words, Xie Tan's own ears turned red. He vigorously rubbed Lu Jinzhao's head and pushed the still clingy person back to his house: "Alright, you should go and rest too."
"Okay." Lu Jinzhao became more serious and said softly, "Goodnight... dream of me, okay?"
"Okay... why aren't you closing the door?"
"You go first, I need to make sure you don't wander off."
"..." Xie Tan returned to his house, closed the door so that only a crack was visible, looked at the opposite door, and saw Lu Jinzhao smiling and giving an "OK" sign. The two of them closed their doors at the same time.
Lu Jinzhao then reached into the hat and unfolded it to see that it was Xie Tan's spare key. His smile immediately brightened.
It really is a useful magic.
Damn it... I want to use it now.
Meanwhile, the system cat, having just finished a long nap, strolled onto the sofa and elegantly groomed itself. This time, without needing to observe it under the specific nighttime conditions, its color had clearly faded.
Actually, the cat woke up during the final escape from the tomb, but Xie Tan was not fully conscious at the time, so he only vaguely remembered catching a glimpse of it.
"It seems you've recovered quite well."
"Thanks to your hard work, you're amazing, my host! Meow!"
Xie Tan, who hadn't actually done anything proactively, asked, "Has the comic been updated?"
"Yes, meow~"
Xie Tan nodded, picked up his things, and prepared to return to his second bedroom. He stopped as he passed the master bedroom, whose door was open.
The young lady was impeccably polite. The room was exactly as it was before she moved in, and it remained exactly the same after she left. Almost nothing was changed, not even the pillows and blankets.
He watched for a while, and then, for some reason, went inside.
Xie Tan doesn't like turning on the lights. Even when he's alone in the house, he likes to draw the curtains in the morning and turn off the lights to play on his phone at night. Darkness can shrink a space, and the narrower and emptier it is, the safer he feels.
But when he lived at Lu Jinzhao's house, he was punished by his good neighbor. Every time, Lu Jinzhao would make sure he turned on the night light, or he would squat at the bedroom door, staring at him with his big eyes and a resentful look... seemingly trying to be cute.
So when he came back, Lu Jinzhao also forcibly stuffed the nightlight into his light luggage.
By the time Xie Tan came to his senses, he had already skillfully plugged in the nightlight and turned it on. He remained silent for a moment, then casually placed the book on the bed, sat down on the edge of the bed, and opened the comic app.
Following the last update, the next episode begins with a montage technique, using a dreamlike color scheme that doesn't fit the horror story to depict many scenes of Xie Tan and Xiao Liu spending time together. They eat together, watch over each other while sleeping, tie each other's hair, play games, and most of all, tell stories—in the house, on the way to the secret room, and in front of the smoke mirror. It all feels so warm and cozy.
But this reminded Xie Tan of the close-up shot of him next to the color-changing nightlight in the previous two episodes. In a horror story, the more it's like that, the more eerie it becomes.
Especially when the smoke mirror appears.
The rest of the area is decorated with dreamy colors, including the cramped and dark corridors of the Black Goat settlement, and the annoying caretaker and his subordinates. Only the Smoke Mirror remains unaffected; whenever it appears, the color scheme is always the sinister black.
Thus, its occasional appearance teases the reader's senses, making them suddenly realize the reality just as they are about to fall into this beautiful dream, further highlighting that these fragments are like dazzling yet fragile bubbles.
And indeed, just as Xiao Liu was chatting about the hair clip, and Xie Tan was joking that his "cat demon" didn't have a tail, the caretaker's attendant arrived and told Xiao Liu to go to the secret room.
This time, there's no need to go to the smoke mirror. As soon as Xiao Liu's door opens, the dark corridor outside is revealed, and the familiar terrifying dark tone returns to the reader.
Like a bubble suddenly bursting with a "pop".
[This is another dreamlike feeling. Where did the swordsman go for further studies? How can he draw something that feels both warm and eerie...?]
Because it was all a dream, I'm still deeply moved when I wake up.
[Don't wake up, waaaaah! Let us stay here a little longer, you two little bitter gourds!]
[A grown-up kitten snuggling up with its mother when she was a kitten... This is so cute, can't it stay like this forever...?]
No, Mommy wants to go out.
So Ah-Tan came here to rescue Mommy, right?
Then the forum readers witnessed just how difficult it was to "get out." The girl's headless corpse was thrown in front of the boy, but he was like air, unable to touch her. As he slowly looked up, the entire wall was covered with the elongated shadow of a cat demon illuminated by the oil lamp. The cat's tail was wrapped around a head, and the cloak was nowhere to be seen, so the hair was disheveled.
The tail swung arrogantly, forcing the girl's half-length hair to sway along. In the composition, the shadow seemed to be right in front of Xie Tan, while he could only fall to the ground, watching helplessly.
His expression at that moment was so dark that even the oil lamp couldn't illuminate it; it was even more blurred and thicker than the cat demon's shadow.
He slowly clenched his fists, veins bulging, bones looking as if they could pierce his delicate hands at any moment.
However, this is only the beginning.
Next, another montage sequence, with the same number of frames as before, but the style and color tone returned to the classic dark and bloody style of "Strange Tales," showing Xiao Liu's repeated deaths and Xie Tan's repeated inability to stop him.
Ironically, at the crucial moment, Xie Tan couldn't touch Xiao Liu, but Xiao Liu's blood splattered onto his face.
The boy in the comic is expressionless, with blood still wet on his face, slowly sliding down.
He looked down at his palm, clenched it in vain, and then froze, as if frozen in place.
【OMG Mommy!!! !!!】
【Mommy——】
[Oh my god, why does my mom keep dying?!]
[Black Goat, I hate you sob sob sob [fist] [fist]]
【Aaaaaaah, I don't want this kind of callback!! Is this what it means to fall from heaven to hell?! You heartless, cold-blooded bastard, I will never forgive you!】
[Please don't do this, I've been crying, sob sob sob]
[This can't be real, it's impossible to die forever.]
[Definitely not. It's always a prison break, but the people they work with are different, and they have the same escape plans over and over again.]
[Mommy and Ah-Tan went out for a while and it got foggy, right? Why is there such thick fog coming into a confined space? It must be the same kind of fog as in an underground tomb, which can cause hallucinations! This is a hallucination!]
So these must be the hallucinations Ah-Tan is seeing. No wonder Ah-Tan can't touch Mommy.
Sisters, wait a minute! Have you forgotten Master Yun Song and Rui Rui's hallucinations? They actually happened!!
[The original pair of sisters, the younger sister Su Zhi, is probably Granny Yao, right? She did have older brothers and sisters; in the underground tomb, Granny Yao called out to her brothers and sisters, indicating that the hallucinations she saw were also a memory...]
[My God...did all of this actually happen?]
So these are all Ah Tan's memories?!
I'm a little confused.
[Look at my magnifying glass! Back in the underground tomb, Wolf Dad didn't see Ah Tan's memories, but Ah Tan made the exact same gesture—his hand unconsciously clenched! [Image]]
Oh my god, so those were the hallucinations I had back then, it was my mom's death!
[Feeling your mother's life slipping through your fingers again and again, sob sob, this is too heartbreaking, baby qaq]
My mother's first death: I was caught off guard and my heart stopped.
After dying n times, I'm numb (crying like a baby)
[But even though Atan knew it was a hallucination, he still tried to grab Mommy again and again... I can't take it anymore! Can't you treat us cats and kittens kindly? I'll fight you cat abusers!]
[Ah Tan's expression... Ahhh, I can't look at it anymore, please don't do this, waaaaah]
In the comic, Xie Tan picks up the lamp again, seemingly silent but as if he can't bear it any longer, and coldly walks towards the direction of the smoke mirror.
The black mist around him kept changing, creating one illusion after another. The closer he got to the smoke mirror, the more illusions he saw of it. Eventually, the mirror stopped moving in front of Xie Tan's field of vision, and only he and the area around the mirror kept changing.
The mirror remained the same: tall, dark, gloomy, and eerie.
Whether it's reality or illusion, a trap-like dreamlike relationship or a bloody, relentless escape, it stands there, mocking everything it reflects.
Only this mirror remains unchanged.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
