Ch56 - A Recurring Dream

The night was as cool as water. Lu Xu grasped the Yin amulet and left Lan Gaojie’s building before arriving by the cemetery on West Street.

The wind blew in from all directions, brushing past his face into the darkness beyond.

The Yin amulet in his pocket vibrated, the soul within it desperately trying to run. But Lu Xu had long since confined it; it was impossible to escape.

Evil spirits relied on limitlessly amplifying humankind’s greed in exchange for their lifespans as the source for their nourishment. But in Lu Xu’s eyes, this kind of seduction was mere child’s play. In order to prevent anyone else from coming into contact with this Yin amulet, Lu Xu threw it aside at the cemetery, and lit up a fire between his fingers.

The Yin amulet immediately understood his intentions and couldn’t resist letting out a plaintive wail, trying to sway Lu Xu’s thoughts.

“Heh.” Lu Xu smiled sardonically and lit it on fire.

The Yin amulet had already swallowed several lives. It only saw the ability to cause havoc in the mortal realm in front of it; how could it have known it would land in Lu Xu’s hands? It was beset with sin, and in a few moments, was consumed by the flames.

Lu Xu didn’t have any intention of looking at it any longer. He turned around and was about to leave when he saw Peng Hanfei standing behind him with a cold expression.

The opposing party’s clothes were a little messy and they fluttered about from the wind. He held the Southwest Grim Reaper Bureau’s custom scythe in his hands and spoke forcefully as he watched Lu Xu. “Was Lan Gaojie sent off by you?”

Lu Xu nodded without any doubts. “Yes.”

“He died in our southwest bureau’s district.”

Lu Xu raised his brows, his expression relaxed as he looked at him. “So?”

“You’re a grim reaper from the eastern district, why cross the border to enforce the law. Tonight’s Lan Gaojie and also Lai Chengshan from before. Weren’t they both our southwest bureau’s orders?”

The more Peng Hanfei spoke, the darker his face became. He only felt that Lu Xu’s actions had crossed the line.

When Lu Xu had sent away Lai Chengshan before, the Department Head had even made them reflect and said that if they hadn’t failed in their work and discovered the stowaway beforehand, then Lu Xu wouldn’t have done anything.

Afterwards, the Head had even said to avoid having any conflict with Lu Xu.

“Anyways he won’t be in our area for too long before leaving. Just endure it for now.”

The words had been said, but Peng Hanfei couldn’t endure it after thinking about it.

Their division’s performance had always been oppressed by the eastern division. Now that Lu Xu had run over to their own district to steal their jobs, this was a little too much.

Lu Xu saw that Peng Hanfei’s expression was worsening, and shrugged his shoulders as he said, “Lai Chengshan was a stowaway. There’s no problem with me arresting him after discovering it. The Lan Gaojie that came after was using human life. You guys weren’t controlling the situation so of course I had to mark it.”

They were both from the same country; there were no inherent differences in their natures.

It was only that in order to manage things easily, the grim reaper bureau had split into several grim reaper divisions in order to get things done. This was used to coordinate district affairs.

Lu Xu had just been given the title of district head 50 years ago and his management responsibilities had become even greater. Forget about crossing districts, even if he left Dongcheng he would still be able to harvest whatever clients he wanted.

He didn’t say too much, only patiently dangling his work card in front of Peng Hanfei’s face. Peng Hanfei had only been in the industry for a few decades and was a newbie compared to Lu Xu. He also knew that Lu Xu hadn’t done anything wrong, but he felt suffocated.

In order to catch up to the performance of the eastern district, Peng Hanfei had been making extraordinary efforts recently.

When an order was displayed, he would always take it as soon as possible, not wanting to give Lu Xu the chance to take advantage of it. He had been doing very well all this time; how could he have known that tonight would also have a Lan Gaojie?

Because Lan Gaojie was under Lu Xu’s list, before he died, Peng Hanfei hadn’t even known that this order existed.

When he had seen the notice for the new order on the grim reaper app, he had hurriedly gone over to Lan Gaojie’s home. But he had only just arrived when Lu Xu had already taken it and left.

If he had been just a little faster…

Peng Hanfei only felt that his heart was full of rage and couldn’t resist chasing Lu Xu all the way here. He had originally wanted to lecture him, but he had been completely oppressed into speechlessness by Lu Xu.

Lu Xu’s attitude was completely self-satisfied and all he had said was that he was following the rules and regulations for doing things. What he had said was correct, and Peng Hanfei’s mouth unconsciously frowned.

Seeing that the Yin amulet had been burned into smoke and ashes, Lu Xu rolled his wrists and got ready to leave. “I can’t ignore orders that appear in front of me. This definitely conforms with the grim reaper regulations. It’s getting late, I have to go back to the dormitory.”

After saying this, he patted Peng Hanfei’s shoulders, then waved before heading off without looking back.

How presumptuous.

Peng Hanfei could only feel that he had gained nothing tonight and had been looked down upon by Lu Xu. He unconsciously tightened his fists and thought of the rules and regulations Lu Xu had spoken of. He decided he was going to go to the eastern district and look around again.

At this moment, because Lu Xu had been too highkey when dealing with Lai Chengshan, almost all the other divisions knew they had missed a stowaway. The bureau head had originally had a good performance score, but because of this, he couldn’t raise his head among the others.

Losing one order was fine, but now that another order of Lan Gaojie had been lost, Peng Hanfei could only feel that Lu Xu was bullying them too much.

He vaguely remembered that Lu Xu’s colleague was called Xie An. Since he couldn’t deal with Lu Xu at the moment, he might as well start with Xie An…

“Fuck don’t turn around!” Han Tianyu screamed, sharply opening his eyes and getting up before he realised it had all been a dream.

It was currently not even 6 o’clock in the morning. The light in the dorm was still dim behind the drawn curtains.

The others were sleeping, and after suddenly hearing Han Tianyu shout, they woke up with a jolt.

“Why so much ruckus so early in the morning?” Xu Haoming yawned, and drowsily mumbled.

Han Tianyu had woken up in a cold sweat because of what had happened in his dream. When he finally heard the movement of living people, he quickly crawled into Xu Haoming’s bed and pulled on his blanket.

“Hey hey hey, what are you doing, I’m a straight male!” Xu Haoming had still had sleep in his eyes, but after being woken up by such a disturbance, he lifted his leg to kick Han Tianyu off the bed.

“All right you guys, can you be quieter in the morning?” Song Zhe had slept late last night, and when he heard his two didis causing a ruckus, he helplessly tossed those words out.

“I’m not causing trouble, I’m just scared.” After what Xu Haoming had done, Han Tianyu only then realised that he had survived his dream from just now. He patted Xu Haoming’s leg to tell him to calm down, then with a pale face he said, “Do you guys know what I dreamed about recently…”

“What kind of dream can you have, if it’s not about the competition then it’s about girls.” At this hotblooded age, dreaming of the opposite sex was also normal.

Xu Haoming was just casually ridiculing him. Who would have thought that when Xu Haoming heard those words, his expression changed. “That’s right, it’s about a woman, but…”

“If it’s a woman then you should be content, what more do you want?”

Between guys, they would usually talk about dirty things. Xu Haoming pursed his lips and didn’t take Han Tianyu’s words seriously, and just urged him to get out of bed.

“What did you dream about?”

Just as Han Tianyu was anxious and didn’t know what to say, Lu Xu who had been sleeping on the upper bunk stuck his head out, his eyes full of curiosity.

It hadn’t been easy to find someone willing to listen to this dream of his. It was as if Han Tianyu had grasped onto a life-saving straw. He hurriedly described everything about his nightmare to Lu Xu and the others. “I’ve been having the same dream recently…”

According to Han Tianyu, he had been having the same dream over and over again these past few days. In the dream, every day he would walk into a long corridor. The atmosphere was extremely depressing. He stood at one end of the corridor, and on the other end, there was a long-haired girl, wearing a school uniform, with her back to him.

When Xu Haoming heard this, he was excited. “Oho, it’s even a uniform preference?”

Han Tianyu sighed. “What uniform preference, it’s obviously unbridled terror…”

For several continuous days, this girl would appear in his dreams. Every time, her back would be facing him, and the distance between the two would grow smaller and smaller day by day.

“I originally didn’t take this seriously, and just thought that I was too tired, which is why I had dreams. But when would normal dreams keep repeating the same scene…”

The woman in the corridor came closer and closer to him, and gradually, Han Tianyu felt a vague sense of uneasiness.

He tried to escape, but it was futile.

Seeing that long-haired woman come closer and closer, a thought came into Han Tianyu’s mind––

She wasn’t human.

Once this thought appeared, the entire dream became more oppressive.

Just yesterday night, the woman in the dream was no less than ten centimetres away from him.

Looking at the back of her head from such a close distance, he could only feel that this image was inexplicably terrifying, and he didn’t even want to see her face at all.

But there was a saying that whatever you’re afraid of, will happen.

Not only did the female ghost in the dream ignore Han Tianyu’s fear, but she also turned her head slightly as though she was about to turn around.

The sunlight in the dream was faint and shone on the woman through dilapidated windows. Her body moved in slow motion, a strange giggle coming from her throat.

Han Tianyu absolutely didn’t dare to imagine what it would look like when she turned around, and immediately screamed, wanting to escape.

But in the dream, it was like he was being pressed down by a large mountain, unable to move no matter what he did.

Seeing the woman about to turn her head, Han Tianyu shouted, “Fuck don’t turn around!”

It was also because of this sentence he shouted out, that he had managed to break free from the dream.

Although he had been awake for so long, Han Tianyu’s face was still pale. The woman in the dream had caused him a lot of mental stress.

“Shit, I feel panicked just hearing about it.” Xu Haoming finished listening to Han Tianyu’s dream, and felt his entire back go cold. He initially thought it was an adult romance film, but with the turn of a head it became a horror film. This twist was really very exciting.

Song Zhe didn’t initially believe in this kind of thing, but now he didn’t dare to protest. “Did you see what she looked like?”

“No, how could I dare to.” Han Tianyu’s voice sounded like he was going to cry, feeling uneasy when he thought about the dream.

Xu Haoming suddenly thought of a very important question. “Since the distance gets smaller with each day, at this rate, isn’t she going to turn around tonight…”

“Fuck!” When Han Tianyu heard this, he jumped up, about to go crazy from the image in his mind. “I won’t dare to sleep tonight. What if she really turns around, then what?”

That dream was far too real. No one knew how terrified he was in his heart. The more there was unknown, the more fear there was. Han Tianyu was completely unable to accept this.

Just as Han Tianyu was unable to handle being so scared, Lu Xu suddenly opened his mouth to comfort him, “It’ll be fine, as long as you don’t agree to her request, she won’t be able to do anything to you.”

“Xu ge, what does that mean?” Han Tianyu couldn’t resist going forward and asking for Lu Xu’s help. It sounded strange. Lu Xu was clearly the youngest in the dorm, but Han Tianyu somehow felt that he had a plan.

Lu Xu looked at the hanging rope on Han Tianyu’s table which had been used as a skipping rope. His mouth curled up at the corners as he said, “The one you’re dreaming of is 80% not human. Ghosts are unable to do direct harm to people, so unless you agree to her conditions, she can’t touch you. So that’s why I said it’ll be fine as long as you don’t agree to any of her requests.”

Lu Xu spoke casually and stunned the other three listening roommates.

Song Zhe saw that he was confident, and couldn’t help but ask, “Then what if she appears in Tianyu’s dreams again in the night?”

Han Tianyu was beyond afraid, and he immediately asked as well, “That’s right that’s right, what if she comes again, then what?”

“Why not pretend you’re in a 4D horror movie? Never mind that the special effects are real, the best part is that it’s even free.” Although he said that, he saw that Han Tianyu was about to cry, so Lu Xu hooked his finger, calling him over and then curving his lips up in a smile. “If she comes again in your dreams, then just silently say my name.”

Han Tianyu’s head was full of question marks. He hesitated for a moment and looked at Lu Xu. “This also works?”

Lu Xu leaned back to put some distance between them, then laughed again, innocently and harmlessly. “Just try. What if it works?”