Chapter 28: The Chopping Knife
Thick fog had spread all over the street. When the food delivery guy rode his bike into the fog, he looked a bit confused.
Ren Tianyou saw the delivery guy and was instantly overjoyed. He turned and ran toward the scooter while waving his hands.
“Help me!” he shouted.
The delivery guy hit the brakes and stopped. He turned his head to look at Ren Tianyou.
“There’s an old man trying to chop me with a big knife!”
Maybe because he was too nervous, Ren Tianyou was already out of breath after just a few steps. He grabbed the delivery guy’s arm and pointed toward his car.
“Please help me call the police! My phone is still in the car!”
“......”
The fog seemed to get a little thinner. From about ten meters away, both of them could see the small car through the mist. But they didn’t see the old man.
A suspicious look came from under the delivery guy’s helmet. Ren Tianyou scratched his head in confusion.
“That’s weird… he was just there. Did you scare him away?”
“So what happened? You said it was an old man?” The voice coming from under the helmet sounded neutral, it was hard to tell if it was a man or woman.
“Yeah! He was holding a chopping knife. I just asked if he had dementia and if he needed his family to pick him up, and then he tried to chop me!” Ren Tianyou patted his chest, still shaken.
“Wow... you really don’t know how to talk to people.”
Ren Tianyou gave a silly grin. “I did it on purpose! He got me a complaint for picking up the wrong person!”
He looked at the delivery guy sitting on the scooter and asked,
“Hey, are you a guy or a girl?”
“......”
“No offense! It’s just… your voice sounds kind of neutral. Like one of my friends when they have a cold.”
The delivery guy was wearing a loose delivery uniform and a helmet. It was too dark to see their face clearly.
After a short pause, the delivery guy asked, “Was that old man wearing a raincoat?”
“Yeah! And it wasn’t even raining! If that’s not dementia, then what is?”
“I see…” The person took off the helmet and looked helplessly at Ren Tianyou.
“Brother Tianyou, if I’m not wrong… you just met a ghost.”
“???”
Ren Tianyou stared at the familiar face in shock. After a few seconds, he finally recognized them.
“Xiao Mu? What are the chances!”
The friend he mentioned earlier was Li Mu, no wonder the voice sounded familiar.
“You know I deliver food in the afternoons and evenings when I’m on break.” Li Mu rolled their eyes.
Big eyes, long lashes, when Li Mu rolled their eyes like that, Ren Tianyou was surprised to find it kind of charming.
He had never noticed how big Li Mu’s eyes were before. And the way they rolled their eyes, it almost had a girlish touch to it.
He couldn’t help wondering if something happened during the month Li Mu was back at school. The previous Li Mu, always cold and expressionless, would never act like this.
Scratching his head, Ren Tianyou finally got back to the main point.
“You said that old man… was a ghost?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen him once before.” Li Mu’s face turned serious. “Now I’m starting to think he’s behind the recent murder cases.”
Ren Tianyou thought back to what just happened and felt a deep, hard-to-describe fear rising inside him.
So… he had almost died just now?
He swallowed nervously and forced a smile.
“Xiao Mu, why are you getting so superstitious? There’s no such thing as ghosts, right?”
“Anyway, don’t go out at night for now, especially not to remote places like this.”
Li Mu looked him straight in the eye. He didn’t expect Ren Tianyou to believe in ghosts, but at least hoped he would stop doing dangerous things.
"You have beautiful eyes."
“......”
Li Mu climbed into the bike and didn’t bother replying. “I’m going to deliver food.”
“Want to take my car? We can go back together.”
Since Ren Tianyou had clearly been scared badly, and there was a chance that ghost in the raincoat might come back, Li Mu didn’t think too much and nodded in agreement.
It was safer with two people.
He stuffed the bike into the trunk, held his food delivery box, and was about to get in the car, but his foot suddenly stepped on something. He looked down and saw a chopping knife with red stains, like dried blood.
“Get in the car, quickly.”
“Okay.”
Li Mu thought about picking up the knife to take it away, so the ghost wouldn’t use it to hurt anyone else.
But after thinking carefully, he realized it was too dangerous. He didn’t know much about ghosts, but if that raincoat ghost was like the ones in horror movies, where the knife was part of the ghost, then taking it home might mean bringing the ghost with him.
So instead, he picked up the knife, ran to the edge of the sidewalk, and threw it far away into a ditch.
Now he felt better.
“What did you throw away?”
“Nothing.”
Li Mu sat in the passenger seat with his food box, feeling at ease.
He turned to look at Ren Tianyou, who still looked scared. Just as he was thinking about how to comfort him, Ren Tianyou asked, “Xiao Mu, you’ve really changed a lot.”
“Hmm?” Li Mu guessed right away what he was going to say. His already cold expression turned even colder.
“Not saying your looks changed a lot, I mentioned that during the day...”
Ren Tianyou kept driving, trying to ease the mood with small talk.
“It’s just that sometimes your tone, the way you talk or your expressions… you kind of look like a girl.”
Li Mu froze for a moment. Yu Fan had also mentioned something about how he sits. But he hadn’t really cared back then.
Maybe after his appearance started to get more feminine, even small actions seemed girly?
He didn’t say anything. Li Mu turned to look out the window, staring at the reflection on the glass.
But his face hadn’t really changed that much, right? At most, his skin had gotten a bit fairer, his eyes a bit bigger... maybe he looked weaker because some of his body muscle was gone.
Still, he wasn’t nearly as feminine-looking as his short roommate at the school dorm, right?
When Li Mu didn’t reply, Ren Tianyou realized this might not be a good topic. So he quickly changed the subject.
“That old man... how did he disappear so fast?”
“And the fog faded too. It’s not even that cold anymore.”
“Don’t tell me… that old man was really a ghost?”
Li Mu gave a cold nod. “Yeah.”
“Don’t scare me.” Ren Tianyou laughed awkwardly. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, right? I think he was just mentally unstable. After seeing you, he probably ran off into the fields.”
On both sides of the road outside the county town, there were messy bushes and even wilder grass fields further out. In recent years, fewer people wanted to farm, so the weeds in the fields grew thick and tall.
Li Mu didn’t reply. He didn’t expect Ren Tianyou to accept the idea of ghosts that easily.
“Should I call the police?” Ren Tianyou muttered to himself. “But maybe there’s no need. The old guy just scared me, and he’s so old... not much the police can do.”
He seemed calm on the outside, but Li Mu could clearly see the panic and fear in his eyes.
After thinking for a moment, Li Mu said, “Stay home and rest for the next couple of days.”
“Huh?”
If you run into something dirty like a ghost, maybe nothing happens at first. But after a day, you'll probably get a severe headache...
That’s what Yu Fan had said back then. He even used it as an excuse to force Li Mu to crossdress.