Chapter 135: Shopping
Xiao Jing’s clothes were a bit dirty and messy, and her old clothes had been sitting around for years, so they smelled a little moldy. She’d probably need to wash and dry them a few times before she could wear them again.
So, Li Mu and Yu Fan took Xiao Jing out shopping for new clothes.
To be honest, walking around the streets with a zombie made Li Mu feel like he was in one of those old zombie movies.
He felt really nervous, worried that someone on the street would notice the girl beside him wasn’t human.
Thankfully, Xiao Jing didn’t smell like something rotten or like any kind of chemicals.
But her identity was still a big problem.
Even though Chen Yi had some connections with the police, which helped them get things done, like when he helped Li Mu change the gender on his ID, that connection wasn’t strong enough to register a zombie in the system.
“Your makeup skills are insane,” Yu Fan kept glancing at Xiao Jing in surprise. “You can’t even tell she’s dead.”
“Well, dead people don’t move,” Li Mu said with his usual expressionless face. “Doing her makeup was actually easier than doing makeup for a normal person.”
For regular people, you have to worry about whether the makeup will hurt their skin, but with Xiao Jing, that didn’t matter.
Back when Xiao Jing didn’t have any makeup on and was wandering the streets, she was constantly scared. She kept hiding, afraid the police might show up and shoot her in the head. It didn’t feel like shopping at all. But now, she was super excited.
She held Li Mu’s hand with her left hand and Yu Fan’s with her right, running around happily like a little kid.
It gave off this strange feeling… like they were a little family.
Yu Fan glanced at Li Mu’s beautiful face and noticed he still looked a bit worried.
“What’s wrong?”
“When I go back to school… what about Xiao Jing?”
“I can take you and her to school every day,” Yu Fan offered.
Li Mu frowned slightly. “That’s too much trouble.”
He didn’t like bothering other people, especially not someone like Yu Fan, who clearly had feelings for him.
In the past, he could pretend Yu Fan wasn’t gay, but after learning how Yu Fan really felt, Li Mu had thought about cutting ties, just in case things got weird later.
But then Xiao Jing had suddenly come back, so that plan got delayed. Otherwise, he had already started pretending not to know Yu Fan a couple days ago.
“Sister~” Xiao Jing came up beside him with a smile and asked, “Aren’t you two supposed to be in class today?”
“We came to find you, remember?” Yu Fan jumped in. “If it weren’t for you, we’d be in class right now.”
“What about tonight?”
“We’ll be home tonight,” Li Mu replied without thinking.
There wasn’t enough space for all three of them on the electric scooter, but just as they reached the neighborhood entrance, their ride-share car showed up.
They took a car to a cheap clothing mall in the county town. The clothes there were even cheaper than what you could find online, as long as you knew how to bargain.
After getting out of the car, Li Mu suddenly asked Xiao Jing, “Can you feel things or taste now?”
“I can do both!” Xiao Jing said excitedly, nodding. “It’s like being alive again!”
“Can you still possess me?”
Xiao Jing nodded again. “Yes, you don’t have to worry at all for the New Year’s performance!”
That was a relief.
Otherwise, Li Mu would’ve had to start practicing singing himself and deal with the embarrassment of singing in front of thousands of people.
Even though he would still feel embarrassed through Xiao Jing’s possession, at least he wouldn’t have to sing himself, and his nervous feelings wouldn’t mess up her performance.
If he got too nervous and sang off-key on stage, and everyone laughed at him… well, there’d be no way to show his face at school again.
Yu Fan, still amazed, said from the side, “I don’t know if it’s some kind of high-tech thing or magic, but I wanna learn how to do that too.”
He wondered if he could make a fake wife by himself and then put the ghost inside her.
Ignoring what Yu Fan was saying, Li Mu pulled Xiao Jing into the shopping mall.
Since it was a Monday, there weren’t many people inside. Looking around, they could only see a few older people walking around slowly.
Li Mu stopped for a moment at a coin-operated machine near the entrance that measured height and weight. He pulled a one-yuan coin out of his pocket, put it into the machine, and stepped onto it.
“Didn’t you already measure yourself during the school health check a few days ago?” Yu Fan asked as he watched Li Mu stand up straight and try to make his posture as tall as possible.
“Yeah.”
Li Mu waited with his usual blank face, then looked at the results.
The numbers were about the same as before, about 50 kg and 170 cm tall.
He instantly gave up hope.
He had eaten so much during puberty to grow taller, and now his height had actually gone down again.
All that food… wasted.
When he looked up again, he saw that Xiao Jing had already happily run into a clothing store. He quickly followed after her and reminded her, “Be careful! Don’t bump into anyone!”
If a normal kid ran into someone, they might get hurt. But if Xiao Jing bumped into someone, she might scare them to death.
Her joints weren’t very stable. Use a bit of force, and her arm could pop off.
Li Mu followed Xiao Jing into the store.
He usually bought clothes online, so it had been a long time since he’d shopped in a real store.
And now they were in a women’s clothing store, full of women’s clothes and all kinds of underwear.
But when he thought about it, he realized he didn’t look much different from a girl now anyway.
Even in a women’s store, people wouldn’t give him strange looks.
Yu Fan, on the other hand, might need to be careful.
But Yu Fan didn’t care at all. He walked in with them, looking around casually. Then he leaned close to Li Mu and asked, “You’re this big now… don’t you need to wear a bra?”
“......”
Li Mu looked down at his chest. His face turned dark.
“Shouldn’t you buy some new girls’ clothes too? People always think you’re a tomboy now. And since your height changed, your old girl clothes are probably too big, right?”
Li Mu glanced at the store clerk and felt like he really did see a strange look in her eyes.
Was she looking at him like he was some kind of weirdo who ran into a women’s shop?
“I’m not buying girl clothes,” Li Mu said coldly and walked over to Xiao Jing, who was picking out clothes.
This shopping trip, Yu Fan saw another side of Li Mu.
Even though Li Mu was shy and always kept a serious face, when it came to bargaining, he didn’t hold back at all.
A set of fall clothes for women originally priced around 300 yuan. He managed to get it down to just a little over 100.
His face turned a bit red while bargaining, like he wasn’t used to talking back and forth with the smooth-talking shop owner.
Li Mu used to be a guy. He might have been slow when bargaining, but when it came to shopping in a mall, he was nothing like a typical girl.
He bought three sets of clothes for Xiao Jing, including trying them on and bargaining, all within 30 minutes.
But when it was time to buy underwear for himself… his whole face turned red. He couldn’t even say one word about lowering the price.
"Little girl, yours are big and you haven't started wearing a bra at this age?" the saleswoman asked in surprise.
“......”
That question made his face turn so red, it looked like he could bleed from embarrassment.
And the price also hurt his wallet.
He bought a few bras, and the moment he walked out of the store, he saw Yu Fan waiting outside, grinning like he’d been enjoying the show.
Li Mu shot him a death glare but couldn’t say a single word.