Chapter 150: Knowing One's Limits
When Zhang Hui walked out of the police station, he felt completely lost.
Was it really just his imagination?
Was the bad smell in the bathtub really just from his cousin’s dirty clothes?
But no matter how hard he tried to remember, the scene was still clear in his mind, and the strong smell kept coming back. It didn’t feel like a dream at all.
He picked up his phone and called his grandpa. After a short talk, his grandpa told him about a famous fortune-teller in a nearby town.
She was in Yingfeng Town, and people said she had been doing this kind of work for decades. She used to work with a male shaman from Li Mu’s hometown. Together, they could handle all kinds of strange, supernatural things.
Sadly, the shaman from Li Mu’s hometown had passed away not long ago.
Even though Zhang Hui didn’t really believe in ghosts or spirits, too many strange things had been happening. So even if this fortune-teller sounded unreliable, he was still willing to give it a try.
Before that, though, he booked an appointment online at a mental hospital in the provincial capital.
“Maybe there really is something wrong with my brain?” he muttered.
………………………………………
Li Mu had just returned to the dorm, ready to wash up, lie in bed, and play on his phone.
Yu Fan was the same, he had ordered some barbecue, but just took a few bites before Chen Yi called and told them to come back.
After getting scolded by Chen Yi in the hallway, Yu Fan came into the room looking helpless.
“Seriously, why does your cousin always run into weird stuff? He even showed up on the surveillance footage during that dismembered corpse incident.”
“How should I know?” Li Mu muttered. “Maybe he’s just really unlucky?”
“Or maybe he’s actually a ghost magnet?” He then looked up at Yu Fan in confusion and asked, “Hey, where’s that ghost? Didn’t you bring it?”
“Huh?” Yu Fan froze. “Oh... I think I left it at the mall.”
“......”
They looked at each other for a second, then both silently decided to pretend they’d forgotten about it.
Anyway, Liu Shenglong didn’t have any weird powers. At most, a few people might catch a cold overnight. That ghost didn’t even know what it wanted, so it probably couldn’t do something like possessing someone…
Xiao Jing had gone back into her own body and quickly ran off to clean Li Mu’s room. The room smelled really bad now, so Li Mu would probably have to sleep on the couch tonight.
Once she was done cleaning, Xiao Jing happily suggested, “Sister! Let me go to your school too!”
She really liked how it felt to have a body.
“No way. Where would you live at night?” Li Mu frowned.
“Let my brother-in-law rent me a place?”
Even though Yu Fan was happy that she called him "brother-in-law," he could only smile bitterly and say, “I’m just a student too. I already rented a place so Li Mu could move out, but Li Mu refused.”
It’s not like he had unlimited money, right?
Actually, if possible, Yu Fan wished Li Mu would just move out of the dorm. But Li Mu didn’t trust him at all, or maybe he just thought living in a dorm with other people was safer than living outside.
Xiao Jing’s face immediately fell, and she mumbled, “Sister, maybe you should find a new boyfriend?”
Li Mu didn’t even bother replying. She grabbed the remote, turned on the TV, curled up on the sofa, and said to Yu Fan, “It’s getting late.”
Yu Fan looked out the window and nodded. “It’s already past ten.”
“So…”
“It’s too late to go out. I’ll just sleep here,” Yu Fan said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
“......”
Li Mu originally wanted to politely ask him to leave, but didn’t expect this guy to take it as a sign he could stay.
“The bedroom can’t be used right now,” Li Mu said with a serious face. “I have to sleep on the couch tonight.”
“Then I’ll sleep on the floor,” Yu Fan said while stretching, then stood up and walked lazily toward the bathroom. “My towel and bath towel are still here, right?”
At some point, Li Mu’s place had started to keep Yu Fan’s personal toiletries all the time. Yu Fan even had two sets of clothes here to change into, like he was treating this place as his second home.
He ran off to take a shower, and Li Mu was just about to go get some bedding when he heard a knock at the door. He opened it and saw Ren Tianyou and his mother from next door.
“Xiao Mu, I just heard that the police came to your place…”
The auntie ran a small store in the neighborhood and knew everything that happened around there. When she heard that the police had shown up at Li Mu’s place, she immediately asked Ren Tianyou to come over with her.
When facing the auntie, Li Mu’s cold expression softened a bit, and he spoke more gently.
“It’s nothing. My cousin just has some mental health problems.”
“But Xiao Mu,” the auntie hadn’t seen him for a while, and now she noticed something different about his voice and face, “why do you look more and more like a… girl?”
“Mom, if Xiao Mu’s fine, then hurry back to the store. If not, things might get stolen,” Ren Tianyou quickly reacted and gently pushed his mom toward the elevator. “I’ll take care of things here.”
“No, seriously, doesn’t Xiao Mu look more and more like a young lady?”
“Hey, Mom, didn’t you always say this look is called ‘delicate’? Xiao Mu’s just the kind of good-looking guy that’s trendy now.”
“But this is too pretty…”
Before she could finish, Ren Tianyou had already pushed her into the elevator and finally let out a sigh. Then he turned to ask Li Mu, “Why were the police here?”
He clearly didn’t believe that Li Mu’s cousin had mental issues.
“A thief broke into the house,” Li Mu quickly changed his story.
This time, Ren Tianyou believed it. He walked into the apartment but immediately smelled the strong chemical smell coming from the bedroom. He frowned and was about to ask, but then he heard water running in the bathroom.
Ah, he understood. Li Mu’s boyfriend was here too.
He stopped walking and asked, “Should I leave?”
“Stay for a bit,” Li Mu said, sitting back down on the couch. Then he asked with a headache, “How should I explain things to the auntie?”
“I don’t think that’s the most important thing right now.”
Li Mu looked at him, a bit confused.
“What you need to figure out first is how to tell if someone is a bad guys and how to build your views on love,” Ren Tianyou said seriously. “I wanted to say this last time, how long have you even been a girl? And now you already have a boyfriend?”
“???”
Keeping a respectful distance, he went on, “You also need to change your way of thinking. When you were a guy, you just had to watch out for honey traps. But now that you’re a girl, you have to protect yourself—”
“Brother, how do you know all this so well?”
Ren Tianyou was cut off. Well, he had been caught in a honey trap before.
Now he got a bit annoyed. “Don’t interrupt me! You’re a girl now, so you need to be careful when making friends. Do you know what kind of family background or personality Yu Fan has? How does he treat women? He might look handsome, but don’t you know most handsome guys are jerks?”
Li Mu didn’t want to listen anymore. He lifted one foot and his fingers started fiddling with his toenail.
“When you meet someone like me, you should stay far away, got it?”
“At least you know yourself well,” Li Mu muttered.
He knew there was no way to explain his relationship with Yu Fan, not when Yu Fan had once walked around his home in just a towel, and especially not when he stayed over so often.
Saying they were just close friends?
Even he didn’t believe that.