Don’t Pick Up Boyfriends From the Trash Bin

translator: baumkuchen (unedited)

Chi Xiaochi looked at him. As he turned to grab a glass of water, he said, tone and expression unchanged, “You don’t need to wipe anymore. Go to sleep, I’ll go take a shower.”

Gan Yu moved out of his way. “Look out for someone crawling out of the showerhead.”

Chi Xiaochi paused mid-step. “Are you trying to scare me?”

Gan Yu coughed lightly. “Just a reminder.” 

Chi Xiaochi let out a smile that read “I don’t care” and walked over to the bathroom door. He then stopped in front of the pitch-black bathroom and the mirror facing the door for five seconds, before turning and walking back, and kicking off his slippers.

Gan Yu, “What’s wrong?”

Chi Xiaochi rolled onto the bed. He said in a melancholic tone, “I’m tired, I’ll shower tomorrow.”

Gan Yu, “You’re scared?” 

Chi Xiaochi turned his back to him. “I’m not scared. I’m tired.”

Gan Yu couldn’t help but laugh. Slightly guilty, he leaned down and said in a soft voice, “I’ll accompany you.”

“No need.”

He gently settled for the next best thing. “I’ll keep you company from outside.” 

Chi Xiaochi, “……”

Thank you kindly for your generosity, I suppose I might as well accept.

After a long, busy day, he finally got to have his shower. Scalding hot water poured over his body, exfoliating his pores, washing away his fatigue. Outside the window, cicadas chirped in the summer night, their song blowing in with the light wind. The inside was warm while outside was cool, making one’s heart calm along with it.

The glass door was completely fogged up. Chi Xiaochi reached out and wiped away the water vapour. Through the frosted glass bathroom door, he could see the blurred silhouette of a person. His hands were down by his sides. From the looks of it, he was really waiting for him, not even bringing over a phone to pass the time.

A timid person’s imagination would run absolutely wild when they were alone, making them always feel like “the world wants to harm zhen”. Even a shower puff could become a person’s head. Hence, in order to avoid letting his thoughts run wild, he deliberately started up a conversation with Gan Yu, saying, “Doctor Gan, are you not going to play with your phone?”

In the task worlds, their phones wouldn’t be able to connect to the internet, but their normal functions wouldn’t be affected, so they wouldn’t have any problems playing something like 2048. 

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Lf atbeuta obg j ofk rfmbcvr, atfc aegcfv jcv rjlv ab Wl Obe, “C-Obe, P atlcx tf ilxfr wf.”

Xi Lou was even more nervous than Chi Xiaochi. “En. Keep your distance from him.”

Chi Xiaochi said, “But he can protect me.” 

Even though Xi Lou was doing his best to restrain himself, this kind of tension and jealousy wasn’t something one could easily suppress.

“This person is plotting something. He only got to know you starting from this task. The one he likes is you, not Chunyang.”

He tried to pull Song Chunyang’s lot out of these ambiguous feelings.

Carrying him away, we’re not engaging. 

Chi Xiaochi said, “But he recognised Song Chunyang at a glance. Maybe, for a long time now, he’s felt for Song Chunyang……”

Xi Lou, “……What are you planning?”

Chi Xiaochi, “From what I can see, he’s got a pretty face, and the person himself isn’t bad——”

Xi Lou panicked. “You dare!” 

Chi Xiaochi, “I’m just thinking about it.”

Xi Lou, “……” Don’t even think about it!

In a moment of anxiety, he revealed his secret plans for the future. “No. If Chunyang could make it through the tenth task, I was going to come find him……”

Before he even finished speaking, his face had already turned red. 

People who were in love for the first time would often draw out a blueprint for the future in their hearts. They would be too shy to bring it up, but at the same time, be unable to help but want to disclose it.

Chi Xiaochi washed away the suds in his hair. “Oh.” Heeheehee.

Xi Lou was left on tenderhooks. 

What did “oh” mean? Was it him agreeing to not hang around that damned surnamed Gan? Or was it just perfunctory?

For a while, the image of Chi Xiaochi and Gan Yu left in Xi Lou’s mind was upgraded to a pair of pretty and flirtatious sluts. He wanted nothing more for them to just bring disaster to each other, leave Chunyang out of it.

This shower went by without mishap, and he’d even managed to tease Xi Lou a little, balancing out the loss Chi Xiaochi had faced with Gan Yu. 

When Chi Xiaochi hooked his feet into his slippers, wrapped himself in a bath towel and came out of the bathroom, Gan Yu was still standing to attention, as if guarding the door for him was something that really held his interest.

Chi Xiaochi didn’t pay him any mind.

He naturally wouldn’t build connections with people in mission worlds. It was just that when this person started acting refined and courteous, he really did seem a lot like 061, making it so that despite his wariness, there was no way for him to dislike him.

After getting into bed and turning off the light, Chi Xiaochi wasn’t in a rush to sleep, rather, he stared up at the ceiling, counting the whorls in the ceiling boards.

Gan Tang had fallen asleep long ago. Gan Yu laid on the bed for a while, before turning to look at him. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Chi Xiaochi said, “I was thinking, where does the difficulty in this world lie?”

He was also thinking, that ghost who had occupied Guan Qiaoqiao’s body, was she a person from the story, or was she a person who had used to really exist? 

Aside the first, every task location would be announced in advance. Hence, before Song Chunyang had headed to this task location, he had thoroughly investigated the story behind this castle.

This ancient castle used to belong to an extremely rich businessman, who had bought it for the prestige and to use it occasionally for holidays. 

Before it had been abandoned, he had indeed previously leased the castle out to a horror film crew. 

Just as the movie had been about to be released, a rumour started spreading, saying that a new female supporting actor in the crew had seen a ghost and committed suicide.

This had immediately been assumed to be the movie crew trying to create hype, just that their tactics were too rubbish.

Upon seeing the news spread, the crew instantly clarified, saying that there had indeed been an accident during filming, but it was just a simple accident, and to please respect the deceased, etcetera.

Accidents occurring during filming weren’t unusual. Furthermore, that little actor had truly been too transparent, not even having graduated from university. This had been her first film. 

There were many laments expressed on the internet, but it was nothing more than a casual sigh.

In the end, at the celebratory dinner for the film’s completion three days later, under the lens of the encirclement of media cameras, the male lead of the film went crazy without warning, jumping off the third floor into the drained swimming pool. His death was like a dropped watermelon — red and white and extremely ugly.

This male lead could also have been considered to be a newcomer. He had had decently good looks, and had acted in a few idol dramas. He had been rising in popularity, and had a cheerful personality. He had been the most well-received type of person to hosts in reality shows, how could he have inexplicably gone crazy?

The rumours exploded.

Some said it was alcohol, some said drugs, some said ghosts, some said suicide, some said unspoken rules, all kinds of reasons came in droves. The discussion was extremely lively. It was only until it became too much and the officials started intervening by deleting posts that the wave of discussion gradually subsided.

But the mystery of this incident was truly too strong, too intriguing. Even after many years, there were still people discussing it using secret codes on forums.

Scandals would forever be the thing that would most arouse people’s curiosity. Everyone wanted to go see this movie, but because of this incident, it was impossible for the movie to be released, and the director had unexpectedly not fought it, silently accepting this arrangement. 

Afterwards, the director made two more low-cost films, both bloody. Since then, he had faded out of the movie industry, no longer producing any more works. As for those actors and writers, they were even more reticent, with many of them even directly vanishing without a trace, with no more news about them.

And because two people had died inexplicably in that castle, the businessman disdained it as unlucky. After renovating it, he invited over experts to exorcise it. After receiving confirmation that there were no evil spirits, he then listed it for sale, but still no one asked after it.

……Since they had the money to buy a villa in the mountains, why would they choose a haunted one?

After a long period of time, this castle, which had originally had good fengshui, was simply abandoned.

After so many years, the relevant personnel had disappeared off somewhere, and the opinions online were too diverse and far too mixed up. Song Chunyang read through a lot of scattered gossip until his head hurt, yet was unable to find a decent theory.

Chi Xiaochi thought, what are the origins of this ghost hidden in the pictures? 

Had she chosen Guan Qiaoqiao, this meatsack, because she liked Guan Qiaoqiao’s meatsack, or because she liked her character?

Or was there some other reason.

Of course, Chi Xiaochi could only list out one, two, three, four possibilities in his mind, just to be prepared. If one were to ask him to go right up to “Guan Qiaoqiao” and ask, sorry, he had a kidney deficiency