PSP Chapter 38: Abnormal

In the corridor, the faceless ghost was dragging a long hook. The hook was stained with blood, and there was a mass of black hair hanging from the tip.

It didn't seem to notice Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi at the entrance of the stairs, dragging its long hook and walking towards the other end of the corridor, step by step.

Shen Qingcheng realized that this was to prevent the players in the room from disobediently coming out.

The two quickly returned to their room while the faceless ghost was not paying attention, the door closing with a soft click.

The faceless ghost paused, and its head, seeping pus and blood, turned. On its featureless face, its two shadowed eye sockets looked in the direction of the sound, its mouth grinning.

Then it turned around and continued:

Chi--

Chi--

In the room, Shen Qingcheng, who had shut the door, pressed his back against the closed door.

"Crap, I forgot to leave the chicken downstairs," he shouted as he saw what Lu Qi was carrying.

Lu Qi pulled him away, "Don't stand there."

Shen Qingcheng, who was pulled away, looked back at the dark door, touched his still intact back, and then said, "What about the chicken? I can't put it in the room."

That would simply be being too careless about where they were going to sleep.

Lu Qi walked to the door, and Shen Qingcheng stalled him, "Where are you going?"

Lu Qi pointed out the chicken.

Shen Qingcheng pursed his lips, opened his mouth, pursed his lips, opened his mouth, then finally reluctantly said, "It’s fine, the faceless ghost is still in the corridor, there’s no need to come into contact with it."

It was a bit disgusting--Lu Qi definitely didn’t want to.

There was a smile in Lu Qi's eyes, very shallow and light. He stopped teasing him, turned around to find a piece of cloth and a rope, tied up the chicken, now wrapped in the cloth, with the rope, and hung the chicken out of the window.

"Tsk tsk tsk, a natural refrigerator, amazing!" Shen Qingcheng applauded.

After finishing this, Lu Qi entered the bathroom, and he followed behind him.

In the bathroom, Lu Qi was preparing to wash up because it was getting late, but when he saw Shen Meiren come in, he said, "You go first."

Then he turned around and went out.

Shen Qingcheng: "Oh." Actually, he hadn't planned to wash up just yet.

After cleaning himself, he quickly went out and climbed under the blankets, and then began shivering from the chill inside the blankets.

That was the bad thing about winter--when it got cold, even the bed would be frigid, especially in a room without temperature control¹.

Shen Qingcheng's constitution wasn’t adjusted to the cold at all². In the summer, he was fine. In the winter, if there was no heating, his feet could be icy from night to morning, and then from morning to night.

Before, when he invited Lu Qi to sleep with him, it would’ve meant that the two of them were sleeping warmly, because on the occasions when he made contact with Lu Qi, he was as hot as a warm baby³.

Even tonight, Shen Qingcheng was wrapped in the blankets, and he didn't warm up until Lu Qi came out of the bathroom after washing up.

After washing up, Lu Qi was only wearing a thin long-sleeved shirt and long pants. He lifted the blanket and lay on the other side of Shen Meiren, a distance of about half a person left between them.

Shen Qingcheng was incredibly envious--his body was so good, even on such a cold day, he could wear a single layer without shivering!

He quietly shifted to the side. The other man's eyes were closed under the dim light of the candle, his eyelashes dense and thick.

The rhythmic chichi sound of the long metal hook dragging on the ground could be vaguely heard outside the door, but it only added a touch of tranquility to the night.

Seeing that the man didn't respond, Shen Qingcheng quietly shifted to the side again until he touched the man's hot feet.

Woah, warm baby!

Lu-dage treated him so well, and he was still chilling him with his ice cube-like feet⁴, wasn’t he too unconscionable?

Thinking of this, Shen Qingcheng reluctantly moved his feet away.

Ah, but he was really warm.

Quietly again, they stretched over.

Move away, stretch over. Move away, stretch over.

The ice-like feet were captured by a pair of hot feet.

Shen Qingcheng: "!"

Lu Qi hadn’t fallen asleep at all, and he couldn't even pretend to sleep after being knocked about so much. He closed his eyes and said calmly, "Sleep or don’t."

"Sleep!" Shen Qingcheng finally stopped, leaned against the warm baby, closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.

Lu Qi opened his eyes and glanced at him.

In the middle of the night, the snow outside the window became heavier, falling with a rustle. The wind blew through the snowflakes, making the window whine, like the sobbing of a female ghost.

Shen Qingcheng slept soundly in the warm bed. After having been in this copy for so many days, he was finally sleeping warmly, his feet toasty, as was the rest of his body.

He was more and more warm, more and more hot, more and more scalding.

He opened his eyes dazedly under the heat, and found himself limp and powerless.

"Lu Qi," a little gasp was squeezed out of his throat.

Lu Qi opened his eyes next to them, his eyes clear and alert. He stretched out to cover Shen Qingcheng's mouth, and was startled by the temperature.

Before he could explain, Shen Qingcheng understood something from his actions.

He endured the discomfort of his body and listened carefully: a little rustling noise mixed with the sound of snowfall outside the window, very light.

"Wuwuwu~"

"Wuwuwu~"

The screams resounded all through the room, under the bed, behind the closet, and inside the bathroom.

It was those holes.

One by one, the animals that were making the wuwu sounds were crowding into the small holes. They only had sparse white hair, red eyes, and sharp teeth under their lips. It turned out that it was rabbits.

"Wuwuwu~"

Screaming, they burrowed out of the holes, from the bottom of the bed, behind the closet, and inside the bathroom.

Finally, they gathered together in front of the bed.

Suddenly, the rabbits stood up straight on their hind legs, raised their noses and sniffed the air.

With a shua⁵, countless pairs of blood-soaked eyeballs stared motionlessly at Shen Qingcheng on the bed.

Shen Qingcheng: "..." He gripped his wrist⁶.

"Wuwuwu~"

After collectively crying out again, all the rabbits quickly crawled towards the bed at an unreasonable speed.

They were fast, but Lu Qi, who had already long been prepared, was faster than them. He turned over with his long knife in his hand, aiming at the rabbits beside the bed and slashing down.

When the long knife slashed through the rabbit's body, there was a slight torpid feeling, and several rabbits were immediately split in half.

Their stumps twitched and fell to the ground, quickly turning into a few white hairs.

The rest of the rabbits bared their fangs and let out a threatening hiss.

"Wu~" The wind outside the window grew even louder.

Like they had received some signal, the rabbits quickly disappeared into the various holes after quickly reverting from their threatening postures.

Only a few severed rabbit hairs left behind on the carpet proved that it hadn’t all been an illusion.

"Lu Qi, you’re crushing me." Shen Qingcheng said when he saw that the conflict was over.

Lu Qi retracted his long knife, turned over and sat aside, probing his forehead, frowning, "No fever."

Shen Qingcheng also sat up. He was not quite so hot now, and his speech was normal. He touched his forehead, "It's not a fever, it’s a--what is it called? Rejection reaction⁷."

Lu Qi raised his eyebrows, and watched as Shen Meiren made a silver needle appear.

Shen Qingcheng twisted Mama Rong’s Silver Needle and pricked his fingertips a few times, a blood spot appearing on his white fingers. He put away the silver needle and pressed hard on the fingertip, and the spot of blood turned into small beads of blood.

He glanced at the blood on his fingertips, suddenly turned his back on the man, who was half-leaning on the head of the bed, and smiled, "Dangdangdang⁸, it's time to witness a miracle!"

Then he stretched out his hidden right hand, where the blood beads on his fingertips had turned into a bunch of white rabbit fur.

Shen Qingcheng was a little proud. Hahaha, never-before-seen, right!

Seeing that the other man's expression was a little cold, he soothed, "It's okay, it’s just a little trick."

It was just an evil spirit entering the body.

Blowing off the stands rabbit fur--let them engage in mutual affection with their little friends on the ground--Shen Qingcheng just left his right hand, which had been poked a few times, alone.

He leaned over to check on Lu Qi, touched the back of his ears, touched his neck, and finally said strangely, "Why don't you have any on your body?"

Shen Qingcheng was almost convinced that the NPCs were treating them differently: first the mask, then the holes in the room, and now the rabbit fur.

Everyone is human, so why should they be separated so clearly?

He lifted the blankets to cover his chin, yawned and said sleepily, "Did you not sleep?"

Lu Qi: "En."

Shen Qingcheng said vaguely: "Just go to sleep quickly, they shouldn't come again."

As he spoke, his body slid down and he sank into the blankets.

Shen Qingcheng didn't know if Lu Qi fell asleep later, or why he had slept so deeply in the second half of the night and didn't feel any movement.

When he woke up again, the sky was bright, Lu Qi was not there, and there was the smell of burning firewood in the room.

He sat up, wrapped in the blankets, and stared blankly at the wall, where the wardrobe had been removed.

Eh?

Behind the removed wardrobe was a hole the size of a baby's fist in the corner, and a small pile of flaming firewood gathered at the mouth of the hole.

Shen Qingcheng subconsciously looked under him. Oh, he was still on a bed, but it had been moved.

There was also a small pile of burning wood in the place where the bed had originally been placed, just blocking the entrance of the hole.

Was Lu Qi worried that another rabbit would come out of the hole?

Well, the cement wall could be punctured, so it seemed that it wouldn’t be safe enough to just block it.

Where did Lu Qi go this early in the morning?

Shen Qingcheng grumbled wordlessly, and in the next second, he heard the sound of the window being pried open.

Oh, the faceless ghost finally found him?

He turned his head in anticipation, but when he saw the person outside the window, the anticipation immediately turned to surprise, and he laughed, "Lu Qi, hahaha, I thought you were the faceless ghost!"

Lu Qi jumped in from the window. Seeing that the fire was still lit, he patted off the snow the wind had blown onto his body amidst his laughter. He closed the window halfway, then said to the person on the bed, "The food delivery person came been here earlier, and I threw away the breakfast."

Shen Qingcheng nodded casually and got up after he finally finished laughing. He washed up, then picked up the nuts and berries that Lu Qi had placed on the cabinet for breakfast.

"Where have you been?" he mumbled.

Lu Qi took off his thick coat, "I checked out the situation in the other rooms."

Shen Qingcheng, whose mouth was full of food, gestured with his eyes.

"It was normal." That was what Lu Qi was puzzled about. He didn't think these players could have dealt with the strange situation like Shen Meiren had.

Shen Qingcheng remembered what happened last night, and tried to explain it from his own professional point of view, "Maybe there was an incubation period?"

Seeing the man looking at him, Shen Qingcheng said, "Of course I'm not the same as them!"

It was very windy and snowy outside that day, so the two stayed in the room and did not go out. In the afternoon, they reclaimed the snow chicken hanging outside the window and roasted it.

Shen Qingcheng felt a little regretful: if it had been a rooster, then its blood could have barely been used to draw talismans.

In the blink of an eye, the chichi sound that had been ringing in the corridor all day finally stopped. A servant in black and white clothes pushed open the door, standing at the threshold and bowing his head, "Guests, please come downstairs."

Shen Qingcheng had been forced to remain in the room for a full day, and he was tired of staying there. As soon as he heard that he could go downstairs, he couldn't wait to pull Lu Qi out.

Other players came out of their rooms and into the corridor one after another, most of them either yawning or covering their mouths and retching.

Shen Qingcheng: "I don't think that’s very normal."

Lu Qi: "En, it must be because something just happened."

TLN:

¹ Lit. “air conditioning” (空调), but refers to a temperature control unit that allows you to both heat and cool the area (more like an HVAC than AC).

² Lit. “Shen Qingcheng’s constitution was not a bit cold” (沈清城体质偏的不是一点寒), which is basically saying he doesn’t handle cold well.

³ Children tend to run a bit hotter than adults.

⁴ Lit. “ice cubes of j” (冰坨子似的j). Presumably the author decided to write “j” instead of jiao (脚), or “foot”.

⁵ Swiping onomatopoeia (刷).

⁶ Equivalent of pinching yourself to make sure you aren’t dreaming (摁住了自己的腕).

⁷ Referring to transplant rejection (排异反应), where implanted donor tissue is attacked and destroyed by the recipient’s immune system. This is why organ donations are so risky--in order to prevent rejection, patients often have to go on immunosuppressive drugs, which leave them vulnerable.

⁸ Sort of like how English-speakers might say dun-dun-DUUUN before a reveal (当当当).