Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 112: Special Treatment

Yin Ren quickly went through all the conversations they had in his head. He had never taken a mortal imperial examination or test, but at this moment, Lord Ghost King fully tasted the tension of reviewing before an exam.

“I’m ready.” Yin Ren’s face was solemn.

Zhong Chengshuo: “Mm.”

He lowered his eyes, clasped his hands together, and his gaze slid along his knuckles. The taxi compartment slightly trembled. The driver was a bald and chubby man. With two remarkably good-looking people sitting in his back seat, he occasionally glanced at them through the rearview mirror.

But he definitely didn’t look as serious as Yin Ren did.

Before going out, Zhong Chengshuo had taken a shower. His black hair was clean and fluffy, and the taste of shampoo was refreshing and light, giving him the smell of a cool summer night.

On closer inspection, this person’s eyeballs didn’t protrude as commonly seen in myopic patients. Zhong Chengshuo’s eyes had a soft shape, and his eyelashes weren’t short, more similar to a certain type of herbivorous animal.

When Zhong Chengshuo finished saying “uncomfortable”, Yin Ren wanted to touch those eyes.

Unfortunately, Comrade Xiao Zhong fell into a long silence after sending out the announcement. The memories in Yin Ren’s head had been flipped over several times, and instead of alleviating his nervousness, his symptoms gradually deepened.

Was Zhong Chengshuo sulking, or did he decide to hang him dry, returning an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?

Yin Ren thought that he was quite good at dealing with interpersonal relationships, and Zhong Chengshuo was a man without fancy. But at this moment, he couldn’t guess what Zhong Chengshuo was thinking.

Every unlucky guess took root in Yin Ren’s mind, and countless “bad endings” emerged. His brain didn’t seem to be his own, and Yin Ren wanted nothing more than to turn it off.

Thousands of years ago, he hadn’t thought about things in such a long-winded manner.

The children around him couldn’t keep up with him for too long. He taught them spells, and they taught him to read. If there was conflict… Well, he was a hundred-year-old man. How could he really be annoyed with children?

The officials at Huajisi who corresponded with him weren’t children.

However, their communication was only through ink and paper. The best was through a spirit device that conveyed sounds. The attitude on the other side was always cautious. Even if he encountered a difficult person who didn’t speak, for the sake of “smooth operation”, troublemakers would be replaced.

Communication with people was nothing more than skimming the surface of water for him. If they were destined to meet, they would; if not, they would part ways. Yin Ren had always been accustomed to moving forward and never looking back.

Not to mention the question of not looking back now, he almost didn’t even know how to move.

After the world perished in Yin Ren’s head 180 times, Zhong Chengshuo opened his mouth. “I have thought about it.”

Yin Ren: “……”

Only then did he realize that he hadn’t breathed for more than ten minutes.

“I can’t breathe well. My chest feels like cotton is being stuffed into it. It’s swollen and bloated.” Zhong Chengshuo truthfully described his feelings. “I tried to recall the samples that I managed to get a hold of several times, but I still couldn’t get excited and just wanted to lie down.

Yin Ren: “…Is it because I hardened my feathers just now?”

The taxi driver raised his puzzled eyes in the rearview mirror.

“No. The first time the symptoms appeared was when you said, ‘Even if we are just friends, I will be scared to death if you do this.’ Then when you said, ‘Who told me to be an elder?’ the symptoms became more serious.”

Yin Ren hissed and suddenly realized the problem with what he said. “I didn’t mean that…”

“Anyway, the symptom appeared, and I’m just describing the facts truthfully.”

Zhong Chengshuo had an expression of ‘I can’t do anything about it’.

“I have been thinking about it just now, and I’ve figured out the arguments to refute it.” Zhong Chengshuo turned his head and looked at the car window. “First, I’m your boyfriend, and I want more special treatment. Second, you have never been in love before, so we have the same starting point. I don’t like your ‘modesty’.”

After speaking, Zhong Chengshuo seemed to have realized something and chewed on the sentence “Don’t like…?” repeatedly.

The driver began to raise his eyes frantically in the rearview mirror again. The doubts in his eyes turned into intense curiosity.

Yin Ren exhaled slowly. He had the feeling that he had finally beheaded the tiger.

Although Zhong Chengshuo wasn’t in tune with the world, this person always knew how to identify the key points—whether it was an opponent or a human heart.

He understood. He understood, but…

Lord Ghost King’s gaze began to wander. He stared at the back of Zhong Chengshuo’s head, and his words got stuck in his mouth for a while.

Zhong Chengshuo’s rebuttal was like a heavy hammer, knocking open the walnut shell of Yin Ren’s “self-proclaimed elder”, revealing a little thoughtfulness that he had just noticed.

“I want more special treatment”…

Yin Ren groaned. He knew that he should show his open-mindedness and have an open conversation. Unfortunately, his hot face betrayed him now, making his throat cramp, and he couldn’t utter a word.

No, if he took into account the surroundings, his brain wouldn’t be enough.

Yin Ren pinched his hands, causing the driver’s vision to be blocked by illusions and seals. In the eyes of the driver, the two passengers in the backseat suddenly sat upright, expressionless, without any squinting eyes or anger.

The driver was so frightened that he hurriedly retracted his gaze.

Under the barrier of illusion, the real picture was a bit more frightening…

Without the driver’s inquisitive gaze, Yin Ren’s tense mood relaxed a little. The red cloth and wings fluttered and stretched out. He buried his face in the red cloth, and the wings at his feet uncomfortably curled up, brushing against Zhong Chengshuo’s ankle intermittently.

Zhong Chengshuo was waiting for a while for Yin Ren’s response. He twisted his head suspiciously and saw a certain Evil Spirit had shrunk into a ball.

It wasn’t quite the same as when Yin Ren was closed off to him. This time, the wings looked soft—so soft that they seemed to disappear in the next second.

It also had a suspicious tinge of red.

“I’m sorry.” There was a murmur from the depths of the red cloth.

Two pale arms peeked out from within the red cloth and held Zhong Chengshuo’s face.

Zhong Chengshuo’s glasses were pushed crookedly by Yin Ren’s palm. Behind the lenses, those black eyes blinked.

“Thinking of it this way, my bad parts are a bit like yours.” Yin Ren’s voice was a little low. “Anyway…”

In terms of performance and words, they just went to two extremes—Yin Ren had a caring attitude towards everyone, while Zhong Chengshuo evaluated everything and anyone with rationality.

He was indeed worried about Zhong Chengshuo, but there was also a considerable part of his unhappiness that wasn’t reasonable.

“Now I, ahem, I can tell you clearly. If a friend does something regardless of their own safety, I will definitely be angry too… but I won’t be as angry as if it were you.”

Yin Ren pressed his fingers on the other’s cheek and felt the warm and soft skin.

“But I don’t care how my friends see me or whether they worry about me.” The red color within the translucent wings grew stronger. “Can’t I just care about your attitude towards me?”

He cared that Zhong Chengshuo acted without saying anything; cared that he went into a dangerous place alone; and even cared that he didn’t show “caring” when he acted alone.

He just cared.

No wonder he understood the reasoning, but his anger remained stubborn. Like Zhong Chengshuo, he also wanted that “special treatment”.

Now Yin Ren realized that, when facing a young mortal, it was really… a bit embarrassing to say it out loud directly.

The problem was he chose the person who insisted on getting to the bottom of things, and there was no room for “that’s enough, we understand each other”—he had to speak his mind.

All the wings under Yin Ren’s feet curled up, scratching up the floor.

“I didn’t give in to you. I just didn’t know what to do,” he explained in a whisper. “You feel ‘angry’, which is very similar to why I was angry before… After all, we all feel that we’re ‘not special enough’.”

Zhong Chengshuo looked at him solemnly for a while, thinking for a long time.

“Nn, I agree.”

Yin Ren stretched out his two arms slowly, carefully lifting the red cloth in front of his face, and coughed dryly. “Then, in the future, you and I can give up some shame. I will also, uh, learn more from you.”

“But I don’t have any ‘shame’,” Zhong Chengshuo said puzzledly.

Yin Ren: “……” Uh, that’s pretty much what I meant.

“If you don’t mind, I can tell you all about my abnormalities.”

Yin Ren breathed out a sigh of relief. “Alright, I’ll take it all.”

“But I’m still uncomfortable. Is this ‘angry’?”

“Probably.” Yin Ren saw sweat on his forehead and felt the tendency to shrink back to the red cloth again.

“Obviously, we have initially solved the problem, so why am I still angry?” This person even took out a notebook and wrote a record, as if he wasn’t in a relationship with his lover but was bitten by a rare poisonous snake.

Yin Ren: “…I have an ancient recipe. When we arrive at our destination, I’ll treat it for you.”

“Nn.”

In the panicked expression of the taxi driver, the car stopped near the old town.

At this moment, it was around five in the evening. There was a faint yellow in the sun, and there was an endless stream of pedestrians walking around the old town. Most of them were the elderly wandering around. Unlike the streets of Gengsheng Town, all the elderly had smiles on their faces. The surrounding buildings were old, but they were well maintained, giving the old street a sense of vitality like a hundred-year-old tree.

Under one of the giant trees, there was a stall selling beef skewers.

“Since we were angry at each other this time, let’s AA for now.”

Zhong Chengshuo quietly gathered a strand of hair between his fingers. The soft hair happily rubbed against his knuckles, slowly relaxing.

“I have tried this shop before. Herbs are added to their soup, and the ingredients are also very good, so it’s really delicious,” Zhong Chengshuo commented pertinently. “It’s a suitable place to bring ‘friends’ to eat.”

You’re doing this on purpose, right? Yin Ren couldn’t laugh or cry.

Unexpectedly, this kid could hold a grudge.

Yin Ren deliberately squeezed Zhong Chengshuo’s palm and let out a long cry, “Then where do you want to take your boyfriend?”

Zhong Chengshuo stared at him for a long time.

“You’ll know in a while,” he said.

……

After a satisfying dinner, Zhong Chengshuo took him through the spider-web-like alley. When they reached their destination, Yin Ren instantly forgot the delicious taste in his mouth.

He had seen the space in front of him before—once in Guo Laifu’s memory.

Shelves full of specimens and steel barrels, windowless walls, and air that had the faint smell of medicine. The computer screen emitted a faint light, and next to it, he saw the strand of hair that Zhong Chengshuo had taken away.

Behind him, the basement door slammed shut, and the entire room was filled with inexplicable death, like a square tomb.

It turned out that this was the “suitable place to bring your boyfriend” in the concept of a science post. Lord Ghost King had never seen such a sight, and his heart was almost terrified.

Contrary, Zhong Chengshuo looked a bit excited.

“This is my secret research room in Haigu.” There was a weird shyness in his tone. “You can come here in the future too.”

“Ah, very good!”

The wall facing the entrance was covered with various newspaper clippings, photos, and handwritten texts. Red silk threads were connected in all directions, like a weird spider web. Yin Ren saw that he had occupied half the wall, and his heart started sweating profusely.

But… Did this mean that “King Yama”, surrounded by mysteries, had finally opened a corner of his heart to him?

Although the corner of his heart wasn’t particularly bright.

With a smile on his face, Zhong Chengshuo put the sample bags full of samples on the table. It was rare that he didn’t immediately deal with these “treasures” but stood in front of Yin Ren.

Yin Ren was still observing the “Evil Yin Ren observation data” that occupied half the wall in a daze and didn’t react for a while.

“It’s really nice here!” Yin Ren tried his best to sound sincere.

“It’s not about this.”

Zhong Chengshuo was standing upright.

“I have a little bit of ‘anger’ left, so you still have time to use that ‘ancient recipe’.”

Yin Ren stared at the person in front of him steadily. Zhong Chengshuo was standing in the middle of this dark space, like a ghost, commanding the area. This person knew that he was an Evil Spirit, and knew he was also the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi, but his gaze wasn’t the same as when he first met him.

Zhong Chengshuo looked up at him intently. Curiosity was hidden in his dark eyes, and the excitement of “sharing secrets” on his face hadn’t dissipated.

“Alright.”

Yin Ren heard himself say.

Their petty fight needed an end.

And their new accomplice career may need a proper start.

Yin Ren brushed away a few strands of hair that were in the way, leaned forward, and gently kissed the corner of Zhong Chengshuo’s mouth.

……

At the same time, Fu Xingchuan’s mobile phone rang loudly.

“Hello?”

Minister Fu had the misfortune of just finding out about his “longevity” and was still in a trance. He even forgot to check to see who the caller was.

“Ah, what? National Special Operations Group joint exercise competition? Haigu isn’t available this year. We don’t have many new recruits here… Wait a minute.”

Fu Xingchuan showed a meaningful smile and looked a little less upright.

“Nothing, nothing. Pretend I didn’t say anything just now. Haa, Haigu haven’t participated for at least three years. This year’s C-level investigation team has really good seedlings, so we’ll definitely join.”

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Kinky Thoughts:

Ah, this is why I love Nian Zhong’s works. There’s no unnecessary drama or conflict, and when the couples do fight, it gets resolved through communication.

Minister Fu, you devious fox.

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