Oni-tsubo

Kapitel 5

"Take this!" he said, placing a gem in Chen Kai's hand—the small gem with a yellow stain. "There will be a gift!"

Chen Kai wiped away his tears, reached out and took the gem, but as soon as he touched it, the gem vanished from his hand in an instant.

This time he was even more unhappy and burst into tears. Everyone had lied to him, including his mother and his brother.

"Don't cry!" the older brother comforted him. "How come you've developed a gluttonous habit again after all this time!"

"I... I lost my gift again!" Chen Kai cried, sobbing uncontrollably.

The person shook their head and patted his head. "Big brother's gift was given to you a thousand years ago!" As they finished speaking, something seemed to flicker in their eyes. "It is your peace in this life!"

Chen Kai was stunned for a moment. Just then, the door behind him opened, and it was his mother's voice, "Xiao Kai! Where have you been? I was so worried!"

Chen Kai looked back and saw his mother standing at the doorway, her face streaked with tears. He was happy to see his mother and wanted to say goodbye to the older boy, but when he turned back again, all he saw was a vast expanse of white snow, and there was no one in sight.

But there were clearly two people's footprints behind us!

Chen Kai was stunned again. He still remembered the warmth of that hand, that smiling face, and that gentle tone, but that person was gone, as if they had vanished into thin air in the white snow.

My gift to you was given a thousand years ago: your peace in this life!

The tone was kind, yet it sounded like a sigh.

Grandpa Chen Kai's illness miraculously improved, and the improvement began on that snowy night. By the time the New Year arrived, Grandpa had been discharged from the hospital and was lying in bed playing with little Chen Kai.

Grandpa pulled out a handful of colorful candies from behind his back like a magician, and Chen Kai finally received a New Year's gift. He hurriedly unwrapped the candies and put them in his mouth. The candy wrappers shouldn't be wasted either; he should save them up to show off to his classmates.

His grandfather smiled kindly as he saw his happy face. Heaven had been kind to him, allowing him to survive this ordeal and continue to bring happiness to his grandson.

But no one knew that the small gem was Grandpa Chen Kai's life, and the large one, shining with dazzling luster, was Chen Kai's life.

The woman in black was a deadly figure, but Chen Kai, with his uniquely innocent eyes, couldn't see anything ugly. Even ghosts and monsters became beautiful fairies in his eyes. Although these fairies wore black clothes, it didn't detract from their beauty.

But what about the man in white? No one knows what he is; perhaps he is a spirit conjured from falling snow!

Several years later, Chen Kai woke up from his afternoon nap. He felt like he had just had a dream about his childhood. Did it really happen? Or was it just a dream? He couldn't tell. After so many years, he couldn't remember much about his childhood. Maybe he really had been to that strange place on a snowy night a long time ago and seen a woman dressed in gorgeous black clothes.

A white shadow flickered before his eyes. It was Fei Xiao carrying food and walking back and forth in front of him. Chen Kai felt as if he had seen that white color before. He stared at Fei Xiao's thin, frail figure and suddenly froze.

Has the fairy who disappeared in the snow returned? The afternoon sunlight shone in, dazzling his eyes and making it hard for him to distinguish between dream and reality.

My gift to you was given a thousand years ago: your peace in this life!

Chen Kai would never forget that sigh-like voice. He didn't know that he had received his gift from the moment he was born.

Chapter Three: Poppies

Chen Kai's university life finally began. Since he didn't live on campus, he didn't know many of his classmates well. Every day, he carried his backpack between the school and his apartment. Fei Xiao was still lazy and greedy. When she had nothing to do, she would lie on her bed, holding a mirror, looking at her face with a narcissistic expression. At this time, all he could do was shake his head.

It was dusk again. Chen Kai was walking along the tree-lined path on campus, about to go home, when he heard someone call out to him, "Chen Kai, wait a minute, are you Chen Kai?"

Chen Kai turned around, adjusted his glasses, and looked at the person with a puzzled expression. He didn't seem to know anyone in the class. The person who called him was a chubby guy with tanned skin, a very short buzz cut, and a ruddy complexion—he looked well-nourished.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"What?" The fat man looked surprised and said breathlessly, "I'm the class monitor of Class 3, Department 10. Aren't you from Class 3, Department 10?"

"Oh!" Chen Kai scratched his head. "Sorry, I didn't go to the freshman party!"

"Hehehe!" The fat man grinned wickedly, his small eyes narrowing into slits. "It's normal that I didn't go. We all know that my name is Liang Dong, which is just Dongliang backwards."

Chen Kai looked at Liang Dong's smile, and an ominous premonition rose in his heart: "You know everything? What do you know?"

"Hehehe!" Liang Dong nudged Chen Kai with his elbow. "Who doesn't know you're living with a beautiful woman outside?"

"What?" Chen Kai could hardly believe his ears: "That was a man, one of my relatives!"

"Oh dear! What relative?" Liang Dong squinted and looked Chen Kai up and down. "Look at you, so frail and bookish, not a bit like a beauty at all!" Then he smiled knowingly. "Some classmates saw her, and I heard she's an absolute stunner!"

"That's not true. He really is a man. It's true that he's beautiful, but you can't just spread rumors like that!" Chen Kai's face darkened. He was only twenty years old this year. How could he stand such rumors? It was all Fei Xiao. He looked like that. Even when he first met him, he couldn't tell if he was a man or a woman.

The fat man, feeling awkward, quickly said, "What are you angry about? I'm just here to tell you not to rush back today. There's a meeting in the lecture hall tonight, and they'll take attendance. Remember to go!"

"Okay~" Chen Kai said with his head down. He couldn't go home on time again. There was a lazybones at home waiting for him to cook. He hoped the lazybones wouldn't go hungry.

"Let's go to the cafeteria and get something to eat first. We'll be taking attendance tonight, and you'll lose credits if you don't!" the fat guy said before leaving.

"Hey! I really don't live with anyone, so stop spreading rumors!" Chen Kai shouted to Liang Dong, worried about what he would do if the rumors really started.

As soon as he finished speaking, two girls walking beside him suddenly turned around, holding their books, and carefully examined him. They huddled together, chattering about something, and you could vaguely hear them saying things like "the world is going to the dogs" and "you can't judge a book by its cover."

"It's over, it's all over now~" Chen Kai felt like he had been doused with a bucket of cold water, which chilled him to the bone. He figured that even people from other departments would be spreading rumors now, and his advisor would probably be asking him to come over in a few days.

During the evening meeting, Chen Kai buried his head under the table, not daring to look up, and didn't hear a word the teacher said. He felt like his classmates' gazes were arrows shooting at him, trying to pierce through him.

It's all because of Fei Xiao. That family has never helped me; all they do is cause trouble.

After finally getting through the meeting, I had just stepped out of the auditorium when I saw someone leaning against the wall in the dim light of the corridor outside, waiting for someone. The person's white clothes were very conspicuous.

"No way, it can't be him! Please, please don't let it be him!" Chen Kai muttered to himself, head down, forcing himself to walk forward. His lazy demeanor, white clothes, and indifferent expression seemed to belong to only one person. Good heavens! Why did he have to come to the school to find him at this time of year?

"Chen Kai, what's wrong? Didn't you see I came to pick you up?" Before she could even walk past him, she heard him calling her.

Chen Kai had no choice but to look up. Before him stood a handsome face with sword-like eyebrows and eyes like cold stars. There was an irresistible foxy charm in his eyes. Who else could it be but Fei Xiao?

"Shh! Pretend you don't know me!" Chen Kai whispered.

"Why? I finally found you after all that trouble, and you're not even coming home!" Fei Xiao looked unhappy.

"Hey, who's that? She's so pretty!" "She's really pretty, is she the one who supposedly lives with Chen Kai?" The students who had just finished class were already chattering away, their voices filled with inexplicable excitement. It seems that beautiful things can indeed excite people and accelerate the secretion of adrenaline. The biology teacher was right.

Upon hearing this, Fei Xiao's face was filled with a smug expression. She deliberately tossed her long black hair and gave a seemingly ambiguous smile to those behind her, which elicited another gasp from them.

He really loves to show off. Chen Kai felt like he was in hell, so he quickly said, "Let's go, let's go home quickly, didn't you come to pick me up?"

Just as I was about to leave with that narcissistic guy who was still posing, I heard a girl's voice exclaim, "He really is a handsome guy, not a beautiful girl!"

Chen Kai breathed a sigh of relief. The rumors had been dispelled, and Fei Xiao's arrival wasn't such a bad thing after all.

The joy lasted less than a minute before someone muttered, "So that's how it is... Chen Kai is gay after all!"

"I'm not gay!" Chen Kai was furious. He turned around and shouted at the loudmouthed classmates. This was even more unacceptable to him than the previous statement.

Seeing his angry expression, the dozen or so people behind him fell silent for a moment, then started whispering again: "Did someone just say he's gay?" "Wow, isn't that an admission of innocence?" "That's brave, you can't judge a book by its cover!"

"You, you all!" Chen Kai finally understood what it meant to have a multitude of opinions that could melt metal and destroy bones when he was twenty years old.

"Let's go! It'll only make things worse!" Fei Xiao said, pulling Chen Kai's hand and walking away. A chorus of exclamations followed: "They're holding hands! Look!"

As Chen Kai walked out of the school, he felt a bellyful of grievances. What was going on? He glanced at Fei Xiao beside him. The evening breeze blew through his long black hair, and his beautiful face glowed faintly in the night. He was truly stunning.

He gazed at the stunning beauty and sighed deeply, "Feixiao, why did you come looking for me? What am I to you?"

Feixiao looked at him with a smile, as if looking at a child who had never grown up: "Because you are my best friend! You are Wang Zijin!"

Chen Kai stared at him, his face full of doubt. Whenever he said this, he worried that Fei Xiao might have suffered some kind of trauma. How could she connect two completely unrelated people? What kind of person was that Prince Jin that she couldn't forget? Was he just a substitute?

"Is it just because I look like that Zijin guy?"

“You two don’t look alike at all!” Fei Xiao said with a smile. “Him? He’s got a beard now, haha, he’s practically an old man!” Her eyes were unfocused, her thoughts seemingly drifting back to a long time ago, to a time that Chen Kai didn’t know about, a time lost in the past.

"So who is he to you?" This was the first time Feixiao had talked to him about that stranger who was also familiar.

"She's my best friend, all these years, my best friend!"

Chen Kai felt a pang of sadness upon hearing this. "Then why don't you go find him?"

"He's already dead. If he were alive, he'd be almost a thousand years old!"

Chen Kai was startled. A thousand years old? Had he heard correctly? "And you? Have you been alive all along?" he asked timidly. He had always thought that Chen Kai was just someone with some crooked skills, but it seemed that he was not so simple.

"Me?" Fei Xiao placed her hands behind her head, looking relaxed and carefree in the night. "I am someone who exists outside of time, or more accurately, not even a person, so I will not age or die!" Her gaze was fixed on the stars, a sorrowful look in her eyes. "I'll tell you this much for now. You'll find out what I am later!"

Isn't immortality a good thing? It seems that emperors throughout history have all pursued immortality, right? Why is he so unhappy? Chen Kai felt there were too many things in this world that he couldn't understand, and he didn't want to inquire about them anymore.

"Chen Kai, don't be upset!" Fei Xiao saw that he was unhappy. "Don't listen to what others say. It's human nature. If you just ignore them, they'll stop talking. Rumors stop with the wise!" She sighed again. "Besides, human life is like a summer flower, a dewdrop, or a hibiscus—it blooms in the morning and dies in the evening. Getting angry over these trivial matters will only make you laugh at yourself in a few years. It's better to take it easy! Why bother yourself with baseless rumors?"

Chen Kai didn't quite understand what he was saying, but he could tell he was trying to comfort him. Suddenly, he felt like he had never suffered such a great injustice before. He felt like he had laid his heart bare for others, yet he was still misunderstood. Thinking about this, his eyes welled up with tears. He took off his glasses, wiped them, and said to Fei Xiao, "Thank you~"

Feixiao smiled at him: "You're just a kid, of course I'll help you, since you're my best friend."

"What? What did you say?" Chen Kai felt a surge of excitement upon hearing this: "Am I your friend?"

"That's right, of course, otherwise why would I have gone to such lengths to find you in the crowd!" The Fei Xiao in this night was so different from the Fei Xiao he knew that Chen Kai felt like it was all unreal.

"Let's pinky swear!" Chen Kai said, extending his little finger. "We'll always be best friends!"

"When will you grow up!" Fei Xiao shook her head, but still stretched out her slender white hand and pulled him, but with a helpless expression.

"Hehehe! How funny! How could anything last forever in this world? Kid, he's lying to you, can't you see that?" A woman's voice suddenly rang out from the side, soft and charming, making one's bones melt.

Chen Kai looked back and saw a beautiful woman standing by the roadside at night. He wondered why he hadn't seen her before.

A beautiful, alluring woman with long, curly hair and crimson lips, wearing an out-of-season thin red gauze dress, a cigarette between her slender fingers, blooming like a poisonous flower in the night.

"Who are you?" Although Chen Kai was not worldly-wise, he knew that this woman did not seem to be from a respectable family, but rather seemed to be a prostitute.

"Little kid!" The woman gracefully approached Chen Kai, a cigarette dangling from her lips. She parted her lips slightly, and a puff of smoke hit Chen Kai's face. "He's lying to you, can't you tell?"

Chen Kai was startled by her actions and exclaimed, "What? What lie?"

The woman glanced at Feixiao with her glasses askance: "Him? The more beautiful something is, the more likely it is to deceive you, especially an animal like a fox. You can't trust it at all!"

Feixiao watched her from the side: "Hey, don't talk about me like that. I'm just a wandering ghost who can't find a home. What right do you have to talk about me?"

"Hehe!" the woman said with a laugh, "I did forget some things, but unlike you, you only know how to lie to children like this!"

Chen Kai looked at her. She was indeed a beautiful woman, exuding a charming aura. But why did she keep lying? He looked at this glamorous woman, then at Fei Xiao beside her. It seemed that the latter was more trustworthy.

"Alas, forever, forever, how many people in this world can keep their promises? It's just that people love flowers and grass, and life and death are up to them."

Hearing the deep sadness in her voice, Chen Kai quickly asked, "Where are you going? Are you just going to stand here?"

"She probably doesn't even know where she went," Fei Xiao said from the side. "Is there some unfulfilled wish of yours?"

"You stinking fox!" The woman glanced at Feixiao and said, "People like you are the best at sweet talk. My affairs are none of your business!"

Feixiao looked displeased. "Fine, I don't care!" she said, pulling Chen Kai along. "Let's go!"

"Sigh, is she already dead?" Chen Kai asked.

"I don't know, but I guess so!" Fei Xiao said with an indifferent expression.

Chen Kai glanced sideways at the woman smoking. Her gauze dress fluttered in the night wind, revealing her slender figure, which looked as if it were about to float away, appearing lonely and pitiful.

"If we leave, how long will she have to stand here?"

"I suppose we'll wait until she remembers who she is and fulfills her earthly wishes!"