Banquet of a Hundred Ghosts

Chapter 42

Chen Kai was immediately pounced on by that thing and knocked to the ground. What was that? Was it a dog? How could there be such a big dog?

"Help!" Chen Kai struggled, but the dog was too big and reeked of a foul odor, making it impossible to push him away.

"Wow!" Chen Kai exclaimed and sat up, feeling drenched in sweat. He kicked his heavy blanket aside. Another nightmare!

He breathed a sigh of relief; his body was ice-cold, the sticky sweat evaporating. He glanced at the blanket beside him; it was a bit too warm for the weather, no wonder he was having nightmares.

He thought about falling back and then drifted into a deep sleep.

The next day, he went to class with his head down. He hadn't slept well the night before. He yawned, groggily locked the door, and left without noticing that there were a few brown animal hairs stuck to the doorknob.

Upon arriving at school, Chen Kai's luck with women continued to surge. Girls would constantly point and whisper about him on the way. Chen Kai kept his head down, his face flushed with embarrassment, and he practically ran to the classroom.

"Dujuan, lend me the mirror!" He snatched the mirror from Dujuan and looked at his face from left to right.

Inside was a refined but thin face, with somewhat messy hair; he certainly didn't look like a handsome man.

"Do you think I'm handsome?" Chen Kai asked Du Juan, holding up a mirror.

Du Juan was already surprised that he had taken her mirror, and when she heard his question, she almost spat out her water.

She sized up Chen Kai. Although he seemed to be trying hard to look dashing, he was actually quite ordinary. "Chen Kai, you, you're very handsome!" She really couldn't bear to discourage him.

"Really!" Chen Kai returned the mirror to her. Really? Even he himself wasn't confident. Had everyone's aesthetic standards really changed overnight?

Just after class ended, a girl in a short skirt stood outside the door. She looked like the curly-haired girl I saw a couple of days ago.

"God help me, nothing should happen!" Chen Kai lowered his head, pretending not to see anything, and tried to slip away.

But it seemed that God, this foreign god, had no intention of protecting this atheist. The girl rushed over to Chen Kai as if she had seen an old friend of many years.

"Where are you going? I'll go with you!" The girl blinked her beautiful big eyes, and Chen Kai felt dizzy from her fluttering eyelashes.

"No, no need, I want to go home!" At least she still had some sense left.

"Where do you live? I'll go back with you!" The girl continued to follow behind him, showing no intention of leaving.

Chen Kai was so frightened that he didn't dare to say a word. He didn't know how to communicate with the girl, so he could only walk silently ahead.

He deliberately kept turning corners, hoping to shake her off, but she still followed him closely, just like the dog he dreamed about last night.

As he thought this, a sense of terror suddenly rose from the depths of his heart, and Fei Xiao's words echoed in his ears again:

"Someone is tracking me!"

Could it be? Could that terrifying giant dog be the monster that's been tracking me? But what could it possibly gain from tracking me? Feixiao has already hidden in a safe place, hasn't she?

As he was thinking, the girl behind him suddenly sat down on the ground with a "thud".

"What's wrong with you?" Chen Kai couldn't ignore it this time.

The girl looked as if she had seen something terrifying. Pointing to the bushes by the roadside, she said in a trembling voice, "A dog, such a big dog!"

Chen Kai's heart tightened upon hearing this, and he quickly pulled the girl up, asking, "What kind of dog is it?"

"It, it was just there!" the girl exclaimed, pointing to a corner of the bush. "It's huge, and its tongue is so long!" With that, she jumped up from the ground, grabbed her backpack, and ran off without looking back. She was clearly terrified.

Chen Kai stared blankly at the clump of bushes. The afternoon sun was exceptionally bright, shining on the plump leaves and reflecting a beautiful green light like jade. There was no dog at all.

Chen Kai stared for a while, then suddenly felt a chill down his spine and hurriedly ran home.

As soon as he got home, he locked all the locks on the door, and then, as if he were completely exhausted, he plopped down on the ground.

What's going on? The girl saw it too; it seems there really is a dog following him, and it appears to be a very scary giant dog.

This isn't a Sherlock Holmes detective novel, nor is it set in a swamp, nor is there any fog. This is real life. Where did that dog come from? Why is it following me?

A fog-like mist rose in his mind, obscuring the truth of the matter.

In the days that followed, Chen Kai tried to go home early as possible and finally didn't see the dog again. But another problem arose: girls started to admire him. Chen Kai had never received so much attention from the opposite sex in his life. If it was one girl a day before, now dozens of girls were talking to him.

Chen Kai was so overwhelmed by this unexpected stroke of good fortune and the terrifying dog that he had completely forgotten about Fei Xiao.

"Brother, I have an idea for you!" Liang Dong, who was standing next to him, offered his advice when he saw that the man was half-dead.

Upon hearing this, Chen Kai scrambled up from the table. "What idea? Tell me quickly!"

"Isn't that simple?" Liang Dong said with a smile, "Just find a pretty one to talk to, and make the others give up, right?"

"But I don't know how to deal with girls! How am I supposed to date them?" Chen Kai looked troubled. It wasn't that he wasn't interested in girls; they were as beautiful as flowers, blooming like flowers. But he only dared to look at them from afar. If he were to date a girlfriend, he would probably be nervous to death.

"It's better to deal with one than a whole bunch, right?" Liang Dong sighed when he saw his depressed look. Could such good luck with women really bring trouble?

After listening for a moment, Chen Kai suddenly realized that what he said made perfect sense, and he finally found a solution.

If he had any crush on her, it would probably be the curly-haired girl who was with him that day, right? Chen Kai thought about her round, big eyes and fluttering eyelashes, and his heart suddenly skipped a beat.

There was no dramatic confession, and Chen Kai simply gained a girlfriend. He didn't even know her name. He just walked her home after class and sometimes escorted her back to her dorm. This was the shy Chen Kai's way of being kind to people.

He tried to talk to her several times, but he didn't dare to open his mouth and couldn't find a topic to talk about, so he simply gave up. Perhaps it was really a stroke of good luck. He didn't dare to think about anything more, and just felt happy to walk with such a beautiful girl for a while.

The girl didn't say anything, seemingly quite satisfied with the situation, as long as she could stay by Chen Kai's side, that was enough.

Half a month passed, and some people still came to confess their feelings to Chen Kai, but after glancing at the people around him, they all gave up. It seems Liang Dong's idea was really good.

But what about this girl? Chen Kai glanced at the people walking beside him. Her face was really beautiful in the moonlight. If things continued like this, he would probably be the one who fell for her.

Wait, moonlight? Chen Kai suddenly felt a pang of anxiety. Why was get out of class so late today? When did the moon rise?

"Let me take you home!" Chen Kai said to the person next to him.

The girl nodded, indicating her consent.

"We need to hurry, I'm so afraid that dog will show up again!" Chen Kai was more talkative than usual today, as if the terror had triggered his nerves.

"A dog?" The girl seemed to remember something. "What kind of dog?"

“I haven’t seen it clearly!” Chen Kai said. “It looks like a dog-like animal that’s been following me lately!”

"Is it the one I saw outside your house that time?" the girl asked, her voice trembling.

Hearing the fear in her voice, Chen Kai cautiously asked, "Is it very scary?"

Upon hearing this, the girl quickly lowered her head, as if unwilling to face something terrifying, and simply muttered, "If that were a dog, it would be truly horrifying."

Chen Kai wanted to ask more questions, but seeing her expression, he couldn't bear it and could only lower his head and continue walking forward.

Fortunately, the moon is very bright tonight, and the streetlights are also very bright; it seems that nothing can be hidden in such a bright night.

"Chen Kai~" Just as he walked into the central garden, the girl next to him pulled him along.

"What's wrong?" Chen Kai turned around and asked her, only to see that her face was pale with fright and her lips were trembling.

"Dog! That dog is behind us!"

Chen Kai was startled and quickly turned around. Under the streetlights, the cement pavement emitted a grayish-white light, and there were only swaying tree shadows on the ground; there was nothing else.

Just like before! Chen Kai quickly turned around, took the girl's hand, and said, "Don't look back, let's go!"

This was the first time he had ever held a girl's hand, but both of their palms were sweaty, and there was absolutely no romance in it.

After a while, sure enough, they heard the panting of animals and the sound of light footsteps behind them. The footsteps sounded like a monster was crept up behind them, ready to eat them at any moment.

"Don't turn around!" Chen Kai whispered, repeatedly reminding the person next to him. Why is the campus so quiet tonight? There's not a single passerby.

The girl nodded. It seemed like the two of them had to muster a lot of courage to take each step. They were walking on thin ice the whole way!

Finally spotting the lights of the girls' dormitory, the girl could no longer contain herself. She suddenly shook off Chen Kai's hand and ran towards the lights. Her long, curly, yellow-dyed hair fluttered under the streetlights, like a moth drawn to a flame.

"Don't run!" Chen Kai reached out to grab her, but she seemed terrified and desperately rushed towards the light.

Before Chen Kai could finish speaking, a huge black shadow suddenly darted out from behind him, soaring over his head and heading towards the girl.

Chen Kai was terrified when he saw it. What was that? It looked like a huge lion, with a pungent, fishy smell. It looked like a dog, but much bigger than a dog.

The thing tackled the girl running ahead to the ground in an instant! She screamed "Ah!" and struggled desperately.

How could this be? How could this be? Chen Kai, emboldened by some unknown source of courage, grabbed a tree branch and rushed over.

He didn't want to implicate anyone, he didn't want to harm anyone, but his weakness still ended up harming people. If he had always insisted on going it alone, things wouldn't be like this today.

Thinking back, how much did I actually like this girl? Or was I more afraid of being alone? Or was it that my fragile self couldn't bear such pain and was eager to find someone to share it with?

"Let her go!" Knowing full well that the monster couldn't understand him, Chen Kai shouted and swung the wooden stick in his hand, smashing it down on the huge head covered with brown fur.

The wooden stick struck its head, making Chen Kai's hand ache, but it didn't react. Instead, it opened its blood-red mouth and moved closer to the girl's face.

"No!" she screamed, her voice filled with terror.

What happened next surprised Chen Kai even more. He watched as a black line, like a snake, shot out from the girl's wide-open, screaming mouth and crawled into the bushes.

Watch out for snakes!

Feixiao's words before leaving echoed in Chen Kai's ears again: How, how could a snake be inside a person's body?

After the snake crawled out, the girl fainted. The monster, which looked like a lion and a brown bear at the same time, turned around and stared at Chen Kai with its blue, glowing eyes.

Chen Kai held the wooden stick and stared at it. He knew that if he relaxed his guard even slightly, it would take advantage of the situation. How could such a thing exist? What was its purpose?

Chen Kai stared at its blue fangs, its strong and sharp claws, its massive head and fierce gaze, as if he were staring at a nightmare.

Suddenly, the monster sprang up and pounced on Chen Kai. Chen Kai hadn't expected it to move so quickly, so he raised his stick and swung it at its head.

Those blood-red lips were right in front of him, and it seemed his chances of survival were slim. Then Fei Xiao's face appeared before him again. Fei Xiao, Fei Xiao, I hope I can see you again, he thought, and suddenly shouted, "Fei Xiao, lend me your power!"

The wooden stick in his hand swung out!

But something strange happened. When he shouted, the monster suddenly stopped moving, rolled in mid-air, and landed on the ground. Chen Kai's attack missed its target.

Then a white shadow suddenly shot out of that huge mouth like a bolt of lightning.

Chen Kai was dazzled by the white light, and because he had used too much force earlier, he collapsed to the ground.

The brown monster stopped attacking Chen Kai and slipped away to do something else.

What's going on?

"Get up quickly!" While Chen Kai was still in surprise, a slender white hand reached out in front of him, and the owner of the voice seemed to have an undisguised smile.

He looked up and was immediately stunned. The person in front of him was dressed in white, with long hair tied back and peach blossom eyes. Who else could it be but Fei Xiao?

"You, what are you doing here?" Chen Kai asked, pointing, his surprise completely overshadowing his joy at seeing Fei Xiao again. Had his call really brought her back?

"Then, where is that monster?" Chen Kai then went to find the enormous dog.

"You mean Little Yellow? It's over there!" Fei Xiao said, pointing to the bushes. Chen Kai then noticed a large brown dog squatting there, leisurely wagging its tail.

"Why, why is this happening?" Chen Kai's jaw nearly dislocated in surprise.