"Okay." Lu Mingran nodded, but he just stood at the door and let Wei Jiangyan go in alone.
The room, which hadn't been used for a long time, was empty. Surprisingly, the afternoon sunlight filled the entire room, making one's ears turn red.
Wei Jiangyan clearly didn't come here on a whim. After looking around the room, he went to climb over the small box by the wall.
At this moment, Lu Mingran promptly blocked the staff member's view and chatted with him casually.
The young staff member was quite frank, and recounted the story of Zhang Ji that he had heard:
“There used to be a child like that in the courtyard. I heard that one year he fell ill, so ill that he was half dead, and one rainy night he was taken away by an old Taoist priest.”
“Some people say he died a long time ago. But in any case, three years after he left, things started to go wrong in our orphanage, especially in the room where he lived.”
Lu Mingran glanced out of the corner of her eye and saw that Wei Jiangyan had already gotten what he wanted. She hummed in agreement and stepped aside.
Now that they had the items, they had no reason to linger and headed outside. On the way, a little girl, just woken up, peeked her head out of the room, blinking her big eyes curiously at them.
The little girl also said to Lu Mingran, "Uncle, I have a secret to tell you."
Lu Mingran squatted down and looked at him with a smile: "What secret?"
“The doll in the activity room used to dance with me, but she doesn’t anymore.”
Lu Mingran knew the reason; it must be that Zhang Jicheng removed the curse.
Lu Mingran felt that taking revenge on those people from back then was justifiable, but these children who came after were truly innocent.
"Uncle brought a new doll with him this time, would you like to go and take a look?"
The little girl's eyes lit up at the mention of new dolls. She nodded vigorously and ran towards the activity room like a butterfly. Wei Jiangyan glanced at the little girl passing by, then at Lu Mingran behind her, and asked:
What did you say to the child?
"I told her to go find a new toy. Well, she said those ghost stories don't exist."
In this way, Wei Jiangyan will not investigate the story behind the strange tales.
Lu Mingran followed. Taking advantage of the fact that no one was around, he whispered to Wei Jiangyan:
"By the way, what were you doing taking things from the room? Don't deny it, I saw it and even covered for you."
So Wei Jiangyan frankly said, "I need to help Zhang Ji bury something."
——————————
The location was a secluded spot in the courtyard, where few people would come—to avoid being seen and mistaken for perverts and arrested.
It was a remote but beautiful place, with green branches climbing the fence and clusters of pink and white flowers blooming nearby. Wei Jiangyan dug a small hole and buried a locked notebook inside.
“Zhang Ji was very frustrated. He said he had sworn that if he could leave that hellish place, he would bury his grudge notebook and declare his freedom.”
However, he left in such a hurry that there was no time to bury him, and later he neither had the opportunity nor wanted to enter this orphanage.
"So you went to steal things just to bury a notebook for him?"
Lu Mingran laughed at him, but he felt a surge of satisfaction. He knew that this would completely extinguish Wei Jiangyan's curiosity about Zhang Jicheng.
Their relationship will end with the burial of the notebook, and naturally, there will be no more of those messy things that happened later.
The afternoon sun warmed everything. Lu Mingran saw Wei Jiangyan standing in front of the buried pit, his figure desolate, truly like another Zhang Jicheng.
Although they ultimately failed to become soulmates.
but……
He did for you what a true friend would do for you. Right, Zhang Ji?
——————————————
The notification sound indicating that the task was completed rang out that evening.
At that moment, Lu Mingran was planning to continue mooching meals, but Wei Jiangyan waved a spatula and said that they were out of salt and needed to borrow some from him.
"I don't have any salt at home."
"Wait, don't hit me! I'll go downstairs to buy it!"
Wei Jiangyan was speechless. So this person didn't have any kitchen utensils at home and was only thinking about getting free meals?
Lu Mingran smiled and hurried downstairs.
"The bus is waiting outside," the system urged.
"I know, but I still need to buy salt."
"Oh, why buy salt? Don't worry, we'll arrange for your stand-in to clean up the mess for you."
Now, Lu Mingran stopped moving.
Yes, the system helps with the finishing touches.
“Well…” Lu Mingran was still worried. “You should remind him not to listen to the doorman and buy salt from the supermarket outside. The salt from the supermarket in the neighborhood is just fine.”
She practically kept nagging the whole way, and even when they got into the car, Lu Mingran was still talking about it.
"I know, I'm buying salt, but I didn't listen to the gatekeeper."
"Hmm." Lu Mingran finally quieted down.
As the sun sets, on a bus outside the residential area sits Lu Mingran, unseen by anyone, preoccupied with buying salt.
Well...
I hope that after I leave, someone will be able to freeload off you every day.
——————————
What finally drew Lu Mingran's attention was a webpage that suddenly popped up on her phone; it was supposedly a mission prompt for the next world.
It's a forum where the pinned post is in red, filled with the moderator's anger.
Then look at the posts below; the content is so similar it's suffocating:
"Let me tell you about my experiences as a geomancer over the past few years..."
"I've been in this industry for many years, so let me just chat with you all for a bit."
"If you don't believe me, you don't need to click in to see."
...
The pinned post by the moderator says this:
"This is a forum for discussing paranormal phenomena, not a fiction forum!"
"If any bastard ever writes a novel under the guise of recounting his own experiences again, I'll kick him out immediately!"
Image attached: A handsome photo of the moderator holding a harpoon.
Um……
It has no deterrent effect whatsoever.
Chapter 30 Want to take care of your brother? No way (1)
The moderator is a young man who, after experiencing sleep paralysis, vaguely researched related information and then casually created a paranormal forum.
At first, he had only a vague understanding of metaphysics, but in the past six months, he's become sick of reading about it. It's not that he went up the mountain to become a Taoist priest, nor that he bought books to study; it's just that there are too many people writing, writing, and writing novels on the forums.
Writing novels isn't inherently wrong; the problem lies in the fact that every novelist on the forum begins by confidently declaring:
"This is my true experience."
"I'm actually in this line of work, but I'm breaking my vow to talk to you guys today."
Next, she launched into several short stories, some with real place names and dates. The onlookers got excited at this novelty, and people kept interrupting to ask questions.
"Master, can you read my palm?"
"My house is not peaceful. Master, do you know why?"
Many people choose to avoid the topic, but some are "skilled and daring" enough to launch into a long and rambling explanation, leaving everyone stunned. They are truly geniuses.
The moderator has seen older men deceive young girls, and has seen senior figures deceive juniors. He knows that these people's serialized posts follow a similar pattern to theirs.
They all rely on their greater worldly experience to first feign profundity and mystery, reminiscing about the past to elevate their own image. Once they've fooled others, they reveal their true colors and do what they want.
Most of the casual observers on the forum aren't stupid. After being tricked into following the serialization a few times, they know that when they see a title like this again, it's someone writing a novel to gain popularity.
At first, the moderators turned a blind eye because what they were talking about could be considered an exploration of paranormal phenomena. But over time, the forum was filled with this kind of stuff.
This is intolerable!
The world Lu Mingran was heading to was the world of a novel serialized on this forum, and the system read him a few paragraphs in the car. The first few short stories were really well told, and for a moment Lu Mingran felt as if the things it described were real.
So, when did the post start to go wrong?
Lu Mingran, a diligent and studious student, had noticed this problem before, and this time he summarized two points:
When you discover that a minor character from the previous story has suddenly reappeared.
When the author suddenly tells you that he has a good brother, they grew up together, have a life-or-death bond, and the other brother is a bit silly (it is worth mentioning that many protagonists in supernatural novels have such a brother).
Usually, once the above two points occur, the novel's prologue officially begins.
Upon hearing Lu Mingran's summary, the system laughed out loud: "No wonder you're capable of completing two missions."
"Then, Lu Mingran, I'll get straight to the point. The problem you need to solve this time is the latter."
————————————
The moderator has mixed feelings about this person.
It started on a sunny afternoon when the moderator refreshed the forum and found a new post titled "Writing Some Thoughts Before Retirement." The moderator immediately rolled his eyes, knowing that someone was writing a novel again.
He ignored it at the time and gradually forgot about the post. Until one day, when the moderator posted that he was experiencing sleep paralysis again, and it was quite severe, a person named "Mountain Man" sent him a private message.
"I've done the math, and your situation isn't looking too good."
"Sleep paralysis is nothing, but something else is following you. Did an elderly person in your family pass away recently? Remember to hire someone to oversee the funeral arrangements."
Holy crap, how did he know that an elderly person in our family had passed away? I didn't mention it online!
The moderator clicked into this person's homepage, and the first thing he saw was a post he made: "Writing some thoughts before retirement".