I was shocked, “You mean she’s already free?”
Liu Ruoyi nodded and said with a stoic face, “She followed you to this school, to be precise.”
“…”
All my hair couldn’t help but stand on its end.
Xu Zixi actually followed me here? But I hadn’t seen her…
Maybe Liu Ruoyi protected me so well that Xu Zixi didn’t have a chance to get close to me.
I looked down and thought about it. I had to do what I promised Xu Zixi since she was here. The relationship between my aunty and Shang Yi was getting closer now. I could tell that he had a thing for my aunty but unfortunately for him, my aunty had no plan to get married yet, which made it hard for Shang Yi to ask.
Speaking of it, the relationship between the two was always ambiguous. Shang Yi came to my house almost every day to get fruits for my aunty, to help repair a pipe, electric wire, and so forth. His assiduity and gallantry made people speechless.
I laid down again, eventually calmed down, and then drifted to sleep.
I called Shang Yi during lunch break at noon the next day, but at that time, he was doing a significant ritual in the temple. I was so embarrassed listening to the noisy voices on the other side of the phone and Shang Yi’s bluff his way using a formal tone.
I didn’t hang up the phone and waited until Shang Yi fooled the person away. Then, I said faintly, “Uncle Shang, I would like to ask for your help.”
He was about to complete a big transaction, and his tone was a little impatient, “Spit it out.”
“I need you to help a ghost release its soul from purgatory. It’s a scapegoat ghost. Uh… It holds heavy resentment. Uncle Shang is so powerful. I think that should be no problem for you.”
“That’s not a problem, but it will cost you three thousand yuan for this. Do you have money?”
“…”
Ah! Why does this guy always talk about money? I think he completely lost his soul at the sight of money.
I definitely couldn’t pay three thousand yuan. My aunty wouldn’t help me out too.
I wracked my brain, and finally, I sold my aunty out.
I said to Shang Yi solemnly, “If you help me out this time, I will put in a good word for you in front of my aunty and get you two together. What do you say?”
Shang Yi was silent for a while. I guessed he was thinking about it.
After a while, he said, “You little girl, did you just sell your aunt to me because of this?”
I went along with a smile, “That’s a strong word, Uncle Shang. I am willing to help you because I can tell Uncle Shang is a good-hearted person and treats my aunty well with all your heart and soul.”
He burst into laughter suddenly and readily agreed.
I told him to meet me at the back door of the school at ten o’clock tonight and then hung up the phone confidently.
I had made the call in the toilet of the dormitory building. Afterwards, Liu Ruoyi looked at me quietly from the side. I smiled relievedly at her and said, “I made a deal with Shang Yi. We’re meeting at ten tonight.”
“Congratulations,” She kept a cold face and spoke with a mild tone.
I touched the back of my head, awkwardly. A girl with disheveled hair walked into the toilet when I was about to go back to my room. It was Hu Shan who was in the same room with me. She was tall and thin, looking fairly pretty. She was also quite active in the class, but we had not spoken yet, even though we shared the same room.
Out of the blue, she smiled at me when she saw me and greeted, “Hi, Sixi.”
I replied afterward, “Did you just wake up?”
“I didn’t slept. I don’t have the habit of taking an afternoon nap. I have been reading in bed the whole time.”
I nodded and pointed to the door, “I got to get back to the dormitory first.”
She waved her hand, “Go, go.”
I smiled at her. I turned around, walked out of the toilet, and went straight to my room.
We lived on the fourth floor, dormitory room 404, the dormitory number alone was inauspicious. Six girls were living in the room. One of them was Cheng Fengfeng. She also enrolled in this high school and was assigned to the same room as me. It must have been fate when I thought about it. Then there was Hu Shan, Liu Yingying, Mo Ya, and An Jing.
An Jing was the most active member in the room. It was the opposite of her name that she was not a quiet person at all. Liu Yingying kept to herself but it was rumored that she was a violent-tempered person in middle school. She finally graduated after transferring through several middle schools. In short, she was a devil incarnate who was a bigwig that people couldn’t afford to offend.
Mo Ya was a relatively quiet one. Sometimes she would even blush in shyness when talking to us. She was a very tender girl.
Although everyone had different personalities, I dared say that our dormitory had the most stunning appearances.
I heard Cheng Fengfeng on the upper bunk talking to me as soon as I laid down on my bed, “Sixi, I think I’m gaining weight. This jade bracelet is getting tighter. I recently feel really uncomfortable wearing it.”
She leaned on the bed and lowered the hand with a jade bracelet to show me.
Indeed, the jade bracelet was tightly circled on her wrist, and obviously left rolls of flesh on either side.
I couldn’t understand it. The jade bracelet seemed to be even smaller. It was not so small before.
“You haven’t taken this jade bracelet off yet?”
She sighed, “I can’t take it off. I have tried various methods.”
“Smash it!”
“It costs tens of thousands. I can’t do that.”
It was like there could be something evil in the jade bracelet, however, I hadn’t noticed anything wrong with the jade bracelet before that. Now that I took a closer look, I found that the transparent jade was faintly mixed with red marks like blood. I didn’t know if it was due to the fact that I was not wearing a blindfold.
I asked her from which antique market did she buy the jade bracelet. She didn’t know clearly. It seemed that she bought it from a hawker reselling antiques. She had asked an expert to appraise it. It was real jade, and it was from the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Ten thousand yuan was an appropriate worth.
It was an antique jade bought from an unknown vendor. Perhaps it was even stolen from a tomb, but it was definitely inauspicious.
I persuaded her to smash the jade. She hurriedly held the jade in her arms and said, “I won’t smash it. Not everyone can have such a beautiful jade bracelet.”
A faint trace of covetousness flashed through her eyes when she said these words.
I waved at her, turned over, and fell asleep.
It was none of my business whether she could get the jade off or not.
It was already eight-thirty in the evening after self-study that night. I laid on my bed after washing up and turned off the lights at nine.
It was dark in the bedroom and as my eyes slowly adjusted, I saw Liu Ruoyi standing with perfect posture by my bed like a female officer in the blue moonlight.
After a while, aside from sounds of heavy breathing, everything was quiet.
Everyone was probably asleep.
I touched the flashlight by the pillow, turned it on, and took a look at the alarm clock. It was almost ten o’clock.
“Ruoyi, let’s go.”
I whispered to her and got out of bed. She took a thin coat from the clothes hanging at the end of my bed and handed it to me, “It’s cold at night, put it on.”
Those were thoughtful words, but it always seemed like a cold command when it came out from Liu Ruoyi’s mouth. However, I was used to it. I followed her out of the bedroom after I took the jacket and put it on.