PSP Chapter 11: Icy

The air seemed to freeze after he spoke.

 

The room was only dimly lit, and the trees outside the window cast no shadows.
Almost no light could penetrate the closed curtains.

 

Shen Qingcheng liked to draw the curtains completely when he slept, so even though he thought the back seemed familiar, he could only see a vague outline.

 

His voice trailed off, and the person sitting quietly at the head of his bed moved slightly, tilting his head to look at him.
His face was shadowed, but his voice was as low as ever.

 

“There’s movement outside,” he said.

 

Shen Qingcheng listened carefully, and indeed heard a muffled noise.
It was a voice that sounded like the voice of an adult mixed with the laughter of a child, but it didn’t sound like it was coming from outside of the door.

 

He listened carefully, then turned to look at the window, hidden by the curtain.

 

Shen Qingcheng immediately rolled over and got out of his bed, not bothering to put on shoes.
He ran barefoot to the window and pulled the curtains open.
He had heard correctly: the adult voice was Chen Ge speaking.

 

The sky was clear tonight, and the moon cast a meager layer of light on the ground.
Under the tree in front of the gate downstairs was Chen Ge, wearing pajamas and shorts and strolling around, laughing and talking.

 

It was dark outside.
Chen Ge kept looking down and to the side as he spoke, but strangely, there was nothing beside him except his own shadow.

 

What was even more creepy was that after Chen Ge finished speaking, a second person’s voice actually rang out, the crisp laughter of a child.

 

Shen Qingcheng frowned and scratched his head.
After messing up his already disheveled hair, he said angrily, “Every time something happens it’s always the middle of the night.
I’m going to be sleep deprived from all of this fuss.”

 

The man behind him paused and said with a strange expression, “Aren’t you worried about him?”

 

Shen Qingcheng: “Who should I be worried about? That guy downstairs?”

 

Lu Qi: “Your relationship seems pretty good.”

 

Shen Qingcheng looked back at him.
The other man’s facial features had become colder under the moonlight, almost stiff.
The corners of his mouth tugged up.
“Who has the time to worry about him? I’d rather just go to the bathroom.”

 

After speaking, he left the window, hurriedly put on his shoes, and headed to the bathroom.

 

Despite what Shen Qingcheng had said, it was impossible to actually ignore Chen Ge.
After exiting the bathroom, he noticed that Lu Qi was going downstairs, so he followed.

 

There had been five people rooming on the fourth floor.
Shi Juan and Bai Yi were already dead, so only Shen Qingcheng, Lu Qi, and Xue Tong were left.
The corridor was silent, and the pale light from the overhead lamps shone eerily on the closed doors of Shi Juan and Bai Yi’s rooms.

 

The other doors were also closed.
Shen Qingcheng closed his own door, then shadowed Lu Qi downstairs.

 

As he descended, he asked, “Do you want to call Zhou An’an and the others over?”

 

Lu Qi: “How many people do you want to drag along?”

 

Shen Qingcheng looked up at him.
“Forget it, then.” He walked over to the gate.

 

Chen Ge wasn’t very fast.
They caught up to him quickly, and Shen Qingcheng followed him from a medium distance.
He wanted to see where he was going.

 

The voice hadn’t stopped talking, but the closer he got, the less he could make out the content of the words.

 

The last place Chen Ge stopped surprised Shen Qingcheng: it was the outdoor swimming pool they had talked about earlier that day.

 

Chen Ge stood blankly by the pool with his back turned to them, neither speaking nor moving his head.
The voice and the laughter had disappeared, and the water reflected nothing but the silvery moonlight.

 

“Aren’t you going to go over there?” The man at his shoulder seemed to emit a chill that he felt even through his layer of clothing.
“What do you think, will he wake up if he gets pushed into the water?”

 

“I don’t know,” Shen Qingcheng said truthfully, and then turned around, “Can I ask you for a favor?”

 

The chill moved from his shoulder to his neck, the icy feeling causing tiny goosebumps to pop up on his skin.
The other man narrowed his eyes, watching him noncommittally.

 

Shen Qingcheng leaned into him and asked sincerely, “Can you smile with Lu Qi’s face? I haven’t seem him smile once over the two days I’ve known him.”

 

She’d been exposed.

 

After realizing that, “his” face paled, and “he” tightened “his” grip on his neck, but suddenly the face belonging to Lu Qi twisted in pain.
“He” screamed and backed away.

 

It was a female voice.

 

“Don’t use Lu-dage’s face while you’re making such a racket, it’s quite jarring.” Shen Qingcheng jostled the needle a little.
Again, he remembered how being pierced with such a needle had used to make Ziwei scream.

 

The shriek was quite loud, and the lights in several of the apartments turned on, one after another, Standing by the pool, Chen Ge shuddered a little and woke up.

 

What the hell, how had he ended up right next to the swimming pool?

 

Chen Ge broke out into a cold sweat.
He looked left and right, turning to go back to the apartment, and saw Shen Mei and Lu Qi standing face to face a short distance away.

 

He felt like he had found a savior.
“Shen-ge, Lu-ge!”

 

Shen Qingcheng didn’t look back, but he raised a hand to wave.
Seeing “Lu Qi” moving, he narrowed his eyes.
“I advise you to think about Zhou Xiaohui before you move.
Since you ate her, you should know what happened to her, right?”

 

“Lu Qi” stopped moving.
Zhou An’an and the others’ voices were coming closer and closer.
“He” stared at Shen Qingcheng resentfully, and his figure slowly faded and disappeared.

 

A second before “he” totally vanished, “he” showed “his” original appearance.
It was Qi Mei.

 

Shen Qingcheng internally breathed a sigh of relief.
He didn’t have any proper weapons, and he wouldn’t be able to win a real fight with a bit of blood from his fingers.

 

At the very least, he’d have to cut himself a bit.

 

Luckily, he had fooled Qi Mei.

 

“!” Chen Ge, who had gotten halfway to him, was shaken by witnessing this scene.
Even though he saw Shen Qingcheng still standing right there, he didn’t dare to move forward.
“Shen-ge? Is that you, Shen-ge?”

 

Shen Qingcheng turned back and said in a low voice, “It seems that you really want to swim–you ended up coming all the way out here in the middle of the night.”

 

Still making a joke at a time like this? This was definitely the real Shen-ge.
Chen Ge was relieved.
He bounded up to him, let out a long breath, and said, “I was almost scared to death just now.”

 

The group of people led by Zhou An’an finally arrived.
Vigilantly, they shone lights in their faces as they tried to figure out what was going on.
Zhou An’an asked, “Are you okay?”

 

Lu Qi stood in the crowd, watching them calmly.

 

Shen Qingcheng: “I’m fine, but he was almost in danger.”

 

“Me?” Chen Ge was confused.
Hadn’t it been Shen-ge who had had a face-to-face confrontation with the ghost?

On second thought, when he had woken up, he had been right by the edge of the pool, just a step from falling.
That was indeed quite dangerous, so he nodded.

 

Everyone carefully investigated the swimming pool, then returned to the apartment lobby.
It was early in the morning, but they were full of energy after having powered through their initial sleepiness.

 

Shen Qingcheng covered his mouth, yawning, and said, “I propose that we all go back to sleep.” Maybe they weren’t sleepy, but he certainly was.

 

His proposal was of course ignored, and Zhou An’an even asked him to talk to them all about what had happened.

 

Shen Qingcheng: It's too difficult for me to explain.

 

“I'll go first then.” Meng Tianhai, who saw him slumping, said.
Everyone looked at him in surprise.
None of them had expected that the first target of the ghosts tonight hadn’t been Chen Ge and Shen Meiren.

 

Shen Meiren had been targeted twice in a row; that was already unlucky enough.

 

Meng Tianhai said calmly, “I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and found myself at home.”

 

He paused, “It wasn’t a game space, it was my actual home.
My wife came in and said dinner was ready, told me to come out and eat, and then I woke up.”

 

Meng Tianhai had been terrified when when he realized that he had gotten out of bed and walked to the door.

 

Xue Tong wondered, “Why did you wake up after she told you to come out?”

 

Montaigne was silent for a moment and said, “My wife is dead.” No one would wake him up to eat anymore.

 

Xue Tong shut up.

 

“My turn, then,” Chen Ge, who saw Brother Shen hugging the pillow and starting to doze off, took over the topic with a distressed expression.
“Actually, I don't remember it very well, it felt like a dream.
I remember my classmates and I picking up shells by the sea.
A little kid came over and asked me to teach him how to swim, and I followed him.”

 

If this kind of thing had happened in reality, he would definitely not have been so easily fooled.
It must’ve been a ghost.

 

“Tch,” Shen Qingcheng laughed out loud after hearing this, “Picking up seashells, how romantic.”

 

Chen Ge touched the back of his head and winked at Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi.
Both of them immediately understood that this child had looked like Qi Anle.

 

“Is no one else going to share?” Shen Qingcheng glanced around the hall.
Except for the player who had decided to wait out the time limit, everyone else was here.
No one spoke, so he yawned again and said in resignation, “Okay, my turn.”

 

“Lu Qi, my experience had to do with you.”

 

Upon hearing his unusually serious tone, Lu Qi's expression stiffened.

 

Shen Qingcheng said: “It wasn’t the same as you guys.
When I woke up, I found a familiar person sitting by my bed.”

 

Lu Qi's expression twisted slightly, “Was it me?”

 

“Yes, it was you,” Shen Qingcheng nodded and continued, “I thought to myself that I had only asked Lu-dage to protect me during the day–even if you were unhappy, would you really sneak out and find me at night?”

 

“Ahem.” Meng Tianhai coughed tactfully.

 

Lu Qi: “…” He had actually thought that Shen Meiren would be serious for once.

 

Shen Qingcheng: “I was about to start chatting with you about a private matter, but you suddenly told me that there was movement outside.
I listened, and I heard the voice of Chen Ge and a child.”

 

Chen Ge nodded quickly.
Yes, yes, it was a child.

 

“Well, then I couldn’t mention the private matter.” He looked at everyone, but no one asked him what the private matter was.

 

“After that,” he explained, completely refreshed, with a complaining tone, “You even touched my neck, my neck! For quite some time!”

 

Lu Qi: “It wasn’t me.”

 

Shen Qingcheng: “Anyway, it looked like you.”

 

It was obviously a serious matter, but after Shen Qingcheng said it, the whole hall was filled with a faint embarrassment.

 

Zhou An'an didn't dare to look between Lu Qi and Shen Meiren too much, for fear that she was reading too far into it.
She asked, “Then why did Qi Mei suddenly leave?” What was the purpose of such a 360° change in behavior?

 

Shen Qingcheng said tentatively, “Maybe she heard you guys coming, and there were so many people she was scared off?”

 

How were they supposed to confirm whether he was right or not? Go ask her? It wasn’t like she was facing the devil, why would she run like that? Zhou An’an decided not to question it, looking away and saying, “I'll stop here this time, everyone be careful in case it happens again.”

 

Now it was four in the morning.
Whether it was too early or too late, the fact was that the cafeteria had not yet opened, so everyone decided to go back to sleep.

 

Shen Qingcheng, who had been forced to remain awake, was completely stunned.
Why couldn't they have talked about it after sleeping a bit more?

 

“Shen Meiren,” Liu Zimei, who passed him, said hesitantly.
She thought about it carefully and figured it was a good time to remind him that, “You’ve been targeted by her twice in a row, so maybe–“

 

She was too embarrassed to finish her sentence.
There was no way she could just ask if he was a very attractive target for ghosts, or something.
Obliquely, she said, “It’s best to be a little more cautious.”

 

Just as she finished speaking, she saw Lu Qi walking behind Shen Mei.
Liu Zimei retracted her gaze like she’d been shocked, and said rapidly, “She uses Lu Qi's identity to approach you every time–you should pay attention.” Then she left quickly.

 

Lu Qi, who had happened to hear the last sentence: “…”

 

Even now, Shen Qingcheng still wanted to poke the sleeping tiger.
“Listen to what Liu-dajie¹ said.
She’s so helpful, unlike you.
Tell me, if you had come to protect me earlier, don’t you think this wouldn't have happened?”

 

 

TLN:

¹ I may have explained this before, but dajie (大姐) is the female equivalent of dage.

 

Thank you for understanding.
This chapter is for you (you know who you are).
Updates likely won’t be regular again until around mid-December, which is when most of my long-term assignments will be complete.