This Damned Thirst for Survival

The man with Zhang Feng’s face outside tilted his head and asked again, “May I, please, open the door?”

Ye Xun glanced back into the bathroom.

Shadows shifted in the bathroom, and Zhang Feng’s singing voice became louder and louder.

There is a Zhang Feng inside and a Zhang Feng outside the door.

Which one is real?

If that is the real Zhang Feng outside the door, then who is the person in the shower?

If the person in the bath is real, then who is that person.

Ye Xun’s mind went blank for a moment and he took a closer look at the people outside.

At least it seems that Zhang Feng with a face is more of a human being than Zhang Feng without a face.

Ye Xun hesitates, gets out of his chair and puts his hand on the door handle.

He was about to open the door when he suddenly looked down at the lock.

Faceless Zhang Feng had just closed the door when he came in, not locked it. Why did Zhang Feng have to open the door when it was so simple to just unscrew the handle and enter?

Ye Xun looked puzzled, and suddenly dropped his hand.

He remembered something.

Some people will take coffins or wood from where dead people have been lying and make furniture to sell to others. Such furniture can form ‘soun’ or ‘bane’, which are trapped inside the furniture and require human consent to get out. Therefore, they will tap on the doors of the cabinets to attract the attention of humans, and if they open the furniture of their own accord, they will give the Soun and the Furies a pass so that they can escape and do mischief.

The man outside the door, Zhang Feng, is not a “sneak” or a “bogeyman”, but he is clearly not human either.

Inside the house is a place where the practitioners live for a long time, and there are four men living there, with plenty of yang energy. The “man” outside the door asked Ye Xun to open the door for him, clearly afraid of yang energy and wanting a “pass” from Ye Xun.

The housemate, who was writing on his desk, looked up at Ye Xun curiously, “Who’s that at the door?”

“There’s no one there,” Ye Xun locked the door behind him, “someone knocked on the wrong door.”

Without asking many questions, the housemate continued to listen to the music and write the song.

Ye Xun didn’t know if the people outside had left or not, and he went back to bed and cancelled the message he had just edited. He couldn’t let Jiang Luo and the others come over now, otherwise they might bump into something outside the door.

The knocking on the door continues for a while, then dies down, as if it has given up and left. Ye Xun’s temples are sweating and he holds Xiao Fen close. At that moment, Zhang Feng comes out of the bathroom.

Zhang Feng draped himself in a towel and walked over to the mirror to carefully apply his skincare products, he was in a good mood and even gave himself a mask, ” Ye Xun , who was that person who just knocked on the door?”

The mask was smooth and neat over the five features that had been deliberately left in place. Ye Xun’s throat tightened a little as he tried to speak calmly, “Someone knocked on the wrong door.”

Zhang Feng is not interested anymore and continues to gleefully sort out his mask in the mirror.

Ye Xun said, ” Zhang Feng , you look very happy.”

Zhang Feng smiled, “I just really like rainy days.”

Ye Xun looked at him inquisitively, “You look different today.”

“Yes?” Zhang Feng laughed twice in a good mood, “I let go of some things that were on my mind and I feel very relaxed now. If it wasn’t raining, I’d like to go out for a couple of laps.”

When Ye Xun heard him out, he subconsciously looked at the shoes Zhang Feng had changed out of by the door.

The sides of the shoes are muddy and dried on the edges, and there are still some waxy marks on the vamp from the sewage that has cut through.

For the recording of Next Stop Idol, the location was chosen in the suburbs because they didn’t want to be disturbed. Although the location was remote, the building was brand new. Zhang Feng’s shoes were so dirty, he must have been out of the recording location.

Ye Xun took out his mobile phone and took a picture of Zhang Feng’s shoes under the cover of Xiao Fen, and then, after some thought, took another picture of Zhang Feng’s face when he wasn’t looking.

Sent a message to a companion.

[Meet me tomorrow morning, I have something to tell you]

*

The phone receives a new message, lights up a few times quickly, and fades down again as no one picks up on it.

If Jiang Luo was given a gun with one bullet and asked whether he would like to destroy the illusion with one shot or kill Chi You, Jiang Luo would choose Chi You without hesitation and through gritted teeth.

This is the first time Jiang Luo has been in such a mess since Chi You pulled him into a dream and killed him eighteen times.

Jiang Luo wonders why Chi You did not kill him, why he did not punish him with pain and bloodshed, but teased him in this way instead.

But it must be said that the evil spirit’s move was as precise as a scalpel, cutting Jiang Luo to the quick.

If it was physical torture, then Jiang Luo could grit his teeth and remain calm. If it was physical torture, then Jiang Luo would have been able to grit his teeth and keep his cool. But this weird and bizarre teasing made Jiang Luo completely irritated and unable to keep his wits about him.

In the midst of his blazing anger, he was still a little bit frazzled inside.

The evil spirit has taken his lifeline by absurd means.

He knew that this would be more than Jiang Luo could bear to deal with him in this way.

The more furious Jiang Luo became, the happier Chi You became.

The evil spirit was delighted and laughed lowly, “Guess.”

“Guess you-uh.” Jiang Luo’s lips were gagged, his face blue and his lips crimson.

“Your teacher has taught you to think about what comes out of your mouth before you say it.”

Chi You said slowly.

The hand on his lips moved away and Jiang Luo opened his lips, the expletive swirling around in his throat, before finally clenching his teeth again and saying nothing.

Manipulation.

The evil spirit looked at the dark-haired young man whose face was changing, and felt a wave of relief and pleasure that he had never felt before.

This was even more enjoyable than when Chi You first learned the art of puppet soul refinement and survived his first fusion with the ghost tattoo.

The dark-haired young man would rather fight in blood and flesh than lie in bed with a thousand ghostly hands, and his ever eloquent mouth could not speak any more nonsense. Such a Jiang Luo makes the evil spirit feel a sense of achievement that satisfies him.

He wanted to.

It’s really the way to go with Jiang Luo.

Jiang Luo knew that Chi You was deliberately trying to disgust him, his forehead was bruised, tiny beads of sweat were sticky, Jiang Luo cursed silently and said to himself, “These hands are fucking yours!”

The hand crawling over him suddenly stopped.

The evil spirit sighed, intent, “You guessed it.”

In the next instant, the ghostly hands all disappeared. The crumbling and decaying ghost building became bright and clean again.

Outside the window, Jiang Luo is breathing heavily, barely able to sit up as he gains strength. His hair is dishevelled and there are red fingerprints on his bare skin. Jiang Luo’s face is so black it could drip ink, and his fists creak as if he is squeezing the neck of an evil spirit.

After a long time, Jiang Luo gloomily held a towel over his face.

He had to reflect on it.

Is his way of fighting back against Chi You too monotonous?

Let him hurt, what the fuck is a ghost afraid of pain.

As for letting him die, heck, Chi You can’t die now unless his soul is scattered.

Chi You bit him, why didn’t he return the favour with a tooth for a tooth?

The evil spirit tried to make him sick and he succeeded.

Jiang Luo’s fists clenched into fists and abruptly clenched the sheets.

His eyes snapped open, flames of resignation tumbling.

Shit.

He has to be disgusted back too.

Let that evil spirit, never again, dare to tease him in this way.

*

Ye Xun had a restless sleep when, at four o’clock in the morning, he heard the sound of footsteps in his dormitory.

Ye Xun’s eyes open a slit and he looks out. Zhang Feng, fully dressed, opens the door and leaves the dormitory.

Ye Xun hesitates for a moment and follows quietly with Xiao Fen in his arms.

But when they arrived downstairs, Ye Xun had lost Zhang Feng. It was still dark at four in the morning, and the morning breeze was cold, with only the streetlights on.

Ye Xun was standing in the wind, not knowing which way to go, when a hand was suddenly placed on his shoulder.

“……”

Ye Xun’s breath caught and he stiffened, turning his head to see Jiang Luo’s face.

Jiang Luo’s face looked bad, the words “I’m in a bad mood” appearing on his face. His clothes were crumpled and he looked at Ye Xun with a frown, “Why are you standing here in the morning?”

Ye Xun breathed a sudden sigh of relief, and it had to be said that the moment he saw Jiang Luo, his heart, which had been hanging from last night, was finally put back. He shook his head, not intending to talk to him here, “Why are you back now?”

“I just saw the message you sent me, I was afraid something had happened to you, so I rushed over to check,” Jiang Luo rubbed his forehead with a headache, “What happened?”

Ye Xun : “We’ll talk about it later.”

He looked at Jiang Luo’s eyes, “Your eyes are so red, did you not sleep all night?”

Jiang Luo pulled his lips coldly, “Ah.”

Sort of an admission.

Ye Xun seemed to sense a bit of a murderous aura as he paused and said curiously, “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Jiang Luo glanced at him, “Don’t be too nosy.”

The two men walked around downstairs, called Lu Youyi and the dead ghost after dawn, and borrowed the general director’s office.

The director-in-chief had a restless sleep last night, and after hearing that they needed to borrow the office, he personally sent the keys without saying a word, wanting to follow along and hear about the progress so far.

Ye Xun put on his computer a photo he took last night, “These are the shoes Zhang Feng was wearing when he came back last night.”

Jiang Luo saw right away that something was wrong, “No wonder I didn’t find him yesterday, so he’s gone out.”

The director frowned, “We have rules in our contract, it’s airtight between recordings and they can’t go out unless the crew gives permission.”

Jiang Luo pondered for a moment, “Is there anything here that I can get out of without having to report to the programme team?”

The director meditated for a while, “There’s a place, it’s a broken warehouse left over from the past. There’s a hole in the window and you can climb out of it to get outside.”

“Outside the warehouse was a wasteland, similar to a rural goose forest,” the director added, “where a lot of rubbish had piled up, and it was so dirty and messy that no one would go there.”

Quietly waiting for them to finish, Ye Xun continued, “Did you see Zhang Feng’s face?”

Lu Youyi and Jiang Luo looked at each other, “What happened to his face?”

Ye Xun silently pulled up Zhang Feng’s photo.

Looking at the person in the photo, several people drew in a breath of cold air.

–Camera shot of Zhang Feng with his face missing.

Jiang Luo sank his face, “He came back yesterday like this?”

Ye Xun stared at the photo, and even though it wasn’t the first time he’d seen it, he felt a chill run through his body, “Yes.”

The director wondered, “What’s wrong with Zhang Feng’s face, doesn’t he always look like this?”

The atmosphere was quiet as Lu Youyi turned his head to the director and murmured, “What did you see of Zhang Feng, nothing changed on his face?”

“No. ……” The director’s heart fluttered at his question, “What’s wrong with him?”

Ye Xun said softly, “I noticed last night that to the casual eye, it seemed impossible to see the change in Zhang Feng.”

He paused for a moment, “Even he, himself, didn’t notice he was without his face.”

It is certainly something to be feared.

He has lost his five senses, but the person who has lost them has not noticed. The unmistakable image of Zhang Feng applying the mask yesterday made Ye Xun think that it was much more bizarre and horrifying than the horrors he had experienced in the past.

Ye Xun also told them about another Zhang Feng knocking on the door last night.

Lu Youyi got goose bumps, “Why didn’t you call us over yesterday.”

Ye Xun said, “It’s too dangerous.”

Jiang Luo did not speak.

His brow furrowed as he remembered the faceless monster in the darkness.

Is there a connection between the monster and Zhang Feng?

How does Fu Wei know that “turning off the lights will kill you”?

Zhang Feng went out yesterday and did something which solved one of the things that had been bothering him, so he came back with great relief, but lost his face.

Zhang Feng’s previous attitude towards Ye Xun was not good, but this time it was better. It was as if Ye Xun was no longer a threat in his eyes after …… had taken care of that problem.

All these things were intertwined, like a fog. Jiang Luo thought they’d better check out the place where Zhang Feng had been, the warehouse that led outside, most likely where Zhang Feng had been, “Director, where is the warehouse?”

The director told them the location, “Or I’ll take you there now.”

“No,” Jiang Luo said as he got up, “let’s go and see Zhang Feng first.”

*

Zhang Feng went out this morning, I don’t know where he went. But he was practising in the practice room at the moment. Jiang Luo went to the corner and watched him. Zhang Feng’s face had no facial features, so he could not tell what expression Zhang Feng had.

But apart from the emotions that can be revealed by one’s features, they can also be seen in one’s demeanour.

At first, Zhang Feng was in a relaxed state, smiling and greeting the other practitioners, but gradually, Zhang Feng became a bit restless, sullenly walking to the side and sitting down, looking up at the other practitioners with his face raised.

Jiang Luo is thoughtful.

Zhang Feng looks like a colleague Jiang Luo used to work with at the design institute.

They were three interns who came to the design institute fresh out of school, and only one of the three would remain. By the end of the internship, they were doing just as well as Zhang Feng.

At first, I thought that I would be able to stay in the design institute without any problems. But gradually, I lost my confidence and started to doubt myself, and I became worried.

Zhang Feng is a little more serious than they are.

Jiang Luo looked at Zhang Feng for a moment before the dead ghost came over and handed him a bottle of water, ” Lu Youyi said that they had found something.”

“What?”

“A diary written by the dead man behind the scenes.” The dead ghost said without a ripple.

Jiang Luo’s eyes lit up and he followed him to find Lu Youyi. But on the way out, he met Fu Wei, who was walking out of another practice room.

Fu Wei is wearing his A-list clothes from Next Stop, Idol, and his pink top doesn’t give him much of a pastel hue. He is holding a mobile phone with little expression, and Yu Guang glances at Jiang Luo before walking straight towards him.

Jiang Luo focused on his lips.

Probably fresh from training, Fu Wei’s face is thin and sweaty. His lips are slightly reddish in colour, thin and sharp with a pursed lip line, somewhat like the lips in the photo Chi You sent to Jiang Luo yesterday.

But not necessarily.

Jiang Luo with the corners of his mouth pressed down.

He knew that if he brought his own subjective ideas with him, then the more he looked at Fu Wei, the more he would look like Chi You. Or anyone else, for that matter, and once he starts to doubt in his mind who Chi You is, he will keep looking for evidence to prove his thoughts.

This will not work.

Jiang Luo exhaled a foul breath, “What do you want from me?”

The phone in Fu Wei’s hand was facing Jiang Luo, who gave his phone a strange look and suddenly remembered something, his expression froze, “Where did you get that phone?”

Fu Wei tugged his lips, “This is the phone the programme team gave me.”

“I’m live,” he said absently as he lowered his eyes to Jiang Luo, his slightly curly black hair blowing away from his brow, “and the camera is pointed right at you.”

In the mobile phone camera, the pretty, open face of the young brunette freezes slightly.

The pop-ups grew by leaps and bounds.

[???? Who is this?

[Looking at the clothes he’s wearing, I think he’s also a trainee on ‘Next Stop, Idol’, but how strange is it that I haven’t seen him in the main movie?

[Oooooooooh little brother looks good, I lick lick lick lick, Fu’s phone point down, let me see little brother’s name]

[God’s face! Ahhhhh I’m voting for him]

I don’t think I’ve seen this trainee on the show. It’s impossible for me to have seen him and not remember him, I’m a super face person, I can remember all the good looking ones in Next Stop, Idol, there’s no way I can’t remember him …… And he has long hair, it’s the first time I’ve seen someone with long hair that doesn’t look out of place and looks so good, such a unique feature, how can I not remember him!

[The sisters above totally said what I wanted to say, damn I don’t believe it, if there was a trainee who looked like that I wouldn’t have noticed before?]

[Report – I just went through the official blog and couldn’t find a single bit of information about this little brother, heartbreaking]

[ah…… such a good looking little brother was the footage cut out on purpose? Even if he’s not good enough, he’s not a vase, this is too bad]

[Family I’m back, my sisters and I quickly went through the previous canon and eggs, and guess what? Hey, there really isn’t a single shot of little brother!

[…… “Next Stop, Idol” is there some big disease disease, such a face can attract how much traffic do not know? If it’s true that people’s footage was deliberately cut out, then I’m really speechless]

It’s that time of the day when you have to scold the showrunners again].

I didn’t want to scold, after all, I arranged for my brother Fu to live today, and before the live broadcast, I also praised the program team, well, the result is completely unpopular, dog head].

You’re a fan of Brother Fu? It’s just a slightly better looking trainee, I still love Fu the most! Please don’t move your phone, thank you!

[It’s silly not to make money, you guys are awesome [thumbs up]]

The pop-ups were a mess, and it was clear that Fu Wei was here, but these fans started talking about Jiang Luo. A few sporadic comments were squashed so quickly that they didn’t even have time to be seen.

Fu Wei glanced at the comments and saw that someone had already cursed at the bottom of the official blog.

Jiang Luo, oblivious to what had happened in those few minutes, took a deep breath, turned his face sideways and whispered, “Don’t face me.”

Fu Wei sneered, “Aren’t you happy that so many fans want to see you?”

Being a trainee is certainly something to be happy about.

Jiang Luo turned to the camera with a smile on his face and said, “Hello everyone, my name is Jiang Huan. Sorry, I’m in a hurry, I need to go to the toilet now, see you later.”

He waved towards the camera, gave a final smile and turned with a flourish to lead the dead ghost away.

There was a pause in the pop-ups, which soon erupted with double the enthusiasm than before.

[Ahhhhhh so handsome!

[See you next time, you promised me you’d see me next time [hoarsely]]

Jiang Luo put the live broadcast behind him and spoke to his assistant, telling him to take care of it with the director, after all, he didn’t think it would make much of a difference after only showing his face for a few minutes.

After the explanation, he quickly went to Lu Youyi and Ye Xun.

Lu Youyi and Ye Xun called him in because a member of the staff was tidying up the room of the dead man behind the scenes and found a diary.

Before Jiang Luo arrived, Lu Youyi and Ye Xun had already tried the password several times and one more mistake and the diary would be locked for an hour.

Lu Youyi and Ye Xun didn’t dare try again, holding the diary like a hot potato, “We tried her name, her birthday, but nothing was right.”

“What’s her name?” Jiang Luo asked.

Ye Xun replied, “Feng Xiuyun.”

Jiang Luo took the diary, which was an electronic lock, in the format of a nine-box grid. Ye Xun hands over Feng Xiuyun’s identity document and Jiang Luo looks at it; this victim is exactly thirty years old.

It’s not a name or a birthday, so what could it be?

They didn’t know Feng Xiuyun very well, like the secret of the locked diary, which is definitely a very private existence. You can’t get it right just by hoodwinking.

Lu Youyi looked at Jiang Luo expectantly, ” Jiang Luo, what should we do?”

Jiang Luo dismantled it directly and violently, using brute force to remove the electronic lock.

“Won’t that do?” He looked strangely at Lu Youyi and the two men, “What are you wasting all this time for.”

Lu Youyi : “……”

The dead ghost nodded approvingly.

Jiang Luo flipped through the diary quickly and found that all the entries were about Feng Xiuyun and her boyfriend.

Feng Xiuyun is an ordinary-looking woman who has never fallen in love, even in her thirties. In this diary, her psychological journey is as sensitive and happy as a young girl’s nostalgia, in which she writes that falling in love has made her several years younger.

“But I can’t let anyone else find out about him and me. He’s in a special situation and I have low self-esteem, so that’s actually good …… How many people can talk to someone as good as him in their lifetime? Whether it ends up working out or not, a relationship like this has made me not live these thirty years in vain.”

The woman’s sorrow and apprehension can be seen everywhere in the words, as if a fog is wrapped around Feng Xiuyun, making him lose his footing and fall from the clouds at any moment.

Her inferiority complex follows her and she is even too cautious, to the extent that the man’s name does not appear in the entire diary.

Jiang Luo looked at the sentences describing the men and suddenly a bold idea came to him.

He picked up the electronic lock on the side and called the director, ” What day is Zhang Feng’s birthday?”

The director said, “March 2nd.”

Jiang Luo pressed 0302 and the electronic lock was unlocked with a “pop”.