This Damned Thirst for Survival

Lian Xue said soothingly, “Everyone calm down, there’s a fireplace in the house.”

A faint circle of light emanates from the fireplace and illuminates the living room sofa.

Butler Yan got up and said, “There are many candles stored in the house, please wait, I will go and bring them.”

The sudden situation did not affect in any way the two men who were carrying out their orders.

Jiang Luo stopped before his lips touched Chi You and the ghostly perfume of the evil spirit reached his nostrils. I can’t believe he’s wearing perfume …… Jiang Luo’s expression turned odd.

He took a few quiet breaths and couldn’t help but say, “Did you do that on purpose?”

The evil spirit said good-naturedly, “What?”

Perfume, bathrobe.

Heavy snow and chalet cottages.

Too many coincidences combined, like a trap set for him by an evil spirit.

But how did Chi You know that Jiang Luo was going up the mountain today?

Jiang Luo let out a “tsk” as he straightened up, but the evil spirit grabbed his wrist, smiling deeply, “Speak clearly.”

“I’m sorry, I’m deliberately trying to whet your appetite,” Jiang Luo retaliated without mercy, and the two men exchanged a few silent strokes in the darkness, “you know it all too well.”

In the darkness, Lian Bing, who was sitting near his master’s house, suddenly felt a few strong winds, and he turned his head suspiciously to look, saying tentatively, “Brother, a saviour?”

Jiang Luo instantly separated himself from Chi You and spat out, “What’s the name of a life-saver?”

Lian Bing laughed twice, and Du Ge said, “It’s too dark at the table, let’s go sit by the fire.”

The butler quickly brought candles and the mirror reflected the light of the fire and candles, and the room was at last a little brighter. The young men were no longer in the mood to play games, they were looking worriedly at the snowstorm outside the house, which was still not abating.

The wind and snow slant and the sound is ghostly.

Chi You picked up a cup of coffee and suddenly said, “Have you heard of the story of the Snow Maiden?”

“The Snow Maiden?”

The man laughed and began to tell the story, which seemed to be shrouded in a mysterious and voluptuous horror as the flames leapt.

“Legend has it that there was this demon who was called the Snow Maiden. Every time she appears she brings an unending blizzard, oh, like now.” Chi You lowered her voice.

The wind and snow howled outside the window, as if to match his words.

“The Snow Maiden would travel in the snow to lure lost men and bring them back home, and when she kissed them, they would be frozen in ice and snow, their souls becoming food for the Snow Maiden to sustain them.”

He joked, “This snow came so suddenly, could there be a snow woman in this mountain too?”

The crowd laughed, “You’re a real joker.”

Chi You smiled unchanged and looked down to take a sip of his coffee.

Duan Zi hesitantly asks, “Can there really be a Snow Maiden in the world?”

“The Snow Maiden is a demon that exists in foreign legends, there is no demon similar to the Snow Maiden in the true sense of the word on our soil, but there is a fairy whose powers are similar to the Snow Maiden,” Lian Xue, who has read many books, said after some thought, “The fairy is called the Snow Mountain Maiden, and is the daughter of the mountain god of the Guangde Shrine, Zhang She is the daughter of Zhang Da Di, the god of the Guang De Shrine. Every time she appears, she is accompanied by a great snowfall.”

“Legends are legends, these are not true,” Qin Yun frowned, “It’s not uncommon for snow to fall in December, let alone December, there are still snow flurries in March and April now, what weather hasn’t there been in the past few years?”

Fire shadows jumped across the faces of men and women, imprinting shadows of light and shadow, and the cold wind seemed to seep through the door frame, the air becoming a little cooler.

Lian Xue coughed a few times, her face slightly flushed, like a prelude to a cold, “Excuse me, I’d like to go back and rest first.”

“Forget it, don’t play,” Du Ge said in a voice, “let’s all go to bed.”

Duan Zi said hesitantly, “Then the 12pm mirror …… is cancelled too.”

“It should have been cancelled a long time ago,” Qin Yun stole a glance at Chi You and raised a hand to fix her hair, “How can you play such games in someone’s home?”

Chi You , “No need to cancel.”

He looked to Jiang Luo with a dark tease, “If you get scared, you can also run away from the battle.”

Jiang Luo locked eyes with him for a few seconds and shrugged, “Happy to oblige.”

Lian Xue looked at them hesitantly, ordinary people didn’t believe in it, but they were extremely shy about it, “How about this, at twelve o’clock at night, we’ll come down and join them, there’ll be more people and we’ll feel more at ease, what do you think?”

Duan Zi nodded repeatedly, “Good.”

Du Ge said, “So be it.”

The villa had a good stock of candles, so each person took three and said goodbye to each other and went back to their rooms. The number of rooms was limited, so they shared a room in pairs. Lian Xue was a girl, so Jiang Luo couldn’t share a room with her, so the three of them, three big boys, had to squeeze into one room.

Returning to his room and closing the door, Jiang Luo asked Lian Qiang, “Do you think the host family looks familiar?”

Lian Qiang shook his head blankly, “We haven’t seen him.”

Jiang Luo mused, “Does Lian’s family rarely go out?”

“Rarely,” they both said dutifully, “do we even go out of this mountain unless we have to.”

No wonder.

Jiang Luo thought to himself, “No wonder Chi You dared to appear in his own body openly and without any fear of Lian Xue seeing who he was.

There were two beds in the room and the three men removed the middle headboard and combined the two beds into one king-size bed.

Lian Qiang and Lian Bing, who are used to doing things on their own since they were children, made their bed without Jiang Luo’s help. When they looked back after making the bed, they saw Jiang Luo standing in front of the mirror facing the bed, pondering.

Lian Qiang and Lian Bing came over and wondered, “Why do you still have a mirror over the bed?”

In addition to this, mirrors placed against the bedroom door, against the toilet door or against the toilet are all taboos in feng shui.

Jiang Luo said, “Take a cloth and cover the mirror.”

Too many mirrors in the home can lead to mental weakness and even affect physical and mental health. Therefore, mirrors should be placed with extreme caution.

Jiang Luo said that there was no problem with the feng shui layout of the villa, referring specifically to the nine-palace layout, but in terms of the placement of mirrors, none of the mirrors in the villa were in the right place.

But he didn’t say.

He was a cold man, but he knew how to repay the favour and had already made a note of any problems when he had been stomping around the villa. He had originally thought to wait for the owner to wake up and speak to him personally, but after meeting Chi You, oh well, there was no need to say anything.

Jiang Luo went around the bedroom and had almost all the mirrors taken down by Lian Qiang and the two men, before taking a picture of the Nine Heavens Ying Yuan Lei Sheng Pu Hua Tian Zun from his bag and sticking it on the door.

This is the boss of the thunder division in heaven, the leader of the gods and generals. He commands thunder, and his portrait is the most effective in warding off evil and avoiding disaster.

The two brothers of the Lien family had many questions, “Brother, why do these two mirrors need to be covered as well?”

“Two mirrors should not be placed opposite each other,” Jiang Luo reminds, “When you go out to stay in a hotel, in some hotels the television is placed at the end of the bed, right in the middle of the bed. At particular times, the TV is also a ‘mirror’ and it’s best to cover it up when you sleep.”

It dawned on the duo, “Brother, we remember.”

Time passed quickly and late in the evening the group walked out of the room with a candle.

Mirrors along the way reflect the candlelight in his hands, and Jiang Luo calmly walks past several mirrors of dancing flames to the ground floor. After a few moments, everyone had arrived. Jiang Luo looked at Lian Xue’s face, which seemed a little sickly, “How are you feeling?”

Lian Xue smiled and shook her head, “The housekeeper brought me a bowl of ginger soup before I went to bed and I took another home-made pill, so I’ll be fine when I get up tomorrow.”

“Sister,” Lian Bing said worriedly, “take care of your health.”

It was soon twelve o’clock when Jiang Luo and Chi You, the two main characters, went into the bathroom early, and the seven men, led by Duan Zi, were about to follow. He smiled at the door and said, “Excuse me, I have to go to the toilet first.”

Without waiting for a reaction from the crowd, he closed the door.

Lian Qiang froze, “Hey, my senior brother is still inside.”

The candles are placed on either side of the mirror and Jiang Luo looks at Chi You for a moment before leaning against the wall.

The walls were slightly cool, the cramped bathroom, and the two tall men were enough to make the space even smaller. But such a solitary atmosphere inevitably brought back memories and feelings of that one time on the boat for anyone.

The pain of being possessed and the strange sensations that Jiang Luo is almost ashamed to talk about afterwards crawl down his skeletal muscles in a painful, itchy, ant-eating pattern.

Yet none of them mentioned that room.

Jiang Luo’s face remained unchanged as he lowered his head and lit a cigarette, his hands and feet smelling mature and seductive after his bedtime experience. Jiang Luo felt eyes inching over his body, like a king coveting his unconquered territory.

Overly aggressive, the interplay of aggression and licking was enough to excite Jiang Luo’s spirit, “You’re still not on?”

He bit down on his cigarette as a reminder, but the evil spirit stepped closer towards him, forcing him between a wall and a cold body, “A chance encounter even in a blizzard, Jiang, you and I are wonderfully fated.”

Jiang Luo exhaled a puff of smoke at him, the end of his eyes teasing, smirking, “Mr. Chi, with such a coincidence of fate, it’s hard not to suspect that you didn’t have a hand in this.”

He clutched his cigarette, the butt sweeping against Chi You’s throat, one slip and he’d make an ugly burn mark on the pale neck, “Say, what do you want this time.”

Chi You raised an eyebrow and was about to say something when the candle flame in front of the mirror behind him suddenly flickered.

It’s twelve o’clock.

There was a knock on the door from outside, “Are you ready yet? It’s time.”

Jiang Luo sniggered and pushed Chi You out of the way, allowing the others to walk in.

The bathroom was already small, and with so many people standing around it was even more crowded. People were crowding each other, and they couldn’t move their arms. Jiang Luo and the evil spirits are squeezed together, his back pressed against their chests, too close for comfort.

Jiang Luo tried his best to remain calm as he looked into the mirror, but his muscles tensed uncontrollably. He heard a soft laugh from behind him and a few strands of hair were tickled by someone.

Jiang Luo’s forehead popped up with veins and he was about to lecture him when the candlelight in the bathroom suddenly flickered violently.

It is the time of the zodiac, the time of the heaviest Yin. Jiang Luo looks into the mirror, in which their faces are reflected, their faces as white as death in the dim light. Against the dark backdrop, the grey mirror is covered in a treacherous mist. There was no wind in the bathroom, but the candle flame struggled as if it was being blown by the wind, as if it would be extinguished in the next moment.

“What’s, what’s wrong with this?” Li Xiao held Duan Zi’s arm with trepidation.

“Get out,” Jiang Luo, well versed in the credo of running if something is wrong, shouted at the nearest person against the door, ” Lian Qiang open the door!”

Lian Qiang was already opening the door when he shouted, sweating profusely, “Brother, the door won’t open!”

Lian Bing swooped in to help, but the door wouldn’t budge.

Qin screamed and pointed at the mirror, “Aaaahhhh there’s a ghost!”

Jiang Luo subconsciously looked into the mirror, only to see a flash of red light on the mirror, and the next moment a sharp pain hit him, his eyes closed and he was plunged into darkness before any resistance could be made.

The dark-haired youth stumbled backwards and was held in time by a pair of pale hands.

At this point in the bathroom, apart from the evil spirits still standing, a trail of people had fallen to the ground.

Chi You’s face is a mixture of joy and anger as he picks Jiang Luo up horizontally, ignoring the others on the floor, and sets him down on the living room sofa.

“Come out.”

The lights suddenly came on and Housekeeper Yan appeared in the corner and said respectfully, “Master.”

Chi You looks down at Jiang Luo, the dark-haired young man unconscious, as if he were the most exquisite of mannequins.

His tone was cold, “What’s going on.”

Housekeeper Yan pulled off the Buddhist beads in his hands, his wrinkled face suddenly turned smooth and young, and the pretty-looking Buddha bent slightly, “Amitabha Buddha. Master, these people have been caught in the formation and their souls have been pulled into the mirror world.”

“I know,” Chi You , “I remember I told you to break the formation.”

“But isn’t the master curious?” Ge Wuchen’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked towards Jiang Luo , filled with curiosity, “Someone has specially set up a house here and arranged formations within it. And they have brought all these people together, what exactly is the person behind the curtain trying to do?”

“By replacing the two characters in this drama, you and I can watch without moving a muscle to see where things are going, to see what identity Jiang Luo Shih is playing in it …… and whether the one behind the scenes is the one we have been looking for so hard for many years. ”

Ge Wuchen said, “Master, this is why I thought it would be a good idea to leave the mirror formation as it is.”

When he had finished, he straightened up with a deep bend. But the evil spirit remained standing still as if it were a ghastly stone statue.

Ge Wuchen’s mind was suddenly blown.

As Chi You’s subordinates, they know Chi You’s personality inside out. When Chi You is smiling, it does not mean that he is in a happy mood. On the contrary, the deeper his smile and the higher the corners of his lips, the heavier the displeasure in his heart.

But when Chi You is completely expressionless, it is far more frightening than when he is not smiling.

This means that his hostility has reached the point where he wants to kill.

Ge Wuchen abruptly squeezed the Buddha beads tightly and instantly admitted his mistake, “Master ……”

But before he could finish his sentence, the black fog behind Chi You reached out and wrapped itself around Ge Wuchen with its teeth and claws. Ge Wuchen was dragged into the air by the fog by his neck, his head hitting the ceiling.

Another black mist condensed into the form of a hand and passed through the flesh and blood of Ge Wuchen’s chest. The pain of the black mist invading the flesh and blood was so intense that Ge Wuchen’s eyes widened instantly and the veins on his soft neck bared.

The black palm of his hand came to Ge Wuchen’s heart and held it in a vain grip.

The heart beats faster and faster because it feels threatened. The blood vessels spurt and contract heavily again and again.

” Ge Wuchen ,” said his master, “if it happens again, I will crush your heart.”

Ge Wuchen’s eyes were bloodshot and his teeth chattered as he said, “I, know …… was wrong, Master ……”

The black mist lifted and Ge Wuchen fell to the ground.

Chi You looked sideways at him, his dark eyes hiding a million chills, “Don’t test my attitude towards Jiang Luo again.”

Ge Wuchen braced himself on his knees, “Yes, Master, I will not make that mistake again.”

Chi You looked back at Jiang Luo.

A moment later, the aura around him subtly began to grow irritable, the black pressure thick, “Go and think of a way to get me into the mirror world as well.”

“Master, it is not easy, the mirror world cannot withstand your power,” Ge Wuchen coughed out a mouthful of blood and said humbly, “please give me two days.”