Chapter 2 New Roommate

Chapter 2 The New Roommate

The digestive system: "Huh?"

Clearly startled by his shout, the digestive system even paused its intestinal contractions for a moment.

Lin Jianyuan, having just shouted, was himself taken aback. His heart pounded. He raised a hand, saying, "Wait, sorry... just give me a moment."

He turned, entered his room, locked the door behind him, and quickly broke open a pill to take it.

What was that just now? A mouth and throat connected to intestines—a whole digestive system. How could such a thing be in his house? No, it must be another hallucination.

But this hallucination had spoken to him. It felt very wrong for intestines to speak human language, yet it had indeed used a mouth to speak... But it was an isolated digestive system! No, he needed water; the pill was stuck in his throat.

Lin Jianyuan quickly washed down the pill with plain water. The pill was sweet and dissolved instantly, giving him the sensation of rapidly healing his mind.

Lin Jianyuan immediately felt healthy again. He took a deep breath and, with renewed confidence, pushed the door open.

The digestive system: "Are you better now?"

The pink viscera was still there!

Lin Jianyuan: "..."

Lin Jianyuan paused for a second, then suddenly remembered a message he seemed to have received from his landlord that morning.

He pulled out his phone, made another "wait a moment" gesture, and lowered his head to scroll through his chat history.

"How interesting," the pink viscera chuckled softly. "It's the first time I've met someone like you."

Lin Jianyuan quickly found the landlord's chat and it clicked.

The landlord had said someone would come to view the house in the next couple of days and asked him to clean up. If the empty room next door couldn't be rented out, his rent would have to be increased.

He remembered now. The landlord had sent the message at 7:30 in the morning, when Lin Jianyuan was packed like a sardine in the subway during the morning rush hour.

He heard the WeChat notification and, risking his phone getting crushed in the crowd, managed to unlock the screen, only to see the landlord telling him to clean up and threatening to raise the rent.

Lin Jianyuan had almost thrown his phone in anger at the time.

Of course, there was no time to clean the room, and even if there were, he wouldn’t have gone back. It was so damn frustrating. The landlord was definitely just looking for an excuse to raise the rent.

...So maybe this pink viscera in front of him isn’t actually viscera.

*Maybe it’s actually a person? Has he had another episode, making him see humans as strange things?*

*That makes sense. Viscera doesn’t need to rent a house; people do.*

Lin Jianyuan quickly calmed down and smiled at the pink viscera, saying, "Hello, hello. I was a bit groggy earlier, sorry about that."

Pink viscera: "?"

The tender intestines wriggled slowly, making a gurgling sound. The pink viscera said, "Hello?"

Lin Jianyuan: "This house is quite nice. The area has all the amenities, the location is decent, and the landlord's reasonable. This morning, they even asked me to tidy up so you wouldn’t dislike it. But I was already out by then, so I didn’t have time. Sorry about that."

As he spoke, Lin Jianyuan kicked his scattered shoes into the shoe cabinet and swiftly cleaned up the takeout boxes he had left on the table the day before.

While clearing the table, he noticed his tablet was on, displaying a J-drama.

*No wonder there was that "bathe, dine, or me" dialogue... This new roommate has quite a twisted sense of humor,* Lin Jianyuan thought.

Lin Jianyuan tried hard to appear friendly, but the pink viscera said nothing, its intestines squirming and quietly "watching" him.

This feeling was quite surreal because the digestive system has no eyes. But it does include a mouth. When a... a digestive system turns its mouth toward you, your brain automatically imagines it staring at you.

*Yes, should I say "he"? The voice sounds male, quite young.*

*If it were a girl, she probably wouldn’t come once she heard the roommate was a man—it wouldn’t feel safe. Unless she brought her boyfriend to live with her.*

"By the way, the room for rent is over there. Have you seen it yet?" Lin Jianyuan opened the door to the empty room for him.

The guy who had been sharing the apartment with him had quit his job and gone back to his hometown, so this room had been empty for three months.

Actually, this room isn’t great—it’s a north-facing side bedroom. It’s okay in summer, but it gets chilly and damp in winter. But digestive system mucous membranes would probably prefer a more humid environment...

No! Damn it, it’s not a digestive system—it’s a person!

Lin Jianyuan tried hard to act normal, not wanting to scare off this potential roommate.

The pink viscera drifted into the room and "looked" around.

Lin Jianyuan asked expectantly, "What do you think?"

The pink viscera gave a noncommittal "Hmm," as if holding back a laugh.

Lin Jianyuan felt a bit awkward. He suspected he was being too enthusiastic, which might seem suspicious. But he didn’t have the energy to think about what to do next. He was... sleepy...

*Why did he suddenly feel so sleepy? Was it because of the pill he just took? Oh right, the doctor had told him not to drive or ride a bike after taking the medication...*

"Well, take your time looking around. I won’t disturb you. Anyway, I think this place is pretty good, and you’re welcome to move in. If you decide to leave after looking, just pull the door shut behind you... I’m really tired, I need to go take a nap, hah..."

Lin Jianyuan’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier. He waved at the guy, turned around, and went back to his room.

"Okay," the pink viscera said cheerfully.

Lin Jianyuan lay down on the bed and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. His chest rose and fell slowly, and his deep, even breathing could be heard through the crack in the door.

Click. The door opened, and the pink viscera slowly eased into the room.

"Why aren’t you afraid of me?" A section of intestine gently tapped Lin Jianyuan’s face, leaving a slightly damp spot.

"Never mind, it’s fine if you’re not afraid. There are other things to eat," the digestive system murmured to itself, slowly opening its mouth and relaxing its jaw. The pinkish throat opened to an exaggerated degree, like a snake unhinging its jaw. Its muscles rippled continuously.

Chomp.

It swallowed Lin Jianyuan’s head in one bite.

The moment it encased the human's head, a powerful energy flooded its throat.

Suppression, anger, irritation, anxiety... A flood of negative emotions, thick as honey, slid slowly down the esophagus, warmly filling the stomach. The thrill of feeding greatly satisfied its nerves.

It swallowed insatiably. It should have bitten through this fragile neck in one go, but as its teeth grazed against the warm human skin, it changed its mind.

Delicious. So delicious. It had never really liked fear anyway—too run-of-the-mill, and it had grown tired of it. This human wasn’t afraid of it and even invited it to live together...

Doesn’t that mean it can eat indefinitely?

It was the first time it had been invited by a human, and it felt weirdly new.

"Okay..." it mumbled indistinctly, slowly backing away while gradually spitting the human’s head back out.

Lin Jianyuan's face was covered in its saliva, glistening and slick. The digestive system "appraised" the face with great interest, finding the sight of the meal coated in drool utterly adorable.

No—it still wanted to eat.

It extended its tongue, licking its sharp canine teeth. There was no reason to suppress its appetite. It happily leaned down and bit into the other's Adam's apple.

This Adam's apple had once throbbed with swallowed anger and resentment. It could imagine how it had moved in the human's throat.

Mmm, delicious.

The digestive system savored the human's Adam's apple, taking its time before reluctantly pulling back.

"Burp."

Its pink intestines writhed, letting out a burp.

Burping after a meal wasn’t strange, but burping a rainbow-tinted burp was definitely odd.

"?" The digestive system froze, staring in shock at the colorful gas dissipating into the air.

After a second of silence, it decisively yanked the stomach and pried open the opening.

The recently full stomach was plump and full, its opening still slowly contracting after being roughly pulled open.

The gastric mucosa fizzed and bubbled, secreting a dazzling, rainbow-colored gastric fluid.

Rainbow-colored!

Why???

The digestive system, seeing this for the first time, was completely stunned.

The next day, Lin Jianyuan woke up to his alarm clock.

"Shit..." He had forgotten to turn off the alarm on his rare day off. Lin Jianyuan was so irritated he didn’t even want to open his eyes, furrowing his brows as he groped blindly for his phone.

His eyelids were heavy and sore, his head dizzy. After searching clumsily for a while without finding his phone, he was so angry he almost wanted to smash it.

Fortunately, he finally shut off the alarm. He rolled over and fell back asleep.

"Ding-ding-ding-ding-dong-dong-dong~"

"Ding-ding-ding-ding-dong-dong-dong~"

The WeChat call ringtone rang out, forcibly dragging Lin Jianyuan out of his dreams.

Lin Jianyuan didn’t want to answer, but the ringing persisted, making his head throb. There was no way he could go back to sleep.

"Damn it!" Lin Jianyuan finally snapped, leaping out of bed. Fuming, he grabbed his phone and saw that the WeChat call was from Yang Yu in HR.

HR... Why was HR contacting him?

Lin Jianyuan suppressed his temper and answered the call: "Hello, Ms. Yang?"

"Lin Jianyuan, did you forget to punch in?" Yang Yu asked.

Lin Jianyuan’s stomach dropped. Still half-asleep, he didn’t immediately understand what she meant, but he already had a bad feeling.

He said, "I didn’t go to the company today. I took sick leave. I asked General Manager Jiang directly during the meeting yesterday."

Yang Yu: "Yeah, I know you took leave yesterday. But General Manager Jiang said you only took half a day off yesterday afternoon."

Lin Jianyuan instantly exploded: "What do you mean? I asked for two days! Everyone heard me!"

Yang Yu was silent for a moment, then softened her tone: "Maybe you should... come to the office? Submit a formal sick leave note, the kind with a hospital stamp. General Manager Jiang... well, General Manager Jiang wants to see it."

Lin Jianyuan’s anger flared up instantly. That bastard Jiang Chen was messing with him!

Any sleepiness instantly vanished. Fuming, Lin Jianyuan threw on his clothes, slammed the door open, and muttered bitterly as he walked: "Fine. I’ll come to the company right now..."

Before he could finish, Lin Jianyuan stopped dead.

"Good morning," the digestive system said in a playful tone.

Ask him what it’s like to wake up first thing in the morning and see a talking pile of viscera.

Lin Jianyuan’s brain blue-screened for a moment until Yang Yu on the other end of the WeChat call noticed something was wrong: "Lin Jianyuan?"

"Ah." Lin Jianyuan snapped back to reality and mumbled, "It’s nothing, I’ll be at the company soon." He quickly hung up.

The pink viscera drifted serenely by the windowsill. Lin Jianyuan’s mouth twitched slightly as he asked, "Are you catching some rays?"

"Mm." The pink viscera responded noncommittally.

Lin Jianyuan took a deep breath, quickly pulling himself together. This isn’t viscera, this isn’t viscera, this is a person... He tried to shake off the bizarre vision’s effects and soon figured out what was happening.

"Did you see the place?" Lin Jianyuan asked. "Have you decided to move in?"

"Yeah." The pink viscera’s voice remained lighthearted.

Lin Jianyuan thought to himself that this guy was pretty decisive—he probably liked the room after seeing it yesterday and went straight to the landlord to sign the contract and pay the rent last night.

That was good, at least Lin Jianyuan would avoid a rent increase. And this guy seemed... no, "sounded"—he seemed friendly enough, and his voice was young, probably in his twenties.

Lin Jianyuan pulled out his phone: "Then let’s swap WeChat info. I have to get going now. Want me to help you move when I get back? Do you have a lot of stuff?"

Pink viscera: "I don’t have WeChat."

Lin Jianyuan: "?" Who doesn’t use WeChat these days?

Lin Jianyuan stalled for a second before realizing.

—Damn, this guy was rejecting him!

Thank goodness it was just about WeChat. If he’d asked for his name, this guy might’ve even said, "I don’t have a name."

Lin Jianyuan sheepishly put his phone away: "Alright then. Your call."

Lin Jianyuan hadn’t expected his new roommate to be like this—he seemed easygoing, but he wouldn’t even exchange WeChat.

Lin Jianyuan felt a pang of irritation, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He didn’t have the right to choose his roommate anyway. He’d just have to minimize contact from now on.

Lin Jianyuan took the subway to the company. Before even entering the office, he heard Jiang Chen’s snide voice.

"Lately, we need to standardize the leave system. This isn’t my idea, it’s from headquarters..."

Lin Jianyuan felt a balloon expanding in his chest, swelling until it felt like it would burst. Suppressing his emotions, he walked up behind Jiang Chen and said, "General Manager Jiang."

"Well, well." Jiang Chen turned around, looking him up and down with a smirk plastered on his face. "Lin Jianyuan. Reporting for duty?"