Chapter 28 Qixi Festival

Chapter 28: Qixi Festival (Chinese Valentine's Day)

But what does the Qixi Festival have to do with an overworked, single office drone?

It was Friday, though. Lin Jianyuan suddenly remembered it was his turn to clean this week. Tomorrow, he’d have to do a deep clean at home.

Just thinking about the cleanup made Lin Jianyuan feel even more exhausted. His already tired body seemed to be weighed down by a boulder, making it hard to catch his breath.

Thankfully, life comes with a skip button.

He’d go back, take a quick shower, and go to bed early tonight. Tomorrow, he’d sleep in and then tackle the cleanup…

Skip.

Lin Jianyuan took out his key and jiggled it into the lock. As usual, the key slipped in effortlessly.

Somehow, Lin Jianyuan suddenly remembered his roommate’s throat when he first swallowed a frog.

At the same time, a familiar voice chimed in.

"You’re back."

"Yeah, I’m back," Lin Jianyuan replied.

Just as he was about to enter, he noticed the floor was remarkably clean.

No, more than clean. Upon closer inspection, some of the tiles were still damp, with traces of water visible.

Lin Jianyuan was puzzled. When he swung open his bedroom door, he was even more shocked.

Not only the living room, but even his room, the floor was damp!

However, aside from the floor, everything else in his room was untouched.

The bed was messy, with the sheets and blanket exactly as he’d left them that morning. The wardrobe and drawers showed no signs of being opened.

It could be said that apart from the floor being pristine and shiny enough to reflect light, nothing else in the room had been disturbed.

Lin Jianyuan was truly surprised. He never expected his room to tidy itself up while he was out at work. Even if it was just the floor.

He turned around and saw the pink offal floating quietly in mid-air, its gallbladder plump and smooth, its liver capsule glossy, and its slightly deflated pale pink stomach slowly rising and falling as if breathing.

The intestines were wet.

—Wet and also a bit dirty.

The originally soft, pink intestinal tube had picked up quite a bit of dust near the ground, making it look somewhat filthy.

Lin Jianyuan: "."

His mind vividly pictured the pink offal crawling all over the house while he was out, incidentally scrubbing the floors spotless in the process.

—But his roommate isn’t a digestive system; his roommate is human. Human!

So there’s no way his roommate would secretly crawl around the house while he was away—and even crawl into his room to do it.

His roommate must have just—mopped the floor!

Not only did he mop the shared areas of the living room, but he even mopped Lin Jianyuan’s room while he was at it.

What an angelic roommate!

Lin Jianyuan, who had been feeling exhausted about the upcoming cleanup tomorrow, suddenly felt the pressure vanish. He couldn’t help but say, "Let me treat you to dinner!"

Pink offal: "Huh?"

Lin Jianyuan took his roommate to a small, humble eatery not far from their home.

Although the restaurant was small, it made up for it by offering good food at low prices.

"This place doesn’t use pre-packaged meals; everything is cooked to order," Lin Jianyuan remarked casually. "The taste is pretty good, too."

The kitchen was right behind the cashier counter, and when ordering, you could see the chefs stir-frying energetically in the back.

The aroma of the wok filled the air.

Roommate: "How does it compare to my cooking?"

Lin Jianyuan answered without hesitation, "This place tastes so good it’s like home-cooked food. Your cooking is so good it’s like gourmet restaurant fare."

The roommate laughed at that, his lips curving into a smile.

His slightly deflated gastrointestinal tract twitched contentedly, a sight of great medical educational value.

The small restaurant had clean tables, chairs, and floors.

The customers at the next table had just left, and the proprietress came over with a rag, swiftly clearing the table.

The tabletop immediately became spotless again, a welcome sight.

"What do you want to eat?" Lin Jianyuan looked at the menu on the wall.

Pink offal: "Let’s order one of everything on the wall!"

Lin Jianyuan: "?"

The proprietress behind the cashier counter couldn’t help but glance up at them upon hearing this.

"Stop joking around. Hurry up, I’m starving," Lin Jianyuan said, laughing as he gave his roommate’s side a light punch.

"You order," the roommate also smiled. "I’ll eat whatever."

Lin Jianyuan: "Then sautéed pig liver... uh no, braised large intestine... uh, never mind."

Lin Jianyuan glanced at the pink offal beside him and broke out in a cold sweat.

He suddenly realized that his usual favorites were all kinds of offal. Was this why his roommate appeared as offal in his eyes?

"Lin Jianyuan, get a grip!"

After a long while, he finally managed to pick something from his preferences that didn’t overlap with his roommate:

"...Let’s get tomato and egg stir-fry, and green pepper with shredded pork."

"Tomato and egg stir-fry, green pepper with shredded pork," the proprietress tapped into the order machine deftly. "Anything else?"

Lin Jianyuan realized that the two dishes he’d ordered were both light entrees. Since he was treating someone, he should at least order a substantial meat dish.

And he had to avoid all kinds of offal... otherwise, it would feel awkward...

"Any dietary restrictions?" Lin Jianyuan asked after a moment.

Pink Offal: "Nope," he replied.

Lin Jianyuan: "Alright, then let's get two... no, four chicken legs."

After all, his roommate was a male college student in his early twenties—prime bottomless-pit age. He was worried ordering too little might leave him hungry.

Four chicken legs, two for each. Admittedly, Lin Jianyuan loved chicken legs too.

Pink Offal: "Sounds good."

The two found a seat and sat down. The restaurant wasn’t too busy at the moment, and their sizzling hot dishes arrived quickly.

Lin Jianyuan got up to scoop rice and also asked for a soup.

They picked up their chopsticks and began eating face to face.

Honestly, watching his roommate use his intestines to curl around the chopsticks and eat bite by bite was both thrilling and bizarre.

No matter how many times Lin Jianyuan saw it, it always felt new.

Especially when he chewed his food slowly and deliberately, then swallowed. You could clearly see the thin, lengthy esophagus stretch open as a small bulge slid all the way down, right into the stomach.

As his roommate continued chewing and swallowing, the originally slightly deflated stomach gradually expanded, its mucosal lining becoming more and more pronounced.

The gallbladder and pancreas pulsed rhythmically, looking oddly adorable.

—Lin Jianyuan hadn’t known why the gallbladder and pancreas pulsed like that during meals until he looked it up and learned it was because they were secreting digestive juice.

How could his hallucination be so medically accurate?

He hadn’t even realized his subconscious held so much medical knowledge—how else could he conjure up such a precise and rigorous hallucination?

It could literally be a medical demo video.

Honestly, watching a complete digestive system eat right in front of him was incredibly fascinating.

Like watching a dog eating livestream.

He could sit there and watch it all day.

Wait… in a way, wasn’t his roommate’s eating basically human mukbang?

Except this human was eating a little too… exposed.

"Why do you keep staring at me?" his roommate suddenly asked.

Lin Jianyuan awkwardly lied: "I wasn’t. I’m just a bit tired, zoning out."

"Rough day at work again?" His roommate set down his chopsticks, his soft intestines coiling up to prop his chin. "Lots going on?"

"Yeah." Lin Jianyuan told him about the air conditioning incident during the day.

He expected his roommate to laugh hysterically about him wearing a skirt, but instead, his roommate said, "You really put them through the wringer—shouldn’t you be feeling pretty satisfied? Why do you still seem upset?"

Lin Jianyuan replied self-deprecatingly, "Satisfied? This is real life, not internet fiction. I still have to keep working there."

Yeah, real life wasn’t some wish-fulfillment story.

Today I showed up the efficiency consultant, and in a few days, who knows how they'll make life hard for him.

Having been an office drone for so many years since graduating from college, Lin Jianyuan wasn't clueless about this reality.

But he just couldn’t help it.

He is, after all, mentally ill.

"Hmm," his roommate nodded. "I see."

Lin Jianyuan: "What do you mean, 'I see'?"

Roommate: "You really are cut out for office work."

Lin Jianyuan: "? Is that even English?"

"Of course not."

After saying this with total seriousness, even the roommate couldn’t help but snort a laugh.

...It has to be said, the roommate’s lips are quite nice. Especially when he smiles. The curve of his mouth is really attractive.

This feeling was weird because Lin Jianyuan was used to looking into people’s eyes when talking, and as everyone knows, the digestive tract doesn’t have eyes.

So he could only look at his roommate’s only facial feature—his mouth.

Through this mouth, he imagined his roommate’s entire face and the expression he wore while speaking.

And then he realized that his roommate’s lips were actually quite nice. Pink, soft, and with a healthy color.

He looked every bit like a fresh college guy who hadn’t yet been corrupted by office life.

...Wait.

Staring at a college guy’s lips made him seem totally gay!

Lin Jianyuan’s scalp prickled, and he quickly averted his gaze.

After finishing the meal, Lin Jianyuan suddenly remembered something and said, "I need to go to the supermarket to buy some things."

Roommate: "Sure."

Lin Jianyuan paused.

Roommate: "What’s wrong?"

"...Nothing. Let’s go." Lin Jianyuan smiled and shook his head.

He had originally intended to let his roommate go back first and go to the supermarket alone. Unexpectedly, his roommate thought he was inviting him along.

This was the first time Lin Jianyuan had hit the supermarket with a roommate.

Before Xie Yu moved in, Lin Jianyuan’s previous roommate was also an office drone. That guy was only in his twenties but hadn’t gone to college and had been working at a boba shop.

That boba shop had great business, and the former roommate would shake drinks till his arms were dead. In his own words: "Even masturbating feels like working overtime."

Lin Jianyuan and his former roommate weren’t that close. After all, both were busy with work and sometimes wouldn’t see each other for a week.

It was just one early morning, as Lin Jianyuan was heading out to work, that his former roommate suddenly stuck his head out of his room and said, "I’m going back to my hometown."

Lin Jianyuan was a bit surprised but didn’t know what to say, so he simply replied, "Oh, safe travels."

The former roommate also seemed to have nothing more to say, so he nodded at him and went back to his room to get some more sleep.

After that, the former roommate moved out of the house.

The former roommate had shared the same roof with him for three years, yet by the end, they were just nodding acquaintances.

Nothing like now.

"No. This one’s sugar-free."

The roommate bent over, using his arm to pick up the cola he had just put in the shopping cart, placed it back on the shelf, and started looking all over again.

Lin Jianyuan pushed the cart behind him, watching as he picked things out along the way.

The cart was filled with all kinds of snacks—chips, biscuits, marshmallows—plus the pack of cola the roommate had just added.

Surprisingly, the roommate, a guy, was really into snacks.

Lin Jianyuan felt somewhat resigned. The shampoo and laundry detergent at home were running out, and he had originally planned to get in and out quickly, but he hadn’t expected his roommate to enjoy grocery shopping so much.

It'd actually become two guys grocery shopping together.

What was even more surprising was that the roommate seemed to be in a supermarket for the first time, curious about every product on the shelves, wanting to check out everything.

If he'd had eyes, Lin Jianyuan was sure they would be lighting up.

Lin Jianyuan was already worn out from work, but as he pushed the cart and watched his roommate enthusiastically picking out items, he found it weirdly relaxing.

This roommate was like a little kid.

The more Lin Jianyuan watched, the more amused he felt. The roommate’s excitement about grocery shopping was like that of an elementary school kid the day before a spring outing, which made Lin Jianyuan, a burned-out office worker, feel a rare sense of vitality.

Youth is really something.

Lin Jianyuan had graduated from university a long time ago, while Xie Yu was only a junior? Or a senior?

That meant he was at least five years younger.

Being young is great!

Lin Jianyuan eventually got everything he needed, and the two of them pushed the cart to the checkout together.

After returning home, Lin Jianyuan checked the receipt to split the cost. He had paid for everything at the checkout. After calculating, he said to his roommate, "78.3 yuan."

"Mhm, mhm." The roommate took out his phone to transfer the money.

The next second, the roommate froze.

Lin Jianyuan: "What’s wrong?"

The roommate looked up from his phone and said innocently, "I'm broke."

Lin Jianyuan: "???"

Seriously?

You don’t even have 78.3 yuan.

Lin Jianyuan gave him an exasperated look: "If you’re broke, why didn’t you say something? Ask your parents for money."

The roommate: "But I don't have parents."

Lin Jianyuan’s pupils shook as every tragic backstory imaginable flashed through his mind.

Instantly, he felt so guilty that he’d probably slap himself out of guilt in the middle of the night.