Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Su Xuanxiao stepped out of the dessert shop, embarking on his first aimless stroll through the Tourism Park.

Eeries required neither rest nor regular exercise to maintain their health. He typically avoided squandering time on such trivialities.

Along the path, every park employee instinctively and cautiously gave a wide berth to their boss, whose hands were tucked into his suit pockets, his glasses reflecting a deep, contemplative gaze.

The Eerie World, to be precise, wasn't born with its current vastness. It was forged from countless fragments of worlds it had consumed over time.

Thus, as the Eerie World expanded through its devouring, its inhabitants naturally diversified into two main categories.

Native Eeries: those born organically as the Eerie World evolved.

Foreign Eeries: those originating from the fragments of worlds devoured by the Eerie World, or those assimilated after entering the Eerie World through various means.

Su Xuanxiao belonged to the former group within the second category, as did Su Juzi and Su Jianglou.

As humans, they had perished alongside that dark, decaying world. Upon reawakening, they found themselves immortal Eeries.

Su Xuanxiao recalled the moment he awoke in this world—his mind a prolonged void, with Juzi beside him, having been awake for an unknown duration.

He believed they were still alive, yet Juzi, oblivious to his awakening, picked up a shattered aluminum can from the ground and, without a moment's hesitation, used its jagged edge to sever his own throat.

Blood erupted, splattering half of Su Xuanxiao’s face. Instinctively, he pressed his hand against Juzi’s neck, holding it there for a long time, until he realized the blood had pooled into every small depression on the ground, yet Juzi remained conscious.

Lying there, drenched in blood, Juzi parted his lips as if to speak.

He couldn't fathom what Juzi intended to say. Since his brother couldn't die, he simply left his second brother where he was and roused their still-slumbering third brother.

Much later, long after Juzi’s vocal cords had fully healed, the fog in Su Xuanxiao’s mind finally began to dissipate. He suddenly remembered—there should have been more than just three of them.

He had another brother.

A small child who, amidst the 'apocalypse,' had obediently nestled into his elder brother’s embrace, closing his eyes alongside his exhausted siblings.

He vanished in the new world.

Almost vanished from his brothers’ memories as well.

***

The transformation from human to Eerie was akin to a rebirth.

Some powerful Eeries subsisted solely on their obsessions, existing in a dazed state, unable to articulate the precise nature of their fixation or the experiences that shaped them.

Thus, when another world fell prey to the Eerie World’s invasion, some Eeries subconsciously harbored a hope that the so-called players might unravel their 'instances.'

For the 'instances' players spoke of were, for the most part, intimately connected to these Eeries’ obsessions.

As for Su Xuanxiao, beyond expanding his territory over the years, his sole leisure activity was to mentally replay, time and again, the day he, Juzi, and Jianglou awoke.

Juzi had awakened earlier than both him and Jianglou, likely because his death had been less complete.

Moreover, since he and Xibao had been clinging to each other when they lost consciousness, Juzi, upon waking, had sensed the void in his arms and the mental haze sooner than they did.

To counteract this, Juzi resorted to the most extreme measure, using pain to anchor himself to reality.

This allowed him to retain his memories most fully.

He and Jianglou, having awakened a beat too late, missed their chance to inflict such a wound upon themselves.

They could only gradually reclaim their memories as their power grew.

Each time he revisited this memory, even Su Xuanxiao, usually so tolerant of his brothers, couldn't help but feel a flicker of resentment.

Putting everything else aside, when he was pressing his hand against Juzi’s neck, couldn’t Juzi have taken the opportunity to cut him too?

Speaking of Juzi…

Had he truly found Red 1, the Director of the Tourism Park, in the Sunshine Community of the neighboring city?

Touching his own neck, the man standing by the lake in the Tourism Park looked deep in thought, his eyes shadowed.

***

Unable to purchase a cake at the Tourism Park, Su Xuanxiao instead visited a dessert shop located at the base of the Su Financial Group building.

By the time he returned to the Tourism Park office, Su Jianglou, who had been waiting for a while, couldn’t help but complain, "Big brother, what took you so long to buy something?"

Su Xuanxiao surveyed his office, which resembled the aftermath of a typhoon, then glanced at Jianglou, who clearly bore the brunt of a recent skirmish, before turning his gaze to the other person present.

"Changed your 'skin'?" Su Xuanxiao asked the person sitting on the sofa with his head bowed.

The "skin" he referred to wasn’t literal human skin, but a specialized garment manufactured by a factory under the Su Financial Group. When worn, it allowed Eeries of any form to convincingly mimic human appearance. Hence, it was colloquially known as "human skin."

Su Jianglou scoffed, "It’s not the skin—it’s his own."

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been slammed to the ground just from a minor scratch.

Su Xuanxiao chose to temporarily overlook the conflict between his two younger brothers. He placed the cake he bought on the desk, opened the box, and began inserting candles while encouraging Jianglou, "It seems, Jianglou, that you still have some way to go before you can achieve your goal of mixing Juzi with cement and trampling him under the floor for ten years."

Su Jianglou offered no rebuttal.

The person on the sofa, hearing his brother’s plans for him, showed no anger. He rose, walked to the desk, picked up another box of candles, and casually handed half to Jianglou to help insert.

On Su Xuanxiao’s birthday, the three brothers, who rarely saw each other lately, gathered. After blowing out the candles, they each took a slice of the already small birthday cake.

Throughout, Su Xuanxiao never mentioned that he had gone to the park’s dessert shop only to find the last cake had already been bought by someone else.

Once the cake was finished, the briefly reunited brothers prepared to go their separate ways to attend to their own matters.

Before they left, however, Su Xuanxiao spoke up, "Juzi, Jianglou, the family portrait I commissioned from a painter in the neighboring city last year was lost just before completion. I’m tied up at the Tourism Park right now and would like you to help me find it."

Both brothers, called to attention by their elder, wanted to refuse.

But then Su Xuanxiao added, "That painter is very talented. During our video call, based on my descriptions, he captured the likenesses of our family of four perfectly. It’s truly a shame the painting is lost."

Su Jianglou: "......" "I’ll go."

Su Xuanxiao then turned his gaze to his other brother.

The other simply nodded and agreed, "Understood."

***

Su Ximu bought a cake at noon, but he didn’t eat it right away. Instead, he wanted to return the favor by inviting Group Leader Lan242 to share it with him.

In the evening, Lan242, having returned to the dorm after his vacation, gladly accepted the invitation from next door.

That night, Su Ximu and Group Leader Lan242 shared the cake he had bought, and he also applied mushroom nutrient fertilizer to the mushrooms in the pot.

The fertilizer was a souvenir Lan242 had brought back from outside. It could be used on other plants too, though it wasn’t as effective as it was on mushrooms.

The next morning, when Su Ximu took a small spray bottle to the balcony to check on the mushrooms, he noticed that the mushrooms, which he had already moved to a shady corner of the balcony, were clearly perkier than they had been in previous days.

He held his hand up to one of the blue mushrooms and found that, after using the fertilizer, it had grown a full two centimeters taller than it was yesterday without the fertilizer!

It seemed that Group Leader Lan242 was not only experienced in work but also quite knowledgeable about plants.

Su Ximu mused to himself. After spending a little time tending to the mushrooms on the balcony, he went back inside, opened the hidden compartment of his suitcase, took out the remaining five hundred-yuan bills he had, and stuffed them into his pocket.

Today was a rest day at the Tourism Park, and it was his and Group Leader Lan242's turn to take the day off.

Last night, they had agreed that after Group Leader Lan242 finished his errands in the afternoon, they would go to the nearby zoo together.

Group Leader Lan242 had been taking such good care of him lately, so this time at the zoo, Su Ximu definitely wasn't going to let Group Leader Lan242 pay.

Even between the best of friends, things should go both ways—it shouldn’t be just one person doing all the giving.

That's not what friendship is about; that would be taking advantage of others.

Su Ximu stood up, determined that at the zoo that afternoon, no matter what Group Leader Lan242 wanted to play or eat, he would insist on paying.

Five hundred yuan could still go a long way in this world.

Su Ximu was making these plans, but he hadn’t considered the saying that the best-laid plans often go awry.

As he stood in his dorm, feeling the five hundred yuan bulging in his pocket, his phone, also in his pocket, began to buzz.

Su Ximu thought it might be his "Third Brother" calling again and answered directly.

But he heard a somewhat unfamiliar male voice on the other end: "Hello, Xiao Mu?"

Su Ximu took a moment to place the voice before speaking: "Big Brother?"

Hearing the person on the other end say "Mm," he knew he had guessed correctly and politely asked, "Big Brother, what's up?"

Su Ximu listened to what his "Big Brother" said next—it was brief and clear, but he found it hard to process.

"Big Brother" said: Come downstairs, I’ll take you to the amusement park.

His "Big Brother," whom he hadn’t heard from in days, said he would take him to the amusement park. The amusement park.

The young man, phone in hand, hurried a few steps, leaned over the dormitory railing to look down.

Sure enough, a black car was already parked downstairs.

The person in the car saw him, rolled down the window, and gestured for him to come down.

Su Ximu felt torn and reluctant to go. He put the phone back to his ear: "Okay, Big Brother, I’ll be right down."

He locked the dormitory door, went downstairs, and got into the car—the whole process took less than five minutes.

Once in the car, Su Ximu sat stiffly in his seat, wanting to start a conversation but not knowing what to say.

He could only steal a few glances at his "Big Brother" during the ride, feeling that his Big Brother seemed a bit strange today.

This area seemed to be a cluster of large parks. After driving out of the Tourism Park, it took less than ten minutes to stop at the entrance of another park.

Su Ximu got out of the car and looked at the park’s whimsical pastel-colored gate, as well as the rainbow-colored pony carousel in the center inside the gate. He couldn’t help but look down at himself, then looked back at his "Big Brother."

His "Big Brother" was... taking him to a children’s amusement park.

How was that supposed to work?

"Big Brother, will any other kids be joining us later? I saw at the ticket office that adults without children don’t seem to be able to buy tickets," Su Ximu asked.

Su Xuanxiao, who was unusually not wearing formal attire today, looked at him and said, "I did bring a child."

At first, Su Ximu wanted to ask where the child was, but then he realized the other person was looking straight at him.

"Me? Me?"

Author's Note:

Little Mu: Never seen a child who’s over two hundred months old. Trying to look serious.