Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The boy was slight of frame, surrounded by three male students. Even though he was the tallest of the three, he somehow came off as the weakest, almost pitiful.

"Seriously?" Wei Yao turned to his buddies in disbelief. "Is he out of his mind? He actually thinks Jin Qi and those three idiots approached him to make friends?"

Wei Yao no longer found the Little Blind's sharp tongue endearing. He figured he must be blind too—this kid was just a dumbass. "Where's all that backbone he had when he was mouthing off to me and Xu Wangchuan? Why's he turning into a pushover with Jin Qi?"

Among his friends, a guy named Wen Dajiang was closest to Wei Yao. He rolled his eyes so hard they almost got stuck in the back of his head, reaching out to feel Wei Yao's forehead. "Old Wei, you running a fever or what?"

Someone stifled a laugh. "I'd say he's got a bad case of the hots."

"Yeah, Brother Yao, no matter how hot that Little Blind is, he's still a dude. A dude! What's the point of being hot?"

Wei Yao slapped Wen Dajiang's hand away with a cold laugh. "You're all begging for it! I just think the kid's fun—cooped up in this school like a pig getting fattened for slaughter. Gotta find some way to have fun."

His buddies had nothing to say to that and just went along with it. "Alright, but looks like Jin Qi's crew's got their eyes on your little toy too. You gonna do anything about it?"

Jin Qi's crew was from the international department, and they had a shitty rep at Nanming. Wei Yao, on the other hand, had the title "Nanming's Little Tyrant," but he'd actually gotten into the excellence class on his own merit. Sure, he was dead last in that class, but that still put him at the top of the food chain.

Plus, he never started shit on campus. He could be a bit of a bully, sure, but he didn't go out of his way to mess with classmates like Jin Qi's crew did. Any real beef got settled off campus. In street terms, Brother Yao was a stand-up guy!

But Brother Yao wasn't exactly some white knight who'd jump in to save the day. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Do something? Once Jin Qi's crew gives him a taste of their 'hospitality,' he'll figure out who the real good guys are."

Even so, he still craned his neck to peek at the table in the corner.

Jin Qi had already left with his crew. Xu Muchan sat alone in the corner. Xu Wangchuan, the one who'd brought him here, had vanished to God knows where. After sitting there for a bit, he apparently decided he'd waited long enough. He picked up his tray with one hand, gripped his cane with the other, and slowly shuffled off like a little turtle to return his tray.

Lunch was peak hour in the cafeteria, and the tables were crammed together. He clearly didn't know the way. His cane helped him feel around, but he was slow and kept bumping into stuff, stumbling the whole way.

Wei Yao muttered under his breath, "Is this kid dumb or what? He can't see, why doesn't he just ask someone for help?"

Just then, he spotted a girl carrying a tray heading over to him. She was wearing the black-white-and-blue Nanming uniform, small and skinny, with a low ponytail. She looked familiar.

Wei Yao dug his elbow hard into Wen Dajiang's ribs. "Who's that? She looks familiar."

Wen Dajiang sighed. "Bro, that's He Jiaqi. She's in our class. No shit she looks familiar."

He Jiaqi lightly tapped the new kid's shoulder as he stumbled along. "Xu Muchan, are you returning your tray? I'll walk you over."

Xu Muchan froze for a second, then nodded his thanks and followed after her.

The tray return station wasn't far—just a few steps.

"Here, I got it." He Jiaqi took the tray from Xu Muchan and set it on the cart with the others.

Xu Muchan wasn't used to such straightforward kindness. He thanked her again.

"I'm He Jiaqi. I'm in your class, I sit two rows ahead of you."

She looked like she wanted to say something. After hesitating for a moment, she worked up the nerve to whisper a warning: "The guys who came to see you earlier—that was Jin Qi. They're seniors in the international department. They've got a bad rep around here and mess with students all the time. I've... been messed with by them too. Don't trust them."

With her courage spent, He Jiaqi hung her head and hurried off.

Xu Muchan opened his mouth to say something, but she was already gone.

He stood there for a moment, filing the new classmate's name away in his memory, then slowly tapped his way out of the cafeteria.

He'd barely taken two steps when Xu Wangchuan, who'd been gone forever, popped out of nowhere and grabbed him. "Muchan, there you are. You can't see, so you shouldn't be wandering around by yourself."

Xu Muchan didn't bother explaining, just followed Xu Wangchuan's lead. "Let's head back to the classroom. I want to rest for a bit."

Xu Wangchuan studied his expression, tempted to ask what he thought of Jin Qi. But then he thought better of it—Jin Qi's crew didn't hold back when they bullied people. If something went down tomorrow, better to plead ignorance.

That way, if anyone came asking questions later, he wouldn't accidentally let something slip.

With that settled, Xu Wangchuan said, in an unusually gentle tone, "Alright, let's go back. The driver called—he said the things you ordered have arrived."

The driver had dropped off the recording pen Xu Muchan had asked for, plus a senior-friendly phone loaded with all the digital textbooks.

The senior phone had physical buttons, which were even easier to use than a touchscreen with accessibility mode on. Xu Muchan loved it.

He felt around for a bit and quickly got the hang of the main buttons on both the recording pen and the phone.

By afternoon class, with the recording pen helping out, Xu Muchan taped the lessons and replayed them over and over during evening study to really soak it all in. When he didn't get something, he'd ask Xu Wangchuan next to him. It was way easier than when he'd first started.

He noticed Yundong's curriculum was pretty much the same as Nanming's, but Nanming went way deeper. A lot of stuff Yundong's teachers just skimmed over, Nanming's teachers actually dug into.

Xu Muchan had a solid foundation, so the basics weren't a problem. He just needed to catch up on the advanced stuff.

Realizing that took a huge weight off his shoulders. By the time evening study ended and he headed home, he still had a smile on his face.

In his good mood, Xu Muchan was nice to everyone—including his brother, who'd turned down his offering the night before.

That night, after everyone had gone to their rooms, Xu Muchan snuck into the kitchen, grabbed an egg, mixed it with raw rice, stuck a thin incense stick in it, and placed it carefully in front of the shrine.

Xu Muchan sat cross-legged on the wooden floor. The cabinet with the shrine came up to his chin. He pressed his hands on the cabinet's base, rested his chin on his hands, and leaned in close to the shrine, chattering about his day at school.

"The teachers at the new school explain things much more clearly. Even though I can't see, if I listen to the recordings a few times, I can understand everything."

"The campus is really nice too. I heard some people talking—there's a big library with tons of books."

"There are lots of clubs too, with plenty of activities. Though since I can't see right now, I probably can't join any."

"Oh, I met some senior students in the cafeteria today. They're really nice. They said they want to be friends with me."

Xu Muchan blinked his dark, glossy eyes, a faint smile curving at his lips—somewhat shy, somewhat hopeful. "I feel like the new school is much better than I expected. Brother, can I bring you along tomorrow? I want to show you my school and my friends."

The young man's voice was clear and soft. His black, watery eyes couldn't focus due to his blindness, but that didn't stop them from being misty and alluring, baiting the trap for prey.

The shadows in the room writhed and gathered behind the boy, twisting from flat shapes into a three-dimensional human form.

The overly dark silhouette stood over two meters tall. Its arms spread wide, forming an invisible cage around Xu Muchan. Its back arched, its long thin neck bent down, hissing by Xu Muchan's ear: "Achan, you're mine."

The boy trapped in the cage was oblivious. He tilted his ear and waited, but received no response.

If he hadn't been certain before whether his brother had followed him, the mysterious healing of the wound on his finger that morning had confirmed it. His brother was definitely here.

Though he still refused to show himself, that was fine—as long as he was here.

Xu Muchan smiled and lay there a while longer. When the incense burned out and the scent faded from the room, he slowly sat up, closed the cabinet door, and headed to the bathroom to shower.

He didn't know that his brother was clinging to his back, limbs wrapped tightly around him, following him inside.

Xu Muchan went to bed early that night, because the next morning he had an eye examination at the hospital.

But in the middle of the night, half-asleep, he heard the doorknob rattling—"click-clack, click-clack"—and a voice calling his name mournfully by his ear, shrill and piercing, stabbing painfully into his ears.

Xu Muchan's brows furrowed tightly, his eyelashes trembling uneasily, about to wake up—when a pair of hands quickly covered his ears.

With the irritating sound gone, Xu Muchan's expression settled, and he sank back into deep sleep.

Once he was sure the man was asleep, the towering shadow released its grip and stormed out the door, oozing menace.

Thick as crude oil, the shadow seeped out from under the door, slithering down the hallway on patrol—the thing that had been knocking had already vanished as soon as it appeared.

But the shadow was not satisfied. After sweeping through the entire first floor, it slid down the stairs toward the basement.

The third underground level was bitterly cold at night, with a thick white mist hanging in the air, barely revealing a deep-red shrine and the idol enshrined within it.

A statue of the God of Joy, standing over a meter tall, was draped in red cloth, with fresh fruit offerings placed on the altar table before it, flanked by two thick carved incense candles.

The shadow halted before the shrine, its surging form momentarily solidifying, as if it had encountered some perplexing puzzle that brought it to a standstill.

But after a moment, it stirred again, the oil-thick black shadow boiling and churning, climbing up the legs of the altar table like spilled ink or creeping mold.

The wood groaned with a teeth-grating creak, and in an instant, the table and its offerings crumbled into piles of pitch-black debris, while the shadow's area continued to expand, growing denser and deeper, surging with overwhelming yin energy as it spread toward the central statue of the God of Joy...