Who was she? And what was this dream I had last night..

“Oi, kid,” Chu Bai began to talk before I could ponder over it. “Are you going to meet that man today?”

I was confused and unable to answer, “What man?”

“You know, that man!”

“Oh, you mean Wen Jiubo?” I finally realized who she was talking about.

“I..How would I know his name?”

“En..I’m not sure,” I replied after thinking for a second. “I guess if I don’t have any homework today..”

Unexpectedly, Chu Bai interrupted me before I could finish.

“No! Aren’t you his apprentice? How could you skip work two days in a row?”

I was amused by her. “Huh? Apprentice? Wait, who told you I’m his apprentice? That guy is only a stingy and cheap employer, he not only never pays me, but always forces me to do things..”

As I started complaining, I felt the phone vibrating in my pocket.

I took it out, and the screen displayed Wen Jiubo’s name.

What a coincidence! To call me with this timing definitely wasn’t a good thing!

“Hello?” I picked up the phone in an unfriendly tone. “What’s up, I haven’t had my lunch yet, so hurry up.”

He was silent for a bit before saying joyfully, “I think you have already eaten.”

“Huh?”

“You must have eaten something wrong,” Wen Jiubo said slowly. “You are in such a bad mood today.”

I instantly gave in. Even when I tried to act tough, he always managed to make me speechless.

“Are you dumb?” I rolled my eyes. “Come on, why are you calling me? If it’s just to make fun of me, then I’m hanging up.”

Wen Jiubo let out a laugh and said, “No, not this time. I need your help.”

“For what?”

“Gu Yu, come to the old residence after class. I need your help with something important.” Wen Jiubo thought it over for a few seconds before talking again, “By the way, this may take a while, you’ll probably need to pull an all-nighter.”

See, what did I say just now, isn’t Wen Jiubo a scrooge? He asks me to work through the whole night for free without even feeling guilty about it!

No, I won’t go, I don’t care about your important thing, I have classes the next morning!

“Okay, I’ll be there, no problem!”

Before I even realized, I had already said those words and I wasn’t able to take it back.

“Uh?” Wen Jiubo was surprised, “You agreed so easily, I thought that with your temper, I would have to ask another two or three times.”

No! That was Chu Bai ——

“I can be very nice sometimes.”

Wen Jiubo smiled and said in an amused tone, “Oh, I see, a nice kitten is cute.”

“Er, no, Wen Jiubo, listen—— ” I managed to regain control of my body, but Wen Jiubo interrupted me.

“Alright, alright, I get it. I’ll wait for you to come, bye.”

Then he hung up the phone.

I took a deep breath and put the phone back in my pocket.

“Chu Bai ——!!”

Someone later told me that he saw me yell by myself like a lunatic. But, of course, that is another story altogether.

——————————————————————

However, even though I was angry at Chu Bai for taking control of my body, I promised Wen Jiubo that I would come and didn’t want to ditch him. As a result, after class, I dejectedly walked to the old residence.

When passing through a reed bed where the reeds grew taller than a man, I warned Chu Bai again,

“If you do that again, I swear I will mercilessly leave you to Wen Jiubo, and I don’t know how he’ll treat you. Do you understand?”

Chu Bai’s voice was filled with laziness, she didn’t care about what I said, “Oh, I know, I know, why are you being more careful than a little girl?”

I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. “That’s because you are being ridiculous! I’m warning you, you can’t show up in front of Wen Jiubo. He’s an exorcist, his job is to deal with evil spirits like you!”

“What are you talking about! I’m not evil!”

“You forcefully possessed someone else’s body, if you aren’t an evil spirit, then nothing in this world is!”

“Okay, okay, I promise.” Chu Bai seemed very disappointed, and she muttered, “In any case, even if I showed up, he wouldn’t..”

I was standing in front of Wen Jiubo’s old residence so I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of her sentence.

I pushed the old wooden door open and popped my head inside before entering the yard, “Wen Jiubo?”

As expected, no one answered me. However, judging from the warm temperature and the blooming roses in the yard, I knew he was inside.

I let out a sigh and entered the house in a bad mood. What was this important thing Wen Jiubo mentioned?

“Wen Jiubo, I’m ——”

I opened the door of the living room, but before I could step inside, I was stopped by him.

“Watch out!”

I was startled, but before I could stop moving, I tripped over the door threshold and slipped. Luckily, Wen Jiubo instantly grabbed my wrist and pulled me back.

“Why are you always so careless?” Wen Jiubo sighed.

I managed to stand still. My eyes were wide open after scanning the whole room. “Hold on, please enlighten me.. what are you doing now?”

From the door where I stood, to the bed, the floor was covered with various items – books, brush pens, paper, ink stones, and some yellow charms. All those things were scattered over the floor, leaving no space to even land a foot in.

Bai was also inside the room. He was crouched on the floor and was reading a thread-bound book. He was frowning his eyebrows —— Er, or whatever ferrets had for eyebrows.

“Nothing, we’re just doing some research,” Wen Jiubo said flatly. He stepped barefoot on those old papers and books, bent down and cleared a space for me to stand.

I carefully moved to that space. “Some research? I think you emptied the whole library instead!”

“Aha, Gu Yu!” Bai noticed my presence, and he excitedly ran towards me. And then he threw a pile of books at me.