Xiaolei - Chapter 1

After I got a girlfriend, strange things kept happening.

First, I dreamed every night that she came looking for me. Then girls in my class began dying one after another under bizarre circumstances.

My mother’s face changed. “Your girlfriend isn’t human. Find a chance and bite off a piece of her collarbone.”

When I was ten, I fell victim to an evil rite called Borrowed Longevity through a Living Soul.

With Fourth Great-Uncle’s help, I barely escaped, but it left lasting damage.

My mortal lifespan was intact. My spiritual lifespan was not.

Saying I already had one foot in the grave might be an exaggeration. Saying half a leg was in the coffin would honestly have been optimistic.

Poor health and rotten luck were the least of it.

The worst part was that I gradually became able to see many of those “gentlemen.”

I can’t say the word. If you know, you know.

Seeing them was one thing. I also couldn’t speak about them, think about them, much less tell anyone else.

The moment I reacted, I would form a connection with those things.

Once that connection formed, the foot I had dangling over the edge would land squarely in that other world.

Fourth Great-Uncle gave me his most treasured protective amulet. He said that if it could keep me safe until adulthood, everything would become easier afterward.

From then on, I cultivated an expressionless, indifferent face.

No matter how terrifying or unnatural a gentleman looked, I saw nothing and heard nothing.

I resisted the urge to communicate with them.

Kept resisting.

And resisting.

Until I was seventeen…

Then I slipped.

The reason I slipped was my best friend, Chen Wei.

He got carried away while chasing romance and attracted something evil.

When Fourth Great-Uncle heard, he gave a bitter laugh.

“Guard by day and guard by night, but peach-blossom trouble is hardest to guard against. Jinjiao, this calamity was yours to face.”

Dafeng Art Studio occupied an abandoned two-story factory with more than a dozen rooms.

Despite its remote location, it had an excellent university admission rate and was the biggest art studio in the city at the time.

Chen Wei and I were stunned on our first day.

Back then, art was a shortcut into university, so plenty of high school students switched tracks halfway through.

Even so, we had never imagined there were this many art students in the entire city.

Still less had we imagined that so many of the girls studying art would be beautiful.

My vocabulary was meager. All I could think was: beauties everywhere!

Chen Wei nudged me, his face solemn.

“Quit thinking about useless stuff. We’ve only got two months left.”

It was November. After New Year’s Day, many schools would start their specialized entrance exams. Time was tight.

I hurriedly put away my improper thoughts. “Right. We need to paint.”

“I mean we need to find girlfriends!” Chen Wei said, even more solemnly.

“What?”

He looked at me the way a homeroom teacher looked at a failing student and said sorrowfully, “You turn eighteen after New Year’s. If you don’t find a girlfriend now, you’ll never have a puppy love in this lifetime. How are you not worried?”

After a pause, he added earnestly, “Jinjiao, a man can go without marriage, but he can’t go without a teenage romance.”

“Is that really a thing?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

That was Chen Wei’s catchphrase. Any challenge to one of his opinions was “obvious nonsense” in his eyes.

“Why do you think so many rich old men go after high school girls? You really think it’s just because they’re young?”

Wasn’t it? I asked.

Bullshit, he said.

“They’re trying to make up for never having a teenage romance! But no amount of money can make up for that. Once you miss it, it’s gone forever.”

I was only seventeen then, innocent as could be, and thought Chen Wei was talking rubbish.

Years later, when I saw a self-made middle-aged tycoon marry an internet-famous campus beauty, I realized his words had not been entirely false.

As we were discussing whether to go draw still lifes or portraits, Chen Wei grew impatient again.

“Isn’t it obvious? We pick the room with more girls!”

Watching his eager, sleazy back, I muttered with contempt, “If you can find a girlfriend like that, I’ll be damned.”

Afterward, I bitterly regretted saying it.

I could never understand why that word—the one I should never, ever have uttered—had suddenly slipped from my mouth that day.

Perhaps it really was as Fourth Great-Uncle had told me:

Every blessing and calamity in this world announces itself. That moment is called the arising of fate.

When class ended that night, I went to get Chen Wei so we could head home together. I found him fooling around with a long-haired girl in a red puffer jacket.

She wore glasses and had a fair, clean face. Her long legs were especially eye-catching. She was beautiful.

Chen Wei did not forget to shoot me a smug look.

I was envious. How had he managed that? Puppy love really was a technical skill.

While I stood there dazed, the girl suddenly turned and glanced at me.

Maybe it was the lighting, but her face seemed to darken for an instant.

“Heh, heh, heh…”

Her mouth never opened, yet a faint laugh came from her body, high and piercing.

The expression and the laughter vanished in a flash.

By the time I recovered, Chen Wei and the girl had already gone downstairs, still teasing each other.

Class had just let out and the place was crowded. Afraid I had seen wrong, I hurried after them.

I squeezed through the crowd and caught up outside the studio, blocking their way. “Let’s go together!”

I had turned myself into a third wheel without warning. Chen Wei stared at me in disgust, at a loss for words.

The girl said nothing. At some point, she had silently moved behind him.

Her head hung low. Her hair was so long that her whole face drowned in darkness, hiding her expression.

But I knew she was watching me.

“Heh, heh, heh…”

That sound came again.

Chen Wei noticed nothing. He glanced back at her, silently asking her opinion.

The girl raised her head and instantly revealed a brilliant smile.

The speed of the change made my skin crawl.

“Sure! Let’s!”

Her real voice was lovely, utterly unlike that earlier laugh.

Chen Wei scratched his head and said his bike was parked outside. We would meet at the courtyard gate.

There were people everywhere. Chen Wei and the girl followed the flow of the crowd out while I hurried to find my own bike.

Unease gnawed at me. Whatever happened, I felt I had to ride home with him that night.

After a few steps, a chill crept over my back. I turned to look.

In the crowd, the girl had also turned and was staring at me.

“Heh, heh, heh…”

Then she faced forward and hurried after Chen Wei.

Cold air seemed to whistle over every inch of my body.