What Are You Chewing?

He Zhuoming tugged at Tang Shuyu's arm, and he lowered the paper so she could read it.

It was a simple propaganda poster, roughly worded, saying that tomorrow night they would hold a spectacular exotic beast performance outside the city, where not only mermaids but also fox spirits, flower spirits, and more could be seen.

After the young man finished handing out the flyers, the burly man suddenly lifted the glass box lid—the crowd gasped again, watching as the stout mermaid crawled out, gripping the edge of the box and bowing in all directions.

Though its appearance was terrifying, its behavior was quite polite.

He Zhuoming shrank back, hiding behind Tang Shuyu. He laughed and asked, "Still think it's pitiful now?"

He Zhuoming shook her head like a rattle, then whispered, "Would anyone actually go see it? I mean... that performance looks so dangerous."

Tang Shuyu: "Don't you want to go?"

He Zhuoming answered honestly, "If it were just one little mermaid, I'd dare to go. But the flyer says there are lots of other monsters, so I wouldn't dare."

As she spoke, she couldn't help but sneak another glance at the mermaid in the glass box.

The mermaid happened to be bowing toward them, a faint smile on its scale-covered face. When it wasn't smiling, it was tolerable, but when it smiled, the corners of its mouth split all the way to its ears, and the gills on its cheeks opened and closed, revealing the red flesh quivering inside.

He Zhuoming quickly looked away and hid completely behind Tang Shuyu, pressing her forehead against his back and bumping it gently.

Tang Shuyu chuckled. "Let's go. It's rare to run into such excitement."

He Zhuoming: "...We're not delivering ourselves as a midnight snack, are we?"

Tang Shuyu turned back and said in an encouraging tone, "Xiao He, you should be braver. If you're easily scared, even monsters weaker than you will pick on you."

"Summon the courage you used to tell me to apologize. Treat them the way you usually treat me, and they'll naturally avoid you."

He Zhuoming didn't catch his sarcasm and thought Tang Shuyu was seriously giving her advice.

Her face fell, the corners of her mouth drooping as she muttered, "But they look so scary... and I'm not mean to you. I'm actually really nice to you!"

She pouted, her last two sentences defiant, even a little hurt.

Tang Shuyu took her wrist and pushed through the crowd, casually making up for it: "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, you're the nicest to me, you never get angry with me, you never make trouble for me... If you're scared, then don't watch. Let's go—I know a street full of delicious food. We'll go there."

Because of the mermaid, the crowd grew even more packed, and among the chaos, a few restless hands moved—some had already spotted this handsome young man and beautiful young woman.

They were well-dressed, adorned with gold and jade, and without servants or weapons. The only thing that could be considered a weapon on them was the crabapple flower tucked at the young woman's waist.

They were like two plump sheep wandering the street, unclaimed.

Seizing the moment, someone reached toward the young woman's waist, intending to steal her purse. But before the pickpocket's fingertips touched the purse's ribbon, his entire hand was cleanly severed at the wrist.

The severed hand fell to the ground and was trampled beyond recognition by the surging crowd in less than half a second.

He Zhuoming was focused on staying close behind Tang Shuyu, following the path he cleared, when she suddenly heard a scream or two—extremely shrill and high-pitched.

She was about to turn and see what had happened, but her ears were suddenly covered by Tang Shuyu, and her whole head was held in his hands, so she couldn't look back.

Tang Shuyu pulled her in front of him and told her, as if nothing had happened, "Come to the front. Don't get lost."

He Zhuoming was interrupted and soon forgot to look back.

The two squeezed out of the crowd, and Tang Shuyu led her to the street that sold all kinds of late-night snacks—He Zhuoming found everything novel, and before long, she was holding food.

A drink in a bamboo cup—the owner said it was called "milk sugar with real snow," which looked a lot like modern shaved ice with ice cream.

Eating while walking wasn't good—that was what He Zhuoming's parents had taught her since she was little.

She walked to the steps by the river, bent her elbow to nudge Tang Shuyu, and said, "Wipe the steps. I want to sit and eat."

Tang Shuyu was daydreaming, but at her words he looked around—the passersby were sparse, and all far from him.

He pointed at himself. "You're asking me?"

He Zhuoming was puzzled and said matter-of-factly, "Of course. Isn't it just the two of us here?"

Tang Shuyu: "...You want me to wipe the steps?"

He Zhuoming remained defiant. "Yeah!"

Tang Shuyu laughed, speechless. "Why should I wipe the steps?"

He Zhuoming: "Because I want to sit! If you don't wipe, I'll get my dress dirty. I really like this dress."

As she spoke, she lifted her leg to show him the dress.

The dress was a grass-green embroidered long skirt she'd changed into at the Divine Palace. The light color on a young woman added a lot of youthful vitality—it was indeed pretty.

Tang Shuyu stood with one hand on his hip, looked at her dress for a while, then raised his eyes to her face.

She was holding the drink with both hands, waiting for him to do the work, as if it were his natural duty.

Tang Shuyu found it amusing. He crouched down, pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped the steps while saying, "Xiao He, why are you so delicate? You should do your own things."

He Zhuoming: "But you're my boyfriend, so why should I do it myself!"

Tang Shuyu: "Boyfriends are supposed to do this?"

He Zhuoming: "Yes."

Tang Shuyu: "How do you know? Do you have another boyfriend?"

Of course, He Zhuoming didn't have another boyfriend, but she had watched many idol dramas and seen other peers in relationships.

Isn't that what dating is like! Holding hands, going on dates, occasionally kissing, and then the girl can boss her boyfriend around to buy breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and carry her backpack.

He Zhuoming lifted her chin and said in a very adult tone, "I learned it from TV. Stop with the nonsense—have you wiped it clean yet?"

Tang Shuyu: "...It's clean."

He Zhuoming gathered her skirt, smoothed it out, bent her knees to sit down, and took out a spoon to eat the milk sugar with real snow—although the name was different, it tasted like shaved ice, just with a layer of semi-solidified milk-like substance on top besides the fruit juice.

The texture was like yogurt, but the flavor was sweet and creamy, milky.

He Zhuoming took a couple of bites and was greatly satisfied. Her heart, which had been frightened by the mermaid, was soothed by the food.

Tang Shuyu propped his face on one hand, turned his gaze to watch her eat, and asked, "Just this? Do you want to eat something else later?"

He Zhuoming: "No. I'll be full after this. Let's save the others for next time."

Tang Shuyu asked, "What does this taste like?"

He Zhuoming thought for a moment and described: "It's that kind of sweet, very fruity."

Sweet—Tang Shuyu had, of course, tasted sweet things before, but that was before he lost his sense of taste.

That was so long ago that Tang Shuyu naturally didn't remember.

Tang Shuyu: "What does sweet taste like?"

He Zhuoming was stumped, racking her brain for adjectives, and said, "It's... that kind of very sweet, thick, and refreshing taste. Do you want some?"

He asked too much, a departure from his usual attitude toward food, which naturally caused He Zhuoming to misunderstand.

But Tang Shuyu lowered his lashes and said indifferently, "The way you describe it, it sounds like something I wouldn't like."

Hearing his refusal, He Zhuoming put on a regretful expression and said, "Then I have no choice. I'll just have to eat it all myself."

Actually, she wasn't regretful at all, because there was only the last bite left.

He Zhuoming had deliberately saved the cherry for last, pressing it together with the pinkish-white crushed ice, scooping it all onto the spoon, and just as she was about to eat it in one gulp—Tang Shuyu suddenly grabbed her wrist, leaned in, and ate that mouthful of shaved ice.

Extremely cold and extremely sweet.

He Zhuoming looked at her empty spoon and widened her eyes in disbelief.

She dumbly looked up at Tang Shuyu. One side of his cheek was bulging as he chewed, and he commented, "Too sweet. Definitely not my taste."

He Zhuoming screamed, "Lin Qingyun! What are you chewing?! Are you chewing my cherry?! Spit it out!"

Tang Shuyu covered his ears. "What Lin Qingyun? Who's Lin Qingyun? I don't know anyone by that name..."

He Zhuoming lunged at him, trying to pry his mouth open. He leaned back under her pressure, but his core was stable, and he didn't fall, tilting his head to dodge her grabbing hand.

He Zhuoming, furious, pinched his face and shouted, "If you don't like it, spit it out! Who told you to eat it!"

Tang Shuyu kept laughing as she pinched, laughing until tears came, while still remembering to reach out and steady He Zhuoming's shoulder so she wouldn't fall off the steps.

"Don't be so stingy, Xiao He..."

"Go die! I'll never forgive you this time! Why didn't you eat it when I offered!"

"I'm sorry—"

...

Because of that bite of shaved ice, He Zhuoming didn't speak to Tang Shuyu the entire evening.

It wasn't until the next day, when she had the hotel's special breakfast—a delicious pastry she had never seen or tasted before—that she finally gave Tang Shuyu a good face.

After breakfast, He Zhuoming sat in front of a bronze mirror, ready to do her hair.

Tang Shuyu dragged over a chair and sat beside her. "You do one side, I'll do the other."

He Zhuoming: "But they might come out uneven, right?"

Tang Shuyu smiled, his eyes curved. "I'll copy you. It won't go wrong."

He Zhuoming believed him and braided only one side, leaving the other to Tang Shuyu—Tang Shuyu braided a bit, then looked up at He Zhuoming's hands to see what she was doing.

He Zhuoming was looking at the mirror, which reflected half of Tang Shuyu's face. He looked up and down frequently, his thick lashes fluttering like butterfly wings, and the shadows beneath his eyes flickered with the movement.

That shadow, bright and dark, was like a pair of small gray butterflies flitting on his pale cheeks.

He Zhuoming was distracted and couldn't help thinking: Tang Shuyu is really good-looking.

She'd always known he was handsome, but now she felt he was especially so—she turned her head slightly and glanced at the real Tang Shuyu.

Tang Shuyu noticed her movement and raised an eyebrow. "Did I pull your hair?"

He Zhuoming quickly turned her head back, pretending to focus on the mirror. "No, I was just looking."

The braids were done quickly. Tang Shuyu wasn't bragging; the side he braided was exactly the same as He Zhuoming's. But He Zhuoming's own skill wasn't great, so the braid he copied from her was also a bit crooked.

But He Zhuoming looked at the mirror, and Tang Shuyu looked at He Zhuoming, and both wore very satisfied expressions.

For He Zhuoming, who had been spoiled since childhood and never braided her own hair, this level of satisfaction was certainly not an understatement.

And for Tang Shuyu, who had been waited on hand and foot as a child and had shaved his hair short once he grew up, this was indeed nothing to criticize.

When they finished with the hair—feeling as triumphant as if they'd just saved the world—they got together to study the matter of returning to the Abyss.

Tang Shuyu pulled out an extremely large map and spread it on the floor for He Zhuoming to see.

"This is the Xia Kingdom."

He Zhuoming crouched beside him, looking at where he pointed, and exclaimed, "The Xia Kingdom is that big?"

Tang Shuyu said, "It's only because it enshrines a True Deity. If not for that, given its poor location, it would quickly be swallowed by other countries. Look here."

He moved his finger and pointed at a narrow strip beside the Xia Kingdom. "To the south is Youlan Valley, where the flower spirits gather."

"To the west is Huangfeng Ridge, the territory of the Corrupted Deity Sanmu."

He Zhuoming was puzzled. "Corrupted Deities dare to claim territory next to True Deities?"

Tang Shuyu smiled and said, "Corrupted Deities have their own ways of survival. Sometimes even True Deities can't do anything about them."

He Zhuoming was confused, her eyes almost spinning.

Tang Shuyu smoothly changed the subject: "The Abyss is here."

His finger started from the Xia Kingdom and drew a long, diagonal line to the northeast, finally stopping at a dark, swirling vortex.

He Zhuoming's gaze followed his finger. "It's that far... Would it take us a long time?"

She was finally starting to worry—if they had to walk all the way, she might miss more than just this semester's final exams.

Would she have to wait until she was twenty to go home?!

Tang Shuyu laughed, flicked the paper with his finger, and said, "No need for that long. I have a way to get there quickly."

"But the Abyss is the realm of the dead. I don't mind, but if you want to go in, you'll need some disguise."

The map was so large that the Abyss was right in the middle.

He Zhuoming wanted to look closer, but not wanting to step on Tang Shuyu's map, she simply knelt and crawled over. Just as she was studying the size of the vortex representing the Abyss, she noticed two or three places scattered around it. The closest one had a place name written on it: Zhuxi.

Hearing Tang Shuyu say they needed a disguise, He Zhuoming looked up and asked, "How do we disguise ourselves?"

Tang Shuyu smiled. "I'll tell you when the time comes. Telling you now won't help. But before we go to the Abyss, tonight we're going to see the exotic beast performance."

He Zhuoming was dazed. "What performance... oh! You mean yesterday's?"

He Zhuoming was a bit afraid of that performance, since the flyer listed many monsters.

Tang Shuyu found it curious too—not the exotic beast performance, but He Zhuoming's courage.

She dared to pick up a puppet's head and talk to it, and she could accept that being pierced through the heart meant she could come back to life, yet she still found those monsters scary?

What was so scary about them compared to him?

Night fell.

It was a cloudy night.

Thick clouds obscured the stars and moon, making the streets a bit quieter than the lively night before.

But near a wide tent on the outskirts of the city, the place was buzzing and brightly lit.

The tent was enormous, pitch-black, and at the entrance stood a young man in colorful clothes.

The exotic beast performance was held inside the tent. To enter, one had to buy a yellow paper ticket from the gatekeeper, and there was no shortage of people lined up at the entrance.

He Zhuoming and Tang Shuyu waited for a while before it was their turn. Once the yellow paper was in hand, He Zhuoming examined it: it didn't feel like a ticket, more like a talisman.

On the rectangular yellow paper was a line of black writing, scrawled and flowing so wildly that she couldn't make out the characters just by looking.

He Zhuoming felt the ticket was a bit ominous and was thinking of secretly throwing it away once inside, when the colorful-clothed young man at the gate cautioned, "Guests, you must keep the paper ticket. After you're seated, there will be a second check, and if you can't produce the ticket, you'll be kicked out."