Chapter 130: Chapter 126: Fu Lin Middle School_3
Then, a group of us drove to the old neighborhood where Yang Xiao used to live. On the way there, Yang Xiao got out to buy a few packs of good cigarettes. By the time the car reached the entrance of the neighborhood, Yang Xiao, holding the cigarettes, got out and walked toward the security booth.
After a while, three security guards came out with Yang Xiao, chatting and laughing as though they were long-lost brothers.
When they actually entered Yang Xiao’s rental place, Beibei and the others were stunned. Xi Menxiu stared at the moldy and darkened corners of the walls and couldn’t help but frown, "Captain, you... you used to live here?"
Yang Xiao just smiled. He was too embarrassed to say that he had almost been kicked out of such a place. Under Beibei’s direction, Da Xiong moved the useful large items, such as suitcases, while Xi Menxiu was in charge of cleaning out the wardrobe and packing the clothes to take with them.
Yang Xiao, holding the fruit he had bought at the neighborhood fruit store, went to find the landlady to tell her he was moving out today. He said that if there were any outstanding utility bills, to let him know, and he would settle them right away.
By the time he got back, Da Xiong and the others had nearly finished tidying up. In fact, Yang Xiao didn’t have many belongings in the first place, mainly some books and some manuscripts he had left behind. These items were very meaningful to Yang Xiao, as they were worth more than any amount of money could buy.
Seeing Yang Xiao return, Xi Menxiu, who was drenched in sweat, took the ice-cold Coke handed to him by Yang Xiao and gulped it down. "Xiao ge, what kind of weird books do you usually read? ’Secrets of Feng Shui,’ ’Fragments of Yin and Yang,’ ’Folklore,’ ’Records of Abnormal Events,’ who reads this kind of stuff?"
"I make my living off these," Yang Xiao muttered to himself, laughing as he changed the subject.
After loading everything into the car, they drove to the newly rented apartment. After setting up the place, it was fit for living. As a host, Yang Xiao treated everyone to a meal at noon. Because they had to pick up Yu Shu from the hospital in the afternoon, they found a nearby bathhouse to take a bath and changed into fresh clothes.
"Xi Menxiu, is this the place where you got caught during the vice raid last time?" Beibei asked while lying on the bed with the others, waiting for a massage.
"Nonsense! I, Xi Menxiu, never go to places like this!" Xi Menxiu retorted with his neck stiff.
The next second, the door was pushed open, and several masseuses walked in under the dim light. The leading supervisor brightened up when she saw Xi Menxiu and cooed sweetly, "Isn’t this Brother Xiu? You haven’t been here for several days. Are these your friends? Should we use your VIP card, or charge separately?"
"Hahaha, use his VIP card!" Beibei generously decided for Xi Menxiu.
After enough rest, they received a message at three in the afternoon and immediately drove to the hospital. Upon seeing Yu Shu, Beibei went up for a hug. Xi Menxiu followed suit, stretching out his arms. Before he got close, he saw Beibei lift her leg.
"Little Shu, brother has missed you to death!" Xi Menxiu, two meters away from Yu Shu, was very excited.
Yu Shu looked to be in good spirits and seemed to have recovered well. She smiled brilliantly at Yang Xiao and wrote to greet him, "Captain."
Beibei drove, and upon learning that Yu Shu hadn’t had anything nice to eat recently, she headed straight for a fancy hotel, deciding right then to have a team-building meal.
Da Xiong made a call to Zhuge Zhijie, who had stayed behind, telling him to hurry over by taxi. Yu Shu was discharged, and the captain was treating them to dinner.
The mood at the dinner was very lively. Because there were rules against excessive drinking, and Yu Shu needed to go home to rest, they finished the meal just after eight in the evening and dispersed.
Since they had all drunk alcohol, driving was out of the question, and everyone called a taxi home. After sending everyone off, Yang Xiao walked slowly towards the apartment by himself.
The apartment wasn’t far from there, the street was bustling with activity, and a gust of night wind came through, slightly dissipating the effects of the alcohol. Yang Xiao enjoyed this rare moment of solitude.
Passing by a cake shop about to close for the night, the shutters were already a third of the way down, and a handwritten sign hung outside: 50% off after 8 p.m.
Yang Xiao had originally wanted to buy some cake for breakfast so he wouldn’t have to get up early, but as he approached, he saw the owner of the cake shop scolding a female employee.
On a nearby table, there was a box of cake. After listening for a while, Yang Xiao roughly understood the situation. A female clerk had been delivering the cake to a customer, but she accidentally damaged it along the way. The customer refused to accept it and returned it. The cake wasn’t cheap, and the boss asked the female clerk to compensate.
The female clerk wasn’t very old, she looked just of age. Yang Xiao, who had already been hardened by society, knew that the price of this cake might be equivalent to her earnings for two days.
"Boss, may I take a look at this cake?"
Seeing a potential buyer, the boss immediately changed his attitude and began to describe the cake to Yang Xiao. Through the transparent part of the cake box, Yang Xiao saw that the cake was beautifully made, topped with a black swan, although its head was damaged.
"Young man, this cake is made with very fine ingredients. It’s just a bit damaged, which doesn’t affect its taste. If you like it, I can give you a discount, 50% off. How’s that?"
Seeing the female clerk casting a glance at him, Yang Xiao nodded and said, "Boss, could you write a few words on it for me?"
"Of course, what would you like to write?" The boss’s eyes lit up at the prospect of a sale.
After a moment’s silence, Yang Xiao said, "How about ’wishing for better things to come’."
"Just these four words?"
"Yes."
The boss skillfully opened the cake box, used a knife to smooth out the original greetings on the cake, then filled in the cream. He skillfully repaired the damaged black swan and, very carefully, wrote ’wishing for better things to come’ with red jam.
The boss’s handwriting was beautiful and sweeping. Yang Xiao really liked it.
After paying, the boss expertly packaged the cake, placed it into a new box, and the female clerk brought it out of the store. She timidly thanked Yang Xiao as she handed him the cake box.
Carrying the cake back to his own apartment, Yang Xiao shut the door, washed his hands, and opened the cake box on the table. He inserted candles and lit them.
In the darkened room, the warm, soft glow of the candles illuminated Yang Xiao’s youthful face.
The light flickered in his pupils, and the words ’wishing for better things to come’ seemed to come to life.
Yang Xiao closed his eyes and made a wish in his heart, wishing for his life to get increasingly better, for everyone in the investigation team to be safe and sound, for the predecessor in the Blood Coffin to harbor no ill-intentions towards him, and to receive the Ghost script later rather than sooner...
He made many wishes in a row until he felt a bit embarrassed, and then he slowly opened his eyes. Sitting up straight, with a sense of ceremony, he took a dinner knife and made a cut down the middle of the cake.
"Hmm?"
The knife got stuck, cutting only a thin layer before encountering a firm resistance below.
Yang Xiao, puzzled, used the dinner knife to scrape off the top cream layer, and his expression froze. The next second, the knife dropped uncontrollably to the floor as a box was revealed wrapped inside the cake.
The box had a peculiar gray surface, as if it had been through countless years of sedimentation. A few seconds later, Yang Xiao took a deep breath, picked up a fork, and bit by bit scraped away the ’wishing for better things to come’. Hidden underneath these four words were another four characters.
Four blood-red characters stood out starkly, breaking the bizarre harmony of the scene, and this also happened to be the name of the script—Fu Lin Middle School.
