Chapter 91.4: Let the Fish Bite First

“My eyebrows… where are my eyebrows? And my lashes?”

Lin Shuyou stared at his hairless, bare face in the mirror, utterly shocked.

Eyebrows and eyelashes might seem insignificant, but once gone, a face looked bizarrely alien.

Beside him, Tan Wenbin yawned and stretched after catching up on sleep.

“Ah-You, you're awake?”

“What’s wrong with my face? It stings a little.” Lin Shuyou rubbed the back of his head. Right at eye level, a whole strip of hair was missing too.

“Side effect of spirit possession, probably.”

“As a spirit medium, how come I didn’t know there were side effects like this?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know. That’s why you need to study more.”

“Really?”

“Duh.” Tan Wenbin glanced at the clock on the wall. “You hungry?”

“I already ate. You were sleeping too well, so I didn’t wake you.”

“I stayed to take care of you, you know. Do you realize how hard you are to look after? Kicking off your blanket and talking in your sleep nonstop. With sleeping habits like that, your future wife’s gonna want separate rooms.”

“Sorry… and thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Do we really need that between us?” Tan Wenbin clapped him on the shoulder. “Here—use different words.”

“Big bro.”

“Hahahaha!”

When Xiaoyuan called him “bro,” Tan Wenbin didn’t feel a thing—more like his dad had renamed him “Tan Wenbinbin Bro.”

But this guy calling him “bro”? That made him genuinely happy.

Lin Shuyou hadn’t approached Tan Wenbin because of Li Zhuiyuan. The two met during military training, and Tan Wenbin’s lively nature made it easy for him to bond with the class.

Lin Shuyou only showed a different side—bold, confident—after putting on his facial paint.

The rest of the time, he was introverted and timid.

Tan Wenbin noticed that and took him under his wing to protect him from bullies. Also, he figured he could recruit a new errand-runner for their “Brother Yuan” team.

Who knew he’d picked a landmine that almost blew the whole team sky-high?

“Big bro, aren’t you doing military training?”

“Skipping it to stay with you. The instructor approved my leave.”

“Sucks, though. You probably won’t be made class monitor now.”

Typically, students who stood out during military training had a good shot at becoming class monitor afterward.

Tan Wenbin felt like laughing. Sometimes he really couldn’t understand what went on in this guy’s head.

He had such real ability, yet was willing to call Tan Wenbin “bro” just to train together and fight over the dorm’s faucets.

And he had a weird fixation on becoming class monitor—like an adult obsessed with playing house.

It was hard to reconcile this goofball with the Crane Boy who’d lifted Runsheng on the sports field that night.

“Ah-You, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, Big Bro. What is it?”

Tan Wenbin touched Lin Shuyou’s forehead, checking for fever, then asked, “Back home, did anyone ever say you might have some... mental issues?”

“Mental issues?”

“Like that term all over the papers these days—split personality?”

“Do I have that?”

“Seems like it.”

“I don’t feel anything. My family’s the same way.”

Tan Wenbin scrunched his face. Hereditary?

No, more like occupational hazard.

Spirit possession. A god descends—that’s practically an open invitation for dissociative identities.

“Big bro, do you think I’m sick?”

“No, no. You’re fine. You’re actually kind of cute this way—way better than with that face paint. Maybe try not painting so often.”

He had a gut feeling that Brother Yuan was very experienced in handling this kind of “illness.”

But since Brother Yuan didn’t want to draw Lin Shuyou in too close, Tan Wenbin didn’t push the idea of seeing a specialist.

Besides, what was the point of curing him? Even without paint, he still acted like he had it on.

Look at that night—severely injured, but still arguing with Brother Yuan in bed. Now, clean-shaven, he actually looked much more pleasant.

Just then, two girls appeared outside the room—Wu Xue and Xu Bailu.

“Good afternoon, seniors!” Tan Wenbin waved and stepped outside.

Lin Shuyou watched from the window as Tan Wenbin chatted and laughed with the two senior girls, a look of pure envy spreading across his face.

Without the paint, he didn’t dare talk to girls. With it, he had no interest in them.

Tan Wenbin turned down their joint invite to dinner and a theme park and returned.

“Big bro, you dating?”

Tan Wenbin gave him a look. “Bullshit.”

He’d only gone to the seniors yesterday afternoon to fish for intel, as Brother Yuan had asked.

But from the girls’ perspective, after going through a ghost encounter and feeling frightened and lost, a bright young underclassman suddenly appeared to comfort and reassure them—seemingly well-versed in such matters. Naturally, their favorability shot up.

After all, a ghost encounter was far more traumatic than a breakup.

Besides, who said a prince charming in a fairytale couldn’t moonlight as a ghost hunter?

Tan Wenbin, however, had no interest in romance.

He was still riding the high from last night’s Dead Sinker hunt. He planned to relive it over dinner with Runsheng and the others tonight.

“You’re not planning to date in college?”

“Nope.”

For some reason, an image of his high school class monitor, Zhou Yunyun, popped into his head.

He remembered her confession before the college entrance exam—in a noisy classroom, she had shouted out that she liked him.

The thought made him smile.

He never regretted rejecting her. It didn’t stop him from savoring the memory.

After the exam, they’d lost touch. He only heard about her through his mom—turns out she was also attending university in Jinling, studying auditing.

His mom even encouraged him to reconnect. Same city, after all—could hang out, head home together during holidays.

“You got someone you like, Big Bro?”

Tan Wenbin put on a solemn face. “Some things are best left as memories.”

Lin Shuyou nodded. “So the one you liked… died?”

Tan Wenbin: “…”

That afternoon, the doctor came to check on Lin Shuyou and marveled at his recovery.

When Tan Wenbin had first brought him in, the doctor had advised transferring to a bigger hospital—their school infirmary-slash-community clinic wasn’t equipped for such serious injuries.

But Tan Wenbin insisted. “He’s a wild ox,” he said.

Sure enough, Lin Shuyou didn’t disappoint. Though not as miraculous as Runsheng, his recovery wasn’t exactly human either.

Same injuries would’ve had Tan Wenbin laid up for two weeks at least. This guy was already up and moving in two days—and eager to rejoin training to fight for class monitor.

Tan Wenbin didn’t argue. He signed the discharge papers and helped him back to the dorm.

That afternoon, the other dormmates were off at class.

Tan Wenbin spotted a sausage on the offering table, picked it up, and took a bite.

Lin Shuyou protested. “Big bro, that’s for ancestor offerings. Lu Yi left it.”

“It’s fine. Me eating it works too.”

Lu Yi didn’t want to tell the others about the ghost incident, so he’d made up the ancestor story.

“Where’s your face-painting gear? I wanna take a look.”

“In my top-left locker.”

Tan Wenbin opened the locker and took out a set of brushes and paints.

“Any special rules?”

“Depends on the god being summoned. Each face has to match.”

“All this for detail?”

“It matters.”

“But I remember that night, Xiaoyuan just did this—” Tan Wenbin spread five fingers and swirled them across his face. “He dipped his fingers in red and just smudged it on.”

Lin Shuyou was momentarily speechless.

“So… that works too?”

“Strong mediums don’t need the paint to channel spirits.” He paused, then added, “But that night, he told me he was lying. He didn’t actually channel.”

“He lied to you?”

“No… he lied to the Crane Boy.”

Lin Shuyou’s voice grew quieter. The Crane Boy—slit pupils open, evil spirits revealed.

What kind of disguise could fool those eyes?

If it wasn’t a lie, then the god he summoned might really have been the Wounded General.

Someone Lin Shuyou himself couldn’t summon even now.

“But Big bro, why would he lie—”

“Pfft, my Brother Yuan loves to keep a low profile.”

Lin Shuyou nodded. “My grandpa says the Dragon King of the Liu Clan has been low-key these past decades. But Brother Yuan’s still young. He’s going to walk the Jianghu someday, right?”

“Oh, definitely.”

Tan Wenbin nodded seriously—though he still wasn’t clear what “walking the Jianghu” actually meant.

Was it walking from one end of the Yangtze River to the other, slicing things up with a knife?

“If he does, ask him to send a calling card first. I’ll persuade my grandpa to yield.”

“Huh?” Tan Wenbin, a hydrology major, asked, “The Yangtze passes through your hometown?”

“Um… I’m not sure. But Grandpa says that when someone walks the Jianghu, subduing evil and gaining merit, it often drags in other sects and families.

“And the Liu Clan… if someone refuses to cooperate, they’ll beat them into submission. Otherwise, how could they be Dragon Kings?”

“Damn, now I’m pumped!”

Tan Wenbin fanned his shirt collar. “Then if I visit your home, you’d better give me some face.”

“I’ll try. But my master outranks me, and my grandpa outranks him.”

“Then start plotting your coup. Take over during winter break.”

“I…”

“Just kidding. Just kidding.”

“I will try to persuade them. Because he’s not like you…”

“Respectful titles!”

“Because Big Brother Yuan and Brother Bin are different. Big Brother Yuan’s ruthless. If my family doesn’t yield, I’m afraid he’d…”

Tan Wenbin didn’t know how to respond—because he knew that was exactly Brother Yuan’s style.

Forget the past—last night’s operation was pure scorched earth.

Still, he had to cover for his guy in public.

“Hey, be grateful he spared you and stop calling him ruthless.”

“I didn’t say it. The Crane Boy did.”

A brief silence.

Tan Wenbin stood up. “Alright. Rest well. Military training can wait. I’ve got plans tomorrow.”

“What could be more important than running for class monitor?”

“Mention class monitor one more time, and I’m painting you as the Guardian of the Pigpen!”

He left Lu Yi’s dorm and returned to his own.

Xiaoyuan still wasn’t back.

Tan Wenbin sat at his desk and opened his textbook.

It wasn’t until dusk that the dorm door opened, and Li Zhuiyuan returned with his backpack.

“Brother Yuan, where’ve you been?”

“Took a nap,” he replied, pulling out three bundles of Yellow Talismans and handing them over. “These are for dispelling evil, sealing, and calming the mind. Divide them into four—keep one set for yourself and give the rest to Runsheng, Yin Meng, and the others.”

Tan Wenbin crouched down, pulled a few volumes of the Chronicle of the Orthodox Demon-Suppressing Arts from his bag, flipped to the talisman diagrams, and began cross-checking.

Once he confirmed each symbol’s function, he wrote their names on double-sided tape, divided them into four sets, bundled them with paper, and labeled them.

“Whew…”

Only after finishing did he stand up. “Brother Yuan, I’ll go deliver these. Want me to bring back dinner?”

“No need. I already ate.”

After Tan Wenbin left, Li Zhuiyuan didn’t read. He lay in bed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

Tomorrow, Liu Yumei would officially move. And he would formally enter her tutelage.

After a year of studying on his own, it felt like he was finally enrolling in a proper academy.

He couldn’t help but look forward to it.

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