Chapter 3: This Life Is Simply Impossible!
The shattered light screen dispersed into countless floating blue pixel particles, but quickly and stubbornly reassembled, condensing back into a complete, semi-transparent screen.
[Host, please confirm receipt as soon as possible. Once receipt is confirmed, this transaction is officially complete, and all features of the Safe House will be unlocked.]
Feng Xun stared at the text with an expressionless face.
System customization was synonymous with premium quality; this was the consensus among all Taskers. But this time, he truly couldn’t understand why the system had arranged such bizarre supporting functions, claiming they were deeply bound to his core needs.
After a long while, the man raised his hand and, with a cold face, tapped the “Confirm Receipt” button.
[Transaction complete. Now entering the final payment settlement stage.]
[The remaining balance of 20 million credits has been credited to your account. Thank you for your patronage! Your recognition is the greatest motivation for us to provide high-quality service!]
[All Safe House features unlocked. The house upgrade and renovation are expected to be completed within 24 hours. A new identity information card (current plane customized version) is expected to be issued within 24 hours.]
[A commemorative two-person photo stand for new Safe House residents has been gifted and dispatched; please collect it.]
[If you have any other questions, please feel free to consult our after-sales customer service at any time.]
Almost as soon as Feng Xun finished reading the system messages, a brand-new two-person photo stand appeared on the display shelf in the living room.
Feng Xun walked over to check it out and discovered the photo was a candid shot taken on the spot. The system had chosen an incredibly treacherous angle, capturing both him and the youth lying on the sofa—both of them facing the camera directly.
Emotions aside, both people in the photo were very attractive, arguably pleasing to the eye.
However, the system happened to capture the moment a bolt of lightning flashed outside the window. The man was staring gloomily at the lens with a cold face, while behind him lay the beautiful youth, knocked unconscious on the sofa. Combined with the unnaturally eerie, pale light cast by the lightning cutting through the sky, it looked for all the world like a criminal souvenir photo taken by a perverted serial killer before dismembering his prey.
“…………”
Feng Xun slapped the photo stand face-down, refusing to look at it again.
Infuriating.
He circled the apartment once and found no signs of renovation yet; he guessed it would take some time before visible changes appeared. Finally, he walked back to the sofa.
The youth on the sofa was still fast asleep. Whether out of fear of the cold or a sense of insecurity, he kept his body curled up, his brow tightly furrowed. He looked like a cowardly, timid stray animal that, having no companions to rely on or a stable home, had to shrink into a tiny ball, hugging itself tightly just to find a moment of peace.
Feng Xun pinched his brow hard. After a long while, as if finally making up his mind, he stepped forward to hoist the person up.
He had sensed it when bringing him upstairs earlier: this person’s weight was incredibly light, and his limbs were exceptionally soft. He could easily lift him with one arm around his waist.
Feng Xun left the living room and placed the person on the small bed in the secondary bedroom.
He would worry about the future later. With the wind and rain raging outside, he couldn’t exactly toss the guy out for the night.
The secondary bedroom was just as sparsely furnished. Feng Xun rummaged through a small wardrobe against the wall, pulled out a thin blanket, and covered the youth with it.
Just as he was about to turn off the light and leave, another blinding bolt of lightning pierced the sky, illuminating the inside and outside of the room like broad daylight. Feng Xun’s retreating footsteps paused; he turned back, drew the curtains tightly shut, and only then closed the door and left.
That night, the entire city was nearly overwhelmed by the heavy rain. The wind howled, and the downpour never ceased. Some tossed and turned in the thunder and lightning, while others slept soundly in warm blankets until dawn.
—
Jian Tang opened his eyes, feeling groggy.
The indoor light was very dim. Jian Tang only took a single glance before closing his eyes again, feeling reassured. It must still be early—well before the shift started. Otherwise, the large factory lights would have been on, and it would be very noisy. That was how it always was when he slept in the corridors of the factory.
Jian Tang nervously tried to squeeze in a little more sleep while habitually shrinking into the corner, preventing any large monsters from stepping on him when they walked by later.
In fact, he hadn’t always slept in the corridors. He used to squeeze into a dormitory dormitory with other monster coworkers—a small warehouse behind the factory, about ten square meters in size, which could accommodate over a hundred weird, misshapen little monsters.
Back then, Jian Tang slept quite well. After all, once he transformed into his original form, he only needed a tiny bamboo pole to hang himself on and sleep comfortably all night long.
But three years ago, Jian Tang accidentally saw a human storybook. It told of a very powerful Great Demon who found a human wife he adored and lived a sweet, happy life. In the end, the Great Demon got drunk, revealed his original form, and scared his wife to death on the spot. The story ended in a tragedy.
Jian Tang: “…”
How could there be such a terrifying thing in this world! It’s simply horrifying!
Jian Tang could absolutely not accept the tragedy of “Adorable Wife scared to death by my original form,” so he set a very harsh, self-disciplined goal for himself: he had to maintain his human form at all times and follow human behavioral patterns and lifestyle habits as much as possible—except during work hours, because a temperamental boss who docked his pay was scarier than a wife he hadn’t even “won” back yet.
Since he had to self-disciplinarily “be a human,” he couldn’t just hang himself on a bamboo pole at will while sleeping—he’d never heard of any human hanging themselves up to sleep, except for God.
With Jian Tang’s financial situation, buying a bed was a luxury. Fortunately, humans didn’t necessarily have to sleep in beds—human homeless people on the street could sleep all night in subway tunnels with just a few newspapers, and a wandering refugee little monster naturally could, too.
Although the floor of the factory corridor was a bit hard and the temperature a bit cold, what kind of hardship hadn’t Jian Tang endured? This was nothing.
The only bad thing was that some malicious big monsters would use him as a ball to kick around when they walked past the corridor.
Jian Tang was very angry, but he couldn’t beat those hooligan monsters, and he couldn’t afford to provoke them either. He could only find more secluded corners of the corridor and curl himself tighter, shrinking into a tiny ball to lower his presence as much as possible.
His coworker, Little Zombie, was very close to Jian Tang. Seeing how miserably Jian Tang slept, he offered, “Little Tang, do you want to sleep in my coffin?”
Little Zombie didn’t sleep in the employee warehouse; he had a small coffin with a lid. Although it was a single-person model, it was barely enough to squeeze in another humanoid person if they tried. Because Little Zombie was only half a body.
Jian Tang was deeply moved, and then refused him.
—”Thank you! But I am a person who (will soon) have a wife; in this lifetime, I can only sleep with my own wife.”
He wasn’t completely ignorant of human culture. A person who had a wife but still slept in the same bed with someone else was called a “scumbag.” Scumbags would be sentenced to life without a wife—they’d never be able to get a wife for the rest of their lives. It was too terrifying.
Little Zombie froze for a moment, keenly catching the keyword: “Wife? What wife?”
Realizing he had let it slip, Jian Tang quickly clamped his mouth shut.
Little Zombie wouldn’t let it go: “It wouldn’t be a human wife, would it? Little Tang, don’t do anything stupid. If humans discover our existence, you’ll be arrested! They’ll lock you in a dark room, pull your tendons, skin you, and study you! How terrifying!”
Jian Tang laughed it off, muddling through the matter.
He understood his friend’s concern, but he had great confidence in his abilities: as long as he was diligent and self-disciplined and kept practicing, he would be a “human” without a single flaw. No human would ever be able to see through him. He would never be exposed.
The self-disciplined little monster had persisted for three years and truly achieved seamless perfection—even when unconscious or weak, he didn’t easily revert to his original form. In terms of shapeshifting skills, he had reached the top tier of the industry, crushing all his peers!
At this moment, Jian Tang, who had long been accustomed to sleeping in corridors, was still trying to shrink into the corner—only by relying on the hard, cold triangular wall in the corner of the safe zone could he feel more at ease.
But for some reason, Jian Tang squirmed for a long time but couldn’t squirm into a corner. Impatient, he gave a vigorous roll—
And rolled right off the bed.
Ouch! So painful!
Jian Tang, dizzy and disoriented, sat up. It took him a while to clear his head, and then he realized something was wrong.
This was clearly not the factory corridor he was familiar with.
Where was this?
His bewildered gaze swept over the small bed in front of him that looked very comfortable, swept over the thin blanket still wrapped around him, and finally, through the crack in the curtains, he saw the blue sky and white clouds outside.
Oh ho, he could see the sunlight, which meant he was on human turf.
After a moment of dazed stillness, a flood of memories surged in like a tide, and Jian Tang quickly remembered everything.
“!!!”
He jumped up abruptly, rushed to the window, pulled back the curtains, and peered out.
The familiar residential scenery; this was indeed the Happiness Court complex. Judging by the angle, he was even in the same Building 44.
Could it be that a kind resident in the building saw him passed out in the lobby and, taking pity on him, picked him up and brought him back?
He had to thank this kind person properly.
Jian Tang left the window, went to open the door, and was stunned.
Although he had only caught a fleeting glance when he pushed the door open yesterday, he still had an impression of the 404 apartment’s living room. Now, he was standing in that very same familiar living room.
“???”
Jian Tang’s jaw dropped in shock, and he quickly realized what had happened.
Could it be that the one who picked him up was that fierce, knock-off wife?
He… he was actually a pretty decent guy?
Jian Tang tentatively took a step forward, summoning his courage: “…Hello?”
The entire apartment was silent.
“Are, are you there…?” Jian Tang moved stealthily like a little mouse, maintaining a posture ready to run at any moment. “Wife…? Wife, are you there? Is anyone home?”
There was no one home.
Jian Tang searched the entire apartment and didn’t see a shadow of a person. On the coffee table in the living room, he saw a carton of milk and a well-wrapped sandwich sitting side-by-side. It was obviously a prepared breakfast.
—It was prepared for the “person” who slept until now.
Jian Tang was stunned, his heart softening into a puddle.
And he started to reflect on himself.
Sigh, he shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Although the other party didn’t look cute and looked so fierce that even a dog would tremble, as the saying goes, a husband doesn’t dislike a wife for being ugly. It wasn’t his fault for looking like a ferocious monster; he was born that way, so what could he do?
He had to learn to discover his wife’s merits. He left me breakfast; he cares about me. At his core, he is still a gentle and cute good wife.
Muttering to himself as he brainwashed himself for a while, Jian Tang felt much better.
Although he had received a knock-off product, what was done was done; what else could he do?
He gritted his teeth and endured it. This life was still livable.
Jian Tang curved his lips slightly. As he continued to look around, he suddenly saw the photo stand that had been pressed face-down on the display shelf.
Jian Tang: ?
Curiously, he walked over and straightened the photo stand, then saw the scene in the photo.
A gloomy and dull rainy day, an eerie and ominous bolt of lightning, and an ominous, fierce face looking like a perverted, dismembering serial killer.
“…………”
Jian Tang slapped the photo stand face-down again, hoping he was dreaming.
He gritted his teeth and endured it, but this life… this life was still going to be very hard to live!!
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