Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor: PerpetualMreow , Proofreader: Ghostie
In mid-April, the temperature gradually rose after the late spring’s cold.
Saturday, April 17.
Today’s weather wasn’t very good.
Thick fog from the previous night along with the heavy clouds blocked the light of sunrise; were a prelude for a dreary day. At 6:10 that morning, Fèng Xīngchéng city was shrouded in haze.
In an alley within the old city, an iron gate cracked open, a man wearing a dark brown windbreaker pulling a suitcase slowly walked out.
His movements were very light, obviously not wanting to disturb others.
As he turned around to close the door, a young male voice rang.
“Are you leaving now?”
The man in the windbreaker looked up.
A young man in a nightgown walked out from the entrance , covered his mouth, and yawned.
He was in his early twenties, tall, and had delicate facial features: a high nose and small lips. His vertical slit pupils were dilated, and the corners of his eyes curved slightly upwards, his skin as white as porcelain, eyes and hair in a shade of warm chestnut colour. He gave people the impression of a half-breed.
“Well, the high-speed train leaves at 7:15.”
The man with the suitcase nodded.
“Bon voyage.” The young man answered simply and waved to the other party.
“……”
The man in the windbreaker hesitated a little, but he couldn’t help asking, “What will you do when you…”
The question was vague, but the young man understood.
“It doesn’t matter. The master will arrange for a new person to come here next month anyway.” The young man’s eyes curled upwards as he smiled.
The man in the windbreaker wanted to say something.He opened his mouth but swallowed his words down.
“Then…” he heaved a sigh, “Bei Quan, take care of yourself. Goodbye.”
With that, the man in the windbreaker left dragging his suitcase into the old, foggy alley.
The young man who was called Bei Quan, stood at the entrance, crossing his arms across his chest and watched the man’s figure disappear into the thick fog.
“Oh, this was the third one… I’m such scum. ”
Frustrated, he ran his fingers through his hair.
“But, I need to solve the problem with the shortage of people during this time.”
While talking to himself, Bei Quan turned around and walked to a table near the porch. He bent over and rummaged in the drawer for a while before taking out a marker pen and an A4 paper.
After pulling off the pen cap, he wrote down a recruitment notice:
[Sāntúchuān Broadcasting Company is now looking for an assistant.]
[There is no restriction on gender and age. No work experience is required.]
[You are required to be in good health, have courage, be conscientious, and be able to stay up late.]
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
[ Salary will be decided during the interview]
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“Dgbatfg, atf gbjv lc ogbca lr ecvfg mbcragemalbc. P klii tjnf ab ajxf j vfabeg.”
Kjxlcu jvnjcajuf bo atf alwf yfakffc atf gfv ilutar, atf ajzl vglnfg aegcfv yjmx jcv rjlv ab atf qjrrfcufg lc atf yjmx rfja, “Obbx, P klii rabq ja atf lcafgrfmalbc. Pr atja bxjs? Tbe’ii yf jyif ab gfjmt sbeg vfralcjalbc joafg j mbeqif wlceafr’ kjix.”
Wei Fuyuan, who was sitting in the back seat, frowned. Impatience clearly on his face, but still nodded.
“En.” He answered.
The taxi pulled over to the side of the intersection. Wei Fuyuan got out of the car, turning on the mobile phone navigation, confirming the directions across a pothole roadbed, and into an alley.
Wei Fuyuan was a native of Fèng Xīngchéng, and a rich second-generation miner’s son. He resided in a large apartment in the new urban area. In his memory, he had only taken a few trips to this location and most of them were made while passing by.
As a thousand-year-old capital, Fèng Xīngchéng city still preserved the years old design, with square blocks, alleyways, terraces, and buildings that were also extremely low. The majority of the residences on the street were also over 30 years old. Despite several renovations, it had been impossible to disguise the traces of time.
Wei Fuyuan looked down at his phone as he walked.
But the signal in the alley was poor and it took several minutes to load the map directions. On the screen, the little triangle marking his location leapt erratically.
He was unfamiliar with the area and navigation was difficult, so Master Wei was understandably lost after twenty minutes.
He stood in an unfamiliar narrow lane cluster, irritably refreshing his phone.
However, regardless of the map he chose, it either displayed that the network connection had failed or the cursor spasmed. He was more than half a kilometer away from his destination.
“Fuck!”
Wei Fuyuan was so angry that he wanted to smash the phone.
Young Master Wei, who was born with a golden spoon, had not felt so aggrieved in a long time.
He felt that he had been thrown in turbulent waters recently and that the eight words had reached their limit.
Wei Fuyuan, 21, was a junior majoring in business administration at Fèng Xīngchéng University.
He was tall and attractive. All year, he trained in Karate and Krav Maga. He was a professional model who could quickly adapt to any appearance. With outstanding grades and an excellent family background, he was the model of a winner in life.
So far, his biggest setback had been missing out on a gold medal due to a shoulder dislocation on the night before a karate competition.
That was, until half a year ago when he went home to celebrate his mother’s birthday. At the dinner party, he carelessly drank a little too much. In the inebriated state, a slip of tongue caused him to reveal his sexual orientation to his relatives.
Young Master Wei ended up coming out of the closet really boldly, but the consequences were very grave .
Mother Wei was so frightened that she almost fainted. Father Wei was so angry that he drove him out of the banquet on the spot, forbade him from returning home, and cut off all his sources of income.
A penny forced a good man to die.
After six months, the young master who had never worried over snacks finally realized the pain of breaking a yuan in two.
Wei Fuyuan’s savings were nearly depleted. He could no longer afford to pay 6000 yuan per month for an elite single loft apartment. He did not even have a dormitory because he was a day student and was on the verge of sleeping on the streets.
He didn’t want to beg his parents. He refused to ask for help from relatives and friends for the sake of face and he couldn’t let his classmates know of his predicament…
No way!
Wei Fuyuan could only consider working to earn his living expenses by himself.
It’s just that it wasn’t easy to find a job that wouldn’t get in the way of his studies.
Although his major’s junior year assignments were not onerous, he couldn’t ask for leave too often. Thus, he could only choose jobs with flexible working hours.
Young master Wei was also worried about being discovered by his acquaintances and refused to consider doing tasks such as delivering takeaway dishes, washing dishes, and handing out flyers. Because of this fear, he has to bear even more difficult working circumstances, such as working far from school and earning a lot of money for food and housing– all of which made it more difficult to find a suitable job.
He spent two days on various recruitment websites before finally finding a part-time job as a tallyman in a supermarket warehouse in this old urban area. Although the pay was much lower than he would have liked, he didn’t need to show his face when working in the warehouse and could still stay in the duty room at night, which was barely enough.
Today, Wei Fuyuan was here for an interview.
He just never expected to get lost in the alley.
The warehouse should be nearby. However, the navigation had been leading him in circles. Wei Fuyuan had walked back and forth on the same road three times, but he still couldn’t figure out the way.
“Lao Tzu, what kind of ghost is this!”
When he passed the same alley for the third time, the irascible young Master Wei finally broke out.
He wanted to find someone to ask for directions, it was nine o’clock on a weekend morning but the alley was very quiet.
Every door and every window that Wei Fuyuan passed through was tightly closed. For ten minutes, he didn’t even see a stray cat or dog, let alone a living person.
The surroundings were so quiet, you could hear a pin drop .
The chilly spring wind that had been blowing, suddenly ceased abruptly and brought forth a stillness that escaped Wei Fuyuan’s notice.
Standing in the empty alley, Wei Fuyuan suddenly shuddered.
He felt that the concrete pavement under his feet didn’t look real.
But how could there be a ghost in broad daylight?
As a staunch materialist, Wei Fuyuan had never believed in ghosts and gods.
Moreover, as a man who was nearly 1.9 meters tall, still in his youth and masculine, who would dare to attack him?
He comforted himself this much, yet couldn’t help himself from walking faster and faster.
——This was just an alley!
Wei Fuyuan forcibly suppressed his anxiety and kept telling himself, “I am just lost, just lost!”
In April, the temperature in Fèng Xīngchéng city was only about ten degrees. Wei Fuyuan, who was relying on his youth and vigor, had only worn a thin knitted vest with a coat, which wouldn’t really keep him “warm” in this weather.
But at this time, he was already sweating; large drops of cold sweat trailed down his forehead, soaking the shirt collar.
One step, two steps, three steps…
Wei Fuyuan felt extremely anxious, sped up his pace and unwittingly began to trot.
Why can’t I get out of this alley!
As he hustled, he anxiously swiped his phone, attempting to recover his right place in the navigation.
Just as he turned a corner, a door in front of him opened without warning.
“Bang!”
Wei Fuyuan was startled when the door unexpectedly opened. He had been moving anxiously, and couldn’t stop himself in time to avoid running straight into the door.
Young Master Wei sat on the ground gripping his forehead, the door rebounded violently and he let out a low exclamation.
He clutched his forehead and raised his head.
“Fuck your ancestor–”
Half of the words he was going to say got caught in his throat.
A young man poked his head out from behind the door and was staring at him with a surprised expression.
One had to say that the person’s appearance was very in line with young Master Wei’s tastes.
The man’s beauty was unparalleled, the kind that could bring down cities and ruin states. His features were exquisite and defined. Paired with his slim face, it gave the impression of a bright and charming temperament that was impossible to look away from. It was as if he was a carved white jade puppet, with snow-white skin, and slightly lighter-colored pupils and hair.
Wei Fuyuan was very frightened today, slammed his head against the door and painfully fell on his ass . He should have been in a bad mood, but the person who had caused the accident was a handsome man–he felt he could be more magnanimous.
“Hello,” the handsome guy behind the door tilted his head to the side inquisitively. “Are you ok?”
Wei Fuyuan got up and patted the dust of his pants.
” No. I’m fine.”
“I seem to be lost… How do I get to Jinhe Supermarket? ”
“Jinhe Supermarket?” The man raised his eyebrows then raised his hand, and pointed at Wei Fuyuan’s back, “Go down this alley, there will be a crossroad in 100 meters– turn right from there.”
Wei Fuyuan didn’t say that he had walked down this alley at least three or five times but hadn’tn’t seen any crossroads. At the same time, he looked back—
He gasped.
Half a minute ago, there hadn’t been anyone in the alley. He didn’t know when an old man had appeared, walking slowly with a birdcage. Further away, a middle-aged woman had also left her yard with a bucket and now stood on the steps splashing water.
A slightly chilly east wind blew on his neck, causing Wei Fuyuan shudder.
Suddenly, he could hear the sounds of the blowing wind, birdsong, splashing water, the rustling of branches and leaves, and some unknown other noises…
Wei Fuyuan was a little confused about whether he had been bewitched or not.
Otherwise, how could he have hallucinated the empty silence until just now? It almost seemed as if, the moment he glanced back, he had returned to the world from an unknown place.
“Thank you.”
Wei Fuyuan turned his head and dryly thanked the handsome youth who had shown him the way.
The other party smiled without answering.
“Hey, Bei Quan!”
At this time, a young woman’s voice came from the house, “You just suddenly opened the door, can you hurry up?”
“Coming,” said the man named Bei Quan as he turned to return to the house, and shut the door behind him.
Wei Fuyuan noticed that the old two-story building in front of him turned out to be a broadcasting company called Sāntúchuān.
——Was this company here before?
Master Wei was very confused.
Wèi Fùyuān had walked back and forth in this alley three or five times after losing his way. He had become familiar with the buildings on both sides of the alley, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember seeing this small building with red brick walls.
But he didn’t have time to look into this issue because Wei Fuyuan made a mistake: he happened to see the recruitment notice displayed on the doorpost.
Hey guys this the translator here, I am very excited to share my first translated novel with you.
Disclaimer- The romance will be slow burn, and wouldn’t start until very late in the story. This story mainly focuses on solving the ghostly cases but we will see our Master Wei crushing badly on his Boss here and there Bei Quan kikiki
And I hope you guys will enjoy this novel <3
This master Wei is quite funny adfggh do I smell a face-con?
Ehn ehn
I hope the drooling over a face part is sparse
Looking forward to the spooky spooky
Let’s get started! 🤗
“He gave people the impression of a half-breed.”
Isn’t half-breed insulting? Did the author mean mixed-race? Unless he’s actually meant to give the impression of being half human & half-beast?