Chapter 2 Who Keeps a Diary?_1

"Name."

"Huai Shi."

"Age?"

"Seventeen..."

In the police station, while giving his statement, Huai Shi increasingly felt that the dialogue was too familiar. Had it been repeated several times already somewhere?

Fearing some accident, after the record was made, he still clutched the policeman's hand and asked repeatedly, "You guys don't recruit cowherds here, do you?"

"..."

The policeman's face twitched, not wanting to deal with him, and poured him a tea saying he could leave after a checkup.

Huai Shi sat on the chair and heaved a sigh of relief, still shaken.

A narrow alley, a dead person, a small goldfish, an iron box.

So many strange elements crammed together, even someone who had experienced as much as Huai Shi was a bit overwhelmed.

But one thing was certain, none of this was normal!

Considering the recent explosion at the port, it might be a gang war among drug traffickers!

What if there were two ounces of pure white powder in that box? It would be fun if the cops caught that.

Although he was indeed so poor he was almost unable to afford food, that didn't mean he should be looking for a free meal in jail, right?

In such circumstances, as a citizen of the Dongxia Republic, no, as anyone with a bit of common sense, reporting to the police was the right thing to do, right?

"That's right, you did well. In such a situation, seeking help from the police immediately is the most rational method,"

the officer, who returned his belongings in the evidence room, nodded approvingly. "If it were a bomb instead of powder in there, things could have been much worse..."

"But what exactly was in that box?"

Huai Shi asked, driven by curiosity.

"Don't know. We've scanned it with X-rays and performed an explosive detection test. There doesn't seem to be anything dangerous inside, but it looks like an antique. We'll see what it really is when the expert comes tomorrow. But there's nothing more for you here, you can go home,"

he said as he placed the basket in front of Huai Shi.

As it involved a death case, all of Huai Shi's personal belongings had been checked. Retrieving them, he immediately took out the thick notebook he'd carried for years to check it thoroughly.

No one had tampered with it.

The nervous look on his face caught the eye of the officer in the evidence room, who couldn't help laughing, "What? Afraid we'll read your diary? Young people still keeping diaries nowadays, ha-ha, don't worry, we didn't look, we didn't look..."

Huai Shi smiled awkwardly, shoved the notebook into his pocket, and as he picked up his phone, he accidentally saw the bank balance text message, causing his heart to ache once again.

After repeatedly confirming with the police station that there was no reward for reporting such incidents, he walked out the door in sorrow, feeling the world bleak and desolate.

As he trudged along with his head down, the streetlight behind him cast a long shadow.

Within the flickering shadow, it seemed as though a raven took flight.

Boom!

Thunder rumbled through the night sky.

It was as if it waited for Huai Shi to leave the house. After a brief pause in the evening, the torrential rain came howling with flashes of lightning and thunder.

By the time Huai Shi got home, he was completely soaked.

Standing before the large iron gate, he sighed, took out the key, unlocked the iron chain wrapped around the gate, and pushed the door open with great effort against the sharp sound that even the heavy rain couldn't suppress.

"I'm back..."

In the darkness, no one responded.

Under the flashlight of his phone, the ancient estate covered in dead leaves revealed its decrepit and ruined façade.

Under layers of ivy and vines were walls long stripped of their coating, with a courtyard full of dead leaves and disorder. The neglected fountain had dried up long ago, with the stone carvings on either side damaged and incomplete, looking strange and chilly.

In the sky covered with dark clouds, a sharp flash of lightning suddenly brightened, revealing the grim outline of the ancient house stretching out into the courtyard.

.

At the foot of Qingshiu Mountain on the outskirts of Xinhai City, is Huai Shi's home.

Long ago, it was known as 'Yu Garden Stone Marrow Museum.' At the time, this garden, which took five years to build at a considerable cost, was regarded as the height of luxury. The garden bloomed with flowers all year round, evergreen pines and cypresses stood at the entrance, the splendor inside the building need not be mentioned, and the master was a giant of wealth in the east, with a constant stream of visitors coming and going every day...

But that was all ninety years ago.

The world's changes are always too fast. In just ninety years, it moved from the old steam era into the electronic era, and from the electronic age into a new electronic era; the world went from peace to chaos, then from chaos back to peace... So much has happened, and there's too much to remember, to the point that many things relatively become less necessary to remember.

Today's Yu Garden, after a brief period of splendor, has gone through a long silence and decline, forgotten by most people.

The overgrown wild grass, the opulence of the past no more, spreading ivy covering the cracks in the mottled walls, most of the sculptures in the courtyard are damaged and fragmented, unrecognizable. And after being squandered and ravaged by prodigal descendants, what was once a grand mansion is now empty, a mere shell, about to become... no, has become a haunted house that is not even famous.

For Huai Shi, this rundown house, a cello of the same age that was about to break down, and his bleak life were all he had left.

But as the old house continued to deteriorate, the cello began to crack, and Huai Shi felt that even his life was bidding him farewell.

"The balance of the savings account ending in 8193 is 144.444 yuan..."

In the midst of the howling wind and storm outside the window, Huai Shi finally checked the balance of his bank card.

"Mother of heaven... how am I supposed to live on this!"

Even if he ignored the symbolic string of digits at the end, he felt a strong urge to die.

What could he do?

After all, this was the hand he was dealt by his own parents.

When Huai Shi was born, there was at least a little bit of a foundation left in the family. If he had been a little more motivated, it might have been possible to revive the family business. Instead, as soon as his grandfather passed away when he was three, Huai Shi's parents began their swift downfall, squandering the family fortune at an astonishing rate within just a few years.

A pair of vermin involved in eating, drinking, whoring, gambling, and even drug abuse. Before the company went bankrupt, they embezzled funds and fled, leaving Huai Shi to deal with the frenzied shareholders knocking at his door...

Almost everything of value in the house had been taken.

If it weren't for Huai Shi's grandfather, who had expressly made a will before his death, entrusting a lawyer to leave this old house to Huai Shi to formally inherit when he came of age, Huai Shi would have probably been wandering the streets like a stray dog.

Sometimes, the human capacity for endurance is truly infinite. Like Huai Shi, he started to think he was going insane from the age of ten, yet he had never expected his nerves to be so resilient, with no signs of a mental breakdown to date.

At most, he occasionally hallucinated hearing footsteps in the old house, water dripping upstairs at night, or someone sighing while he was sleeping...

Life must go on.

Even if life becomes unbearable, you still have to carry on.

In hindsight, his survival up to this point is truly a miracle.

Everything had been gradually getting better. He would grow up, earn a full scholarship to university with his grades, and find a job that paid more money. At last, it seemed like life was inching towards the right track.

It was nothing more than being so poor he was close to starving.

"Is life always this painful, or is it just childhood that's like this?"

Regrettably, there was no middle-aged uncle with a passion for gardening to answer him.

He was neither a child nor Matilda.

And so, amidst the deep nocturnal sorrow, Huai Shi crouched on the balcony, smoking and staring into the distance at the torrential rain, sighing helplessly.

The thunder roared.

Cold rain fell from the sky, as if it was about to swallow the entire world.

Huai Shi's accumulated anger finally erupted. Rising from his heart, it drove him to yell at the sky, "You thieving heavens, what's the use of all this? If you have the guts, just come and kill me directly!"

"—I want to defy heaven!!!"

With that roar, the frustration in his heart was vented, and Huai Shi finally felt a bit of relief.

But immediately after, he heard a rumble. The cloud bursting with endless rain and lightning suddenly shook, letting out a sharp sound like steel being torn apart.

Right above the Stone Marrow Pavilion, the clouds were abruptly torn open by a massive hole. Then, a blazing bolt of lightning lashed down like divine punishment, striking directly onto the railing in front of Huai Shi, shattering the old railing completely.

Surrounded by the pungent odor of the air being electrified, with debris flying, Huai Shi collapsed on the ground.

"Damn... It actually worked?"

Crawling back into the house with rolling and scrambling, he mustered the courage to stick out his head before closing the window and shouted, "I take it back, I take it back, big brother, I was just kidding!"

Snap!

The window closed.

Huai Shi sat in his chair, wanting to cry but with no tears coming out, and couldn't help wanting to howl at the sky.

Life had become unbearable!

His bank savings had plummeted to three figures, looking for a job he almost accidentally applied to a Cowherd Club, even going home could lead to a bizarre death, and trying to defy the heavens might get him a warning strike by lightning...

For the time being, his only hope was that some stupid netizen might bring a little joy to his miserable life.

With a glimmer of hope, Huai Shi turned on his phone, only to see someone in the class WeChat group had posted a photo of him standing in front of the Cowherd Club. A bunch of people were tagging him vigorously, and someone called "Beast and Slavish Heart" shouted, "Congratulations to boss Huai on making his C-list debut in the cowherd circle, should we sisters get together and send a flower ring?"

"Piss off, I don't like little sisters, I only like smooth-skinned baldies like you two!"

After sending his reply, Huai Shi turned off his phone and couldn't help covering his face.

Great, now the whole world knows I almost became a cowherd...

What's the most frustrating thing in the world? It's not losing your good name in a single day after ten years, but losing your good name without having done anything beastly at all.

It's such a loss!

Why did this have to happen?

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Despite having acquired such a large house and a golden finger, where two joys should have overlapped and brought forth even more happiness, where I could have enjoyed a dream-like blissful time, why—

Boom!

Before he could finish his line, another thunderclap struck outside the window, startling Huai Shi who sat behind the glass. He dared not to let his mind wander any further and could only pull out a thick notebook from his bag, tears welling up in his eyes.

"Can't you be a bit more impressive? Look at the others' golden fingers, they can add points, issue quests, or even turn into a beautiful lady. Why can you only keep a diary?"

Indeed, this thing was his golden finger.

Ever since he fell ill with a high fever at nine and found this thing, he knew it wasn't ordinary. He diligently safeguarded it, and as he grew older, he dreamt nightly, waiting to hear a mysterious voice whisper in his ear, 'Super XX System fully loaded.' Then he could stand out from the crowd, attain enlightenment, transform his life into a thrilling tale, count money until he fried several hundred cash counters, and become so famous that even after his death, he could turn into a lady and enter the card pool...

But so far, he hadn't found any use for this damn thing.

It seemed like just an indestructible notebook, immune to tearing, burning, or soaking. Its only impressive feature was writing a diary on its own, updating in real-time what he did every moment... as if it said, "I will record every stupid thing you did in your adolescent fantasies to show you later."

He flipped open the thick cover, and the silhouette of a raven on the title page was still eye-catching.

Huai Shi went straight to the last page to review his fantastical day. When he read the description about him leaving the police station, he froze.

"Amid the flickering shadows, it seemed as if a raven took flight?"

After reading, Huai Shi couldn't help but exclaim, "I didn't expect this crappy thing to be good at atmosphere description... I could copy a few sections later for a fantasy novel and maybe make some money off it."

Of course, this embarrassing remark was also mercilessly recorded.

"..."

Sighing, Huai Shi casually flipped through the pages, not expecting to find anything since the rest should have been blank, but to his surprise, at the end of the book, there was a thick interleaf followed by several strange profiles...

They resembled CVs complete with passport-sized photos.

Most were burly men with massive heads and brawny arms, capable of thrashing Huai Shi several times over. There were also a few snake-faced beauties he had never encountered before, and one bald, prematurely aged face that seemed familiar from local news...

Chen Bo, Wang Quan, Mu Jing, Lu Bai...

The odd profiles were multiplying rapidly until they finally stopped, totaling over seventy.

"What the hell..."

Huai Shi gazed at the notebook in astonishment, stroking his chin in thought: Could it have been activated by a lightning bolt?

He opened the window, placed the notebook on the balcony, and shouted to the sky, "Why don't you try zapping a few more times?"

The heavens ignored him, not even bothering to toss him another bone.

In the awkward silence, only the freshly updated records in the book marked the fool he had just played...

"Cough cough, let's pretend that never happened."

Huai Shi sighed, brought the notebook back in, and tossed it onto the table.

Not being able to figure out what's going on, he thought it would be better to give it a rest. There was job hunting to do tomorrow, after all. Better go to sleep, where dreams have everything...

He threw himself onto the bed and closed his eyes.

When he opened his eyes once again, he saw under the dim light of the streetlamp, a hunched figure standing there, squatting like an ape. When it lifted its head towards him, it revealed a ferocious mask.

The next moment, he was dead.

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