CH 24

When Pi Xiu went upstairs with dinner in hand, he found the scene of the kid and the little one sitting on the sofa watching TV. The homework was scattered all over the table, with the pen on the side with the cap still on.

“Are you done with your homework?” Pi Xiu set the bowl of soup and his plate of food aside, looked at the blank exercise book, immediately raising an eyebrow. Then he looked at the smiling Lil Broom and asked: “Who let you watch TV?”

Lil Broom was dumbfounded, and unconsciously looked at Wen Xi.

Wen Xi sat sideways and didn’t look at Pi Xiu. Instead, Wen Xi suddenly stroked his stomach with his hand repeatedly, pondering over the origin of mankind.

When Pi Xiu looked at Wen Xi along Lil Broom’s line of sight, he noticed that the little one was behaving strangely. So he couldn’t help but ask: “Did you eat something that made you sick to your stomach?”

After saying that, Pi Xiu told Lil Broom to move out of the way, so that he himself could sit next to Wen Xi. Pi Xiu then released his Qi to inquire deep into Wen Xi’s soul body to check if there was any problem. However, even after checking his soul from head to toe, Pi Xiu simply discovered that the soul of the little one was stable enough to accept his Yang Qi.

Wen Xi tilted his head to look at Pi Xiu, when a smile suddenly bloomed on his face.

When Pi Xiu noticed the smile, his heart skipped a beat. Pi Xiu hesitated for a moment due to this sudden moment of panic, but his face became angry and gloomy right next moment. With a fierce glare, Pi Xiu asked: “What are you smiling about? Do I have money on my face or something?”

Wen Xi took a pause, then changed his expression to that of a weak and pitiful look. Pi Xiu’s heart skipped another beat, and he even unconsciously brought his hand to grab Wen Xi’s hand. However, Pi Xiu ended up bumping into something hard.

Wen Xi followed Pi Xiu’s hand movement, only to realize that Pi Xiu had come across Lil Broom’s phone that Wen Xi was still clutching in his hand. Wen Xi turned on the phone’s screen and showed it to Pi Xiu for him to read the posts. After looking down unhappily, Wen Xi said in a low voice: “I know you misunderstand me. But even though I’m a Ghost, I’m also a man. How can I be treated as a woman, and even….?”

Wen Xi bit his lip and secretly pinched his thigh to force out a couple of tears.

‘Fuck, it really hurts.’

Despite the pain, Wen Xi was determined to pitifully glance at Pi Xiu’s gloomy face, only to finish with the following words: “There are also rumors that I’m carrying your child….”

Staring at the phone held up to his face, Pi Xiu’s face darkened so much that it might as well drip ink from his pores. Pi Xiu thought that after the last warning he gave Feng Du, he would know better what things are okay to post, and what things are not.

The little one lowered his head and stopped talking, which only made Pi Xiu’s heart tighten, feeling as if something was blocking his throat, making it impossible for him to breathe. Pi Xiu didn’t know what to say, but with a flinch, he pulled out his own phone, stood up, and said: “I’m going out.”

When Lil Broom noticed that Pi Xiu was walking away with his phone, Lil Broom rushed to reach out and tug on Pi Xiu’s t-shirt: “Mine, it’s m-mine.”

“Your phone?” Pi Xiu narrowed his eyes. “Did you finish your homework by any chance? You have an exam in a couple of days, and instead of studying, you’re playing with your phone. Do your classmates also fool around with their phones all day like you?”

“You! You!” Lil Broom trembled with anger and was unable to utter a word.

Pi Xiu: “You? What ‘you’? Stop learning from the repeater1 of Jingwei2, that stupid bird. I’m leaving now. When I come back, I’ll check if you’ve done your homework!”

Wen Xi looked at Pi Xiu and asked: “Are you going to go find the Emperor of Fengdu?” Wen Xi frowned and said: “Don’t get into fights.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Pi Xiu straightened up and said with a cold face: “I promise not to make a fuss.”

Pi Xiu went downstairs and summoned one of the Monkey Spirits to bring the scooter to him at once. In a flash, the yellow scooter raced at full speed on the streets, nearly transforming into a lightning bolt thanks to the demon’s power.

Lil Broom leaned over the window and looked out, wiping away his tears: “Dad, Dad’s g-gone.” Lil Broom turned to look at Wen Xi and muttered in a low voice: “W-what you t-told him d-didn’t h-help. He, he s-still t-told me to d-do h-homework…..”

“Everything will be fine.” Wen Xi stroked his hair and stood by the window. He looked down and commented: “Just write whatever you want to write. Don’t let Ren Jiao do it for you.”

Pi Xiu only returned when it was already midnight. Although he was still riding the same small motorcycle, he was carrying a big bag on his shoulder and a handful of money barely peeking out of his pants pocket. One of the bills slipped out of his pocket, falling at the feet of a young man smoking in the street.

When the young man glanced at the bill, he thought it was fake so he didn’t reach for it. Then, all of a sudden, someone else stood in front of him.

It was Taotie. While still holding the Jade Statue, Taotie smiled at the young man. His eyes glowed red, looking like a demon’s under the silvery moonlight. He asked: “Wanna get more cash?”

Pi Xiu, anxious to get home quickly, didn’t realize that some bills had fallen out. When he finally arrived at the Restaurant, Wen Xi was surprised to see Pi Xiu appear with a bag on his shoulder. Frozen, Wen Xi looked at him and asked: “You didn’t knock someone on the way and bring them back, did you?”

“No.” Pi Xiu placed the bag aside, and said: “This is Feng Du’s compensatory gift.”

Wen Xi walked over to the bag to open it and take a peek at what was inside. But as soon as he opened it, he closed it again.

Money. It was just money.

Wen Xi couldn’t resist questioning Pi Xiu: “Aren’t you afraid that you would be robbed by carrying this bag of money down the street on a small motorcycle?”

Pi Xiu took a sip of cold water, raised his eyebrows, and said: “Who in this world would dare to steal from me?”

Wen Xi was dumbfounded, and thought: ‘Well, I don’t think anyone would really expect Pi Xiu would be bold enough to carry a big bag of money across the market.’

Pi Xiu took advantage of Wen Xi’s stupor and made a phone call to Su An, who had already gone to bed, reading an investment article in his bed.

When the Abacus Spirit went upstairs, and saw the big bag of money, he was stunned.

Su An turned to look at his Boss, who was sitting on the couch as if nothing was wrong, after having returned in the middle of the night. Su An looked at him as if he was looking at a bandit, and couldn’t help but sigh as he began to worry about his future.

‘In the end, he couldn’t escape indulging in robbery. My Boss, Pi Xiu, has finally chosen to rob a bank to make a quick buck. This is a road of no return.’

‘Should I get an accounting certificate to prepare for my upcoming work, so that my Boss won’t be caught unprepared?’

“Deposit it all in the bank tomorrow, and purchase the financial products3 you mentioned last time.” Pi Xiu took the towel handed to him by Wen Xi and wiped his face. Seeing that Su An was still looking at him oddly, Pi Xiu asked: “What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”

Su An wanted to ask his Boss if this money was clean, but he was afraid of dying young if he knew too much. Therefore, Su An hesitantly nodded and said: “Understood.”

Once Su An left, Pi Xiu said to Wen Xi: “All the posts about you in the Demon Forum were deleted.”

This was expected by Wen Xi, so he sat down beside Pi Xiu and took the initiative to fan him, throwing cold air at him: “That wasn’t the main issue, I was afraid your reputation would be damaged.”

Pi Xiu looked at Wen Xi, but said nothing.

Wen Xi kept swinging the fan and said: “Lil Broom finished doing his homework, I monitored him myself. Don’t be angry with him.”

“I’m not mad at him.” Pi Xiu rubbed his eyebrows. “Let him go if he doesn’t want to do his homework. I’ll deal with him at the end of the term.”

Wen Xi swung the fan harder, and said: “I saw that they were saying Lil Broom was your son.”

“I took care of him and raised him. But that hardly counts.”

Wen Xi pursed his lips and smiled: “It’s not like I can know something like. After all, I’m up here all the time without being able to come down.” Wen Xi took a pause, looked at Pi Xiu, and moved closer to him. The scent of his bones surrounded Pi Xiu immediately. “Do you have an extra phone? Can you give me one so I can take a look at those Forums?”

Pi Xiu looked at him and wanted to laugh, realizing that the final move had finally occurred. Pi Xiu drummed his fingers on his knee, leaned back on the sofa, and opened his hand. Then he waited for Wen Xi to take the initiative to come closer so he could embrace him. Once Pi Xiu already had Wen Xi in his arms, the heat in Pi Xiu’s body dissipated, so he lazily said: “I understand. I’ll get you one tomorrow.”

The next day, Wen Xi got a phone, so he laid down on the bed and started tapping the screen without ceasing. When Pi Xiu woke up, he heard a crackling sound in his ears.

When Pi Xiu turned his head, he found Wen Xi playing with the phone, so he swallowed the words he was about to say. After lying there with his eyes closed for a while, Pi Xiu got up from the bed and said, “I’m going downstairs. Remember to drink the medicine later.”

Wen Xi replied with a ‘yes’, his eyes still glued to the phone.

This day there were many customers in the afternoon, to which Su An called the Spirit Monkeys to carry the money bag to the bank with him. Hou Wu, the quietest among the five Spirit Monkeys, sat at the cashier station to help him collect the money.

Pi Xiu turned around and went to the kitchen to get some food. He first started off by having a deep discussion with Ren Jiao about Lil Broom’s education, to then analyzing the many aspects of his future career path.

Finally, they came to the conclusion that Lil Broom’s biggest dream would be to join the Sanitation Department and become a glorious sanitation worker.

Pi Xiu sighed as he smoked: “Actually, it’s not impossible. A job is a job, and what matters most is for him to be happy.”

“But it’s an exhausting job. I can’t bear to let him suffer.” Ren Jiao also sighed.

Both old demons sighed again and again, but before they could even finish a cigarette, they heard a loud noise outside. Pi Xiu sharpened his ears, and his face became gloomy as soon as he heard what was happening.

Ren Jiao had also heard the sound outside, and couldn’t help but laugh: “How can they come to ravage the place in broad daylight, hmm?”

Pi Xiu put out the cigarette, and with an extremely cold face, walked out: “Wrong. You should ask why someone would be so eager to be buried in broad daylight.”

Several thugs sat at the largest table in the Restaurant, dressed in stretchy pants, tight T-shirts and flashy Taobao loafer shoes. At that instant, the menu in Jia Suzhen’s hands fell to the floor, while the other customers couldn’t help but lower their heads without daring to look at them.

The Demon customers, for their part, were pretending to look at the surroundings. But in fact, they were paying close attention to that table, where some youngsters had foolishly come to deliver their heads to the big shot by trying to challenge him. For the Demons, it had already been a hundred or two hundred years since they had witnessed this kind of shocking slapface drama.

‘Get it done quickly! Hurry up!’

Pi Xiu came out of the kitchen with a grim look on his face, and the eyes of the Demons lit up. If it wasn’t because they were afraid of the old demon’s wrath, and that they might accidentally get hurt, they would have walked over and pointed their phone cameras into Pi Xiu’s face.

“You’re the Boss?” When the young man dressed in a Chanel T-shirt saw Pi Xiu, he laughed: “We are Brother Fei’s people. I saw you come home yesterday and noticed you dropped something very interesting.”

The young man took out a bill from his pocket and threw it on the table. Seeing it, Pi Xiu frowned and thought: ‘That son of a bitch Feng Du told me that the money bag might lose some money and I didn’t listen to him.’

“Thank you.” Pi Xiu reached out to take the money, but the young man held his wrist.

“There’s a saying in this line of business. The one who sees, gets a share.” The young man smiled. “I see you have a very nice Restaurant. You’ve been here for quite some time, right? I noticed you’ve never paid the protection fee.”

Pi Xiu raised an eyebrow: “Protection fee?”

“The previous Head of this area was chosen by our Brother Fei, but now this area is under Brother Fei’s control. Under the previous Head, the protection fee was left alone, but now that he’s no longer here, the protection fee is….”

There was no need for the young man to say it, so he merely smiled.

The Demons held their breath, thinking: ‘Really, the poor, who have nothing to lose, don’t fear the powerful. After living so many years in the Human World, there is really someone who dares to snatch money out of a Pixiu’s hands. This is better than squatting over a toilet looking for gold among excrement!’

Pi Xiu laughed as well: “Oh? I also have a saying around here.”

“What saying?”

Pi Xiu removed his hand from his grip, straightened up, and looked at the young man: “No matter what you say, there is only one road for you.”

The young man frowned: “What road?”

“The road to the Yellow Springs4.”

As soon as Pi Xiu said these words, he lifted his leg and kicked a chair in the air so hard that it flew out of the Restaurant, performing a somersault in mid-air.

Pi Xiu coldly looked at the stupefied young men still sitting at the table and asked in a low voice, “You still don’t plan to leave?”

At that moment, Ren Jiao came out of the kitchen as he wiped his hands. The same guy who had fallen to the ground doubting his own life smiled. The scar on his face twisted horribly: “Four blocks from southeast to northwest! Go and ask who the one in charge is!”

Pi Xiu laughed and reached out a hand to push the head of the young man whose hair was full of gel, “You are the one who hasn’t bothered to find out under whose hands you will die. When the time comes, you won’t be allowed to enter reincarnation.”

Just then, Wen Xi walked down the stairs only to find the Restaurant engulfed in chaos. Unconsciously, Wen Xi searched for Pi Xiu’s figure, when all of a sudden, he saw a flat-headed young man pull out a knife and aim it at the old demon!

“Pi Xiu!” Wen Xi’s pupils shrank, and the demonic marks reappeared on his face. Wen Xi’s feet retreated a step, but the next instant, he rushed towards Pi Xiu to block the attack.

Pi Xiu reacted almost instantly, but when he turned around, he saw that the knife had penetrated Wen Xi’s soul body, stabbing his body. However, although the clothes Wen Xi was wearing had been cut by the knife, his ‘body’ had not been cut.

Wen Xi reached out, grabbed the knife that had stabbed him, and blinked a couple of times. Then, he looked at the changing face of the young man in front of him and pulled the knife out a little bit at a time.

‘Right, I’m a ghost. This knife can’t hurt me.’

Almost immediately, the young man in front of Wen Xi fled in terror. On the other hand, Wen Xi was held into Pi Xiu’s arms, so that the demonic marks that had appeared on his face would be hidden from the eyes of the onlookers. The old demon then showed a gloomy and wrathful expression to the crowd. Then, his anger and strong Yang Qi exploded out, unable to be restrained.

The sky that had been clear and sunny so far, began to thunder, looking as if a storm was about to come. Ren Jiao’s face immediately changed, and he even shouted at Pi Xiu to control himself. But it was all in vain.

A smile suddenly appeared on the face of the old demon surnamed Pi, making all the Demons inside the Restaurant stunned for a moment. But after the initial shock, they all rushed to flee the scene.

‘Shit! If we don’t run now, we’ll end up dead just by witnessing the exciting drama of someone else’s life!’