Chapter 28

Thud.

Bai Wei’s ears twitched sensitively.

Someone had stopped at the bathroom door. But they didn’t push it open or call anyone, as if they were just thinking… Bai Wei initially thought the person was leaning against the bathroom door playing on their phone (but who would lean against a bathroom door to play on their phone? It’s gross), but soon, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Because the phone, which had been buzzing loudly, stopped ringing.

Along with the phone’s screen darkening, Bai Wei’s heart also sank. He stood in the bathroom, surrounded by white porcelain tiles, with Lu Sen standing outside the only exit, separated by only a thin door.

The door was too thin. He didn’t doubt that Lu Sen could even hear his nervous breathing. But he couldn’t hear Lu Sen’s… Bai Wei leaned in close to the door, but indeed, he couldn’t hear anything.

It was as silent as death outside the door. But Bai Wei knew, his monster husband was just beyond that door.

Bai Wei carefully stepped back from the door, and then jumped up as if there were cucumbers behind him. The bathroom window was nailed shut with iron bars, and the last stall was empty except for cleaning supplies.

He had wasted half the time, and the person in the second-to-last stall had finally finished and was washing their hands, staring at him curiously.

“What’s wrong with you?” the person asked.

At that moment, a knocking sound came from outside the door.

The passerby was even more confused. He glanced at the empty bathroom, then looked back at Bai Wei. Since there was no line for the bathroom, he could only conclude: “Is your girlfriend waiting for you outside?”

Not a girlfriend! It’s a monster who can’t die, haunts him endlessly, has done things to him, and can alter everyone’s perception—its shape is unknown!

But facing the passerby and Lu Sen outside the door, Bai Wei could only force a smile at the passerby. “No, it’s… uh… a friend.”

The passerby replied, “Oh, then hurry up and go out, don’t keep her waiting.”

He shook his hands dry, then opened the bathroom door. And then, he let out a loud scream.

“Fck! Fck!”

“F*ck, why are you standing straight behind the door like that? You scared the hell out of me! Are you sick or something?”

Lu Sen stood stiffly behind the door like a coffin board, staring straight at the door, almost like a human-shaped figure in a horror story. The passerby screamed like a pig being slaughtered. Clutching his chest, he was about to shout again when he heard Lu Sen say, “Wife.”

??

“Wife…?” The passerby hesitated.

“Husband.” Another voice drifted from behind him. The passerby turned around and found Bai Wei standing expressionless right behind him.

He looked like he was going to a grave.

“F*ck!!”

“Are you also sick? What do you mean by ‘husband’? ‘Friend’? You two are both crazy!”

The passerby screamed, crawling and running away. Everyone’s attention gathered here. Lu Sen looked at the passerby’s retreating figure and pondered, “Why did he call us crazy? Was what we did just now wrong?”

“It’s not wrong.” Bai Wei looked at him and forced a smile.

Although he couldn’t see his face, Bai Wei felt his smile must be uglier than crying. He realized the person beside him was not only a monster but also an idiot. In the past, Bai Wei would have been angry at Lu Sen’s rudeness and lack of common sense, especially for causing him to be the center of attention. But now, knowing Lu Sen was a monster, it seemed only natural that he was also a fool in human society.

…Wait, shouldn’t he still be afraid of the fact that Lu Sen is a monster? Why did he suddenly get angry, speechless, and even forgive him?

Bai Wei’s expression twisted for a moment. He wanted to push Lu Sen down the stairs to prove something to himself. But more people started looking over, and even some puzzled security guards came toward them. He could only tug at Lu Sen’s sleeve and lower his voice, saying, “Let’s go.”

“Oh, sorry. I just suddenly realized that there are still many things in our human world that I don’t understand,” Lu Sen said something that surprised Bai Wei. “I thought I understood a lot, but now I realize I don’t understand anything.”

Bai Wei lowered his head, pulling Lu Sen along as they jogged to an empty stairwell. But when he let go of Lu Sen’s sleeve, he looked up and noticed that Lu Sen’s deep blue eyes were always watching him as he hurried to avoid people’s gaze.

His heart tightened. He thought Lu Sen might say something like, “Was your reaction because I embarrassed you?” But Lu Sen just kept staring at him.

Then, unexpectedly, Lu Sen patted his head. Bai Wei jumped in surprise. When he looked up at Lu Sen, he found his eyes as vast as the sea.

“…What are you doing? Is something wrong?” Bai Wei asked.

Lu Sen paused, then said, “…I guess there’s nothing wrong.”

Bai Wei: …

He continued walking, but didn’t notice that Lu Sen was a bit surprised as he looked at his own hand, as if he didn’t know why he did it.

The more Bai Wei walked, the more his scalp tingled. Lu Sen was following him like a ghost. He wasn’t speaking affectionately or talking about trivial things like he usually did. The rising stairs made Bai Wei increasingly uneasy, and he decided to say something to break the silence.

“Did you get the report?” he asked.

“No, but it will be ready soon,” Lu Sen replied.

Bai Wei: “Oh, let’s go get it then.”

The walk was filled with discomfort, and of course, the report had no good news… although the doctor was cheerful. She looked at Bai Wei with a loving gaze and said, “Congratulations.”

Bai Wei thought she was going to say, “Your husband has late-stage cancer.”

“Your husband is in perfect health!”

“Yes, yes, all the indicators are normal. Young people these days, so concerned with love… tsk, tsk.”

“Unusual? I can only say he’s unusually healthy, hahaha. It’s rare to see such good health these days!”

“Hospitalization? Why would he need to be hospitalized? He’s perfectly fine. Oh dear, if he were hospitalized, it would be terrible for you newlywed couples. You’d be living day by day like years…”

The doctor was a bit confused by now. She noticed that Bai Wei’s expression had grown more serious, as if Lu Sen’s health wasn’t making him as happy as she thought. Finally, Bai Wei, pale, asked the last question: “But I’m still a bit worried… Doctor, do you think it’s better for him to rest for a while? Like, avoid strenuous exercise and… for example, no… bedroom activities?”

The doctor laughed, “Oh, so you were asking that. You young people, always asking indirect questions. Well, let me put it plainly—”

“He’s perfectly healthy!”

“Absolutely fine!”

“No need for rest!”

Bai Wei: …

Doctor: “I’ve never met someone like you. What’s wrong? Your husband’s healthy, and you’re not happy?”

It was normal for Bai Wei to be unhappy. Who could be happy finding out that their seemingly undead husband was actually a superpowered monster? But what made him most upset was that Lu Sen wasn’t happy. It was obvious that he was bothered by Bai Wei’s dark past.

The two of them descended the stairs again. Bai Wei followed Lu Sen, glancing at the dim stairwell, suddenly feeling an urge to push Lu Sen down. Although he felt that Lu Sen wouldn’t die so easily, he still thought that only a broken leg could match the unhappy look on Lu Sen’s face at that moment.

—Forget it, no need. There are cameras everywhere, and doing this would be useless.

Bai Wei suddenly felt very tired and unhappy. As they passed the third floor, he heard a heart-wrenching cry. He turned his head to look and saw a child who had wriggled out of the nurse’s grip while getting an injection. The parents were scrambling to catch her.

The child’s mother looked to be in her thirties, still in her prime, but with dark circles under her eyes and yellow-brown spots on her face. She wore a red sweatshirt and purple pants, clearly having hastily thrown on clothes in a hurry to come to the hospital in the middle of the night. The red sweatshirt even had noticeable yellowish milk stains on it. She was holding another child with her left hand and panting as she ran after the fleeing one.

“Come back! Get back here! Wang Yan Jing!”

“I don’t want to! I don’t want the injection!” the child wailed, but was very agile, darting through the adults’ legs and narrow corners.

The chase, the noise, and other children crying… Lu Sen, seeing Bai Wei watching this, said, “I’ve heard the pediatric ward is always noisy.”

Bai Wei: “Yeah, and it’s usually dirty too…”

Before he could finish, the child had found the safety door and was running toward the stairs, crying. However, she didn’t notice the stairs beneath her. As the child was about to fall, Lu Sen realized he should reach out, but Bai Wei was faster.

Bai Wei lunged forward, reaching out and tightly grabbing the child.

With the child’s sudden twist, they both fell to the ground—fortunately on the platform, not down the stairs. Bai Wei ended up underneath, serving as a cushion for the child.

“…”

Lu Sen saw Bai Wei frown deeply. He reached out to help Bai Wei, but Bai Wei extended the hand that wasn’t supporting the child and pointed to the child on top of him.

“You… pull him up,” he said.

His voice was steady, and no one would have thought it came from someone gritting their teeth.

The child was just a little dizzy. He saw Lu Sen pull him up, and then he saw his mother appear at the door of the stairway, holding his little sister, as if the pursuers were coming again.

Lu Sen was holding his hand, preparing to hand him over to his mother, but his eyes were still on Bai Wei: “Madam, your child…”

The child, however, felt like he had found a protector. He hid behind this strange man, as if his mother was his enemy: “I don’t want an injection! Mommy is bad, Uncle, I don’t want an injection!”

This left Lu Sen somewhat at a loss. He said, “Madam, let me go over there first…”

But the woman seemed to freeze, or perhaps it was because of what her child had said that her mind finally reached its breaking point.

“What did you say about me? What did you say about me?” Her face showed a mix of crying and smiling, “You said I’m bad? I’m bad?”

Suddenly, she released the hand of her little daughter, who was also suffering from the flu, and collapsed onto the ground, screaming loudly.

“That… that… ma’am! Ma’am!”

“Yan Jing’s mom! Yan Jing’s mom, calm down!”

The nurse in the ward also rushed over. The guilty child seemed frightened, clutching Lu Sen’s pants and crying loudly, shrinking behind him. The scene became chaotic, and even the doctor rushed over, looking at the kind-looking Lu Sen: “Sorry, sir…”

He had originally wanted to ask Lu Sen to help with the child who was crying on him. But he quickly froze, watching in disbelief as Lu Sen forcefully pulled the child off him and threw him aside.

“This child has nothing to do with me,” Lu Sen said, walking briskly to the other corner of the stairwell.

“Hey! How could you…?”

“Oh, should I explain? I was injured in an accident today. He touched my wound,” Lu Sen said coldly, without looking back.

He only crouched down beside Bai Wei. Bai Wei was still sitting in the corner of the stairs, his hair disheveled, his body splattered with the child’s snot and the dust from the stairwell. He looked very unkempt, as if completely ignored.

He tightly gripped his right wrist, the dislocated mark clearly visible.