Chapter 31: Spine-Chilling

He gently patted her forearm with his fingers and said softly, “Open your eyes. There’s nothing particularly scary here.”

But Su Tian didn’t listen and kept her eyes tightly shut. Though her hands covering her ears loosened slightly, she didn’t lower them.

Jiang Chiyu found it somewhat amusing but kept his gentle tone, “What are you afraid of? I’ve checked everything for you.”

“Jiang Chiyu… could you say that again in a different tone?” Su Tian’s voice still trembled. “Don’t be so gentle, it scares me.”

“…”

“What kind of masochistic tendency is this?” Jiang Chiyu genuinely laughed this time, and when he spoke again, his tone was deliberately cold and detached, “Open your eyes, there’s nothing here.”

So Su Tian slowly opened her eyes.

It took her a moment to adjust to the darker environment. She rubbed her eyes, glanced at Jiang Chiyu, and then looked around.

Although there weren’t any particularly frightening props, the eerie atmosphere still made her shiver.

Remembering the previous scene, Su Tian was still shaken, “I must have been crazy to agree to continue playing.”

Jiang Chiyu ignored her and released her forearm, adopting a more relaxed stance.

Su Tian felt he seemed a bit angry, “Do you remember when we were little?”

Jiang Chiyu responded irritably, “Three years old is little, ten years old is also little.”

“It was around eight or nine,” Su Tian calculated mentally. “Back then, I would go play with the neighborhood kids after school and come home only when it was almost dark.”

Jiang Chiyu gave a slight “hmm” in response.

Playing until dusk after school was practically her daily routine.

As he remembered, she had always been that carefree until he went abroad.

“I wasn’t originally afraid of insects, until one day, you suddenly stopped me on the road, being particularly gentle, saying you had candy for me and asking me to open a box. I believed you, but when I opened it, a caterpillar jumped out.”

Jiang Chiyu’s movements stiffened, then he slowly stood straight and nodded slightly, “Mm.”

Then you ran away laughing, leaving me alone screaming at the caterpillar that had fallen to the ground under the dim sky.

“That’s when I started being afraid of insects. Whenever I suddenly saw bugs larger than my fingernail appear near me, I would become terribly, terribly scared.”

Jiang Chiyu nodded again, “Mm.”

“Although I’m not afraid anymore now,” Su Tian’s voice caught slightly, “I was really scared back then.”

Jiang Chiyu glanced at her.

“And after that too, you knew I was afraid, but you would still deliberately scare me with insects. And every time you were about to scare me, you would use this particularly gentle tone.”

Jiang Chiyu reached out his hand, hesitated, but still gently patted her head, “Sorry.”

Sorry for being such a terrible person before, always taking pleasure in bullying you.

Always scaring you.

Always making you cry.

Being so mean to you.

But that was because I thought…

Jiang Chiyu gently pressed his lips together.

“I had actually forgotten all of this. But just now when you suddenly spoke to me so gently about there being nothing scary, I remembered it all again.” Su Tian’s eyes grew red, her voice becoming nasal, “And I became scared again.”

Jiang Chiyu didn’t know what to say, so he apologized again, “Sorry.”

After a pause, he added, “I was really terrible back then.”

“But—” Su Tian took a sharp breath, changing her tone, her voice becoming less dejected, “you weren’t completely terrible.”

Jiang Chiyu looked at her.

“Although you gave me some deep psychological trauma back then, sometimes you were actually very nice to me.” Su Tian counted on her fingers, listing things one by one, “My mom was strict and wouldn’t let me eat street food, but you would secretly bring me some when you came back from outside; when I was sick at home, you would bring me each day’s homework… although I didn’t really want you to; when I was bullied by older kids at school, you would help fight them, though I remember you never really won…”

“Nonsense.” Jiang Chiyu interrupted her, “I, the Little Tyrant of Wutong, never lost a fight.”

Wutong Elementary was their primary school at the time.

“Mm,” Su Tian reluctantly gave him some face, “you did win a few times.”

Jiang Chiyu: “Actually, I didn’t fight that often, don’t make it sound like I fought many times.”

Jiang Chiyu: “I was the top student at Wutong Elementary.”

“…”

Su Tian couldn’t believe his shamelessness.

Before third grade, Jiang Chiyu was truly just a troublemaker, his grades weren’t even as good as hers, and he was constantly getting his parents called to school for his mischief.

It wasn’t until fourth grade that Jiang Chiyu could barely be considered among the top students.

That year his academic performance improved rapidly, and his personality suddenly became more steady, maturing almost overnight.

Su Tian only knew this mature version of Jiang Chiyu for one year. When they were about to start fifth grade, Jiang Chiyu’s family moved abroad.

That afternoon, very abruptly, the neighboring villa became empty.

After school, she kicked her ball around the path between their two villas for a long time, waiting for Jiang Chiyu, but he never came. It wasn’t until dinner time when she heard her parents talking that she learned the neighbors had gone abroad.

One of the two things she feared most had just disappeared from her world like that.

Su Tian thought she should be happy, heaven had been good to her.

Life without that nightmare of a neighbor brother should be sunny and cloudless.

A few years later, Su Tian wasn’t really afraid of insects anymore either.

Everything was back on track.

Jiang Chiyu patted her head again, like bouncing a ball, lazily saying, “When I left, you must have been pretty happy.”

Su Tian, honest yet reserved, nodded.

Then her head got knocked.

Jiang Chiyu gave a cold laugh, “But now I’m back again, annoying isn’t it? Too bad! This time I’m here to stay for good. I’ll be in your face every day, just to annoy you.”

Su Tian was rubbing her head, thinking this person was hopelessly childish. Just as she was about to say something to retort, her phone suddenly rang – it was a voice call from Zhou Ying.

Jiang Chiyu handed the phone back to her.

Su Tian answered, and Zhou Ying’s pitiful voice came through, “Tian Tian, how are things on your end? We’re trapped.”

“What?”

“After Han Shuo and I ran far away, we encountered another female ghost. She kept chasing us, and we just found a room to hide in, but that ghost seems to have it in for us, she keeps knocking on the door.”

As Zhou Ying spoke, she moved the phone closer to the door. Su Tian faintly heard a few knocks that sent chills down her spine, and quickly moved the phone away.

“You’re with Han Shuo now, right? What about Wei Sicheng, is he with you?”

“It’s just me and Han Shuo. Wei Sicheng ran faster than any of us, disappeared after a while, couldn’t even hold him back. Ahhhhh I can’t take this anymore Tian Tian come save me!”