Devil 

Chapter 62:

 老花镜与小灰与访客

[Presbyopia, Xiao Hui and Guest]

Ji Huan and his family were struggling to adapt to this entire new world.

After 18 days of eating “bone” soup, Ji Huan finally stopped from having the nosebleeds as he felt a little stronger. Besides that, he began to be able to speak a little of the local language. Ah Jin also gave him a dictionary, it was a rather thick book, taken from the study upstairs. Although the edition was very old, it was something that the current Ji Huan desperately needed. Ji Huan was now using the same attitude to overcome the language barrier in the other world as he did in his English exams, memorizing 200 words a day and going to the market to practice his listening skills. After more than half a month, Ji Huan’s language skills could even be said to have advanced by leaps and bounds.

Hei Dan had grown a tooth, moreover it was an upper tooth and also very sharp. At first, Ji Huan did not notice it but when Hei Dan was drinking milk from a bottle, he accidentally bit the pacifier, only then Ji Huan discovered this but fortunately he had bought a lot of Hei Dan’s things with him. He still had several replacements for the pacifiers. When he got a new pacifier, Hei Dan sucked more carefully. Looking at him like this, Ji Huan was a bit gratified and a bit worried, gratified that Hei Dan was so good to raise, however at the same time he was also worried that he was getting bigger and bigger, but his favourite food was still milk, what should he do then?

Therefore, something happened to Grandpa too: the wounds on the surface of Grandpa’s body were finally starting to heal! This meant that his body had regained its repairing function, Grandpa’s strength was getting stronger day by day. The most surprising thing for Ji Huan was that Grandpa’s eyesight has started to improve!

Previously, although Grandpa was not completely blind, he could see all in white shadows and as his body continued to weaken, the white shadows were gradually being replaced by darkness. However, after a period of continuously eating the magical beast meat, Grandpa now could see again! But the after-effect was that seeing is a bit blurry for him. Seeing far away was slightly better, while close up was very blurry.

=-=

This problem was eventually solved by Ji Huan with a pair of presbyopic glasses.

The presbyopic glasses were also bought from the stall of that short little demon.

Ji Huan was now his regular customer, although he never gave Ji Huan a discount, Ji Huan always went to his stall whenever he went to the market. When Ji Huan found out that his grandfather had become presbyopic, he especially wanted to get him a pair of presbyopic glasses but the ones he could buy for 15 yuan in Ba De Town were nowhere to be found here!

During that time, Ji Huan asked almost all the stalls but all the answers were negative. Finally, when he had almost given up, he suddenly saw two pairs of glasses at ‘Xiao Hui’ stall.

‘Xiao Hui ^[1]It means the Little Grey’ was also known as that short magical creature. He didn’t know his name, so every time Ji Huan mentioned him, he used that name instead.

That day, there were no “bones” in Xiao Hui’s stall, but only two pairs of broken glasses, one with a broken frame and the other with a broken lens.

Xiao Hui’s business was originally already bad. That day, with only these two items on display, no one was even interested in his stall until Ji Huan arrived there. 

Ji Huan squatted down and stuttered in his speech as he asked Xiao Hui if he could take a look at the item, in which he received a nod as the answer. 

Ji Huan then picked up those two pairs of glasses to take a closer look and to his great surprise, the one with one broken lens was a pair of myopic glasses, while the one with the broken frame was the presbyopic glasses he had been looking for!

“Now that you’ve met it, just buy it then!” A Jin’s voice came from beside him, when Ji Huan turned his head, he realized that A Jin also squatted down, unconcerned at all that his clean cloak was all draped on the ground as he picked up the presbyopic glasses in Ji Huan’s hands with great interest.

“How much is it?” He suddenly raised his head toward the little demon in front of him and asked him. 

Ah Jin’s voice was as usual. Separated by the thick cloak, the person opposite could not even see what he looked like, however, the moment when he raised his head to ask, Ji Huan noticed that Xiao Hui right in front of them had disappeared!

Leaving only a paw-drawn stall on the ground, Xiao Hui’s figure disappeared without a trace!

Ah Jin’s lower jaw tilted slightly to the left. Following along in that direction, Ji Huan indeed saw a terrified Xiao Hui in one of the stalls.

“ΨαВΔ!!!” Fleeing in such a haste, he had chosen the wrong place to land: right on top of the prey being sold! The stall owner started to chase him away. He was thrown off from the prey, Xiao Hui rolled on the ground and quickly regained his footing.

He looked like he was looking in Ji Huan’s direction, moving around the crowd for quite a while before he eventually chose to return to his stall.

“You … make an offer.” This was the first time Ji Huan had heard Xiao Hui’s voice, it was very childish. He was actually just a child!

Ji Huan was dumbfounded. 

“You’re very smart.” Ah Jin’s voice then came from next to him, since it was he who was praising the little devil creature now, “Such a pair of glasses was originally worth a gold bar or the price equal to that. Although it’s not good to sell it in this place, once you find a buyer, you can ask for two gold bars or even higher, however …” 

Ah Jin paused, then continued to talk, “I’ll only give you twenty bone coins for both pairs of glasses, are you selling them?”

Ji Huan was rarely a little taken aback as he looked toward Ah Jin since this was the first time Ji Huan had ever heard Ah Jin cut a price, Ah Jin who had never bargained was actually so ruthless in doing so!

During this period of time, Ah Jin had already taught him a lot of general knowledge about the local living. For example, the gold of his original world was also a very valuable metal here and could be used as money which no one would refuse anywhere, but in the ‘Yefaer’ region there was a separate currency system of its own. The “shiny crystals” that they usually use to buy meat were the most basic unit, called “bone coins”, which means roughly the same as “bones” based on how little the value of it. At the current exchange rate, a thousand bone coins were equal to one gold bar.

All at once, Ah Jin cut the price from 2,000 bone coins to 20!

This, this also ——

“Okay.” The even more incredible thing was: Xiao Hui actually agreed.

Ah Jin took twenty bone coins out of his pocket. Xiao Hui took it and immediately turned his head and went to the water stall next door. This time he was given a total of one cup of water and unlike the others around him who would carry it back, he immediately drank it up as he always did.

Then in a flash, Xiao Hui’s figure quickly disappeared from Ji Huan’s line of sight once again.

On the way back, Ji Huan carefully recalled the conversation between Ah Jin and Xiao Hui. Slowly he figured out why the deal had been made: 

Just as Ah Jin had said, Xiao Hui was very clever. 

Hearing his voice, they immediately knew he was still a child. By sensing how powerful Ah Jin was, although the goods were his, he did not have the right to set the price so it was best for him to let Ah Jin set the price.

Otherwise it was extremely possible that what had happened last time when the candy was sold: not to mention the candy was almost snatched from him and he ended up getting beaten up, only getting one bone coin.

It was the right choice to let Ah Jin set the price.

That’s why Ah Jin said he was ‘very clever’ and gave him the best price.

Not the best but the most suitable one. 

A rare piece of candy could not even be kept. Xiao Hui should be considered very weak among the magical creatures. In fact, looking at the prey he sells, it was clear that in this market, Xiao Hui should be the lowest class of magical creature. He could not keep anything too valuable, so every time he bought water, he would immediately drink it since what he drinks into his stomach was his own, the rest was no use to discuss it.           

A Jin gave him a cup of water for his bone coins, just enough to fill him up without leaving any leftovers. The bone coins were spent cleanly and all the water was drunk which for Xiao Hui was the safest category for him to have his money and goods possessions.

At the same time, Ah Jin also gave him the correct price for such goods which should be considered useful information for Xiao Hui, right?

Having thought about this, Ji Huan felt that he had learnt something else.

The demons here were really something! If he wanted to live here, he had to be more reliable. 

Carrying the two pairs of glasses and a little bit of spiritual gain and after buying a little bit of food, Ji Huan and Ah Jin returned home again.

One pair of glasses was old, while the other was new, with black ash on it. Thinking of how quickly a demon’s blood turns into black ash when it meets the air, Ji Huan couldn’t help but guess that these probably … might … be blood.

Ji Huan did not continue to think about it.

After carefully wiping the glasses, Ji Huan removed one leg of the nearsighted glasses, then attached it to the pair of presbyopic glasses. After carefully adjusting the glasses as he thought about it, he also found a string to tie the two legs of the glasses.

Grandpa would transform from time to time, so like this then he would not lose his glasses when he transformed. 

Ji Huan thought a lot about it.

The prescription didn’t quite fit, but with the glasses Grandpa finally could clearly see this world once again.

“You’ve lost weight, Xiao Hua Er!” Happy to see his grandson again, Grandpa was extremely overjoyed and sized up Ji Huan from top to bottom, he then saw Hei Dan who was probing behind Ji Huan looking at him.

“Hei Dan … is really black ah …” Unaccustomed to holding up his glasses, Grandpa carefully looked towards Hei Dan. 

Thinking that Grandpa was complimenting himself, Hei Dan smiled and made a ‘Xiu Xiu’ sound as his two small pointed teeth were all exposed.

“We can’t use dark colour sheets in our house from now on. Don’t take Hei Dan to places that are too dark, with slightly poor eyesight, he will be completely invisible.” Holding Hei Dan, Grandpa said to Ji Huan, who finally broke into a long-awaited smile as he watched Grandpa tilt his head desperately as if he was worried that his glasses would fall off.

He always did not know whether his decision was right or wrong. Perhaps in the eyes of others, all his doing was wrong, yet he did it anyway. Listening to his heart, he did it with determination. Then, by the time he saw Grandpa smiling at him again, he felt he had done nothing wrong.

His family, all three of them, adapted to the local life day by day like this. Later, Grandpa also started to go to the market with them. Every time, going to the market was like shopping on Taobao ^[2] a Chinese online shopping website ,although most of the time usually you could find the very ordinary things but once in a while, you could also find something ^[3]It was like getting a treasure that was overlooked by others. Ji Huan bought a small packet of seeds for local vegetables. He didn’t know what kind of seeds but the seller said they were absolutely edible. In addition to that, he also got a few flower seeds.

When he thought of the “weeds” he had destroyed in the courtyard, he immediately bought it back. The reason Ah Jin said he planted those weeds was because he had heard that the flower would bloom from it. In that case, Ah Jin should like flowers. He immediately thought of the water lilies growing in the yard in Bade Town. The water resources here were too precious so water lilies were out of the question. But if it was a different kind of flower, he could try it. After talking to Ah Jin, Ji Huan finally planted the flower seeds carefully in the corridor next to the entrance, in the area next to the sling chair where Ah Jin usually read the newspaper, so that if the flowers did bloom in the future, Ah Jin could sit next to the flowers as he read a book.

Ji Huan had planned it well. He didn’t tell Ah Jin about his plan, he just thought that he would know about it when the flowers grew. But what he didn’t expect was that Ah Jin suddenly said goodbye to him.

That morning, as usual, Ah Jin got up early to read the newspaper. Only the last sheet of the newspaper was left from the previous thick pile, Ah Jin was reading the newspaper leisurely. Therefore before Ji Huan went out to buy food, he suddenly said to him :

“Buy a Kemm beast today, a fat one and braise it for tonight.”

This was the first time he had ordered something.

Ah Jin had never said what he wanted to eat so Ji Huan had always had to figure it out by himself. This was the first time he had explicitly asked Ji Huan to do something.

“One Kemm beast, okay, I got it!” Ji Huan nodded his head and continued wearing his shoes.

“I have guests coming in the evening, so I’ll count on you for (preparing) the dinner.” Smiling at Ji Huan, Ah Jin finished his sentence and went back to reading the newspaper.

Guest?

He had never seen any guests since he had lived here. Although Ah Jin acted like he knew this place extremely well, he hadn’t really seen Ah Jin have any acquaintances here.

But Ji Huan wasn’t surprised at all. 

In the past, Ah Jin must have lived here. Although he didn’t understand why he had gone to live on his side (Human realm), he knew based on his knowledge of this area that Ah Jin’s hometown would be here or even in this neighbourhood!

If he thought like that, it seemed quite normal that someone would visit Ah Jin when they knew he was already back.

On that day, Ji Huan bought the best Kemm beast in the market and together with Grandpa, they very carefully carried it on their backs home.

The beast was made into a large pot of meat braised in brown sauce. Jii Huan also made soup from its bones. Last, he made some small dishes from the meat of other magical beasts too. Large and small plates were placed on the dining table in the living room on the first floor. Ji Huan even found the candlesticks and set them on the table.

His own family went to eat in the room, and Ji Huan set aside the first floor for Ah Jin.

Ah Jin did not object to his arrangement, sitting alone at one end of the dining table, he read a book while he waited for his guests to arrive.

Ah Jin had already finished reading all the newspapers. The one he was reading right now was Hei Dan’s comprehensive collection book of Literacy for Children. Two days ago, when looking through his luggage, Ji Huan had accidentally found that he was actually carrying an extra copy of that book.

Ji Huan and his family were eating quietly next door, while he was eating, Ji Huan looked at his wrist watch.

However, until they had finished eating, the guest did not arrive yet. 

Worried that he might disturb Ah Jin if he went out, Ji Huan did not go out to wash the dishes. After eating, he and his family immediately lay down on the bed together and through the window, they looked at the purple moon together.

Only when he saw the moon at night did Ji Huan feel that he had really arrived in a completely new place.

Inside and outside the house, it was completely very silent.

Grandpa fell asleep.

Hei Dan was playing with Ji Huan’s fingers, his eyelids drooping and he was about to fall asleep too.

Suddenly——

As if sensing something, Hei Dan’s white ringed eyes suddenly went round and staring straight at his uncle as Ji Huan gently patted him on the back yet his eyes couldn’t help but glance in the direction of the living room.

It’s coming!

That guest came!

Although he hadn’t heard any movement and he didn’t see anything, Ji Huan just knew that exactly at that moment, there was an extra person in the house.

Translator’s Corner : Happy New Year 2022 everyone!!!!