This Damned Thirst for Survival
chapter-119

Jiang Pingcheng and Xiao Yan were both well endowed to produce a child of Jiang Luo’s calibre.

The only thing is that Jiang Pingcheng is getting older and out of shape, and has lost seven or eight of his former good looks in middle age. However, Jiang Luo’s face can still be seen in his eyebrows and eyes.

Xia Qin kisses Jiang Pingcheng between the eyebrows, giving him a wry smile.

*

Jiang Luo remembered something disgusting, he didn’t want to stay in Jiang’s house anymore, he told the host family to inform them and prepare to leave.

Before leaving, he took Chi You back to his room.

He remembered that he had forgotten to take one thing with him when he left the house. He wanted to go and look for it, to see if he could find it in the mirror world.

Jiang Pingcheng rushed over as soon as he received the news. With lipstick marks on his face, he said wryly and hilariously, “Young Master Chi, I have a business deal to discuss with you, it must be a good one for you.

Chi You sits lazily in his chair until Jiang Pingcheng’s smile is about to drop, then he lazily gets up, “Let’s go.”

The two of them left one after the other. Jiang Luo continued to pack and organise his things, standing in front of the wardrobe, and after poking around the entire closet, he finally found a small metal box in the corner.

Jiang Luo sighs when he touches the metal box.

He was only looking for something to prove that the mirror world and the present world were connected. The man behind the curtain was so good that even his personal money hidden in the present world could be found here.

Jiang Luo took the iron box out and went to the table to sit down. He opened the lid and found dozens of coins and a dozen pieces of silver, which translated into modern money amounted to 4,000 or 5,000. Jiang Luo felt that he had been quite good at saving money in the past. He took out one of the pieces of silver and played with it, when the open door of the room was closed by a person who came up to Jiang Luo with a fragrance.

Jiang Luo did not look back.

The woman walked up behind him, her arm resting gently on the back of the chair, and asked gently, “Young master, how are you staying at the pool house?”

“It’s not bad.” Jiang Luo’s tone is muted.

Xia Qin sighed reassuringly, “That’s good.”

The atmosphere was silent, Jiang Luo was carelessly twirling the ocean around his fingertips, as if he didn’t want to say anything more. But Xia Qin seemed to be unable to read him and brushed her fingers against the back of Jiang Luo’s head, “Young master, I thought for a long time when the master decided to send you to the Chi family, but I did not speak out to stop it.”

Soft and firm, Xia Qin always seemed reliable, and she was a woman of ideas, so Jiang Luo never looked past her.

“Because in the years after that, the Jiang family will become very chaotic. It’s better for you to stay in the Chi family than in the Jiang family,” Xia Qin slid down from Jiang Luo’s shoulders, her jade-like hands encircling Jiang Luo’s neck as she pressed herself against Jiang Luo’s back, “and when you come back again, the Jiang family will be a different story. ”

Jiang Luo asked tediously, “Why did you do that.”

He once asked Xia Qin exactly the same question in the real world.

After he witnessed the derangement, fifteen-year-old Jiang Luo returned to his room, disoriented.

Jiang Luo’s mother was a coward who only knew how to obey her husband. Jiang Luo’s father was an evil man. When Jiang Pingcheng threw his fists at his wife and children, Jiang Luo was the only one who stood by his mother’s side and protected her, bracing himself for the beating, and there was never anyone to stand in his way.

Xia Qin was the first.

The first person to protect Jiang Luo.

Time and again, she shields Jiang Luo in her arms and keeps him at bay. Xia Qin is not Jiang Luo’s mother, and she is only a teenager, but Jiang Luo feels a sense of security in her that he cannot find in his mother.

He could not believe what he had just seen and sat alone at his desk, lost in thought. At this time, Xia Qin also came into his room.

She was undressed, looking at Jiang Luo with eyes full of affection, her hand running down Jiang Luo’s cheek, her every move no different from the one she had made before.

Still gentle and careful.

Xia Qin seduced Jiang Luo, who was only fifteen years old.

Jiang Luo felt nothing but nausea and a collapse of trust. He avoided Xia Qin’s hand and asked in a shaky voice, “Why did you do that.”

……

Jiang Luo tossed the ocean in his hand onto the table as he said in a cold voice, “Get lost.”

Xia Qin’s hands stopped and she sighed, “I like you.”

“But I won’t be your wife at my age and status,” Xia Qin straightened up, “and you won’t marry me, because you don’t like me.”

This being the case, Xia Qin decides to seduce Jiang Luo’s unprincipled father, so that she can at least be with him forever.

She smiled and said, “When I become your mother, I will be able to protect you.”

“Most importantly,” she murmured, “when your father dies, the Jiang family will be mine, and you will be mine.”

“Young master, you will be my child. I can take you far away.”

Xia Qin’s reply in the mirror world and the words spoken by Xia Qin in the real world gradually merge into one.

Fifteen-year-old Jiang Luo knows that Xia Qin harbours a hidden animosity towards his mother, which comes out sharply every time Jiang Luo is injured in an attempt to protect her.

Until that day, he had no idea what all this hostility represented.

Xia Qin was jealous of his mother because Jiang Luo’s mother could have Jiang Luo forever.

Fifteen-year-old Jiang Luo is subjected to an unspeakable, dark shock from the adult world.

Jiang Luo called the police.

He was a minor and the police were called for attempted rape of a minor by his nanny. Because of this incident, Jiang Luo’s mother, Xiao Yan, finally summoned up the courage to divorce Jiang Pingcheng.

Jiang Luo had no desire to stay with the Jiang family, a family so rotten that it turned his stomach. He and his mother left Jiang Pingcheng and went from the life of a rich man to the life of an ordinary family.

Jiang Luo thought it was the start of a new life, and it was, only life got worse.

His mother, Xiao Yan, began to regret and complain in the midst of her confined life. Finally, one day, she couldn’t help breaking down and crying to Jiang Luo, “Why did you call the police? If you hadn’t called the police I wouldn’t have divorced your father, and we wouldn’t be living this miserable life.”

“I’d rather not know he cheated on me ……”

From that day onwards, Jiang Luo felt that affection was something to be sneezed at.

……

Xia Qin wanted to say something else, but the door she had closed was suddenly kicked open. Chi You stood by the door, his back to the sun, his face covered in a shadow, his voice slightly cold.

“This …… lady?” He said, “It’s time for Jiang Luo and I to leave.”

Jiang Luo stood up and walked past Xia Qin, who suddenly turned his head to look at him.

There was no ripple in his eyes, as if Xia Qin was a mere stranger to him.

Xia Qin’s expression falters slightly.

She had thought of countless ways Jiang Luo would behave when he found out the truth, whether it was hatred or disgust, but she could never have imagined Jiang Luo would behave like this.

“I forgot to mention that the Jiang family is disgusting,” Jiang Luo shrugged, with a slight sneer, “whether it’s Jiang Pingcheng, Xiao Yan, or you.”

He turned back, and there was even a smile in his tone, “Luckily, this is the last time we’ll see each other.”

With that, Jiang Luo walked out the door.

The two men went straight out of the pool house.

When the coachman dropped them off at Chi You’s house in the morning, Chi You had instructed him to wait until the evening to pick them up, and now they had left early and had to walk back on their legs.

On the way, Jiang Luo asked, “What kind of business does Jiang Pingcheng want to do with you?”

“The merchant business,” Chi You picked his lips and smiled, “Bu Jiucheng has been abuzz with rumors of a haunting recently, and the casino business he runs is on the verge of closing down and going bankrupt. He has lost a lot of money, and the money the Chi family gave to the Jiang family earlier was taken away to fill the hole, this time, he wants to ship the casino’s inventory out of town for trade. The Chi family is good at catching ghosts and doing pranks, and he wants me to find a powerful Chi family member to go with him.”

Jiang Luo raised his eyebrows, “A powerful member of the Chi family? Other than you, there are other powerful people in the Chi family?”

Chi You froze for a moment, then looked at him meaningfully, “How do you know I’m good?”

Jiang Luo asks rhetorically, “Aren’t you great?”

Chi You couldn’t help but laugh, and the darkness under his eyes seemed to become less dangerous, “Young Master Jiang, with this mouth, really doesn’t give others the chance to gain the upper hand.”

The two of them occasionally made such small talk that they soon walked into the haunted city. Jiang Luo was walking past a stall of wontons when he heard three men sitting at a table on the side of the road talking about a haunting.

“I heard that another one died last night, a horrible death, and was rushed to Yi Zhuang in the morning.”

“Hiss – how bad is the death?”

“You’re going to be scared if I say it …… Forget it, I have to eat ravioli later, I’d rather not tell you about his death.”

Jiang Luo slowly stopped on his feet, looked at Chi You and said seriously, “I’m hungry.”

A minute later, two people were also sitting on the curb. The wonton shop owner asked enthusiastically, “Do you two eat spicy food?”

Jiang Luo nodded and said boldly, “More!”

The boss said, “Okay!”

The small interior of the ravioli shop, where there is only room for the owner to cook and tables are set up outside, is small and the tables and chairs are old but clean. Chi You looks down at the scratches on the table, he sits upright and although he doesn’t look like the people around him, Chi You is too relaxed to look out of place.

He even had the time to joke with Jiang Luo, “Thanks to Young Master Jiang, I’ve had an extra bowl of rice today without anyone rambling.”

Jiang Luo has some idea why Chi You had so many followers when he was alive.

He fell in love with the character of Chi You just by reading the text, and by the time he really got to know him, he had a great deal of personal charm, whether he was a hypocrite when he was alive, or a terrifyingly unpredictable figure when he was dead.

The ability to make those who follow him unconsciously like him and revere him until their minds and bodies are uncontrollably manipulated by him.

Because he’s so good at pretending.

Jiang Luo knew that the teenage Chi You had put on a false face, but he couldn’t help but admire it. He couldn’t tell which of Chi You’s smiles and words were true or false.

Solely dealing directly with nature, “Thank you for your kindness.”

Chi You laughed again.

Behind them, the three men went on to talk, “Whose family was that dead man?”

“You don’t even know this? The one who died was a boy from the Chi family.”