Are you okay?"
Looking at Jiang Chuyan's dazed look, He Yuan seemed a little worried.
"No...it's okay."
Jiang Chuyan pressed his temple and said softly.
Many people also experience the hippocampus effect in daily life, which is the so-called déjà vu.
Jiang Chuyan quickly put aside the momentary trembling.
At this time, everyone else could not wait to climb up the stairs to the platform.
"Chu Yan, can I help you with your luggage?"
Xu Yuanzhou half-knelt on the platform, and was about to greet Jiang Chuyan, but happened to see He Yuan beside Jiang Chuyan.
He Yuan was very close to Jiang Chuyan.
And Jiang Chuyan had no intention of rejecting He Yuan at all.
Even his body language looked incredibly relaxed...
When did these two people become so close?
Xu Yuanzhou pursed his lips, feeling weird and a little unhappy.
In his impression, Jiang Chuyan always hated others getting close to his body. Even he, who grew up with Jiang Chuyan, could only be given the privilege of being close to him after catching up with him.
But maybe he was just foolish enough to think it was a gift.
As soon as He Yuan appeared, Jiang Chuyan lost all his mysophobia.
"No."
Just at this moment, Jiang Chuyan raised her head, looked at Xu Yuanzhou, and rejected him right away.
In the past, Xu Yuanzhou would have to show his boyfriend power even if he had to put on a smile and act like a spoiled brat, and coax Jiang Chuyan to hand over the luggage to him.
But at this moment, he looked at the cold young man who stood beside He Yuan without any hesitation, and a surge of anger rose in his heart.
"Oh, that's fine."
Xu Yuanzhou withdrew his hand.
"Wow, Brother Yuanzhou, hurry up, come and look at this—"
When Bai Ke called out, Xu Yuanzhou's expression changed several times, and he turned around and walked towards the boy.
"Look at you, you look like you've never seen the world..."
…
Xu Yuanzhou's scolding voice came from far away on the platform.
Jiang Chuyan looked calm.
He bent down and was about to pick up his luggage when he saw He Yuan take the lead and pick up his luggage directly.
The boy raised his hand, and the tight and strong muscles on his arm slid.
He threw the luggage bag weighing several dozen kilograms directly onto the platform.
"…"
"It's just a little thing, just throw it up."
Clapping his hands, He Yuan looked at Jiang Chuyan calmly.
"What's wrong? Aren't you going up?"
*
"Crack—"
The stairs are a bit unstable and creak when you step on them.
Jiang Chuyan noticed that the stairs were removable. Considering the building's suspended structure, this was probably a means of preventing theft.
"When it gets dark, be sure to put the stairs away."
As expected, when Jiang Chuyan got on the platform, he heard Budacuocuo trying to instruct others word by word.
However, at this time, the three people's minds had already been attracted by the novel environment around them. Although they were listening, their expressions seemed a little disapproving.
The smile on Budacuocuo's face remained unchanged, but from Jiang Chuyan's perspective, it seemed that the village chief's eyes seemed to be bigger than before.
"Remember to put away the ladder."
He repeated it again.
"Why? How come there are still people stealing in your village?"
Liu Tianyu walked around the platform with his hands behind his back. When he heard Budacuocuo's unclear instructions, he asked with a smile and half-jokingly.
"They don't steal. They crawl in through the ladder."
In his answer, Budacuocuo said one word vaguely.
"What? What did you say would come in via the ladder?"
Now the attention of others was also attracted.
Budacuocuo stared at the faces of the three people in front of him, smiled, and then said; "Water Monkey, Water Monkey will come in."
He put his palms together, arched them slightly, and then made a drinking gesture in the air.
"They are dangerous."
…
After a brief silence, Bai Ke couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"Oh, it's a water monkey. That's pretty scary."
"Ahem, haha, yes, yes."
"You guys...turns out there are water monkeys here."
The three male college students on the platform usually watch a lot of short videos. At this time, they exchanged glances and obviously thought of the up-host with the Tibetan fox face. Not to mention being scared, it was already difficult for them not to laugh out loud in front of Budacuocuo.
"Water monkey?"
Jiang Chuyan didn't laugh, but couldn't help but glance at He Yuan.
The boy's pupils are very light in color, and in such a dim twilight, his eyes appear particularly bright.
He Yuan said calmly, "In Longzhao, we believe that after dark, there will be a kind of monster called water monkeys. They will try every possible way to sneak into people's homes."
"Then?"
"They would then use their fingernails to dig into the sleeping person's nasal cavity and completely crush the brain. Then they would use hollow grass to dig in and suck out all the brain matter like consuming tofu pudding."
"…"
Jiang Chuyan fell silent.
There's nothing surprising about folk horror stories like water monkeys eating brains, but He Yuan's version of it is really too disgusting.
"puff."
He Yuan stared at Jiang Chuyan's face, and suddenly squinted his eyes and smiled, revealing his snow-white fangs.
"Actually, it's a story that the people of this area invented based on their fear of wild beasts breaking into their homes at night," the boy explained. He then glanced at Budacuocuo, "...but the people here really believe it. We'd better do as he says and put away the ladder at night."
Indeed, the people of Longzhao Village seem to be very afraid of water monkeys at night.
When Jiang Chuyan came up, he discovered that there were hemispherical copper pots hanging around the platform of the small building. At this moment, Budacuocuo was bending over and lighting those copper pots one by one.
They turned out to be numerous bronze lamps, their golden-red flames flickering and illuminating the space below the platform. In the glow, the intricate carvings on the building's exterior seemed to come alive, wriggling in the shadows.
According to Budacuocuo's explanation, water monkeys are afraid of fire and light, so as long as they remove the ladder at night and let the lamp burn until dawn, they will be safe.
But at this moment, Bai Ke, Xu Yuanzhou, and Liu Tianyu had no time to listen to Budacuocuo's ridiculous "water monkey theory." They just looked at the scene before them and exclaimed in surprise again.
"Whether it's a water monkey or not... wow, this scenery, this sense of ceremony, it's amazing!"
Bai Ke's eyes lit up and his hand subconsciously reached for the phone, but after a pause, he retracted his hand.
Budacuocuo didn't seem to notice Bai Ke's little action.
After lighting the lamp, he looked up at the sky and said, "It's getting dark. Even I have to go home."
He said.
Before leaving, he gave a final warning to the others: "It's dark here at night. Don't wander around the village. If you encounter water monkeys, you're doomed."
After saying this, the man left in a hurry with his body hunched.
Jiang Chuyan stared at the direction he left... In the darkness, one small building after another with special structures were burning with golden and red flames.
In the dark purple twilight, those small buildings looked not like residential houses, but more like foreign pagodas enshrining something unknown.
"What a strange habit." Jiang Chuyan frowned. "A village like this, with backward productivity and few production resources, can still waste so much oil to light lamps every night... How do they do it?"
"Well, it seems they have their own way, but can we not stand outside? Let's go in first--"
He Yuan said the last sentence to the three people who were touring around on the platform.
Bai Ke turned her back to He Yuan, paused slightly, and then hid her phone back in her pocket without leaving a trace. Then she turned around and smiled and replied, "Okay, okay, I'm almost exhausted."
Xu Yuanzhou, who had been leaning against Bai Ke and covering for him fearfully, glared at him, then followed Bai Ke towards He Yuan and the others.
Seeing that He Yuan and Jiang Chuyan were still standing together, Xu Yuanzhou stood closer to Bai Ke intentionally or unintentionally.
However, while doing this, Xu Yuanzhou's eyes were always fixed on Jiang Chuyan.
Dissatisfaction, irritability or disgust...
Any emotion is fine.
Xu Yuanzhou tried to catch even a trace of dissatisfaction on Jiang Chuyan's expressionless face, but Jiang Chuyan seemed to be completely oblivious to the intimacy between him and Bai Ke, and followed He Yuan directly into the small building.
"Crack—"
When the door was pushed open, the wooden door made that harsh friction sound again.
It was already dark outside, and like many traditional buildings, the lighting inside the wooden building was very poor.
Fortunately, there was electricity here - the residence, and the generator was brought in by He Yuan. The roar of the generator could be heard from afar.
However, the power of self-generated electricity is not very good. Even if the light is turned on, the bulb is not very bright.
Under the dim light, the college students, who had been excited by the simplicity and elegance of the residences, felt their hearts sink. The interior wasn't particularly good; it was pitch black everywhere, with almost no furniture, just primitive wooden utensils. The air was filled with a damp, musty smell.
That is, the sunken fire pit in the lobby on the first floor has a somewhat ethnic feel to it.
Other places look like slums.
The internal structure of the small building is also very simple. Inside the fire pit is a large bunk bed separated by a partition.
The room is quite large, with a large bunk bed as big as two or three rooms. Perhaps considering the number of people coming, the middle of the room is blocked by a bamboo curtain, making it like two rooms.
"There are three rooms on the second floor."
He Yuan stood on the first floor and shone the flashlight on his mobile phone toward the second floor.
At the end of the extremely narrow and steep stairs was only a dark mass, which looked extremely gloomy.
"The first floor should be more comfortable, without having to climb stairs. The three rooms on the second floor will be smaller. However, this building is made of wood, so the sound insulation will be very poor. If someone on the second floor moves around, they will probably be heard on the first floor, which will probably be very noisy for people living on the first floor."
He Yuan, who had lived in Longzhao Village many times, began to introduce it.
Whether it is the first floor or the second floor, each has its pros and cons.
But probably because the visitors were all boys, He Yuan didn't suggest drawing lots or anything like that. He just said casually, "You guys can pick whatever you want first. The rest of the rooms are mine."
Xu Yuanzhou glanced at the room on the first floor and his heart suddenly moved.
This room is said to be two rooms, but in fact it is just one, and the beds are connected.
And if they are on the first floor, people on the second floor can't hear the sound of them walking.
In this case, if Jiang Chuyan and I lived together... maybe, they could have a further relationship?
Xu Yuanzhou always felt that one of the important reasons why his relationship with Jiang Chuyan had become so lukewarm was that they had been dating for such a long time but had never found the opportunity to have sex.
Sometimes even Xu Yuanzhou himself felt that he was a saint.
In the words of his college roommate, isn't it a scam if you don't have sex in a relationship?
It just so happened that Jiang Chuyan's schedule did not match his. Jiang Chuyan was too obsessed with mysophobia to go out and get a room, but when Xu Yuanzhou pulled her into his dormitory, Jiang Chuyan reacted even more strongly - the last time Jiang Chuyan almost broke up with him was because of this, because Xu Yuanzhou saw that Jiang Chuyan was not paying attention and directly pushed her onto his bed.
At that time, Xu Yuanzhou was thinking about making a done deal, but the result was that he was thrown over the shoulder for nothing.
Xu Yuanzhou didn't get a single bite of meat, and later he begged for a reconciliation for almost half a year before he could return to the position of Jiang Chuyan's boyfriend.
This time, the opportunity finally came from nowhere, and it's neither in the dormitory nor in a small hotel off campus.
...What if?
Thinking of this, Xu Yuanzhou's eyes became a little dizzy.
Without waiting for anyone else to speak, he was the first to speak with a smile: "I'll choose this one. I'm not a good sleeper, and sleeping on a big bed like this is more comfortable."
After he finished speaking, he looked at Jiang Chuyan: "Chuyan also——"
Chu Yan and I will sleep on the first floor so we can take care of each other.
Xu Yuanzhou was about to speak and pull Jiang Chuyan along when Bai Ke suddenly interrupted him: "Great, brother, then I'll live next to you!"
Before Xu Yuanzhou could say anything else, Bai Ke began to explain sheepishly, "I can't see clearly at night after I took out my colored contact lenses. It's too dark here, and the stairs are narrow..."
The reasons given by the boys were also very sufficient.
"Besides, I'm timid. If I were to live alone in a room like this, I'd be scared to death!" Bai Ke said, looking at Xu Yuanzhou gratefully. "Luckily, I can live next door to Brother Yuanzhou. Now I can finally feel at ease!"