This small town seemed to be an important transportation hub. The night gradually deepened, but it remained brightly lit. The hotel was right beside the national highway. The curtains were pretty good at blocking out light, but not so much with sound. Zhou Li stayed on the third floor, where the noise from the big trucks passing by and the late-night snack shop below was very disruptive. There was also a trashy KTV across the street that couldn’t even provide basic soundproofing.
Zhou Li lay flat on his bed, the air conditioning running cold as he covered himself with a blanket and silently played with his cell phone. He was looking through Hong Ran’s Moments, which were full of complaints.
The other bed was surprisingly neat.
Huai Xu sat cross-legged on the Five Finger Mountain couch, hugging his knees. Zhou Li occasionally flipped his phone to take a photo of him. His eyes would sparkle, making Zhou Li feel somewhat uncomfortable.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Have you remembered?"
"He was old, tall, and a bit skinny."
"I don’t know why, but I’ve remembered a lot of things, like past knowledge, words, characters, and some books I’ve read. Do you want me to spout some dialect for you? Do you want to hear it?"
"Oh, but I just can’t seem to remember the events I’ve been through or the people I’ve known. Why do you think that is?"
"Maybe the knowledge of language itself is more deeply ingrained?" Zhou Li wasn’t sure how to explain. "Anyway, I’ve seen on TV that amnesiacs can still talk, use chopsticks, and dress themselves."
Huai Xu seemed to accept his consolation. With a thump, he appeared on his own bed. He was still sitting cross-legged, hugging his knees, and looking toward Zhou Li. "So how did you come to know that proxy Demon King? Can I rely on you to cling to her and achieve great success thereafter?"
Zhou Li turned his head and glanced at him. "Do you want some sunflower seeds?"
There were some items for sale in the room. Huai Xu actually grabbed a bag of sunflower seeds and started cracking them in his hand. "You can tell the story now."
Zhou Li put his phone down, with the screen resting on his chest.
The room was very dark, which made the light from the air conditioner seem very bright. Zhou Li slowly recalled the past. He had been young then, only a few years old. Old Zhou, working hard outside, had left him to live with his grandparents in the countryside. Reflecting on it, it must have been just when the Demons were starting to awaken, though Zhou Li didn’t know why.
Actually, the first Demon he met and interacted with wasn’t Huai Xu, but Hong Ran. Only at that time, he didn’t know Hong Ran was a Demon.
The first time he saw Hong Ran, she was in a Republic of China-style schoolgirl outfit with a blue blouse, black skirt, and a pair of cloth shoes. Zhou Li was also young then and found nothing odd about it.
The kids in the countryside were fun, clustering together, wild enough to turn the world upside down.
Zhou Li couldn’t fit in.
He had come from the city and wasn’t familiar with them. He couldn’t use a slingshot or set traps, didn’t dare to dig up sweet potatoes or steal corn, and was too good-looking. He was so good-looking, in fact, that the others didn’t like playing with him. Fortunately, Old Master Zhou was considered highly respected and had a hot temper in the village. If Zhou Li were bullied, Old Master Zhou would indeed show up at their doorstep with a bird gun to talk things out, which was somewhat helpful.
But Zhou Li wanted to play.
He too wanted to run and have fun.
The air conditioning made his hands and feet icy cold. Zhou Li pulled out his phone to check the time and found that the metal back cover was also chilling. He quietly pulled his hands back in. "Back then, I thought that sister was amazing. She was almost unnaturally accurate with a slingshot, could even knock down egrets..."
Huai Xu interrupted, "What’s so great about that? I could take them down too, without a slingshot at all. I could even shoot down airplanes for you!"
Zhou Li turned his head to look at him.
Huai Xu shrank his neck. "You keep going, keep going!"
The sound of cracking sunflower seeds was crisp.
Zhou Li continued, "She could also weave guns out of bamboo, and with rubber bands attached, they really could shoot bullets. The ones she weaved were not only prettier and sturdier than the other kids’ but also shot farther."
"She could weave hand grenades out of bamboo, weave cows, horses, mantises, handguns..."
"Could the cows and horses run?"
"...Her traps were particularly sophisticated. They could actually catch rabbits, unlike the other kids whose traps could only entertain them by imagining they caught rabbits. We also went to collect wild eggs, smoked out wasps’ nests, and fished for crayfish and fish. Those ten-odd days were truly the happiest time I had as a child," Zhou Li said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, but it quickly faded away.
"But one day, my grandpa told me I was talking to someone by the Datian field alone, which scared him to death."
"That day, I had made plans with her to meet at the riverside the next day to catch crabs. But I didn’t go, and my grandparents kept an eye on me." Zhou Li lowered and slowed his voice. "A few days later, my dad returned from the city and took me away. On the day we left, I thought I saw her, or maybe I didn’t. I can’t remember clearly."
"She has vast magical powers," Huai Xu said.
"Yeah, she has vast magical powers," repeated Zhou Li. "She definitely came to see me. She knew I didn’t want to find her, and it wasn’t just my grandparents not letting me out."
Even now, so grown up and after so long, Zhou Li still felt a bit distressed.
He looked at Huai Xu, who had stopped eating sunflower seeds, and said, "She must have just awakened from a slumber then, right? Demons are quite vulnerable right after waking up, aren’t they?"
Huai Xu laughed. "Look at you, now you’re just like me, making yourself miserable."
Zhou Li thought about it and laughed as well.
Huai Xu continued to crack sunflower seeds and asked, "So, do you know she lives in Chunming?"
Shaking his head, Zhou Li said, "She talked to me about that place when we chatted. She said she wanted to go there. She described it as a beautiful city where the scenery is gorgeous, and it’s spring all year round, with different sunsets every evening. I asked her, and she said there were many friends waiting for her there. I was naive as a kid, so I remembered it for a long time, yearning for it for a long time."
Zhou Li laughed. "After all these years, who knows if she’s still there."
Huai Xu nodded. "But you still like that place, still want to go there."
After saying this, he clapped his hands, lifted the blanket, and climbed into bed.
Zhou Li turned off the air conditioner’s display, and then he found his attention shifting to the little red light on the set-top box.
"There’s a barbecue place down there."
"Yeah, it’s annoying."
"Hm?" Huai Xu realized that Zhou Li’s focus was different from his, so he thought for a bit. "Can’t you sleep? Want me to go down and have a word with them? Tell them not to make a peep."
"I can sleep. Stop talking to me," Zhou Li responded.
Zhou Li realized the small hillside here had its own charm, with continuous lemon trees that looked quite nice, so he and Huai Xu played around the area for a few days.
When he returned home, Zhu Shuang was about to have his final exams. He brought some math problems to Zhou Li and sought some information on the side.
Zhou Li found them hard.
Zhu Shuang’s grades were actually better than his. Luckily, math was the subject Zhou Li was best at, so he could just about handle it.
There wasn’t much to do at home. He spent his days in air-conditioned comfort reading books, explaining math problems to Zhu Shuang, watching the idle chatter in the freshmen group, accompanying Huai Xu in watching "Group Leader," and tutoring in the evenings.
Sometimes he also practiced ’Qigong Wave,’ but mainly he read books.
The books written by Spring Mountain Taoist were fascinating. Whether he was introducing Spiritual Power or the history of Demons, he managed to mix in a bunch of his own thoughts, brags, and interesting stories that sounded like jokes he might have heard from who knows where. No wonder Zheng Zhilan said most of those books were nonsense and that only the four she picked out contained even a little useful information.
But Zhou Li enjoyed reading them nonetheless.
His ancient literature reading skills improved by leaps and bounds.
His weight had also increased, perhaps due to absorbing knowledge.