This Damned Thirst for Survival

"Of course," Chi You said, "I\'m perfectly capable of working with Jiang\'s schedule."

When he finished, he parted his hand from the leader\'s and shook Jiang Luo\'s.

The leader smiled and took a liking to Chi You, "Thank you, Mr. Chi, for your understanding."

With that, he was ready to take his Jiang leader and leave, but several seconds passed before Chi You\'s grip on Jiang Luo\'s hand didn\'t let go.

The leader coughs, "Mr. Chi?"

"Excuse me," Chi You still didn\'t let go of his hand, but looked intently at Jiang Luo, "is Team Leader Jiang just going to leave and not stay and catch up with me again?"

Jiang Luo said, "What old times can I talk to you about?"

Chi You smiled, "I\'m here for the first time, so as the host, shouldn\'t you take me out for a walk?"

When the leader heard this, his sensitive nerves tensed up. He looked suspiciously at the two men\'s clasped hands, feeling that there was something dark going on between them.

Jiang Luo\'s peach blossom luck was known to the leader, and this Chi You was not one of Jiang Luo\'s rotten flowers, was it?

With this in mind, the leader soon realised that Chi You was looking at Jiang Luo in the same way as the interviewees who had tried to take advantage of Jiang Luo in the previous interview!

The leader was almost so angry that he blew his beard and stared.

He said how come Chi You was so nice to talk to, but it turned out to be for trying to sneak up on their Jiang team leader!

"Mr. Chi," the leader\'s smile became false and he said politely, "Our Jiang team leader really doesn\'t have time, the Research Bureau can\'t do without Jiang team leader, I\'m really sorry, why don\'t I come and take you for a local stroll?"

As soon as Jiang Luo heard this, he knew that the leader was thinking the wrong way, he pinched Chi You\'s palm with his nails, Chi You regretfully let him go, "No need to bother you, since Team Leader Jiang doesn\'t have time, I won\'t keep the two of you either."

The leader said to himself, "You are welcome."

He felt that he was blind for having admired Chi You before, and after the leader finished, he hurriedly took Jiang Luo away, not wanting to stay here for a second longer.

Jiang Luo gave Chi You a look back, I\'ll settle the score with you when I get home.

In the car, the leader sighed with relief only after leaving the restaurant with a flourish, but his face was still sullen.

Jiang Luo said, "Why do you look so pale?"

The leader hesitated for a moment and sighed worriedly, "Xiao Jiang, we are sorry for you. We still need Chi You\'s help in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and there is no way we can refuse to work with him here. I can only advise you to be careful of him, he is obviously not a good person, we can\'t harm others, we can\'t be wary of others, you must stay away from him when you go out with him on business. Alas ......"

It\'s a big research bureau, but the director of the research bureau needs to use his beauty to attract the help of evil spirits, what a thing to call!

Jiang Luo raised an eyebrow at what would make the leader think he would be "bullied" by Chi You.

Jiang Luo crossed his legs with a mature and confident smile on his face, "Don\'t worry, he wouldn\'t dare to do anything to me. If he dares, it will definitely not be me who suffers."

The leader only thought he was relieving himself, and when he arrived at the research bureau, the leader patted Jiang Luo\'s shoulder guiltily and left with another sigh, slightly depressed.

Jiang Luo sits alone in the passenger seat, thinking thoughtfully about things.

Time passed unnoticed, the temperature inside the car was getting colder and colder, a chilling aura came from the back and instantly surrounded the whole car.

The black fog crawled and spread like a living body, and the dark-haired young man wrapped in it seemed oblivious, leaning back in his seat with his eyes gently closed, his long eyelashes falling a shadow.

A pale ghostly hand peeked out of the black mist and caressed Jiang Luo\'s cheek intimately, sliding back to his earlobe, pinning his black hair behind his ear and touching the exotic earring with a touch of exoticism.

"When did you put them on?"

Jiang Luo opened his eyes abruptly, his narrow eyes slightly raised, cunning flashed in his eyes as he looked playfully at the evil spirit, "Knew you\'d be here, put it on especially for you."

The bright red demented pendant falls from Jiang Luo\'s ear beads to the side of his shoulder, mysterious and beautiful, swaying gently as Jiang Luo speaks. The evil spirits had not seen him wear anything on his ears for a long time, and when they did, they loved it. Chi You stroked his fingers downwards, caressing the three ears of wheat on the regal pendant, unable to hide his pleasure, "For me?"

"Yes, for you, of course." Jiang Luo\'s lips curled up, "I was trying to see what was on your mind, and here you are."

As soon as the words left his mouth, Jiang Luo\'s soul seemed to come out of its shell, and after a sudden lightening, he entered the inner landscape of Chi You.

Since getting together with Chi You, Jiang Luo has taken off his dementor pendant with great regret. Although he had never been in a relationship, he knew that couples had to give each other some privacy. Just as he doesn\'t like Chi You to set foot in his private area, even though Jiang Luo wants to strip Chi You of all his secrets, he knows not to be too double standard. He holds back his intense prying and curiosity, and gives each other a space to be honest.

But his curiosity is rekindled by Chi You\'s persistent attempts to enter the Research Bureau over the past few days. Jiang Luo can no longer resist, and knowing that Chi You will follow him here, he puts on his dementor pendant in advance to see what is hidden inside Chi You\'s inner sanctum as a way to pry into the ghost\'s mind.

Jiang Luo was vaguely excited, and when he opened his eyes again he saw a pitch black space.

Strange.

How come it\'s all black?

Even for Feng Li and the Fates, the interior scenes are normal, but why is it different when it comes to Chi You?

Is it because Chi You is the main character that he is so unique?

Slightly disappointed, Jiang Luo takes a step forward and as his foot falls again, the blackness around him recedes as violently as the tide, revealing the four doors that surround Jiang Luo.

The four wooden doors are reproduced as if they were pasted together, with identical wood grain and handle shapes. They stand still, east, west, north and south of Jiang Luo.

Jiang Luo frowns and looks the four doors up and down.

What is this.

Four ......

Wait, Yuan Tianzhu is also four.

Is it because Chi You\'s soul was once taken out and turned into four Yuan Tianzhu, and the four Yuan Tianzhu have not yet completely merged with each other after returning to Chi You\'s body, so that in the inner scene, they have become four doors?

Behind each door is a part of Chi You\'s soul?

Jiang Luo could only stay in the interior for three minutes, a short time that was clearly not enough for him to continue speculating, so he found a random wooden door and without hesitation pushed it open and went inside.

He believed that neither Chi You would harm him and, more importantly, Jiang Luo believed that with his abilities, he would not be able to do anything about it even if he was in danger.

As soon as the door was thrown open, a wave of heat greeted them.

Several houses burned violently in the flames, sparks of fire swept into the night sky, the air was twisted and scorched, and a smell of burnt smoke permeated the air.

"Boom," the door slammed shut behind them.

In front of the burning house stood the figure of a young boy of fifteen or sixteen.

A dark fog so thick that it was different from the darkness of the night swirled around him, and an eerie, ghastly aura spilled from his body, eerily creepy amidst the heat.

Jiang Luo looked steadily at this back for a few moments and had some suspicions in his mind. He looked sideways to his side, and the familiar landscape was clearly the Chi family\'s ancestral home.

The demented pendant allows Jiang Luo to see someone\'s interior. The inner scene is either what its people touch and value the most, or the most profoundly memorable memories.

The present scene, on the other hand, clearly falls into the latter category.

Chi You as a teenager, a fire as a teenager.

Jiang Luo lightens his footsteps and approaches Chi You silently.

When he is close enough, Chi You\'s self-talk reaches his ears.

"I just devoured an evil spirit for them, and they tried to kill me."

-- "Yes, they want to kill you."

Another voice sounded low, full of the world\'s heaviest malice, as if it came from the abyss.

And the voice, too, is like Chi You\'s own voice.

No, perhaps it was Chi You\'s own voice, compelling himself to fall into the darkness.

The teenager\'s ghostly tattoo crawled swiftly up his neck, a ghostly pattern twisted like a living worm.

"If I hadn\'t escaped so quickly, I would have been buried in the fire."

-- "So accept me, fuse with me, don\'t you want to become stronger?"

Chi You said, "You\'re right."

The ghost tattoo moved, "What do you want?"

Jiang Luo\'s brow suddenly jumped as the scene before him gradually overlapped with a scene he remembered.

This was the scene where Chi You and the ghostly tattoo merged.

It was also the beginning of Chi You throwing away his humanity and making him live as an evil ghost.

Chi You, who should have stated his purpose, suddenly turned around and caught Jiang Luo off guard, his still young and youthful face suddenly revealing a heart-stopping smile.

He flicks his sleeve and his modern garb immediately transforms into a tunic, the flames behind him cease and the ghostly pattern on his neck does not move. Chi You, who looked like a teenager, smiled gently and said gently, "Young Master Jiang, I see you again."

This is Chi You, a teenager in the mirror world of ...... .

What the author has to say.

Four Beads, Four Pleasures