◎ He didn't tell him to let go. ◎
"I want to try lettuce, cabbage, winter melon…" The slender boy wandered around the vegetable section, his pale lips opening and closing as he pointed at the vegetables rather bluntly.
The man beside him showed no impatience, responding gently and answering every question.
It's hard to tell who is the owner and who is the pet.
Lin Jingdu glanced at the calm man and accepted the idea that "pets can cook for their owners" without objection. Greedily, he pointed to the vegetables on the nearby shelf: "I want to eat this too."
Yue Peihui glanced at the green vegetable tinged with red, its stem white: "You want to eat fish mint?"
"Yes, I remember it's a wild vegetable. It's edible, right?" Lin Jingdu's cat-like eyes looked at him uncertainly. Since fish mint appeared in the supermarket, it must be suitable for the dining table… right?
The man lazily picked up the fish mint from the shelf: "It's edible. At least in City C, it's quite popular."
Almost without hesitation, the Evil God said, "Then I want to eat it." His eyes never left the fish mint in Yue Peihui's hand, pushing the shopping cart as if urging the man to quickly put the fish mint into the basket.
The smile at the corner of Yue Peihui's lips became a bit more genuine. He said, "Alright, I'll make it for you." Naturally, he placed a stack of fish mint into the basket, not bothering to warn that some people might dislike the fishy smell of fish mint.
Completely bad intentions, but unfortunately, the Evil God didn't sense any of it.
After selecting for quite a while, the Evil God finally decided to end their search in the vegetable section. Both the boy's and the Evil God's shopping carts were piled high with goods as they slowly pushed the carts to the scale.
The clerk was a middle-aged woman with curly hair. She stood lazily by the scale, looking very tired, as if this job was optional for her—she just wanted to get off work early.
Lin Jingdu placed the plastic bag on the scale. Before he could politely ask to weigh it, the clerk raised her eyelids, skillfully pressed a few buttons, and a price tag slowly printed out. She roughly tore it off, snatched the plastic bag, rolled it a few times, and slapped the label on with a "pop."
She repeated the same process for the remaining vegetables, then handed them all to Lin Jingdu: "Alright, go to the checkout or self-service area to pay."
Lin Jingdu blinked, surprised by the clerk's extremely efficient work, obediently taking the items: "Oh."
Perhaps the boy's clear voice caught the clerk's attention. She glanced at the two of them, looked them over, and said in a dialect, "Hey, you two young guys, if you have nothing to do, go buy stuff at another supermarket. Don't come to this one anymore."
It was the first time Lin Jingdu had seen a clerk not promote their own supermarket but instead coax customers to leave. Yue Peihui asked, "Sister, why do you say that?"
Though his face was cold, the way he said "sister" was very smooth. The clerk's previously drooping face brightened a bit: "Ah, this is a long story."
She looked around to make sure no one was watching them, then leaned in and lowered her voice: "You probably don't come here often. You don't know that strange things happen frequently in this supermarket!"
"Strange things happen frequently?" Lin Jingdu repeated.
"Yes," the clerk said, "so you should leave early, the sooner the better. Don't stay until closing time to leave!"
Yue Peihui asked, "Must we leave early?"
The clerk glared at him: "Young man, don't disbelieve me! If you weren't so good-looking, I wouldn't bother warning you! The strange things in this store are…" She was about to explain what the "strange things" were, but her raised voice suddenly caught in her throat, unable to say a word.
…Because the bright lights in the supermarket suddenly went out.
Confused voices rose one after another. Those still inside the supermarket seemed to think it was just a normal power outage. People were a bit panicked but not overly terrified.
The clerk wasn't too nervous but was somewhat uneasy. She sighed: "Ah, someone's about to go crazy again."
Someone's about to go crazy again?
Yue Peihui's gaze darkened. Before he could fully process the meaning of that sentence, his wrist without the bracelet was suddenly pressed down by a hand as cold as jade.
In the darkness, human hearing is greatly amplified. He heard Lin Jingdu's calm and gentle voice: "…Don't be afraid."
The Evil God worried that humans would be frightened by such sudden incidents.
Humans have seen strange things, some of which look ugly and eerie. What if they leave psychological shadows on humans? He had to care about humans' mental health.
The moment his hand touched the man's wrist bone, Lin Jingdu sensed a tremor seeping through the rough skin surface. The warm touch spread between the boy's fingertips, growing increasingly hot. Lin Jingdu's focus on searching for ominous auras was instantly diverted. He involuntarily wondered: was the human afraid, nervous, or expressing dislike? What kind of emotion would trigger such a reaction?
He could have extended a tentacle to see the human's facial expression at this moment, but he didn't. Occasionally analyzing human emotions with his own head was quite interesting.
In the pitch-black environment, Lin Jingdu did not turn his head. He also did not see the man whose wrist he held suddenly tighten his jaw and swallow hard.
Yue Peihui lowered his eyelids and closed his eyes. A strange burning sensation in his throat pulled him away from calm thought, making him unconsciously look at the boy in front of him.
In the darkness, he could only see his blurry silhouette and feel the coolness of his fingertips.
He did not tell him to let go.
The Evil God, who did not intend to let go, steadied his mind again and focused on sensing the auras wandering in the supermarket. Malicious gazes were not hard for him to detect; locking onto their location was easy.
"…Beep beep!"
Two short "beep beep" sounds rang out. The supermarket lights flickered for a while before fully brightening. A young clerk's sweet apology came over the broadcast, but the complaints from passersby gradually drowned out the repeated apologies.
The lights came back on, and the hand loosened.
The two acted as if nothing had happened, agreeing with the clerk's complaints. They quickly tidied the vegetables in the shopping cart and planned to check out after looking at the bakery section.
While listening to Lin Jingdu's grand shopping plan, Yue Peihui was slightly distracted and raised his hand to look at his wrist.
It was clean. The boy's grip was not strong, not even leaving a faint reddish mark.
"Sister Fang! Are you alright over there?" Another clerk popped up, loudly asking about Sister Fang's condition.
Sister Fang replied, "What's wrong with me? Don't worry, it's just a power outage."
The clerk who had quietly come over and chatted hesitantly said, "Sister Fang, I'm just saying, I feel like this isn't a simple power outage."
She lowered her voice, afraid the two young people who hadn't left yet would hear: "I suspect it's the 'strange things' causing trouble again…"
Sister Fang's expression changed: "Oh no, you can't say that lightly!"
"I'm just guessing…"
The two young people nearby, one with better hearing than the other, caught every word of their conversation. Apart from the strange power outage just now, everything in the supermarket seemed calm. But only sensitive people could sense the undercurrent beneath this calm.
Lin Jingdu looked around like a vigilant little animal, his glassy eyes moving as he silently thought about how to approach the troublemaker without revealing himself.
Although he could kill the other party directly, he still worried about frightening the human.
Before he could come up with a plan, the first scream suddenly pierced the calm!
"Ahhh, help!!"
"Someone's gone crazy! Someone's gone crazy!"
With the first scream, other panicked and uneasy shouts began to rise one after another, creating chaos.
The two clerks who were whispering stopped their actions upon hearing the scream. The clerk who had guessed the 'strange things' was responsible turned pale: "This time it seems… even more serious!"
Hearing the screams, Yue Peihui's gaze instantly sharpened. He glanced at the strange man beside him who seemed completely indifferent to the screams. Gritting his teeth, he prepared to move.
They still hadn't managed to get a weapon when suddenly a person appeared before them, holding a girl and a child in one arm!
Yue Peihui's hand froze. He and Lin Jingdu both looked toward the direction where the person appeared.
It was that guy with the fluffy hair again.
Only then did Lin Jingdu look directly at the fluffy-haired young man. The faint aura on him wasn't hard to analyze. He must be a human with special abilities, no wonder he could so quickly and skillfully rescue two people.
The rescued girl and child repeatedly thanked that person, thanking him several times before hastily running toward the exit.
The person, his face flushed from the thanks, finally smiled broadly and turned around. When he locked eyes with the one human and one Evil God who had witnessed the whole scene, he instinctively wanted to blurt out: "Boss…"
Before he could finish saying "Boss," he met Yue Peihui's calm black eyes.
He hesitated, his smile stiffened, and the title he wanted to call twisted in his mouth, turning instead into a warm greeting: "Bro, bro, hey, we meet again! Why haven't you guys left yet?"
Yue Peihui: "…" He was exasperated by this absent-minded subordinate.
Lin Jingdu: "…" This human's abilities were good, but he seemed a bit slow-witted.
The man seemed quite concerned about them and added, "It's dangerous here. You just heard the screams, right? Hurry and leave, it's not wise to stay long."
"Why?" Lin Jingdu tilted his head and asked.
The man furrowed his brows: "Well, it's just that…"
He couldn't finish explaining because a middle-aged man with messy hair emerged from a nearby shelf.
His eyes were vacant, his walk stiff, dragging a gleaming knife in his hand. His pupils were unfocused but he walked straight toward where Lin Jingdu and the others stood, muttering something lowly. Listening carefully, one realized he kept repeating the same phrase:
"Get away, get away, get away…"
The middle-aged man walked slowly, bringing an invisible tension with him.
The fluffy-haired young man took a combat-ready stance, "Be careful, I'll subdue him!"
Just as Yue Peihui was about to speak, Lin Jingdu's calm voice interrupted: "Don't worry, he can't get through."
The fluffy-haired young man stumbled, confused, "Huh? What do you mean he can't get through?"
Lin Jingdu didn't look at him, only stared in the direction the middle-aged man was coming from, offering no explanation.
He didn't need to explain. When the middle-aged man was about ten meters away, his previously passive expression suddenly twisted as if he saw the most terrifying thing in the world. His hand relaxed, the knife clattered to the ground. He took a few steps back, screamed sharply, then suddenly ran backward!
Run from what?
The Evil God snorted softly in his heart. His gray and black eyes silently stirred with specks of dark red, a non-human strangeness and eeriness spreading in his gaze.
It was as if invisible ropes bound the middle-aged man's path. He screamed and fell heavily to the ground with a muffled thud. Amid the chaos, it seemed another unfamiliar scream sounded briefly before vanishing into the air.
The young man who witnessed everything was dumbfounded: "W-what's going on?!" It was his first time seeing someone controlled by something strange trip themselves. Lacking experience, he hesitated and looked back at his boss, who was determined to keep a low profile, his eyes pleading for help.
The mastermind behind all this obediently lowered his eyelids, pretending to know nothing.
He also missed Yue Peihui's lowered gaze and didn't realize that the other was looking at him. The black eyes lightly swept over the boy's lowered eyelashes, finally resting on the top of his soft hair.
Another person who noticed the boss didn't share a tacit glance with him: "?"
[Author's Note]
Ji Xuyang: Seems like I've fallen out of favor, not sure, will see.
Yue Peihui: When were you ever favored? 🙂
Lin Jingdu: Currently researching how to make a human disappear naturally o.O
