This Damned Thirst for Survival
Chapter 66

As soon as the idea came up, Jiang Luo thought it was feasible, very feasible.

So here’s the question.

How is he going to get Chi You to go up against the faceless monster?

A ready-made solution for Jiang Luo was to make Chi You his scapegoat, just as Zhang Feng had done.

But for Chi You to be his scapegoat, you need to hug, kiss, and have …… body. Fluid exchange.

Shit.

Jiang Luo’s expression falters.

He remembered the damaging trigrams he had worked out earlier.

Is this what is meant by losing your own interests in order to gain a reversal of defeat?

…… This may not be too damaging either.

Do you want to bite the bullet, disgust Chi You in this way, and then screw him in the process? Or do you want to find another way?

Kissing an evil spirit is terrifying, especially with a maniac like Chi You, and Jiang Luo can’t imagine the two of them exchanging body. Jiang Luo can’t imagine the two of them exchanging body fluids. But Jiang Luo feels reluctant to give up this opportunity.

He bit down slowly on his cigarette, his teeth imprinting a neat circle of teeth marks.

What should I do?

In his indecision, Jiang Luo’s mind crossed to the abominable face of Chi You.

He made up his mind instantly.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Since the evil spirit had dared to tease him like that, he would retaliate even more disgustingly in return.

The assistant took the car and picked them up in front of the hospital.

The chief director sat in the passenger seat, still in a trance, not having recovered from the conversation he had just had, “Master, what is a faceless, faceless monster?”

“A ghost that is afraid of the light, that only appears in the dark,” Jiang Luo said, “and where there is no light, you can never be sure where it has gone, or even that it may have passed through your heart the moment the darkness came.”

“Because it could not appear in the light, and the shadows of Li Zhen’s four disappeared, I suspect that the faceless monster was the product of something they had summoned and mingled with their shadows.”

It was well reasoned, but the director didn’t understand a word of it.

The assistant in the driver’s seat fidgeted and said, “Maestro, director, there’s one thing ……”

The chief director urged, “Don’t stammer, just say what you have to say.”

The assistant gulped, “The master is in the hot seat.”

The people in the car froze, and Jiang Luo’s heart rose with a bad feeling, “Who’s in the hot seat?”

The assistant said stiffly, “You.”

Jiang Luo : “……”

Wasn’t the only footage of him the one or two minutes he appeared on Fu Wei’s live stream?

The assistant explained, “You asked us to take care of this matter, in fact, before you even spoke to us, I had already sent someone to suppress the news, stopped the live broadcast at the first time and deleted the playback video, and controlled the comments under the official blog, only some screenshots were circulating on the internet. It was just a small spread, it couldn’t turn over much water, but we didn’t expect that there would be a first-rate star to back you up.”

Jiang Luo twitched between his eyebrows and opened his phone, and the first item on the hot search list was #BaiQiuStandingUpForBrother.

Jiang Luo had trouble breathing when he saw the headline. He clicked in and saw Bai Qiu’s tweet.

[@ Bai Qiu: Is this how my brother is bullied in your show? He participated in “Next Stop, Idol” and there’s not a single shot of him in all of the footage, his voting channel isn’t even open, and everyone doesn’t even know his name. If it wasn’t for this live event, how far would he have been “hidden”? Is this the fairness you are calling for? @NextStopIdol, please give me a positive explanation].

The accompanying images are two screenshots of Jiang Luo in the live studio.

It’s not often that Bai Qiu takes such a hard line against someone, but when she does, it’s proof that she’s going to follow through.

A few days ago, Bai Qiu dominated the search for several days because of her manager’s crime. Many netizens were captivated by her strong personality, making Bai Qiu a huge fan.

After the agent incident ended, Bai Qiu went back to filming to make up for the loss she had suffered, and this is the first time she has spoken out on social media in such a strong tone since the agent incident.

Bai Qiu was indeed angry too.

It is no exaggeration to say that Jiang Luo is her saviour. She has tried to invite Jiang Luo to enter the entertainment industry many times, half because Jiang Luo is the right person to stand in the limelight and be chased by the spotlight, and half because she wants to repay the favour.

But Jiang Luo didn’t like the entertainment industry, so she had no choice but to give up. But Bai Qiu was not lying when she said, “I will do my best to help if I am needed”. When she found out that Jiang Luo had taken part in a talent show, she was shocked and delighted, but the next moment she found out about Jiang Luo’s current situation, Bai Qiu’s anger immediately flared up.

Once again, she used her contacts.

No one dares to underestimate Bai Qiu’s connections. Starting with the artists signed to her studio, more and more of them retweeted this tweet of hers.

The tone was either serious, euphemistic or critical …… in nature all questioning the fair nature of Next Stop, Idol, a message that flew across the internet.

Someone from the staff of Next Stop, Idol has already come out anonymously and admitted that they did cut all the footage about the trainee, but it was requested by the chief director and chief planner.

The chief director almost blacked out after reading the online comments calling him out.

The assistant wanted to cry, “Master, it’s really not that we weren’t prepared this time, we didn’t expect it to come to this.”

Jiang Luo : “…… don’t blame you.”

His mouth was bitter.

Jiang Luo looked through the screenshots that had been circulating online, but thankfully he only appeared on air for a few moments, during which he avoided his face. Although it is him in these screenshots, there are only a few angles in total and the picture quality is a bit blurry.

Such pictures should soon be eliminated from the Internet.

But Jiang Luo has underestimated himself a little.

The quality of the picture only makes the dark-haired young man in the screenshot look as if he is covered with a filter, as if he is glowing faintly. The lip picking and hand waving action is made into a motion picture, and the beautiful and dashing air in the raised hand is incomparably appealing to the eye.

Jiang Luo went through the comments, in which he was imagined to be a poor little man being rubbed and kneaded at will by the other trainees and the show’s crew, and the netizens were so outraged that they decided he was being bullied to the extent that he couldn’t even get enough to eat ……

There is also a part of them that is purely kowtowing to the face, clamouring under the official blog to get the show to release more material about him.

“……” Jiang Luo said, “I’ll explain it to Bai Qiu.”

He called Bai Qiu, propping his forehead and organising his words with a headache.

Soon, the call was answered by the other party. Bai Qiu’s voice came with anger, “Master, don’t worry, I will do you justice in this matter.”

Jiang Luo : “Actually I-”

“I was going to recommend you to this talent show, but I didn’t expect it to be so rubbish,” Bai Qiu said forcefully, her blood pressure rising as she remembered this, “Master, don’t worry, even if you can’t stay on this show, I can still take this opportunity to put you in front of Even if you don’t make it on the show, I can take this opportunity to put you in front of the public and make your debut!”

“Wait a minute,” Jiang Luo speaks quickly, “I don’t want to make a debut.”

Bai Qiu was confused, “What?”

Jiang Luo sighed and explained, “I came into the programme to sort something out for them.”

Bai Qiu reacted immediately when he said this. She then realised that she had made a mistake, and Bai Qiu froze for a moment before she said in an exasperated voice, “So I’ve misunderstood?”

The director was so anxious that he said, ” Bai Qiu, the master is going to withdraw from the competition after dealing with the matter, what am I going to do with you in this state?”

Bai Qiu snapped and opened her phone to see that 20 to 30 artists had retweeted her tweet and the buzz was still soaring.

“It’s over.” She murmured.

The director spent the rest of the day discussing with Bai Qiu how to deal with the mishap. Given that the director had been photographed taking Zhang Feng to hospital, they decided to use the fact that Jiang Luo was unwell and was going to withdraw from the competition, which was why the director’s team had abandoned his footage.

But this reason cannot be taken out now.

Due to the pressure of public opinion, the show’s team will now have to open Jiang Luo’s voting channel and wait for the sound waves to die down before releasing the news that Jiang Luo has withdrawn from the competition due to his health.

This reason, even if it is a bit far-fetched, is the best one that can be thought of at the moment.

The director and Bai Qiu have aligned their remarks, Jiang Luo has watched the whole thing and has lazily put his head down knowing he doesn’t have to step in.

But as soon as his heart dropped, Lu Youyi, who was swiping his phone, exclaimed, “Jiang Luo, Qin Fan has also retweeted Bai Qiu’s Weibo post.”

Jiang Luo froze, his forehead jutting out twice, and picked up the phone.

Qin Fan has indeed sent a tweet.

He has more followers than Bai Qiu, and in just a few moments, the number of retweets and comments reached frightening proportions.

[@ Qin Fan : His name is Jiang Huan and he’s a very good trainee. I have to say, I like him a lot. I hope the crew treats every trainee fairly and doesn’t let the pearls drown in the sand.

Qin Fan, a big-name mentor for Next Stop Idol, said something that implicitly questioned the show’s team. Whether it was to show fairness, or just for this Jiang Huan trainee, the news media smelled something different.

In particular, the implication of Qin Fan’s words – “I like him a lot” – was enough to set his fan base in motion.

In the eyes of others, Qin Fan is a righteous man who expresses his love for the trainee.

In Jiang Luo’s eyes, it was like a big problem, a frost that had to be added to the heavy snowfall.

Ye Xun sighed, “The timing of his blog post is too coincidental. Didn’t Qin Fan know that we were new trainees? The show that aired before wouldn’t have had any footage of us, or did he know about the director’s team cutting all of our footage afterwards?”

Qin Fan’s move seems to have poured oil on the fire, putting Jiang Luo, who was already in a precarious situation, in the thick of it.

Jiang Luo listened to Ye Xun for a moment, then suddenly laughed coldly and started searching for photos of Qin Fan.

This familiar tactic of pushing the envelope reminds Jiang Luo of a certain evil spirit.

But Qin Fan had personally drunk his water, which made him subconsciously ignore Qin Fan when he suspected who Chi You was.

He had previously wondered if Chi You would rather endure the pain and drink the charm water in order to make him lose.

But on second thought, it’s not likely to happen to anyone else, but it would make sense to the madman. After all, Chi You could have laughed out loud when Jiang Luo had made him so weak.

Jiang Luo clicked on a photo of Qin Fan’s smile, zoomed in on the lips and looked carefully at them.

Lu Youyi reassured him, “It’s okay, that was a good reason, we’ll leave after we finish the faceless monster anyway, in a few months no one will remember you.”

Jiang Luo said absentmindedly, “You’re right.”

He compared Qin Fan’s lips to the one Chi You had sent him, and they were fifty percent similar. He searched for a picture of Fu Wei, again zoomed in, and looked at his lips.

But such photos have been fine-tuned and buffed, and even the lips of the two look somewhat similar.

Jiang Luo looks at the two photographs with his eyes downcast.

His gaze contained ice, but his face had little expression, slightly languidly supporting his head, his eyes haunted.

*

In a small, shabby internet cafe.

The owner was making bubble noodles when three shadows came down from the front of the counter and he looked up to see a smiling, sickly man saying, “Boss, open three machines for us.”

Behind the sickly man stood two other strange men, these two wore ducktops, but one seemed to be bald and the other had long hair down to his waist and a non-mainstream fox mask.

The owner froze as the sickly man knocked good-naturedly on the counter, “Boss?”

“Ohhhhhhh,” the owner opened the machine for them, “Minimum one hour to start, three dollars an hour, twenty overnight, how long do you want?”

The sick man rubbed his chin, “Overnight, I guess.”

The long-haired, masked man spoke incredulously, “All night?”

His voice was slightly shrill, like some kind of animal, and it was unpleasant to listen to.

The owner shot another quiet glance at them.

The sick man’s smile remained unchanged, as if he hadn’t heard his companion’s words, “Boss, is the machine on?”

The owner was busy handing them the card, “Okay, okay. machines 13-15.”

The three of them found their own machines and sat down, and Liao Si, the sickly man, incidentally opened the computer for Hua Rui.

Hua Beaver clasped his arms, his face as black as ink, ” Liao Si , why did we come to the internet cafe to vote for Jiang Luo.”

Liao Si wagged his finger, “Hua Beaver, we’re not just going to vote for Jiang Luo, we’re going to act as a water army to make the show that cut his footage learn from its mistakes and not make them again.”

The Beaver said grimly, “So why are we doing this.”

On one side, Ge Wuchen had already skilfully opened the computer, a faint smile on her pretty features, “Flower Beaver, you are always so stupid, I sometimes really wonder why the master accepted your defection.”

Beaver: “You-”

“Hey, don’t argue,” Liao Si said, “register a few accounts and vote for Jiang Luo.”

Ge Wuchen opened the game page and gave himself the id “I am your father” and said loosely, “The master’s lover is on the show, we have to show our sincerity by voting for him overnight as a water force.”

The beaver stiffened abruptly, “Master’s lover?!”

Liao Si sighed and looked at the Beaver with pity, “Beaver, can’t you see how special the master is to Jiang Luo?”

Stiffening into stone, the flowered beaver muttered, “But didn’t the master almost kill him several times?”

“You know it was almost,” Liao Si said, “and we’d better not think any bad thoughts about Jiang Luo until he’s dead, and as for if he does get killed by his master …… ”

He smiled, indifference and callousness turning slightly at the corners of his mouth, “Nor does it stop us from showing him our closeness now.”

They show closeness when it is time to show closeness, but if one day their master asks them to kill Jiang Luo, they will not hesitate half a second.

After all, they’re rotten to the core, aren’t they?

*

Back at the recording location, the director told Jiang Luo to go back and rest, forcing a smile on his face, “Don’t worry, Master, Miss Bai Qiu and I will take care of this.”

Jiang Luo smiled slightly, “Thank you for your hard work.”

He took out two talismans from his body and handed them to the director and his assistant, “These are two peace talismans I wrote, they are not too effective, but they are better than nothing, so please take them.”

Ye Xun said silently, “There is no one more useful than the charm you have written.”

The director had heard about the occult world and knew that a talisman was rare in the occult world, and vaguely understood that Jiang Luo’s Fu Lu was one in a million. He was so pleased that he didn’t even dare to politely excuses himself and took the peace talisman into his hands with a precious smile, “Thank you, Master!”

The assistant hurriedly followed suit and took it.

After bidding farewell to the directors, Jiang Luo walked quickly towards the dormitory building.

“What’s wrong with him?” Deadbeat asked from behind.

Lu Youyi put up his finger and said, “People are afraid of being famous, and Jiang Luo is too good-looking to be bothered.”

The dead ghost did not understand the human mind and frowned, “Isn’t it good to look good?”

Ye Xun glanced at him, “It’s a good thing. Throughout the ages, good-looking people have been liked.”

The dead ghost was even more confused, “And why was he upset?”

“You don’t understand.” Ye Xun shook his head.

The dead ghost thought to himself, “Humans can be so strange.

Their dormitory is on the third floor, but Jiang Luo’s footsteps suddenly stopped as they passed the corner of the first floor.

He looked at the white, smooth wall to his left, which had a faintly yellowed humanoid mark on it. Jiang Luo frowned and turned back to the three men behind him and asked, “Was there this on the wall on the first floor before?”

Ye Xun stepped forward and took a good look, “No.”

“I remember when it was raining yesterday, there were humanoid marks like that outside the wall on the ground floor,” Jiang Luo whispered, “and I thought, at the time, that someone had gotten wet and hit the wall.”

“It must have fallen into disrepair, looking good on the outside but cutting corners on the inside,” Ye Xun reached out and placed a hand on the human tracery, “slightly damp.”

Jiang Luo stood in place for a moment and walked slowly towards the third floor, changing the subject to another, “Can you still smell the stench on your bodies?”

Three people who are already used to the smell: “…… can.”

They picked up speed and returned to the hostel.

Inside the dormitory, Fu Wei is the only one there. He is standing on the balcony, leaning on the railing and wondering what he is thinking about.

Jiang Luo squinted at him for a moment and then walked over to him.

Fu Wei turned around at the sound of the voice, his side face cold, “What are you doing?”

Jiang Luo looked at his lips carefully, and after a long time, he hooked his lips and smiled, ” Fu Wei , the shape of your lips looks not bad.”

Fu Wei raised his eyebrows and waited patiently for Jiang Luo to finish his sentence, but Jiang Luo said with a smirk, “Smile?”

“……” Fu Wei frowned, ” Jiang Huan , are you sick?”

He smelt the smell from Jiang Luo’s body and his frown deepened, “Where have you been? Why does it smell so bad.”

“Went somewhere fun,” Jiang Luo shrugged, clenching his wristbone, “just a laugh, it’s not like I meant anything else. Fu Wei , you know, I’m not very good-tempered.”

Fu Wei still blushed and flashed him a smile.

Jiang Luo asked him to raise the corners of his mouth and to be a little more nervous, which Fu Wei did. After seeing the final result, Jiang Luo smiled thoughtfully, thanked Fu Wei and went into the bathroom with a change of clothes.

It was an extraordinarily long bath.

The sound of water dripping and running thinly carries from the bath to the balcony.

Jiang Luo stopped the water, dried himself with a towel, changed his clothes and walked out. He yawned, told Lu Youyi and the others that he needed to sleep, set the alarm for five o’clock and fell under the covers.

Fu Wei walked slowly to his bedside, “Aren’t you nervous about being graded again tomorrow?”

He said, ” Jiang Huan , you don’t look like a trainee.”

“Silly,” Jiang Luo poked his head out from under the blanket, his cheeks slightly red from the mist, his eyes bloodshot from a long night, but with a charming taste, he propped his head up and said carelessly, “I stand on the stage, I don’t have to do anything, and I have a lot of people voting for me. Do you understand?”

After saying that, he stopped talking to Fu Wei and turned to sleep.

Fu Wei said to himself, “And so it is.”

*

Jiang Luo prepares to pit Chi You against the faceless monster, but this plan, apparently, cannot be told to his companions.

When he woke up, he and his companions deliberately avoided this when discussing ways to deal with the faceless monster.

Everything was ready for Chi You to call him.

Jiang Luo is not after the right answer this time, but a wrong one. He wants to draw Chi You out on purpose.

Presumably knowing that he was in the dormitory, the evil spirit did not call Jiang Luo until late in the evening at twelve o’clock.

A smile flashed in Jiang Luo’s eyes as he walked into the bathroom, “Hello?”

“The second night’s game begins,” the evil spirit said gracefully, “Have you figured out which one is the real me this evening?”

Jiang Luo said, “The usual rules, send your photos first.”

A little later, the evil spirit sent Jiang Luo a photograph of his left hand.

The fingers are long and slender, with a mole so small as to be almost invisible on the side palm.

Jiang Luo was on the verge of guessing who he was, and once this photo was sent, he was sure of his suspicions. But he said deliberately, ” Fu Wei .”

“Unfortunately, you have once again answered incorrectly,” said the evil spirit falsely, “you have been wrong twice now, which displeases me, and for this evening’s game I shall invite your companions into it along with you, as an audience to enjoy you while you are being punished.”

With those words, the evil spirits hung up the phone.

Jiang Luo gave a “tsk”, unable to tell for a moment whether this was a good or bad decision on the part of the evil spirit.

Ye Xun and the others are with him, and they are significantly stronger. But how else can he victimise Chi You if he lets them meet him?

He casually pushed the door open and walked out, but the moment he exited the bathroom door, the dormitory before him abruptly turned into a hospital room.

Jiang Luo looks down, his clothes have turned into a blue and white striped patient suit.

Another vision of the evil spirit.

Jiang Luo’s eyes were closed as he walked towards his bed, but to his surprise, he could not touch anything.

Jiang Luo opened his eyes and the place where the bed had been was now empty.

His heart sank and he cautiously opened the door to the ward.

Outside was the corridor of the hospital, blood everywhere on the ghastly white walls and clean tiles, and bodies cut in half by saws. The bodies were of men and women, patients and doctors, their expressions horrified, their intestines scattered all over the floor.

Jiang Luo moves his eyes away and walks carefully against the wall to his left.

He didn’t meet a single person along the way and managed to make his way to the nurses’ desk, which was also devoid of nurses, medication thrown about and white coats hung on hangers by who knows who were covered in spattered blood.

The whole hospital looked like a scene of massacre by a psychopathic murderer.

Jiang Luo walked over to the nurses’ table and rummaged through its contents, finding a scalpel and a newspaper.

The newspaper read, “Chainsaw murderer injured in police arrest, admitted to third hospital for emergency treatment.”

Jiang Luo’s gaze moves to the stand-up sign at the nurses’ desk, which reads, in gilt lettering, The Third Hospital.

Jiang Luo : “……”

He looked to the sides and found another line written in blood on the tiles below the nurses’ table.

The person who wrote it should have been very panicked, the strokes scribbled and trembling, the blood half-dried and filled with horror.

“The killer is dressed as a doctor and he’s killed so many people! He’s horrible, run!”