newbobooks Chapter 306 Goat Beard
Chapter 306 Goat Beard
Chapter 306 Goatee
"Goatee?" Xie Qingdu's voice hesitated slightly, as if he was thinking about who Yan Xun was talking about.
“I only remember that you were being pestered by someone that day,” Xie Qingdu said. “As for what that person looked like, I didn’t see him clearly.”
Yan Xun was not disappointed by the answer; he had long since discovered that this copy contained many obstacles to his family's secrets.
Since Xie Qingdu called, he took the opportunity to inquire about the funeral company Xie Qingdu worked for—based on his previous deduction, Xie Qingdu's entry into the company was somehow connected to the master.
"Have you seen your colleague at that funeral company?" Yan Xun asked.
"Him?" Xie Qingdu didn't understand why Yan Xun was suddenly interested in this, but he still answered honestly, "I've never seen him."
He said he had no interest in his family's company.
Who manages that company?
“He is his father.”
Did he mention his son?
“Very few,” Xie Qingdu said. “Their relationship is not good.”
Yan Xun wondered, was it a bad relationship, or was the father-son relationship fake?
What do you usually do at the funeral company?
"I just went in not long ago. That company usually sells funeral supplies, such as gold ingots and paper coins, and of course, paper houses and cars..."
“One night I left late and saw the paper figures they had placed in the room.”
"However, these paper figures are all blindfolded." Seeing that Yan Xun was interested, Xie Qingdu told him everything he knew.
"Blindfolded?"
“It’s a taboo in their line of work,” Xie Qingdu said. “When no one is around, these paper figures must be blindfolded.”
“Otherwise, some strange things might happen.” He told Yan Xun. “That night was a cloudy day, and all those paper figures were neatly arranged in the room. Even though I was blindfolded, I felt like they were staring at me.”
His voice was somewhat embarrassed, "Luckily I was blindfolded, otherwise I would have been scared out of my wits."
"Has nothing strange ever happened at that funeral company?"
"I've heard before that people who work in the funeral industry have very strong birth charts, and it's not something that ordinary people can do."
“I’ve heard about this too,” Xie Qingdu said. “During the interview, I was worried that I wouldn’t pass, but the boss said it would be fine.”
"I asked some veteran employees later, and they said that you need to have a strong destiny to do this job."
"They said I didn't look very fit, but I didn't expect to work there for a while without getting sick or injured."
“Some people worked there for only a few days before they got into a car accident or some other accident while on the job.” Xie Qingdu spoke softly, and there was no other sound around him.
"Looks like I'm pretty lucky."
“But I have indeed heard of a few strange things,” Xie Qingdu said to Yan Xun as if recalling something. “The reason those paper figures are blindfolded is because the boss hired a master to do so.”
"They said that after making paper figures, they would always hear strange laughter, but they couldn't find the source no matter how hard they tried."
"You can still see footprints on the ground occasionally."
"But that's not the scariest thing."
"Someone discovered that there were even footprints on the wall... Unless you have superhuman agility, it's unlikely that anyone could have stepped on that spot."
"The company was in a state of panic, so the boss invited a master. The master said that something had crawled into the bodies of the paper effigies and told us to cover their eyes when no one was around."
Xie Qingdu stopped abruptly, "Isn't it a bit boring?" He heard Yan Xun on the other end fall silent and assumed that Yan Xun thought what he was saying was a bit pointless and didn't want to talk to him anymore.
"It's alright, quite novel." Yan Xun had no idea about Xie Qingdu's convoluted thoughts; he was simply pondering why the master had sent Xie Qingdu to this funeral company.
Although he knew that the master's purpose was to destroy his grandmother's magic, in the end, the crew-cut man still killed Xie Qingdu... He thought the master's purpose was to truly resurrect Xie Qingdu.
"It's getting late," Xie Qingdu said from across the table. "Get some rest."
Yan Xun hummed in agreement and then hung up the voice call.
Then that night, he suddenly had a dream.
He could see the man with the goatee standing in front of him, smiling at him. "Have you been having nightmares lately?"
Yan Xun guessed that this was the matter mentioned in Zhou's diary.
He heard himself say to the man with the goatee, "No."
“I know you’re dreaming.” The man stroked his goatee and looked at Yan Xun. “You dreamed of a place called Luoyin Village.”
Have you been experiencing any aches or pains lately?
“For example, joints, for example, bones,” the goatee said. “It seems your parents don’t know about this.”
“You’ve been having similar nightmares all night long.” He looked at Yan Xun. “Why don’t you want to talk about it? Is it because you think your family will make you take medication again or lock you up somewhere else?”
Yan Xun looked at the goatee in front of him.
He didn't understand why no one in the instance had mentioned this—the other person's beard was clearly fake.
His face was actually very young, looking only in his early twenties, but his gray goatee concealed it all.
In his dream, he was clearly impatient with this conman and was about to walk past the man with the goatee when the man quickly slipped a business card into his pocket.
"Don't rush to throw it away."
"You will come looking for me."
"That's what the goatee said."
Yan Xun looked down at the name on the business card.
Ning Hengyuan
In the blink of an eye, Yan Xun found himself sitting in an office.
Ning Hengyuan sat behind the table, still sporting that ridiculous goatee. "I knew you would come looking for me."
"Why are you wearing a fake beard?" Yan Xun heard himself ask.
"Is it obvious?" Ning Hengyuan asked, stroking his beard.
"It's so fake, so obviously fake," Yan Xun said. "Didn't anyone else notice?"
“It seems the others didn’t notice.” Ning Hengyuan still smiled. “This proves you’re very perceptive; you could tell my beard was fake.”
"You didn't go to your tutoring class today?"
Yan Xun did not speak.
"Is there someone named Xie Qingdu in the tutoring class? Are you close to him?"
"Why are you asking him?" Yan Xun asked. "Do you know him?"
“He is a classmate of one of my distant nephews,” Ning Hengyuan said. “I heard that he works very hard and has a distant relative who can’t help him at all and even wants to harm him.”
"Harm him?" Yan Xun heard himself ask this question.
"Isn't it pitiful?" Ning Hengyuan said, briefly recounting the misdeeds of Xie Qingdu's distant relative. Yan Xun couldn't see his own expression, but he guessed it was one of disdain, as if Ning Hengyuan was lying.
Ning Hengyuan stroked his beard and laughed, "It seems you don't believe me."
"Your grandmother didn't do this?"
Why don't you believe these things?
Yan Xun looked at himself with his arms crossed and said to Ning Hengyuan with some wariness, "I don't talk to people who are secretive."
Why are you wearing a fake beard?
"Is he a scammer? Are you worried about being found out?"
“You think I’m a fraud, but you still came.” Ning Hengyuan didn’t care about Yan Xun’s questioning at all. He stroked his gray goatee and looked very satisfied. “Because it’s convenient this way.”
He told Yan Xun, "With a fake beard, no one will question you."
"Look, doesn't this look like something a master would do?"
Incense was burning in Ning Hengyuan's room, and the wisps of smoke, combined with his deliberately ethereal and otherworldly pose, did indeed look rather intimidating.
"No, he seems more like a swindler who sells health products and cheats people out of their hard-earned money," Yan Xun said.
"How dare you say that on my turf?" Ning Hengyuan asked.
Aren't you afraid I might do something to you?
Yan Xun saw himself pull down his eyelids, probably making a face, and said, "My family will come looking for me."
“Besides, there are surveillance cameras everywhere here,” he told Ning Hengyuan. “Even if I don’t go to tutoring classes, the teachers will still contact my parents.”
Ning Hengyuan had a look of sudden realization. "So that's why you specifically chose the day you were at your tutoring class to come see me?"
"So clever." He clapped his hands, seemingly genuinely praising Yan Xun as a smart child, but quickly changed the subject, "But what if no one knows you're here?"
As soon as he said that, the previously sunny window was suddenly filled with dark clouds, as if Ning Hengyuan had gained the power to summon clouds and rain in that instant.
Ning Hengyuan still had that smiling expression, and even in a dream, he still looked dangerous.
Perhaps Yan Xun's reaction was too bland; he didn't see the reaction he wanted on Yan Xun's face. The dark clouds outside the window slowly dissipated, and he returned to being the same sage-like swindler he had been before.
He stroked his gray goatee and said, "You child, why are you so unlikable?"
He then looked at Yan Xun, "Why aren't you saying anything?"
"Afraid?"
“I won’t talk to you until you take off that fake beard,” Yan Xun said.
Ning Hengyuan hadn't expected Yan Xun to be so persistent about his fake beard. He looked visibly confused, but in the end, he still raised his sleeve... The white goatee disappeared, and a young man with a somewhat baby-faced appearance appeared before Yan Xun.
"Are you satisfied?" Ning Hengyuan asked.
"Is this your reason for insisting on wearing a fake beard?" Yan Xun looked at Ning Hengyuan across from his dream perspective.
The other person looked very young, around 20 years old. Without his beard, Ning Hengyuan was indeed far from the image of a master; some people would believe he was a college student.
Ning Hengyuan touched his smooth chin, seemingly unaccustomed to his current appearance. Hearing Yan Xun's question, he simply looked up at him and said, "No one would believe a master who looks like this, would they?"
"He looks like a con artist."
Yan Xun thought to himself, whether Ning Hengyuan removed his beard or not, it was just two different forms of a charlatan, with no essential difference.
He thought this in his dream, and he said it in his dream as well.
Ning Hengyuan shook his head. "It seems you have many misunderstandings about me."
He gestured for Yan Xun to go to his office.
There were no banners on the table, but there were many antique paintings and calligraphy that Yan Xun could immediately recognize as valuable. "If I weren't a real master, do you think so many people would give me gifts hoping I would help them?"
“I have no money,” Yan Xun said.
"Of course I know you don't have any money," Ning Hengyuan sneered.
"Then why did you help me?"
"We are destined to meet."
"Yan Xun, we are destined to meet."
In the dream, Yan Xun immediately retorted, "You still say we're destined to be together? That's not my name at all."
Ning Hengyuan still had that same smiling face. "You just don't have this name right now," he said to Yan Xun. "It won't be long before your parents change your name after you graduate."
"You will be called Yan Xun."
His certainty puzzled Yan Xun, who was sitting opposite him.
Although he was somewhat clever in the dream, he was still quite young. Ning Hengyuan, on the other hand, was cunning and shrewd, and Yan Xun in the dream could be dismissed with just a few words.
"I know you will be called Yan Xun from now on."
"Just like I know you keep dreaming about a village, and the people in that village are all interacting with that world. You haven't told your teachers or parents about this."
“That village is called Luoyin Village.” Ning Hengyuan looked at Yan Xun. “Am I right?”
“You can certainly call me a con artist,” Ning Hengyuan said. “But you also know that you haven’t told anyone else about this, so how would I know?”
“I know every detail of your dream, just like the day I saw you on the street, I knew you were being entangled by something.”
"...Could I be entangled by something?" Yan Xun repeated the question, then looked at Ning Hengyuan opposite him. "What am I entangled by?"
“This isn’t the first time you’ve had these dreams,” Ning Hengyuan said. “You just don’t remember the previous ones.”
He looked at Yan Xun and said, "Your parents should have thought of a solution for you."
"You drank the talisman water?" Ning Hengyuan nodded again when he saw Yan Xun's reaction. "Seeing how much you hate it, you probably wouldn't drink these things."
He looked enlightened. "It seems your parents gave you something else, disguised as medication prescribed by the hospital."
“It’s probably a pill made of incense ash mixed with talismans, used to calm the mind,” he told Yan Xun. “It’s normal for you to dream about these things because your mind is unstable.”
In the dream, Yan Xun seemed to have great difficulty understanding Ning Hengyuan's meaning.
He learned from his sister that he had strange dreams every night, and then he would either bang on the door or wander around the house like a sleepwalker.
His parents specifically consulted a doctor, who prescribed some calming medication, saying that his symptoms were likely caused by excessive academic pressure, and that he just needed to take the medication on time and get plenty of rest.
He didn't tell anyone about this.
Even he himself only found out about it because Shuangshuang accidentally let it slip.
Yan Xun remembered Lou Yanchuan saying that he lived at school and could only come back for half a day on weekends... But whether it was in his diary or in the scenes in his dreams, he didn't seem to be living at school.
Lou Yanchuan said that at that time, he would only stay at home for four or five days at most every six months, and he was not very clear about many things.
If his memory is correct... it can only mean that Yan Xun had to become a day student after living at school for a period of time.
He was initially puzzled as to why the teacher wanted to have a face-to-face meeting with him, as mentioned in his weekly journal.
Thinking about it this way, perhaps I had a similar sleepwalking incident when I lived in the dormitory, which is why I had to go home to live, and even after I went to university, I didn't live in the dormitory.