Lin Mu looked at Qin Chuan and Nie Shen, who had so much stuck on them they barely resembled a human form, and gave a heavy sigh.
“Don’t bully Nie Shen.” He said as he stepped forward, opened the fabric bag, and took out all the snacks inside.
The little monsters looked up and saw a lot of snacks, and after Lin Mu beckoned to them, they ran over, cheering.
Di Wu also placed down the paper he was about to paste on Nie Shen, randomly took a pack of potato chips and a bottle of cola, opened it and said, “I’m trying to show him the dangers of the world.”
Lin Mu: “……”
I think Nie Shen had seen enough.
Lin Mu searched through the snack pile, and didn’t know what Nie Shen liked to eat, so he took out a bag of corn stick snacks. Just as he planned to pass it to Nie Shen, he found out that Di Wu had stuffed a bottle of sparkling oldenlandia water1Comes in glass or plastic bottles, or in cans. This drink is known to be a super bad tasting drink with a cooling effect, but how good/bad it actually tastes is up to the individual.
of in Nie Shen’s hands.
With a serious face, Di Wu told Nie Shen, “this is the water supplied to the warriors of mankind.”
At the side, Qin Chuan took off a paper note on his body, and at the same time took them off the rare half-monster who had the same bad luck as him. The Dragon Vein who had a turtle drawn on his face looked at the drink in Nie Shen’s hand, then looked at Nie Shen who had a sunflower drawn on his face.
He thought for a moment, then added, “yes, yes, yes. This is supplied to the warriors of mankind!”
Lin Mu: “???”
These two old monsters were really awful.
Just when he was preparing to stop this behaviour, Di Wu shoved a little Ginseng to him the moment he opened his mouth.
The little Ginseng was currently eating a pack of spicy sticks, when he was suddenly placed into Lin Mu’s arms. he raised his head in confusion.
Over there, Nie Shen had already been coaxed to unscrew the bottle cap, and drank the sparkling oldenlandia water that could be considered a biochemical bomb
Several gazes fell onto him in unison
Nie Shen sipped it expressionlessly, expressionlessly placed the cap back, expressionlessly screwed the cap back on, expressionlessly met the eyes of the monsters who were looking at him, and his head was full of question marks.
The several monsters who had tried his drink had more question marks than him.
Di Wu took a hesitant look at the bottle in Nie Shen’s hand, then turned to look at Yan Xuanjing and Lin Mu and asked, “did you two secretly swap this?”
Yan Xuanjing maintained a subtle expression and looked at Di Wu, then shook his head.
Di Wu muttered in disappointment, took the drink in Nie Shen’s hand, opened the cap and sniffed, then made an expression that showed he didn’t want to remember, twisted on the cap and mercilessly threw it aside.
Dazedly, Nie Shen took the corn sticks Lin Mu handed to him, and said, “that water that warriors drink, there’s nothing special about it.”
“……They lied to you.” Lin Mu sighed, found a few wet tissues and wiped Nie Shen’s and Qin Chuan’s faces, “that drink tastes bad.”
Nie Shen’s action of eating the corn sticks paused, looked up at Di Wu who was looking for other snacks, reached for his cola, unscrewed the sparkling oldenlandia water, and very calmly, poured the biochemical bomb into the cola, then placed it back to where it originally was.
The monsters who were watching marvelled at their level of childishness.
Nie Shen had no concept of whether it was delicious or disgusting, because he hadn’t eaten much normal food himself, his definition of delicious food was extremely different compared to normal people.
Lin Mu looked at Nie Shen, who turned quiet as if nothing had happened at all, and decided to take it as if he didn’t see anything.
He turned and took out a Monopoly set, and immediately after he had explained to Nie Shen how to play it, Di Wu spewed out a drink and jumped three feet high.
“Who did it?!” Di Wu asked.
A group of non-humans turned to look at him, each one looking more innocent than the one before.
Di Wu scolded something, and Di Xiu gagged him mercilessly using a spicy stick.
“Don’t swear in front of the children.” Di Xiu said gently.
Di Wu snorted, pulled Yan Xuanjing to replace Nie Shen, and shuffled the tiles.
Nie Shen looked at them, and a trace of something soft and pleasant surfaced in his eyes, and instantly went away again.
He listened carefully as Lin Mu explained to him how Monopoly was played.
Different from an irresponsible guy like Di Wu who said “you’ll understand the rules after you lose a few times”, Lin Mu’s explanation was quite detailed.
The mountain’s heart wasn’t that far from where Yan Gui was fighting with the resentful energy, and compared to outside, the movements within the heart was quite small, probably because a spell of some sort had been used.
Lin Mu shook the dice and asked, “we really don’t need to bother about Yan Gui over there?”
“Don’t bother.” Di Wu said.
Di Xiu added, “for now, there’s no way for us to bother.”
Lin Mu raised his head and slightly paused, “en? why for now?”
“There’s nothing I can do. That’s half my body, I can’t kill myself, can I?” Di Wu sighed sadly, “wait another ten days or so, to about half a month. If Yan Gui can’t handle it, we’ll see if Di Xiu can do anything.”
The effects of the essence of the sun and moon was greater than any spiritual medication. While Di Xiu wouldn’t be able to fully recover in about half a month, but in terms of his ability to dispel resentful energy, it was enough to accumulate some power to deal with it.
After all, resentful energy was caused by hatred and grievances, and Di Xiu had a talent in making people forget what they resented.
“So it’s like this……”
Lin Mu nodded in understanding.
No wonder Milky had to use his power to supress the resentful energy before — it was because of this.
Di Xiu and Di Wu never mentioned about the possibility of sacrificing Nie Shen.
After all, Nie Shen had once been united with the resentful energy, and his connection with the resentful energy was only slightly worse than Di Wu himself, if it wasn’t for his resilience that let him get rid of the resentful energy, by now, his sense of self might have even been taken over by it.
If such a situation happened, then the resentful energy and Nie Shen would be one.
The resentful energy would be Nie Shen, and Nie Shen would be the resentful energy.
If Nie Shen was killed, then the resentful energy and their karma would disappear too.
If this was before, when they didn’t have much interaction with Nie Shen, they would have sacrificed this monster without any hesitation. But now, they’ve interacted, and they wouldn’t be willing to lose even a single one.
After all, there weren’t many monsters that could play with them without any burden.
Not to mention Nie Shen was a half-monster, if they thought about the future, keeping him, and letting him teach Lin Mu how to simulate his power and increase it was much better compared to monsters like them who knew who to use their powers smoothly since the day they gained spiritual awareness.
After all, to them, using their power was akin to breathing.
Would you know how to teach a person to breathe?
A normal person wouldn’t.
Yan Xuanjing’s previous straightforward behaviour was the result of him thinking very hard.
In the end, after thinking about it, Nie Shen turned out to be the best one to teach Lin Mu.
So no matter how they thought about it, Di Wu and Di Xiu weren’t that willing to mention the possibility of Nie Shen going to deliver his own head.
“Didn’t you say that if the resentful energy was resolved, Di Wu would have to carry the burden of the karma?” Lin Mu looked at his two elders who seemed as if they had a plan in mind, and muttered, “Di Wu doesn’t seem panicky at all.”
“I’m panicking? Who says I’m not panicked. I’m panicking to death. But that’s watt’s use of panicking, it won’t be of any help at all — it’s better to figure out how I can get rid of the karma after that.” Di Wu lazily said, took a tile, “holy shit, a heavenly hand!”
Di Xiu looked up at him, “don’t swear.”
“Ay, I’m so lucky today, I feel kinda uneasy.”
Di Wu flipped open his tiles and tore a paper to paste on Yan Xuanjing’s face. One couldn’t see how he was even uneasy.
“According to the law of conversion, I’ll be unlucky after this!”
Qin Chuan was Fighting the Landlord beside him, and wasn’t happy when he heard that.
“I’ve been unlucky for so long, and my luck hasn’t gotten better!”
“……” Di Wu choked, thought for two seconds and was almost convinced, “I feel that you being alive means that you’re lucky. If normal monsters were as unlucky as you, they’ll be dead, yet you’re still fine and jumping around.”
Qin Chuan thought for a bit, and felt that it was true.
Di Wu looked at Qin Chuan in shock, and whispered to Di Xiu next to him, “why didn’t I realise that he was so gullible in the past?”
Di Xiu turned to smile at him, then gracefully rolled his eyes.
Next to him, Nie Shen didn’t seem to notice their conversation at all, and was focused on the Monopoly board in front of him, playing very seriously.
Lin Mu saw that he seemed quite interested, so simply followed suit and played really seriously as well, then played all the chess and card games that Qin Chuan brought from their home.
After that, he taught Nie Shen some of the games he played with as a child, such as the matching pairs memory game, string figures, jump rope, hopscotch, these type of games — he could vaguely feel some subtle emotions from Nie Shen.
Yan Xuanjing looked at Nie Shen and Lin Mu at the side, one seriously teaching and the other seriously learning, but unfortunately, Nie Shen was a novice, and kept losing.
“Besides these, humans had also invented a lot of fun things, but I’m busy with work, so let Milky or Di Wu take you there in the future.” Lin Mu was playing airplane chess with Nie Shen, and when he said this, he slightly paused, and remembered that the reason Nie Shen went to the Great Wilderness was to kill the resentful energy.
Then he returned after sensing the resentful energy, and had probably came back to kill it.
Lin Mu paused for a long while, and only returned to his senses after Nie Shen lightly clapped.
“I won.” Nie Shen said.
The look on his face was unusually relaxed.
It wasn’t the slightly gloomy out-of-place feeling that he had before, and it wasn’t the dulled and dazed expression he had when he was trying to remember something.
It was completely relaxed, as if he didn’t have any worries at all.
There were two Relaxed Emperors here, and they were so close, it was normal to be in such a mood.
Lin Mu looked down at the chessboard.
This round, Nie Shen’s luck was quite good, and he swept through the chessboard, unimpeded, until the point that Lin Mu felt that he cheated.
Yan Xuanjing’s gaze, which rarely left Lin Mu, lightly landed on Nie Shen.
Qin Chuan came over holding a few cards in his hands, and said, “come and play Werewolf Kill. Nie Shen doesn’t know how to play, he’ll learn by being the narrator.”
The bored non-humans didn’t mind at all, and after hearing Lin Mu’s explanation, Nie Shen nodded.
The monsters sat in a circle, and the mountain god, who had so many playmates for the first time, happily moved a large cut-off-stump from the outside to act as a table.
Nie Shen stood next to them.
The light in the mountain’s heart wasn’t particularly bright, and the main source of light came from several candles hanging at the top that were about to be extinguished.
After the big stump was moved, Yan Xuanjing went and took a candle down, placing it in the centre.
“Night falls. Please close your eyes.”
Nie Shen said softly.
Other than Lin Mu and Qin Chuan, nobody else had closed their eyes, and only frowned slightly as they looked at him.
Nie Shen slightly paused, opened his mouth, and didn’t know what to say. In the end, he said a ‘thank you’, and with a little embarrassment of being seen through, dispersed into mist, turned towards the rumbling place outside, and left.
Someone sighed silently.
The candlelight flickered for a moment.
That light was orange, steady and warm.
The translator has this to add:
Werewolves vs Monopoly. Killed by a werewolf or by capitalism. Decisions decisions.
So gentle…
Don’t tell me he went out to fight too now? Well, I can just hope that he won’t die :’D
Thx for the ch \(≧▽≦)/
what happened at the end?
There’s this bittersweet feeling with the end, which goes in line with natsume yuujinchou (which I’ve noticed a few comments mentioned it in the previous chapter). I feel sad for Nie Shen, he’s finally experienced what’s it like to be living with people (or monsters) that actually cares for him but… Thanks for the chapter!