Bringing My Rival Back to Life (Accidentally) - Chapter 21
“What did you say?”
Wu Jiu abruptly stood up from the sofa. Overwhelmed by his emotions, he moved so vigorously that, being weightless, he nearly floated to the ceiling like a hot air balloon.
Zhu Xiao, as if recording a confession for the court, jotted down what Wu Jiu had said and added a subjective comment: “Pretending to be deaf, minus ten points.”
“Wait, why minus ten points?” Wu Jiu argued, “I heard you clearly. I just asked what you meant.”
Zhu Xiao glanced at him and continued writing: “Poor comprehension skills, minus ten points.”
“How can that be a reason to deduct points?” Wu Jiu protested, “This is unfair!”
Ignoring his protest, Zhu Xiao further penalized him: “Unreasonable questioning, minus ten points.”
“Let me ask again,” Zhu Xiao paused his writing, lifting his eyelids to ask, “Do you like me?”
“You can answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”
Wu Jiu refused to answer “yes” or “no.” Instead, he blurted out, “What a joke! Liking you? Don’t ask such a ridiculous question.”
“Answering irrelevantly, minus ten points.”
“I can’t believe this… I give up,” Wu Jiu’s entire face turned red, and he seemed to be emitting steam like a humidifier, “Can’t you just give me a moment to think?”
His focus was entirely on Zhu Xiao’s scoring sheet—completely unaware that the points deducted by Zhu Xiao had no real impact on him and were not worth worrying about.
“How long?” Zhu Xiao glanced at the time, “Is two minutes enough?”
Wu Jiu gritted his teeth and said, “Zhu Xiao, even debt collectors aren’t this impatient…!”
Then, thinking about the ten points he had just lost for protesting, he defended himself, “This is a reasonable question.”
“Alright, then five minutes,” Zhu Xiao accepted his reasonable doubt and generously added three more minutes. He took out his phone and set an alarm for five minutes later.
Under the pressure of the five-minute countdown, Wu Jiu’s brain was forced to work at high speed.
Liking Zhu Xiao?
Wu Jiu had intended to carefully sort through his feelings, but unfortunately, as soon as his mind touched the name “Zhu Xiao,” it triggered some mechanism, automatically bringing up countless images, all of which were of Zhu Xiao.
Zhu Xiao smiling, Zhu Xiao angry, Zhu Xiao being serious…
Wu Jiu’s thoughts got stuck in these chaotic images, and before he knew it, he had mentally edited a solo video of Zhu Xiao.
Having known Zhu Xiao for so many years, he had an abundance of material in his mind. After finishing the solo edit, he began to edit a duet.
Zhu Xiao expressionlessly telling him to leave, Zhu Xiao looking at him with concern as he shed tears, Zhu Xiao urgently performing CPR on him…
He had even chosen the background music—Suspended Drowning.
At that moment, a sudden ringtone from his phone interrupted his passionate editing.
The five minutes were up.
Wu Jiu’s thoughts were forcibly pulled back to reality. He came to his senses, and Zhu Xiao was looking at him.
He opened his mouth, about to speak, the answer on the tip of his tongue, almost ready to be spoken—
Zhu Xiao: “Time’s up. No answer, minus ten points.”
Whether in the underworld or the human world, Wu Jiu had never scored so low. If this continued, he would end up with fewer points than the old man!
“Stop, stop! No more deductions!”
Wu Jiu was desperate, reaching out to cover Zhu Xiao’s scoring sheet, preventing him from writing on it, “Yes, yes, I said yes!”
Zhu Xiao put down his pen.
“Really, Zhu Xiao, what’s the difference between this and forced confession?” Wu Jiu snorted, then warily said, “Don’t deduct points from me. Just pretend I suddenly felt like saying something silly.”
Wu Jiu’s words seemed to remind Zhu Xiao, who decided to press on with the interrogation to verify the truth: “Were you telling the truth just now?”
Wu Jiu stubbornly replied, “Haha, I was just joking.”
Then he saw Zhu Xiao pick up the black pen again.
Zhu Xiao deducted points as decisively as the King of Hell marking names in the Book of Life and Death, without any mercy. Seeing that he was about to lose another ten points, Wu Jiu threw all his pride and coyness out the window and hastily said, “True! Truer than gold! I really like you!”
After speaking, he realized what he had just blurted out.
Wu Jiu turned his face away, his fingers absentmindedly plucking at the edge of the sofa.
The atmosphere inexplicably fell silent.
Wu Jiu’s gaze drifted from the sofa to the table, and then from the table to the ceiling.
While his eyes wandered, he stealthily glanced at Zhu Xiao out of the corner of his eye.
Zhu Xiao was far from as calm as he appeared; a faint blush also appeared on his face.
He composed himself and spoke as calmly as possible: “So——”
Wu Jiu’s eyes twinkled with delight: “Zhu Xiao, then go on a blind date with me.”
He liked Zhu Xiao, so he could outdo the old man and go on a blind date with Zhu Xiao.
Zhu Xiao: “……”
The more Wu Jiu thought about it, the more convinced he became, his eyes brightening: “Don’t go on a blind date with him. I’m better than him. Go on a blind date with me.”
“……”
Zhu Xiao expressionlessly pasted the evaluation sheet with an extremely low score on Wu Jiu’s face, “No.”
The reason was low intelligence, minus one hundred points.
“Zhu Xiao, why can the old man do it but I can’t?”
After asking his question, Zhu Xiao went back to his own business, while Wu Jiu, like a persistent spirit, stuck to his side, tirelessly promoting himself.
“I’m younger than him, better-looking, and as for money—my money is all with you now. Although I’m not sure, you definitely have more money than the old man right now.”
Wu Jiu’s mouth didn’t stop, chattering away in Zhu Xiao’s ear: “Plus, I’m gentle, considerate, humorous, and mature… Tsk, I’m the truly mature one; the old man is far behind!”
“Oh, and I’m one meter eighty-eight point eight eight tall.”
Zhu Xiao was speechless, “You don’t need to mention that last part.”
“I’m going to say it,” Wu Jiu persisted in promoting himself, “Let me tell you, someone as excellent as me is hard to find even with a lantern. If you miss me, you’ll regret it for a lifetime. By the way, do you want me to recite my resume——”
Before he could finish, his mouth was covered by Zhu Xiao.
“Mmmph mmmph!”
Thinking of the dense text on Wu Jiu’s tombstone gave Zhu Xiao a headache, so he cut him off before he could recite it.
Zhu Xiao asked him, “Are you coming tomorrow?”
Wu Jiu pointed to the hand covering his mouth.
Zhu Xiao let go.
“Why are you trying to change the subject? Answer my question first,” Wu Jiu said, “You’ve already gone on a blind date with the old man. Why can’t you go on one with me?”
“And I’ve confessed!” Wu Jiu was still a bit angry, indignantly saying, “Can’t you give me a chance?”
“……”
Zhu Xiao said, “Then come over tomorrow.”
“Come for what?”
“Didn’t you say?” Zhu Xiao said, “To go on a blind date with you.”
After returning to the underworld, Wu Jiu was still fuming, which made Butler Bai very worried.
“Young master, are you feeling unwell?”
Wu Jiu held his forehead, “I’m a bit dizzy.”
He felt unreal, as if he were treading on clouds, ready to float away at any moment.
Never having heard of backlash causing dizziness, Butler Bai worriedly thought, could the backlash have become this severe?
“Maybe you should avoid going to the human world for a while… uh, young master?”
At some point, Wu Jiu had already made his way to his wardrobe and took out that formal suit again.
Butler Bai was puzzled, “Young master, are you going to sleep?”
He remembered a previous occasion when Wu Jiu had insisted on wearing this suit to sleep.
“No, I’m going to see Zhu Xiao tomorrow. I’m just preparing in advance,” Wu Jiu recalled that Butler Bai had seemed to have something on his mind, as if he wanted to say something but was constipated, “By the way, what were you saying just now?”
Butler Bai silently swallowed the words he had wanted to say, “No, nothing.”
Wu Jiu ironed the clothes he would wear tomorrow, making sure there was no room for error, before lying down on the bed.
He thought of Zhu Xiao’s face and closed his eyes.
However, within three seconds, he opened them again.
He had been back in the underworld for several hours, and his head was still smoking.
This was related to his emotional fluctuations, and it was already a controlled result—otherwise, he might have even emitted heart-shaped smoke.
Wu Jiu tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep, so he got up and ironed the clothes for tomorrow once more, smoothing them out until there wasn’t the slightest wrinkle.
After finishing, he took out the photo Zhu Xiao had burned for him from under the pillow, holding it and finally feeling a bit more settled.
He opened the drawer and took out the painting he had been working on for a long time. Thinking of the Zhu Xiao he had seen today and looking at the photo, he added many more details to the person in the painting.
In the end, his painting was completed in an extremely detailed state, with patterns even on the buttons of Zhu Xiao’s collar.
With nothing else to do, Wu Jiu lay back on the bed.
He closed his eyes and silently counted, “One Zhu Xiao, two Zhu Xiaos, three Zhu Xiaos,” from one to a hundred, and then counted backward from a hundred to one.
After all this trouble, Wu Jiu was still not sleepy.
At three in the morning, Wu Jiu was still wide awake, his eyes wide open like copper bells.
He stared at the ceiling, barely enduring for three seconds, and finally took out his phone, opening the Yin-Yang Messenger chat with Zhu Xiao.
Zhu Xiao had taken some cold medicine yesterday and slept soundly.
This morning, as soon as he opened his eyes, he found many new messages in the Yin-Yang Messenger, all undoubtedly from Wu Jiu.
After finishing his morning routine, Zhu Xiao, while getting dressed, scrolled to the earliest unread message.
Wu Jiu had been messaging him in the middle of the night, the earliest one at three in the morning.
3:00 AM.
[Zhu Xiao, I can’t sleep]
[Are you asleep?]
3:10 AM.
[You really are asleep, huh?]
[I give up! I was thinking about you the whole time.]
3:11 AM.
[Not that I really miss you, just can’t sleep and thinking randomly.]
[Forget it, I’m going to sleep.]
4:00 AM.
[I really want to see you.]
4:01 AM.
[Just now I was possessed by a ghost, not me sending this.]
[Why doesn’t this app have a recall function!]
4:15 AM.
[Share link – You spent 999 ghost coins to search for the question: How many blind dates does it usually take to start a relationship? The answer is already here, Little Clever Ghost will explain for you…]
[Damn it, I slipped!]
4:25 AM.
[Why doesn’t this app have a recall function!!]
4:50 AM.
[It’s almost dawn.]
[Zhu Xiao, I still can’t sleep.]
5:00 AM.
[Can’t we just meet right away?]
5:01 AM.
[Sorry, I was possessed again.]
[All the messages sent above, pretend you didn’t see them when you wake up tomorrow.]
[They weren’t sent in a conscious state.]
…
Zhu Xiao scrolled down, reading each message one by one, until he reached the latest one.
Wu Jiu: [Zhu Xiao, I’m here!]
The next second, there was a knock on the door.
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Hate that cliffhanger, don’t you?
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