Chapter 5: The Cannon Fder Roommate of the Unlimited Flow Male Lead (Part Five)
The balconies in the instance world were also different from reality. A balcony should connect to the sky, clean and bright, but in the game, because it was separated by a thick layer of glass, the outside was always a gray, hazy scene.
Yu Lin squatted under the faucet, diligently washing his face and brushing his teeth. The balcony was very small, and the overly enclosed space gave him the illusion of being back in his real-life dorm.
However, stepping out of the balcony, the concrete ceiling and hazy lights told him this was not the case.
Yu Lin sighed internally. His hands were still dotted with small water droplets. He gently waved them in front of Su Huai and smiled. “Good night, 01.”
Su Huai leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, looking down at him. The corner of his lip curled up almost imperceptibly as he nodded. “Good night.”
Yu Lin smiled, returned to his bed, and lay down, slowly pulling up the dark blue patterned quilt.
He closed his eyes. It was undeniable that knowing Su Huai was nearby, sleeping right across from him, made him involuntarily breathe a sigh of relief and fill with a sense of security.
This sense of security was as solid as his fear debuff, so while it made Yu Lin feel reliable, it also allowed him to relax his constantly tense mind.
After an unknown amount of time, Su Huai returned from the balcony. Yu Lin was already asleep, hugging the quilt with his chin resting by his hand.
Su Huai stopped in his tracks. He glanced at the sleeping Yu Lin, whose eyelashes even appeared quiet, paused for a moment, and then reached out to turn off the light.
As the last light was extinguished, the entire floor fell into silence.
The night in the game world was like a piece of candy that wouldn’t melt, dark and viscous.
In the middle of the night, while Yu Lin was sleeping soundly, hugging his quilt, he suddenly heard a commotion by his ear. The sounds were chaotic, like someone was constantly struggling.
It was the voice of a young boy, tinged with sobs, grabbing his wrist and saying to him, “Teacher, teacher, help me. I don’t want to go back.”
Yu Lin came to his senses and found a boy lying on the clean white floor, his head down. He was very, very thin, his hair disheveled. He was reaching out helplessly, his fingers gripping Yu Lin’s wrist so tightly that the veins bulged.
The environment was ethereal. At the junction of light and dark, someone was dragging him by his feet. The boy, lying on the ground, was quickly dragged in.
Yu Lin saw himself bend down, out of his own control, and grab a section of the boy’s cold wrist bone, asking softly, “Don’t worry. Tell teacher what happened. Why don’t you want to go back?”
“Because… because…” the boy kept his head down and suddenly giggled.
He looked up, revealing a face that was charred black and dripping with blood. Viscous blood slowly dripped from his face, pooling into a red ocean. His eyes were empty as he smiled and said, “You’ll die.”
Hugging his quilt, Yu Lin’s eyes snapped open in the darkness.
There was no light in the dorm room, only the faint glow from a small lamp in the corridor.
Yu Lin gently raised his eyes and glanced outside.
A very faint sound of fingernails scratching came from the door panel, chaotic and aimless, very similar to the sound he had heard at the beginning.
The sound scratched at their door for a while, then moved to the next, and finally, from left to right, it circled slowly and deliberately, eventually returning to their door.
“…” This kind of mental torture was no less stressful than facing a monster directly.
Yu Lin pressed his lips together, trying his best to ignore the sound by his ear. He gently raised his eyes again and looked across the room.
In the pitch-black night, Su Huai was lying flat, his breathing rising and falling gently.
There was no light in the room, only a faint sliver from the crack under the door, enough to make out his silhouette. He was resting his head on his arm, one leg slightly bent. Even in sleep, it was a posture ready for defense at any moment.
In the plot, the male lead was overpowered in the early stages, and his combat power became heaven-defying in the later stages. He never hesitated to slay ghosts and kill monsters; in fact, the monsters in the instances would avoid him.
Yu Lin looked at him and slowly let out a breath. His eyes, wide awake from fear, gradually calmed, and his breathing became steady.
Being the male lead’s lackey, even as cannon fodder, is full of security.
When this thought emerged in his mind, his body automatically relaxed. Yu Lin hugged his quilt, tilted his chin slightly, and began to ponder another matter.
Although the fear debuff was interfering, he still remembered this plot point.
This night was a key plot point, the part where the original owner was chased by a ghost.
On a night fraught with danger, the original owner was lured out by a monster and nearly lost his life while escaping, ultimately surviving by a stroke of luck.
It was the minor cannon fodder character’s moment to shine.
In fact, as a task-doer, even if one wanted to slack off and not achieve any brilliant endings, following the plot in a task world was never a mistake…
According to the headquarters’ judgment criteria, anything that appeared in the plot was basically considered a character’s highlight moment.
The scratching sound at the door continued. Yu Lin gently raised his eyes and glanced at the closed door.
If he went out now, he might be able to snag some extra points on top of the guaranteed minimum.
But… Yu Lin turned his head and looked at the steadily breathing Su Huai on the opposite bed.
Although he wasn’t from this world, Su Huai was. Opening the door and letting the monster in… even if Su Huai could handle it, it seemed like an awful thing to do no matter how you looked at it.
Remembering all the ways Su Huai had taken care of him since entering the instance… Yu Lin paused, lowered his head to hug the quilt in his arms, and turned his head to continue sleeping. Before long, his breathing became steady again.
Across the room, Su Huai’s eyes snapped open. His long legs were slightly bent, his gaze clear. He suddenly shot a cold glance at the door, his narrow eyes showing not a hint of sleepiness.
In the corridor, the sound of claws scratching the door abruptly stopped. After a while, it left, unwilling to give up.
Yu Lin thought the danger of the night was over. Most of the people on this floor who had been woken up thought so too.
Even Su Huai felt that the ghosts wouldn’t cause too much trouble on the first night, so he tilted his head slightly and closed his eyes to rest.
Until a faint shaking sound suddenly echoed in the quiet room, in the middle of the night.
Realizing the sound was coming from next door, Su Huai shot up, his eyes icy. He quickly got out of bed and walked over to Yu Lin’s side.
“Lin Lin?” he called out. There was no response. He bent down and reached out, his hand touching a head drenched in cold sweat.
He threw back the quilt. Yu Lin was curled into a ball, hugging his fingers. His black hair was a mess, his eyes were tightly shut, and his face was a pale, bluish-white, his body trembling uncontrollably.
***
—This was a purely subconscious physical reaction.
If the dreaming Yu Lin could see his own miserable state, he would explain it this way.
Because the scene he was currently facing was a bit strange.
When he woke up, he was in a spacious and bright office. He was holding a ballpoint pen, his head down, grading a stack of papers on the desk.
Beside him was a window. On the windowsill sat a pot of green plants. Sunlight streamed in from outside, casting a thin layer of light over the entire room.
Next to him was a pot-bellied middle-aged teacher with a receding hairline.
The balding teacher held a thermos and turned his head with a chuckle. “…Teacher Lin, your class did well on the exam this time, right? I heard that in the entire grade, only your class was taught the last major question.”
“…” It was a baffling scene, but with so much experience, Yu Lin accepted his new identity well and immediately got into character.
He smiled slightly, then shook his head. “I only taught them the knowledge. If their grades are good, it’s because of their own hard work.”
As they were talking, the office door was suddenly kicked open from the outside, followed by a clamor. A middle-aged man with yellowed teeth walked over, cursing and swearing.
“Little bastard,” he stood at the door and kicked a boy into the room.
He glared at the ground and shook his fist. “You dare to lie, huh? I told you to work and earn money for me, and you said you wanted to study, but you end up at an internet cafe playing games, right? Just you wait. No more school. I’ll beat you to death when we get home!”
Many actions in a dream are not controlled by the brain; they are completely subconscious.
Yu Lin and the balding teacher exchanged a look, both frowning, and stood up to walk over.
Just as the man reached out to grab the stumbling boy on the floor, Yu Lin reached out and pulled the boy into the office first.
Then, he took a step forward, blocking the doorway, and said coolly, “Sir, please speak properly. This is a school.”
The middle-aged man looked up, glanced at him, and spat out a string of profanities. “Fucking pretty boy, who the hell are you? Get your principal for me—”
Yu Lin leaned against the doorway, his expression cold and unmoved. “If you can’t speak properly, then get out.”
“…” Perhaps the status of a teacher held some deterrent power, or perhaps he didn’t want to directly confront an adult male. The man glared viciously at Yu Lin, turned his head to spit on the ground, and went downstairs.
“…” Yu Lin watched him, feeling that something was strange. He turned his head and saw the thin boy standing behind him, his eyes empty, smiling at him.
“…” It was a face Yu Lin was very familiar with, because they had just met not long ago.
The only difference was that the last time Yu Lin saw him, his face was covered in blood and looked terrifying.
But this time, he was clean and tidy, with delicate features, wearing a white school uniform.
If not for his empty eyes, he would look like an ordinary middle school student. Seeing Yu Lin looking at him, he smiled slightly. “Teacher, are you afraid of me?”
Yu Lin: “…”
Yu Lin’s face instantly turned pale. He leaned against the wall, his legs weak, not saying a word.
Seeing him so scared he couldn’t even speak, the boy was amused and let out a chuckle. He tilted his head to look at him and walked around the office with great interest.
He seemed very interested in this office, at one moment touching the potted plant on the window, the next flipping through the papers on the desk.
Yu Lin stood motionless. As the boy moved, he even began to tremble slightly.
The boy didn’t care at all. He walked over and deliberately bumped Yu Lin’s shoulder, a bone-chilling coldness spreading from the point of contact.
He reached out, picked up the papers on the desk, walked to Yu Lin’s side, and flipped through them casually, clicking his tongue in wonder. “Teacher, what’s so good about grading a little bastard’s paper?”
He smiled. “Teacher, say something.”
Yu Lin: “…”
Yu Lin struggled to turn his head to look, then slowly said, “The handwriting is very nice…”
He paused, seeing the major question on the back. “He got them all right.”
The boy: “…”
He laughed, turned the paper over, and looked at the last major question. “What’s this? Didn’t you teach this? What’s the big deal about getting it right?”
Hearing this, Yu Lin lowered his eyes to the side, enduring his discomfort, and stated calmly, “Just because it was taught doesn’t mean he’ll definitely get it right… If he got it right, it’s inseparable from his own usual hard work.”
This wasn’t the first time he had said this. Just now, when he thought he was talking to a colleague, he had said the same thing.
The boy paused, then laughed again. He bent over, his two empty pupils staring directly at Yu Lin. “Teacher.”
Yu Lin was forced to meet his gaze. After a few seconds, his face pale, he slightly turned away, not daring to look at him.
This was actually a reaction that could easily anger a ghost. The boy thought that if it were anyone else, he would have torn the person who ignored him to shreds.
But for some reason, looking at the young man before him, he didn’t feel any disgust from him.
So he wasn’t angered either. He just placed his icy hand on Yu Lin’s arm and, feeling him tremble, curiously touched his fair, slender, and beautiful fingers.
He touched the tips of Yu Lin’s fingers, and finally, he simply held the entire finger in his hand and asked curiously, “Teacher, if you had realized just now that the person that man was grabbing was me, would you still have helped me?”
Yu Lin paused, his elbow moving back, trying to retract his finger. “…I still would have.”
“Why?” the boy was puzzled. Looking at his empty palm, which had lost its only warmth, he curled his lip. “You’re not afraid I’ll get angry and kill you, are you?”
Yu Lin shook his head, his eyelashes lifting slightly, his expression calm, without too much personal emotion. “I am a teacher. This is what a teacher should objectively do.”
It was also the basic professional conduct for a high-level employee to follow their persona.
“…”
The boy was stunned for a moment. He looked at him and then chuckled. He stood up and tilted his head. “Teacher, you’re so cute. I can’t even bear to kill…”
Suddenly, his expression changed.
He looked down with a dark face at his own arm, which was gradually being covered in black char. A trace of fear appeared on his face, along with some unwillingness.
***
When Yu Lin regained consciousness, his back was already soaked. He was panting, his eyelashes trembling slightly, and he found himself in a warm embrace.
The tip of his nose was filled with a pleasant, cool, woody scent. Yu Lin tilted his head up slightly and found that his fingers were resting on Su Huai’s chest, and his forehead was pressed against Su Huai’s shoulder.
Su Huai was holding him in a complete embrace, his arms wrapped around his back, his chin resting by his ear. His legs were slightly parted, and he was unconsciously sitting on Su Huai’s lap.
The strands of hair falling by his ear were ticklish, and a continuous warmth spread from his back.
Yu Lin was stunned for a moment. He tilted his head up slightly. Before he could react, a large hand covered the back of his neck. The temperature was scorching as he was asked, “Awake?”
Moving up, the hand touched his cold forehead. “It was a dream. You’re not scared anymore, hm?”
The voice was low and soothing, like coaxing a child.
Yu Lin was taken aback. He rested quietly against Su Huai’s shoulder, his fingers twitching. For a moment, the coldness from the little ghost’s touch seemed to suddenly dissipate.
He pressed his lips together, struggled to move his chin, and buried his cold ears in Su Huai’s shoulder as well. He grunted, “Mhm,” and nodded lightly.
Su Huai held him for a while, then raised a hand to offer him a cup of hot water, whispering, “Drink some water. Tell me if you’re not feeling well.”
His senses gradually recovered from the cold. A pungent smell was burning in the dorm room.
Yu Lin buried his face in Su Huai’s shoulder. It was quiet all around, and he couldn’t distinguish much.
Because he was drained of energy, his fingers were cold. With his eyelashes lowered, he gently shook his head.
Su Huai tilted his head and only saw a fluffy head on his shoulder, the strands of hair cool and silky against his chin.
He raised his hand, touched it, then moved down and took Yu Lin’s pale, cold fingers in his own.