/
Ch102 - Getting Twice as Cosy with the Devil
Zong Jiu was rather peeved.
He liked the feeling of having everything under his control, but there just had to be this variable, Black Shaman. On top of that, what was most terrifying was it completely slipped under Zong Jiu’s radar, let alone the fact that from what he could see of Black Shaman’s state now, it has already reached what Zhuge An would call ‘absolute control’.
Basically, he had been under the same roof as the Devil himself for the past two months, eating and living together, with the other even passing him a quilt and pillowcase at the start of the term. There was once when Zong Jiu forgot to bring his towel into his shower; he called out and it was Black Shaman who extended a hand to pass it to him.
They were even bunkmates.
If this wasn’t thrilling enough, then what could be called a thriller?
At the thought of this, Zong Jiu’s mood went through a roller coaster ride.
So, he planned to return No. 1 a puppet-string-yanking surprise in kind.
However

A white-gloved hand slowly emerged from the shadows of the narrow stairwell, striking amidst the dim and chilly light.
This icy hand lifted the young man’s white hair, and his low chuckle tickled his ears, like an apparition in this cramped space, drifting in and out of existence.
Zong Jiu’s pupils constricted—yet he found himself unable to retreat.
It wasn’t that No. 1 restricted him with puppet strings again, but the location where they stood wasn’t ideal.
This was a triangle of shadows under the stairs from the ground to the second floor of the hostel, a very narrow section in and of itself. The further you went, the less space there was to press on the back of the stairs.
Initially, when Zong Jiu and Black Shaman were fighting, it was a contest of physical strength and fighting skills. A kick would be returned with a punch in a flurry in this narrow space. Poker cards snapped to different corners, plunging into tiles, cracking several ceramic tiles and vibrating as they stuck to the white wall.
Zong Jiu only pinned Black Shaman to the wall with much difficulty, but little did he expect the Devil to step right out of the shadows, trapping him with a pincer attack.
Now, in front of Zong Jiu was the Black Shaman’s indifferent face, his dark green eyes half-hidden by the hood appearing as deep sockets. Behind him was the Devil’s cellar-cold body temperature, the knot of his tie rubbing roughly against the back of his neck.
In this scene, Zong Jiu made a snap decision; the hand on the crown of Black Shaman’s head immediately swept across in an attempt to rip off those puppet strings.
Yet contrary to expectations, when his hand firmly gripped the five invisible puppet strings for some time, despite how much wrist strength he put into it, they still
 didn’t budge??!
“I see
 So this is how you touch the strings.”
Unruffled, the Devil watched his actions. After a while he lazily wound his arm past the Magician’s shoulder, resting it on his hand.
The fabric of the glove overlapped the young man’s slender fingers, shivers reflexively shooting up his nerve endings at the encounter with danger.
The black-haired man nastily followed Zong Jiu’s strength, the two people pulling the puppet strings above Black Shaman’s head together, saying in mock surprise, “Oh? What’s wrong? Why isn’t it budging?”
Zong Jiu, “
”
Damn you. Go on, keep posing. Fake it until you make it. Just as if it were real.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
By this time, how could Zong Jiu not get it?
Dfobgf, lc atf Mjwlcf Zbecajlc Nliijuf, tf ujnf Rb. 1 j ugjcv regqglrf klat tlr rajgailcu raglcu ygfjxlcu afmtcldef. Pa kjr qgbyjyif atja joafg gfaegclcu ab atf agjlcff vbgwlabglfr, Rb. 1 lwqgbnfv tlr qeqqfa raglcur, ulnlcu atf jigfjvs raegvs qljcb raglcur jcbatfg kjnf bo gflcobgmfwfca lc kjla obg atf qgfs ab ajxf atf yjla byfvlfcais.
“It’s not that.”
As if able to guess the Magician’s train of thought, the Devil smiled merrily.
“Deep control has always been impossible to undo.”
He whispered in the white-haired young man’s ear, his voice cloying and flirtatious. His fingers still clasped around the other’s hand, absently flicking the suspended puppet strings that seemed to emanate the same icy chill as his body.
“This is a secret between you and me.”
No. 1 so close to him, even pressing him from the front and the back, made Zong Jiu’s skin crawl.
However, the other was actually without seething killing intent. Even Black Shaman was merely looking at him quietly without a move.
Who wouldn’t know how to play along?
The young man’s voice was frigid. “Then this humble one should have passed your surprise game?”
“Well,” the man drawled. “That isn’t unacceptable. After all
”
His eyes crinkled. “It is a very grand, and a rather unexpected surprise.”
Zong Jiu’s brows furrowed.
He keenly perceived the ‘surprise’ the Devil was speaking of and the ‘surprise’ he knew of
 seemed to be different.
“Say what you want to say. Don’t get so close to me.”
Just as Zong Jiu was about to swing his elbow backwards to force No. 1 away, an unusual sound travelled from the end of the corridor.
“What? Are there students in an illegal scuffle?”
A foreboding female voice rang out from the far-off lobby, echoing down the corridor, slowly drifting over.
Immediately after, something unravelling from the wall clanged heavily in the distance.
Hurried footsteps danced in the empty room, approaching step by step, accompanied by the eerie skittering of something dragging on the cold tiles.
The hostel caretaker was coming!
Zong Jiu’s pupils constricted.
The caretaker would always drag a barbed steel bat during room checks. As long as a trainee violated the hostel rules, it would club them, fraying flesh and spraying blood.
There was once an argument between the best and worst students in a class that escalated into a full-blown brawl on the second floor of the hostel. After being caught red-handed by the caretaker, she delivered a solid blow to the back of each trainee with the canine-toothed bat, leaving them bloodied and bedridden for days before regaining mobility.
The Magician silently eyed the bottom of the stairs.
Several poker cards were lying on the ground a short distance away, and deep scratches were left on the ceramic tiles and cement cast. There were also many cracks in the floor tiles, obviously remnants of an intense battle.
If they were caught, not only would they receive the charge of damaging public facilities, but they would also be punished for fighting. A severe beating must await them.
With this in mind, Zong Jiu reached out, planning to climb the stairs to the second floor and swiftly make his escape first.
“Where are you going?”
Yet he didn’t expect that as he reached out to grasp the railing, the Devil behind him would suddenly circle an arm around his waist, directly preventing him from pulling himself up—tugging him back into the narrow confines of the body sandwich.
Zong Jiu, “
”
Zong Jiu, “The caretaker is about to be here. Aren’t you going to run off?”
Not only was she about to arrive, but he could even discern the approach of her footsteps was just less than a few short metres from the stairwell.
Was the Devil really planning to explain why he, as a teacher, had slipped into the student hostel?
The man’s chest, pressed tightly against him, shook with laughter.
He wrapped an arm around the white-haired young man’s neck, then frivolously rested his head on the nook of the Magician’s shoulder, gently breathing in the unchanging frigid aura radiating from the other. His other hand tangled itself in the white hair hanging from the ponytail.
Zong Jiu stiffened, able to feel the exhales breathing onto him, but was still forced to endure the situation he was presently in.
He was being pressed onto the Black Shaman’s chest, and the pale arms under the heavy black robes closed firmly around the Magician’s hands.
“Thud, thud, thud.”
Footsteps approached.
No. 1 lowered his voice, whispering into the shell of the young man’s ears.
“How can I bear to let you endure punishment after you’ve prepared such a grand surprise for me?”
A featureless, chalky-white face slowly appeared from around the corner.
A chilly wind swept over, and the uniformed hostel caretaker slowly emerged. A bat with recently-dried black blood on its surface was dragged behind her, reflecting crimson red in the daylight.
“Who’s there?”
Following the sound, she slowly scanned the area, spotting the poker cards on the ground from afar.
Yet she didn’t know if it was a trick of the light because when she strode over, each of the white-bordered cards on the ground suddenly vanished.
Despite this, the tiles on the ground were still cracked.
The hostel caretaker was momentarily stunned, and suddenly erupted with rage. “Who did this?!”
She dragged her barbed steel bat around the area, shining the torchlight she carried into the shadows under the stairs.
Zong Jiu could sense the light shine over from behind.
Surprisingly, this beam of light didn’t linger, penetrating straight through the three people under the stairs, the wall in front of him reflected light white as snow.
The Magician angled his head to the side, seeing from his peripheral vision a dark fog barricaded behind No. 1 that blocked this space from sight.
Not finding anyone with her torchlight, the suspicion on the caretaker’s face deepened, and after glancing around this area, she walked towards the public showers the other way.
After she left, Zong Jiu secretly sighed in relief, and his taut muscles relaxed marginally.
This, however, didn’t mean the Devil had let him go.
A glacial cold fingertip slid along the line of the Magician’s attractive neck, and the tip of his nose was right beside the white-haired young man’s left ear.
The poker cards picked from the ground with puppet strings were slipped back into the Magician’s pocket.
“Don’t move, you never know if she’ll come back and check again.”
Sure enough, after failing to find anything abnormal in the showers and washroom, the hostel caretaker circled back, carefully combing the area behind the stairs.
Not many people were in the hostel now. If she chose to lay in wait, Zong Jiu would be caught in the act as soon as he stepped out of the Devil’s shadowy shelter.
If not for this, he wouldn’t be holding his nose, condemning himself to stay here and cosy it up with the Devil.
In the dark corner where light swivelled across, the man embraced the other with one hand, bending to rest his chin on the Magician’s shoulder. From the side, they looked like an intimate pair of lovers.
The corners of the Devil’s lips hooked upwards. His mood was bright. “I got some interesting information from No. 2 the other day. Unfortunately, he was so cautious it was difficult to achieve deep control. It was hard enough to implant just one puppet string into him. So lest I arouse suspicion, I soon withdrew that string.”
Zong Jiu’s gaze darkened. He recalled what Zhuge An previously told him.
A single puppet string; the acquisition of memory.
“However
 this allowed me to discover an unexpected surprise.”
No. 1 slowly stroked the white-haired young man’s slender neck.
Beneath the glove, the aorta steadily pulsed with bewitching vitality.
“Let me guess. You’re not from this world, are you?”