Chapter 17: Only You Believe Me

The first to believe was actually Xiao Fei. Before Skinny could cry out in shock, she had already grabbed the Big Guy’s clothes and leaned against his back, looking around in confusion and panic, as if some invisible thing was nearby and could hurt her at any time.

When the Big Guy kept sighing that his worldview was overturned, Xiao Fei could not help but ask, “Old Chen, w-will we be possessed by the Evil Ghost too?”

Chen Fengshi silently apologized in his heart, because this matter affected their worldview; this was his fault!

“Don’t worry, the Evil Ghost has been destroyed by me, and now it has no way to cause trouble again. The trouble is the mess it made for me before it died, and I can’t turn things around in a short time. I can’t explain it clearly just by talking… Sigh!” At the end, Chen Fengshi sighed heavily, truly feeling helpless.

At this point, his dream, his dream planned for years—the plan to pursue Shen Ai—was finished, finished, finished!

This blow of despair was like his heart being torn apart, aching in waves… Chen Fengshi was thankful that the Big Guy and Skinny were here right now, thankful that they asked about the details of the God of War possession and destroying the Evil Ghost with shock and curiosity. This distracted him, keeping his pain from getting worse.

Detail questions were not difficult for Chen Fengshi. He just needed to truthfully repeat the things that were easy for people to accept, simply by calling the Fungal Demon an Evil Ghost, and calling the people covered in red mist who had to be mentioned in the events he experienced as being possessed by the evil power of the Evil Ghost.

The three of them listened with shock and joy, naturally sympathized with him, and cheered him on. The Big Guy patted his chest and said, “Old Chen, don’t be afraid! We have your back. If you can’t go back to school, you can live here, living until graduation is no problem!”

Xiao Fei also sympathized with the injustice Chen Fengshi suffered. He was simply an unsung hero, fighting the Evil Ghost alone to protect everyone, destroying the Evil Ghost but getting framed, covered in a stain that could not be washed clean. Only the three of them knew the truth, and only the three of them could help him!

Skinny took out the money in his pocket; there were forty-eight yuan left. He silently put ten yuan back and said, “Five packs of instant noodles are enough for me to eat, you take the rest. If it’s not enough, I’ll go back to school and borrow some for you. We absolutely cannot let a hero who silently contributes go hungry!”

“The world is still full of love!” Chen Fengshi took ten yuan. “I’ll figure out food myself. My phone is broken, so I have to go home and beg my parents. I’ll rely on you brothers to pass on the news about school, the most important thing…”

Before he could finish, Xiao Fei understood and interrupted, “The most important thing is news about Shen Ai, right!”

This is what friends are—tacit understanding!

Chen Fengshi slept for a night in the Big Guy’s rented room, and early the next morning he rushed to the city, first going to Tutu Noodle Shop to eat his fill. By the way, he also confirmed a piece of good news: the red mist on the boss and chefs of the noodle shop had disappeared. It seemed that after the Fungal Demon was dealt with, the infected people could all return to normal.

However, Chen Fengshi thought of the Fungal Demon Primordial Body he carried with him, and had no idea how to deal with it. He wanted to kill it, but didn’t know where to start. Fortunately, this thing was relatively worry-free as it had no ability to move. He wrapped it in tin foil from the Big Guy’s cigarette box for a night, and so far it was very well-behaved. Or perhaps the Fungal Demon Primordial Body hidden inside simply did not dare to come out.

Chen Fengshi only dared to look for his mother after eating his fill, because he didn’t want to be hungry, and he was also worried that his current appetite would scare his mother to tears. She might think he had some incurable disease.

As for dropping his phone, his parents actually wouldn’t blame him. If his father hadn’t happened to be on a business trip, Chen Fengshi would have preferred to tell his father about it. Then he could predict how his father would react; the unsurprising answer was basically to just give him money to buy one, not caring how much it cost, but—ten percent of the price would be considered a loan that he had to pay back in the future.

Don’t think Chen Fengshi’s father was very rich; in fact, he wasn’t. It was just that when it came to the family spending money, his father was never stingy. As for the logic of making it ten percent, it was to prevent him from not taking his parents’ money seriously. He said it was borrowing the logic of the national medical insurance reimbursement ratio.

“…I’ll transfer the money to you in a while. Are you coming home for dinner tonight? What do you want to eat tonight? Are there no classes at school today? You’re not going back to school tonight, right? You looked thin in the photo you sent the other day. Have you been eating properly lately? Don’t drink alcohol or eat barbecue with your classmates, liver disease from alcohol would be troublesome, and outside food isn’t necessarily clean, eating too much barbecue isn’t good either…”

“Yes, yes… didn’t drink… didn’t eat barbecue… didn’t eat instant noodles…” Chen Fengshi listened patiently to his mother’s everyday nagging; he was used to it. Since going to college, his mother had become more long-winded than before. She really went into every detail, wishing she could ask about every second of his day from morning to night.

But he could understand his mother’s concern, so he had always been able to be patient. If there was something really going on, he would just say it directly, and his mother wouldn’t say much. But considering his mother’s feelings, Chen Fengshi always only called when he was very free, reserving two or three hours of time each time.

“…By the way, did you offend anyone at school?”

Chen Fengshi’s heart tightened instantly. He didn’t know why his mother would say this, but he could only play dumb and say, “No—why would you ask that?”

“This morning, a message said ‘Hello Auntie, I am your son’s girlfriend,’ saying something about you abandoning me after having your way with me, and even having three abortions for you. Thinking about it, it didn’t mention any names, so it’s probably a mass message from a scammer.” Chen Fengshi’s mother’s tone held no suspicion at all. She had always been an optimistic and positive person, and it was hard for her to associate such things with her son no matter what.

But hearing this, Chen Fengshi’s heart skipped a beat… he realized that this was done on purpose by someone with an agenda. They deliberately didn’t mention names, and naturally the next step would be to negotiate terms with him. If they couldn’t reach an agreement, they would send messages to his mother, and even his father, and at that time, they would mention him by name!

But who did this?

Chen Fengshi really couldn’t be sure. Finding out his mother’s phone number wasn’t a hard thing to do. And now, according to Skinny and the Big Guy, there were more than twenty such ‘victims’ in the school, and all of them were suspects.

Of course, Chen Fengshi felt that the most suspected person was definitely Sister Yao, because she was not easy to mess with to begin with, and was proactively aggressive.

Chen Fengshi had originally planned to have lunch with his mother. Because of this incident, he quietly checked his phone during the meal, but found that the message had already been deleted, so he couldn’t see the number.

After eating, Chen Fengshi hurried to buy a new phone. He still bought a mid-priced one for two thousand yuan. His spending habits had always been influenced by his father; he cared more about cost-effectiveness and analyzing his actual usage needs.

Of course, another reason was that the more expensive the phone he bought, the more the ten percent he had to pay for himself would be… Should he adopt the mindset that the more expensive it was, the more of a bargain he was getting, or should he be practical and frugal? Considering the reality of his monthly pocket money, he chose the latter.

So, he always felt that this ten percent rule was simply brilliant, perfectly preventing bottomless behavior that would scam his father.

Once the card was inserted, there were N number of messages. There were also many newly added strangers in WeChat, mostly men. The application messages from those women were quite aggressive, clearly looking to settle accounts with him. Chen Fengshi could only silently take screenshots to save them. How bizarre was this? These people were not even friends, yet they had all become members of the opposite sex who had a long-term super-friendly relationship with him…

Besides the requests to add him, there were some already in his contacts, including junior girls, girlfriends of friends in the same year, best friends of friends’ girlfriends, and so on. The messages they sent him basically had two or three meanings.

One type felt deceived by him, only now realizing that he had secretly cheated with so many people, and wanted him to give an explanation, otherwise they would give him an explanation; another type felt guilty for being deceived by a scum like him for so long, and even more guilty that their boyfriends had been in the dark for so long, so they were preparing to confess to their boyfriends for peace of mind and to seek forgiveness; the last type harshly criticized him and then drew a clear line, treating it as an inevitable encounter with a scumbag in life, and learning how to read people from then on.

Pots, all pots, all kinds of black pots flying everywhere… How terrifying was the Fungal Demon? Chen Fengshi felt that if the Fungal Demon hadn’t been dealt with, and had become a bit more familiar with human society, and the people it controlled had a stronger ability to cause harm, it could really have a hundred ways to play him to death!

Chen Fengshi saw Shen Ai’s message… He had prepared himself mentally, knowing full well it wouldn’t be good news, but he had to face the bleak reality—so he finally opened it.

An expected message. Shen Ai talked about her shock at his true face, and then expressed indignation for her best friend Jiang Yuan…

‘Chen Fengshi! Jiang Yuan is such a simple person, so serious about you, how could you be so irresponsible to her?…’

For a moment, Chen Fengshi wanted to smash his phone!

But he didn’t do that, wouldn’t that just be screwing himself over?

But he felt so wronged! So many black pots, and the key was that it completely ruined his plan to pursue Shen Ai in his life—this was the most, most, most important plan!

What was even more unfair than this was—among all these black pots, was even one of them real? Was even one real?

So, amidst all kinds of anger and frustration, Chen Fengshi had a very strong impulse: to reply to all these people asking him to take responsibility with, “Fine, come find me, I’ll take responsibility for you.”

Chen Fengshi turned off his phone, lest he make a huge mistake out of a moment of impulse. His situation was already bad enough, and he couldn’t screw himself over anymore.

Chen Fengshi drank cold mineral water, and after slowly calming down, he felt he had to do something and couldn’t let this situation continue to develop.

Then, he remembered the versions he told Skinny and the Big Guy last night. Then he searched for the characteristics of hallucinations and the like. After considering it repeatedly, he finally posted a text on the school forum and in his social circle.

The general idea was that there was a mysterious and evil thing that would play pranks and create hallucinations and False Memory for people, and so on. What was the proof? First, all his time was spent on deceiving women; even if his flirting skill tree was fully maxed out, it would be impossible for him to juggle so many people at school without ever being discovered; second, if these people with illusory memory compared the details of time, place, and so on, they would definitely find various flaws and loopholes; third, things like abortions were even simpler, just get a hospital check-up.

‘Everyone, please don’t destroy your originally happy love because of hallucinations! As for why the target of so many hallucinations is me? I can only shamelessly say one thing—maybe it’s because I’m more handsome.’

He didn’t know how effective doing this would be, but after thinking it over, this was the only way he could save himself in his current situation. Surely someone would believe it, verify it, and then jump out to spread the truth, right?

Chen Fengshi had to hold on to this hope, but all kinds of cursing and mocking messages came like a tidal wave. Whether anyone verified it was unknown, but the cursing was endless.

Shen Ai also had a new message, with only one sentence.

‘You went too far. You did so many excessive things, yet you don’t have a single word of reflection or apology, you didn’t take any responsibility, and you even use this superstitious ghost talk to escape responsibility! How could Jiang Yuan like someone like you!’

Chen Fengshi muted his phone, feeling a terrible blockage in his chest. At this moment, he finally understood what despair was, and that was—having no hope at all.