After leaving Tai Qin, Jiang Lin went straight to a residential complex.
Guided by the direction on the drifting bottle's wish slip, he found a small convenience store on the ground floor of the complex.
The store was not large, selling only common daily necessities, drinks, and snacks.
The owner was a middle-aged man.
At this moment, a man with messy hair and dark circles under his eyes was browsing in the store.
He listlessly picked up two cups of beef noodles from the shelf.
He glanced around, then looked away and approached the counter.
"Boss, how much?"
The middle-aged man glanced at him. "Ten yuan."
He had expected this young man to scan and pay, as he had already sat down.
However, he saw the other party reach into his pocket and pull out a twenty-yuan bill.
"..."
The middle-aged man paused, then got up to give him change.
He opened the drawer and saw it was all one-yuan bills. The larger denominations had all been taken by his wife.
The middle-aged man reluctantly asked, "Can't you scan and pay?"
The young man drooped his eyebrows and shook his head.
"I didn't bring my phone."
"Alright then."
The middle-aged man said, resignedly counting out ten one-yuan bills from the drawer.
"Here, count it yourself."
The young man actually counted them and then put them in his pocket.
He took his two cups of instant noodles and walked outside.
Jiang Lin glanced at the drifting bottle slip, which was still indicating his direction, then looked at the departing young man and followed him.
...
As Su Ji walked, his phone vibrated in his pocket.
He took out his phone and looked at it.
The illuminated screen displayed the time and a dynamic screensaver.
The screensaver was a place filled with blooming mountain flowers.
Small flowers swayed in the air.
A gentle breeze caused petals to dance in the sky.
In the sea of flowers, there was a small wooden house.
In the sky, several kites drifted slowly towards the rising sun.
Undoubtedly, it was a rather girlish and romantic screensaver.
But none of that mattered.
What was most important was that
In the vast sea of flowers, a Q-version girl wearing a headscarf was hopping.
She was greeting Su Ji.
"Hey, hey, didn't you bring your phone? Why did you say you didn't?"
The voice, identical to Su Ji's girlfriend, You Xiaoxiao, came from the phone.
Su Ji looked around; no one was there.
Only then did he say, "What if you suddenly made a sound? How would I explain it?"
The Q-version girl put her hands on her hips. "I would never!"
Su Ji rolled his eyes. "Who knows what you do in the phone all day."
"You watch dramas during class, play games after class, and even look through my study materials late at night..."
The Q-version girl blushed. "Those aren't study materials at all..."
They were clearly all sorts of explicit videos.
Su Ji muttered, "But you can't just delete them all for me."
As he spoke, someone walked past.
Su Ji quickly shut his mouth and covered the phone screen.
After the person left, he looked at his phone again.
The Q-version girl was no longer in the sea of flowers.
He looked around and saw that on the colorful kite flying in the sky towards the rising sun,
A small figure had appeared at some point.
The Q-version girl was looking at him from the kite, her hair fluttering in the breeze.
He heard the girl say with puffed cheeks, "At your age, you should study hard and improve yourself every day."
"Be a healthy and upright youth! Watching too much of that stuff harms your kidneys."
Su Ji drooped his eyelids and listlessly agreed,
"Yes, yes, yes, a healthy, sunny, and upright youth whose phone is bound by a female ghost."
"..."
As soon as he finished speaking, the phone fell silent.
The Q-version girl looked at him, seemingly lost in thought.
Before long, the screen timed out and automatically turned black.
Seeing this, Su Ji didn't say anything more.
He put his phone back in his pocket and headed home.
...
As soon as Su Ji opened the door with his key, he hadn't even put down the two cups of instant noodles in his hand.
He was changing into his slippers when he casually looked up and saw a white figure sitting on the sofa at home.
He withdrew his gaze, put on the other slipper.
Then he looked towards the sofa again.
The white figure was still there.
And it was looking at him.
It looked quite familiar.
Su Ji, wearing both slippers, unhurriedly picked up his keys and walked out the door.
Bang!
The door closed.
Jiang Lin, who was sitting on the sofa waiting for someone: "..."
A moment later.
Click, click.
The door opened again.
A hand holding a phone reached in through the gap, adjusted the angle,
And aimed at Jiang Lin on the sofa, taking a photo with a 'click,' without even turning off the flash.
The owner of the phone seemed startled by the sound.
He quickly retracted it.
Outside the door.
Su Ji withdrew his hand, opened his phone, and looked at it.
He blurted out in Mandarin, "Holy crap!"
There was indeed a Bai Wuchang on the sofa, exactly like the streamer!
In the phone, the Q-version girl was also huddled in a corner.
Shivering, she said, "Su Ji, it seems a very terrifying big guy has come in. You need to be careful."
Su Ji also asked in a low voice, "Is he stronger than you? Can you beat him if you fight to the death?"
Q-version girl: "Even if I fought to the death, I could only tickle him."
Su Ji: "Holy crap, could it be that he's after you?"
Q-version girl: "How would I know..."
As the two were whispering, the door behind them was suddenly pushed open.
The person and the ghost both jumped, their hair standing on end.
Jiang Lin: "...Come in, let's chat."
Su Ji, thinking he couldn't escape anyway, gripped his phone tightly and walked in.
As he went in, he didn't forget to bring the two cups of instant noodles from the floor.
A few minutes later.
Jiang Lin was sitting on the sofa, and Su Ji was sitting on a stool opposite him.
Hot tea was already brewed on the coffee table.
Su Ji sat somewhat self-consciously, his gaze only daring to rest on the cup of tea in front of Jiang Lin.
"You, are you the streamer? The one from... the Underworld Live Stream."
Someone who could make ghosts afraid, wearing a Wuchang uniform, and looking exactly like the streamer...
He must be the streamer Jiang Wuchang.
"Mm."
Jiang Lin responded, his gaze falling on Su Ji's phone.
"Tell me about your situation."
In fact, considering Su Ji was a living person.
What Su Ji and You Xiaoxiao were seeing at this moment was merely a 'self' that Jiang Lin had conjured around himself.
Initially, Jiang Lin had been wondering how to communicate with Su Ji.
Unlike the previous two drifting bottle missions—one was trapped in a spiritual world, the other was a dog.
Su Ji appeared to be just an ordinary person with troubles.
There were no unusual circumstances, and he could communicate clearly and normally.
Jiang Lin combined the sentence on the wish slip, "Streamer, what should I do?" with the condition that there was clearly a ghost beside Su Ji.
He inferred that the other party might be a viewer from his live stream.
After thinking about it, he decided to try direct contact and communication.
Simple and direct.
Now, it seemed that the live streams over the years had not been in vain; they had some effect.