Midnight Bookstore

Translated by XephiZ

Edited by Aelryinth

Zhou Ze was not in a rush to hail a ride after leaving Wang Ke’s nice home. He decided to take a little stroll instead.

Wang Ke had mentioned that his condition was not that serious. He just needed to stay away from Xu Le’s personal relationships. Basically, he had to sever the connections.

Doctor Lin would surely not bother him for quite some time after what he had done to her. It had been days since he last went back to his in-law’s house, too.

The only problem he had was the bookstore. After all, he was using his in-law’s money to keep the bookstore open.

He had no choice but to let it be for now. He needed some time to calm his thoughts.

There was an overpass bridge ahead. Zhou Ze headed toward it and sat down on the stairs. He took out his phone and played around.

Coincidentally, Zhou Ze opened the live stream app. Xu Le had subscribed to many gaming streamers and beautiful streamer girls. However, Zhou Ze had no interest in them at all. He scrolled to the bottom and saw that the streamer called Old Dao was still offline.

It had been a while since the man last went online, perhaps he had already stopped streaming.

Streaming seemed like an easy way to earn money since they just needed to stay at home, but the pressure was overwhelming. If they stopped streaming for a few days, they would easily lose their viewers and income, let alone not streaming for one or two months.

Zhou Ze saw an unread message in the inbox. He opened it and realized it was a direct message from Old Dao the day before yesterday.

“I’m currently in Tongcheng. Love, you want to hang out?” Following it was Old Dao’s phone number.

Zhou Ze frowned. The man also left lots of emoticons with hearts. Zhou Ze quickly navigated to Xu Le’s profile.

Gender: female, with an address in Tongcheng.

Perhaps Xu Le tried streaming before, thus he had his own channel too, but his subscription count was pitiful.

Zhou Ze finally realized why he was having a strange feeling. Old Dao was obviously trying to flirt with his fans. He was currently in Tongcheng, thus he simply searched for fans that were in Tongcheng.

Zhou Ze had no interest in Old Dao. He was more intrigued by the young man that was struggling to eat porridge in the background in his video.

However, Zhou Ze still replied to the message using his own number.

He stood up and stretched. He was thinking of going back. He had started to miss his freezer.

To his surprise, his phone suddenly rang. The area code of the number was from Chengdu.

Zhou Ze picked up the call.

“Hello, miss, where are you?” Old Dao’s voice was extremely loud. It was like he was yelling into the phone. Zhou Ze could even hear the sound of a train nearby.

“Where are you?” Zhou Ze asked.

Did Old Dao really have so much time to spare? Didn’t he have a lot of fans? How was he so quick at replying to his messages?

Or perhaps his identity of a female fan really caught the man’s attention?

“Huh…” Old Dao was shocked. He fell silent for a moment. He never thought the fan he was trying to go on a date with was actually a man!

A cute girl with a d**k!

Sadness, disappointment, grief!

Old Dao quickly changed his tone and cried, “Brother, I’m so hungry, can you please spare me some food?”

——

Zhou Ze hailed a cab. He found Old Dao under a bridge that was part of the railways. The man was wearing a filthy robe. His hair was disheveled and his face was covered in bruises, he looked like a refugee. He was lying in a plastic cupboard when Zhou Ze arrived.

There was a place called Dragon Swamp Restaurant nearby. Zhou Ze ordered two bowls of noodles, Kung Pao chicken, and a small serve of fried fish. The man totally enjoyed the feast.

“Brother, you’re really something!” Old Dao wolfed down a bowl of noodles before slowing down his rate of consumption. He asked the owner of the restaurant for a jar of warm rice wine before giving Zhou Ze an apologetic smile. He did not have much money on him, meaning that Zhou Ze would have to pay for the wine too.

“How did you end up like this?” Zhou Ze had a glass of water before him. He did not take a single bite of the food.

“Sigh, don’t even mention it,” Old Dao finished the soup and smacked his lips. “I guess my luck has finally run out. I initially came to Tongcheng with a team of cast and crew.”

“You changed profession?”

“You can say that, I don’t feel like streaming lately,” Old Dao let out a sigh, “As humans, we need to have some ambitions, right?”

“I guess so,” Zhou Ze nodded.

“My ambition is to be an actor in Mr. Vampire; it doesn’t matter if it’s the third, fourth, or fifth film of the series.” Old Dao’s temperament shifted as he talked about his ambition.

“So you ended up like this because you’re part of a filming cast?” Zhou Ze asked curiously.

“Hehe, I was initially a minor character in the film, but unfortunately, luck isn’t on my side.”

The wine was served. Old Dao poured a cup for Zhou Ze before filling another cup for himself. He took a sip and squinted, “Tsk tsk, nice wine.”

Zhou Ze took a sip of the water.

“That assistant director was scum. He was pressing a young female actor to have sex with him as part of the unspoken rules. The girl is still underage. She cried because she was unwilling to obey.

“I happened to stumble into it, so I beat the crap out of the scum.”

Old Dao patted himself on the chest and added, “Making money and name is one thing, but I still have to live with a conscience, right? Don’t you think so too?”

“Mm,” Zhou Ze answered, “So you were fired?”

“No, that asshole didn’t dare bring it up,” Old Dao said with a grin, “Many people knew that I’d beaten the crap out of him, so he didn’t dare to fire me, as it would damage his reputation.”

“What happened then?”

“The female actor that I saved the other night took the initiative to enter the assistant director’s room the next day. She didn’t come out the whole night.” Old Dao was sobbing a little as he spoke, “We are all pitiful people, we have our own difficulties to face.”

“And then?”

“Then the girl said that I was harassing and molesting her. The assistant director didn’t even have to do anything, the director immediately kicked me out of the cast,” Old Dao was still smiling, but his smile was slightly gloomy.

“Let’s drink,” Zhou Ze said.

“Come, let’s cheers!” Old Dao raised the cup and saw Zhou Ze raising the glass of water instead. He immediately said, “Are you looking down on me? Grab the wine, thank you for looking after me when I’m in trouble. Fate has brought us together, when I have the money, I’ll repay your kindness!”

Zhou Ze shook his head, “I’m allergic to alcohol.”

“Fine, you can drink the water!”

The two clinked their glasses against one another.

Life was full of vicissitudes, injustice, unfairness that they had to endure…

“You have no money?” Zhou Ze asked. He already knew the answer to the question.

“Mm,” Old Dao seemed to have a little anticipation that Zhou Ze would lend him some money. He did bring some money with him, but he already spent it at the beginning of the month. He did not think he would lose his job, placing him in a pinch.

“Oh,” Zhou Ze nodded.

“…” Old Dao suddenly felt the way the man talked was quite familiar somehow.

-Holy shit, why do you even bother asking whether I have money if all you going to say was ‘oh’?-

Zhou Ze went to settle the bill, as he was planning to leave. He only treated Old Dao to the meal as he was quite bored. He felt like talking to someone.

He initially thought of Xu Qinglang, but the man had surprisingly closed the restaurant a lot earlier today.

Now, he was tired. He just wanted to go back and sleep.

“Brother, you own a bookstore?” Old Dao asked.

“Mm.”

“I bet it doesn’t earn much?” Old Dao pinched his fingers as if he was a fortune-teller.

“Mm.”

“I believe it’s easier to sell joss money,” Old Dao could tell that Zhou Ze did not seem interested in his fortune-telling. He stopped immediately since the man was not going to buy it.

“Joss money?” Zhou Ze shook his head, “Not interested.”

He was a ghost himself, why would he bother selling joss money?

“To be frank, I once owned a joss shop in Chengdu,” Old Dao took out a stack of joss money from his pocket, “Brother, thank you for the treat today. I don’t really have anything to give you, so please take these. Don’t scold me yet, I know you can’t really use it, but consider it a good luck charm for doing a good deed.”

Zhou Ze did not take the money. What kind of retard would carry a stack of joss money around?

“Brother, you have to trust me,” Old Dao was panicking a little. He quickly pulled his robe open and pointed at a scar on his right chest, “Once, a stack of joss money actually saved my life.”

“Fine, I’ll take it.” Zhou Ze was not in the mood to see a man revealing his man boobs to him. He immediately took the stack of joss money.

“I remember seeing a man in your clip, he was struggling to eat a bowl of porridge,” Zhou Ze asked.

“Oh, him, he was a worker I hired. He was very lazy, he kept slacking and doing nothing. I always told him that he shouldn’t be so lazy, considering how young he was.”

“Oh, did he have anorexia?” Zhou Ze asked.

“Sort of,” Old Dao seemed a little bit down when Zhou Ze mentioned about the man, “Why do you ask? Was he handsome?”

“No, I just feel like he’s quite amiable.”

“Amiable my ass,” Old Dao acted as if he had just heard a joke.

-Did he just describe a ghost as amiable? Did that mean he was a ghost too?

-HAHAHAHA, how amusing!-

——

The two left the restaurant. Zhou Ze gave Old Dao a cigarette. The supermarket opposite the restaurant was still open. There was a fruit stall at the entrance.

“Stay here, I’ll buy you a few mandarins,” Old Dao said with a chuckle.

“I’ll only eat two, you can take the rest,” Zhou Ze said.

“Huh?” Old Dao thought Zhou Ze did not understand his joke. He seemed quite disappointed. It turned out that the man was just a nerd.

Zhou Ze did not explain himself.

As a matter of fact, the phrase “Stay here, I’ll buy you some mandarins” was from Zhu Ziqing’s Back View, spoken by a father to his son.

On the other hand, the phrase that Zhou Ze had replied with was from Camel Xiangzi, spoken by a grandfather to his grandchild.

{TL Note: Old Dao was trying to act like Zhou Ze was his son, but Zhou Ze was even smarter by responding with the phrase, as he was treating Old Dao like his grandchild.} 

In the end, Zhou Ze patted Old Dao’s shoulder and said, “I’m going home. Take care.”

Old Dao was about to say something when he suddenly grabbed his pants. The smell of something burning lingered in the air. “F**k, it’s so hot!”