Chapter 189 – Let Me Tell You About a Friend of Mine

“Where have you been all afternoon?” Xia Xun and Zhao Xinning asked in perfect unison.

“Haha, you two really are in sync,” Lin Xi teased.

“How are we in sync?” Xia Xun and Zhao Xinning demanded-again in perfect unison.

Lin Xi had no words.

A synchronization rate of one hundred percent, and they still didn’t call that being in sync???

“I was fishing over there,” Lin Xi said. “Lu Yi had a pretty good spot, but she wasn’t interested, so I fished in her place.”

Lin Xi didn’t see what the big deal was. She had already taught both of them how to fish…

“Don’t tell me neither of you caught a single fish while I was gone?”

“Of course we did!-“

Not only did Xia Xun and Zhao Xinning answer in unison, they even showed Lin Xi their catches at the exact same time.

They had caught the same number of fish too.

Their synchronization rate truly was impressive, Lin Xi thought. It seemed that over the course of that afternoon without her, the two had already become good friends…

“Xinning, Xia Xun, let’s head back and make dinner.” Lin Xi had come over specifically to fetch them.

“Sure,” they replied.

One on either side of Lin Xi, the two accompanied her back to camp beneath the setting sun.

…

After dinner, a bonfire blazed in the middle of the campsite.

The wood crackled as it burned.

It was still too early for bed, so everyone gathered around the flames.

“With an atmosphere like this, wouldn’t it be wrong not to tell ghost stories?” Yang Tongtong proposed energetically. They should hold a proper ghost-story session.

“What is this, the classic opening of a horror movie?” Lin Xi didn’t want to tell ghost stories. “Why don’t we each tell a cold joke instead?”

Lin Xi liked cold jokes.

“Are you scared, Lin Xi?” Yang Tongtong asked bluntly.

Lin Xi was perhaps the tiniest bit afraid. They were in the middle of nowhere, after all.

Xia Xun, who was sitting beside her, declared with commanding confidence, “With me here, none of you need to fear anything. I’ll protect everyone.”

What a reassuring Magical Girl, Lin Xi thought.

Xia Xun even volunteered to go first.

“Then I’ll tell you about the Shape-shifting Witch I eliminated last month.”

“Huh?” Yang Tongtong asked. “That’s a ghost story?”

“Yes,” Xia Xun said. “That Shape-shifting Witch killed ten people. To make it easier to transform into her victims, she cooked and ate their bodies. When I found her, she was in the middle of eating-“

“Stop!” Lin Xi cut her off. “Xia Xun, could you tell a different story?”

Lin Xi had no desire to hear about Xia Xun executing a criminal witch.

To her, that was even more terrifying than a ghost story.

So Xia Xun switched to a story about another horrifying Dark Realm Disaster she had destroyed.

Of everyone present, Xia Xun alone didn’t know that Lin Xi was also a Dark Realm Disaster-even worse, a witch, the very kind of being Xia Xun hated most. Everyone else found themselves wondering the same thing: if Xia Xun learned Lin Xi’s true identity, would she automatically be eliminated from the competition?

When Xia Xun finished, the turn passed clockwise to Lin Xi.

Before coming to this parallel world, Lin Xi had watched plenty of excellent horror films in her original world.

She decided to tell them Ju-On: The Grudge.

And then…

She successfully terrified everyone.

By the end of the first round, Lin Xi’s story was easily the scariest of them all.

“Lin Xi, were you playing dumb just so you could blow us all away?” Yang Tongtong asked. “You were the one most reluctant to tell a ghost story, but yours was the scariest by far.”

“I…” Lin Xi gave an embarrassed laugh. If she’d known, she would have gone with something less frightening, like a chainsaw-wielding serial killer.

After the ghost stories, Yang Tongtong announced that, in the interest of a smooth transition, they should discuss romance next.

Lin Xi had just one question: in what universe was moving from ghost stories to romance a smooth transition???

Then she reconsidered. To her, discussing romance really was every bit as terrifying as a ghost story!

“I’ll go first!” Yang Tongtong began. “First of all, let me tell you about a friend of mine.”

“This is absolutely a true story!”

“This friend and I are extremely close. Whenever something makes her happy or troubles her, she shares it with me.”

“Recently, she told me about her romantic problems.”

“She said she’d fallen for an older girl and had even taken that girl to a love hotel-“

Lin Xi’s thoughts ground to a halt.

Little Sister Tongtong is obviously talking about what happened between the two of us?!

Lin Xi began to panic. Yang Tongtong looked her way with a wicked smile. “Then that older girl and my friend spent a beautiful day together at the love hotel.”

Nonsense! Lin Xi screamed inwardly. Adaptation doesn’t mean fabrication, and dramatization doesn’t mean making things up!

How could she rewrite history like that?

Tongtong, you shameless revisionist!

Lin Xi issued a furious condemnation of Yang Tongtong inside her head.

She hadn’t done anything that day. She had walked straight out of the love hotel!

Yang Shanshan asked her sister telepathically, Was it Lin Xi?

Shi Yu thought, Was it Lin Xi?

Lu Yi thought, Was it Lin Xi??

Xia Xun thought, Was it Lin Xi?!

Zhao Xinning thought, Was it Xi???!!!

Lin Xi thought, They can’t all suspect me… can they???

Yang Tongtong’s story had Lin Xi sweating buckets.

Now this was a real horror story!

“My friend really told me all this,” Yang Tongtong said. “Surely none of you think it’s my own story?”

“Of course not!”

Yang Shanshan thought, That scared me to death!

Shi Yu thought, That scared me to death!

Lu Yi thought, That scared me to death!!

Xia Xun thought, That scared me to death!!

Zhao Xinning thought, That scared me to death!!!

Lin Xi thought, That scared me to death!!!!!-

“My friend also told me-“

Before Yang Tongtong could finish, Lin Xi stopped her.

“That was a wonderful story, Little Sister Tongtong. Please don’t tell us any more.”

Yang Tongtong’s story ended there.

And so, with her friend’s romantic tale, Yang Tongtong swept to victory in that night’s ghost-story contest…

…

“Even though this is our largest tent, it’s still rather cramped with four of us sleeping in it.”

Lin Xi, Zhao Xinning, Yang Shanshan, and Yang Tongtong were all inside the same tent.

“That’s all right,” Yang Tongtong proposed. “When we go to sleep, Lin Xi can lie on her side and hold me. If we snuggle close together, that will leave more room for Sis and Sister Xinning.”

Lin Xi chose not to answer.

“Tongtong, you can’t say things like that,” Yang Shanshan admonished her.

Thank goodness Shanshan is here! Lin Xi thought.

“Exactly,” Zhao Xinning agreed. “Where each of us sleeps is no trivial matter. We should decide with rock-paper-scissors.”

The Queen of Curses had offered to predict what the others would throw, guaranteeing Zhao Xinning the best position. That was why she had proposed the game.

In the end, Zhao Xinning won.

Lin Xi lay on her side with her arms around Zhao Xinning, while Zhao Xinning nestled against Lin Xi’s chest.

Lin Xi’s nervous heartbeat became the perfect lullaby.

Neither Yang Tongtong nor Yang Shanshan had anything to say.

How had this happened?

How had they ended up helping those two instead???