This Damned Thirst for Survival

Ambiguous, husky singing emanates from the bar, if at all. Handsome men and women come in and out, cars stop at the door and speed away.

Jiang Luo and Wen Renlian walk discreetly into the bar.

Jiang Luo pauses in his tracks just as he enters the door.

He saw a ghostly aura fogging up the floor tiles, a ghostly aura faintly glowing red, this bar was hiding ghosts.

Or a stern ghost who has harmed many people.

Jiang Luo\'s gaze traced the ghostly aura as he sidled up to Wen Renlian and said, "There\'s something dirty here, I\'ll go and fix it first, you wait for me in the box."

Wen Renlian nodded, "Be careful."

Jiang Luo chased him all the way to the toilet, where the ghostly aura was strongest. The hidden ghost seemed to notice that he was coming from a bad place, and the moment Jiang Luo entered the toilet, the door closed abruptly and the lights overhead began to flicker rapidly.

It was bright and dark, and the evil wind howled like a cry outside the window.

Jiang Luo calmly took off his jacket and wrote Fu Lu on the back of it with a swift finger, "Caught you just in time to give to Chi You so he can replenish his ghostly energy."

Jiang Luo shakes off his jacket and walks towards the pool as it bursts into blood.

*

Bai Qiu and Fu Wei both arrived early, and within minutes of Wen Renlian going in, Jiang Luo arrived fresh and clean.

He was wearing only a stylish white shirt, his jacket balled up and casually tossed onto the sofa.

Bai Qiu gave him an angry look, "How can you throw your clothes around?"

She was about to reach out and fold Jiang Luo\'s clothes when Jiang Luo said, "Don\'t worry about it, there\'s still a ghost wrapped up in it."

Bai Qiu\'s whole body stiffened as she exclaimed, "A ghost?"

Jiang Luo sat beside Wen Renlian and smiled as he explained to Bai Qiu, "Has this bar of your friend\'s had a lot of bloodshed recently?"

Bai Qiu nodded in horror as his friend told him about the incident.

Jiang Luo said, "Don\'t worry about it anymore, I\'ve already caught the culprit."

Bai Qiu\'s legs went weak and she tried to run away, but the thought of being in the same room with a ghost sent chills down her spine as she took a deep breath and braced herself to thank her friend: "Thank you, thank you, Jiang Luo, thank you so much."

Fu Wei looks straight at Jiang Luo\'s jacket for a moment, but he doesn\'t look too scared.

With the jacket of a ghost on the side of the group, everyone in the next collaboration sped up, wanting to hurry up and talk it out. In less than twenty minutes, everything was talked through.

Bai Qiu controls himself from looking at Jiang Luo\'s jacket again and says with a slightly unnatural smile, "Do you guys want to go out for a bit? My friend\'s bar is pretty lively."

At Bai Qiu\'s kind invitation, Jiang Luo and Wen Renlian decided to take a seat on the ground floor.

The first floor is not too loud at the booths, but on the ground floor there is a lot of chaos. The noisy crowd is cut up into a myriad of bright and dark colours between the lights and the greenery, twisting and turning to the music, intoxicated by cigarettes and alcohol.

There are a few empty seats at the bar, so Jiang Luo sits down and orders a glass of wine. The dark lighting overhead makes him look a little more lazy, and Jiang Luo lazily asks the bartender for another pack of cigarettes, which the bartender smartly delivers with a box of high-end cigarettes.

Jiang Luo takes one out and holds it lazily between his two fingers and brings it to his lips.

The dark-haired youth lifted his eyes to look up and the tall, handsome man smiled confidently at him.

In the shadows, countless eyes are on them, and some of those who were tempted to hit on Jiang Luo before he did are watching his reaction.

From the moment Jiang Luo entered the bar, he attracted a lot of attention.

He is so beautiful, a beauty with a manly aggressiveness and gallantry, an air of openness and diffidence that is extremely appealing to the eye. In the bar, a hunting ground, he is almost seen by many as quality prey that must be taken.

Jiang Luo\'s soft lips curled up and he spat out a mocking word without ceremony, "Get out."

The man left with a green and black face.

The bartender cleverly offers a lighter, and Jiang Luo lights his cigarette with his head down, propping himself up on the bar table and looking at the men and women around him.

His spine is relaxed and bent, his long, unbound hair cascading unruly over his shoulders. Jiang Luo is in the midst of the looming light, in the middle of the city, but feels a little lonely and dull.

After the man left, I guess someone thought he didn\'t like men, and another hot babe came along, but again Jiang Luo turned her down.

Wen Renlian looked on with a smile for a moment, "Of all the people, you don\'t have a favourite?"

Jiang Luo tugged his lips up, "I didn\'t mean that at all, I\'ll leave when I\'ve finished this drink."

Wen Renlian looked at Jiang Luo\'s shadowed face in the smoke and said in a joking tone, "You only like the Chi You type, don\'t you?"

Jiang Luo takes a sip of his cocktail and grunts, "That\'s true too."

Wen Renlian looked into the crowd and suddenly pointed in one direction and said, "Do you see the resemblance between that man and Chi You?"

Jiang Luo looks along and sees a man in a suit with glasses sitting on a sofa looking at him.

Handsome looking, like a svelte loser. He is clearly no less attractive, for he is surrounded by several other flamboyant young boys.

Jiang Luo was just looking at it casually, but instead he frowned as he did so.

This guy really looks like Chi You.

Jiang Luo would have thought this was a puppet manipulated by Chi You if he hadn\'t known that Chi You was seriously wounded and sullenly devouring ghosts outside.

Wen Renlian said in a matchmaking tone, "I think he\'s interested in you, he\'s just been looking at you. Aren\'t you going to break up with Chi You? Consider this guy too."

Jiang Luo\'s eyes fluttered, why are we talking about this again?

He secretly reminded, "Have you forgotten that dream Ge Zhu had earlier? I broke up with him and he had to go crazy."

Of course Wen Renlian hadn\'t forgotten. But Jiang Luo clearly likes Chi You without knowing it, and he doesn\'t want Jiang Luo to think that he is sacrificing himself to Chi You for someone else, mixing his liking with something else. Such an idea insults both Jiang Luo\'s secretly growing fondness and Chi You\'s feelings for him.

He wants Jiang Luo to recognise himself, to admit his love from his heart and happiness, and to be at ease with Chi You without the pressure of "destroying the metaphysical world".

Wen Renlian said, "A dream is still a dream, it doesn\'t always come true."

Jiang Luo rejects the others and admits to having a crush on someone of Chi You\'s ilk. Wen Renlian believes Jiang Luo will be able to understand his feelings when he is not interested in someone like Chi You either.

As soon as Wen Renlian said this, the man got up from the sofa and walked towards Jiang Luo.

The man\'s aim was clear and he gave a smile when he saw that Jiang Luo was also looking at him.

The more you look at it, the more it looks like.

Jiang Luo watched him for a few minutes, pondering the possibility that Chi You was using a puppet to hang out at the bar without his knowledge.

The man walked over to him and ordered another drink for him. Jiang Luo does not refuse, but looks at him in silence.

The man asked politely, "May I ask if you have a boyfriend?"

Jiang Luo was a little cold, "Sorry, I have a lover."

The man did not pester, but gave Jiang Luo a slightly surprised look and courteously left.

Jiang Luo felt completely bored and looked back at the man\'s back, but Yu Guang caught a glimpse of a familiar figure in the crowd, a Chi You!

Jiang Luo\'s pupils tightened and he stood up abruptly, grabbed his coat and went after him.

He\'d recognise Chi You in dust, he\'s sure it\'s Chi You!

Jiang Luo weaves quickly through the crowd, the smell of perfume stinging his nose and making his face look increasingly grim. By the time he finally runs through the crowd and out the door of the bar, Chi You\'s figure has disappeared.

Jiang Luo\'s chest rose and fell violently as he stared at the sides of the road, Chi You had literally disappeared, as if out of thin air, as fast as Jiang Luo\'s illusion.

Damn.

Jiang Luo kicks the wall hard, trying to calm the fire.

Was he really hallucinating?

But Jiang Luo had a hunch that it was Chi You.

If it was really Chi You, why did he come here? Did he come here to talk about his work, like Jiang Luo, or did he come to see Jiang Luo?

But if he was here to see Jiang Luo, why didn\'t he come out to see him again?

Jiang Luo closed his eyes, took out his mobile phone and made a call to Wen Renlian.

A few minutes later, Wen Renlian walks out of the bar. Jiang Luo didn\'t say anything on the way back, his face clouded over. Wen Renlian seemed to know that he was in a bad mood and did not disturb him.

Back in his room, Jiang Luo began to search for the mobile phone Chi You had given him on New Year\'s Eve.

That\'s the only way to reach Chi You.

The other day, Jiang Luo was worried that he was so busy recovering that he hadn\'t contacted Chi You when nothing really mattered. But the sight of his back at the bar today was a nagging thought for Jiang Luo, and he wanted to know where Chi You was now.

Jiang Luo found his mobile phone, but when he dialed the only number in his address book, he waited for a long time, but it did not answer.

Five times in a row.

Jiang Luo\'s face slowly calmed down, but the phone was suddenly crushed into pieces with a single force.

The pieces fell from his fingers, Jiang Luo gathered his expression and walked out the door as if nothing had happened, to Ge Zhu\'s door.

" Ge Zhu?"

Ge Zhu opened the door and wondered, "What\'s wrong."

Jiang Luo said, "Give Ge Wuchen a call and ask him how he\'s getting on with Teng Bi."

Ge Zhu nodded obediently and turned to go back inside.

Jiang Luo naturally followed and sat next to Ge Zhu, listening to his phone call.

Ge Wuchen was quick to pick up, he guessed what Ge Zhu wanted to ask, and without waiting for Ge Zhu to say anything, he was the first to answer, "We found out his birth date, but no one knows the date of his death."

Ge Zhu furrowed his brow and looked at Jiang Luo.

Jiang Luo mouthed, "Chi You."

Ge Zhu asked cautiously, " Chi You don\'t know either?"

"I have not asked him," Ge Wuchen said, "I have not seen him since the master left, and I will ask when he returns. If the master doesn\'t know either, then no one else in the world does."

Jiang Luo\'s lips straightened, and after a long time, he suddenly spoke out, "It would be best if Teng Bi\'s matter was resolved as soon as possible, so you can think of a way to contact him."

"Master Jiang is also here?" Ge Wuchen gave a laugh and sighed again, saying sincerely, "Master Jiang, it\'s not that I don\'t want to contact the master; Flower Beaver and Liao Si can transmit what they want to say to the master through their heart voices, and we used this method, but the master doesn\'t give us a response. If the master does not respond, there is nothing we can do but wait slowly."

Jiang Luo sneered silently, "Really?"

"Of course," Ge Wuchen asked rhetorically, "do you have something else of importance for your master?"

" Teng Bi\'s business is the important thing," Jiang Luo said in a disinterested voice, "and since you don\'t know where he is, hang up."

"Wait."

Ge Wuchen suddenly said.

Jiang Luo, "What else do you want?"

" Master Cheng De of Jokhang Temple would like to meet with you, Master Jiang," Ge Wuchen said in a lowered voice, "to discuss the great plan to deal with the Fates."

Jiang Luo understood his unspoken words in a moment, "You told the Buddhists about the serious injury of the predestined man?"

Ge Wuchen smiled without saying anything, and after a while he said, "The Predestined is already in a badly wounded state, and is also missing most of his followers. This would be a good time to kill him. You and the master have inexplicably disappeared for half a month, and the master is now nowhere to be found, which has wasted a lot of time. In case the night is too long, Master Jiang, you may wish to go to Jokhang Temple and have a chat with Master Cheng De. The masters at Jokhang Temple are kind and compassionate and will certainly help you."