My Demon Friends-Chapter 460 - 456: A Girl’s Words Cannot Be Trusted

Chapter 460: Chapter 456: A Girl’s Words Cannot Be Trusted

"Zhou Ni, time to hit the hay~~"

Tuanzi kept pawing at him with her little paws. "Time to sleep! Think of Lord Dumpling while you sleep, and when you’re asleep, you can play with the Lord Dumpling from before! The Lord Dumpling from before will cheer you up!"

Then she turned her head and ran to paw at Huai Xu. "Huai Xu, you better go to sleep too! Back to your bed. If you want to find Master Ming to play with, you need to think about Master Ming before you fall asleep!"

"It has very little effect," Zhou Li said.

"Didn’t you dream about Lord Dumpling last time, Zhou Li?" Tuanzi blinked, staring at him.

"No," Zhou Li shook his head.

"That’s pitiful." Tuanzi looked at him with pity.

"Yes, it is."

"Then, Zhou Li, did you try really hard to think about Lord Dumpling before you went to sleep last time?" Tuanzi’s eyes sparkled, making it hard to lie to her.

"I... did..." Zhou Li lowered his head.

"So who did you dream about?"

"Brother Nan, Master Ming, and my grandfather."

"That’s really pitiful..." The more Tuanzi thought about it, the more pitiful she felt for Zhou Li. So, she stepped forward, placed a little paw on Zhou Li’s thigh, and advised him, "Today, you also have to try really hard to think about Lord Dumpling, and you’ll definitely dream of her! Same for you, Huai Xu! The Lord Dumpling from before will make you happy on behalf of the current Lord Dumpling!"

"And what about the current Lord Dumpling?" Zhou Li asked.

"The current Lord Dumpling doesn’t know what to do..." Tuanzi said. "But the Lord Dumpling from before definitely knows!"

"She doesn’t know what to do?" Zhou Li asked again.

"Whether she knows or not is none of my business." Tuanzi turned her head and looked at the pattern on the bedsheet.

"What if I can’t dream about her?"

"If you try hard, you’ll definitely dream of her!"

"What if I still can’t dream of her?"

Lying on the side, a bored Huai Xu yawned and glanced up at Zhou Li. "Haven’t you learned anything from my recent conversation with her? This little thing is going to drive you insane soon..."

But Tuanzi didn’t react as Huai Xu expected. Instead, she quickly said to Zhou Li, "The current Lord Dumpling is also fun to play with..."

Huai Xu: ???

Zhou Li smiled, patted Tuanzi on the forehead, then turned to Huai Xu and said, "Time to sleep. Time is precious; you might have several dreams, dream about the people you want to see."

"I’ll sleep here." Huai Xu lay still, only turning her head to look at the bed beside her. "You go sleep over there!"

"..."

So Zhou Li was chased to the neighboring bed again.

"Aren’t you going to use a blanket?"

"Don’t be noisy!"

"Aren’t you going to turn off the lights?"

"CLICK..."

The room quickly fell into darkness. Through the thin curtains, the dim light of dusk filtered in from outside.

Zhou Li lay there quietly.

Tuanzi snuggled against his neck, finding a comfortable position, and then lay motionless, unusually quiet for her.

...

A cement courtyard wall was covered in crooked cartoons drawn with chalk or stones, along with a wavy line about a meter high. Children kept stepping over the stone threshold, emerging from the yard with large backpacks. Some children looked timid; they would walk out with their heads down, obediently head off to either side of the courtyard gate, and quickly disappear at the end of the narrow paths. Others were lively, laughing and roughhousing, chasing girls and pulling their pigtails.

This seems to be an elementary school.

By the school gate, there was a pond with a few ducks swimming in it, quacking away.

Zhou Li looked around, then leaned back on the railing by the pond and began to stare at the school entrance.

The school didn’t look very big, but there seemed to be quite a few students. The stream of children quickly thinned from a dense crowd, with fewer and fewer emerging.

Zhou Li waited patiently, observing his surroundings.

This was most likely Brother Nan’s school.

From the students’ clothing style, the flip phone in the nearby tuck shop owner’s hand, and the van parked beside it, it was evident this was the era of their childhood. Apart from his sworn elder brother, Zhou Li couldn’t think of anyone else he might dream about.

Could I be dreaming of Little Cousin? Baozi didn’t hold much importance in his heart anyway.

However, not seeing anyone familiar for a long time struck Zhou Li as interesting, and he couldn’t help but let his imagination wander.

Were they kept behind by the teacher to stand in the corner? Sweeping floors? Playing marbles? Eating dried tofu snacks? Flipping cards? Surely they couldn’t be arranging fights at school, right?

Seeing that few people were left, Zhou Li hesitated slightly. Noticing no security guards at the school entrance, he decided to go in and take a look.

"Who are you looking for?"

A man with glasses looked at him.

"Oh, I’m here to pick up my younger sister," Zhou Li stopped, not panicking. "I saw she hadn’t come out yet, so I thought I’d go in and take a look."

"What grade is your sister in? What’s her name?" The teacher wasn’t suspicious because Zhou Li was good-looking and dressed well; he didn’t look like a bad person at all. "She might have stayed back to sweep the floors."

"Her name is Li Nan. Third or fourth grade, I think? I’m not quite sure," Zhou Li scratched his head, projecting the image of a somewhat scatterbrained older brother. He had guessed third or fourth grade based on the van’s inspection sticker, but he couldn’t be sure if vans in this rural village actually underwent regular inspections to get one.

"Oh, Li Nan? The third grader!"

"Yeah, she’s quite naughty," Zhou Li described. "She has a tuft of unruly hair on top of her head."

"That’s her. I hear she’s quite a handful!" The teacher pointed with a flick of his hand. "That classroom over there. Go take a look; she might have been kept behind."

"Thank you, Teacher."

"You’re welcome."

With that, Zhou Li entered the elementary school.

He had heard from Brother Nan that this elementary school had apparently been converted from a family’s ancestral hall, and before that, it was a bamboo house. But after renovations, there was no trace of the ancestral hall left; only two enormous Yellow Jade Orchid trees in the courtyard silently told of the history it had weathered.

The Yellow Jade Orchid trees were just beginning to bloom, their fragrance light. Many slender, long petals lay on the ground, and a child was sweeping them up.

Brother Nan’s classroom was on the left, on the second floor.

The stairs were also quite old. They had just been swept clean, and the sprinkled water hadn’t dried yet, leaving behind grayish, dusty water stains that evoked a sense of a bygone era.

Zhou Li slowed his pace as he ascended the stairs. He soon heard children’s voices and the rustling SWISH of brooms against the floor, which involuntarily brought a smile to his face.

He arrived outside the classroom and peered inside.

Three children were cleaning the classroom: two were sweeping, and one was arranging chairs neatly on top of the desks.

Two boys and a girl.

Brother Nan was nowhere to be seen.

Zhou Li felt puzzled and checked the next classroom, but still did not find Brother Nan.

About ten minutes later, the schoolchildren had mostly finished cleaning their classrooms and the school grounds. Apart from a few still unsteadily making their way to the garbage dump with the trash, most children had already slung on their backpacks and were running home. The weather was poor: it was foggy, and as it grew later, the sky rapidly darkened, instilling a sense of urgency in them.

Zhou Li also took a walk around the school campus and waited at the foot of a building for a while, but still didn’t see Brother Nan.

Looks like I’ll have to go to her house to find her...

Just as Zhou Li was about to leave the school grounds, something caught his eye. He saw a little girl furtively slip out of a small room, locking it behind her.

The little girl had a small tuft of hair sticking up like an antenna on her head. She was clutching several small, square boxes, her face rosy and utterly adorable.

Zhou Li tilted his head slightly to look at her.

"!!"

Seeing him, Brother Xiao Nan was visibly startled but didn’t panic. She just stared back at him with her big, round, dark eyes.

"Our teacher asked me to take these!"

She declared righteously, as if it were the absolute truth.

Of course, Zhou Li didn’t believe her. He pursed his lips. "Why not put them in your backpack? That way, others won’t see them."

"I didn’t bring a backpack."

Such a little scholar...

"Who are you?"

"Is the chalk colored?" Zhou Li didn’t answer her. Instead, he tried to peek at what she was holding. Seeing her quickly step back and watch him warily, Zhou Li didn’t mind and just smiled faintly. "Can you spare a box for me? I’ll borrow it."

"Who are you? Do I know you?"

"You will in the future."

"What future?" Brother Xiao Nan frowned. "Go away! I need to go home, or the teachers will see me."

"You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I’m your future boyfriend."

"??"

Holding the chalk, her head full of question marks, Brother Xiao Nan blurted out, "I’m your future dad!"

Zhou Li fell silent.

Why is this different from the script? He remembered Brother Nan saying that if they had met when they were younger, Brother Nan would have definitely given him a few boxes of chalk. What’s going on?