My Demon Friends-Chapter 474 - 464 The Old Monster’s Strange Habits - Part 2

Chapter 474: Chapter 464 The Old Monster’s Strange Habits - Part 2

He didn’t know how long he had slept. The room was very quiet, he hadn’t set an alarm, and he simply slept until he naturally awoke.

When he opened his eyes, sunlight, pale golden, was already falling on him.

Huai Xu had already placed her order and was sitting beside him, hugging a throw pillow and daydreaming, as if she had been sitting there for a long time.

The sunlight shone on half of the girl’s face, outlining her profile. Her eyes were like still lakes, her eyelashes long. Her hair, hanging down, had a transparent quality in the light and took on the golden hue of the sun. Her skin was as smooth as jade, and Zhou Li could even see fine, downy hair on her face—a detailed manifestation of the Old monster.

The Old monster’s appearance was truly deceiving.

Zhou Li couldn’t help but be stunned for a moment before quickly regaining his composure and clearing his mind.

"What... what time is it?"

"Almost four o’clock."

"Why didn’t you wake me?"

"Didn’t you say you don’t have class this afternoon?" the girl said, still sitting motionless, gazing forward. "You were sleeping so soundly, so I didn’t wake you."

"I wanted to study spells and read."

"You didn’t tell me..."

"Have you finished your shopping? How much did you spend?"

"80,000."

"Spendthrift." Zhou Li sat up, wiped the sweat from his temples, and touched his hair to see if it had become messy. "There goes my month’s salary... You weren’t like this before."

"I spent my own money."

"What are you thinking about?" Zhou Li suddenly asked.

"Thinking if there’s anything else I forgot to buy," the Old monster replied without turning her head. "I’d lose out big time if I missed anything."

"Oh."

Zhou Li didn’t believe her.

He got up, took out a book, and headed for the balcony. As he passed Huai Xu, he suddenly stopped. "Oh, right, buy me a bookshelf. A bigger one, to put against the wall, but don’t get anything too expensive; I’m just going to put books on it."

The Old monster agreed but didn’t move, saying she’d look for one for him later.

Zhou Li shrugged and went to sit on the balcony.

These past few days, he had a clear perception of the rapid growth of his spiritual power. This growth had begun the night before last in the Mirror Zone after his meeting with Master Ming. After Master Ming left and he had returned to his room and lain down, he had already sensed it, but the growth was minimal then. It wasn’t until two days after returning that he confirmed his spiritual power had substantially increased compared to before.

Huai Xu used to say that their spiritual power was infinite. This was an exaggeration intended to convey that they were different from ordinary Heavenly Masters. Not only were they naturally strong in spiritual power, but they also had no upper limit and could continuously improve.

But Zhou Li had never really felt that.

He only knew that his spiritual power was formidable—that was a fact—but its improvement had always been very slow, until now.

Zhou Li thought for a moment. Perhaps Master Ming had previously been resisting the Will of the World. The Will of the World wanted to reclaim the spiritual power from him to bestow upon the next in line, but Master Ming had resisted because he had always needed to maintain his strength. He needed strength to maintain peace between humans and demons, he needed strength to observe the world, and he needed strength to protect Zhou Li, even to control everything.

Perhaps this also signified that Master Ming was now rapidly weakening.

Zhou Li’s expression remained calm. He quickly pushed these thoughts aside, deciding not to dwell on them, and gently opened the book to where he had last read.

A string of locust leaves served as his bookmark.

WHOOSH.

The sound of the thick pages turning was pleasant.

The dried locust leaves still emitted a faint herbal scent—a bit bitter, yet also refreshing—which eased Zhou Li’s mood and allowed him to focus on the book.

「April 4th, Wednesday.」

Today, it began to rain in Chunming.

Rainy days in Chunming brought a chill, especially with persistent rain, requiring one to wear thick coats or down jackets to keep warm. This Chunming wasn’t as lovely as usual, but it had a novel freshness that made Zhou Li feel as if he had returned to Yi Province, adding a touch of familiarity.

Spring City, Spring City, even spring carries a chill.

Huai Xu’s deliveries began to arrive one after another.

To avoid drawing attention, she deliberately wore one of Zhou Li’s hooded jackets, using the hood to shield herself from the rain as she ran downstairs to fetch the packages.

Trip after trip.

The cardboard boxes quickly piled up in the entrance hallway.

Zhou Li watched expressionlessly.

After collecting all the deliveries, it was time for the Old monster’s favorite part: unboxing. The only downside was that she was unwrapping her own packages; she much preferred unwrapping Zhou Li’s. She could guess what she had bought, but not what was in Zhou Li’s boxes. That gave her the thrill of opening a blind box. If it was food, she’d offer her ’friendly assistance’ in tasting it. If it was toys or other items, she’d try them out herself first. She might even discover they were bought for her, which would be an even bigger surprise.

"You know, when I came back just now carrying a package taller than me, the old women in the neighborhood saw my boxes and their eyes nearly popped out of their heads."

"I bet they’ve marked down our building. They’ll probably be squatting outside our doorway for the next couple of days, haha." Huai Xu muttered as she dismantled the cardboard boxes, carefully flattening and stacking them—she wasn’t about to hand these over to those old women; she planned to sell them herself.

"With this many, I can buy several popsicles!"

Huai Xu still maintained her image as a young girl, though she had made another minor adjustment—an ’optimization,’ as she called it. But honestly, Zhou Li couldn’t tell what exactly she had ’optimized.’

Seeing the girl’s happy expression, Zhou Li felt a slight headache coming on.

But just collecting cardboard wasn’t enough. Zhou Li watched as she opened the packaging for a mechanical keyboard, took out the keyboard, cable, keycap puller, and spare keycaps. Then, surprisingly, she put the empty box back together just as it was and placed it in a drawer of the TV cabinet.

Into a drawer of the TV cabinet...

Zhou Li finally couldn’t hold back anymore and asked quietly, "What are you putting that box in the drawer for?"

"To keep it, of course!" Huai Xu said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Aren’t you going to throw it away?" Zhou Li asked again.

"Of course not!" Huai Xu’s expression gradually shifted to one of bewilderment, as if she couldn’t understand why he would ask such a thing.

"What are you keeping it for? To look at?"

"Yes, the box is so pretty." Huai Xu shook her head. "It’s so pretty, I can’t bear to throw it away."

"...You’ve never seen a box before?"

"That’s right! I’m from ancient times!"

"..." Zhou Li was momentarily speechless. "But it’s useless to keep it, and it just takes up space."

"HMM..."

"You’ve already taken everything out, so why keep the box?" Zhou Li pressed on. "This is actually a psychological issue. I’m sure that even if you keep it now, you’ll still end up throwing it away eventually."

"HMMMM..." Huai Xu fell into a longer silence, mulling it over. She seemed to think Zhou Li had a point, but she still couldn’t bring herself to part with it. So, she ignored Zhou Li and mumbled softly to herself, "What if it’s useful someday? What if I actually need it..."

WHOOSH.

She closed the drawer again.

Zhou Li could only look on helplessly.

In the few seconds the TV cabinet drawer was open, he had also spotted a phone box, a smart band box, a laptop box... and some flattened and folded supermarket shopping bags, along with sturdy paper bags that came as freebies with other purchases.

Collecting supermarket bags was a good habit, promoting environmental conservation and saving money. Aunt Jiang did this too.

This was a matter of consumer philosophy, unrelated to being stingy or poor.

The problem was, Aunt Jiang would take a bag from the drawer every time she went to the supermarket, reusing them as much as possible. But Huai Xu? If he hadn’t just seen them, Zhou Li wouldn’t even have known they had hoarded so many shopping bags in the house. So, was Her Majesty Huai, the Great Devil King, collecting bags purely for the sake of collecting?

Zhou Li really couldn’t be bothered to comment. He just looked away, not wanting to see it, while secretly wondering: If this Old monster opened the drawer one day and found all her precious ’trash’ had vanished, wouldn’t her expression be priceless?