Dragon Clan: Force me to be reborn and slay dragons

Chapter 375 One person is a house, two people make a home
Room 15, Unit 201.

A blue doorplate was nailed to a green-painted wooden door covered with numerous small advertisements. The doorknob was rusty but not dusty, indicating that someone had been living there for a long time.

"Feeling a little disillusioned?" Xia Mi tore off the small advertisement that some scoundrel had used to cover the keyhole with one hand, and searched for the key in her handbag with the other.

"A beautiful girl's home is in a place like this."

Chu Zihang looked around and saw that several doors of houses in the old building were open, and the smell of cooking oil and the aroma of food, as well as the whispers of conversations, could be clearly heard. He finally understood where that sense of familiarity came from.

He shook his head, a hint of nostalgia in his eyes: "I also lived in this kind of old house when I was a child."

Before his parents divorced, his family lived in this old building, crammed into a small rented room.

My good-for-nothing dad leaves early and returns late every day. After dropping off my mom, who always dresses up beautifully, at the city dance troupe, he goes to work as a driver for his boss.

He walks to school every day, and sometimes his dad picks up his mom after get off work and they wait for him to get out of school together.

It's just that this occasional occurrence might only happen a few times a year.

Even so, those were the happiest times of his life, so even after moving to a bigger house, what he missed most was the days when the three of them squeezed into a rented room.

If a host from "Today's Talk" were here, they probably wouldn't be able to hold back their laughter.

"Really?" Xia Mi took out her key and spoke her question as a statement.

Although Chu Zihang had already moved to a new family with his mother when she met him, it would have been easy for her to find out about his past.

She had only been asleep for a short time when she realized that humans had evolved into something extraordinary while she was asleep. She then began to settle down and learn how to play the role of a human and integrate into the human world.

Chu Zihang was the subject she chose to observe.

Therefore, she knew everything about him, even more than Su Xiaoyan, his mother.

With a click, Xia Mi pushed open the door, and a faint fragrance wafted out.

"I'm back~" the girl shouted into the empty room, walked in and pulled open the curtains. Sunlight streamed in from the French windows, gilding her figure with a golden edge.

Chu Zihang stood at the doorway, watching tiny dust particles dance in the sunlight, while the light-shrouded sprites smiled at him.

"No need to change your shoes, just come in."

Chu Zihang had just calculated the size of the old building and the layout of the second floor in his mind, knowing that this room was destined to be not very big, but the single room in front of him still exceeded his most conservative estimate.

There were no partitions, no bathroom, and even the kitchen was just a gas stove in the corner.

He looked at the single room, which he could see in its entirety at a glance. The sun shone directly through the huge floor-to-ceiling window facing the door, and just standing face to face with it, he could feel the heat of midsummer.

Hearing Xia Mi's greeting, he originally thought he would see a seemingly harmonious family of three, or a mentally challenged older brother waiting at home for his younger sister to return. However, the house was completely empty.

The whole room was like a sketch faded by the sun, with only the simplest lines remaining: a bed covered with a blue sheet, an old-fashioned five-drawer chest with peeling paint, and an old-fashioned double-door refrigerator standing next to the gas stove, humming.

Nothing else.

Even disregarding his lost memories, this was the first time he had ever been to a girl's bedroom.

In that abandoned villa in the woods, he only stayed on the first floor and never went up to the second floor, which was the girl's private little world.

He never expected it to be so simple, so different from what he had imagined a girl's boudoir to be.

"How are you feeling?" There were no tables or chairs in the room, so Xia Mi simply lifted the blue bedspread to reveal the all-white sheets and blankets underneath.

"Very clean and tidy." Chu Zihang praised sincerely. After being away for several days, there was not much dust on the ground and no dust on the walls, which meant it was cleaned regularly.

"Hmph, you know how to talk." Xia Mi snorted twice, folded the down comforter and placed it at the corner of the bed, then sat down and gently patted the bed:
"This house was bought to make it easier for me to go to school. It used to be a power distribution room. After the renovation, it looks like this. If we put tables and chairs in it, there won't be enough room to turn around."

She said, giving a teasing smile, "What should we do, Chu? If you don't want to just stand there like an idiot, you'll have to sit on the bed~"

As Chu Zihang watched Xia Mi pat the bed and call him over to sit down, it was as if a sudden burst of light flashed through his mind, and countless images switched wildly like movie transitions.

There were scenes of him strolling through the campus with Xia Mi, of him embracing Xia Mi tightly on the banks of the Saône River, of him exchanging rings with Xia Mi, who was wearing a white kimono, while dressed in a black tuxedo, at their wedding, of him pacing back and forth in front of the operating room with a furrowed brow, of him frantically changing a baby's diaper, of her dragging him into the room wrapped in a bathrobe with a sly smile...

These images came so suddenly, like snow melting in the sun, revealing seeds buried deep beneath.

When he came to his senses, Chu Zihang suddenly realized that because of the girl's small action, he had already chosen the name for their future child.

Was my willpower really that bad?
Or did Xia Mi use some inhuman means to confuse my mind?

Chu Zihang doubted himself in his heart, but his body was very honest as he came to the bedside and sat down directly amidst Xia Mi's amazed look of "You really sat down?"

The boy and girl sat side by side on the edge of the bed, no more than thirty centimeters apart. They would touch each other if they moved their legs, and there was a moment of speechless silence.

After a short while, Xia Mi recovered from her shock, her eyes curving into crescents and a mischievous smile playing on her lips.

She leaned slightly forward, her hair falling down, creating a shimmering effect of light and shadow in front of Chu Zihang's eyes.

From this angle, the boy's taut jawline resembles the edge of a glacier melting in the sunlight, just like his heart at this moment.

"Oh dear, are you blushing?" She deliberately drew out the last syllable, like a feather gently tickling the heart:

"Is it so exciting and happy that it's your first time sitting on a girl's bed?"

Chu Zihang didn't feel his face getting hot. Knowing she was deliberately teasing him, he forcibly suppressed the flutter in his heart and calmly met her incredibly bright eyes like a meditating monk.
Where should we eat later?

As the beloved student of the Executive Director and the next president of the Lionheart Society, he has received more professional training than other students, and his ability to regulate emotions is unparalleled.

Professor Schneider once praised him, saying that even if the Dragon King were in front of him, he wouldn't flinch and could still draw his sword and charge forward.

And now, he has indeed lived up to his mentor's evaluation. He not only easily caught the heavy punch thrown by the Dragon King, but also tried to guide the situation.

"Tch, boring." Xia Mi pouted in dissatisfaction when she saw that he wasn't taking the bait. She lifted her long legs, leaned back, and rolled on the bed like a squirrel that hadn't gotten its pine cone. She then picked up two boxes from where the bedside table should have been on the other side.

"Would you like braised beef or spicy beef?"

Chu Zihang's gaze remained fixed on her, and when he noticed the two boxes of instant noodles in her hand, he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow: "Is this all you usually eat?"

"No, I usually eat in the cafeteria." Xia Mi looked at her like she was an idiot. She might live in a simple place, but that didn't mean she couldn't afford to eat well.

Don't underestimate my wealth, you bastard!

"What about when school is on holiday?" Chu Zihang looked at the refrigerator next to him.

Xia Mi just said that she bought the house for school, but she didn't mention her parents. The room was empty, with no signs of anyone else living there, no family photos, and not even extra slippers. This was clearly her official residence.

"Of course I'll make it myself." Xia Mi put down the instant noodles, opened the refrigerator door, revealing a crisper drawer with only a few cartons of milk and a bottle of oyster sauce inside.

She took out two cartons of milk, then opened the freezer compartment below, where two bags of rock-hard meat were frozen.

"How about trying my cooking?"

Chu Zihang looked at the extremely simple ingredients and nodded without hesitation.

"Then let me help." Xia Mi slammed the refrigerator shut, then stuffed two bags of meat into Chu Zihang's arms, and went to wash the pot and boil water while humming a song.

Chu Zihang looked down at the two lumps of meat in his arms, his eyes slightly helpless, but he still went to the gas stove and carefully used his incantation to control the temperature, thawing the meat little by little.

Ever since he met Xia Mi, he felt like he was either violating the rules and regulations of the Execution Department or on the verge of violating them.

As for why it wasn't after meeting Lu Mingfei, at that time he was carrying a formal mission and could use the power of words.

Under the heat of the flame, the two bags of meat quickly melted, and blood seeped out, staining his hands and dripping onto the ground.

Looking around, I found that the kitchen in the corner had no cutting board, not even a sink, just a pot and a gas stove.

Xia Mi took the pot and washed it somewhere, I don't know.

So, her so-called cooking for herself really just meant boiling instant noodles and instant noodles?

Looking around the house, which didn't even have a television, Chu Zihang inexplicably began to wonder what kind of life Xia Mi lived alone.

When he was a child, his good-for-nothing father sometimes had to go out with his boss after get off work, and his beautiful mother also had performances and came home late. He had to eat alone, do his homework alone, and sit there watching TV alone, waiting for his troublesome parents to come home.

At least he had popular science books and television to watch, but what about Xia Mi?

With no one to keep her company and nothing to pass the time, she could only sit listlessly on her bed, listening to the noise from other people's homes and trying to understand human affairs.

Year after year, day after day.

Surrounded by loneliness, enveloped by solitude.

This discovery sent a sharp, stabbing pain through his chest, as if someone had thrown shards of glass into his heart.

He caught the sound of footsteps approaching and turned to look at the door, but it wasn't Xia Mi. Instead, it was an old lady with a bowl of braised pork and a big smile on her face.

The old lady who had just heard Xia Mi return home, worried that she hadn't eaten lunch, stood at the door with a bowl of meat to go with Xia Mi's noodles. Her kind smile gradually froze.

She stared at the expressionless boy in the room, his hands covered in blood, then looked down at the bloodstains on the floor. Her eyes gradually filled with terror, and her expression began to twist and distort.

The old neighbor's face turned deathly pale at a visible speed. Her hands trembled, and her lips quivered like a beatbox. Under Chu Zihang's menacing and murderous gaze (from the old woman's perspective), she managed to squeeze out a single sentence:
"Kill! Kill! Murder! Murder!"

The volume gradually increased, and just as the incredulous murmur was about to turn into a terrified scream, a girl's clear voice came from behind:

"What did you kill? Grandma Li, did you kill a chicken today?"

Just as the old woman was about to yell, the elderly neighbor, who had been startled by the sound, immediately stopped shouting and turned around to look at the unharmed girl with disbelief.
"Xiao Mi, are you alright?"

"What could possibly be wrong with me?" Xia Mi asked, her face full of confusion after washing the pot. "I just got back and was about to cook."

"Then, then he is..." The old lady next door pointed at the motionless murderer in the room, stammering and not knowing what to say. Just now, she had already imagined a 30-episode melodramatic campus romance drama in her mind. The main plot was that a perverted killer secretly loved and followed a girl living alone, and killed her after his confession was rejected.

Most of them feature classic plots of her escaping, him chasing, and her having no way to escape, only with the addition of murder elements.

Xia Mi stepped forward and saw the cold-faced killer standing there, holding thawed meat in his hand, staring blankly in their direction, blood dripping onto the ground. He then revealed a look of sudden realization:

"Oh, he's my former classmate. We ran into each other when I was traveling before, and he gave me a ride back."

"Oh, I see. Hello, classmate..." The elderly neighbor breathed a sigh of relief, and her hands, which had been trembling like those of a Parkinson's patient, regained their steady grip on the bowl.

"I thought... Oh dear, Grandma made a little extra braised pork. Xiao Mi, you eat with your classmates. Don't always eat instant noodles. Look how thin you are, with skinny arms and legs."

With that, she placed the braised pork in Xia Mi's pot, waved her hand, and turned to go back to her room.

Normally, if a girl as outstanding as Xia Mi brought a handsome boy home, she would definitely gossip about it. But after that scare, she decided to go back and take some blood pressure medication first.

"Why are you scaring people for no reason?" Xia Mi closed the door and gave Chu Zihang a reproachful look: "They're in their seventies or eighties. What if they get scared and something bad happens?"

"..." Chu Zihang hesitated for two seconds, and finally uttered two words: "I'll pay for it."

"So what if you're rich?" Xia Mi snorted twice, placed the pot and meat on the gas stove, and then took out two small basins from under the bed:

"Why thaw so quickly? It's making the ground dirty."

Chu Zihang put the meat into the basin and watched Xia Mi mutter as she pulled a mop out from behind the cabinet, telling him to hurry up and wash the meat. Suddenly, another scene flashed before his eyes.

It's no longer just "imagination," but something I've personally experienced.

When I was a child, my dad suddenly decided to buy large intestines to braise himself. As a result, the fat from the large intestines fell on the ground. My mom quickly picked him up when he tried to pick it up, and then took the mop and mopped the floor with a look of disgust.

At that moment, the mother's figure gradually overlapped with that of the young girl.

Chu Zihang suddenly remembered Lu Mingfei's words: "She is right in front of you. You must consider whether this is your only chance in this life."

Some people, some things, once a mistake is made, are gone forever.

Lost in thought, a delicate and flawless pretty face suddenly loomed close, almost filling my entire field of vision.

Xia Mi put her hands on her hips and looked at Chu Zihang, who was lost in thought, with displeasure: "What are you thinking about? Get to work!"

"Hmm." Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Chu Zihang nodded, picked up the basin, and turned to leave.

Watching his figure disappear through the door, Xia Mi looked around and found that the room, which always seemed cold and lonely when she was alone, was surprisingly not empty this time.

But the person clearly didn't bring anything; the room was filled with her own belongings.

Is this what they say on TV—

One person is a house, but two people make a home?

(End of this chapter)