C9 — Strange Tales by the Lakeside

In the middle of the silver-white space, there stood a tall, intricately patterned, and strange cross chair. An old man whose face couldn’t be seen sat on it, and in front of him was none other than the screen of Strange Tales by the Lakeside.

 

 

“The test results are out; it’s not a bug; the traveller is a character added by Lord Yi using his permissions.” The adjuster wiped his sweat. “As you know, films with the presence of a special boss are under his jurisdiction; I have no right to adjust the settings back.”

 

 

The fire blazed up in an instant, frightening the adjuster so much that he directly fell to his knees, not even daring to beg for forgiveness.

 

 

“That madman.” The old man’s voice echoed from far to near in the vast space. “Has an actor guild contacted you?”

 

 

The adjuster suddenly broke out in a cold sweat and trembled as he replied, “Yes, it’s an actor guild that specializes in challenging difficult dungeons. They wanted to bribe me with flame points and make me add them as the backup actors of “Strange Tales by the Lakeside.” When those four students die, the system can fill them in.”

 

 

He swore confidently, almost swearing to the heavens, “But Chief Judge, I really didn’t agree; I refused!”

 

 

“Hmm…” The old man sneered, “Go tell them you agree.”

 

 

“Ah?” The adjuster didn’t anticipate this development.

 

 

The old man smiled but remained silent; he waved his hand and dismissed the adjuster, then opened the actor guild list.

 

 

He knew which guild privately bribed his subordinate. Since Number One only managed films with special bosses, let the bosses disappear.

 

 

On the screen, Liu Jingyun had parked her car on the roadside of Spring University. The small town at night was very spacious, and there were no lights in the surrounding residences. Under the thick night, the seeping hoots of owls could be heard from time to time.

 

 

She was a little scared and could only make herself concentrate on pushing the wheelchair all the way to the main entrance of the school.

 

 

The security in the small town was very good, so there was no security guard responsible for night shifts at the school. Liu Jingyun followed Zhuo Yu’s command, climbed over the iron fence into the playground, and then ran to the entrance to open the main door for Zhuo Yu.

 

 

The two of them sneaked into the school like this, as if it were an uninhabited space.

 

 

Zhuo Yu felt something was wrong, but now it was more important to go to the archives to collect information.

 

 

Pushing open the door of the teaching building, the lobby on the first floor was the activity area, and the walls were covered with pictures of the energetic smiling faces of teenagers. However, the walls were already a bit old, and many places looked like they had been renovated.

 

 

Zhuo Yu was very familiar with the scene here, so he knew that his character had been to this school before.

 

 

Following the intuition brought by the characters, the two quickly found the archives on the third floor.

 

 

 

The door was locked, so Zhuo Yu had to use the hairpin on Liu Jingyun’s head and inserted it into the lock hole. There was no popular surveillance system in the 80s, and the door locks then weren’t as complicated as they were now. As long as it was inserted correctly into the hole and lifted upwards with force, the door could be opened.

 

 

Zhuo Yu could only thank himself for watching so many burglary cases in search of inspiration.

 

 

With a click, the door opened.

 

 

Liu Jingyun’s eyes widened again, and she cast an incredulous gaze at Zhuo Yu.

 

 

“Go in; we have to get to work.”

 

 

Zhuo Yu pushed open the door of the room, and within a space of over seventy square metres, there were filing cabinets filled with information about teachers and students. The doors of the cabinets were made of transparent glass, so the two of them looked at the dates on the filing folders in rows under the faint moonlight.

 

 

When he reached 1938, Zhuo Yu stopped.

 

 

He remembered the manufacturing date of his wheelchair. Most people didn’t buy inventory that had been stored for a long time, so Zhuo Yu’s legs were broken when he bought the wheelchair, probably around 1938.

 

 

He used a card to unlock the filing cabinet and commanded Liu Jingyun to retrieve all the folders inside.

 

 

Fortunately, the town had a small population, with only around 200 students back then.

 

 

 

Zhuo Yu took out the student files inside, and on a thin piece of paper, detailed information such as the student’s photo, name, height, family members, and address were recorded. He first distributed the 1938 files to Liu Jingyun, then took out the folders from the 1980s and began flipping through them one by one.

 

 

He wanted to find information about those four senior players.

 

 

More than ten minutes had passed, and Zhuo Yu had traced back to 1988. As expected, he saw four familiar faces.

 

 

Jack Bills.

 

 

Nina Rockefeller.

 

Bonnie Biles.

 

 

Buck Yike.

 

 

Zhuo Yu softly read out the names of these people, the students played by Zhou Wu and the others.

 

 

Looking at the Asian faces on the file, accompanied by American names and the age 18, it was quite amusing.

 

 

“Oh my god!”

 

 

 

Liu Jingyun was suddenly startled and threw away the archive paper in her hand, as if she had seen something terrifying.

 

 

The paper fell by Zhuo Yu’s side with the help of the wind, and Zhuo Yu picked it up.

 

 

No wonder Liu Jingyun was scared. The photo on this file was really…

 

 

The left side of the boy’s face was handsome and heroic looking, and his deep blue eyes made him seem extremely charming, but there was resistance in his eyes, as if he really didn’t want to face the camera. Because his other half of his face was deformed.

 

 

His skin had melted and then solidified like human flesh, twisted and stacked on his face. His eyelids were also incomplete, revealing a large blue eye, and even his full lips were pulled open on the other side, revealing a piece of gum.

 

 

 

This half face was as ferocious as a beast, as detestable as a devil, as if it only appeared in nightmares, but the intact left face was so outstanding and perfect, superior enough that he could go to Hollywood to pursue a career.

 

 

Zhuo Yu stared closely at the lake like blue eyes in the photo, which were a very special color with a hint of deep green. He would never mistake them!

 

 

This was the BOSS’s eyes!

 

 

“At the age of 18, he was 2.2 meters tall. Was this child a monster?” Liu Jingyun patted her chest and bravely approached,” He really scared me to death. I thought I had seen a ghost.”

 

 

Zhuo Yu subconsciously furrowed his brow as he looked at the information on the file.

 

 

18 years old, 216 cm tall, with congenital facial deformities and gigantism.

 

 

The student’s name was—

 

 

“Asha……”

 

 

 

Zhuo Yu felt like he had been struck by lightning, and his head suddenly began to ache violently. He supported his drowsy forehead and forced himself to continue reading.

 

 

Even more astonishing facts emerged.

 

 

 

Asha’s address was located in the Golden Lake Reservoir, and his parent’s signature was one that Zhuo Yu had written at many signing parties. He was too familiar with it.

 

 

“The traveller is me, and his adoptive father is also me.” Zhuo Yu chuckled softly. Even though he was enduring pain, the sense of explosion the secret still excited him to the point of trembling.

 

 

Extreme weakness surged over his body again, and Zhuo Yu suddenly fell to the floor, scattering the student files all over the ground.

 

 

The sky rotated, and Zhuo Yu suddenly returned to that summer fifty years ago.

 

 

 

The chirping of insects and the gentle breeze blew, and the cabin by the lake opened its doors, as if welcoming its little master back from school.

 

 

 

“Asha, why are you wearing a mask again?” Zhuo Yu put down the [Seven Day Talk] in his hand and looked at the child he had picked up with some helplessness. “I told you, you don’t have to be so restrained at home.”

 

 

He met Asha seven years ago. The child was only about ten years old and was left na-ked in the forest near the Golden Lake. Looking at the child’s face, Zhuo Yu knew why he had been abandoned.

 

 

Because most people didn’t want to see such a terrifying appearance at home, they might be scared every time they turned around.

 

 

He brought the poor little guy home, cleaned his body, which was covered with dirt, and fed him a full meal.

 

 

To Zhuo Yu’s surprise, in his child was exceptionally obedient, well-behaved, and sensible, which also indicated that the other party must have lived a very bad life, which was why he had developed this personality of watching people’s faces to make sure he was still in favour.

 

 

He named the child, who remembered nothing, Asha, and after about a week of getting along with him, he went to the town to handle the adoption procedures. However, Zhuo Yu wasn’t yet 30 years old and had no spouse, which didn’t meet the adoption requirements.

 

 

The staff looked at Asha’s face with disgust and said that no one would want this child even if he went to the orphanage, so it would be better to let Zhuo Yu take care of him first. The adoption procedures couldn’t be completed, so he became his temporary guardian.

 

 

Asha became a member of Zhuo Yu’s family, but legally speaking, the two were not truly foster father and son.

 

 

 

Zhuo Yu’s ancestors were the first generation of Chinese who came to the United States with the gold rush and made a fortune by ferry. However, after so many years, their assets had long been squandered, and the only private inheritance that Zhuo Yu could inherit was the hill of the Golden Lake.

 

 

 

But he still relied on the fees for writing articles for a magazine and tried his best to support Asha’s education.

 

 

“My classmates say my face is too scary.” The big boy’s voice was muffled. “Asha doesn’t want to scare you.”

 

 

Zhuo Yu waved to Asha, grabbed the 17-year-old boy’s neck, and gently stroked his reddish brown hair: “Good child, don’t listen to them. You’ll only scare your classmates, but you can’t scare me.”

 

 

Asha was somewhat dissatisfied with being called a child, but he didn’t break free from his embrace: “I saved money to buy you a gift, a writing desk!”

 

 

 

Zhuo Yu was somewhat surprised.

 

 

 

He knew that Asha suffered discrimination from the townspeople and that he hadn’t undergone any socialisation training before the age of ten; no one had even taught him how to speak. Zhuo Yu spent a lot of effort in these seven years to make him seem like a normal person.

 

 

He didn’t know what kind of hard labour this kid sold in order to save up.

 

 

“Tomorrow is your 18th birthday, yet you bought me a gift instead,” Zhuo Yu patted his head. “Thank you, you little brat.”

 

 

 

Asha pointed to the crocodile head ornament on the wall in response, “Asha wants that.”

 

 

“Zhuo Yu, Zhuo Yu?! Are you okay?” Liu Jingyun shook Zhuo Yu’s shoulder vigorously, pulling him out of the illusion of memories.

 

 

Zhuo Yu woke up and realised that he was still in the archives room of Spring University.

 

 

“I heard Zhou Wu’s voice; they’re here too!” Liu Jingyun was very nervous. She haphazardly packed up the other useless files and stuffed them into the cabinet. “It seems like they’re arguing; should we go down and take a look?”

 

 

 

Before Zhuo Yu could make a decision, the quarrelsome voice had already come over.

 

 

“It’s all because of you, fu-cking foot-dragger! We’re going to be caught up by that crocodile man!”

 

 

Zhou Wu’s voice was furious and contained a deep fear of the BOSS.

 

 

 

“Who knew he could keep up even if we stole the car?” Li Mingfeng retorted indignantly, “I just fell twice; what about you? You didn’t listen to me and insisted on coming to Spring Town. Now you’re hiding like a coward!”

 

 

Zhou Wu couldn’t tolerate his sarcasm, and the two immediately pushed and shoved each other.

 

 

 

“Don’t move!” Li Mingfeng suddenly changed the subject and said, “I saw the BOSS! He’s in the playground.”

 

 

 

Zhuo Yu in the archive room felt a chill all over his body.

 

 

 

Asha was nearby!

 

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TN:

I’m back 👋.

Got a bit busy, but I have more free time, so see ya tomorrow ✌️