Chapter 17: I’ve changed! I’ve changed back again! 

Shen Jize looked at the deer carefully, saw his fur was soft and whiter than moonlight, and said, “I will call you Little White 1 from now on, okay?”

Lu Rong thought he had discovered his true identity, and didn’t care what he was called, so he nodded haphazardly and agreed.

Shen Jize’s eyes were suddenly drawn to the bag hanging around his neck, and he reached out and poked it, “Hey, what’s this?”

The package was wrapped in a T-shirt and hung around his neck, and fell to the ground when Shen Jize gently tugged it. The clothes scattered, revealing a pair of brown plastic sandals that little boys loved to wear.

Lu Rong hurriedly stretched out his hooves to pick them up, but Shen Jize grabbed them first. He picked up a sandal and looked at it over and over, looking gradually suspicious. Lu Rong sheepishly pushed the rest of the clothes under himself slowly, then sat his butt on them and pretended nothing had happened.

“These look like Rong Rong’s shoes?” Shen Jize saw the shoes clearly and was about to pull the clothes out from under Lu Rong’s buttocks, “Little White, please move. I want to look at these clothes.”

Lu Rong felt the weight of his body pressing the clothes, dead heavy, Shen Jize pulled twice and couldn’t pull them out.

“Little White, let me see the clothes you are sitting on, it seems to be my brother’s.”

Lu Rong pretended not to understand,  looking around everywhere with his innocent round eyes, except at Shen Jize.

Shen Jize was anxiously pulling the clothes hard, but the deer maintained his sitting as he was tugged at, but still pressed against the clothes, not letting them go.

Motionless like a mountain.jpg

Shen Jize was at his wit’s end with this little white deer that suddenly didn’t seem to understand human language. He thought about it, looked in the direction of the village on the left, and suddenly his face showed fear, even his voice was trembling, “They-they are coming after us.”

They are coming after us? The group of paper people who were torn apart?

Lu Rong, who was thinking about how to hide his clothes, heard these words and abruptly leapt to his feet, his body tense and ready for battle.

Shen Jize took the opportunity to snatch the pile of clothes into his arms. By the time Lu Rong realized that there was nothing at all, he had already shaken out the small yellow T-shirt and shorts and exclaimed, “It’s Rong Rong’s! These are Rong Rong’s clothes!”

Lu Rong, who turned around, froze in his tracks, his little hooves clenched into a ball and grabbed the ground, not daring to breathe. Nothing abnormal could be seen on the small furry face, but if one paid close attention, one would find that his tail fuzzy hair exploded, in the back of the buttocks shaking rapidly, like a ball of wool shocked with electricity.

What to do? What to do? What to do?

Shen Jize stood up and Lu Rong shivered with fear. But he saw him look around and yelled excitedly, “Lu Rong is also here! He’s also here! My brother is also here!”

He then looked at the fawn and asked, “Little White, where did you pick up these clothes? Where was it? These are my brother’s clothes.”

Lu Rong let out a long sigh of relief, and the deer went limp, walking on soft legs to the tree and looking intently at a scar on it, as if studying how it was formed.

Shen Jize asked a few more times, but he pretended not to understand.

“You didn’t have a clothes bag during the fight just now. You should have picked it up in front of the yard…” Shen Jize turned his head in the direction of the village and muttered, “Oh no! Rong Rong’s still in the village, probably hiding in that courtyard.”

Lu Rong stretched out his hoof and fumbled with the tree scar, only glancing at him secretly, peeking slightly sideways.

The young man’s handsome face was full of panic. After two turns in place, as if making some decision, he gritted his teeth, turned his head to the deer and said, “My brother is still in the courtyard, I have to go find him. Little White, will you come with me?”

Lu Rong tilted his head and looked at him blearily, his little nose and dark eyes were wet, but there was no response. Shen Jize was quite afraid to go back to that courtyard, but Lu Rong could help save him. If the little deer was not willing to go with him, he would not force him and if his actions were careful, he could avoid those people and Lu Rong could be found.

He was afraid that the delay would worsen the situation, so he no longer dawdled, and hurriedly went in the direction of the village, but no longer lied to himself that this was just a dream.

“Little White, wait for me here! I have to go to pick up my brother! I can’t leave him behind, or he will certainly be afraid!” He shouted to the fawn who stayed in place while he walked away.

Lu Rong was very delicate, and his skin would turn red from just being wiped down with a towel. If he were really caught by those paper people, Shen Jize didn’t know how scared he would be.

Children would cry so badly that they would lose their voices.

Shen Jize walked and looked around, trying to find a good weapon, and found a dry thick trunk in the grass, so he picked it up and tried to twirl it around twice. The trunk was thick and heavy, so he really couldn’t swing it and could only break a meter-long branch off from the top to hold in his hand.

While Shen Jize was tinkering with these, Lu Rong got up and followed him quietly. When he saw him trying to swing the thick trunk, but stumbled and almost fell, not only did he not feel funny, it also warmed his heart.

Shen Jize suddenly saw the deer following him, and his heart was happy. But he didn’t have time to say anything, as the deer scampered into the woods on the right, and the small white figure very quickly hid behind those trees.

Hey… 

He simply didn’t intend to go with him.

The moonlight covered the earth with a silvery white layer, revealing an eerie cold air. Shen Jize held a tree branch and took a few deep breaths, gathering the courage to stride towards the village.

He was on a section of the mountain road, jumping down a few jagged stone steps, when he heard a thin voice behind him, “Brother.”

Shen Jize shuddered, stopped his feet, feeling incredulous as he slowly turned his head back, only to see a small figure standing at the base of a big tree. After seeing him stop, he ran along the mountain path hurriedly, while running and shouting, “Brother! Brother!”

The voice was soft and tender, if it wasn’t Lu Rong, then who else could it be?

Shen Jize’s heart surged and he shouted with all his might, “Rong Rong!”

Because of the excitement, his voice cracked, like a duck’s voice.

“It’s me! It’s me!” Lu Rong said sharply as he ran.

Shen Jize received the biggest scare in his life, and when he realized that Lu Rong may be caught by the paper men, he was anxious and worried. Now seeing Lu Rong run towards him, his tense heart strings suddenly relaxed, and he almost couldn’t contain his tears.

“Brother～” Lu Rong ran closer, and like a small cannonball, headed straight into the arms of Shen Jize, putting his arms around the teenager’s narrow waist, tilting his head to call him affectionately.

“Rong Rong,” Shen Jize’s eyes were red, and he hugged the child tightly back.

Although he had previously disliked Lu Rong, thinking that he was too small and had no common language with him, but now he was hugging this hot little body, and his heart was full of happiness.

Lu Rong felt Shen Jize’s intimacy, making him a little flattered and happy, so he rubbed his face against his chest like he did with Grandpa Cai, and blazed two kisses.

“Rong Rong.”

“Brother～”

The two of them hugged and swayed from side to side and got tired, before they separated.

Shen Jize then felt a little too sticky, not manly enough, a little embarrassedly asked, “Rong Rong, where were you? I was going to look for you.”

“I was… I was…” Lu Rong’s eyes darted around, “I was just walking around.”

“And did you meet any strange people in the village?”

Lu Rong shook his head, “No.”

“That’s good, it’s good that you didn’t meet any.” Shen Jize sighed. He went back to squeezing Lu Rong’s arm and touching his face, as if to make sure he was a real person.

Lu Rong stood meekly and let him squeeze him, only to look up at him, his dark eyes shining with watery light in the moonlight.

“Where did you find the clothes?” Shen Jize saw that his clothes were on backwards and couldn’t help but pinch the protruding seam on his shoulder.

“It was under that tree.”

“Why did you leave your clothes in the village? It scared the hell out of me, thinking you’d been taken.”

“I was getting a little hot, so I took them off there.” Lu Rong said in a small voice, staring only at the thin chest in front of him.

Shen Jize: “…Don’t take your clothes off in the future.”

“Okay.”

Deeming this matter unimportant, Shen Jize began to explain to him, “Rong Rong, don’t worry. Last night, I had the same kind of dream, so it’s a dream… Anyway, no matter what it is, as long as we find a cluster of light, we can get out.” He gestured with his hand, “High, this big mass of light, like a door. Have you seen anything like that?”

“No.” Lu Rong shook his head and added, “And I’m not afraid.”

Afraid? He could also fight a hundred more paper people!

Shen Jize estimated that the mass of light should be in the opposite direction from the village, so he took Lu Rong’s hand and said, “Let’s go find it now.”

The two walked hand in hand down the mountain road, Shen Jize recovered his spirit and excitedly told Lu Rong about the encounter.

“…I was running through the cemetery. Look! Look to the left! See where I’m pointing? There’s the cemetery… I didn’t panic at all, even though there were bones everywhere, and I sat in the middle and took a break and was scratched by a bone…”

Shen Jize began to brag, and Lu Rong looked at him with bright eyes.

“…I was thinking to myself, this must be a group of demons, and I have to find a way to get rid of them. While looking for weapons, the deer warrior rushed in, and we both killed them together…”

“Deer warrior?” Lu Rong suddenly laughed.

“What? You don’t think it sounds good?” Shen Jize asked. He felt that he could call the deer Little White in private, but when telling it to Lu Rong, “Deer Warrior” was much more imposing.

Lu Rong bounced gently in place and said, “What do you think of ‘Deer Goku’?”

“Deer Goku…” Shen Jize frowned, “Not very good.”

“Okay, then ‘Deer Warrior’.” Lu Rong thought the name was okay, much better than Little White.

Shen Jize turned back, looking in the direction where the deer had disappeared, and said with some disappointment, “I wonder if I can still see Deer Warrior in the future.”

Lu Rong didn’t speak, only squeezed the hand he was holding, as if to comfort.

“You didn’t see. The deer warrior is really, really powerful, wearing golden armor, his whole body glowing, and the horns on his head were also glowing, and were at least this long…”

Shen Jize rambled all the way, and Lu Rong was so excited that his face was red and he walked as if he was going to float.

 

He ignored the golden armor and the meter-long horns, and accepted all those words because they came from the heart. He also resisted the urge to turn into a deer right now and say ‘I’ve changed! I’ve changed back!’ to Shen Jize.

 

Translator Notes:

The characters for little white. (Xiao Bai)