After sending off his ex-boss, Xu Bei returned to his room.
He saw that Sun Xiaohui was already sprawled over the table, fast asleep.
Xu Bei gently and tenderly picked her up and placed her on the bed to sleep.
Then, he pushed the small dining table aside and very nimbly laid out a duvet, getting ready to sleep on the floor.
But as soon as he lay down, he realized he had just woken up not long ago! How could he possibly fall asleep again?!
With no other choice, Xu Bei could only play on his phone for a bit, checking the latest news, seeing if there were any strange occurrences nearby to keep an eye out for.
He ended up playing on his phone all night, only sleeping when he got tired.
As long as a person has a phone, they’ll never be bored.
“Xu-ge, I’m off to school. Here’s some money and the keys, buy yourself something to eat for lunch.”
The next morning, Sun Xiaohui got up very early, hurriedly rushing off to school.
“Mm, mm, mm, be careful on the way.”
Xu Bei was still lying on the duvet, replying half-heartedly.
And just like that, a new life of an unemployed drifter cohabiting with a high school girl finally began.
But unfortunately, the kind of plot that everyone loves to see would never happen.
Xu Bei wasn’t interested in high school girls; he’d long since lost those youthful stirrings of first love. Now, he was just a guy getting by day by day.
In fact, the situation was completely the opposite!
Because he was too good-looking, he’d ended up being taken in by a high school girl—she was the one coveting his beauty! If anyone was getting infatuated, it was her, not him.
Waking up at noon, Xu Bei, wearing his baseball cap, left the small apartment and came to the front door of the rental building to get some fresh air.
“Am I not just a kept pretty boy now? No way, I need to find a proper job.”
He muttered to himself as he familiarized himself with the surroundings.
The high school girl had given Xu Bei a brief rundown of her daily routine.
Sun Xiaohui got up at eight in the morning to go to school, and after classes, she’d head to her part-time job, working until evening before coming home.
Because she was a special arts student, she didn’t have afternoon classes, which was pretty nice.
Her part-time job was at a nearby convenience store. Working a few hours each afternoon was enough to cover her basic needs.
Of course, this cushy job was arranged for her by the Demon Investigation Bureau.
Given Sun Xiaohui’s self-closure tendencies, Xu Bei figured she’d rather starve to death than actively look for a job.
The Sun Xiaohui who took him in was actually the most common kind of weirdo in society these days.
They were people suffering from social anxiety and self-closure, often referred to simply as “social anxiety.”
But it’s important to distinguish between self-closure and autism—they’re two different things.
Self-closure is a psychological issue caused by environmental factors—self-isolation, inferiority. People with social anxiety usually know they have it; they just don’t want to interact with others, but it’s something that can be changed.
But autism is a serious congenital disorder.
Autistic patients don’t even know they’re autistic.
They lose normal emotional responses, often becoming absorbed in their own world, unable to hear others calling them, which seriously affects daily life.
Self-closure is, at most, just a unique lifestyle.
But autism is a true human tragedy.
Just one word, but worlds apart in meaning.
Fortunately, Sun Xiaohui was just a self-closed girl; she didn’t have any major illness.
And as it happens, I, Xu Bei, am a well-known Female Psychological Counselor.
I’ve seen many self-closed girls in my shop.
They’re not unwilling to interact with others—they just don’t want to interact with people they dislike.
When they feel that most people in the world are annoying, they fall into self-closure.
So-called self-closure, so-called social anxiety, is really just disliking humanity.
And I just happen to be the kind of sunny, blond, handsome guy that most girls would never find annoying and am great at chatting.
No woman could ever resist my charm…
“Hey! What are you doing here, you blonde punk?”
As Xu Bei was lost in thought, a shrill, harsh, and caustic voice suddenly rang out by his ear.
He saw a fat woman with an explosive afro, wearing a garishly colorful, reflective belly shirt, charging out of the rental building, brandishing a baseball bat and pointing it at Xu Bei.
“I… I’m a tenant here,” Xu Bei replied.
The fat woman jabbed the baseball bat toward Xu Bei’s face, shrieking, “How could I not know who my tenants are?!”
Xu Bei instantly realized who this fat woman was—she must be the Landlady of this building.
“I live here with Sun Xiaohui.” Xu Bei took out a key to show his identity.
“How could Xiaohui live with a bad guy like you?” The Landlady, upon seeing the key, became even more suspicious.
“I’m a good person,” Xu Bei said.
“What kind of good person has blonde hair?” The Landlady flicked her baseball bat upward, knocking Xu Bei’s baseball cap off.
“Looks like the Landlady has some serious stereotypes about blondes,” Xu Bei muttered.
“Who are you calling Landlady?! Get lost! Or I’ll break your legs!” The Landlady shouted angrily, brandishing her baseball bat as if about to thrash Xu Bei.
“……” Xu Bei felt helpless, unable to explain himself no matter what.
All his eloquence, yet he was actually intimidated by a fat woman.
It seemed that hair color could really affect one’s social status.
He never used to care about his hair color.
Because in Meteor Street, all the tough guys had weird hairstyles—if your hair wasn’t weird enough, you’d be too embarrassed to go out. His was already pretty normal.
But now, in civilized society, people were very sensitive about dyed and weird hairstyles.
It was as if anyone with dyed or weird hair had to be a bad person.
Although, to be fair, he wasn’t exactly a good person either.
“A wise man doesn’t fight when the odds are against him. I’ll be back for sure.”
Xu Bei sidestepped the Landlady, picked up his baseball cap, and quickly left the rental building.
If this had happened two days ago, back in Meteor Street, he would’ve slapped her, given her a beating, and tossed her into a back-alley trash heap.
“I’m not in Meteor Street anymore. I have to turn over a new leaf—I can’t go around hitting people.”
Xu Bei patted his face to perk himself up, then wandered around the neighborhood, looking for a job that might suit him.
Yesterday, he’d left everything behind to start over, truly penniless.
He couldn’t possibly rely on a high school girl to support him, could he?
Sun Xiaohui wasn’t rich either—she could barely support herself.
If not for her special talents, a self-closed girl like her would have starved to death on the street long ago.
……
Xu Bei made his way to the nearby [Academy City].
There were tons of shops around here, all catering to students. So finding a job shouldn’t be too difficult, right?
“Demon? We’re not hiring, not hiring. We have enough staff.”
“You’re a Demon? Get lost!”
“Ah!” (door slammed shut.)
“Don’t freak out here!”
“Blonde punk, don’t make me use force!”
After making a round of the shopping street, Xu Bei could only sit on a park bench, sighing in frustration.
He’d mustered up the courage to ask at several shops, showing them his Legal Demon Identification Card, but he was kicked out every time.
Even though he’d expected it, it still stung.
The Legal Demon Identification Card in his hand couldn’t solve his predicament, nor could it change the prejudice ordinary people had against Demons.
The curse of being a Demon would follow him forever.
So then…
What exactly is a Demon?
Find out in the next chapter.