Chapter 118: Candy
At the moment of death, Li Nuowei only felt the world before his eyes turn into a patch of darkness, followed by a sudden sensation of weightless falling, then he saw light, the light increasing, colorful, with Buddhist chants whispering in his ears, pushing his mind into the light before him.
This was the anomaly that appeared when the Death Reincarnation ability activated; once he fully merged into the light, he would awaken, returning to any time point after two days ago, but this time point had to be before the node of his previous death.
Li Nuowei made his choice, sinking into the light following the sensation; after feeling the “falling speed” stabilize, he slowly opened his eyes, fully awakening.
He opened his eyes, the world before him becoming clear, but soon his face showed astonishment; he looked around at everything, “I… how am I here?”
“Welcome back to this shop, Student Li.” Li Nuowei heard a hearty laugh from beside him; turning his head, he saw a man in red pants holding layered storage boxes that covered his upper body walking toward him; the other slightly turned his head and greeted him.
Seeing the newcomer, Li Nuowei hesitated to speak; he only felt the other looked familiar but couldn’t remember his name.
In response, Wei Jiang seemed to understand the other’s mood and said with a smile, “I’m Wei Jiang, doing odd jobs here.”
“Hello, Brother Wei.” Li Nuowei cautiously responded to him.
It was this shop that gave him the Death Reincarnation ability and also gave him the chance to defy fate and change destiny; he had deeply experienced the magic of this shop; although Wei Jiang was doing odd jobs in this small shop, Li Nuowei didn’t think he was any small role and had to treat him with sufficient courtesy and caution.
Wei Jiang smiled and said, “If you need anything, go to the counter; the boss is in the shop today.”
“Okay.” Li Nuowei nodded, making way at the doorway to let Wei Jiang carry the sundries in the shop out the door.
Li Nuowei looked at the bizarre items on the shelves around him, feeling a bit uneasy in his heart; he braced himself and went to the counter, where he saw Boss Lin in a white outfit sitting behind the counter, tapping on the keyboard of the computer, muttering something in his mouth.
Handsome Boss Lin noticed the guest’s arrival; his eyes staring at the screen moved somewhat mechanically, finally looking at Li Nuowei; he stopped his muttering and smiled, saying, “Welcome, Student Li Nuowei; do you need anything today?”
“I…” Li Nuowei opened his mouth, hesitating for a moment.
Recalling his experience coming to the shop last time, even today he still felt it somewhat absurd.
The “Death Reincarnation” ability came from a small story told by Boss Lin; after finishing the story, Boss Lin asked Li Nuowei if he wanted to buy it; he thought it was a bizarre dream—after all, only dreams could be so strange—so without hesitation, he directly made the business deal with Boss Lin and bought the story.
What was outrageous wasn’t that Boss Lin’s strange story could be bought and sold, but that this story could actually be bought with money, and it wasn’t expensive, because he only spent twenty yuan.
Thinking about it now, exchanging twenty yuan for an ability to defy fate and change destiny felt off to him no matter how he looked at it.
As everyone knows, the free ones are the most expensive; similarly, a thing that clearly has great value yet can be bought at a low price obviously hides a price he doesn’t know.
Therefore, when he came to this small shop again, he hesitated when facing the shop’s shopping inquiry.
Li Nuowei didn’t directly say he wanted to buy something, instead asking, “Boss Lin, the story I bought last time really only cost twenty yuan?”
Lin Ling closed the computer, crossed his arms on the table, and said with a smile, “The goods rented and sold in this shop are all high quality at low prices.”
Seeing Boss Lin’s “kind and benevolent” appearance, Li Nuowei didn’t believe a word; he was silent for a bit, suddenly feeling that probing was meaningless—at least he didn’t think he could outplay this shop, ever.
His ability was given by this shop; what it could grant, it could naturally reclaim.
And what consequences reclaiming it would have was still unknown; moreover, he wasn’t willing to have the Death Reincarnation ability reclaimed now, because all his subsequent actions relied on this ability; losing it would mean forever losing his chance to turn the tables.
It could be said that, from this perspective, Li Nuowei was actually very grateful to Boss Lin.
Li Nuowei felt he might be trading with the legendary devil, or perhaps meeting a true celestial being; the other granted him a favor but also gave him this trial to test him.
Whichever it was, Li Nuowei had no choice; he chose to accept it all.
If it was the devil, then as long as things could be achieved, soul, body, life… whatever was wanted could be taken.
If it was a celestial being, even better; he was willing to accept the test set by the other; after the test ended, any result was fine, as long as what he wanted to do could be perfectly completed.
Li Nuowei felt he was facing some difficulties now; although Death Reincarnation was a powerful ability to defy fate and change destiny, it did have certain limitations, and that limitation was himself—he was just a human, a human with limited energy; within limited energy, his cognition, knowledge, and skills all had saturation and limits.
Therefore, Li Nuowei felt he indeed needed some help; relying solely on the Death Reincarnation ability wasn’t enough; he needed something else that could help him perfectly resolve the Liuhua Port anomaly event.
“Boss, I know you’re certainly a person with great abilities; in your opinion, given my current situation, what would be best for me to get?” Li Nuowei thought for a moment and threw the question to the other, leaving it to the professional to answer.
Hearing this, Lin Ling looked Li Nuowei up and down; his scrutiny made Li Nuowei nervous, standing awkwardly in place with his neck stiff, like being punished by a cold and ruthless instructor to stand at attention.
Lin Ling smiled and said, “Personally, I think you might need this thing.”
As he spoke, he extended a hand toward Li Nuowei, opening his closed fist to reveal a pink spherical candy in his palm.
“Candy?” Li Nuowei looked at the other in confusion; last time the other sold him a story, this time directly giving him a candy.
“Yeah, strawberry flavor, should taste pretty good.” Lin Ling said with a smile, then placed the candy in Li Nuowei’s hand.
Li Nuowei took it in some panic, holding it carefully, afraid of dropping it.
“Not eating?” Lin Ling asked with a smile.
“What will happen if I eat it?” Li Nuowei swallowed secretly.
Lin Ling looked at him puzzled: “You’ll just eat a candy.”
“This is really just a candy?” Li Nuowei asked in surprise and doubt.
Lin Ling smiled faintly, “If you don’t like strawberry, there’s also a blueberry one; do you want it?”
As he spoke, he took out another candy of the same shape but deep blue in color.
Only one update today… Sigh, got pissed off by the dumb leader who changes orders morning to evening; yesterday said due to the pandemic we’d do scheduling, alternating office and work-from-home, estimated one week; good grief, I’m the resentful one sitting in the office today; scheduling just started day one, and the leader says tomorrow everyone back to normal office… Yet to slack off at home the next two days, I busied a lot today, even made schedule arrangements for my colleague covering my shift, and now one sentence from the leader negated it all.
