Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The New Roommate

Digestive System: "Huh?"

The digestive system was clearly stunned by his shout; even its intestinal writhing paused for a beat.

When Lin Jianyuan finished yelling, he startled himself. Heart pounding, he raised a hand and said, "Hang on, sorry... just give me a minute."

He turned into his room, locked the door behind him, and hurriedly snapped a tablet from its blister and popped it into his mouth.

What the hell was that just now? A mouth and throat attached to intestines—a whole digestive tract. How could that be in his apartment... No. It had to be another hallucination.

But this hallucination talked back. Intestines speaking human words felt deeply wrong, but it had definitely spoken with a mouth... Except it was a standalone digestive system! Nope—need water; the pill's stuck in my throat.

Lin Jianyuan gulped the pill down with plain water. It was sweet, melted on his tongue, and gave him the sensation his mind was being rapidly mended.

He instantly felt right as rain. He drew a deep breath and, brimming with confidence, pushed the door open.

Digestive System: "All better?"

The pink entrails were still there!!!

Lin Jianyuan: "..."

He was silent for two seconds, then suddenly remembered he might have gotten a message from the landlord that morning.

He pulled out his phone, made another give-me-a-second gesture, and bent his head to scroll through his chats.

"How interesting." The pink entrails let out a soft laugh. "First time I've met someone like you."

He quickly scrolled to the landlord’s chat, and everything clicked.

The landlord had said someone would be coming to see the place in the next couple of days and told him to tidy up. If the empty room next door didn’t get rented soon, he’d have to raise the rent.

Right—he remembered. The message had come at seven-thirty a.m., when Lin Jianyuan was packed like a sardine on the rush-hour subway.

He heard the WeChat ping and, risking having his phone knocked out of his hand, finally managed to unlock the screen—only to see the landlord telling him to clean up and hinting at a rent hike.

He'd almost hurled his phone right then.

There was no way he could go back to clean; even if he could, he wouldn’t. What a load of shit. The landlord was obviously just looking for an excuse to jack up the rent.

...So the pink entrails in front of him might not be entrails at all.

Maybe it was a person? Was he having another episode, seeing humans as weird things again?

Right. Entrails don’t need to rent a room. People do.

Lin Jianyuan pulled himself together fast, smiled at the pink entrails, and said, "Hi, hi. I wasn’t quite awake just now—sorry about that."

Pink entrails: "?"

The tender intestines undulated slowly, gurgling. The pink entrails said, "Hello?"

Lin Jianyuan: "It’s a good place—amenities are complete, the location’s decent, and the landlord’s actually a decent guy. He even told me this morning to tidy up so you wouldn’t be put off when you came to look. But I’d already left by then, so I didn’t have time—sorry about that."

As he spoke, he toed the shoes he’d left everywhere into the shoe cabinet and briskly gathered up the takeout boxes he’d dumped on the table last night.

While clearing the table he noticed his tablet was still on, a Japanese drama playing on the screen.

No wonder there’d been that “Dinner, a bath, or me?” line... The new roommate had quite the wicked sense of humor, Lin Jianyuan thought.

Lin Jianyuan did his best to be friendly, but the pink entrails said nothing, just gurgled, its intestines working as it quietly “watched” him.

It’s uncanny, really: a digestive system doesn’t come with eyes. It does come with a mouth. When a—well, a digestive system points its mouth at you, your mind fills in the rest; you can’t help but feel it’s watching you.

Right, “he,” probably. From the voice he sounds male, fairly young.

If it were a girl, the moment she heard the roommate was a man she probably wouldn’t come—too unsafe. Unless she brought her boyfriend to move in with her.

“By the way, the room for rent is that one over there. Have you looked at it?” Lin Jianyuan opened the door to the empty room for him.

The guy who’d been sharing the place had quit his job and gone back to his hometown, and the room had been sitting empty for three months.

Honestly, the room isn’t great—a north-facing side bedroom; fine in summer, but damp and clammy come winter. Then again, a digestive tract’s mucosa probably prefers things on the moist side…

No. Damn it—he’s not a digestive system. He’s a person!

Lin Jianyuan worked to act normal; he didn’t want to scare off the guy viewing the place.

The pink offal glided sideways into the room and “looked around.”

“So? What do you think?” Lin Jianyuan asked, full of hope.

The pink offal made a noncommittal “mm,” as if stifling a laugh.

Lin Jianyuan felt a bit awkward. He suspected he’d come on too strong and made himself look suspicious. But he didn’t have the energy to think what to do; he was so… sleepy…

Why the sudden drowsiness? Was it the pill he’d just taken? Oh, right—the doctor did tell him not to drive after taking it, and not to ride a bike…

“Uh, take your time looking. I’ll stop hovering. I think the place is decent—you’re welcome to move in. If you’re done and want to head out, just pull the door closed… I’m a bit tired, gonna grab a nap, haaah…”

His eyelids grew heavier and heavier. He waved at the guy and turned back to his own room.

“Okay!” the pink offal replied, cheerful.

He lay down on the bed and was out the instant his head hit the pillow. His chest rose and fell slowly; his deep, even breathing drifted through the crack under the door into the living room.

Click. The door opened, and the pink offal drifted in at an unhurried pace.

“Why aren’t you afraid of me?” A length of intestine patted Lin Jianyuan’s cheek, soft and wet, leaving damp traces on his face.

“Never mind. If you’re not scared, that’s fine. There are other things to eat.” The digestive system muttered to itself as its mouth stretched wide, unhinging its jaw. Its meat-pink throat opened like a snake feeding—grotesquely wide. Muscles rippled without pause.

Gulp.

It took Lin Jianyuan’s head in a single swallow.

The instant it had the human brain in its mouth, a powerful surge flooded its throat.

Stifled gloom, anger, irritability, anxiety… a mass of negative emotion, thick as honey, slid slowly down its esophagus, warmly filling its stomach. The pleasure of feeding sent a profound, saturating bliss through its nerves.

It swallowed insatiably. It should have snapped that fragile neck in one bite, but as its teeth grazed warm human skin, it changed its mind.

Delicious. So good. It never much liked the taste of fear—so played out it’s gotten dull. This human isn’t afraid of me, and even invited me to live with him…

Wouldn’t that mean I could keep eating?

It was the first time a human had invited it; the sensation was oddly novel.

“Okay…” it mumbled around its mouthful, slowly easing back, inch by inch pushing the man’s head back out.

His face was slick with its saliva—gleaming and wet. The digestive system “looked over” that face with interest, finding the sight of its food with his face smeared in drool irresistibly cute.

No. I still want to eat.

It flicked out the tip of its tongue and licked its own sharp canines. There was no reason to stifle its appetite; cheerfully, it bent down and sank its teeth into the other’s Adam’s apple.

That Adam’s apple had bobbed as it swallowed down so much rage and resentment. It could picture the way it rolled beneath a human throat.

Mmm. Delicious.

The digestive system took its time, sucking at the human’s Adam’s apple, and only after a long while did it climb off, reluctant to stop.

“Burp.”

The pink intestines squirmed and let out a burp.

Burping when you’re full isn’t strange. Burping a rainbow is.

“?” The digestive system froze, staring in surprise at the colored gas dispersing into the air.

After a beat of silence, it decisively snatched up the stomach sac and pried open the cardia.

The stomach, newly crammed with food, bulged full; the roughly forced-open cardia was still slowly writhing.

The gastric mucosa bubbled and bubbled, secreting a dazzling, rainbow-colored gastric juice.

Rainbow-colored!

Why???

It was the first time the digestive system had seen anything like this; it was utterly dumbstruck.

The next day, Lin Jianyuan was jolted awake by his alarm.

“Fuck...” On a rare day off he’d actually forgotten to turn off his alarm. Too irritable to even open his eyes, Lin Jianyuan fumbled around for his phone, brow knotted tight.

His eyelids were sore and heavy, his head woozy. He groped around for ages without finding the phone, so pissed he felt like he’d smash the damned thing the second he got hold of it.

Luckily he finally managed to shut the alarm off. He rolled over and sank back into sleep.

Ding-ding-ding-ding, dong-dong-dong~

Ding-ding-ding-ding, dong-dong-dong~

The WeChat voice-call ringtone started up, yanking Lin Jianyuan back out of his dreams.

He didn’t want to answer, but it kept ringing, making his head throb. There was no way to sleep.

“Fuck!” At last he couldn’t take it and sprang out of bed. Irritated beyond belief, he grabbed his phone and saw the WeChat voice call was from Yang Yu in HR.

HR... what did HR want with him?

Swallowing his temper, Lin Jianyuan answered, “Hello, Yang-jie?”

“Lin Jianyuan, did you forget to clock in?” Yang Yu asked.

His heart sank. He wasn’t fully awake, and for a moment the words didn’t compute, but he already had a bad feeling.

He said, “I’m not going in today, I’m on sick leave. I asked Boss Jiang directly at the meeting yesterday.”

Yang Yu: “Mm, I know you took yesterday off. But Boss Jiang says you only took yesterday afternoon—a half day.”

Lin Jianyuan bristled. “What do you mean? I asked for two days! Everyone heard me!”

Yang Yu was silent a moment, then softened her tone. “Why don’t you... come by anyway? Hand in a formal sick note—the kind stamped by the hospital. Boss Jiang... mm, Boss Jiang wants to see it.”

Heat flared up in Lin Jianyuan. Jiang Chen, that son of a bitch, was screwing with him!

Any sleeping pills in his system burned off in an instant. Fuming, Lin Jianyuan yanked on his clothes and pants, flung open the door, and gave a cold little laugh as he strode out: “Fine. I’ll come to the office right—”

Mid-sentence, Lin Jianyuan froze.

“Morning,” the digestive system said, a smile in its voice.

Question: what does it feel like to wake up first thing and see a talking heap of offal?

Lin Jianyuan’s brain hard-crashed, right up until Yang Yu on the other end of WeChat sensed something was off: “Lin Jianyuan?”

“Ah.” Lin Jianyuan snapped back and muttered, “It’s nothing. I’ll be right in.” He promptly hung up.

Pink Offal was floating serenely by the windowsill. The corner of Lin Jianyuan’s mouth twitched. “Catching some sun?”

“Mm.” Pink Offal was noncommittal.

Lin Jianyuan drew a deep breath and yanked his thoughts into order. This isn’t offal, this isn’t offal, it’s a person… He forced away the afterimage of his hallucination and quickly pieced together what was going on.

“You settled on the place?” Lin Jianyuan asked. “Definitely moving in?”

“Uh-huh.” Pink Offal’s voice held a constant smile.

Lin Jianyuan thought, this guy’s decisive. Probably saw the room yesterday, liked it, and went straight to the landlord last night to sign and pay.

Which worked out—at least his own rent wouldn’t be going up. And the guy looked—no, sounded—friendly; the voice was young, too. Early twenties, maybe.

Lin Jianyuan pulled out his phone. “Let’s add each other on WeChat. I’ve got to head out. Want me to help you move when I’m back? You got a lot of stuff?”

Pink Offal: “I don’t have WeChat.”

Lin Jianyuan: “?” Who doesn’t have WeChat these days?

He froze for a second, then it hit him.

Shit, the guy was turning him down!

Good thing he’d only asked for WeChat. If he’d asked his name, the guy might’ve said, “I don’t have a name.”

Sullen, Lin Jianyuan pocketed his phone. “Fine. Suit yourself.”

He hadn’t expected the new roommate to be like this—he seemed easy enough to get along with, yet the man wouldn’t even add him on WeChat.

A knot rose in his chest, but it was what it was; nothing he could do, and it wasn’t like he got to choose his roommate. He’d just keep contact to a minimum.

Lin Jianyuan took the subway to work. He hadn’t even stepped into the office when he heard Jiang Chen’s snide, sing-song voice.

“Lately we’re tightening up the leave policy. Not my call, okay? That’s HQ…”

A balloon seemed to inflate in his chest, swelling until it might burst. He tamped down his temper, walked up behind Jiang Chen, and said, “Mr. Jiang.”

“Well, well.” Jiang Chen turned, raked him up and down, a smile that didn’t touch his eyes on his face. “Lin Jianyuan. You actually came in to work?”