Hotel room.
Huai Xu appeared out of thin air and imdiately lay down, scratching his neck and saying, "I think I need to find a way to get a suitable ID card, so I can check into hotels properly too!"
"That's my bed."
"Huh?"
"Yours is that one."
"Aren't they both the sa? You haven't put anything on it either."
"I want to sleep by the window."
"So troubleso..."
Huai Xu got up, moved aside, and then asked, "What do you think?"
"Unreliable."
"Why?"
"It's hard to find a suitable one. Staying in a hotel isn't just about having an ID card; they also need to run checks and verify it," Zhou Li patiently explained. "So, not only do you need to get an ID card, but it also can't belong to soone who died unexpectedly—you can't use theirs. You also have to transform into the original owner's appearance. And knowing your personality, you'd insist on finding an ID of soone good-looking. If you steal one, the owner will quickly report it missing and get a replacent, and then the one you have will beco useless."
"So much trouble..."
Lying down, Huai Xu let out a long groan.
Tuanzi jumped next to him, leaned in, and said, "Lord Dumpling can do it too!"
Huai Xu sat up, rolled his eyes, then cupped his face in his hands, looking bored as he watched Zhou Li take things out of his suitcase, waiting for him to finish unpacking so they could go out for beef noodles and mutton skewers.
"You even brought pajamas!?"
"Yes."
"And a bath towel too?"
"Yes."
"Isn't one towel enough, or what?"
"None of your business."
"Really ticulous..." Huai Xu shook his head but continued watching. "You even brought toilet paper? They clearly have it here."
"Stop looking."
"I'll look if I want! What's that now?"
"Wet wipes."
"Yuck, humans are disgusting. You might as well beco a demon."
"..."
Zhou Li straightened up, let out a long breath, then took a photo and sent it to Aunt Jiang and Brother Nan, reporting his safety and location. He then rubbed his hands and said, "Shall we head out?"
Huai Xu imdiately stood up and followed behind him.
The temperature in Lanzhou was lower than in Yan City. In Yan City, the dayti temperature hovered just above freezing, occasionally dipping just below, whereas Lanzhou's lowest daily temperature had already dropped to more than ten degrees below zero.
Zhou Li glanced at the ultralight down jacket he was wearing, then turned to look at Huai Xu. He was also wearing a thick down jacket, bundled up so thickly that he sohow looked a bit cute. And why was there a rabbit pattern on the left chest of this down jacket? Was it an enlarged version of children's clothing? In any case, they probably wouldn't attract strange gazes when they went out.
"Have you been to Jin City before?"
"I ordered beef skewers for you once, rember?"
"I ant before that."
"Of course. Jin City wasn't as big then as it is now, but it was still quite significant. Back then, there weren't many decent cities in this whole region," Huai Xu paused. "But I can't rember the details anymore. These mories aren't that important. Generally, I only have a vague impression that I've definitely been here before. The specific images are all gone."
"Not that important, huh?"
"Probably, I guess, most likely," Huai Xu said. "But actually, I don't know. Even if they're not important, having a blank spot in your mind is still uncomfortable."
"Oh."
Zhou Li couldn't imagine that feeling.
The recovery of Huai Xu's mories was not only slow but also haphazard.
For most demons who awoke, mory recovery followed a pattern. Vivid mories often resurfaced first, while trivial matters ca later or might even be forgotten completely. Regarding a major event, they would first recall the event itself, then gradually fill in the details. Other demons recovered mories chronologically, usually from the recent to the distant past.
Huai Xu was sowhat different; the things he rembered often lacked connection to what ca before or after, baffling even himself.
"Let's wander around."
Zhou Li walked out of the hotel, holding Tuanzi.
In Lanzhou, there were shared electric bikes, which was quite convenient. Although it was cold to ride in winter, he wasn't bothered by the cold.
Lord Dumpling wasn't bothered either.
Finding a beef noodle restaurant with good online reviews, he ordered a set al that included skewered lamb. Zhou Li, looking at his phone, said, "Brother Nan ntioned there's a barbecue restaurant here called Younusi Restaurant. She craved it badly when watching 'Life on a Skewer' and asked you to teleport a bunch to her."
"Oh, when?"
"Let's go eat there tomorrow. After eating, we'll wander around... This plan is so aimless."
"How is it aimless? Don't we know the na of the place?"
"Your plan to revisit old places, Jin City Station."
"Oh, oh." Huai Xu thought for a mont and said, "I'll try to think hard tonight. Maybe I'll dream about it now that I'm here."
"Our number's been called."
The two went to get their noodles.
The set al included two bowls of noodles and ten skewers of lamb, along with marinated eggs and three side dishes, costing seventy yuan. Actually, the value for money wasn't great, but considering it was a trendy spot, it wasn't too bad.
After they ate, Huai Xu stood at the entrance of the restaurant, looking up at the neon-lit city spread out before him, a hint of confusion in his eyes.
He believed he had been to this place before. Of course, it was also possible that the small Jin City of that era didn't overlap with where he was standing now, or perhaps not even with the current Lanzhou City at all. History had long since buried many traces; many cities from that ti were now underground, making them impossible for even him to investigate.
But what he had seen back then was definitely not these modern skyscrapers.
Images seed to flash before his eyes—dilapidated, earth-yellow city walls. But these images were disconnected, floating free without other mories to link them, which made him very uncomfortable.
Besides, the noodles earlier hadn't been filling.
Just then, Zhou Li's voice sounded beside him: "Actually, human mory fades quickly, apart from particularly profound ones. It's possible the brain cells that stored those mories have already died. I rember when I was little, the village where my grandpa lived had only dirt roads. They were winding and lined with many trees and bamboo thickets that obscured the view. Later, they paved the roads with concrete and cleared away the grass and trees, making everything much brighter. So when I went back and saw that concrete road, I could no longer recall what the original dirt road looked like at all. I tried hard to rember, but I couldn't. I tried to compare them, to link them in my mind, but that didn't work either. In fact, the more I tried to compare, the more the image of the current concrete road dominated my thoughts, which was quite distressing."
"Oh, oh."
Huai Xu's eyes regained their clarity, and the images that had troubled him faded away. After a mont, he asked, "Did you finally rember it?"
"No."
"That's a pity."
"There are so things ti can't easily change." Zhou Li thought for a mont. "I think we could visit so rugged, easily defensible places that would have been ideal military strongholds—like mountain passes or the mouths of valleys. You must have been to places like that."
"That's not necessarily true. I wasn't an ordinary foot soldier. I was part of the Heavenly Master Troops, specializing in suppressing demons—and we were the best fighters. The kinds of places you're talking about were irrelevant to us."
"Oh."
The faint lead he thought he had vanished.
Zhou Li continued to think, then shook his head and said, "Then we'll just have to explore around Lanzhou. If you can't rember anything, we'll give up on Lanzhou and head straight for the Hexi Corridor. The current roads in the Hexi Corridor, be they expressways or national highways, probably aren't too different in alignnt from the ancient routes. You must have traveled them."
"Naturally."
"We'll try to stick to the national highways."
"Alright!"
Standing here, we're attracting too much attention from so female oglers, Zhou Li thought, then stepped down the stairs. "Then let's... go check out a supermarket. Exploring the largest local supermarket in an unfamiliar city is quite interesting. I'll search for one."
"That sounds familiar."
"Brother Nan said it."
"Tsk, tsk..."
"Oh, I just rembered! Lanzhou has a museum," Zhou Li said. "And it's said to be a particularly worthwhile one, preserving many ancient artifacts, especially those related to the Silk Road and the Western Regions. Want to go check it out now? I wonder if it's still open."
"Let's go there tomorrow. For now, let's head to the supermarket."
"Okay."
Zhou Li scanned another electric bike. When he turned around, Huai Xu was gone. After looking left and right, he spotted him in a queue at the stall next door, buying spicy lamb trotters. Well, at least he knows how to queue now.
Such a carefree old monster.
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