Spirit Hotel

Translated by Rook of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

If they could hide on the first day, they couldn"t hide for the next fifteen days. Feeling solemn and tragic, Feisha went downstairs to eat the delicious dishes Antonio had prepared. Although before coming down he had mentally prepared, he was still shocked when he saw that the big table in the dining hall was filled to the brim with food.

"You"re sure this isn"t for holding a PARTY?" (1)

Antonio, standing beside the table in a chef"s outfit, "It"s just for you."

Feisha said, "Then it should be a year"s portion right?"

Antonio pulled out the chair, "Sit down, eat."

Feisha helplessly sat down. No matter what, this was still a show of Antonio"s good intentions.

Only when Antonio saw that he was eating did he walk to the kitchen, satisfied, "Remember, don"t leave leftovers."

Feisha immediately began eating slowly.

"Also," Antonio said with a foot in the kitchen, "Welcome back."

Feisha looked at the full table. Although his stomach hadn"t been filled, his heart was full already.

※※※

After eating a tenth of the dishes, Feisha began to just chew without swallowing.

"Isn"t this tiring?" Hughes slowly walked in from the entrance.

Feisha swallowed the food in his mouth and with great difficulty managed to get the words out, "Can"t you tell, I"ve waited till the flowers have withered?"

Hughes lost his smile and said, "It"s not that serious."

"Let"s not talk about other things, sit down and eat with me." Feisha tore off a drumstick from the turkey and pushed it into his hand.

Hughes looked at the drumstick and laughed, "This is enough to last me a whole night."

"Don"t, this turkey is not lame, it has two legs." Feisha pointed at the other leg on the plate.

Hughes sat down and began nibbling at the turkey leg.

"Oh yes. Has Baal been caught?" Feisha wiped his mouth, taking a rest at the intermission.

"No. He disappeared." Hughes said.

"Mm, the author is probably saving him for the Savior."

Hughes was puzzled, "What?"

"Isn"t that what happens in many novels and manga? Once he enters the story, he faces trouble when he meets a demon lord whom people have chased and tried to kill a few hundred times. And then he waits for the Savior to overcome all difficulties, killing the lackeys while elevating his own strength. After that, he shows his face, uses his body to praise the Lord for all of time!" (2)

Hughes asked, "Where is the Savior?"

Feisha stroked his chin and replied, "If it"s a manga, then he"ll definitely be in j.a.pan. If it"s a novel, then the scope becomes much bigger, it depends on where the author is from."

Hughes, "….."

※※※

When Hughes could also eat no more, Gin appeared with Layton and Victor.

Feisha said in a small voice  "I made a bet, Gin would definitely be hiding in the corner and appear right when the moment is right."

Layton said, "I"ll add my bet."

Gin looked at Hughes, who was smiling, and laughed dryly, "I just didn"t want to come here and fight over the dishes with you."

The three people sat down one after another. After some rest and reorganization, Feisha finally recovered some strength and began to eat again. Hughes helped Gin peel prawns and Gin was perfectly content as he ate. Victor and Layton ate very unrestrainedly.

"Oh yes, where is Shamal?" Feisha stuffed a piece of salmon into his mouth.

"Probably in his room." Hughes replied.

Feisha asked  "How did he come back?"

Hughes answered, "Locktini brought him back. I don"t know the details, but it seems that Jesse finally agreed to let him go."

"What were the conditions?" No matter how he looked at it, Jesse wasn"t easy to deal with.

"None." Hughes paused and added, "It might be because of pressure from the faerie clan."

Gin continued, "Right now, Genesis is in a lot of turmoil over the question of the successor to the throne. Especially after Jesse formally declared that he would be withdrawing from the elections."

"That doesn"t make sense." Feisha muttered, "Unless, during that period that Shamal was held prisoner, something deeply moving happened?"

Gin lowered his head and caught with his mouth the prawn that Hughes had in his hand and took the chance to kiss his fingers, replying slowly, "If you have an answer, remember to tell me."

Feisha stared at him resentfully, "Shamal has been back for so long but you haven"t gotten any news from him?"

Gin replied very candidly, "None at all."

Feisha said, "I am officially stripping you of the t.i.tle of a.s.sistant group leader of the Gossip Alliance."

(T/n: Feisha first mentions this in ch68)

Gin asked sincerely  "When was I appointed to this post?"

"Just now."

"…..For how long?"

Feisha held up one finger.

"One minute?" That could still be considered long.

Feisha"s finger wagged.

"One second?"

Feisha"s wagged again.

Gin"s brow wrinkled: "You"re not gonna tell me an hour or a day, right?" No matter how he looked at it, Feisha wasn"t such a generous person.

"It"s one tenth of a second." Feisha said, "One finger out of ten fingers is one tenth."

Gin said leisurely, "I suppose I should be grateful you didn"t pluck a hair for me to guess?"

Feisha replied  "Do you think I"d mutilate myself for your sake?"

Gin, "….."

※※※

Although Victor and Layton"s battle prowess were frightening, their appet.i.tes were inadequate and they quickly gave up. Although Gin lasted quite long, his ability to clear the dishes was limited. Feisha began to fret as he looked at the table, still half covered with food.

No matter how tasty food was, when one"s stomach was so full it was about to explode, it would still become vipers and beasts.

Hughes said sympathetically, "If you can"t finish it, just leave it."

Feisha put down his chopsticks, "But Antonio…"

Before he finished his sentence, the food on the table suddenly disappeared into thin air.

Feisha 囧 and said, "Did a shooting star shoot past the window just now? Is that why my dreams came true immediately?"

Gin said, "I guarantee, Isefel doesn"t want to be a shooting star."

In Feisha"s heart he said silently, Isefel, I have sinned, I repent. I shouldn"t have blamed you for being disloyal, lacking a conscience, having no morals…

Victor asked curiously, "Why is he closing his eyes?"

Gin said, "He must be repenting."

"Why?"

Gin said, "Because in this world, there"s something called unspoken criticism."

※※※

After dealing with the problem of the huge meal that they had to eat, Feisha felt much more relaxed. He decided to strike while the iron is hot and have a good talk with Shamal. Other than gossip, one could say that he had been through something similar.

When he arrived at Shamal"s door, he discovered that the door was not actually closed. Pushing the door open showed Shamal, sitting on the floor and staring blankly into s.p.a.ce.

"Who is the person you like the most?" Feisha asked abruptly.

Shamal came to his senses, looked at him, "Either way, it"s not you."

"Not fun at all." Feisha disappointedly said, "Didn"t they say that when someone is caught off guard, he would give the most truthful answer from the bottom of his heart?"

Shamal replied, "My answer was very truthful."

Feisha walked to his side and squatted down, "Do you feel that you"ve changed?"

Shamal lifted his head, a sliver of desolation appearing on his fair face, "Have I?"

"Yes. Just like how Sun Wukong suddenly became Tang Seng, Li Kui suddenly became Song Jiang, Princess Huanzhu suddenly becoming Ziwei, Tsukasa Domoyoji suddenly becoming Rui Hanazawa…." Feisha saw that he had no reaction at all, "Have you heard of this?" (3)

Shamal shook his head vacantly.

"Mm, then let"s talk about something realistic. It"s like Gin suddenly becoming Layton."

"Then what about Hughes?"

Feisha discovered that Shamal"s biggest change wasn"t his newfound silence but his newfound denseness.

"Were you alright in Genesis?" Feisha abandoned all pretenses of civilities and roundabout questions, heading straight for the biggest question.

Shamal"s face tightened and it took him a long time before he slowly shook his head, "I was fine."

"Jesse… didn"t do anything to you, right?" Feisha decided to get to the point.

Shamal lowered his head, "He didn"t."

"Really?" Feisha deliberately spoke more severely, turning his body to block the light from the corridor while he was at it, enveloping Shamal in his own shadow in order to appear more intimidating.

Shamal"s lowered head sunk even lower. "Yeah."

Feisha did his best to soften his voice, "Then what are you worried about?"

Shamal was silent.

Feisha"s eyes darted around and he aimed for the jugular, "You miss Jesse?"

Shamal"s body shook slightly, hand slowly curling into a fist.

Feisha knew he was one kick away from sending the ball into the goalpost. Without hesitating, he aimed another kick, "You fell in love with him."

Shamal desperately gritted his teeth, refusing to make a noise.

Feisha knew that sometimes, when you pressured someone too much, it would cause an adverse reaction. Either way, he had roughly achieved today"s goal so he stood up satisfiedly, "Go find him, then." Since he"d said this, the rest was up to Shamal. When it came to matters of the heart, it was most important that one could figure things out, or else no matter how much those watching by the side wanted to help, it would be in vain. He was a living example.

※※※

Because he had been through all sorts of difficulties and hardships before he and Isefel were reunited, Feisha cherished his feelings all the more. But because his b.u.t.t was still recovering, although his feelings for Isefel had boiled over until people began to notice, the two of them were still rather chaste, just holding hands, hugging each other"s waists. And all this was initiated by a shameless Feisha.

Feisha quickly noticed that with Isefel"s personality, he would never have a rival in love. The only rival was the book after book that appeared in Isefel"s hands. To fight the books, Feisha swiftly threw himself into games, playing day and night.

Quickly, Gin and Layton, the two backbones of the Gossip Alliance, became infected by his pa.s.sion, each person forcefully occupying a computer that he"d prepared for watching movies.

Thus, in Isefel"s room, it was common to hear things like —

"I"ve met Aunt Ah Tu, what answer should I pick?"

"I like her the most."

"…..This game must be made by idiots. Chu Liuxiang can actually like Aunt Ah Tu."

"Because confessing to Zhang Jiejie is too boring."

"Doesn"t Chu Liuxiang like A Little Red in the Central Plains the most?"

"I think it"s Hu Tie Hua." Layton, who had suddenly appeared, said. (4)

Flip, the sound of a page being flipped.

"Ah, I died again! I"m going to suck all the blood from this bandit…"

"Gin. This is the first time I feel that you"re a vampire even though you haven"t showed your teeth."

"It"s the great blood clan." Of this, Gin was very certain.

"But these bandits are only a bunch of numbers, so…" Feisha shouted, "Stop hitting my computer and stop looking like you want to bite the computer."

Flip, the sound of a page being flipped again.

—–

T/n:

(1) PARTY is in all caps

(2) I"m actually unsure how to translate this. The original sentence is: 用自己身躯成全救世主万世不朽的名声！which means something like: using his own body to grant the Savior an immortal name for all ages!

(3) There are a lot of references here. Sun Wukong and Tang Seng are from the novel Journey to the West Li Kui and Song Jiang are from the novel Water Margin Princess Huanzhu and Ziwei are from the show My Fair Princess and Tsukasa Domoyoji and Rui Hanazawa are from Hana Yori Dango/Boys Over Flowers/Meteor Garden

(4) All the names of the characters are actually t.i.tles of Chinese novels