Chapter 19 - The Prophecy (1/2)
Chapter 19: The Prophecy
Translated by Shiya of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
The proposal Lu Shang made wasn’t a haunted house, but a theme park with horror as the main theme. The areas near the ocean would be constructed as the leisure area, hotels and restaurants would be built there. While the entertainment area, which will be located farther away from the sea, would consist mainly of attractions for fun. He decided on a “minimalist” design, keeping most of the original landscapes. There was even a portion of the land where they would keep as is. The part he decided to keep was where the waves broke the surrounding walls of the construction site ten years ago. The tattered ground and the broken bricks would serve the theme well, plus, it would save them construction costs.
Mere infrastructure wasn’t enough, Lu Shang also prepared a separate proposal. He planned on hiring a well-known internet novel writer to create a ghost story surrounding the shore. At the same time, their internet team would increase the hype around the author’s account, so that their theme park would have a backstory for advertising.
With the novel’s existence, the authenticity of all the ghost stories would actually plummet, people would think of it as a simple tale. All the ominous rumors about this plot of land would turn into a means of advertising, Lu Shang had truly considered this thoroughly.
“But why emphasize on ‘internet’ authors?”
“Youngsters are the main audience in these ghostly topics, they also tend to go on the internet more than bookstores.”
Li Sui nodded his head without fully comprehending.
Lu Shang sent the initial proposal to Liu XingMing, asking for a feasibility report. When Lu Shang had finished all his work and came to, it was already late at night. A nice aroma of food drifted out from the kitchen, that was when Lu Shang realized that he was a little hungry. “What are you making?”
“Pigeon soup.” Li Sui turned the stove off and opened the stone pot lid. A rich fragrance of meat and soup filled the kitchen, Li Sui skimmed the layer of oil atop away, and spooned out the soup into a bowl. He handed the bowl to Lu Shang, “Have a taste.”
The soup was clear and had the color of caramel, there weren’t any remnants of meat floating on the soup surface, clearly, they had been filtered away carefully beforehand. There was a scarce amount of oil in the soup, white steamed rolled out continuously. Lu Shang took a tiny sip, the scent that spread across his lips and tongue were fresh and mild, the soup had little salt, making the scent especially clean. There weren’t any numbing spices and all the ingredients’ original taste could be felt from the soup. The fragrance of Chinese mushroom added to the sweetness of the red jujubes; the taste seeped into the softness of the tender slices of pigeon meat. It was an amazing ensemble of culinary sensations. Amongst the different taste, Lu Shang could sense an odd flavor in the sweetness. He couldn’t make sense of the strange taste, but it was a little bitter, like Chinese medicine.
Lu Shang knew this soup was different from what he usually had, “You put medicine in here?”
“Hmn. I asked the caretakers; they are all medicinal herbs that you can eat.” Li Sui was afraid that Lu Shang would worry, so he added, “I only added a little.”
Lu Shang lowered his head and drank all the soup down.
Li Sui fidgeted, “Does it taste alright?”
“Umm. It tastes great.” Lu Shang handed the empty bowl to Li Sui, indicating that he wanted seconds.
It was as if Li Sui was extremely satisfied, he wore a bright smile, even his eyes were smiling. His eyes were big, distinct wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes when he smiled. The overhead lights in the kitchen shone on Li Sui’s eyes, making them glimmer. His eyes exemplified the name Li Sui well, deep but bright eyes.
Lu Shang averted his gaze, then he remembered something. He extended his hand to pinch Li Sui’s arm a bit, “Has the wound from before healed yet?”
“They’ve healed already a long time ago. All’s that left is a tiny scar, once summer comes, you won’t even see it.” After saying that, Li Sui nonchalantly flexed his arm, exhibiting his bicep muscle.
Li Sui really had grown up, Lu Shang still remembered when he first brought Li Sui home, he was so thin and scrawny like an African refugee. In the blink of an eye, he had already grown into an adult. It was as if this kid had held back for the past ten years, once he entered a better environment, he was like a foreign invading plant, immediately sucking up all the nutrients he could get, and did all the growing he missed out in the past ten years.
Lu Shang suddenly found that he could comprehend Leung ZiRui’s worry.
After the proposal was sent, Liu XingMing called excitedly, saying his praises first, then vaguely hurried Lu Shang for the funds. Lu Shang asked him not to worry about the funds and let him do the rest.
When the proposal went to the board members, they bickered for a period of time again and finally they gave an affirmative reply. This proposal was the most reasonable proposal to begin with, no one wanted to be responsible for this project either, so having Lu Shang to deal with this worked best for them. However, each of the board members represented a big shareholder of the company, so they must dish out something to show their worth, each of them made a lot of pointless suggestions. In Lu Shang’s eyes, all the comments were reasonable but nothing more and nothing less, so he ignored them and let Liu XingMing handle it. As the weather in recent days was great, Lu Shang brought Li Sui out to play instead. They visited all the tourist attractions on the island.
Li Sui noticed that Lu Shang seemed to be great at enjoying life. He was serious at work, but, apart from that, he wouldn’t let anything else worry him; he treated everything else the same. Later that day, he caught a glimpse of Lu Shang changing on the beach, seeing the vague scars, he was reminded of the reason behind that.
Li Sui had never seen Lu Shang’s naked body under the sun before. Under the bright sunlight, Li Sui could make out the small scars on his body; they were surgical scars. There were deeper scars and there were shallow ones, as if they were trying to express how much hardships the owner had been through. Li Sui couldn’t imagine how much Lu Shang must had suffered from his disease to reach his age now.
He remembered asking Leung ZiRui about the seriousness of Lu Shang’s disease, he couldn’t grasp what he meant at the time. Dr. Leung also couldn’t disclose patient information, so he only said, ‘Let me put it like this, if he wasn’t born in the Lu family but an average household, he’d be long dead by now.’
If a person had to walk at the rim of death for years, and his life was at threat every single second, even if it wasn’t Lu Shang but someone else, no matter what their personalities were, it would be hard for that person to care for anything.
“What are you thinking?” Lu Shang threw a beach volleyball at Li Sui’s face.
Li Sui snapped back from his thoughts, and caught the ball firmly, placing it beside his feet. He said, “I’m thinking, when will we go back home?”
“Homesick?”
“Hmn. I haven’t seen Uncle Yuen and Aunt Lu for such a long time already.”
Lu Shang sat beside him and grabbed a bottle of soda, “Then we can go back tomorrow.”
“Is your work here done already?”
“This isn’t something that could be finished so soon. For the construction work to be completed, it will take at least three to four years.”
“Then, let’s go back. I want to learn how to cook more dishes from Aunt Lu.”
Lu Shang laughed, “She probably won’t let you learn more.”
The setting sun soaked the sky red, reflecting onto the surface of the sea, it was sparkling as if a layer of gold flakes were floating.
“You’ve helped with this proposal too, what reward do you want when we get back?” Lu Shang asked.
Li Sui turned his head to see Lu Shang’s black hair, lights of gold reflected off the soft strands, a thin halo of light framed his face. He looked like a buddha statue made of gold, someone capable of anything. At that moment, as if he was encouraged by the holy light, his vocal cords clenched, and he said seriously, “I could ask for anything?”
“In my capabilities.” Lu Shang giggled, “If you want me to fetch you a magic lamp from the sea right now, then I can’t help you.”
“I really do want a magic lamp.” Li Sui stared at the sea, “Then I can make a wish so that your disease will heal.”
Lu Shang raised his head at this statement, their gazes met unintentionally. In that one second, it was as if their hearts had connected, Lu Shang had an intuition that Li Sui was about to say something important.
“Hey. Be careful——” Someone screamed from afar.
A shadow flashed by; a volleyball flew right pass their faces.
“Sourry……” The person walked over to pick the ball up, speaking weird Mandarin (i).