32. Crimson Chambers Part 6

The night had been a restless one for Yu Han. He had spent it entirely thinking about the stranger and his resemblance to Kurou, the famous food vlogger. It was dawn time and the sun was rising above the horizon, gradually illuminating the dark alleys and then the dark hearts of the evil people who choose to lurk at night.

The room was filled with a bright light which was uncomfortable to the shut eyes. Naturally, Yu Han and Bo Jian both woke up with a deep sigh.

"Who kept the blinds open?" Bo Jian mumbled in a sleepy state. "Go shut them right now!" He commanded to Yu Han.

"You do it yourself if you want to." Yu Han replied.

"Fine! You know what? I should do it myself!" Bo Jian yelled and staggered towards the window, pulling down the bamboo blinds and blocking out the sunlight. Yu Han collapsed back on his bed, falling asleep almost immediately.

"Oh rice noodle pho, I missed you so much." He muttered under his breath.

But before he could be lost in his beautiful world of dreams, a cold splash of water brought him back to reality.

"Gege! What are you doing?!" He yelled in a loud voice.

"Trying to splash you with a dash of reality. See what I did there?" His lips curved upwards into a sly smile.

"Yeah. Definitely. Your jokes are the best. Now can I go back to sleep?" He drawled.

"I don't think that wish of yours can be fulfilled. Now go downstairs and clean the place. We are probably going to have some visitors today."

"Which stupid visitors now? We already had a visitor from the Public Health department who gave us a notice for evacuation." He replied with a sharp underlying tone of sarcasm.

"This time it is your responsibility to make our restaurant stand out."

"Okay, fine. I will go downstairs now."

Yu Han got up from his bed and headed straight to the washroom. He walked up to the mirror above the ceramic sink at looked at himself, trying to wake up from his deep sleep. He looked at himself intently as he proceeded to pull back his wet hair and expose his fair, broad forehead, dripping with the residual water. His deep brown eyes were fixated on his mirror image, admiring every inch of it.

"You idiot! Stop admiring yourself and go do some work!" Bo Jian banged on the wooden bathroom door.

As a quick reflex, Yu Han hurriedly got dressed up and rushed downstairs, only to be greeted by a terrible surprise. The entire room was covered in a thick layer of moist mud. The tables, chairs and even the workstation could not escape from the doom of the dust. He looked back towards the stairs where he saw Bo Jian standing with a smile plastered on his face. He had a bucket full of water in his right hand and a sponge in his left one.

"You are cleaning all this bro." He descended the stairs and handed him the equipment.

"What? There is no way in hell I am cleaning that." Yu Han moved a step backwards.

"It's the old man's mistake," He pointed towards the closed door near the entrance. "He kept the doors open at night and there was a storm last night, so it kind of explains why this happened."

"He will not like it if you don't clean this place." Bo Jian indicated, almost as if trying to ignite a spark of terror in the atmosphere.

For some reason, there was a drastic change of emotions on Yu Han's face. It was similar to a spectrum of expressions ranging from non-evident to extremely abnormal. Someone had struck his broken chord, and the damage was indeed beyond repair.

He silently grabbed the bucket and headed towards the tables, which seemed the dirtiest ones out of everything. Grabbing the sponge in one hand, he splashed the table with the soap water mixture and proceeded to rub the thick layer of mud off it.

'This old man deserves to die!'

After a rigorous cleaning task of fifteen minutes, the fruits of his labour were yielded. The furniture was spic and span with no traces of dust whatsoever. He moved on to the windows and the glass doors, which were now almost opaque due to the dust accumulated on it. Yu Han picked up the wet sponge and began to drag down the dust, exposing the transparent surface of the glass. He was so engrossed in his work that at a point, he felt the glass was life-like. It was as smooth and supple as a baby's cheek.

'What is wrong with the glass?'

Yu Han immediately shot a glance at the glass and could not turn his eyes away. In front of him, stood not a glass window but a 180-centimetre tall human. He had beautiful hazel eyes and a cap covering his hair.

"Nan nande ittai?! (What the hell?!)" The stranger yelled in Japanese, snapping Yu Han's attention.

"I am sorry sir!" Yu Han began to panic. He picked up a piece of rag from one of the tables and began to rub the lather off the stranger's face while his hands continued to tremble. A faint sound of laughter could be heard in the background. Yu Han turned back to see who it was. It was Bo Jian standing near the staircase. He could not seem to control his laughter.

"Look at what mess you have created!" He pointed towards the stranger's face.

Yu Han turned back towards the stranger and his mouth was a loss of words. "Oh my god!" He exclaimed.