Where to go was indeed a problem.
Ever since she was on the way back from escorting Qiqi to Bubu Pharmacy just now, Fang Qiu had been thinking about what kind of place would be suitable for singing.
Moreover, it couldn't be heard by others.
This wasn't even a matter of shyness anymore, but a matter of disturbing the peace.
It was late at night; everyone needed to sleep and go to work tomorrow. No matter how well one sang, others would only treat it as noise.
When she was typing away in her previous life, there was a young lady living upstairs who practiced singing in the middle of the night every day.
She actually sang quite well.
Often, while Fang Qiu was half-asleep, a passionate rendition of the "Nuclear Explosion Divine Song" would jolt her straight out of her drowsiness.
Fang Qiu used to write during the day, but she was forcibly compelled by that neighbor to write at night and sleep during the day.
After this continued for a period, someone finally contacted property management, saying that the young lady was bellowing too loudly and requesting her not to disturb the residents.
Thus...
That young lady changed her singing time to the daytime.
On the day that young lady changed her schedule, Fang Qiu had just finished pulling an all-nighter writing. She had just eaten breakfast, taken a bath, and laid down with satisfaction to sleep, when the passionate "Nuclear Explosion Divine Song" rang out.
She could still remember her despair at that moment.
Ever since then, her sleep schedule had been completely messed up.
"Then... come with me to a quiet place," Ganyu said with a faint smile.
"Mhm."
Fang Qiu nodded.
Fang Qiu followed by Ganyu's side the whole way. At first, Fang Qiu was quite calm, merely feeling that singing later might be a bit awkward.
However, when they passed by a teahouse, they ran into a secretary from Yuehai Pavilion, and Ganyu stopped to chat with them for a while.
During this time, out of sheer boredom, Fang Qiu cast her gaze toward the teahouse. The storyteller inside was currently narrating the final session of the day.
Quite a few people had come to listen to this final session, and many of them were young men and women.
Men and women sat together in the dim lighting.
Fang Qiu pricked up her ears to listen. The storyteller, speaking in a low, deep tone, was just beginning.
The story took place one night. A little girl was lying in bed, having turned off the lights to sleep.
Suddenly, she heard her mother let out a pained scream from downstairs. Terrified, she hurriedly hid under the bed. Then, the little girl heard a thump, thump, thump, thump—the sound of something striking the stairs.
"Guess what that thumping sound was?"
Speaking up to this point, a bizarre smile curled upon the storyteller's face, causing the breath of everyone present to hitch.
Seeing that the atmosphere had been built up sufficiently, the storyteller continued speaking with a wicked air.
"That's right. That thumping sound was the sound of the little girl's mother's head colliding with the stairs as her corpse was dragged up by the murderer."
Immediately after, the door was opened.
The girl was terrified out of her wits, because when she peered out from under the bed, she locked eyes with her blood-covered mother who was being dragged by the murderer.
Before the crowd could recover from the narration, a rhythmic series of thumping sounds rang out.
"Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!"
Just as the storyteller described, it sounded like a human head striking against wooden planks.
The expressions of everyone present changed dramatically. Quite a few young girls were so scared they hugged the men beside them.
It had to be said, the storyteller's control over rhythm and horror atmosphere was very strong. Especially after the storytelling ended, his subordinates coordinated with his voice to simulate the thump thump thump sound of a head hitting wood.
Even a modern-era youth like Fang Qiu felt her heart go fuzzy and her spine turn cold upon hearing it.
If she heard the sound of anything hitting wooden planks when she slept tonight, she was destined for a sleepless night.
Truly frustrating...
Why did she have to challenge her own weakness? She knew halfway through that it was a horror story, yet she dared to keep listening...
Perhaps this was the so-called 'being a total scrub but addicted to playing'.
At this moment, Ganyu finished her conversation with her junior.
"Miss Fang Qiu, I apologize for making you wait so long," Ganyu said softly.
"It's nothing. Let's go."
Fang Qiu exhaled gently and spoke.
"Mhm."
Ganyu nodded, leading Fang Qiu toward their destination. The further they walked, the more panicked Fang Qiu felt.
It was getting more and more remote.
The surrounding lights had become increasingly dim. Although she could see the road ahead clearly under the illumination of the moonlight and stars, some of the alleyways looked extremely dangerous.
Pitch black.
So dark one couldn't see their own fingers.
It felt as if a hand would reach out from the darkness at any time and pull one into that endless abyss.
Or perhaps a murderer dragging a corpse was hiding in the pitch-black alley, staring at their backs...
Even though she was following closely beside Ganyu, Fang Qiu felt her body turn slightly cold and her spine chill.
At this moment, Fang Qiu couldn't help but feel a bit of regret.
If she had known, she wouldn't have cared about disturbing the peace. It was just the duration of one song anyway; if it disturbed people, then so be it.
Besides, after taking Ganyu home, she could have introduced her office artifact, the Jumpy Dumpty plushie, to Ganyu.
Then, Ganyu could propose replacing all the office chairs of the Yuehai Pavilion secretaries with Jumpy Dumptys.
The two female secretaries who were going to accompany Ganyu to drink fruit juice at the Mondstadt dessert shop today might have made mistakes in the data while doing reports precisely because of back pain from sitting too long.
If she took Ganyu home, she would be providing a better environment for the secretaries of Yuehai Pavilion, improving work efficiency, and thereby creating better welfare for the people of Liyue.
So what if she disturbed the neighbors a little?
Unfortunately, it was too late for everything.
There was no medicine for regret in this world.
Fang Qiu followed tightly by Ganyu's side, her heart pounding furiously.
Her mind was filled with the thump thump thump sound from that storyteller's mouth just now.
Just as they passed the entrance of an alley, a noise suddenly came from within. Then, a black shadow rushed out of the alley at high speed.
Terrified, Fang Qiu shuddered violently, let out a "Ya!", and hugged Ganyu's arm tightly.
"What's wrong?"
Ganyu looked at Fang Qiu, whose face was pale and who was clearly badly frightened, her pretty face full of confusion.
Seeing that what had dashed out was just a stray dog, Fang Qiu finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"No... nothing."
Fang Qiu let go of Ganyu's arm and said somewhat awkwardly, "I was just startled."
As a youth of the new era, to actually be scared like this by a horror story.
Honestly speaking, it was a bit shameful.
But she couldn't be blamed.
Her guts had never been big in her previous life either.
When she was a child, she went to a neighbor sister's house to watch a movie at night. As it turned out, what played was exactly The Ring. After watching it, she was already very afraid, but on the way home, she was even startled by that unscrupulous sister.
Specifically, how was she scared...?
The sister had covered her face with her hair and then made very strange noises to lure her into looking back.
The result was that the moment she looked back, she was so scared she fell right onto her butt on the ground.
And regarding the Teyvat continent... although whenever she asked Hu Tao if there were ghosts, Hu Tao gave a negative answer every time.
However, in a world with gods, Adepti, and zombies, it seemed only normal for there to be ghosts...
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