Chapter 12: The Natives of This World Are So Fierce - The Terror of Bath Time
For the Mischievous Sprite, this house was the only familiar place in this world.
And Qin Xiaoxia, though somewhat hateful, was the only human he knew.
But a voice immediately interrupted his gratitude.
"All right, since I'm letting you stay, let's talk about rent and food expenses."
The Mischievous Sprite instinctively felt that something was wrong.
Just ten minutes later, the Mischievous Sprite already felt as though he were sweating all over.
But it was only a feeling. Normal fourth-level temperature fluctuations had no effect on him, so his skin had no sweat glands.
"Now you understand that in our world, you have to pay to rent someone else's home."
"This is a brand-new, fully furnished place. Normally, nobody would ever rent it out, but you have nowhere else to go, so there's no other option. The price will be a little higher, though."
Qin Xiaoxia shamelessly pointed around his old home, whose renovations were at least ten years old.
"You can ask around. It's hard enough to rent a place these days, never mind when you don't even have an ID. And I have to provide your meals too, so I'll charge a little extra."
Then Qin Xiaoxia rattled off a whole host of reasons and inconveniences involved in taking the sprite in, expounding at length on everything from financial expenses to personal safety.
He even searched online for plenty of rental information to prove he wasn't exaggerating.
Another ten-odd minutes passed.
"All right, enough beating around the bush. I've explained more than enough, so I'll tell you straight: rent will be one gold coin a month. The time you've already spent here will be free, as my hospitality to a guest."
The sprite secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Good, he could afford one gold coin.
"Oh, right. Around here, rental payments require either a one-month deposit and three months' rent in advance, or a full year up front. I can waive the deposit, but you have to pay the three months. Add in compensation for the gold coin I lost making that wish, and you owe me four gold coins altogether. Heh!"
Rubbing his hands, Qin Xiaoxia snatched the three gold coins the Mischievous Sprite had taken out from his stiff little hands.
"You can owe me the last one for now. I'll help you think of a solution."
Once the Wish Magic the Mischievous Sprite claimed to have exhausted recovered, Qin Xiaoxia could have him grant wishes.
He was delighted with himself.
Meanwhile, the Mischievous Sprite stared blankly at his empty little hands, feeling profoundly insecure.
Qin Xiaoxia toyed with the gold coins, but after enjoying his private little celebration, he didn't neglect the sprite.
"Let me give you a new name. What you were called before is too strange and could attract scientists' attention. Hmm, let's call you Doudou. It suits a little squirt like you."
The sprite instinctively wanted to protest, but when he heard it was to avoid attracting scientists' attention, he kept his mouth shut.
Still, two little lumps kept bulging out and receding beneath the handprint on his face.
After so many emotional jolts in such a short time, he had grown somewhat numb. Doudou gradually began to catch on. This hateful fellow had been awfully well prepared. Had he been swindled?
But however angry he felt, he couldn't deny that he lacked the courage to venture into the outside world for now. Besides, he had already paid the rent...
And so, after a chaotic, hectic day full of scares, Doudou, the visitor from another world, officially moved into Qin Xiaoxia's home.
They bickered every day, with occasional noisy arguments, especially after Doudou gradually learned to use the internet and discovered that Qin Xiaoxia had been completely fooling him in some respects-no, in many respects.
And every time, Qin Xiaoxia answered with perfect confidence: "Fooling you? At most, I exaggerated!"
Humans-or rather, humanoid creatures-easily grew attached to familiar places, especially when those places sheltered them from the elements and provided a comfortable life.
That was even more true for the timid.
Qin Xiaoxia had grasped that point quite accurately.
So despite their arguments, Doudou never left. Instead, the two of them got along better and better.
From wariness and hostility to familiarity, then gradually to affection, more than ten days passed amid their little clashes.
At last, Qin Xiaoxia could no longer stand how filthy Doudou looked.
That morning, Qin Xiaoxia woke a bleary-eyed Doudou in the spare bedroom.
Ever since he had started sleeping in such a comfortable bed, the childlike Doudou had fallen in love with sleeping in.
Today, as the household's newest member, Doudou faced a trial that threw him into a complete panic.
Something he had experienced only a few times since his birth-a bath.
Although Doudou didn't leave dust behind as he moved around, and he didn't smell particularly bad, he still gave Qin Xiaoxia the impression of being grubby.
Half an hour after getting up.
Doudou stood outside the bathroom, trembling as he stared at the bathtub full of water inside.
The steam from the warm water, together with the glow of the bathroom heat lamps, gave the whole room a cozy feel.
Qin Xiaoxia was squeezing body wash onto a bath pouf. After working it a little, his hands were covered in foam. He had never used this thing before, but after trying it, he thought it worked pretty well.
"Come on in."
Inside the bathroom, Qin Xiaoxia began urging Doudou to enter.
Doudou shook his head and refused to go in. In the end, Qin Xiaoxia had no choice but to drag him inside. Even turning invisible to escape didn't work.
It was worth mentioning that Qin Xiaoxia had discovered that, ever since Inspiration Sharing, his vision had become so absurdly sharp that he could see through Doudou's invisibility. A transparent outline appeared, rendering Doudou's invisibility completely useless against him.
Qin Xiaoxia hoisted him up and carried him toward the bathtub.
The bubbles inside kept popping, making it look like a tub of poisoned water. The brushes and other things beside it looked especially terrifying too.
Doudou screamed nonstop.
"Water, water, water, water!!! I'm going to drown! Aaaah!"
Splash!
As Doudou struggled, he was shoved hard under the water and swallowed several mouthfuls of soapy water. It felt absolutely awful.
Splash, splash...
The water churned endlessly.
Half of Qin Xiaoxia's body was soaked by the splashes.
"Hold still! Hold still! A bath won't kill you!"
He rubbed Doudou with the bath pouf while scrubbing him vigorously with a soft-bristled brush.
"Water got in my eyes! It hurts!!"
"Bear with it!"
"I can't, I can't! This water is poisoned! You're trying to kill me!"
Splash, splash...
"If it's poisoned, it's from the filth coming off you!"
Qin Xiaoxia was getting genuinely angry now. He held the spraying showerhead between his teeth and went to work with both hands.
He simply refused to let Doudou escape the bathtub.
By now, Doudou had lost count of how many mouthfuls of soapy water he had swallowed. Worse still, the water had turned grayish-black toward the end.
One mouthful nearly choked him to death.
Fortunately, although Qin Xiaoxia considered Doudou a weakling, he was still a sprite by nature, with an extraordinarily tenacious life force.
Anyone else would probably have dropped dead after a single mouthful.
Even under these circumstances, Doudou didn't stop struggling. He managed to knock the soft-bristled brush away several times, but on the whole, he was repeatedly subdued.
Bang!
The flying brush smashed one of the heat-lamp bulbs, frightening Qin Xiaoxia into rushing over to switch the lamps off.
What if there was an electrical short?
Realizing he had done something wrong, Doudou stayed fearfully in the tub without daring to move, like a puppy caught chewing up its owner's shoes.
Qin Xiaoxia switched off the heat lamps, then turned around with a dark expression.
"You'd better behave and let me bathe you from now on. I don't want to say it again."
Doudou, who wasn't bothered by the cold, suddenly felt a chill and nodded frantically.
The bath took nearly an hour. They went through two and a half tubs of water, alternating between hot and cold, and drained all the hot water from the heater.
Qin Xiaoxia himself was exhausted.
"Doudou, let's establish a rule. From now on, at least once a week-uh, let's say once a month-you have to take a bath. No objections!"
Dressed in a set of children's clothes Qin Xiaoxia had just fished out of the neighborhood's used-clothing collection bin, Doudou kept sniffing himself with a look of disgust.
Then he slumped dejectedly onto the sofa, feeling that what he had lost wasn't the old grime that had accompanied him for years, but a precious treasure.
His head drooped, and he gave no response to Qin Xiaoxia's words.
Seeing Doudou like this, he looked exactly like a shaved cat that had fallen into depression.
"All right, I'm going to cook. We're having a real feast for lunch today! After we eat, I'll take you out this afternoon to see the world!"
Qin Xiaoxia comforted Doudou with a grin.
The power of food remained as formidable as ever. At the mention of something to eat, Doudou immediately perked up.
While Qin Xiaoxia cooked, Doudou stood on a stool he had brought over and watched curiously, as though every turn of the spatula sounded exceptionally sweet.
Every so often, he swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
And every time Qin Xiaoxia used the spatula to taste whether the food was properly seasoned or cooked through, he had to give Doudou a little taste too. Otherwise, Doudou would whine behind him for ages.