Chapter 5: New Map Unlocked
Mu Mu was completely cut off mid-sentence by the painter’s sudden change in tone, and by that one word—“boring.”
The painter’s mood had taken a turn for the worse.
Mu Mu keenly sensed the shift in Fu Heqing’s emotions and replayed what he had just said in his head. When he called something “boring,” was he referring to the two maids who had appeared earlier, or to Mu Mu pretending to be a robot?
Following the principle of if you don’t understand, ask, Mu Mu looked at Fu Heqing and said, “Then… what exactly do you mean by the boring people or boring things?”
What did he mean? There were far too many boring people and boring things in this world—so many that even being alive in itself could be considered boring.
“Too many. I can’t count them all.”
Of the three questions, this was the only one to which Fu Heqing gave Mu Mu an extremely vague answer.
“If you can’t count them all,” Mu Mu asked softly, “does that mean you just won’t count them?”
“And what if next time I accidentally mention someone or something you don’t like, and you get unhappy again? What should I do then?”
Hearing this little ghost interpret his “boring” as “don’t like,” Fu Heqing raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Huh, you’re happy again?” Mu Mu stared at Fu Heqing’s eyes, able to precisely catch even such a tiny, almost imperceptible change in his mood.
“If you don’t explain it clearly to me now,” Mu Mu went on, “then I’m going to apply for a one-time exemption. The first time I bring it up without knowing, Mr. Painter isn’t allowed to get angry, and isn’t allowed to be unhappy either.”
As he spoke, Mu Mu poked the painter’s hand, putting forward his own condition.
It wasn’t an unreasonable request, and the painter agreed to it at once.
Looking at the painter, all awkward and stiff, Mu Mu thought again of something he had read in a book: to maintain a stable relationship, you have to provide a strong sense of security.
Mu Mu reached out with a bony finger and patted the back of Fu Heqing’s hand, looking very loyal and righteous as he said, “If there’s anyone you don’t like, Mr. Painter, just tell me!”
“I always take my own side—I help my people, not reason.”
The little skeleton on the desk struck a very elementary-school pose of “If you won’t play with him, then I won’t play with him either,” making Fu Heqing unable to bear looking straight at it.
“Fine. I agree to all three conditions. Then we’re friends now.”
Mu Mu immediately switched off the recorder, giving Fu Heqing no further chances at all.
Then he reached out toward the painter with all five of his bony fingers. Seeing that Fu Heqing didn’t react, he even wiggled them.
“Aren’t you going to shake hands?” The little skeleton sounded puzzled.
“Isn’t the second thing humans do when becoming friends a handshake?”
Looking at the five bony fingers Mu Mu had extended so seriously and stubbornly, and seeing how insistently he followed these “procedures,” Fu Heqing didn’t want to spoil the mood. He went along with it and gently shook Mu Mu’s hand.
“Alright, ceremony complete!”
“Hello, my new friend!”
As soon as Mu Mu finished speaking, he pried Fu Heqing’s hand open, then dashed straight into Fu Heqing’s studio.
“I’m here—my special privilege!”
Fu Heqing’s studio did not allow anyone inside. No matter who it was, they would be refused; even the servants were not permitted to enter to clean it.
Before this, Mu Mu had only ever sneaked around the corners, secretly watching the painter work. But today, he could walk in openly and legitimately.
“Wow—”
Seeing some authentic masterpieces collected by Fu Heqing hanging on the walls, Mu Mu very cooperatively let out a shocked exclamation.
Fu Heqing, walking in front of him, paused. Mu Mu immediately changed his tune. “But I still think Mr. Painter’s paintings look better.”
After saying that, Mu Mu glanced at the painter, trying to catch some different expression on his face—but to no avail.
In fact, Fu Heqing’s studio was very spacious. Aside from the work currently being painted, almost everything else inside was made up of authentic works by other masters; there were hardly any paintings that truly belonged to the painter himself.
Mu Mu had noticed this long ago: Fu Heqing set extremely, extraordinarily high standards for his own work.
Very often, Mu Mu felt that a piece was beautiful, but the moment the painter found it unsatisfactory, he would destroy it, which made Mu Mu’s heart ache terribly every time.
Now, in the entire studio, the only painting that truly belonged to Fu Heqing was the single figure sketch in front of him.
Mu Mu had seen it yesterday. It was only a newly blocked-in outline—not even a face had been drawn yet, let alone all the later stages of coloring that he couldn’t understand at all, like some kind of magic trick.
He climbed onto the small table beside Fu Heqing’s hand where the paints were kept and watched the painter continue working. When Fu Heqing got tired, Mu Mu planned to go pour him a cup of hot water.
Since this was his first time using a water dispenser, Mu Mu decided to familiarize himself with it a little in advance. He hopped off the small table and clambered up onto the counter where the dispenser sat.
Many cups were arranged on the counter. Mu Mu wasn’t quite sure what all of them were for, so he randomly picked the prettiest one.
He placed the cup beneath the hot-water spout, then stood on top of another upside-down cup to barely reach the button.
Hot water flowed out, sounding especially conspicuous in the quiet studio. The painter’s brush had long since stopped; all of his attention had already shifted over.
Holding the cup of hot water, Mu Mu trembled slightly, clearly struggling.
An empty cup would have been fine, but once it was filled with hot water, the friction of his finger bones was nowhere near enough. The little skeleton could only clutch the cup to his chest.
Staggering with every step, water splashed everywhere.
“Good thing I’m not afraid of getting burned, hehe.”
Mu Mu’s tone was full of pride. Just as he was about to show off his skills, he suddenly felt his arms empty. A voice came from above: “Dangerous item, don’t touch it.” The painter lifted both the cup and Mu Mu away together.
“Oh right, I actually prepared a gift for you too,” Mu Mu said, unable to stay still. He ran out again, then came back and sat down sneakily on the small table beside Fu Heqing’s hand, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Ta-da-da-da~”
Mu Mu held up his note again, along with the little flower wreath he had carefully made.
He handed the wreath to Fu Heqing first, only to discover that it was too small to wear on the wrist, yet too large to wear on a finger. With no other choice, it could only be made into a specimen and kept for safekeeping.
“It’s okay, take a look at this one too!” Mu Mu said, undeterred, spreading the note out in front of the painter until it covered half of the small table.
At the top of the unfolded note were the words “to Mr. Painter,” and beneath them he had drawn a little ghost and a stick figure, the two holding hands, with a big heart drawn between them.
Feeling a bit embarrassed, Mu Mu scratched his head. “I don’t know how to write many characters, so I drew little figures for most of it.”
He pointed at one short, squat figure. “This one is me.”
Then he pointed at a taller figure. “This one is Mr. Painter.”
“And this represents our friendship.” Mu Mu pointed at the heart.
“The overall meaning is: wishing our friendship lasts forever.”
Fu Heqing lowered his gaze to the crooked, wobbly lines. He remained silent for a long time before forcing out a difficult “Mm.”
The painter offered neither flowery praise nor compliments, but Mu Mu wasn’t disappointed. Simply showing the note to him was enough—his goal had already been satisfied.
He folded the note back up and placed it on the small table beside the easel, then went off to explore other parts of the studio.
But when he returned, the note was gone.
Mu Mu searched the table for quite a while. It hadn’t been blown away by the wind, nor had it fallen beneath the table. He even started to reach toward the trash can—
“Dig through the trash and I’ll throw you out.” Fu Heqing couldn’t stand it and spoke up with a threat.
Hearing this, the little skeleton on the floor immediately withdrew his hand.
Suddenly, inspiration struck. He looked up at Fu Heqing and said, “It was you who put it away, wasn’t it, Mr. Painter?!”
“If you took it, you could’ve just told me. If you like it, I can draw one every day.”
“…That really won’t be necessary.”
Fu Heqing’s studio—and even the entire villa—was rarely this lively and noisy, with the two of them talking back and forth nonstop.
Ever since they became friends, Mu Mu had been following right behind Fu Heqing, able to mutter and chatter the whole way.
He didn’t need Fu Heqing to respond; he could keep the conversation going all by himself without ever letting it fall flat. Whatever interesting thing he saw, he could talk about it for several minutes, yet somehow never sounded irritating or dull.
And whenever Fu Heqing occasionally gave a bit of a response—whether it was a slight curl of his lips or a brief word of agreement—it was enough to make Mu Mu excited all over again and talk for another hour or so.
After work, the two of them took the elevator down together once more, arriving at the kitchen on the first floor.
Mu Mu didn’t need to eat dinner, but he still followed the painter into the kitchen. Because open flames were too dangerous, the painter lifted the toy skeleton back out and set him down beside the dining table, letting him keep him company as a friend.
Mu Mu watched the painter busy himself in the kitchen for a while, and when what he finally brought out was—once again—burnt toast—
“I’m sorry,” Mu Mu blurted out.
At last, he voiced something he had felt guilty about for a long time.
“If I hadn’t scared off the servants, you wouldn’t have to eat burnt bread.”
“But today’s bread isn’t as burnt as yesterday’s,” he added.
“That’s amazing!”
Fu Heqing lowered his gaze to the bread in his hand and immediately lost his appetite.
After dinner, Fu Heqing had a fixed exercise routine starting at ten o’clock. In the past, this time slot happened to be when Mu Mu would leave the painter and head to the storage room to possess the little skeleton and come out to play, so he had never seen it before.
Mu Mu trotted along behind the painter, following him all the way to the gym at the far end of the third floor.
The gym was huge, containing almost every piece of exercise equipment imaginable. There was even a rock-climbing wall outside in the open-air area at the very end.
“Wow!!!”
Mu Mu’s exclamation this time was much more heartfelt.
“I’ve unlocked a new map,” Mu Mu said.
“When I was still a ghost before, I could just drift through the air back and forth. I never felt like this place was that big, or that high.”
He looked around curiously as he toured the area, half-distracted while following behind the painter. As a result, he didn’t even notice what room Fu Heqing had entered. By the time he snapped back to his senses, the painter was already about to change into loose workout clothes.
Mu Mu had no sense of restraint at all and continued staring straight at him.
“What exactly are you still trying to see?”
Before Mu Mu could answer, Fu Heqing strode forward and, in one swift motion, tossed the little skeleton out.
…
The painter seemed to have a dedicated workout plan. After completing several sets of one exercise, he would move on to the next.
Although Fu Heqing’s profession was that of a painter, his physical fitness was unexpectedly good. Half an hour passed, and he was only lightly sweating, his breathing not even slightly disordered.
Mu Mu had originally been very interested in all the different pieces of equipment—until he caught sight of the painter’s faintly visible abs, at which point his attention instantly shifted.
“Whoa~”
Mu Mu climbed onto the treadmill and sat beside the painter, looking down at him from above. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, long legs—everything was laid out in full view.
After finishing his workout, Fu Heqing casually took a cold shower. He remembered that at this hour there wouldn’t be any servants in the main villa—but he forgot that there was now a little ghost following right behind him. Wearing nothing but a towel, he came out.
The moment he opened the door and saw the skeleton toy squatting at the entrance, capable only of saying “whoa,” Fu Heqing froze, suddenly unsure what he was supposed to do next.
“Can I poke it?”
Mu Mu’s voice made an utterly impolite request.
The answer, of course, was an entirely unsurprising refusal. Still, Mu Mu really wanted to know what the difference was between touching a human body and touching his own soul.
“…Is that really not okay?”
Mu Mu trailed along behind Fu Heqing like a little tail the whole way.
“Really not okay?”
“But I really like your body.”
He said the most easily misunderstood things in the most innocent tone, without feeling anything was off at all.
“If I were the kind of evil ghost that possessed people, I’d definitely choose your body.”
Fu Heqing ignored everything Mu Mu was saying and returned to his bedroom to get some clothes, preparing to take another hot bath. But the toy skeleton showed no intention of avoiding him at all.
At the very moment Fu Heqing was closing the door, it even tried to squeeze in, cheerfully and with an eager tone saying,
“Then why don’t you bring me along too?”
Fu Heqing’s movements abruptly halted.
He slowly lowered his head and, at last, looked seriously at the skeleton toy in front of him.
