It was clear that something terrible had happened, as the ward was a mess, but why did everyone look like they had only now realized something was wrong? Weren’t they just outside the door? Moreover, the door was open…..

Were these people really human beings? Or were they still trapped in an illusion created by ghosts? Li Xiu stared in surprise and uncertainty at the people pouring into the room. He was so frightened that he was about to lose his mind, and wanted to hide in the corner of the room. 

Fortunately, Teacher Xu also recovered at this time. The man’s expression wasn’t good, but he had returned to his original calmness. Raising his hand, he tapped Li Xiu’s forehead and quickly murmured a few faint spells. 

Li Xiu felt a chill rush straight into the depths of his forehead through the point of contact with Teacher Xu. He instantly shivered. And in the next second, felt his spirit lighten and was abruptly much more clear-headed.

Li Xiu looked at the time and realized that what had been an extremely long battle for him had only gone on for a minute or two. 

Except…..

As if conscious of Li Xiu’s terror, Teacher Xu stood in front of him and explained tiredly: “They shouldn’t have seen anything just now. This is the most common ghostly illusion. Don’t be afraid, that thing is gone.”

*

The commotion in the night ward lasted only a short while.

Not long after Teacher Xu made a phone call, everything returned to normal.

At least, that was how it seemed.

The man gave Li Xiu a set of thick clothing, then took him and the newly conscious Qiao Yang to move to a new location. However, he didn’t find another ward to accommodate Li Xiu. Instead, he took the youth and his disciple directly to the hospital’s parking lot.

Teacher Xu motioned for Li Xiu to follow Qiao Yang into the vehicle.

The car was an ordinary second-hand Honda, and looked as if it was approaching the end of its life. After sitting down, Li Xiu immediately noticed a string of coin trees hanging in the rearview mirror. The red strand wrapped around copper coins was faded, looking quaint and eccentric. A brass bell hung in each corner of the vehicle, but the car shook several times as they boarded, and the bells never made a sound.

Qiao Yang noticed Li Xiu staring at them and whispered an explanation in his ear: “These will only make noise when something evil is close by. The more ferocious the thing is, the louder they will become as it approaches.”

In addition to these, Li Xiu even saw a bronze figure of the president on the console and some 100 yuan bills stuck to the interior of the roof.

Qiao Yang: “Eh, these are all actually good for warding off evil spirits.”

Li Xiu: “Oh.”

It had to be said that the furnishings in the car were things of unreliable magic, but when Li Xiu looked at those strange things, he felt an inexplicable peace of mind.

“Come on, drink some hot water…..”

Before they left, Teacher Xu had filled a thermos full of warm water from the nurse’s station. At this time, he took two paper cups out of nowhere and filled them with water, handing them to Li Xiu and Qiao Yang.

When he took the hot water, Li Xiu realized his fingers were so cold that he couldn’t feel them.

Li Xiu drank the hot water in small sips, and it took him a long while to summon the courage to speak in a soft voice: “Teacher Xu, we drove away that…..Lord Hong. He won’t come back, will he?”

Teacher Xu was silent for a moment upon hearing this question. Then he removed his glasses and wiped them.

He didn’t answer the question directly.

“Were you afraid of what happened just now?” he asked suddenly.

Li Xiu nodded. “…..I was scared.”

In fact, he didn’t need to ask in order to know the answer. The youth’s eyes were very red. He had obviously been terrified before.

It wasn’t like Li Xiu had never been to a haunted house or watched horror movies. If he really had to say, the haunted houses and ghost movies created by people contained more terrifying and gory scenes, but no matter how realistic a haunted house was, or how spooky the plot of a movie was, it couldn’t compare to the fear Li Xiu had just experienced.

Li Xiu felt a sense of powerlessness when recalling the scene that had just occurred.

Looking at Li Xiu’s frightened face, Teacher Xu smiled bitterly.

“It was a bit overwhelming, ah. However, Classmate Li Xiu, you must be bolder from now on. You cannot continue to be scared like this,” the man said in a low voice.

“I told you before, didn’t I? The more afraid a person is, the more unstable their soul will be.” As the man spoke, he raised the thermos and shook it, causing the remaining hot water to gurgle.

“According to common sense, it is difficult for the soul to escape the body. But if a ghost continues to frighten a person, it will cause the soul to become unstable, and the Yang fire in the heat and shoulders will naturally weaken. When the Yang fire weakens, a person’s heart and soul will become increasingly unstable and more easily frightened…..a vicious cycle is formed, and the individual will eventually be possessed by the ghost.”

“Ah?”

“You see, a great many people develop mental problems. When they are sent to the hospital for examination, these people first have nervous breakdowns and trouble sleeping, ah. But if they aren’t careful, they will immediately suffer from serious mental issues. Of course, some of these people must have pathological mental illnesses, but there are also some who are inseparable from the supernatural.”

As he listened to Teacher Xu’s words, Li Xiu’s eyes widened incrementally.

“Teacher Xu, you mean…..”

“I think ‘that thing’ is deliberately trying to terrify you and abscond with your soul.” At this point, Teacher Xu’s expression became even more grave. 

He fixed his eyes on Li Xiu and asked solemnly, “This is not the first time, nor the second. Your ‘gege’ is too obsessed with you and intends to take you away. Classmate Li Xiu, ah, answer me honestly, have you ever made a wish to that thing?”

Li Xiu was about to shake his head when he heard Teacher Xu speak again.

“…..Perhaps you didn’t even realize it. When you offered raw rice to your gege, what was on your mind?”

This time, Li Xiu hesitated.

Words of denial were already on his lips, but now they stuck in his throat and he couldn’t say a single word.

Had he really never made a wish to his gege?

It was as if a questioning voice continuously spoke from the bottom of his heart.

When he was bullied by that group of people at school, he never asked for anything. Where was there anyone who would help him?

When his grandmother was ill, didn’t he wish that he wasn’t an orphan, and that some relative would come and relieve his burdens? 

“I-I may…..have actually made a wish.” Li Xiu’s stuttering voice shook.

“Grandmother always told me he was my gege, so sometimes I wished I really had a gege whose protection I could hide under. So that I could focus on studying and not worry about all those things…..”

Wet tears appeared on Li Xiu’s cheeks without him noticing.

“But. I didn’t mean it.”

When Teacher Xu glimpsed the look on Li Xiu’s face at this moment, a look of understanding immediately appeared in his eyes.

Teacher Xu repeatedly comforted the youth in front of him: “Don’t let this weigh on you. That thing, Lord Hong, is very cunning. Even if you were an eminent monk with no wishes or desires, if you are near such a thing for a long period of time, many wild fancies will arise in your mind. Classmate Li Xiu, you’re just an ordinary student who wants to have a complete family and study well. This is very normal, so there is nothing to blame yourself for at all.”

But Li Xiu’s tears didn’t stop. He’d never thought that the wish he had unconsciously made in his heart would eventually lead to such bitter consequences.

In fact, Teacher Xu had been attempting to comfort him and didn’t speak very straightforwardly, but Li Xiu wasn’t a fool. On the contrary, he was intelligent enough that even though just a few words were spoken, he could guess that — it was his desire to have family that would protect him which had released Lord Hong.

Li Xiu wept for a while before raising his elbow and desperately wiping away his tears with his sleeve. Taking several deep breaths, he forced himself to get a grip.

He knew that crying wouldn’t accomplish anything.

“Is there really no other way?” Li Xiu asked hoarsely. “Isn’t there someone like Lin Zhengying,^[1] who can suppress demons? There must be a capable master like him somewhere in the world…..”

Hearing Lin Zhengying’s name, Teacher Xu was slightly startled, and his expression froze.

“Ah, actually, Teacher Xu may be more capable than Lin Zhengying.”

At this moment, Qiao Yang hurriedly explained on behalf of Teacher Xu: “You should watch less of those Hong Kong ghost movies. Lin Zhengying and all that are all fictitious. In reality, he may not be as capable as my teacher.”

Qiao Yang’s face was actually still a bit pasty as he tried his best to defend Teacher Xu, and he poured some more hot water for himself.

Unfortunately, Li Xiu’s hesitance was obvious when he heard that last sentence.

Before he could respond, Qiao Yang quickly spoke again.

“This difficulty is just because of the thing that’s harassing you! It’s so strange, and extremely vicious! I swear I’ve never seen anything so vicious. And it’s also so bizarre, not afraid of true fire or cinnabar. It could also get into my body and drain my spirit. How could ordinary evil spirits do this…..even when that thing was with the Xiao family back then, it could only take over the body, not like it is now. 

As he spoke, Qiao Yang’s voice was deeply confused.

“I don’t get it, what the hell is that thing? Classmate Xiu, what did you offer it? Why is it so powerful?”

Just as Qiao Yang muttered this, Teacher Xu’s cell phone suddenly rang.

“Teacher Xu?”

“What happened?”

Xu Qinghe couldn’t control his emotions for a moment, and the atmosphere in the vehicle became tense. The other two people in the car fixed their eyes on Teacher Xu. There was a hint of panic in his voice.

But at this time, even for a person as tranquil as Teacher Xu, there was no way for him to bolster his spirits and pretend like nothing had happened.

After all, the person who sent the call was a fellow disciple.

And the phone was playing a video on repeat of surveillance taken from a funeral home.

The blurry lens faced a mausoleum.

Teacher Xu knew at a glance that this was where Grandmother Li’s body was resting. Li Xiu had still been hospitalized at that time, so his grandmother’s funeral affairs had all been arranged by Teacher Xu. And at this time, his grandmother’s coffin lid was being pushed away bit by bit without anyone touching it.

Immediately after, the gray-faced old woman sat straight up in her coffin.

Her eyes were gray and cloudy.

When the mortician had arranged her appearance, he’d spread a thick layer of powder over her face, which looked particularly pale under the surveillance camera.

The body of the long-dead old lady twitched slightly, and then she climbed stiffly out of the coffin.

It could be seen clearly through the lens that when she stood on the ground, her heels were raised high.

The old woman walked stiffly out the door just like this and vanished from the security camera’s viewing range.

If not for the rapidly jumping timeline on the surveillance video, the scene before them would have been like a deliberately terrifying scene from a horror movie.

But Teacher Xu in front of the screen knew better than everyone else that this wasn’t a horror scene at all, but real life.

Li Xiu’s grandmother’s body had been reanimated.

The usually calm and gentle Teacher Xu finally cursed when he saw this scene. “What a pig brain I have, why didn’t I think of that?!”

Why hadn’t Li Yu’s ashes been found? The reason was very simple.

Before Grandmother Qi died, perhaps under her own will or perhaps having been bewitched by the ghost, she had hidden the ashes within her own body — indeed, she had eaten Li Yu’s ashes.

“No wonder it became so fierce—”

After a brief gaffe, Teacher Xu instantly figured everything out.

The original reason Lord Hong could move around in the outside world was simply because the ashes acted as his carrier. And now, it had a physical body.

“For evil spirits like this one, once they have a physical body, it is equivalent to manifesting a form. And once they have a form, they are difficult to disperse with immaterial exorcism spells and the like—”

As he thought of this, a layer of cold sweat broke out on Teacher Xu’s back.

“This won’t work, Li Xiu, I can’t let you stay here anymore. That ghost gege of yours is so obsessed with you that it won’t let you go easily. That thing will inevitably come back for you again.”

As he spoke, Teacher Xu hurriedly tightened the thermos top, started the car, and began to take Li Xiu away.

From Teacher Xu’s murmured words, Li Xiu also realized how urgent the situation was.

The frightened youth’s face was ashen.

“Fang Qian’an.”

At this moment, another pale-faced boy appeared in Li Qiu’s mind.

He unconsciously tightened his grip on Qiao Yang’s sleeve beside him and said quickly: “F-for example, if Lord Hong has become powerful like this, won’t he look for Fang Qian’an too? In the beginning, it was him who took me away……”

Teacher Xu froze when he heard Li Xiu’s question.

*

*

Knock knock knock.

In the Fang family’s duplex manor at the top of the building, Aunt Su carefully knocked on the closed door while holding a tray.

But after she knocked for a long time, the owner of the room still failed to open the door.

“Xiao Fang, ah…..” 

As Aunt Su stared at the motionless door, her expression changed. In the end, she couldn’t suppress the worry in her heart and called through the door: “If you’re angry, then just be angry, but you still need to eat. You haven’t eaten in several days. You’ll encounter problems if you keep starving yourself!”

She kept knocking on the door like this for a while, and in the end, it slowly opened.

A boy appeared behind the door.

“Stop knocking, I’m not angry.” Fang Qian’an rubbed his hair and said tiredly to the woman outside the door, “I just accidentally fell asleep.”

“Aiyo, Qian’an, did you do that?”

Before Aunt Su could relax, her eyes met the bright red bloodstains on the boy’s clothes and she asked in a fluster: “Aiyo, Qian’an, did you do that?”

Given this reminder by her, Fang Qian’an lowered his head and looked at the hem of his clothes. After staring blankly for a moment, he replied firmly: “…..I just happened to get a nosebleed. It’s no big deal. Hasn’t this been the case for a long time?”

After hearing his explanation, Aunt Su untensed a bit and muttered: “Not changing clothes even after a nosebleed, you almost scared me to death!”

Fang Qian’an did have such a problem. He often had nosebleeds ever since childhood, which was said to be due to fragile blood veins in the nasal passage. But Aunt Su also knew that if he hadn’t been beaten as a child, Fang Qian’an wouldn’t have such a problem.

When she smelled the faint scent of blood on the boy, a trace of being unable to bear it flashed in her eyes.

“Then no matter what, this is the time to replenish your body. You just came out of the hospital. Eat a little something, don’t be stubborn out of anger,” she advised.

“Aunt Su, take it away. I just don’t have an appetite, I’m not being obstinate,” Fang Qian’an said word by word with no expression on his face. It was clearly an extremely handsome face, but right now it looked like he was wearing a plastic mask. 

And the originally comfortable and luxurious room behind him was already a mess.

Everything in the room that could be smashed was smashed, even a sofa and a solid wood desk that couldn’t be moved by two people. The corkwood boards on the walls also seemed to have been scratched by a wild beast, revealing the cement behind them. There were traces of violence everywhere, and not a single piece of furniture in the entire room was left intact.

Aunt Su looked at the room over Fang Qian’an’s shoulder, and her expression became increasingly bitter.

Who would have known that everywhere she looked was as tragic as a battlefield in Iraq? It turned out to be because Fang Qian’an had asked Fang Chengke for his cell phone, but to no avail.

In fact, for so many years, Aunt Su’s heart had been partial to Fang Qian’an.

She could see very clearly that Fang Qian’an’s father was a complete scumbag, regardless of his wealth.

However…..

After what happened a few days ago, even Aunt Su, who had taken care of the boy for so long, inevitably had an unexplainable fear of him…..

Whose family’s child went crazy and required specialized medical staff to sedate him?

Moreover, several tall, robust security guards rushed forward and almost couldn’t hold Fang Qian’an down.

It should be known that Fang Qian’an hadn’t eaten in several days at that time.

The most important thing was…..

Aunt Su had been hiding in the corner of the room when she caught sight of those eyes.

Fang Qian’an’s eyes seemed to have two pupils squeezed into the same socket.

Aunt Su didn’t know if she had seen it wrong, but when she went home, she had nightmares all night long and was even more frightened.

But once more, Aunt Su looked at Fang Qian’an and felt some pity. “Qian’an, this really isn’t necessary.” After swallowing her saliva, Aunt Su persuaded, “Didn’t I just give you my cell phone? Mr. Fang is also afraid that if you don’t get enough rest, your body will never recover. When the time comes, just be polite to your dad and ask him to return the phone to you…..”

Fang Qian’an could only scoff when he heard this. “Ha, didn’t he just want to take away my phone? And if he really wanted me to rest well, why did he take me out of the hospital in such a hurry?”

As soon as Teacher Xu left, Fang Qian’an was escorted back to the Fang family manor by his father, who said that the conditions for recovery would be better at home.

“He just didn’t want to wait and let them declare me a ‘mental patient.’”

There was no warmth in Fang Qian’an’s tone when speaking about his father.

Aunt Su’s heart tightened in a panic, and she just wanted to end the topic quickly. “Ah? How can you say that—”

But Fang Qian’an continued speaking regardless.

“It’s just like how he treated my mom back then. He was glad when she died, wasn’t he? Since I was a minor, custody rights belonged to the old man, and he could spend my mom’s money however he liked. Now that she’s dead, he’s terrified that I’ll take my mom’s inheritance. Doesn’t he just want to control me too?”

How could they be said to be father and son?

Fang Qian’an’s supposition really was possible.

Aunt Su’s white hair dampened with sweat, and she really didn’t dare to say anything more. She hurriedly placed the tray at Fang Qian’an’s door and made an excuse before leaving quickly.

Fang Qian’an gazed in the direction she had left, his eyes full of indifference.

With a click, he closed the door again.

He proceeded to ignore the tray at the door.

How many days had he gone without eating?

Fang Qian’an couldn’t really remember. But just as he’d told Aunt Su before, he really had no appetite.

Picking his way through the mess of furniture fragments, Fang Qian’an made his way to the bed which only had a mattress left and fell down with a plop.

The tall boy fazed at the ceiling and muttered faintly: “Fuck, I don’t know what’s going on with that weakling right now…..he should come to me if he has a conscience…..”

It was fine when he was in the hospital. Although Fang Chengke managed him strictly, he was still able to get some news about the other boy through Teacher Xu’s visits.

But now he was completely trapped here.

How irritating.

He wanted to find A-Xiu.

If he’d known earlier, he would have killed his old man…..

An intense, violent feeling spread throughout Fang Qian’an’s heart.

He would pull out the spine…..

Wouldn’t the old man’s blood spray everywhere?

At such an old age, the skin shouldn’t have much elasticity after it was peeled off.

And he had been sleeping around for so many years, so he was very unclean…..

Fang Qian’an didn’t notice that his eyes were quivering abnormally.

He absent-mindedly chewed on his knuckles until blood gushed out from the deep tooth marks.

But even the sweet taste of blood couldn’t slake the thirsty, restless feeling constantly surging within him. 

There seemed to be an unseen fire burning inside his body.

“A-Xiu…..”

As a last resort, Fang Qian’an shut his eyes and began to use that method to calm himself.

He sketched Li Xiu’s appearance bit by bit in his mind.

He had embraced the boy tightly that night.

Because the bed was very narrow and Li Xiu was cold after falling asleep, he had accidentally pulled him into an embrace.

Fang Qian’an even remembered the scent unique to Li Xiu he’d smelled in the darkness.

That was not at all the smell of cheap shower gel. Rather, it was the fragrance of sweet, warm blood under that snow-white skin.

[Hungry…..]

Fang Qian’an realized to some extent that there was something wrong with his mind.

Normal people wouldn’t think about their same-sex friend and get hungry and hard, right?

But he was too busy to worry about it too much.

There was only Li Xiu…..only his A-Xiu could calm him down.

Without knowing it, Fang Qian’an’s breathing calmed and he fell asleep.

A pool of dark blood gradually spread around his waist.

---

[1] Lin Zhengying is a Chinese actor who played a Taoist priest in many 80’s and 90’s movies. ⮐

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Chapter 49 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 51

Watching the situation in front of him, Liu Zhenqing had already come to a decision. Huo Fenglie to the side seemed to somewhat understand the issue, and breathed a sigh of relief. After all, Qiao Jin was the person Qing-ge had protected in the beginning, and was also his only living relative. If he actually had to draw his sword, Qing-ge would be sad.

And Qiao Jin had never experienced such ups and downs before. He suddenly blushed in embarrassment and glared at Liu Qiao: “Y-y-you! Why did you kiss me!”

Liu Qiao was somewhat impatient: “You made the request and I did it. What, do you intend to break your promise?!”

For Liu Qiao, this activity was very simple. As long as he could solve Master’s problems without swords being pointed at Qiao Jin, he could do such a small thing. Although he didn’t like to be too close to others, the other was the child he’d raised himself, so what was there to hate?

Qiao Jin’s face was still wet, his eyes wide. The youth’s bewilderment could not be concealed, and was painted across his face.

“I asked you to kiss me, and you did. Do you know what this means?”

It was like something that required traversing oceans of fire and mountains of swords to obtain, yet the other party gave alms to his poor self without a care. He wanted it, but was aggrieved when he got it. This feeling was truly indescribable.

Liu Qiao was no fool. Of course he knew what kissing meant. He had seen many couples and lovers in entertainment houses, and had watched Liu Zhenqing in person.

He was rather surprised that Qiao Jin would make such a request out of anger. In fact, he understood that Qiao Jin had made such an unreasonable request out of purposeful resistance to make him withdraw. But Liu Qiao had really underestimated him. Since Qiao Jin’s request had been fulfilled, he must keep his promise. Otherwise, Liu Qiao would beat him and teach this brat the meaning of dropping a rock on his own foot.

Liu Qiao said indifferently: “It was only a touch, and it’s not the first time.”

Qiao Jin was shocked to hear these words, and fury surged through his entire being: “Not the first time? Who was it! Was it Liu Zhenqing?!”

Liu Zhenqing, who was targeted even while hiding behind a tree, felt the gradually lowering air pressure of the one behind him. He immediately shook his head. How could it be possible? Even though he’d already explained things, why did this cheap cousin of his still think of him as a love rival, ah? But Liu Zhenqing was also quite surprised that this wasn’t Liu Qiao’s first time. Hadn’t he said that he’d never been attracted to any girl before? Could it have been a similar situation as today?

Liu Qiao said bluntly and unemotionally: “It was you.”

Qiao Jin froze, unable to believe his ears. “Me? When was this?”

“When I was being hunted and you fell ill, this was how I gave you medicine,” Liu Qiao said.

Qiao Jin stared at him in astonishment: “I…..I was still a child back then, this is different, this…..”

“What’s the difference?” Liu Qiao asked. This was still the same person, he’d just grown up. 

Seeing Qiao Jin’s current expression, Liu Qiao knew that his counterattack was extremely smart. It seemed he had become more clever after returning to his master, and simply helped resolve his master’s troubles.

Qiao Jin felt as if he was one step away from choking to death. But the little wolf cub was very intelligent, and quickly realized that he seemed to have accidentally found a way to keep Liu Qiao by his side.

He seemed to have never possessed anything since childhood but Liu Qiao. He wouldn’t give him up to anyone, and even if it was despicable, he would keep this person by his side.

“I keep my word. I’ll listen to Liu Zhenqing this time, but that doesn’t mean I’ll always listen to him in the future.”

Seeing Qiao Jin’s difficult-to-tame appearance, Liu Qiao frowned slightly.

“Unless…..” Qiao Jin gazed at Liu Qiao, his heart beating like a drum. “Unless you…..”

“Cough, cough, cough.” A sound interrupted Qiao Jin’s words.

Qiao Jin turned around unhappily to see Liu Zhenqing and Huo Fenglie walk out from behind a tree in the distance.

Liu Zhenqing gave Qiao Jin a helpless look, then glared at the black-hearted wolf cub. If he didn’t come out, there was no telling what excessive demands Qiao Jin would make to coax Liu Qiao. Liu Qiao was still acting as if he hadn’t been taken advantage of at all, and Liu Zhenqing had no intention of selling Qiaoqiao to the wolf cub.

Liu Qiao saw them approaching and said: “Master, he agreed to cooperate.”

Liu Zhenqing stepped forward awkwardly and patted Liu Qiao on the shoulder: “Qiaoqiao, ah, never mind him cooperating. I have plenty of ways to deal with him, you don’t have to agree to any of his requests.”

Qiao Jin immediately glowered at him.

Liu Qiao had naturally noticed that Liu Zhenqing and Huo Fenglie had been behind the tree before, and wasn’t embarrassed at all as he said: “It was only a kiss. That’s easy.”

The corners of Liu Zhenqing’s mouth twitched. As expected, Liu Qiao didn’t care much about this sort of thing. He could only say sincerely: “Qiaoqiao, something as intimate as kissing can only be done between couples who are in love with each other, not just anyone. This is especially true when someone uses it as a trade, with no sincerity at all.”

Liu Qiao stared blankly, unable to understand why his master was taking this so seriously.

Seeing that Liu Qiao still looked confused, Liu Zhenqing gestured to Huo Fenlgie beside him and said: “We can do this kind of thing.”

Huo Fenglie had been in a daze ever since Liu Zhenqing mentioned couples who were in love, and his expression changed slightly when Liu Zhenqing pointed at him.

Qing-ge…..was only making an excuse to educate Qiao Jin.

They were lovers who had kissed countless times, but…..were they in love?

He feared they wouldn’t be able to give Liu Qiao any positive teaching materials.

Liu Qiao’s eyes turned to the two of them. Although he felt it was unnecessary and was quite satisfied with his low-effort, big-reward deal, he would listen to whatever his master said. Thus, he gave a nod.

After educating Liu Qiao, Liu Zhenqing glanced at Qiao Jin and saw that he seemed resentful of his approach to things. He stepped forward and sneered: “Don’t bully him and take advantage of him for being ill-informed. Otherwise, I won’t be able to spare you.”

Liu Zhenqing’s voice was rather cold when he said this. Although Qiao Jin was his cousin, Liu Qiao was a family member he recognized as his younger brother, and he would naturally defend his shortcomings.

He had already suffered a big emotional loss with Bai Yu before. He didn’t want Liu Qiao to suffer in such a way again, so he had to guide him well.

Qiao Jin’s expression became a little unnatural, but his eyes remained stubborn. He just wanted to obtain Liu Qiao, even if he had to use tricks. He didn’t hide his ambition at all.

When he was fourteen years old and discovered that Liu Qiao was thinking of leaving, he “discovered” the so-called group of rebels. He intentionally involved the two of them so that in this way, Liu Qiao would have no intention of leaving. But when Liu Qiao realized that he could handle everything on his own, he planned to leave when Qiao Jin reached eighteen years old. It seemed this represented the completion of his task and he could go watch over Liu Zhenqing’s body, even though he didn’t know where Huo Fenglie had buried him.

But how could Qiao Jin allow him to leave? So he told Liu Qiao that when he rebelled, he would clear Liu Zhenqing’s name. The promised benefits were just a way to retain Liu Qiao, who wanted to leave. Because Qiao Jin knew that Liu Qiao would only compromise if it concerned Liu Zhenqing.

Unexpectedly, Liu Zhenqing came back to life and he lost any chance of winning.

From near-family dependence to a deterioration of emotions, Qiao Jin had no time to sort out his feelings. Liu Qiao was about to run away, and the kiss made Qiao Jin realize that in the face of someone like Liu Qiao, there was no other path before him. He was forced to mature and bypass the tangles and struggles, and in order to have no regrets, he had to go straight to the goal.

Qiao Jin took a deep breath. He glanced at Liu Qiao, then turned to Liu Zhenqing and said directly: “I won’t talk in circles with you. You know what I want. I’m willing to cooperate with you, but only on the premise that…..”

Liu Zhenqing cut in at once: “On the premise that you unite with us and behave yourself. Otherwise, regardless of the current situation and the emotions involved, do you think you have any chance of winning this contest? You still want to make conditions with me?”

Liu Zhenqing’s tone was beyond comprehension, and Qiao Jin almost jumped up and down in anger. He was truly in a pinch, because he indeed had no negotiable capital.

“Brat, you’re still a little too young. Don’t worry, I won’t bully you. Since Liu Qiao made a deal with you just now, you must obediently fulfill it. The only benefit I’ll give you is that I won’t object or hinder you. But don’t mess around with me. I’ll be watching. You understand what I’m getting at.”

This meant: You like Liu Qiao and can pursue him if you want, but proper methods must be used. As the one Liu Qiao recognizes as his master, I won’t interfere for personal gain.

“You…..” This wasn’t just bullying, it was bullying him to death. He had sold himself to Liu Zhenqing for nothing.

Smiling like a fox, Liu Zhenqing patted Qiao Jin on the shoulder and said: “Okay, it’s time to get down to business.”

Regarding the people in the capital, the rebels, and the situation behind all of this, Qiao Jin naturally knew more than Liu Qiao.

“I don’t know who the ultimate mastermind behind the people in the capital is, but I know that the current prime minister Jiang Wang is involved.” Qiao Jin directly dropped this bombshell piece of news.

“Jiang Wang?” Liu Zhenqing looked at Huo Fenglie.

Huo Fenglie could only frown, obviously confused as well.

Although this candidate wasn’t entirely unexpected since Liu Zhenqing had been a little suspicious of Jiang Wang since the imperial examination fraud case, he’d thought it had been all about profit. After all, if there were grievances among the common people, even if the emperor was blind, the prime minister couldn’t be unaware of it. Thus, there must be something wrong with Jiang Wang.

But based on Liu Zhenqing’s understanding of the then deputy prime minister, it was a bit contradictory for him to rebel. Not that this fellow was so loyal, but because his eldest daughter was the current Empress. If she gave birth to a child in the future, he would be the crown prince. With such a background, had he lost his mind? Joining the rebels?

Qiao Jin said: “You don’t believe me. I can’t be sure of the others, but I’m certain of this person. He was even the one who hired those martial arts masters to hunt us down back then. You don’t know how many injuries Liu Qiao suffered from that. His life hung from a single thread many times, leaving a lot of residual consequences. Even now, his body aches on rainy days and he can’t sleep.”

Liu Qiao nudged Qiao Jin in displeasure. Why mention him? When he looked up, he saw Liu Zhenqing regarding him with a worried look.

“Master, I’m fine. How can a martial arts practitioner be free of illness or injuries?” Liu Qiao said indifferently.

Liu Zhenqing sighed. He knew Liu Qiao was capable. Being targeted as his right-hand man, if Liu Qiao were any weaker, his ending would have been the same as Bai Yu’s.

“Let’s go back, come with me to Medical Valley and let my master nurse you back to health,” Liu Zhenqing said.

Liu Qiao hurriedly waved his hands, leveling a fierce glare at Qiao Jin.

Qiao Jin was just in a bad mood and wanted to avenge the injustices done to Liu Qiao. “In short, the people behind the scenes are hidden well and deeply. They are very powerful, and intend to kill the emperor.”

Because this plan involved the Western Shu Kingdom, Qiao Jin understood it relatively clearly.

It was the people in the capital’s plan from the time the Spring Plowing Ceremony assassination plot exposed the rebel remnants. They were waiting for an opportunity, preparing for Qiao Jin, who controlled the Western Shu Kingdom, to launch an attack here. This would lead Huo Fenglie to lead his troops to the southwest. And once fighting started in the southwest, Xiheng Kingdom would definitely get involved. In this way, Huo Fenglie and the Huo Family Army would be completely contained.

Then they would have the rebels hiding on the island in the southeast rebel, and use the students gathered in the capital for the imperial examination case to spread rumors. This would force the emperor to lead a personal expedition, leave the capital, and personally go down to deal with the rebels, where he would be assassinated.

But they never expected the emperor to send Huo Fenglie south from the beginning to investigate the imperial examination case. Nor that Huo Fenglie would completely unearth the rebels’ logistics, directly trace the rebels’ source, and cause their plans to be disrupted.

Because Huo Fenglie and his party moved so fast, the people in the capital had no time to lay the groundwork for a change in strategy. They could only watch on helplessly as all of the rebels were arrested. Without the excuse of the rebels to lure the emperor here, and without knowing where Huo Fenglie would be in the future, it was difficult for them to make plans.

Only then did the plot of the true and false King of Western Shu come into play. Qiao Jin didn’t know what they planned to do next, but in any case, the people in the capital had to trap Huo Fenglie here for at least two months. It was only that Qiao Jin hadn’t expected the combined forces of Huo Fenglie and Liu Zhenqing to be so difficult to deal with, and had to resort to kidnapping.

After hearing Qiao Jin’s words, Liu Zhenqing and Huo Fenglie knew that the delay was most likely for the Longevity Festival on the emperor’s birthday, which took place in a month. This was to ensure that Huo Fenglie wouldn’t be present at that time. The assassination should take place then.

But there was one thing Liu Zhenqing found extremely strange. “Who are they backing in the end? They don’t know of Yuan Jin’s existence.”

“What?” Qiao Jin looked at him with a furrowed brow.

Liu Zhenqing analyzed: “If they throw the country into chaos and seize the throne, who will sit on it? Although Great Zhou currently has various potential problems, overall it seems that the country is peaceful and the common people are safe. Emperor Yuan Jue is also diligent and loves the common people, while they will bear the infamy and be unpopular. If another member of the Yuan family succeeds Yuan Jue when he’s killed, it would be possible. But after the Three Kings Rebellion, the Yuan clan has all but withered away. Now, apart from you, there are only those in the palace, and the eldest little prince can’t walk yet.”

Qiao Jin stared blankly for a moment, then said at once: “You don’t think I’m putting an act on in front of you?”

Intelligent people sometimes think too much. Liu Zhenqing shook his head, saying: “I have no more doubts. If your identity is revealed, it will also arouse the suspicions of the courtiers and make them suspect that you’re of unorthodox blood.”

Qiao Jin scoffed.

Suddenly, Huo Fenglie spoke up: “There’s one more thing.”

Liu Zhenqing was taken aback, and looked at Huo Fenglie with some uncertainty.

Huo Fenglie said gravely: “There’s one more thing, have you forgotten? Yuan Jue also has a younger brother, King Jing. If something happens to Yuan Jue, he is the most likely to ascend the throne.”

Liu Zhenqing was frozen for a moment before he remembered who King Jing was.

That was the youngest son of the first crown prince. When he was born, he had the same fate as Yuan Jue. His mother died during childbirth, so he was taken and raised by the current Empress Dowager and the Taifei, the late emperor’s top concubine. When the new emperor ascended the throne, he was only three years old. He had been frail and sick since childhood and could hardly leave the palace, so his sense of presence was very weak.

King Jing would be near sixteen or seventeen now. Because Liu Zhenqing hadn’t heard of him since his rebirth, he nearly forgot about him, thinking that he had died of illness long ago.

Even Qiao Jin was puzzled: “There’s another king?”

Huo Fenglie briefly spoke of King Jing’s situation. The reason people didn’t know there was another king was because King Jing was away from the capital at all times. Since he had no official position or duties, he simply traveled the mountains and rivers, wandering with the clouds and wild cranes. He didn’t live like a member of the royal family at all. Even Huo Fenglie hadn’t seen King Jing for many years.

Liu Zhenqing’s thoughts were so: The chaos of the Three Kings must have left Yuan Jue with a considerable psychological shadow. He would never let any prince have real power again, not even his only brother. Being unfettered from worldly concerns was the best way to live a long and healthy life, and according to the Empress Dowager’s character, she probably taught him in this manner.

When Liu Zhenqing first faced the group of rebels, he was most worried that the person they intended to support was Yuan Jin. But now, after such calculations, King Jing had become the most likely target of suspicion.

Liu Qiao expressed his confusion: “How is that possible? Those rebels are the remnants of the Three Kings. How can they support King Jing? Are they stupid?”

“They’re not stupid, they’re just being used. They only know that they can kill Yuan Jue in revenge, so they don’t care about being used as a weapon.” Liu Zhenqing touched his chin, the figures of two women flashing through his mind.

Could the Empress Dowager and the Taifei be involved in these matters? They brought up King Jing, after all.

Then Liu Zhenqing asked about Prince Qiao An again. After all, the plan here required the cooperation of Qiao Jin and Prince Qiao An. Huo Fenglie was able to give the answer to this, because in his rage, he had tortured Prince Xiao An and interrogated him.

Qiao An was so frightened that he gave up everything, which was perfect for cross-checking the information given by Qiao Jin.

Speaking of Qiao An, Qiao Jin mentioned that the people in the capital must be suspicious of him, not because of his identity, but because they felt that his actions after being the King of Western Xu for some time seeme ambitious. This worried them, so the matter this time was arranged without notification.

They chose not to directly order Qiao Jin to attack Huo Fenglie, but waited until Prince Qiao An was sent over, using the news about the true and false kings of Shu to cause conflict. This left Qiao Jin with no choice but to cooperate temporarily. It was also a warning to him.

And as for the true prince, Qiao An, his reason for cooperating was very simple. He was almost assassinated by his family and went into exile, but was discovered and taken in by the forces in the capital. They didn’t choose to develop Qiao An, and only raised him as a young master. Then they sent a substitute to go back and become the King of Western Shu, ready to obey orders at all times.

This was equivalent to keeping the balance, as Qiao An’s existence could always be used to threaten the false king of Western Shu into compliance and keep him from having ulterior motives. They could also use the false King of Western Shu to make Qiao An understand that he could be replaced at any time, and that the decision-making power was always in the hands of the people in the capital.

Liu Zhenqing couldn’t help but admire these imperial schemes. But considering Qiao An’s previous seduction attempts on Huo Fenglie, people’s hearts were really unpredictable. Prince Qiao An didn’t want to be completely controlled by others. He also wanted to escape this difficult situation, but had no other alternatives.

After figuring out the ins and outs of the matter, Liu Zhenqing looked at Huo Fenglie and said: “What do you think?”

Huo Fenglie always liked to listen to Liu Zhenqing, but the man was no longer the powerful minister he used to be and wouldn’t act in an arbitrary fashion. Now, he liked to ask Huo Fenglie for his opinion. After all, Huo Fenglie and Yuan Jue had a different sort of camaraderie.

“We must go back,” Huo Fenglie said at once. “Envoys from all over the world will come to the Longevity Festival. If something suddenly happens, other countries will immediately start a war.”

Liu Zhenqing nodded. He was about to speak, when he was interrupted by a mocking Qiao Jin.

“Didn’t you teach Yuan Jue? Liu Qiao keeps saying he’s better than me, but he didn’t notice a problem after seeing that shabby prince? If he’s killed by these rebels so easily, then he’s not worthy of being emperor. If King Jing can’t do it, you might as well help me.”

Liu Zhenqing smiled: “You’re not convinced and think you’re better than Yuan Jue?”

“The two of you originally thought he was so good because you were close to him.” Qiao Jin rolled his eyes.

Liu Zhenqing shook his head, saying: “If Yuan Jue was in your position, he would never develop Western Shu like this, arousing suspicion among the people in the capital. Nor would he risk going into the city to meet us. It is impossible to delay Huo Fenglie by sending troops, and even less possible to use the double-edged sword of public opinion. You did the right thing by kidnapping me, but it was only possible with Liu Qiao’s superb skills. Everything else, you did wrong.”

Qiao Jin stared at Liu Zhenqing.

Liu Zhenqing smiled. “The most important thing is that Yuan Jue has no weaknesses. He will not let one person influence his emotions and decisions, but you have. You are too impulsive and reckless, with a heart of bloodshed. Being in charge of the Western Shu Kingdom is fine, but for Great Zhou, you are far from enough.”

Unconvinced, Qiao Jin said: “Who says that? Don’t our ancestors include the type who dedicated their entire world to one person?”

Liu Zhenqing and Huo Fenglie both gave him strange looks, as if to say, what kind of emperor can be used for comparison? That was an unprecedented situation and couldn’t be used as an example.

Liu Zhenqing patted Qiao Jin and said: “It’s actually amazing that you could grow up freely like this. You don’t want to be the emperor anyway, so why compare yourself?”

Qiao Jin scoffed coldly.

Liu Zhenqing continued: “Your guess is correct, it’s impossible for Yuan Jue not to have noticed anything. I actually think Yuan Jue is taking advantage of the situation. He doesn’t know who’s behind the scenes, so he’s planning to lure the enemy out and annihilate them in one fell swoop.”

Huo Fenglie said with a frown: “Then I shouldn’t go back? Just play my part here?”

Liu Zhenqing shook his head. “Yuan Jue may not know their complete plan, but he’ll definitely hear about what happened here. So tell the truth, that you tortured Qiao An due to emotional impulse and some truths were revealed as a result. Let Yuan Jue determine if you should stay or go back. As for what Qiao Jin said, there’s no need to tell him.”

Although the information Qiao Jin provided was useful, without actual evidence, reporting it hastily would only arouse Yuan Jue’s suspicion.

“Emotional…..impulse?” Huo Fenglie stared blankly.

Liu Zhenqing smiled and said: “In any case, report whatever rumors are going around the army. Only in this way will they be true.”

Huo Fenglie looked at Liu Zhenqing with a complicated expression. According to Yuan Jue’s temperament, if he heard about this situation, they might be granted a marriage in the future. Had Qing-ge not considered this?

Liu Zhenqing noticed Huo Fenglie’s strange expression, then recalled the failed marriage proposal and felt a little unhappy. What, he didn’t want to spread rumors with him?

Then he must spread them. When it reached Yuan Jue’s ears, it would be spread all over the country. Let’s see how Er-gou hides then!

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Chapter One Hundred Twenty << Table of Contents >> Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two

Every time she passed the single ward where the young student was staying, the nurse couldn’t help but take another look.

Although most hospital workers had experienced strong winds and waves, this time things were indeed a bit strange.

The door of the ward had been sprinkled with a layer of white rice.

For the past week, two men would come over silently at night, move folding stools over and guard the door to the left and right like door gods, and then silently walk away once dawn arrived.

The nurse taking care of Li Xiu was also aware that there were several talismans taped under the boy’s bed. This matter naturally made the nurse a bit nervous. However, on the night Li Xiu arrived, orders came from above, telling her to turn a blind eye to it all and not ask any questions, and even more so to not tell Li Xiu about these strange things, so as not to frighten him.

“Of course, this is also for your safety. If you don’t ask more questions or delve into it, you won’t provoke anything…..”

The nurse thought about the meaning-laden words of the head nurse and shivered all over. After all, those foolish young people in horror movies who knew there was a tiger in the woods yet still went there were in the minority. The doctors and nurses going in and out of this ward all carried out these orders from above meticulously. They didn’t look too much or ask any questions, simply treating those strange arrangements like air.

But on such a quiet night, the nurse looked at the rice at Li Xiu’s door and had some doubts.

Avoiding the surveillance, the nurse carefully took out her cell phone and fearfully mentioned it in a private group chat.

[Am I overthinking things? Why is it so cold in the hallway tonight?]

[Wa, you’re playing with your phone on duty again. Aren’t you afraid of a nursing department inspection?]

Someone responded to her immediately.

[I don’t usually do this, but today is special.] The young nurse couldn’t help but take another glimpse of the door. [I’m particularly scared today.]

[You mean that room? Don’t look at it. The more you look at it, the more strange it’ll become.]

[Didn’t your bosses say not to make any inquiries?]

[But something really isn’t right today. When I passed by that ward, my back felt especially chilled.]

The more she looked at the discussion on her phone, the more afraid she became.

It felt like something was coming.

A chill hit her. The nurse’s hand shook, and she turned off the screen, shoving the phone back into a drawer.

There was silence all around. The air conditioner was turned too low, making her shiver from the cold.

The nurse subconsciously glanced at Li Xiu’s ward. Although the two men guarding the door looked strange, she felt a little more at ease with them accompanying her in the ward at night.

But with that glance, the nurse’s movements froze.

What was going on? Why…..why was the white rice at the door starting to turn red at a speed visible to the naked eye?

“Wu…..”

A faint whimper came from the closed ward.

“Not good!”

The moment the rice turned red, Xu Qinghe, who had been guarding the door in silence, jolted and immediately leapt to his feet.

“Li Xiu!”

Without hesitation, the older man kicked open the door of the ward and rushed in with Qiao Yang.

The lighting inside the ward was dim.

Light from the corridor poured into the room, allowing Xu Qinghe to see everything clearly.

He saw a huddled figure shivering on the bed, unable to move, with only a thin quilt covering him.

There was a person on top of that quilt.

Of course, that thing only looked like a person.

Its entire body was red, soft and moist like a hunk of flesh that had just lost its skin. With long, thin limbs and a large body, it nearly occupied the whole bed while lying on Li Xiu’s quilt.

And its face was currently covered in a paper mask.

The pale cheeks of the paper mask were soaked with blood, and a dark red outline under the white paper could be vaguely seen.

The eye sockets were gouged out, and the area below them was now wet with black and red blood.

It simply looked at Teacher Xu and Qiao Yang, who had just now barged into the room.

The scarlet lips on the mask that grinned all the way to its ears moved slightly, as if it was smiling.

Then a gust of wind blew and the strange, twisted figure suddenly vanished as if it had been a nightmare—

“Damn!” 

Teacher Xu’s expression shifted greatly. He reached into his pocket, and when he raised his hand again, he scattered out a large handful of newly-burned talisman paper.

Paper dust scattered inside the room. It seemed ordinary, but where the dust fell, there were many traces of light gray on all the walls of the ward.

One on top of another.

They looked vaguely like palm prints.

“Watch its marks!” Teacher Xu called out anxiously.

As his words fell, the palm prints that were originally only on the walls began to spread at an alarming speed.

Everyone in the room heard an odd and subtle slapping sound somewhere in the dark.

The palm prints stretched from the walls to the ceiling.

“T-Teacher, I can’t move—”

Xu Qinghe rushed toward Li Xiu on the bed. Just as he was about to reach out and take Li Xiu out from under the quilt, a chill abruptly spread from his wrist to his entire body.

Something crawled over him.

It was obviously insubstantial, but Teacher Xu was instantly unable to move.

All the joints in his body crackled, and there was a heavy weight on his shoulders.

Xu Qinghe bit the tip of his tongue and felt a stinging pain. His mouth filled with a fishy sweetness. The man swallowed a mouthful of blood and spoke with difficulty to the figure at hand: “Li Xiu…..take this…..and run…..”

As blood spurted from the tip of his tongue, the man regained a meager ability to move. Slowly, he handed a sheet of talisman paper toward Li Xiu.

However, he soon heard Li Xiu’s trembling cry.

“Teacher Xu, I’m not in bed…..who are you talking to? Wuwuwu…..”

Only then did Teacher Xiu realize that Li Xiu’s voice was coming from under the bed.

The youth’s face was paper-white as he peeked his head out from under the bed to look at the immobilized man above with terror.

In the fright just now, Li Xiu had hidden under the bed in order to avoid that “thing” that was following him everywhere.

Xu Qinghe gasped. He moved his eyes with difficulty.

Unable to change position, his field of vision was limited. He could only catch a glimpse in his peripheral vision of the blue-white hand with bloody fingertips stuck to his arm.

That thing was hiding under the quilt, gripping him firmly.

Without fire, the talisman spontaneously ignited at Xu Qinghe’s fingertips.

However, the life-saving talisman that was supposed to suppress dark things not only burned Xu Qinghe’s fingertips slightly, but also didn’t harm that thing.

Xu Qinghe’s expression sank slightly, and another mouthful of blood from his bitten tongue spurted out.

“Qiao Yang!” he shouted.

But Qiao Yang, who was supposed to watch his back, didn’t respond to his call.

[“Hahaha…..Xiao Qiao, ah…..”]

[“We’re all brothers. Qiao Yang, if you don’t play with us, you won’t be considered a friend.”]

[“Come, come, it’s not far ahead. Let’s have a drink.”]

In the ward occupied by only three people, several male voices could be faintly heard.

Laughing and joking, they lingered behind Xu Qinghe, next to Qiao Yang.

Light from the door shone in, casting long shadows on the floor.

Next to Qiao Yang’s shadow were several hazy figures.

Judging from their shadows, they seemed to have their arms slung intimately over Qiao Yang’s shoulders.

Qiao Yang was unknowingly being pushed by the shadows toward the ward’s window.

Now Teacher Xu could see the shadows next to Qiao Yang without much effort — how could they be Qiao Yang’s friends? They were the same people who had died in Qiming Secondary School before!

Everything from Song Cheng’s chest to his lower abdomen was torn open, his internal organs hanging out.

Wang Rongfa’s body was completely distorted and no longer human.

A rope was tied around Ou Yang’s neck, and the lower half of his body had fallen off due to extreme decay.

When he saw that those voices were about to bewitch Qiao Yang into jumping through the window, large beads of sweat dripped from Teacher Xu’s forehead.

His lips traced out words rapidly as lines of blood leaked from the corners of his mouth.

However, the scriptures Teacher Xu recited couldn’t be spoken aloud.

Qiao Yang was in danger, and he himself wasn’t faring much better.

His body shook continuously, the weight pressing down on his shoulders growing heavier and heavier…..

Strands of black hair hung down over the man, obscuring his vision.

A murky, ferocious female voice continuously murmured in his ear.

“They should all die…..”

There was a bloody cheek close to the side of Xu Qinghe’s face.

Because her tongue would fall from her broken jaw, everything the female ghost said was very unclear.

“I begged you to save him…..I begged so many people, ah…..”

“Save him, that’s my child, ah. He’s still so young…..”

“A-Yu…..my poor A-Yu…..How could anyone treat him like that…..”

“Yet why aren’t you willing to help me?”

There was an evil wind and resentment in the room. 

Teacher Xu’s face was pale, and he had difficulty breathing.

In his incrementally blurry vision, some very hazy scenes appeared—

A woman.

A woman who was extremely thin due to a fatal illness, yet still beautiful.

She knelt in front of a group of people and begged them to help her rescue her abused child.

However, after being asked for countless amounts of money and other fees, the people who had promised to expose the matter and get her custody back broke their promises without exception.

When the woman became more vocal and fierce, seeing that the situation might really be out of control……

Someone lifted her off the bed and pushed her out the window of the ward.

. . . . . . .

With the yin qi invading his soul, Xu Qinghe’s eyes, nose, and ears gradually oozed blood.

Even the blood seeping from the tip of his tongue was turning from bright red to pitch black.

The man’s body began to shake, and the moment he was about to collapse—

“Prosperity, democracy, civilization, harmony. Civilization—”

Li Xiu’s tearful voice sounded.

The youth had mustered the courage to crawl out from under the bed. While crying and reciting the core values of socialism, he grabbed the exercise book on the bedside table and threw it at the black shadow enveloping Teacher Xu.

Surprisingly, the black shadow that even a spiritual spell had difficulty affecting let out a shrill wail when it was hit by the exercise book.

The female ghost’s form dispersed slightly. The power suppressing Xu Qinghe relaxed for a moment — and he naturally didn’t miss this fleeting opportunity.

“In the name of the Tienfeng Sect, the great immortal subjugates demons, and evil is defeated. With eagles and hounds at the head, two generals hear the call and stand before the altar. The emperor proclaims divine power according to law and order, and demons and ghosts will be punished and sealed. The supreme holy power is vast and boundless, compelling obedience to the divine northern emperor—”

At his sharp shout, two balls of fire suddenly appeared in Teacher Xu’s hands.

The shadows trapping him immediately dispersed in the firelight.

Then, with quick steps, he rushed toward the window.

At this time, Qiao Yang had one foot on the windowsill, his body falling forward. He was just about to jump from the ward’s window. Xu Qinghe grasped Qiao Yang’s collar and threw  him back onto the floor.

“But we agreed, ah….. to go…..get a drink. Just one cup. My teacher…..told me something is wrong…..”

Qiao Yang’s eyes were still empty after being dragged back into the room. Mumbling continuously, he tried to climb back up onto the windowsill again.

Xu Qinghe didn’t hold back. In front of Li Xiu, who had lost his head in fear, he slapped Qiao Yang several times in the face.

Qiao Yang’s face swelled up at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Finally, the young man stretched out his neck and vomited several mouthfuls of black blood. Then he lost strength entirely and fell unmoving into Teacher Xu’s arms. 

“T-Teacher Xu…..”

Li Xiu stared at the young man motionless in Teacher Xu’s arms. His knees weakened and he couldn’t keep himself from falling to the floor.

As if guessing what had Li Xiu so panicked at this moment, he wiped his face and called out, “He’s not dead,” patting the limp disciple in his arms. 

“It’s just that the yin qi impacted his soul, so he has no strength for the time being. Don’t worry, he’ll wake up again later.”

As he spoke, Teacher Xu covered his mouth and coughed several times. Black blood dripped and oozed between his fingers.

The man looked at Li Xiu and said softly: “Fortunately…..fortunately you helped me, otherwise I really don’t know what would have happened…..”

Having said this, he used the hand that wasn’t wet with blood to hand the exercise book that had fallen to the ground to Li Xiu.

Li Xiu looked dumbly at Teacher Xu for a moment, then took the exercise book back and hugged it tightly in his arms.

“I, I thought it would be useless,” the youth said inanely.

“But I didn’t know what to do, so I just recited those words…..”

“Cough, cough. It was useful.” Teacher Xu coughed, smiling. “As I said, if you learn and study hard, you won’t need to fear these ghostly things.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh my god…..”

“What happened?”

There was a commotion outside the door.

Li Xiu opened his eyes to look toward the door, only to find nurses and security guards crowded there, looking at those of them in the room in bewilderment.

So much had obviously happened, yet they approached as if they had just now realized something was wrong.

---

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Chapter 48 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 50

Click.

The door to the ward opened.

An older man with a slightly tired expression walked out of the ward and was immediately greeted by a tall young man.

“Teacher. How’s it going? Did that student say anything?”

“Shh.”

Teacher Xu put his finger in front of his lips in a shushing gesture. Looking back at the closed door to the ward, he shook his head slightly.

Then he turned and walked toward the end of the corridor, where there was a small open window..

Xu Qinghe came to a stop in front of the window. He watched the bustling street for a moment, then opened his mouth and lamented to the young man beside him: 

“Qiao Yang, ah. That child just had to be targeted by something like this.”

The expression of the young man named Qiao Yang became grim.

He knew better than anyone that his teacher rarely spoke in such a heavy tone.

“I’ve already questioned Classmate Li Xiu. When he was deceived by Grandmother Qi into giving alms to Lord Hong in their home, he didn’t notice anything wrong and just chalked it up to the family’s elder fooling around.”

“How can that be?” Qiao Yang frowned, doubt flashing through his eyes. “Could that kid be lying? What the old woman brought home was…..was ‘Lord Hong.’ That thing is so vicious. An old woman and a kid giving alms are pretty much seeking death. After all these years, how could nothing have happened to this family?!”

Teacher Xu smiled bitterly and lifted a hand to silence Qiao Yang.

“That’s why I said this matter is so difficult to handle.”

The man removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Li Xiu said that Grandmother Qi always told him to see that thing as a relative, and also told him to call it ‘gege.’”

Recalling Li Xiu’s strange, complicated expression when he spoke of his “gege,” Teacher Xu’s heart sank a bit.

“I’m afraid Grandmother Qi’s gone crazy.” Qiao Yang held himself back over and over, but still couldn’t suppress a curse. “The Xiao family has been offering sacrifices for more than a hundred years, and it still hasn’t lost its vicious nature. She thought she could just take home an evil spirit that had wiped out an entire family and simply offer it rice, like she was raising a little two-bit devil from Southeast Asia. Calling it “gege” and treating it as family? Why do people’s brains get so muddled when they’re old…..”

“Whatever the case, Lord Hong actually responded to Li Xiu calling him ‘gege.’”

Qiao Yang hadn’t expected Teacher Xu to say such a thing, and was simply stunned: “How is that possible?”

Teacher Xu put on his glasses and asked: “Why would it not be possible?”

“Qiming has been safe and sound for so long, so how is it that Li Xiu only started running into trouble after he was bullied? Have you still not realized that those kids who encountered accidents bullied Li Xiu before?”

“Ah? Teacher, you—”

“I questioned Li Xiu’s teachers and classmates,” Teacher Xu sighed. “Students like him don’t fare well in Qiming. The missing Wang Rongfa and the dead Song Cheng were arrogant and domineering in school. Oh, right, there was also something wrong with that male teacher named Ou Yang. He probably also thought to put hands on Li Xiu, and was killed for it. Qiao Yang, what do you think this situation is similar to?”

“S-similar to what?”

Qiao Yang was slow to react.

Hating iron for not becoming steel, Teach Xu glanced at him and said in a low voice: “Isn’t this like when a family’s younger brother or sister is bullied, and the older one goes to help them?”

Qiao Yang was speechless: “Ah? Wait, but, those young students are missing or dead—”

“It’s an evil spirit, not a human being.”

Teacher Xu’s voice became extremely serious.

“Therefore, it can’t distinguish between good and evil. Li Xiu was bullied. If he had a living big brother, no matter how unreasonable he was, the most he would do was go to their door and beat up those bullying brats. But when this thing took action…..”

This time, Qiao Yang finally answered: “It just killed them.”

Teacher Xu nodded.

“Indeed. You see, this is the most frightening thing.”

A light flashed through Qiao Yang’s eyes. He looked carefully at his teacher beside him and tentatively spoke: “Then, Teacher, if that’s the case, will it be okay if we wait for that thing to calm down? It seems that all the students who bullied Li Xiu are dead now—”

Before he could finish speaking, Qiao Yang felt pain on his forehead. The always gentle Teacher Xu was currently furious, and smacked the young man in front of him on the forehead, cursing several times. 

“What do you mean ‘is it okay?’ Huh? Those were human lives! Human lives!” Veins popped out on the man’s forehead. “Even then, how could it be so simple? One must absolutely not use human thinking to speculate on such things. That Lord Hong seems to have truly accepted Li Xiu’s wish and become his ‘gege.’ What do you think it will do?”

“……” Qiao Yang covered his head and didn’t dare speak a word.

“It will only do its utmost to kill that student, take him away, and drag him into its world! Don’t you know that a family is uniform? A thing like Lord Hong doesn’t think about humans and ghosts having different paths to walk. It only thinks that since it is family, its family should be the same as it. What is a family if one person is alive and the other is dead? A dead person can’t come alive, but a living person can become a dead one!”

As Teacher Xu spoke word by word, his expression grew increasingly ugly: “The worst thing isn’t that Lord Hong intends to take Li Xiu away. The worst thing is that not only will it take Li Xiu away, it won’t stop there!”

“Ah?”

“Li Xiu said he was tricked into attending school in that world. Well, the classmates he met that time were all paper figure fakes, so he could tell them apart from real ones. So if Lord Hong feels that the paper figures aren’t good enough, wouldn’t he want to bring all of Li Xiu’s classmates over to keep him company? And if there are students, won’t there have to be a teacher?”

Qiao Yang’s face gradually went pale as he listened to Teacher Xu.

Although it sounded extremely absurd, when he considered the things he had been exposed to over the years, Qiao Yang had to admit that Teacher Xu’s words were not nonsense. 

If this matter wasn’t handled properly, the thing that wiped out the entire Xiao family, the thing that was just barely sealed with the help of spiritual masters across the country, might steal away the entire student body of Qiming.

Just to keep its beloved little brother company.

The silence lingering between master and disciple became unusually heavy.

After a long time, Qiao Yang rubbed his face and steeled himself to ask: “What should we do now?” The young man’s eyes flashed with unconcealed worry. “…..We’ve been searching that student’s house for so long. He said Li Yu’s urn is under the bed in the bedroom. We practically dug through the floor below it, but we found no sign of the urn, ah.”

Theoretically speaking, it wasn’t difficult to deal with something like Lord Hong, whose true body was sealed away with only some remnants left outside. All they needed to do was find the ashes stolen by Grandmother Qi. The ashes contaminated by Lord Hong’s aura could be burned clean using Violet Cinnabar True Fire, and once Lord Hong had nothing left to attach itself to, it could no longer cause any trouble.

But as Qiao Yang said, after discovering the problem, Teacher Xu sent people to Li Xiu’s home to collect Li Yu’s ashes, but found that the ashes that had been enshrined under the bed for over a decade had mysteriously vanished.

And Li Xiu didn’t seem like he was lying.

“There’s no other way. We need to find them,” Teacher Xu said in a deep voice.

As he spoke, he turned his head to gaze deeply at the ordinary-looking ward at the other end of the corridor. The frail youth whom the evil spirit regarded as “family” was in that ward.

Teacher Xu inexplicably thought of the question Li Xiu had called out after him before he left the ward.

“Teacher Xu?”

“En?”

“Will it let me go?”

Teacher Xu hadn’t answered the question directly at that time.

He told Li Xiu to rest well and not think too much, and to take good care of his body.

But in fact, the older man knew the answer to Li Xiu’s question better than anybody else.

No, it won’t let you go.

That thing will definitely come back for you.

*

*

Inside the ward.

Li Xiu sat in the hospital bed. After Teacher Xu left, he stared at the tightly closed door for a long time, then shuddered. Perhaps because he was so weak, or perhaps because he had suffered big a blow in life, Li Xiu constantly felt cold.

He used a remote control to turn up the heat, and pulled a blanket over himself.

He’d learned a lot from Teacher Xu today, and his mind was a bit of a mess. In order to calm down, Li Xiu simply picked up the practice questions Teacher Chen had sent over and finished half of them in one go. The high-intensity mental exertion left the already weak Li Xiu dizzy. Unknowingly, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

When woke up with an abrupt start, he found that he had slept until nighttime without realizing it.

It was silent inside the ward, and the night was dark outside the half-closed window.

The needle stuck into the back of his hand before he fell asleep was gone, and the IV had also been removed. Gel pens and the exercise book were neatly placed on the bedside table, and there was also a soft quilt over Li Xiu.

Half-sitting up in the hospital bed, Li Xiu sat and thought for a moment. He vaguely recalled that a nurse-jiejie seemed to have come in while he was sleeping.

She seemed to have called out to him a few times, but Li Xiu was sleeping deeply at that time and didn’t wake up.

Li Xiu took a look at his phone.

The sudden flare of light from the screen hurt his eyes. The time was 3 a.m.

In fact, Li Xiu had guessed that it was around this time before he checked.

Since his hospitalization, Li Xiu would inexplicably wake up at 3 a.m. almost every night.

Today was the same.

He was probably just too anxious.

Comforting himself, Li Xiu gritted his teeth and fell back on the hospital bed.

So cold…..

Li Xiu automatically opened the chat box with Fang Qian’an. Judging from the records, Fang Qian’an had sent a steady stream of nonsense, to which Li Xiu would only occasionally reply with one or two sentences.

It wasn’t like he’d thought Fang Qian’an’s nonsense had any merit before.

But now, he looked at that nonsense for a long time.

Teacher Xu hadn’t elaborated before, but since waking up, Li Xiu could probably guess that the “candles” brought to that other world for light were closely related to a person’s lifeline. In the end, Fang Qian’an had burned the entire candle in order to save him.

Therefore, after they were rescued, Fang Qian’an’s condition was much worse than Li Xiu’s. Since that day, he hadn’t received any messages from Fang Qian’an.

That idiot…..

Was he really okay now?

It was difficult for Li Xiu to hide the worry in his heart. His fingertips tapped back and forth on the dialogue box several times, but he didn’t sent a message.

It was so late.

He thought, I’ll wait until tomorrow. Li Xiu shrank under the quilt. The corners of his eyes felt slightly warm. Li Xiu touched the pillowcase and found that it was damp. Perhaps he’d accidentally cried in his dreams.

The hospital was eerily quiet late at night.

Li Xiu hid under the quilt. Loneliness slowly surged up like a rising tide. He’d initially wanted to sleep a little longer, but after lying in bed for a long while, he still couldn’t fall asleep. He could only open his eyes and stare blankly at the closed door to the ward.

The lights in the hospital corridor were always on, and from Li Xiu’s perspective, he could clearly see the faint light leaking into the room through the crack in the door.

When Teacher Xu was arranging a ward for him, perhaps considering everything he had gone through, he’d specially arranged a ward for him that was closest to the nurse’s station.

In the next few days, this became Li Xiu’s greatest psychological comfort.

…..Though he still didn’t sleep well at night.

Li Xiu should have felt at ease knowing that someone was watching over him just on the other side of the wall. However, even he himself didn’t know why he was in such a cold sweat while lying in bed.

Li Xiu’s heart was beating wildly out of control. His throat was tight and dry, and there was the faint taste of blood on his breath.

He held the quilt in a death grip, a voice inside of him shouting unceasingly.

Something isn’t quite right, he thought.

What was it……

Clearly, everything was the same as before. Clearly, the most difficult time had passed. Clearly, he was lying in a room only separated from the nurse’s station by a wall…..

Li Xiu’s breathing came heavy. His back was wet with cold sweat.

“Huff…..”

“Huff…..”

At this moment, he fixed his eyes on the door — the light under the door dimmed slightly as a figure flitted past.

Li Xiu subconsciously held his breath.

But soon, familiar rapid footsteps passed by the door to his ward.

Ah, that shadow must be the night shift nurse. Another ward must have called for the nurse’s assistance.

Li Xiu realized this belatedly.

He slowly breathed a sigh of relief.

But in the next second, he froze again.

“Huff…..”

There was the sound of breathing.

Li Xiu finally realized why he kept feeling that something was wrong.

It was the breathing sound.

He had clearly held his breath in fear just now, but the sound of heavy, turbid breathing could still be heard.

During the seven days he’d been hospitalized, this sound had been lingering around him faintly, overlapping with every breath of his own. So before, he just vaguely felt that something wasn’t right but couldn’t find the reason.

That accumulated uneasiness forced him to wake up involuntarily every night.

And just now, he finally heard the breathing of someone else who shouldn’t be in the ward.

……The sound was coming from underneath his bed.

Li Xiu clutched the quilt tightly. At this moment, the air inside the ward seemed to freeze.

But through the hospital bed mattress, the sound of breathing at once became extremely loud and clear.

Li Xiu did his utmost to hold his breath so that he could hear more clearly, but holding his breath in a state of extreme fear made his head spin.

Who was it?

No, he should say what…..was under the bed?

Li Xiu covered his mouth. His body shook uncontrollably.

Intense fear paralyzed him, but it was as if there was an invisible whip lashing him, and his survival instincts made him subconsciously want to determine what was under the bed.

“Huff……”

Was it an illusion?

Or was he having a panic attack?

Li Xiu tried hard to calm himself.

However, the faint sound of breathing grew closer. At least, to Li Xiu’s ears. And this time, the breathing he heard seemed…..like it was coming from beside him on the bed.

There was obviously only a narrow gap on that side, so how was someone breathing there?

Li Xiu was currently huddled under the quilt.

He didn’t dare to stick his head out.

Because he felt that if he lifted the quilt, he would see something that he never wanted to face in his lifetime.

Li Xiu’s heart was beating like it was about to burst out of his chest in the next second. He bit his lip, trembling, and then turned his phone to picture mode.

Using his fingertips, he pushed the top part of the phone through the gap between the quilt and the bed.

Then, hiding beneath the quilt, he slowly pressed the camera button.

The phone successfully took a series of photos.

Enduring the terror, Li Xiu slowly pulled the phone back under the quilt.

When he checked the photos he had just taken, Li Xiu shook so much that he almost couldn’t hang onto the phone.

Upon looking at the first photo, Li Xiu didn’t recognize what it was right away — he didn’t see a ghost, male or female, lying on his quilt, nor did he see the masked paper figures that once occupied his nightmares.

In fact, the screen was just a blur of black and red.

The center of the screen was black, with only a layer of scarlet at all four corners. Several pictures in a row were the same. It was almost like there was something wrong with his old phone’s camera.

All of the pictures were so blurry.

Li Xiu stared blankly at the screen of his mobile phone.

The epiphany came abruptly

It was at that moment that Li Xiu finally realized what he was seeing.

No, there was nothing wrong with his phone.

That thing was just too close.

So close that Li Xiu’s phone couldn’t adjust the focus, so when the photos were taken, it was just a mass of black and red.

The black was that thing’s pupil. 

And the red was the white of its eye filled with blood.

“A-Xiu, ah.”

Li Xiu heard a familiar elderly voice.

“A-Xiu, why haven’t you brought your gege food today?”

His grandmother, who had passed away a week ago, urged him the same as always.

But his grandmother’s voice had never been so vague during her lifetime.

A faint corpse-like odor mixed with the smell of disinfectant.

Even wrapped up tightly in the quilt, Li Xiu couldn’t isolate himself from the smell.

…..That was not his grandmother.

---

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Chapter 47 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 49

It was a boring, cliche story.

A swindling charlatan pretending to be involved with the supernatural raised an excellent daughter who was incompatible with her mother.

The daughter was beautiful, intelligent, and had excellent grades. However, the mother always made her playact with her, claiming that her daughter was born to be a “witch.” For this reason, the daughter was bullied and discriminated against since she was a child. She hated it all so much that she even cut ties with her mother. As a result, the daughter completely separated from her mother after graduating university.

Then, the daughter fell in love with a wealthy young man. This love she had never felt before completely confused her mind. She was so deeply in love with him. But then, after many years of dating, the man abandoned this woman from a poor background and chose to marry a well-matched daughter from a wealthy family.

But the daughter was already pregnant with the man’s child.

She chose to give birth to the child named “Li Yu.”

“…..After Li Yu was born, Li Xuelin raised him independently. She occasionally contacted your grandmother during this period, but they parted ways on bad terms. It wasn’t until six years later that Li Xuelin was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Perhaps it was because she had a bad relationship with your grandmother, or perhaps because she worried that your grandmother wouldn’t be able to raise her child well, she chose to let Li Yu return to his father’s family.”

“The Xiao family,” Li Xiu whispered, not waiting for Teacher Xu to continue speaking.

Teacher Xu nodded with a sigh.

The man who had loved Li Xuelin for many years and then abandoned her was the popular young heir to the Xiao family back then.

Although already married, Xiao Weisi had no other children at the time.

From Li Xuelin’s point of view, with the astonishing wealth of the Xiao family, there would be no problem raising an illegitimate child.

She never would have expected that the Xiao family residence was certainly not a good place for such an innocent child with the Xiao family blood flowing through his veins.

“The Xiao family’s prosperity was very ‘unclean.’”

Teacher Xu’s narration echoed in the bright, clean ward.

“…..The earliest records can be traced back to the Qing Dynasty. The ancestors of the Xiao family happened to obtain a small red door, with ‘that thing’ sealed inside of it.”

“No one knows which great power sealed it within the door, nor do they know its true name. In the places where ‘He’ appeared, people generally called him ‘Lord Hong.’ He was extremely dangerous, as well as abnormally powerful. Even when he was sealed, he had the magical powers to fulfill the wishes of the Xiao family generation after generation. Relying on the power of what was sealed behind that door, the Xiao family escaped countless natural and manmade disasters throughout history, and the entire family became the richest in the country. However, the blessings from the red door were not free.”

“The Xiao family soon discovered that they must give back as much as they received.….”

“By the time of Xiao Weisi’s generation, the Xiao family had to use their own flesh and blood as a sacrifice to just barely suppress its backlash.”

Upon hearing this, Li Xiu could pretty much guess the rest of the story. His face instantly paled.

Teacher Xu shot a glance at him and continued.

“Karma brought great retribution. As the Xiao family became increasingly prosperous, it became increasingly difficult for their children to reproduce. This generation of the Xiao family had only two living children left. Xiao Weisi’s sister must have sensed something of the dark side of the family. Thus, she eloped with someone just after she came of age, and no news was heard of her again. And the eldest son, Xiao Weisi, was never able to successfully produce a child.”

“But Li Yu returned home.”

“Indeed. Then Li Xuelin sent Li Yu back.”

“Doesn’t the saying go that a tiger, though cruel, will not devour its cubs? Wasn’t Li Yu that man’s only child? Why…..why did he…..”

Even though he knew everything had already come to pass, Li Xiu still felt that it was unbelievable.

“A man doesn’t give birth to a new life on his own,” Teacher Xu said lightly. “What’s more, under the influence of substantial financial interests and the threat of death, not everyone has the courage to sacrifice themself.”

Li Xiu’s lips moved slightly for a moment.

He thought of everything Fang Qian’an had done in that dark otherworld.

Teacher Xu looked at Li Xiu tenderly: “You are a very good child, and so is Classmate Fang. But for a family such as the Xiao family, which was accustomed to obtaining everything through illegitimate means, it was impossible for them to possess courage like the two of you.”

As long as they worshiped, they could obtain glory and wealth such as others could never achieve in a lifetime. And so what if the one used as a sacrifice was their own child?

As long as it wasn’t them, it was fine.

After a brief silence, Li Xiu’s question sounded in the ward: “What happened then?”

The youth’s face was pale, but his eyes were steady and entirely unwavering.

He revealed a calmness and determination beyond his years: “Since the Xiao family met their fate later, something had to have gone wrong, right?”

Teacher Xu couldn’t help but give Li Xiu a look of approval. When he spoke again, his voice was heavier than ever before.

“You’re very bright,” he said. “Indeed, there was a sizable problem with the Xiao family’s living sacrifice. Because……”

Because when Li Yu was sent back to the Xiao family, the mistress of the family at that time was unaware of this cruel imperative. That arrogant and indulgent daughter of a wealthy family who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth only felt that she had suffered an intolerable betrayal. And her husband’s vague explanation and determination to take the child back at all costs caused her resentment to swell to the extreme. She began to think of every possible way to abuse this illegitimate child a female lover had forced into the Xiao family residence. But at that time, the Xiao family had made no living sacrifices to the red door in a long time. A large number of business problems occurred, and Xiao Weisi was too busy focusing on himself to care about this child who was destined for an early death.

“……Li Yu was sent to the hospital due to severe abuse before the scheduled time of sacrifice, and died from his injuries.”

He didn’t know if it was his imagination, but when Li Xiu heard this, he once again felt a vague and indistinct coldness.

He couldn’t help but give Teacher Xu a careful glance, but the other party revealed no abnormalities.

“Everyone who participated in the human sacrifice back then is dead, and we can only guess what happened. If our supposition is correct, the Xiao family, who were completely at their wits’ end, used Li Yu’s body as a sacrifice.” Teacher Xu pushed up his glasses, saying, “Although theoretically, even using a corpse as a sacrifice wouldn’t result in such a large incident later, you know the end result. The severe backlash caused the red door to open. After Lord Hong walked through that door, the strong yin qi caused the Xiao family tragedy and alerted, well, people like us.”

Li Xiu’s fingertips curled into the quilt.

“We expended much effort to seal that thing back into the red door. However, Li Yu’s body and soul had been thoroughly contaminated by ‘Lord Hong’ and couldn’t be saved. In order to prevent the red door from opening again, or perhaps being taken away by someone with good intentions, only to result in another tragedy, we suppressed Li Yu’s body inside the Xiao Family Villa and sealed the red door under the foundation of the complex…..it was supposed to be a foolproof seal.”

“So what went wrong?”

“Well……”

Teacher Xu’s voice gradually became dry. He removed his glasses and wiped them.

“At that time, the thing inside the red door was too fierce. My sect was short of manpower, so as a last resort, I invited several local Daoist brothers to help out. Your grandmother also came.”

Hearing this, Li Xiu raised his head abruptly and stared at Teacher Xu in disbelief.

Teacher Xu didn’t avoid his gaze.

“This matter was a grave mistake on our part. Your grandmother used some sort of special technique to determine Li Yu’s identity. Li Xuelin had already passed away by then. As an elderly person, there was really no way for her to accept that her own grandson had been suppressed and lost beneath an array, so……so she……stole Li Yu’s ashes.”

*

Twelve years ago—

“Grandmother Qi, are you here to watch?”

A strongly-accented question rang out, but the old woman ignored the man beside her.

Seeing the old woman’s indifference, the man frowned and couldn’t help but try to persuade her several times.

“Aiyo, I’ve also got nothing better to do than than tell you this. Everyone in that villa is a capable person. We were only called here for show. You old woman with your old arms and legs, don’t go forward if you see something. There’s no need.”

It was late at night.

The night breeze brought the faint sound of chanting from nearby. A spiritual master from a famous sect with roots in Miaohong was casting spells inside the villa. The thick odor of cinnabar, blood, and incense ash mixed in the air, making one feel suffocated just by breathing it in.

Indeed, as the man had just called attention to, they were just waiting around. At most, they would simply walk around the villa’s gardens and patrol all night. They weren’t qualified to go farther inside. Naturally, this was for their own good. After all, even countryside practitioners like them could vaguely sense that something in the villa was abnormal.

In the dark night, the old woman slowly blinked her reddened eyes.

Her companion wasn’t like her, and couldn’t see it.

Just beside the wall, a familiar yet unfamiliar form covered her face, weeping with grief and despair.

[“Mama…..Mom…..I’m so sorry…..wuwuwuwuwu…..Mama, save my cub…..”]

[“Mama…..I’ll listen to you from now on…..just save him this time…..”]

[“Mama…..Mama…..”]

As she listened to the increasingly passionate mantra behind her, the old woman’s hands began to shake violently.

In a trance, she seemed to see a small red door appearing behind her daughter’s ghost.

Her withered lips moved, and a hoarse whisper stuck in her throat.

But she knew better than anyone that the thing inside the door could hear it.

It could hear her appeal.

Yes. She understood. There was a price to pay for wishing such a thing.

But she had nothing left.

What was there for her to still worry about?

There seemed to be a voice, whispering to her from inside the door.

---

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Chapter 46 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 48

King Qi was a dissolute womanizer, King Zhao was a treacherous murderer, and King Huai used military might wildly and excessively. These three once plotted against the crown prince and sent Yuan Jue out as a hostage. They contended against each other, and Liu Zhenqing, together with Huo Feihan and some officials loyal to the former crown prince, muddied the waters. They attacked through devious means, wearing them out, before finally — Liu Zhenqing killed them one by one.

This was what history called the troubled times of the Three Kings.

And Yuan Jin was the only son of the warlike, battle-tested King Huai.

King Huai was a man of military exploits and ambition, with a thirst for power. At that time, the Liu clan followed the path of being wise and neutral, as clear as a stream of fresh water, so they naturally disliked these three overly ambitious kings. However, Liu Zhenqing’s aunt was in love with King Huai and insisted on following him.

The late crown prince was still a youth back then. His three strong, young uncles were constantly competing with the emperor, which resulted in many people being implicated. Including Liu Zhenqing’s parents. In the name of not being dragged down in this fight for succession, the conflicts between his grandfather and aunt became increasingly frequent. Finally, when Liu Zhenqing transmigrated, relations were severed with his aunt and it was announced that she had died young. In fact, she had concealed her identity and followed King Huai in obscurity.

Later, as the crown prince grew up and became more capable, the three kings became more attentive to boundaries. But when the prince’s health took a downturn, the struggle for the throne gradually turned chaotic.

On the last night before the death of the Liu family’s patriarch, King Huai returned in secret with Liu Zhenqing’s aunt in order for her to see him one last time. It was the last and first time Liu Zhenqing met that rumored aunt. Because he was already following the miracle doctor at that time, although his aunt concealed her figure, Liu Zhenqing discovered that she was pregnant.

But King Huai seemed to want to conceal the existence of this child, so few people knew about it.

A few years later, his aunt died of illness, and Liu Zhenqing’s conflict with the three kings became increasingly fierce. And when Liu Zhenqing defeated King Huai, the man revealed the whereabouts of Yuan Jin and asked him to safeguard the child for the sake of his aunt.

Liu Zhenqing thought about how the old Liu family patriarch had hesitated to speak to him in the end. He was likely worried that such a day would come and hoped that he would be merciful, but was too embarrassed to open his mouth.

He hesitated again and again, but for the first time, Liu Zhenqing made a decision that went against the security of Great Zhou’s Yuan clan. He told Liu Qiao to send Yuan Jin away.

Liu Zhenqing told Huo Fenglie the truth about that year. Huo Fenglie listened silently, his face gradually darkening. Seeing Huo Fenglie like this, Liu Zhenqing was uneasy.

He knew that Huo Fenglie might not blame him too much, but, after all, he had done something that was completely contrary to the Huo family’s ideals. This likely made him ill-at-ease. Additionally, the three kings only thought about the internal struggles at that time and ignored the external situation. As a result, the two brothers had to remain on the battlefield for a long time, each doing the work of several people while Liu Zhenqing set an orphan of the three kings free…..

Liu Zhenqing couldn’t explain himself clearly. He himself didn’t have a clear conscience, but he had to do this. Fortunately, they learned from Liu Qiao that the problems they’d encountered along the way had nothing to do with Qiao Jin, who was at best a bystander. This was able to mitigate Liu Zhenqing’s guilt.

Looking toward Huo Fenglie, Liu Zhenqing let out a sigh: “I’m sorry. I…..”

But Huo Fenglie abruptly reached out and grabbed Liu Zhenqing’s arm with such force that Liu Zhenqing couldn’t help but grimace. Liu Qiao reflexively moved to fight Huo Fenglie off, worried that he would hurt Liu Zhenqing. Even though he was stupid, he still understood that his master’s rescue of Qiao Jin was tantamount to betraying his companions who supported Yuan Jue.

Even Qiao Jin to the side fell silent, just staring at them coldly.

But in the next second, Huo Fenglie could be heard asking Liu Zhenqing half-angrily: “Just for him!”

Liu Zhenqing was stunned, as well as the other two.

This was different from the wrath they had expected.

Huo Fenglie pointed angrily at Qiao Jin beside them: “Just because you wanted to save him and send him away, you made your personal guard leave your side?!”

Liu Zhenqing stared blankly, his expression softening by increments.

Liu Qiao froze. Qiao Jin immediately drew in a breath, but seeing Liu Qiao’s appearance, he didn’t speak and could only grind his teeth.

Huo Fenglie’s eyes seemed to have become two shards of ice. He pointed a finger at Liu Zhenqing and said in a tone of great regret and grievance: “Why? Why didn’t you…..protect yourself?”

Liu Zhenqing took in Huo Fenglie’s aggrieved expression and hesitated to speak. He couldn’t explain the situation back then. If he did, Er-gou would be even more sad.

“It’s just that…..Yuan Jin’s status was special, and he couldn’t be handed over to just anyone. It was all an accident…..an accident.” Liu Zhenqing could only come up with the most superficial excuse. “The three kings had fallen at that time. I had great power and no one could challenge me, so I took it lightly.”

Huo Fenglie stared at Liu Zhenqing, the emotions in his eyes dense and unresolved.

Yes, ah, if Liu Qiao hadn’t obeyed his order to send Qiao Jin off, he would have remained at Liu Zhenqing’s side. Then how could Liu Zhenqing have died? Although Huo Fenglie didn’t interrogate Liu Qiao, the guard bowed his head in guilt and clenched his fists until they shook.

When he saw Liu Qiao feeling so guilty, Qiao Jin was truly afraid of being implicated. Suddenly anxious, he said angrily: “Are you stupid? What do those previous incidents have to do with me and Liu Qiao? His situation back then made it impossible for him to retire after accomplishing his task. Once the three kings were gone, he would be the next one disposed of by the court and the people. Who asked him to pretend to be a traitor when he had no intentions of being one? Such a person was destined to die. It had nothing to do with whether or not Liu Qiao was around. And even if he was, that would be one more person dying in vain!”

Liu Qiao stared at Qiao Jin in shock. He couldn’t help but retort: “The emperor was Master’s apprentice. He knew everything Master did. He respected and relied on Master and would never hurt him. If I could have protected Master back then and prevented an accident from happening…..”

Qiao Jin hated iron for not becoming steel: “Didn’t I tell you? The so-called royal Yuan Clan kills members of their own family. Even if Yuan Jue respected and relied on him, how long could he tolerate an official with such power? One year? Two? When suspicion entered the emperor’s heart, he would have died sooner or later, not to mention that half the things he’s done couldn’t be washed away.”

Liu Qiao was in a daze.

Qiao Jin glared at Liu Zhenqing, saying: “Analyze for yourself whether this is the case, don’t say anything to make Liu Qiao feel guilty! Yuan Jue was taught by you. If he couldn’t even do this, how would he be able to secure his position in the world while surrounded by wolves!”

Liu Zhenqing could only lament that the children of Great Zhou’s Yuan family were born with such keen intelligence.

Just as he was about to respond to Qiao Jin’s words, he heard Huo Fenglie’s low, hoarse voice: “One year or two…..”

At a loss, Liu Zhenqing looked at Huo Fenglie. Those eyes were full of deep sentiment, full of paranoia as they stared at him intently.

Huo Fenglie could hardly speak, and continued with difficulty: “I was there, ah…..”

Back then, he would have returned from the battlefield and stayed by Liu Zhenqing’s side. Even if he was cast aside when he had served his purpose, even if everyone in the world wanted Liu Zhenqing’s life, even if it was Yuan Jue, Huo Fenglie would have still protected Liu Zhenqing, ah.

He just had to wait a year or two.

Why hadn’t he waited for him? Why had he let himself die so early?

Liu Zhenqing’s heart trembled. He raised a hand to touch Huo Fenglie, but the man turned his head, as if he was so aggrieved that he couldn’t bear his touch.

Liu Zhenqing could only step forward and embrace him, rubbing his back gently as if comforting a child.

“Er-gou, I’m sorry for not waiting for you, but that’s all over. Aren’t I here now? I’m by your side, and I will always be by your side, okay?”

Huo Fenglie didn’t answer, hugging him tightly instead. All regrets had become unspeakable, and all assumptions had become meaningless. It was only that those regrets were buried in their hearts forever, and emerged to sting them from time to time.

Liu Zhenqing comforted Huo Fenglie, then went to Liu Qiao again. He looked at the guard, whose head was lowered, his whole body tense as he clutched his sword tightly. It was just like in the past when he made a mistake and was afraid of being disliked and driven away by Liu Zhenqing.

“Don’t blame yourself. It was a fault in my judgment and had nothing to do with you.”

“Master…..” Liu Qiao raised his head, his voice trembling in despair.

Liu Zhenqing smiled and reached out to touch his head, but was interrupted by Qiao Jin: “He was just following orders. There’s no need for him to blame himself, and he doesn’t need your comfort either. Enough, ah, you’re still trying to have your arms around two men. You already have Huo Fenglie, don’t mess with Liu Qiao! I heard before that you change your loyalty frequently, flitting from one person to another, leaving debts of romance everywhere…..”

While scolding him, Qiao Jin watched Liu Zhenqing defensively.

Liu Zhenqing wore a baffled expression at first, then almost choked when he realized that this misunderstanding still hadn’t been resolved.

What was this? Was his reputation really so bad?

Helpless, Liu Zhenqing was about to explain when he saw Qiao Jin’s serious, anxious look as he tried to shield Liu Qiao. Suddenly, Liu Zhenqing skewed his narrowed eyes as the corners of his mouth rose slightly. Anyone who knew him could tell that he had a plot in mind.

Liu Zhenqing said at once: “Qiao Jin, do you really intend to rebel?”

Qiao Jin’s expression shifted at these words. His hand automatically went to the weapon at his side, and a fierce expression appeared by degrees on his face.

Seeing Qiao Jin like this, he lamented to himself, wasn’t he quite well-behaved as a child?

Liu Zhenqing had only met Qiao Jin once, which was when he succeeded in finding him. He was fair, clean, and cute. At just eight years old, one could already tell that he would grow into a handsome boy in the future.

It was unknown if he wanted to protect his son or if he wanted to seize the throne without distractions, but King Huai rarely saw Qiao Jin. So for Qiao Jin, his memories of his parents were vague and emotionless. He was surrounded solely by servants who took care of him coldly, and he could hardly leave the courtyard to see the people and things outside.

Until Liu Zhenqing showed up and told him that his father was dead and he was to be sent away. His reaction wasn’t much. Without affection, he naturally had no hatred. He had never enjoyed the prestige of the royal family, so he wasn’t unwilling. But he was very clever. He understood that he would die if he didn’t leave, so he obediently cooperated with Liu Zhenqing and was taken away by Liu Qiao.

Because of Qiao Jin’s behavior and reaction, Liu Zhenqing had always felt that this child would live a stable life in anonymity.

He never expected that it would turn out like this.

But the current situation may be a little stranger than Liu Zhenqing thought, strange to the point of simplicity. Perhaps the gods had actually given him a bit of luck.

Qiao Jin looked at him with an emotionless expression when he asked this question. Liu Qiao watched Qiao Jin anxiously, and Huo Fenglie’s eyes were cold.

Qiao Jin knew very well that once he said he would rebel, let alone Huo Fenglie, even Liu Zhenqing, who had coaxed him to call him ‘Cousin’ would kill him for the sake of the overall situation. And Liu Qiao…..Qiao Jin didn’t dare think about it.

“Do you think I’m stupid, making me answer this question? Even if I say I won’t, will you believe it? The blood of rebels and traitors flows in my body,” Qiao Jin said mockingly.

Liu Zhenqing nodded and said: “It’s true that I won’t necessarily believe you. After all, you told Liu Qiao that you intend to seize the throne.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Huo Fenglie revealed his killing intent while Liu Zhenqing suddenly turned hostile, saying in a deep voice: “Liu Qiao!”

Before he could react, Qiao Jin felt an unsheathed sword against his throat again. This time, it was Liu Qiao.

Qiao Jin looked at Liu Qiao with wide, disbelieving eyes. He was simply outraged. Unexpectedly, the thing he’d been most worried about had happened. Liu Qiao really wouldn’t hesitate to take action against him for Liu Zhenqing. In front of Liu Zhenqing, these nine years of companionship were worth nothing!

“You intend to kill me?? You intend to kill me!! Liu Qiao!!”

Facing those eyes full of inquiry and resentment, Liu Qiao was not at all a blockhead, but he did avoid his gaze. In fact, he felt some discomfort in his heart and hoped that Qiao Jin would comply with his master’s wishes and not stir up trouble.

Qiao Jin’s eyes reddened, whether out of anger or grievance. He was trembling. Seeing him like this, Liu Zhenqing felt that he was a little pitiful.

But the more pitiful one was, didn’t that make people want to bully them even more? Liu Zhenqing couldn’t help but smile. He took two abrupt steps forward and leaned intimately against Liu Qiao. In the past, because his body was often tired and weak, he would lean on Liu Qiao when he was tired while standing. Thus, Liu Qiao was accustomed to such an action.

But it burned some people’s eyes.

Qiao Jin watched powerlessly as Liu Zhenqing practically embraced Liu Qiao, who showed no reaction at all. He continued to point the sword at him, letting Liu Zhenqing move his hands up and down. This difference in treatment made Qiao Jin’s eyes bleed.

He would find excuses to hug Liu Qiao in the past, but Liu Qiao would impatiently turn away. Liu Qiao was a master among masters. With such sensitivity, he hated being too close to others.

Yet now, Liu Zhenqing’s head was resting on his shoulder.

When he saw Qiao Jin looking as sour as vinegar, Liu Zhenqing was satisfied.

“Have you misunderstood? I only loaned my baobei to you for a while. You’ve had him for many years, and it’s time for me to take him back. What’s so surprising about him killing you? As long as I give the order, Qiaoqiao will naturally obey me,” Liu Zhenqing said matter-of-factly.

“You! What did you say!” Qiao Jin was shamed into anger, but his heart was filled with sadness, as if Liu Zhenqing’s every word transformed into a blade stabbing into him.

“Liu Qiao has already left. Why are you following him so eagerly? You should know he won’t choose you,” Liu Zhenqing said.

Qiao Jin’s face instantly paled, but he made a show of bravery: “You…..you just treat him like a servant, a weapon. You already have Huo Fenglie, what more do you need!”

Liu Zhenqing smiled and reached out to grasp Liu Qiao’s chin, as if he was about to kiss him. He said: “You said it, ah, I like my arms around two men!”

Liu Qiao didn’t struggle. After all, there were so many cases where Liu Zhenqing wasn’t serious and didn’t follow the routine. He was accustomed to it. In any case, his brain couldn’t keep up, so he only needed to go along with it without thinking too much. As Liu Zhenqing approached, he didn’t show a reaction.

But Qiao Jin finally couldn’t endure it any longer and seemed to lose all reason.

“Stop, don’t touch him! What do you want, what do you want!” The stimulated Qiao Jin went wild. As if his treasure was about to be defiled by others, he moved forward desperately, his neck rushing directly toward the tip of the sword.

Liu Qiao noticed and instinctively moved his hand back, not wanting to hurt him.

Taking everything in with a slanted look, Liu Zhenqing made up his mind. Suddenly, the back of his neck tensed and he was directly picked up, his back soon hitting a firm chest.

“What are you doing!” 

The chilly voice reminded Liu Zhenqing that in order to test Qiao Jin, he had ignored Huo Fenglie. Sure enough, there was also a piercing gaze behind him.

Liu Zhenqing quickly turned around and said with a smile: “It’s not real, not real. I was just testing him.”

But Huo Fenglie’s expression was still ugly.

On the other side, Qiao Jin disregarded everything and rushed forward like a mad dog. Liu Qiao had to take action to restrain him.

Seeing that Qiao Jin had lost control in his anger, Liu Zhenqing stopped provoking him and said in a good mood: “Okay, la, I was just teasing you. Don’t you know what the relationship is between me and Liu Qiao? Even if it’s not clear, don’t you know what kind of person Liu Qiao is?”

Qiao Jin struggled for a moment, still unstable. He glared fiercely at the fellow who was trying to steal his person, wanting to pounce on him and bite him to death.

Liu Zhenqing could only say: “What you saw before was that I got a fish bone stuck in my throat, and Liu Qiao used his internal strength to help me. I was just deliberately teasing you. I swear, Liu Qiao is only a family member in my heart, a younger brother!”

Huo Fenglie’s expression improved, but Qiao Jin was still suspicious and regarded him with a tigerish face.

Liu Zhenqing shook his head helplessly: “Qiao Jin, if you really intended to rebel, you wouldn’t have followed Huo Fenglie in the first place. How could you follow your enemy if you want to rebel, unless…..”

It seemed as if someone had pressed the pause button on Qiao Jin’s anger, and his expression changed several times as he stared at Liu Zhenqing.

“Where are you going with this?” Qiao Jin felt like he was being tricked.

Liu Zhenqing tilted his head, saying: “I just want to hear the answer to my original question. What exactly do you want to do, and what do you want most?”

Qiao Jin felt that Liu Zhenqing was truly awful. In just a few moves, he played with people’s hearts and grasped things that Qiao Jin didn’t want to admit.

Seeing that Qiao Jin was still resisting, Liu Zhenqing raised an eyebrow and said directly: “Tell me, you don’t really want to rebel, and you have no interest in the throne. You actually have a single reason for doing this, which is…..”

“Don’t say it!” Qiao Jin was instantly anxious.

Liu Zhenqing looked like he was about to open his mouth again.

Qiao Jin was finally unable to fight: “I’m just going with the trend. If I can’t do it, then forget it, there’s nothing good about being the emperor! Leave me be, I’m still not happy!”

Liu Zhenqing was happy.

Liu Qiao looked around in confusion, but seeing that his master intended to spare Qiao Jin’s life, he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Liu Zhenqing regarded Qiao Jin, who was unwilling to be manipulated or take his defeat lying down: “Since you call yourself Qiao Jin now, I’ll assume that the Yuan Jin from back then is dead. No one can prove your royal identity, and you’re now in our hands. I will poison you later to ensure that you’re of use to us and will cooperate with our follow-up actions.”

Qiao Jin gave him an ugly look: “Despicable.”

“Who told you not to call me ‘cousin?’ Why should I look after you?” Liu Zhenqing said self-righteously.

Qiao Jin’s face turned colors. He felt like he was being severely bullied: “I won’t cooperate with you. I’d rather die than surrender!”

Liu Zhenqing clicked his tongue. This brat was certainly rebellious…..well, so were both of his parents.

“Isn’t it good to live? Only by living will you have a chance to realize your dreams,” Liu Zhenqing teased.

Qiao Jin turned his head unyieldingly. He hated Liu Zhenqing. Even if Liu Zhenqing gave him a chance to live, he would know that it was Liu Zhenqing who allowed him to live such a life. And Liu Qiao still belonged to him…..he didn’t want to listen to Liu Zhenqing.

Liu Zhenqing saw that the brat was in a raging temper and seemed like he wouldn’t listen to his words at all, so he could only hold off.

“Liu Qiao, take care of the injury to his neck.” Liu Zhenqing motioned for Liu Qiao to take him farther away. He needed to discuss this with Huo Fenglie.

Liu Qiao nodded, then grabbed Qiao Jin and walked toward the stream.

Qiao Jin’s neck had been sliced by Qiao Jin’s sword due to his impulsiveness, and was still bleeding slowly.

Liu Qiao maneuvered him toward the creek and took out some golden wound medicine, saying to him: “Take care of it yourself.”

Qiao Jin gave him a fierce glare and refused to take it: “Wouldn’t you like it more if I died? Then you could fly away with your master!”

Liu Qiao looked at him in bafflement: “I don’t want you to die. Didn’t you inflict this wound on yourself?”

Qiao Jin choked. But he felt a little better. At least Liu Qiao said he didn’t want him dead.

But in the next second, he heard Liu Qiao say: “And whether or not you die, I’ll follow Master.”

Qiao Jin froze. He no longer knew how to vent the anger in his chest that was about to explode.

“In your eyes, that Liu Zhenqing is a treasure, and I’m a weed on the roadside. Even though we’ve been together for so many years, you’ve never had me in your heart!” Qiao Jin’s voice was so furious that it shook.

He knew he shouldn’t have asked this question, because he already knew the answer. But he was still unreconciled, and could only glare at Liu Qiao with aggrieved stubbornness.

Liu Qiao asked in confusion: “Why are you always competing with Master?”

Qiao Jin said angrily: “Don’t you know why?”

Liu Qiao decisively shook his head.

Qiao Jin almost vomited blood. Unable to bear it anymore, he abruptly took action and grasped Liu Qiao’s chin. Without waiting for Liu Qiao to react, he moved to kiss him. But in the next second, he was knocked away by Liu Qiao’s palm and fell into the stream.

Qiao Jin sat blankly in the water, looking at the unhappy Liu Qiao on the bank.

Liu Qiao said with a frown: “You tried to bite me? Are you a dog? Stop messing around. If I really take action, you’ll have a hard time.”

Qiao Jin stood up tremblingly. Looking at the senseless Liu Qiao, he no longer knew what to say.

But Liu Qiao was still thinking about Liu Zhenqing’s previous words, and persuaded: “I advise you to think clearly. Since Master made this proposal, he will spare your life. As long as you cooperate obediently, Master will still consider you his cousin and treat you well.”

“Who cares?” Perhaps he had been hit too many times, because Qiao Jin now seemed numb and frustrated.

“Can’t you just listen to Master? At any rate, he saved your life.” Liu Qiao frowned as he watched the soaked Qiao Jin walk to his side. He looked truly pitiful, like a drowned dog.

In the end, he was the child he had watched grow up, and Liu Qiao did his best to sincerely persuade him. He didn’t want Qiao Jin to stand on the opposite side of his master. He hoped that Qiao Jin would be obedient and live a good life.

Qiao Jin hated the way that every time Liu Qiao opened his mouth now, it was about Liu Zhenqing. He seemed to be more spirited than when he was following him, and even spoke more. He scoffed self-deprecatingly: “You want me to listen to him? Okay, ah, just kiss me and I’ll listen.”

Qiao Jin was taunting him with all his might. He had tried his utmost to get close, but it was still misconstrued as an attack. He was very tired.

But in the next moment, Liu Qiao asked: “Really?”

Qiao Jin was stunned for a moment. He turned his head instinctively and, before he could react, a kiss fell onto his lips.

Qiao Jin was dumbfounded.

Liu Qiao pulled back after kissing him. He couldn’t believe it was so simple, and asked: “So now you’ll behave? You should have said so earlier.”

Liu Zhenqing’s mouth twitched where he was hiding behind a tree, and he couldn’t laugh or cry. He couldn’t bear it any longer. He shook his head, thinking that Liu Qiao was not enlightened at all. And there was simply no way to enlighten him. Should he give him some corrective education, ah? How could he just casually kiss a person?

---

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Chapter One Hundred Nineteen << Table of Contents >> Chapter One Hundred Twenty-One

“Fang Qian’an, don’t talk nonsense…..who wants you to stay for me…..wu…..”

Li Xiu hugged Fang Qian’an. For the first time in his life, he was being protected by someone like this.

Unknowingly, his tears wetted the neck of the former school bully.

When he noticed that Li Xiu was crying again, Fang Qian’an finally stopped huffing and puffing.

“Hu…..”

The sound of Fang Qian’an’s breathing in the corridor echoed along with the sound of Li Xiu trying to hold back his sobs. But other than that, everything looked the same as before.

The former school bully’s impotent rage hadn’t draw attention from any demons or monsters.

The darkness was still so heavy.

The corridor was still so long.

Fang Qian’an and Li Xiu still couldn’t find the exit on this path.

There was only a little bit of candle left, and it was about to be extinguished. But now that the matter was over, neither Fang Qian’an nor Li Xiu said anything more. Li Xiu didn’t even struggle to get down from Fang Qian’an. On the contrary, he used nearly all his strength to embrace the trembling boy beneath him.

In silence, both of them stared intently at the dim light of the candle.

Now that it had come to this point, all they could do was wait quietly, wait for the last moment……

[“A-Xiu, ah.”]

At this moment, an incredibly old voice sounded from the darkness.

Startled, Li Xiu raised his head and looked forward in astonishment.

“Grandmother?”

A hazy, familiar figure appeared at the end of the corridor.

The old woman stood shakily in the distance, holding onto the wall with a candle only as long as a thumb in her hand.

But the light of the candle was able to illuminate half the corridor.

His grandmother reached out and called to Li Xiu.

[“Why are you playing outside so late, child, seriously……”]

[“A-Xiu, follow Grandmother.”]

The old woman’s form appeared extremely thin and stooped. Under the candlelight, that craggy face looked bloodless and vaguely gloomy.

Fang Qian’an shook in fear when the old woman appeared. He tightened his grip on Li Xiu warily and took a reflexive step back.

Unlike Fang Qian’an, Li Xiu stared at the extremely familiar figure and called out.

“Grandmother?”

“Fang Qian’an, don’t be afraid, that’s my grandmother….right, my grandmother came to pick me up, she knows this stuff. She must be trying to find me!”

Li Xiu spoke in a murmur and nudged Fang Qian’an.

This kind of feeling was really mysterious. After encountering so many ghosts, Li Xiu was already frightened.

However, the moment he saw his grandmother, he had a strong intuition in his heart — that person was truly his grandmother.

“A-Xiu, is that really your grandmother? Are you sure?”

Fang Qian’an was still very vigilant after hearing Li Xiu’s assurances. His face was tense, his body trembling slightly. He was obviously very frightened.

“I’m sure.”

Li Xiu subconsciously placed a gentle hand on Fang Qian’an’s shoulder to calm his fear.

“Also, making this decision now can’t make things any worse.” Li Xiu’s tone suddenly became firm.

Fang Qian’an settled down upon hearing his words.

“All right.”

The young man pushed Li Xiu up on his back hard and staggered toward the old woman. 

“Hello, Grandmother.”

In the swaying candlelight, Li Xiu heard Fang Qian’an give a shaky greeting to his grandmother.

“I’m A-Xiu’s friend. I just swore a few times out of anger, don’t worry about it.”

Li Xiu: “……”

His grandmother didn’t respond to Fang Qian’an’s disorganized greeting.

In fact, there was always a distance between her and Li Xiu. No matter how far Fang Qian’an walked, she held the candle steadily and stood in the same position not far away.

The only change was the candle in her hand, which burned brighter and brighter, and gradually became increasingly short.

Poof—

At this moment, the small candle in Fang Qian’an’s hand was finally extinguished.

However, there was still a faint light in the corridor.

It was the candle in this grandmother’s hand.

[“A-Xiu, hurry up, it’s time to go home…..”]

Li Xiu’s grandmother gestured for him to continue forward.

*

*

Ding dong—

Qiming Secondary School, the building complex.

Hearing the sound of the elevator in the distance, two young teachers hurriedly rushed toward it from the other end of the corridor.

It was a pity that they didn’t catch this elevator and could only complain again and again, pressing the down button next to the elevator while looking at the time.

A teacher muttered anxiously to his colleague: “It’s so irritating! What is going on in the school these days, ah?!”

“It’s time for the examination papers to come out. Why are we not allowed to enter or exit the complex or use the elevator after seven o’clock in the evening? Are we still supposed to do this job?”

“Haha, there’s been a lot of trouble lately. I mean, several students have had accidents.”

The older teacher knew of some of the gossip circulating in Qiming. Her face was a little unnatural at this time, and she just typed casually while keeping an eye on the time on her phone.

It was now 6:45 in the evening.

“Fortunately, there are still fifteen minutes left. No matter what, we can still make it before closing time—”

She breathed a sigh of relief, and just as she was about to speak to her colleague, the elevator chimed again.

Ding dong—

The metal elevator doors slowly opened.

Immediately after, two students fell out and startled the teachers.

The two boys were obviously in a bad state. Both of their faces were deathly pale, lacking any blood at all, and their lips had begun to turn gray.

“Help……”

The teachers heard one of the boys let out a thin groan, and after that, he immediately fell to the ground and fainted.

*

*

A week later—

The First People’s Hospital of City A.

In a neat, bright single ward, a thin boy sat on a hospital bed in a light blue hospital gown. The hospital bed was not very spacious, but when the young man sat on it, he was so thin that it seemed as if he could be directly swallowed by the thin quilt.

Li Xiu looked at the class notes and exercise books on the bedside table and whispered to the person visiting at his bedside:

“Thank you, Teacher Chen.”

The young female teacher frowned slightly and looked with distress at Li Xiu on the bed. She tried hard to adjust her tone and said as calmly and briskly as possible: “Ai, there is nothing to be grateful for. As a teacher, I am happy to see students working so hard.” After a pause, she couldn’t help but add, “But now, ah, Li Xiu, your priority is to recover from your illness. Your grades have always reassured the teachers, but your progress has slowed down slightly during the past week. This teacher believes you can catch up soon. Just take a look at these notes and exercises, don’t tire yourself out just to keep up with your studies…..”

Listening to Teacher Chen’s nagging instructions, Li Xiu smiled at her with difficulty.

“En, I understand. I don’t feel tired…..in fact, I feel more relaxed when doing these exercises.”

Teacher Chen wanted to persuade him again when she heard Li Xiu’s response, but when she thought about what had happened to this student, she didn’t know what to say.

At this moment, there was a series of knocks at the door.

After receiving permission, a thin, gentle middle-aged man walked inside. Teacher Chen turned around, and when she saw the man, a trace of discomfort flashed across her face. She had heard some vague, bizarre rumors during this time. And it was not unusual for school leaders who were usually arrogant to bow down to the “teacher” who practiced feudal superstitions in this school.

Teacher Chen left quickly upon Xu Qinghe’s arrival.

Li Xiu’s expression was a bit complicated when he saw Teacher Xu. He greeted him softly, then pursed his lips. Compared to their first meeting, Li Xiu was much more quiet now.

Seeing Li Xiu like this, a faint, bitter smile appeared on Teacher Xu’s lips.

He pulled out a chair and sat next to Li Xiu.

“How are you feeling today?” he asked softly.

Li Xiu was silent for a few seconds before giving a dull reply: “…..Fortunately, not as cold as before.”

Upon hearing this, Teacher Xu reached out to touch Li Xiu’s forehead, then made a few gestures toward his shoulders and wrists before sitting back down as if relieved.

“Indeed, the yin qi has dissipated a lot. Now the main thing is to recuperate.”

“En.”

“I was initially the most worried about you, but I didn’t expect that you would recover faster than Classmate Fang. Judging by the current situation, you may be able to be discharged from the hospital before him.”

Li Xiu, who always seemed extremely taciturn, finally took the initiative to speak to Teacher Xu after hearing about Fang Qian’an: “Fang Qian’an……”

“Don’t worry, he’s fine. It’s just that the yin energy in his body is dissipating slowly.”

Recalling the person he met in the high-end ward of the private hospital not long ago, the bitter smile on Teacher Xu’s face grew more obvious.

“…..The young man is as energetic as a husky. There is absolutely no problem with him.”

Li Xiu breathed a sigh of relief.

The ward immediately fell silent again.

Teacher Xu looked at Li Xiu, and a flash of guilt passed through his eyes: “I’m sorry about your grandmother. If I had known things would get so serious, I would have been more careful about you and Classmate Fang.”

When he heard this, Li Xiu’s hand shook and accidentally knocked the notebook off the bedside table.

After a long moment, he suppressed his emotions and said, “En.”

A week ago, when Li Xiu finally woke up from his coma, the first news he received was that…..his grandmother had passed away.

The old woman with Alzheimer’s disease had died quietly in her bed due to a sudden heart attack. When people from the school had gone to inform her about the situation, the old woman on the bed was already cold all over.

It didn’t seem like a death worthy of surprise.

But Li Xiu knew very clearly that his grandmother had died to save him.

His grandmother, who used mystical tricks to fool people, turned out to really understand such things, ah…..therefore, when he and Fang Qian’an were almost stuck in the otherworld, she chose to show up in such a way and leave with them.

But why hadn’t Grandmother said more at that time?

Even then, he didn’t have time to say “goodbye” to his grandmother.

Li Xiu tried his utmost to control his emotions. After all, he had cried too many times in the past few days. However, when he heard his grandmother mentioned, hot, astringent tears accumulated in his eyes uncontrollably.

Teacher Xu sat silently beside the bed, waiting for Li Xiu’s subtle, suppressed sobs to stop.

After a long while, the older man sighed. He leveled his gaze at Li Xiu and said word for word: “Logically speaking, you shouldn’t be agitated at this time, but the situation is indeed a bit troublesome now…..Classmate Li Xiu, I must confirm with you now. How long have you been feeding “that thing” placed under the bed? Who told you to do this?”

“That thing?”

Li Xiu stared blankly at Teacher Xu. It took several seconds before he realized what he was talking about.

“You mean, Gege?”

Teacher Xu’s eyes darkened upon hearing the address “Gege.”

“Yes, that…..gege you provide for every day.”

Li Xiu’s breathing grew faster than before. 

He came to a vague realization.

“I-it started when I was very young,” Li Xiu murmured. “I always thought it was just my grandmother’s superstition.”

Noticing the odd look on Teacher Xu’s face, a terrible thought suddenly passed through Li Xiu’s mind.

“Teacher Xu, Grandmother’s death, could it be that……what happened to us is related to my gege?” Li Xiu stammered out.

Teacher Xu was silent.

After thinking for a long moment, he took out a yellowed photo and placed it gently in front of Li Xiu.

“Do you recognize her?” he asked.

Li Xiu glanced at the photo and his pupils suddenly constricted.

The photo was that of a young woman. She was very beautiful, with dark features and long hair, and even the pixels of an old-school camera couldn’t hide her astonishing beauty.

However, perhaps because her eyes were so dark and she wasn’t smiling at all, her beauty was mixed with an indescribable gloom: this was completely different from the sweet, gentle girl in the fantasy.

Yes, this was precisely Li Xiu’s “Mother.”

When he realized this, Li Xiu’s eyes fixed on the woman’s clothing and couldn’t move away for a long time.

He was shocked at his own slowness.

Why hadn’t he recognized her?

His “mother” was the guest who always came to his grandmother.

Although Teacher Xu had raised the question, he didn’t actually need Li Xiu to answer.

Observing Li Xiu’s expression, he took the initiative to explain: “Her name was Li Xulin. She was your grandmother’s only daughter.”

“Li Xuelin had a child, and named him Li Yu. If that kid was still alive, you really should call him…..gege.”

---

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Chapter 45 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 47

By the time they got back, a thick layer of clouds had accumulated in the sky, blocking out the sun. Howling wind mixed with a persistent cold, and it looked like it would rain heavily.

Sure enough, during dinnertime, there came the sound of rain beginning to fall. The wind drove heavy raindrops onto the windows, making the glass grow damp and blurry.

He Chuzhou got up halfway through to close a half-open floor-to-ceiling window on the balcony.

Pei Xi followed him with his eyes. When he opened the curtains, he saw that it was dark and cold outside.

He hated rainy days.

The waterlogged ground seemed to be a channel to another world, and the moment he stepped on it, countless hands would reach out to pull him in.

The sound of rain was mostly blocked by the walls and window panes, as were the sounds of branches swaying and rubbing together.

But it was still detected by Pei Xi’s sensitive hearing, putting him on edge and lowering his spirits.

“Do you not like the vegetables?”

He Chuzhou misunderstood, and replaced the plate of vegetables in front of him with a plate of different vegetables.

Pei Xi could only try his best to ignore his weather-induced restlessness, lower his head, and continue to eat.

After dinner, He Chuzhou continued his work in the study.

There were many overseas companies among He Group’s partners. There was a big time difference between them and China, so He Chuzhou had to compromise when it came to scheduling the time for such meetings and discussions.

It was all settled around seven or eight o’clock in the evening. He also had a meeting at two in the morning, which was five in the morning in the other location.

Pei Xi saw He Chuzhou coming out of the kitchen to the study and got up to follow him.

When he was discovered at the door, He Chuzhou turned sideways and looked at his face under the hallway lights.

Pei Xi raised his eyes to meet He Chuzhou’s. Their tips drooped slightly and his collarbones held two shadows, making him look thin and fragile.

He Chuzhou’s heart was given a blow. He said in a very soft tone: “Are you not going back to your room to rest?”

Pei Xi momentarily didn’t know how to answer.

He Chuzhou smiled, features handsome and eyes bright: “I’m almost finished handling your work for today. You look pretty tired. Go and rest first, don’t forget the doctor’s advice.”

This was pretty much pushing him away.

He Chuzhou asked him again to go back and rest. He couldn’t lose face by going in and insisting on staying with him, so he could only turn around and go to the bedroom.

There were no lights on in the guest room. The door was dark, in stark contrast to the bright study, which made him walk slowly.

“Hey, Pei Xi, wait,” said He Chuzhou.

Pei Xi stopped instantly and turned around, only to hear He Chuzhou say: “You go sleep in the master bedroom. I’ll take the guest bedroom so that I can handle business tomorrow.”

Pei Xi “……”

Taking a deep breath, he entered the master bedroom.

It was only separated from the study by a wall, which was somewhat better than the guest bedroom.

He had a feeling that he might have some bad dreams tonight. He locked the windows, drew the curtains tightly, and turned on the air conditioner. He left the lamp at his bedside on and tossed and turned, not wanting to go to sleep.

But he still couldn’t resist the onslaught of tiredness, and fell into an extremely unstable state of sleep.

Sure enough, as soon as he shut his eyes, he had returned to that rainy morning.

The vase smashed at his feet was the second one Pei Zhen had broken in two days.

Yesterday, he had come back from school with a competition trophy in his hand. He did nothing but stand in the entrance hall, and Pei Zhen went crazy.

Pei Zhen smashed the vase next to the projector, grabbed the fragments with his hands and threw them directly at him. After he was stopped by a panicked servant, Pei Yansong went downstairs to look. He comforted Pei Zhen and told him to quickly go back to his room.

Then, a little while later, he was called into Pei Yansong’s office and told that he was to be sent away.

The child who cried got the sweets, and the child who didn’t cry, even though he was sensible, was burdened with all kinds of grievances and humiliations just because of that sensibleness.

He realized that he was dreaming, but he couldn’t wake up and had no control over his body. The scene changed, and he was trapped in a cold, dark hallway.

There was a violent storm outside, and in front of him was the closed door to the study. He knelt on the floor alone in his own home, striving to gain a little sympathy from his biased father.

In the study.

He Chuzhou finished negotiating with his overseas partner and exited the online meeting. There was a window lingering in the center of the screen that showed that a compressed file was being received and was at 68%.

It should take another couple of minutes.

The rain was coming down harder outside. The night wind blew, accompanied by muffled thunder, and lightning split the sky in bright, intermittent flashes.

Summer was over, yet there were still thunderstorms.

After some thought, he got up and left the study. When he pushed the door open and entered the master bedroom, he stepped very softly to avoid waking Pei Xi, who was already soundly asleep.

The bedside lamp shone brightly, allowing him to see the thin, tightly pursed lips of the person sleeping. His eyebrows were furrowed too, and it was unknown if he was having a nightmare.

“Why aren’t you sleeping well, ah…..”

He Chuzhou frowned, considering whether or not to wake him up.

After hesitating for a long while, he finally just stretched out his hand to rub between Pei Xi’s eyebrows. Putting a palm against his cheek, he whispered in comfort: “It’s okay, it’s okay, nightmares go away.”

Seeing Pei Xi’s features gradually relax, he retracted his hand and tucked in the quilt for him, then left silently.

Thunder struck when he returned to the study, so loud that it sounded like it was rolling across the roof of the house.

He hissed and hurried over to check on the computer. When the download was complete, he shut the computer down and unhooked the network cable. It couldn’t break, or it would be troublesome to repair later.

Just as he was about to turn the lights off and leave, a figure rushed in unexpectedly. As if equipped with an automatic navigation system, he jumped straight into his arms.

He Chuzhou subconsciously caught him. Turning his head, he could only see one side of his head buried in his shoulder from this angle.

“Xinxin?” He Chuzhou probed.

Pei Xi gave a low hum, hugging him tightly as he responded in a hoarse voice: “Why haven’t you gone to bed after working so late?”

“I just finished speaking with a foreigner,” He Chuzhou responded, wondering whether he had been woken up by the thunder or a lightning strike.

But one thing was certain – he wouldn’t be sleeping in the guest room tonight.

“Come on, let’s go back and go to sleep.”

He raised his lips and rubbed Pei Xi’s back. Muffled thunder sounded, and Pei Xi subconsciously trembled against him.

He Chuzhou seemed to have received his answer, and grasped the back of his neck in amusement: “Our Xinxin really is a child at heart, ah, still afraid of thunder.”

He directly picked this person up and took him back to the bedroom, then placed him in bed and got in after him: “Okay, okay, I’m here to stay with you. Go to sleep.”

Pei Xi nestled into his arms without responding.

He Chuzhou rubbed his back over and over again, thinking that he had coaxed him to sleep. He yawned and was about to turn off the lights and go to sleep, when a pair of dark, alert eyes looked up from his arms.

He Chuzhou stifled his yawn midway: “Why aren’t you asleep?”

Pei Xi said: “I can’t sleep.”

He Chuzhou: “Can’t sleep?”

Pei Xi nodded and asked: “Are you going to sleep?”

Lightning flashed, followed by thunder a second later. Pei Xi shrank into his arms slightly, his clear eyes staring straight at him with a pitiful look.

He Chuzhou: “……”

Three minutes later, he returned from the living room and got back in bed, holding a tablet with Pei Xi’s head and shoulder resting on his chest.

He put two bluetooth earbuds on Pei Xi, and yawned where the other party couldn’t see him: “Okay, choose whatever you want to see.”

Pei Xi took off an earbud and offered it to him.

He Chuzhou: “I don’t need it. If you wear them, you won’t hear the thunder outside.”

Pei Xi: “But aren’t you going to watch it with me?”

It didn’t matter to He Chuzhou: “I can just read the subtitles.”

Pei Xi lowered his voice as he held the earbud: “Do you want to sleep?”

“I don’t, how could that be possible? I have enough energy to run ten laps on the Second Ring Road.”

Thunder cracked above their heads, and He Chuzhou quickly put the earbud in and covered Pei Xi’s ears.

There was a strong sense of security in those broad, dry palms. The warm sensation made Pei Xi blink.

He picked a very new movie, an art house film. The plot wasn’t very good, but the production was. The scene of the empty town was beautiful, and the sound of the wind blowing through the grass allowed Pei Xi to endure the protracted plot.

It was unknown how long the storm went on, but it seemed that Pei Xi hadn’t heard thunder in a long time.

He Chuzhou kept covering his ears with both hands to block out the noise. He could only hear the dialogue in his left earbud, the characters’ speech deliberately slowed down.

— I want to be with you, but I want you to be with the person you love the most. I wish you a lifetime of happiness.

— So my giving up isn’t because I quit.

— I’m also very selfish, just fulfilling my own wishes.

Pei Xi frowned upon hearing this.

Were they crazy? What was this nonsense?

If you couldn’t be with the person you liked, it was because you weren’t good enough or didn’t work hard enough. This was just searching for some weird excuse.

He wanted to complain to He Chuzhou, but when he looked up, he saw that the person beside him had already fallen asleep. His eyes were closed, his breaths long.

Even though he was so tired, he’d still helped to cover his ears.

Pei Xi smiled silently, reaching out to gently remove He Chuzhou’s earbud and turn off the tablet. The room was only illuminated by a dim desk lamp.

There was no more thunder outside, but rain was still falling. The dense atmosphere at last contained the scent of autumn.

He pulled down He Chuzhou’s hand and tugged up the blanket. Lying on He Chuzhou, he leaned closer and secretly kissed the corner of his mouth.

It was rare for him to like someone.

So he wanted to be together with the person he liked.

He felt they must be together no matter what.

*

*

He Chuzhou went to sleep late and woke up late. When he opened his eyes in the dim room, he was alone in bed.

Hadn’t he watched the movie until very late last night? Why had he gotten up so early?

Rubbing his temples, he glanced at the time and got out of bed. As soon as he left the room, he heard the sound of a door opening in the hallway downstairs.

The first to come in was He Xingxing, whose paws had been wiped clean. When he saw He Chuzhou on the second floor, he rushed up in excitement, tail wagging.

Then Pei Xi came in, raising his eyes to follow He Xingxing. The moment their eyes met, he looked away.

He walked to the kitchen and set a plastic bag on the table, containing the breakfast he had picked up while walking He Chuzhou’s dog.

He Chuzhou leaned against the railing, looking down with a lazy smile. Having just woken up, his voice was hoarse, but had a certain charm: “It’s such an honor to eat the breakfast President Pei personally brought for me.”

Pei Xi ignored his poor mouth and took the food out of the bag, placing it on the table.

He Chuzhou rubbed He Xingxing’s doggy head and went downstairs: “He Xingxing just frolics around when he goes out, and isn’t easy to walk. You should leave it to me in the future.”

“It’s fine,” Pei Xi replied calmly.

Their eyes met inadvertently when He Chuzhou took a seat, and Pei Xi was the first to look away in the next second.

He Chuzhou, holding a spoon: “ ? ”

Was he still not in his right mind? 

If not, then why did he feel like Pei-calico’s eyes were so…..shy and guilty?

---

T/N: I haven’t forgotten about this story! But the next time I’m tempted to pick up three ongoing translations at once, someone please smack me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

---

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Chapter 35 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 37

“A-Xiu, what are you…..fuck, fuck, fuck—”

Fang Qian’an was in the front while holding Li Xiu. Feeling the loss of strength in the boy behind him, he quickly turned around and grabbed him.

Then, he met the densely packed eyes of the paper figures.

A series of curses burst from the young school bully’s mouth, and he was so frightened that he nearly fell to his knees.

Not long ago, there was obviously just darkness around them. Even Fang Qian’an didn’t know when these paper figures had appeared. Fang Qian’an was still afraid of ghosts. If he had seen these things at a normal time, he would have been so frightened that he hugged Li Xiu next to him while crying.

But right now it was not business as usual.

Li Xiu had just been frightened terribly. There was no blood in his face, and he looked as if he would collapse with a breeze.

Fang Qian’an only took a light glance at Li Xiu’s face, and his heart, which had shrunk into his throat, was forcefully pulled down and stuffed back into its original position.

Fang Qian’an gulped and mustered the courage to comfort him.

“Don’t be afraid. Seriously, don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of, they’re just a bunch of paper people. I could tear these things apart with my hands on the way…..”

However, his vibrato voice seemed to be unconvincing, because as he spoke, Li Xiu’s face became more pale.

The youth clung tightly to Fang Qian’an’s arm, and the corners of his eyes that were stained red by tears were now filled with moisture.

“F-Fang Qian’an.” Li Xiu’s voice was as tiny as a mosquito. “Do you get the feeling that they…..that they’re moving?”

Li Xiu could no longer determine the boundary between reality and illusion.

It was so scary. So bizarre.

The eyes on the faces of those paper figures were obviously so crudely drawn, but Li Xiu still felt that the way they were staring at him was very creepy.

Just like some kind of living things.

Moreover, during this few-minute pause, he felt that there seemed to be more paper figures — it seemed as if they were moving toward him and Fang Qian’an at a very slow speed.

When he expressed his suspicion, he clearly felt every muscle in Fang Qian’an’s body tense.

Cold sweat dripped down the school bully’s forehead and neck.

Rustle—

Rustle—

In the darkness, there was a sound like papers rubbing against each other.

Fang Qian’an held the candle high and glanced at the paper figures.

“I-it’s okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of, really nothing to be afraid of. Right, put this on—”

After a brief hesitation, Fang Qian’an seemed to suddenly think of something. He pulled off the paper mask he was wearing and quickly put it on Li Xiu’s face.

The paper mask looked exactly like the faces of the paper figures, with some rough cracks at the neck.

It was as if someone had just torn it from the neck of a paper figure.

There were also two blood-red blush spots on the mask, as well as a bright grin that extended to the ears. The only difference was probably the two rough holes dug for the eyes.

It was strange to say, but although the paper mask looked scary, once it was put on, the feeling of being stared at by countless people instantly vanished.

The subtle rustling in the darkness also stopped at once.

Li Xiu turned to Fang Qian’an in surprise and said in a panicked voice: “Wait, this mask? You gave me your mask, so what are you going to do?”

“I came to find you, and I have a candle in my hand. Teacher Xu gave it to me. The paper figures seem to be afraid of it,” Fang Qian’an said to him very stiffly.

As if either comforting Li Xiu or talking to himself, Fang Qian’an turned his head, clenched Li Xiu’s hand tightly, and walked step by step out of the circle of paper figures.

“These paper figures won’t notice you if you’re wearing the mask, so they won’t be a big problem for the time being. A-Xiu, come on and follow me, we need to get out of here fast. As long as the candle doesn’t go out, we’ll definitely be able to leave. We’ll definitely get out…..”

His back was completely drenched in cold sweat.

Li Xiu’s lips closed for a moment, and he felt as if his throat was blocked by something. There was obviously much to say, but when he opened his mouth, his mind went blank.

Not long after he put on the paper mask, those strange paper figures no longer appeared around them.

As they moved forward, Li Xiu’s eyes unknowingly adapted to the extreme darkness of the environment.

The flame of the candle in Fang Qian’an’s hand would occasionally flare up. In the strong firelight, Li Xiu also saw the situation around him more clearly.

Only then did Li Xiu realize how strange the place they were in was.

Everything that caught the eye had an air of familiarity. The more Li Xiu observed, the more familiar it felt, and he finally returned to his senses in a cold sweat — the place they were in was just like the Xiao family villa.

When did they get to the Xiao family villa? 

No, this wasn’t the Xiao family villa at all.

Li Xiu’s doubts quickly dissipated as the two of them fumbled forward. After walking for a long time, Li Xiu discovered that this place “appeared” very similar to the Xiao Family Haunted House, but when he looked a little closer, he found that everything here was just an imitation.

Even though the real Xiao family villa had been abandoned for more than a decade, its former luxury and decadence still could not be concealed.

And in this place, there was a feeling of crude, rushed work everywhere.

The most important aspect was that the furnishings here were all made of paper.

Yes, made of paper.

There was no telling how long this rice paper had spent in the darkness, but it was beginning to turn yellow and was falling off in some places, revealing the blackened bamboo strips and straps inside.

He and Fang Qian’an were currently walking in a “Xiao family villa” with paper furniture placed everywhere.

Li Xiu paused slightly upon realizing this.

If the layout here was really the same as the Xiao family villa, then he should be in…..the dining room now?

Li Xiu abruptly looked in a certain direction, and the candle in Fang Qian’an’s hand flared up at that moment.

There was a flash of dark green light, and Li Xiu saw three figures sitting upright in the dining room.

A paper man, woman, and old person.

Unlike the rough paper figures upstairs, the ones in the dining room were lifelike, no different than real people. The only flaw may be that on the neck of one paper figure, the bamboo strips must have rotted over time and broken, leaving the man’s head hanging on his chest.

In the illusion he had experienced before…..his “father” had his head lowered at all times.

But at that time, Li Xiu hadn’t felt that there was anything wrong.

In front of the three paper figures were three bowls of uncooked rice.

At an empty seat, there was an empty plate.

On that plate were squares and circles cut out of paper. 

On the thin pieces of paper, there was a pile of dust.

…..Like the ashes of something.

Li Xiu recalled everything he had experienced in the illusion, and his whole body instantly felt chilled to the bone.

If he hadn’t instinctively resisted and not eaten his so-called “breakfast” at that time, would Fang Qian’an still have been able to find him?

The candle flare only lasted for a moment.

Very soon, Li Xiu was surrounded by thick darkness again.

But Li Xiu had a strong intuition that at this moment, the three paper figures were quietly sitting in their seats, staring unblinkingly at them outside the dining room. 

Li Xiu’s breathing became very rapid in the darkness.

“Follow me, don’t be afraid.”

Fang Qian’an tightened his grip on Li Xiu.

The former school bully’s strength was so great that Li Xiu could practically hear the crunching sound of his elbow joint being grasped.

It hurt, but this pain actually made Li Xiu alert.

He shuddered and quickly turned his head away from staring at the things in the dining room.

The disabled boy suppressed his trembling and whispered to the boy beside him: “Let’s go, Fang Qian’an. Quickly.”

. . . . . .

Ten minutes later, Li Xiu and Fang Qian’an stopped again.

There was a heart-wrenching pain in Li Xiu’s lame leg, which had already been overstressed, and the experience of running fearfully through the dark had exhausted Li Xiu’s remaining strength.

Just at this moment, the candlelight flickered again.

Li Xiu turned his head and met three pairs of dull eyes staring at him unblinkingly from the dining table.

They had returned to their original position.

The path was obviously very simple.

Not long after passing through the dining room, they could see an imitation door. After pushing it open, there was no garden like the real Xiao family villa, but instead a long, narrow corridor. It was an office corridor that could be seen everywhere in the building complex.

There was a tile floor, with rows of locked offices on either side.

The corridor did have many forks, but Li Xiu and Fang Qian’an had never turned a corner.

They kept walking straight ahead.

However, it was so dark around them.

When they noticed, they found that they were standing in the replica villa full of paper furniture again.

A similar process was repeated several times, and in the end, even Fang Qian’an with his amazing physical strength had become extremely weak.

The boy stared at the darkness before him and muttered with a pale face: “A ghost maze.”

Li Xiu was currently being carried on Fang Qian’an’s back — since a while ago, he couldn’t walk any longer. This haunted house, that is to say, this darkness seemed to have some special magical power that could quickly drain a person’s strength and energy. When Li Xiu could no longer walk, Fang Qian’an simply carried him on his back.

However, after countless repetitions, they still couldn’t find a way out.

The candle in Fang Qian’an’s hand had almost burned out. The originally long, slender flame was now short, the light so dim that it was difficult to get a clear glimpse of the path.

“Are you kidding me…..how can I lose to something like this…..”

Li Xiu vaguely noticed that Fang Qian’an’s mood wasn’t right.

The youth lowered his head and said word by word:  “Fang Qian’an.” He patted the boy weakly. “Put me down. Leave me and go on alone.”

“You shut up.”

He cursed rudely at Li Xiu. The tall boy was currently stooped over, and had to press one hand to the wall to move forward.

“You weigh as much as a small chicken, so don’t make it seem like I can’t carry you. What go on alone, why would I come all the way here just to chat with you and then go back by myself? Don’t you think that kind of behavior would be sick?”

“You go back first…..its objective is me. You still have time to run away now.”

Li Xiu disregarded Fang Qian’an’s scolding. He struggled, trying to jump off Fang Qian’an’s back.

Fang Qian’an angrily tightened the grip on his thigh.

“Fuck me, I’m already here. Li Xiu, can you stop fussing?!” the boy growled through gritted teeth.

“……Isn’t there a time limit?”

In the next second, he heard Li Xiu’s question.

“W-what?” Fang Qian’an stuttered and paused.

Not long ago, the boy had been frightened to tears from an illusion, but now his voice was so numb that it was almost indifferent: “Fang Qian’an, there’s a time limit for the two of us to get out of here, right?”

“What are you talking about again? Damn, even after spending all this time talking nonsense with you, maybe I can find a way out—”

“The candle.” Before Fang Qian’an finished speaking, he was interrupted by Li Xiu. “The candle is the time limit, right? Fang Qian’an, you’ve been staring at the candle. The more the candle burns, the more anxious you become…..tell me, what will happen if we don’t find an exit before the candle burns out?”

*

[“Classmate Fang Qian’an, I must warn you. What you’re doing is extremely dangerous.”]

[“That ‘thing’ wants Li Xiu so much that even the red rope I gave him couldn’t stop that bastard from taking him away…..if you go, it is very possible that you’ll be included with Li Xiu.”]

[“If it refuses to let that person go, you may not be able to get out either.”]

[“…..The time I can maintain an exit is limited. This candle is your timer.”]

[“If the candle burns down before you come out, then you really won’t be able to escape.”]

*

“Nothing’s going to happen.”

Fang Qian’an spoke stiffly in the darkness.

“Li Xiu, stop twisting the fuck around, okay? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to twist on the body of a boy my age?”

Fang Qian’an said this deliberately in order to change the subject.

Li Xiu indeed stopped moving.

Enduring the fear of the deadline, Fang Qian’an said word by word: “Seriously, it has nothing to do with the candle. It’s just that when the candle is extinguished, it’ll be dark all around. That’s it.”

But after his words fell, Fang Qian’an heard the youth’s tremulous whisper in his ear.

“Fang Qian’an, lie to me and you’re a puppy.”

Fang Qian’an stared closely at the dying candle in his hand with warm eyes. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t afraid, but……

“If I lie to you,  I’m a puppy,” the boy echoed.

But Li Xiu still refused to let him off. 

“Not only a puppy, but also impotent,” the boy said in his ear.

“……”

“Fang Qianan, swear again that if you lie to me, you’ll become impotent.”

“……”

Fang Qian’an took a deep breath and abruptly came to a stop.

He stared intently at the darkness in front of him that seemed like it would never end. The intense unwillingness, anger, and fear turned into a roar.

“Fuck your mother, you shameless bastard! If you want to keep someone, you can keep me! Why are you taking A-Xiu! He’s not even a fucking adult yet! He still has to take the university entrance exam—”

“Fang Qian’an?”

Li Xiu’s voice was drowned out by Fang Qian’an’s increasingly crude and furious curses.

“He’s just a skinny little chicken. Even if you eat him like ribs, you won’t be able to chew a few pieces of meat, right? What kind of man are you, bullying such a weakling! Fuck, you’re not even a human being! Stop bullying him, can’t you just let him go to school? Come at me if you have the guts! If you take me, I’ll have enough meat for you!”

Li Xiu listened to Fang Qian’an’s fury in astonishment, and his eyes reddened in the darkness.

“Fang Qian’an, don’t be like this, don’t talk nonsense…..”

He hugged Fang Qian’an unconsciously, trembling in panic.

“Do. Not. Bully. Him!”

In the thick darkness, Fang Qian’an roared over and over, like an echo.

---

The author has something to say:

The self-esteem of high school boys is like…..

I can be a puppy.

But I can’t be impotent.

---

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Chapter 44 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 46

Li Xiu gasped violently and slowly opened his tear-filled eyes.

He was lying on the ground.

A boy was panting on top of him, holding his hands above his head with one hand, while the other remained against his lips. A paper mask hung diagonally from the side of his face, with many cracks and rips at the edges that had been inadvertently torn during Li Xiu’s wild struggle.

Li Xiu stared at the familiar face for a long moment, then murmured hoarsely:

“Fang…..Fang Qian’an?”

Fang Qian’an was still looking at Li Xiu anxiously, as if he was still worried about him.

It wasn’t until he heard this call that he breathed an instant sigh of relief. His whole body lost strength, covering Li Xiu.

“Fuck me, you’re awake. You finally fucking woke up…..”

Fang Qian’an spoke several curses in one breath.

“Don’t you know you scared me to death? Li Xiu, I really…..my life was really going to be in your hands…..”

After a few seconds of this, the former school bully vaguely felt that something wasn’t right. After Li Xiu called his name, he made no other sound.

“Hey, A-Xiu, don’t scare me. Are you not awake yet?”

Fang Qian’an’s voice began to shake. He reached out and carefully touched Li Xiu’s face, only to find that the boy’s skin was ice-cold.

“A-Xiu? Speak, little ancestor, don’t scare me—”

Just as Fang Qian’an was flustered and uncertain about Li Xiu’s situation, the latter’s next action nearly made him lose his mind.

Li Xiu actually reached out and opened his clothes.

The boy’s fingers were slightly cold, but the pads were unexpectedly soft. He simply put his hands under the hem of Fang Qian’an’s clothes and touched from his waist to his lower abdomen in an almost crude way.

Fang Qian’an’s breathing suddenly became extremely rapid, and his whole body froze in place as if he had been hit by an immobilizing spell.

“A-A-Xiu, that, wait, waitwaitwait—”

His brain was like a boiling kettle beginning to puff out steam. With the knowledge that something was clearly wrong, Fang Qian’an hesitated for a long moment before reaching to grab Li Xiu’s wrists.

“Y-You stop touching, wait a minute, fuck—”

But such a simple thing turned out to be extremely difficult to do.

Fang Qian’an never expected that there would come a time when his entire body would go weak at someone’s touch.

Fortunately, just before Fang Qian’an’s head could explode, Li Xiu finally found what he was looking for.

“It’s really you…..”

Li Xiu clung to the red rope around Fang Qian’an’s waist. After touching the familiar knot tied by his own hands, he finally let go and fell softly into Fang Qian’an’s arms.

“Wu…..Fang Qian’an…..aren’t you done being a school bully…..wuwu…..why did you delay coming here until now, ah…..”

Feeling the boy’s hot body temperature, Li Xiu could no longer contain his emotions and hugged Fang Qian’an as he cried embarrassingly.

“S-sorry, it’s my fault, I was late. Please stop crying first, ah…..”

Fang Qian’an gingerly held the frail boy trembling in his arms, regretting that he had chosen the cool guy route and never bothered to learn those tricks for coaxing people. Now, facing a Li Xiu who was so terrified that he had a nervous breakdown, all he could do was fret.

Fortunately, Li Xiu’s breakdown only lasted a short while. After crying, the accumulated fear and anxiety flowed out of his body with the tears, and Li Xiu gradually regained his proper calmness.

He noticed the darkness around him and Fang Qian’an, so thick that it was like a physical wall, enveloping them layer upon layer. The only light used to illuminate the space between the two of them was provided by a white candle flickering on the ground.

The candle looked ordinary. It was almost half burned, and the wax oil continued to flow down and accumulate at the bottom in a gray-brown mass.

The incredible thing was its flame, long and thin with a faint greenish hue at the top, which caused the light it emitted to also be slightly green.

The air here was also very murky, with a strong earthy smell.

Li Xiu’s mouth was currently filled with the taste of blood, and a faint stinging pain reminded him of the wound on the tip of his tongue. He finally recalled that just as he left the illusion, Fang Qian’an put his fingers into his mouth. This wasn’t to pull out his tongue, but to prick the tip of his tongue with something.

It was after this that Li Xiu finally came to his senses.

“Um, are you in pain? Is anything wrong? Teacher Xu said that blood must be drained from the tip of your tongue to drag you out of the illusion.”

Fang Qian’an had been observing Li Xiu, and now hurried to give an explanation.

“Teacher Xu? Teacher Xu is here? Wait, where are we right now?”

Li Xiu composed himself and quickly inquired about the situation.

Fang Qian’an appeared tense. He pulled Li Xiu up from the ground, then carefully picked up the candle and held it firmly in his hand. After taking a deep breath, the boy lowered his voice and said seriously: “It’s a bit troublesome to talk about. A-Xiu, you were brought here because you were entranced by a ghost. But don’t be afraid, A-Xiu. No matter what you see, don’t be afraid and don’t run around. We don’t have much time. We need to get out of here quickly…..”

*

Fang Qian’an had been in the hospital when he received Li Xiu’s call.

His nominal biological father was lying on the hospital bed with his head covered in bandages, cursing at him. A lawyer was also called over. Reportedly, Fang Chengke had finally made up his mind to sever the father-son relationship with Fang Qian’an.

Of course, similar things had happened several times before, so Fang Qian’an didn’t pay much attention at the time — firstly for the reason that the law did not support the severance of a paternity relationship between a biological father and son. Secondly, because Fang Qian’an knew very well that there was no way his dear father would be willing to part with his mother’s money.

Although, even Fang Qian’an didn’t quite know how rich his mother in the mental hospital was. She could even make Fang Chengke like this, still drooling over it and unwilling to let go.

As it happened, he received the phone call while sitting cross-legged on the sofa in the intensive care unit, wandering on a mental journey.

Although Fang Qian’an had rushed to school as fast as he could, Li Xiu was still missing when he arrived.

This disappearance could not be explained by science at all.

According to school surveillance, Li Xiu seemed to be sleepwalking at that time, wandering around the school complex. Then, he walked into a closed corridor and didn’t come out again.

But the end of the corridor was sealed, with nothing there except for a mirror.

“I kept asking the idiots at school to think of a way, but they weren’t worth a fart.”

Fang Qian’an’s voice was a bit hoarse in the darkness.

It was the kind of hoarseness people got when they finally relaxed after being overtired.

Fang Qian’an hesitated for a moment before finally voicing part of his anxiety at the time.

“I also called the police, but they couldn’t explain how you disappeared. At that time, I…..my mindset collapsed, let me tell you…..”

And just as everyone was at a loss for what to do, Teacher Xu, who had been asked to deal with the Xiao Family Haunted House, appeared in the gloomy office.

*

Not long ago—

“This can be really…..tricky.”

When Teacher Xu saw the surveillance video showing Li Xiu’s disappearance, a trace of alarm appeared on his usually calm face.

It was certainly not a good thing for Qiming Secondary School to have students disappear one after another. However, it was not until this moment that Xu Qinghe realized that things might be worse than the worst-case scenario he had imagined.

And he didn’t conceal this at all.

“That mirror is not an ordinary mirror, but rather an extremely important lens.”

The solemn-faced middle-aged man explained frankly to the boy overflowing with anger in front of him.

Teacher Xu told Fang Qian’an in a concise manner that the entire Qiming Secondary School, along with this building and the Xiao family villa, were actually Feng Shui layouts specially designed to suppress certain things.

But now, because the seal on the Xiao family villa was disturbed previously, the formation became unstable. Li Xiu was likely taken away by “that thing” during this period.

“Taken away? What do you mean, taken away? Fuck, now you’re telling me a ghost has taken away a living person? Didn’t you say before that as long as he studied hard, nothing would happen? That guy was thinking about going to politics class even after he hit his head. Didn’t he do just as you said? But now he’s still been taken away! He’s so weak and he has a lame foot, what did a ghost take him away for…..fuck…..”

Fang Qian’an nearly kicked the office table to pieces.

He was obviously only a high school student who had just come of age, but his anger was so strong at this moment that he was like a demon, causing Teacher Xu’s other students to step forward intentionally or otherwise to stop him.

Teacher Xu couldn’t help but watch Fang Qian’an, looking tired and helpless.

“Time is short, but we might also be able to bring him back.” The man’s voice was hesitant.

“Only…..it could be dangerous.”

Teach Xu let out a soft sigh and picked up Li Xiu’s personal information he had acquired from the school before. After reading for a minute, the man’s brow furrowed more and more.

Going to the otherworld to bring a person back was extremely dangerous, but the most difficult part of the matter was the birth of the orphan Li Xiu — there was no blood relationship to link to, and if others rushed forward rashly, it was likely that they too would be trapped in the darkness of the otherworld.

“If that really won’t work, a person who is close to him might barely be able to do it, but…..”

But the only person who could be considered close to Li Xiu was an old lady who was currently suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. 

The more he thought, the more solemn Teacher Xu’s expression became.

Suddenly, a boy’s hoarse and constrained question came from the side:

“What about a friend?”

“Hm?”

The veins in Fang Qian’an’s neck throbbed slightly, and his fists were clenched. He stared at Teacher Xu and said word for word:

“Will a friend work?”

*

“……Then the old man said I could give it a try if I wanted to.”

In the darkness, the boy lowered his voice and gave a calm explanation.

“So I followed the method he gave me and found a way to come over. You don’t know how troublesome it was, running back and forth through the school corridors in the middle of the night, turning left and right. It made me dizzy.”

“Fang Qian’an…..”

“Anyway, when you get out this time, you have to treat me to dinner no matter what, Classmate Li Xiu. Your body can no longer make up for my sacrifice.”

As Fang Qian’an spoke, he pulled Li Xiu step by step into the darkness.

“You’re already so timid, so don’t look around. Just follow me.”

It would have been fine if Fang Qian’an hadn’t said that. But after he stressed it so seriously, Li Xiu couldn’t restrain himself in the end and looked around them in the weak candlelight.

In the next second…..

If Fang Qian’an hadn’t been holding onto him so tightly, Li Xiu would have fallen to the ground in terror.

Paper figures.

Countless paper figures stood densely around him and Fang Qian’an, two spots of red roughly painted on their pale faces. The eyes were two dark, empty pinpoints, but when he looked at those pinpoints, there was a sense of fear similar to looking at a living creature.

At this time, all of the paper figures were grinning from the corners of their mouths to their ears. They just surrounded Li Xiu, smiling silently in the darkness — just like the classmates who had smiled warmly at Li Xiu.

In a daze, Li Xiu could even hear a lingering call coming from the mouths of the paper figures.

[A-Xiu—]

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Chapter 43 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 45