Chapter 44

After falling into silence, everyone tacitly avoided mentioning the extra person.

This eerie tacit understanding also made Qi Xu realize one thing: she was not the only one who had noticed the inexplicable extra person in their group. They were a small team, so they must have occasionally checked on each other, glancing back now and then. Their frequency of looking back might even have been higher than Qi Xu’s.

They might have spotted that extra shadow even earlier than Qi Xu had.

But no one had spoken up or mentioned the extra person. Perhaps they all thought the fog was too thick and they had simply misseen something, or they had fallen into that mindset of ‘don’t overthink it, don’t scare yourself’.

The thought made Qi Xu’s scalp tingle. She looked ahead, wanting to call out to Xia Zhiming and have her deal with the ghost trailing behind first. If that ghost was the one they were pursuing, taking care of it would make everyone happy, right?

If not… well, dealing with it would still be a good deed.

With that in mind, Qi Xu had just raised her head when she saw only a wall of white fog. Xia Zhiming was nowhere to be seen. The words Qi Xu was about to shout caught in her throat.

—Xia Zhiming! You ran way too fast! I’m still back here!

She stopped in her tracks and was soon caught up by the four girls behind her. They came to Qi Xu’s side, looking curious but not as panicked or terrified as Qi Xu had imagined. They simply asked her, “What’s wrong? Why’d you stop?”

The four girls came up to Qi Xu one by one, and Qi Xu was certain these were the same four people she and Xia Zhiming had just met.

But there were still soft footsteps approaching from behind. That figure hidden in the fog, whether human or ghost, was coming. Qi Xu swallowed hard and turned toward where they had come from. She saw a shadow slowly walking up.

The thick white fog made it nearly impossible to see anything. A meter away, people vanished from sight. In the fog, the figure looked shadowy and indistinct, not even its face visible. But it drew closer, closer, and emerged from the fog.

When its figure appeared in Qi Xu’s line of sight, she nearly choked on her breath.

Because… it wasn’t a person.

To be precise, Qi Xu had no idea what it was. From the neck down, it had a human body, dressed in an old-fashioned gray jacket, black cloth shoes on its feet, and a red headscarf tied on its head.

Just by the outfit, it looked like an ordinary elderly rural granny.

But under that red headscarf, its face wasn’t human at all. It had some human-like features, but mostly it resembled a tiger’s head—not hyper-realistic, but with an especially huge mouth that stretched almost to the ears. Inside the big mouth was a sparse row of human-like teeth, not many at all.

Its face bore a creepy smile, its eyes bulging wide like copper bells, with no whites visible—only tiger pupils, yellow around the edges and black in the center.

Qi Xu almost screamed at the sight.

Under the glow of the red headscarf, it was straight out of a horror story—a Wolf Granny with a tiger’s head!

What unnerved Qi Xu the most was that the Tiger Granny kept staring at her intently with those huge bell-like eyes, drool nearly dripping from the corners of its mouth. It looked at her like it wanted to swallow her whole!

It took Qi Xu a moment to find her voice. She wanted to tell the four girls around her to run—they were genuine ordinary people. She, at least, was an intern civil servant, so at a time like this, she had to put the people first!

Qi Xu hadn’t realized her sense of duty was so strong.

But her awareness alone wasn’t enough. The masses weren’t cooperating at all. They acted like they couldn’t see the Tiger Granny and kept asking Qi Xu “what’s wrong”, “why’d you stop”, “why aren’t you moving”.

The last one even revealed the truth to Qi Xu: “The one bringing up the rear is here now. Are we still stopping here?”

Qi Xu finally got it. To them, this Tiger Granny probably looked like a normal person—much like Xia Zhiming.

This surprised Qi Xu even more. What kind of person was Xia Zhiming, to be so quietly displaced by the Tiger Granny?

Now there were only two possibilities. Either this Tiger Granny was unexpectedly powerful, stronger than Xia Zhiming, able to push her out of position; or—Xia Zhiming, that sneaky woman, had done it on purpose! Maybe to see what Qi Xu would do, or because she found Qi Xu a burden with these four tag-alongs and ditched her!

After thinking it over, Qi Xu figured the latter was more likely.

For now, the question was what she should do.

If it were just her, Qi Xu would have bolted without hesitation. She knew Xia Zhiming liked to play around and cause trouble, but she wouldn’t joke with Qi Xu’s life. Qi Xu even felt she was special in Xia Zhiming’s eyes—otherwise, she wouldn’t have impulsively confessed to her.

But with these four added in, everything changed. First off, given Xia Zhiming’s personality, Qi Xu couldn’t be sure she cared about their lives. Xia Zhiming didn’t even value her own life, so why expect her to look out for four strangers?

Moreover, even if Xia Zhiming did care, there was a vicious ghost right there—Qi Xu wasn’t judging by appearances, but could something looking like the Tiger Granny be a good ghost? If they made any sudden moves, they might startle it and get killed.

Almost every ghost Qi Xu had encountered had blood on their hands. Even the “good ghost” Ming Zhu, defended by the Friendly Faction, and the earlier Stone Spirit had taken more than a few lives. No need to elaborate on the Stone Spirit—its goodness was fake, just biding its time. As for Ming Zhu, while it had no record of attacks later on, from the moment it left that village, its kill count had exceeded a hundred.

In a situation like this, there were no good ghosts. Qi Xu couldn’t exactly decide that a Tiger Granny encountered in the wild, looking like this, and inexplicably blending into their group, was a good ghost, could she?

So, the best approach now was to get the four girls to safety without alerting the Tiger Granny, separating from them temporarily. But the problem was, she wasn’t Xia Zhiming and didn’t have a compass. How was she supposed to lead four girls back to the main road?

Especially with the fog so thick now—indistinguishable from a meter away. Venturing blindly would only get them more lost in the mountains. Qi Xu pursed her lips. The Tiger Granny had followed them for quite a while without acting, so it probably wouldn’t do anything suddenly for the moment.

Its eyes were still fixed on her, seeming more interested in her than in the four girls.

After thinking for a bit, Qi Xu replied to the four girls, “Alright, this spot is fairly flat. The fog’s too thick right now—wandering in the mountains rashly will just get us more lost. Let’s rest here for a while until the fog lifts a bit, then keep going.”

The four girls exchanged glances, then agreed. Before meeting Qi Xu, they had been resting in place too. After walking so long, some had already been complaining of exhaustion. Of course they wouldn’t object to Qi Xu suggesting a break.

Everyone set down their backpacks, found relatively flat spots, laid out small waterproof cloths, and sat down. Some pulled out water bottles from their packs, others energy bars, and rested.

Seeing this, Qi Xu found a rock and sat down too. She wanted to check if there was anything useful in the backpack Xia Zhiming had given her. Like the copper coin sword from the temple fair before, or the talismans from the Vivid Red Hotel—those had been effective and might give the Tiger Granny a solid hit.

As she sat, she kept an eye on the Tiger Granny. It didn’t object to them wanting to rest and even agreed. It made a slightly strange sound from its mouth, saying just one word: “Good.” The voice was especially grating, like phlegm slowly rattling in its throat, squeezed out from deep within.

Once everyone was sitting and resting, the Tiger Granny found a spot and squatted down. With its head lowered, it looked no different from a person.

Seeing it make no move, Qi Xu finally breathed a sigh of relief. She had called for a rest mainly for the four girls. Their stamina couldn’t support pushing on through the fog—if they kept going, something bad might happen.

A moment of rest was a moment gained. Even if the Tiger Granny showed no signs of action now, no one could guarantee it would stay that way. If it suddenly snapped and attacked, Qi Xu had no offensive means and could only yell for everyone to scatter and run.

That was when it would really come down to speed and endurance.

Only after confirming the Tiger Granny wasn’t moving did Qi Xu start rummaging through the backpack. But the moment she opened it, she sensed something off. A stench wafted from behind her—the kind you smell at the zoo passing large animals.

In the zoo, the ones you could get close to were docile herbivores. Stinky, sure, but tolerable. But now, the rancid odor hit her full force, and she couldn’t hold back a sneeze.

After sneezing, she glanced behind her and saw the Tiger Granny standing right there, drool dangling from its gaping maw, ready to drip onto her at any moment. That stench came straight from its mouth—foul as shit, to put it bluntly!

Qi Xu instinctively scooted to the side and stared at it wide-eyed. After a moment, she asked, “What are you doing?”

Its voice was still grating, but its yellow eyes rolled around as it chuckled, “I’m just takin’ a peek at ya, seein’ what you’re up to.” Its speech resembled the folk custom innkeeper’s but more slurred—Qi Xu could understand clearly; it was local dialect from Hui Province.

“I’m looking for something to eat.”

Qi Xu answered the Tiger Granny. It narrowed its eyes, and from that tiger head came a sly, fox-like cunning: “Oh, good. Eat up, have plenty.”