Holding the rabbit doll in both hands, Zhao Mingyue’s eyes were slightly vacant. She was reminiscing about her past—that patch of somewhat dark memories.
“I was little back then. I can’t remember a lot of things. But… in my impression, that village was dark. As if shrouded in a haze. Everywhere exuded oppression and gloom. The feeling it gave me… there wasn’t a single trace of life there.”
“No one had a smile on their face. No laughter or cheer, only solemn silence.”
“Eventually, everyone slowly moved away. Maybe for other reasons, but anyway, a lot of people left. After we moved to that village I told you about, things gradually improved. There were already people living in the Back Village, but the original villagers seemed to know something, so they ostracized us.”
“I don’t know how to explain it to you. Before I came into contact with your world, I never believed… and I didn’t dare to believe. Most of the time, I was just hypnotizing myself.”
“So it’s only recently, in this period, that I’ve started thinking about these things seriously.”
“Tell me what you know. Try to include as many details as possible. I’ll judge the rest myself,” Bai Yu said softly.
What Zhao Mingyue had said so far was all quite surface-level. But her intuition told her the matter wasn’t so simple. Zhao Mingyue was the female lead, after all. Judging by her experience, things that happened to the female lead and the main character—especially matters of their origins—were never simple. They always implicated a great many things. Either some powerful, hidden faction or some immensely powerful Boss. In short, it wouldn’t be as easy to resolve as the Sunshine Apartment or Dongcheng Thirteenth High School tasks.
“Let me think some more.” Zhao Mingyue frowned in deep thought for a long time.
“There’s one thing. I was chosen as a sacrifice. I don’t know who that deity was, nor the fate of the sacrifices. My sister told me… the sacrifice was meant to become a vessel for this deity.”
“I never completed the ritual. So I shouldn’t have been truly chosen either.”
“But… from before we moved to the Back Village, right up until my parents had their accident… during that period, I felt that the deity was already inside my body.”
“How did you discover this?” Bai Yu’s gaze sharpened.
“It’s a guess. I’m not sure either.” Zhao Mingyue hesitated. “In Pingshan Village, practically everyone had seen ghosts before. People even died because of them. But I, specifically, never saw one. I suspect… it was because that thing was inside my body. That’s why I never encountered any ghosts or monsters.”
“Also, when I was little, occasionally I’d experience situations where I couldn’t control my body. Like sleepwalking. At the time, I was unconscious. When I’d wake up, I’d be somewhere else entirely.”
“My parents and my sister knew about it. But none of them would tell me.”
“Something inside the body…” Bai Yu thought of something. If she wasn’t mistaken, that guy Lu Liangting also had something hidden inside his body. And it posed quite a significant threat to her. That was why she had never made a move against Lu Liangting, even when opportunities arose. Whatever was inside Lu Liangting’s body was in a deep slumber… so what about Mingyue’s body?
Bai Yu looked at Zhao Mingyue carefully. It was the same as always—she saw nothing.
After that, Zhao Mingyue roughly told Bai Yu some more specific details about Pingshan Village. Unfortunately, her knowledge was limited. Her childhood memories were too blurry. What she could tell Bai Yu was finite. Besides, it had been so long—over ten years. Things change, people change. No one knew what Pingshan Village was like now.
“Bai Yu.” After saying everything she knew, Zhao Mingyue hesitated. “Are we really going? Let’s wait a bit longer.”
“Mhm, no rush for now. One week from now.”
“Cough, cough, cough… one week?!” When she heard Bai Yu say “no rush for now,” Zhao Mingyue had breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t expected that “no rush for now” literally just meant… now. She even suspected that if she didn’t have school to attend, Bai Yu’s “for now” would only mean a single day.
“Isn’t that a little too rushed?”
“Our time isn’t plentiful.”
“This… fine.”
While discussing such a serious matter, Zhao Mingyue looked over at the photograph placed to the side. It was of her, age thirteen, and her sister. But in this photo, only her face was visible. Her sister’s face was completely obscured by a smear of blood. It wasn’t just this photo—any photo with her sister in it, her sister’s face was inevitably covered by bloodstains. The kind that couldn’t be cleaned or restored.
Did she not want to go back?
Of course she did. Only there was a possible chance of finding traces of her sister.
But she couldn’t let Bai Yu go, just for that reason.
Neither spoke further that night. Zhao Mingyue lay in bed for a long time before falling asleep. Bai Yu sat at the bedside. She took off her clothes and hung them on the rack, still wearing the same white dress as before. Only this dress allowed her to enter Zhao Mingyue’s shadow. Forcing her way into the shadow wearing Zhao Mingyue’s clothes would only result in one thing: she’d go in, but her clothes and shoes would be left outside.
At night, she pondered Zhao Mingyue’s matter. Right now, she’d only grasped the surface. The specifics… she would have to go to the village to find out.
The next morning, Zhao Mingyue woke up early. She sorted the clothes Bai Yu bought yesterday, washed up, ate, and then left home right on time.
Downstairs, she got on her bicycle as usual.
“Bai Yu, about that female ghost on the fifth floor… how are we going to deal with her?”
Turning her head, Zhao Mingyue only just remembered it.
“It’s already been resolved.”
“Resolved? Did you do it?”
“No. Lu Liangting did.”
Lu Liangting was quite capable, somehow managing to bring Xiao Lian’s child back. Just last night, he had come over and successfully sent off the fifth-floor ghost, Xiao Lian.
“Now that you mention it, he is pretty impressive.”
Chatting with Bai Yu all the way, she soon arrived at school. Before Zhao Mingyue even entered the campus gates, she saw a crowd of people gathered together. She went over for a look and found it was a fight. Worse, a fight between two girls.
“Don’t mind it. Just go.” Bai Yu’s voice echoed in Zhao Mingyue’s ear.
“Ah, okay.”
Zhao Mingyue agreed, but it was clearly already too late.
Among the two fighters, the red-haired woman, who had the upper hand, spotted Zhao Mingyue at a glance. She backhanded the black-haired girl in front of her, sending her crashing to the ground. Her legs bent slightly, the burst of strength and speed absolutely terrifying. She took two strides forward, body leaping up, and before the crowd of onlookers could even react, she was out, taking two more steps right in front of Zhao Mingyue.
The red-haired woman wore a loose tracksuit, her long hair coiled high. A mask covered her face, obscuring her features. One could only tell she was around twenty-five and tall in stature.
“Zhao Mingyue!”
Clenching her fist, the red-haired woman threw a straight punch at Zhao Mingyue’s head.
Her speed was simply too fast; an ordinary person couldn’t react. Only as she closed in did Zhao Mingyue see the knuckledusters on her hand. More importantly, knuckledusters aside… the front of these knuckledusters was fitted with a spiked, blood-grooved blade nearly ten centimeters long.
“Careful!” Under Zhao Mingyue’s collar, threads of blood emerged, hooking onto the back of Zhao Mingyue’s neck and yanking it backward. Zhao Mingyue’s body arched back uncontrollably, narrowly dodging the bladed punch.
But it wasn’t over. Missing her punch, the red-haired woman drove her knee up in a strike while simultaneously retracting her fist. Her other hand thrust from below, aiming straight for Zhao Mingyue’s heart.
A blood thread connected to Zhao Mingyue’s lower back, another wrapped around her shoulder. By contracting and pulling, Zhao Mingyue’s body was forced to lurch aside again, dodging another blade thrust and the knee strike. Being pinned down meant facing a relentless barrage of attacks. Bai Yu didn’t dare waste any time.
“Mingyue, relax your body. I’m possessing you.”
As is common knowledge, ghosts all have possession skills—it’s a standard ghost ability, much like the Ghost Wall Maze. And this skill, Bai Yu naturally also had. She’d just never used it before.
In her panic, Zhao Mingyue hurriedly agreed inwardly. Immediately afterward, she lost consciousness.
The crowd was in complete chaos by now. It was supposed to be a normal morning of school starting. None of them had expected such an uninvited guest to appear at school. Not only had she injured the security guard, but she was trying to murder someone!
That black-haired girl was now lying on the ground, bleeding profusely, her fate unknown! She was considered tough, initially fighting this woman to a standstill. Then, somehow, she lost the upper hand.
And clearly, this lunatic wasn’t done killing. She had targeted another student! Just when they all thought Zhao Mingyue would meet the same tragic end, her fragrance fading and jade shattered, they suddenly saw the madwoman freeze in place. Looking closer, they realized that Zhao Mingyue—the frail girl fairly famous at school and even called the School Belle—was now gripping the madwoman’s wrist!
What the onlooking students couldn’t see… was that in the instant the red-haired woman threw her third punch, Zhao Mingyue’s eyes had instantly turned pure black. Her entire demeanor had undergone a massive transformation. The panic on Zhao Mingyue’s face was replaced by calm and indifference. Pure black eyes stared into the red-haired woman’s.
“Interesting. I wonder… who might you be?” The red-haired woman seemed to smile. Her eyes narrowed. She shook off Zhao Mingyue’s hand and lightly leaped backward, creating distance.
The moment she finished speaking, Zhao Mingyue appeared in front of her in the blink of an eye. Pivoting on her left foot as support, she lashed out fiercely with a right roundhouse kick at astonishing speed.
The red-haired woman had absolutely no intention of dodging. Her left arm came up in a hard block, right fist still coiled and ready. But what she didn’t expect was the instant Zhao Mingyue’s kick connected, Zhao Mingyue pushed off with her left leg, leaping into the air. She landed a flying kick square on the woman’s chest, then backflipped to the ground.
Arms crossed in front of her chest blocking the kick, the red-haired woman revealed a cruel smile beneath her mask.
“An opening.”
Zhao Mingyue hadn’t even landed when the red-haired woman’s blade thrust arrived, perfectly predicting her landing spot. This strike would pierce Zhao Mingyue’s chest.
However… in the next instant, her pupils contracted sharply. Her thrusting fist didn’t hit its target. On her right wrist, a bloody line appeared. Her hand simply detached, falling to the ground. Blood gushed freely from the severed stump.
Zhao Mingyue landed steadily. Her hand was formed into a knife-hand strike, faint traces of blood threads visible at her fingertips.
One step forward. Her hand blade thrust straight for the woman’s throat, incredibly fast and ruthlessly efficient.
The red-haired woman felt an icy chill run down her spine. She desperately threw her body backward. Her left wrist rotated. In that short time, thin wires flew into the air, weaving together to ensnare Zhao Mingyue’s thrusting hand. But Zhao Mingyue’s body control at this moment was terrifyingly precise. In mid-air, she pulled her hand back. Her knee slammed into the woman’s abdomen. As the woman doubled over, Zhao Mingyue raised her hand and drove her elbow into the woman’s neck. This blow was incredibly heavy and forceful. The woman was blasted flying, crashing sideways to the ground.
Zhao Mingyue didn’t move forward to finish her off. She took two steps back, watching the woman get up from the ground.
Wiping the blood from her lips, the red-haired woman’s neck jutted at an unnatural angle to one side. She spat out a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva. The smile under her mask didn’t diminish in the slightest.
“Interesting, interesting, interesting… come on, tell me. Who exactly are you?”
Before she even finished speaking, semi-transparent wire, thinner than fishing line, lashed toward Zhao Mingyue’s calf. With enough tensile strength and speed, this kind of wire was sharper than a blade.
Zhao Mingyue didn’t jump but directly retreated to create distance.
Jumping earlier was deliberately creating an opening, striking when the enemy was careless. She couldn’t do that now. With the enemy on guard, the result of recklessly jumping would be the same as the Old Dean in the cafeteria on the second floor of Thirteenth High School—turned into a human stick.
The moment she stepped back, the thin wires merely flickered through the air, curling mid-air to close on her neck. Zhao Mingyue raised her hand to sever the threads. At that exact same instant, her other hand rose, catching a flying dagger wrapped all over with thin wire between her middle and index fingers.
This wire was incredibly tough, comparable to steel wire. The instant Zhao Mingyue caught the flying knife with her fingers, the entwined wires suddenly bloomed outward, attempting to envelop her fingers. Her reaction was just as fast—she used blood threads to cut them. Even so, dozens of tiny lacerations were cut into Zhao Mingyue’s fingers, a hair’s breadth from drawing blood.
To be more precise, if her reaction had been any slower, Zhao Mingyue’s two fingers would be gone. Moreover… if she had tried to grab it with her whole hand… the entire hand would have been sliced into hundreds of chunks of minced meat, like deli cuts.
Outside the campus, the sounds of ambulances and police cars were drawing near. They would arrive in three minutes at most.
The red-haired woman let out a jarring, strange laugh. She didn’t seem to care about the wound on her right wrist at all and still looked ready to match skills with Bai Yu.
And then, right at that moment—
Splurt!
At her severed wrist, a lotus bloomed, constructed entirely of blood threads. The previously clean wound instantly exploded into a mess of mangled flesh and blood. Blood mixed with minced flesh and shattered bone sprayed out.
After blooming, the Blood Thread Lotus rapidly withered. White smoke hissed from the red-haired woman’s wound.
The woman glanced at it with curiosity, then at Bai Yu. She understood everything. This lotus had been planted the instant her wrist was severed.
“If you want to die, I’ll gladly oblige you… Spider.”
Zhao Mingyue spoke softly, taking the initiative to step forward.
“Ha ha ha… I don’t know who you are. But I figure I’ll find out very soon.” The red-haired woman laughed loudly. “Your strength is great. But I just love collecting the heads of people like you. Wait for me… I’ll come back for you.”
Leaving behind a final threat, Spider clutched her wrist and swiftly retreated. If she stayed any longer, she’d only have two outcomes. Get hacked to death… or get focused down by the police.
After Spider left, Zhao Mingyue’s eyes quickly returned to normal. The sensation of recovering her body was one of aching and soreness all over, as if she’d been exercising intensely for hours.
“Little Sister Yu…”
“Mingyue… inside your body, I saw something.” Bai Yu didn’t mention the Spider matter. Instead, she suddenly spoke up about this.
“Ah? What?”
“I don’t know. But I’m sure… that thing is inside your body, sleeping.”
