Chapter 20

After seeing Yu Zezhi off, Wu Yinyu turned around and bolted the courtyard gate. Just as she was about to walk back, a black shadow flickered past in her peripheral vision.

It came precisely from the direction of the basement.

She stared fixedly in that direction. Even with over twenty years of dealing with Ghosts and Monsters, she couldn’t help but feel her heart race.

As she approached the descending staircase to the basement, a pool of black shadow on the ground suddenly swelled over two meters high, thin and elongated.

Like sludge. Though not human-shaped, it seemed to be brandishing claws and fangs.

Before Wu Yinyu could retreat, the black shadow in front of her abruptly collapsed, like a wave, rushing entirely toward her.

She fiercely ducked her head, bending her elbow to shield her face. Just as she flinched backward, she smelled… an Ink Fragrance.

When she looked up again, the black shadow and the ink wave were gone.

Wu Yinyu frowned and checked her arm. Then she pulled at her dress to inspect it. Not a single ink stain was visible.

Strange.

Could it have seeped into her skin again?

What was this? Trying to possess her body?

Wu Yinyu’s heart pounded like thunder. After glancing around, she steadied herself against the wall and unhurriedly descended to the storage room door.

The light was fine now, no longer flickering. But when she lifted the white cloth, the iron bed was gone. Next to the mirror and cabinets stood… an old piano.

The storage room’s arrangement finally matched up with her memories from her youth. This was the familiar layout.

Wu Qiyu had indeed bought her a piano, probably in her second year of elementary school. Back then, Wu Wanying said the sister playing the piano at the school gala was very beautiful and hoped Wu Yinyu would learn it too.

It was precisely at Wu Wanying’s urging that Wu Qiyu bought the piano. Unfortunately, Wu Yinyu had little talent in this art, and her ambition didn’t lie there either.

That seemed to be the time when her relationship with Wu Wanying was best. Because starting from middle school, the two were no longer in the same school and thus grew more and more distant.

Someone once asked Wu Qiyu, since the two children were so close in age, why deliberately place them in different schools? Wouldn’t being together be better for looking after each other?

Wu Yinyu fell into thought. How had Wu Qiyu answered back then…

On a thundering, lightning-filled afternoon, Wu Qiyu stood in the rain holding an umbrella. He held the umbrella high, unable to fully shelter Wu Yinyu, who was snuggled close to him.

Wu Yinyu huddled against him, her hair already dripping wet, her school uniform showing the color of her skin through it. Cold, she sneezed repeatedly.

Wu Qiyu pressed his hand on Wu Yinyu’s shoulder, just pressing down heavily like that, without pulling her any closer. It was more like he didn’t want the child beside him to move at all.

He looked straight at the old friend standing before him, hesitating as usual, unable to answer for a long time.

The other person said, “The child is soaked. Lower your umbrella a bit.”

Wu Qiyu nodded. After a while, he answered the earlier question, “Want to keep her under my own watchful eye, personally look after her.”

“Favor the daughter?” The person teased.

But Wu Qiyu shook his head. “She needs this attention more.”

“Watching too closely isn’t necessarily good for a child’s growth,” the speaker expressed some concern.

But Wu Qiyu didn’t chat further with him. He only said he was in a hurry to take the child back to change clothes, and then left.

The basement light suddenly flickered, pulling Wu Yinyu’s Divine Thought back. Expressionless, she opened the piano lid, randomly pressed a few keys, then slammed it shut with a “bang.”

There was no iron bed here at all. What she had seen earlier was purely an Illusion. Who cast the Illusion?

The one who wanted her away was Yu Zezhi. The one persistently wanting her to take down the hemp rope from the beam was also Yu Zezhi. It must be Yu Zezhi.

Looking again at Yu Zezhi’s various anomalies, Wu Yinyu suddenly felt the matter had become deeply eerie. Was the woman from twenty-three years ago also Yu Zezhi?

How could this person maintain an ageless appearance? If not human, what could she be?

What was interesting was that Yu Zezhi seemed only to be probing her attitude, and also suspected her of controlling that mass of Ink Qi to harm people.

Wu Yinyu pondered. Was that possible? The Ink Qi merely didn’t harm her, but it certainly hadn’t stopped scaring her.

Clutching her phone, she hurriedly left the basement. Instead of returning directly to her room, she went to knock on Wu Wanying’s door.

The corridor lights flickered. Starting from the stairway, one lamp after another flickered, as if something was approaching step by step.

Wu Yinyu held her breath, motionless. Hearing a rustling sound from inside the room, the door before her finally opened.

Wu Wanying adjusted his bathrobe, his eyes still full of bloodshot veins. He still looked poorly rested. His emotional fluctuations were never large; even being disturbed awake now, he wasn’t annoyed. Calmly, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Wu Yinyu opened her phone’s photo album. As expected, the iron bed in the photo had become the old piano.

She gave a light scoff, as if utterly indifferent, and asked, “What do you think this is?”

Wu Wanying looked at it in surprise and answered, “The piano from your childhood.”

“Piano, huh.” Wu Yinyu nodded, then asked, “Do you know where the bed that used to be in the shrine hall was thrown away to?”

Wu Wanying had seen the photos; he naturally knew which “bed” she referred to. Shaking his head, he said, “From as long as I can remember, I’ve never seen that bed.”

“Go back to sleep.” Wu Yinyu turned away thoughtfully. “Sorry to disturb.”

Wu Wanying was still frowning. “Are you encountering some trouble?”

“When I figure it out, I’ll tell you. It’s just that the old residence hasn’t been quite right lately. I’m afraid we need to prepare in advance.” Wu Yinyu’s gaze drifted. Like a wandering soul, she walked away with soft, weak steps.

Wu Wanying could only close the door. Currently sleep-deprived, his eyelids were fighting to stay open. He lay down on the bed and quickly fell asleep again.

On the way back, the corridor lights didn’t flicker again. But Wu Yinyu felt this night wouldn’t be peaceful.

She walked back to her room, showered, and lay down. The moment she lay flat, her entire body’s joints ached unbearably. In the end, she actually passed out from the pain.

It was the White Jade Capital again. The Immortals with rainbow banners and ceremonial standards came riding on clouds.

All she heard was the immortal music stop abruptly. The Immortals’ faces were stern. All those without facial features faced her directly.

The one interrogating her again and again wasn’t the Red-Robed Immortal wearing the Lotus Pattern Jade Pendant, but these thousands upon thousands of unfamiliar faces. The Immortals clamored chaotically, so the phrases drilling into her ears became jumbled and fragmented.

“A great mistake.”

“Should not have…”

“…killed a Buddha.”

“Slaughter is a sin.”

“Where is the Heavenly Dao?”

“Deserves punishment!”

“Bring down the punishment,” that indistinct yet familiar voice suddenly came from afar.

Wu Yinyu looked up accordingly, toward the misty mountains hanging in the sky. She saw a beam of light descending rapidly like Lightning, gilding the auspicious clouds and birds with a golden edge, making them dazzlingly radiant.

That light was different from the lightning she’d seen in previous dreams. It was a lotus-shaped arc of light, seeming to carry supreme majesty, but without any trace of violence or evil.

In the dream, Wu Yinyu did not dodge. The lotus-shaped arc of light forced her shoulders and back to bend. Bowing her head, she said, “The fault isn’t entirely mine. It was the Devil, the Devil Buddha.”

The light stung her eyes painfully, yet she insisted on opening them, even complaining softly and delicately, “Stop shining it. My eyes hurt.”

Wu Yinyu suddenly opened her eyes and lifted a hand to shield her face. Belatedly, she realized the light wasn’t actually that harsh. So she slowly lowered her arm and glanced at the alarm clock by her bed.

One look and she was shocked. It was three in the afternoon?

Staying up all night was useless; no matter how long she slept afterward, it didn’t help.

Her whole body felt out of sorts. Before she could even sit up straight, her peripheral vision caught the stains on the wall.

Except for the bay window beside her bed, the remaining three walls were all covered in ink marks.

The brushstrokes were bold and unrestrained. Crookedly and slanted, they all depicted Buddhas wearing kasayas. The Buddha faces were ferocious, their postures awkward. Clearly… they were Devil Buddhas.

Wu Yinyu nearly fell out of bed. She quickly pulled up the surveillance footage.

In the video, she saw herself get up in the early morning hours.