“Lin Sheng, how come I’ve never seen you at club activities before?”
Lin Sheng blinked her eyes awkwardly. “Sometimes the activities are too boring, so I just slack off. I show up early and bail early.”
“I see.” Yuan Yuan swung her flashlight around aimlessly. “Yeah, sometimes they drag us out there for absolutely nothing.”
“How is the mountaintop not in sight yet? We’ve been hiking forever.”
Yuan Yuan stomped her foot, clearly losing patience. The surroundings were pitch black, and the road ahead seemed endless.
Lin Sheng nodded in agreement, shining her flashlight along the path ahead.
“Is that a person over there?”
“Huh!? Could it be Lu Tiantian and the others?” Xu Yan hurried forward upon hearing this, pushing up his glasses as he craned his neck to look.
There really was someone squatting at the road fork ahead—a girl, by the looks of it.
Song Qian clenched her fists tight. In the dead of night deep in these mountains, who knew what kind of creepy thing they might run into.
Ji Wuxin steadied her shoulders from behind and whispered in her ear, “Don’t be scared. It’s a person.”
A person. Good, just a person.
Song Qian let out a breath of relief and mustered her courage to take a few steps forward. “Lu Tiantian?” she called out.
The group shuffled ahead, shoulders brushing shoulders. It was the kind of scene that would spook anyone.
As they drew closer, Lin Sheng’s sharp eyes made out Lu Tiantian’s face, and the group rushed up to her.
Lu Tiantian sat alone on the ground, her right ankle swollen up huge. She kept her head buried, sobbing quietly.
“Lu Tiantian? Why are you by yourself? Where are Liu Yue and the others?” Xu Yan crouched beside her and asked.
Lu Tiantian shook her head, her voice choked with sobs. “I don’t know. I turned around, and everyone was gone. My flashlight died just now, so I couldn’t see where I was going and tumbled down from up there.” She pointed off to the right as she finished.
Song Qian shone her flashlight that way. Sure enough, there was a small slope—not too steep—but how had Lu Tiantian ended up wandering through all that overgrown grass?
“Can you walk?” Xu Yan pointed at her foot.
Lu Tiantian shook her head again. She couldn’t even stand.
“There’s just me and Brother Jiang Yi as the guys here. Jiang Yi’s got a girlfriend, so that wouldn’t be right. I’ll carry you. We’ll find a spot to rest until dawn, then get you to a clinic.”
Jiang Yi frowned at him. “?”
Who said he had a girlfriend?
Xu Yan looked scrawny and bookish, but he carried Lu Tiantian steadily enough. Lin Sheng and Yuan Yuan walked ahead, lighting the way and kicking small rocks aside.
“You’re freezing…” Xu Yan muttered under his breath. It didn’t feel like he was carrying a person so much as a block of ice. The others didn’t pay it much mind.
Song Qian and Jiang Yi walked side by side behind them.
“Girlfriend?” Song Qian couldn’t resist gossiping.
“Nope.”
“What does it matter to you whether he has a girlfriend?” Ji Wuxin floated alongside them and chimed in out of nowhere.
Song Qian shot back without missing a beat. “What does it matter to you if I ask him?”
“Of course it matters!” Before Song Qian could react, Ji Wuxin cupped her face and planted a quick kiss on her lips. She pulled back with a smug glance at Jiang Yi.
Jiang Yi: “……”
Song Qian stared at the Ghost Face in front of her, then at Jiang Yi’s averted gaze. In the darkness, her pale cheeks flushed crimson in an instant.
“Get off me!”
She wrenched herself free from Ji Wuxin’s grasp and hurried to catch up with the others ahead.
Ji Wuxin calmly licked her lips and shot Jiang Yi a sidelong glance. “Does she like me?”
Jiang Yi: “……”
Could they stop tormenting him already?
“Hey, Little Tree Spirit, have you ever seen seductive ghosts?” Ji Wuxin rolled her pitch-black eyes and gestured wildly with her hands. “You know, the really gorgeous ones that lure people in.”
Jiang Yi wasn’t surprised that she could see right through him. After all, spirits had the power to peer into the essence of things.
“I have.”
“Then tell me how they show off their skills.”
“?” Show off their skills? What did that even mean?
Ji Wuxin tsked in annoyance. How was this young sapling such a blockhead? “Seduce people. Make them fall head over heels for you.”
Jiang Yi’s clear black-and-white eyes went wide, as if he’d heard something outrageous.
“They… they…” He stammered, at a loss for words.
“Why are you asking about this?” Better change the subject.
Ji Wuxin kept a straight face as she mulled it over for a long moment. Then she narrowed her eyes at Jiang Yi in warning. “You’re not gonna blab about this, are you…?”
“If you do, I’ll rip out your roots!”
Jiang Yi took a deep breath. Lin Qing was dead meat when they got back! He couldn’t handle this ancestor himself, so he’d dumped the mess on him instead.
“I won’t.”
Ji Wuxin’s expression turned icy. “Because I can’t.”
“What?” Jiang Yi wondered if he’d misheard.
She slanted him a look and repeated herself. “I can’t.”
Wait, why would a spirit like her need to learn how to seduce people!?
Jiang Yi’s mind raced. He glanced ahead at Song Qian. Did she want to seduce Song Qian?
“You want Song Qian to fall for you?” he asked delicately.
Ji Wuxin furrowed her brow slightly, pondering. If Song Qian fell for her, wouldn’t that prove she’d mastered Jiao Niang’s techniques? Then those little ghosts would finally see what she could do as a seductive ghost!
“Yeah!”
Their conversation had gone completely off the rails.
“Do you know how?” Ji Wuxin caught the increasingly complicated look in Jiang Yi’s eyes and rephrased. “Do you know how to do it?”
Jiao Niang had said tree spirits were all stodgy old prudes who couldn’t handle anything steamy.
Jiang Yi drew in another deep breath and replied patiently, “I know that when one person likes another… it’s because there’s something about them that draws her in.”
That’s what they always said in TV dramas anyway. True or not, whatever.
“Attract…?”
Something about them…?
Did that mean… her body? Use her body to draw her in?
Ji Wuxin racked her brain, recalling scenes of Jiao Niang with those men. She always dressed so revealingly, draped in nothing but a thin layer of gauze. Without fail, the men’s eyes would glaze over, unable to look away.
Ji Wuxin suddenly felt like she was onto something!
She glanced down at her own chest. Not bad at all. Worth a shot!
Next time, she’d borrow some of Jiao Niang’s gauze to try it out.
Ji Wuxin flashed Jiang Yi a thumbs-up. “Not bad.”
Jiang Yi: “?”
“Look! Isn’t that a house over there?” Lin Sheng’s voice called from up ahead.
Jiang Yi was thrilled for the excuse to drop the topic and eagerly joined the group.
Sure enough, a house loomed faintly ahead—dilapidated and ancient-looking.
“We’re in luck. Let’s check if anyone’s living there. Maybe we can even get some water.” Xu Yan was panting a little; carrying Lu Tiantian this long had worn him out.
“Let’s go take a look.”
Their pace picked up, like castaways spotting a ship bound for home.
The house was sizable, three stories tall. The outer walls had peeled away in patches, and weeds choked the yard. No one had lived here in a long time.
They reached the front door. The lock had been smashed recently—shards lay scattered on the ground, the scratches fresh.
Xu Yan shot Jiang Yi a meaningful look.
They were the only two guys here. If someone—or something—else had gotten here first, they couldn’t let the girls take the lead.
Jiang Yi nodded. Lin Sheng and Yuan Yuan grabbed nearby sticks, holding them ready just in case something lunged out when the door opened.
Jiang Yi grabbed the door and yanked hard. It came right off its hinges and crashed down, kicking up a cloud of dust that billowed over everyone at the entrance.
The group: “……”
Xu Yan stared dumbstruck at Jiang Yi, who hadn’t quite retracted his hand yet. “I said open the door, not rip it off its hinges.”
“Is that you guys?”
A familiar male voice came from inside. A man stepped out, gripping a golf club like he’d been ready to fend off whoever was at the door.
“Ma Zhiwen?”
It was Ma Zhiwen, the one they hadn’t seen in hours. Xu Yan peered inside and spotted Liu Yue sitting at a table, peering out.
“Is that Tiantian and the others?”
“Yeah.”
At the mention of Lu Tiantian, Ma Zhiwen finally noticed the girl on Xu Yan’s back—his own girlfriend.
“Tiantian, what happened to you?”
“Her ankle’s sprained pretty bad.” Xu Yan walked toward him, ready to hand her over. But before he’d taken two steps, Ma Zhiwen turned and headed back inside without any intention of taking her.
“I told you, if you can’t walk, don’t come. Now look at the mess—who’s supposed to deal with this?” Ma Zhiwen fumed, kicking over a stool in the process.
“Hey! She’s your girlfriend!” Xu Yan couldn’t fathom what he was so mad about. He’d been totally different when Liu Yue had twisted her ankle.
How did a guy like this even have a girlfriend?
Ma Zhiwen snorted coldly and turned back to look at him. “Yeah, she’s my girlfriend. You’re being too nosy, aren’t you? Or do you like her?”
“Ma Zhiwen! Don’t go too far with your words!” Lu Tiantian, who had been silent until now, suddenly spoke up. The pain from her sprained ankle made her face pale.
Ma Zhiwen lit a cigarette and leisurely sat down next to Liu Yue. “I’m going too far? How am I going too far? There’s plenty of space here, but you’re still clinging to another guy’s back and won’t get off. Isn’t that just you seducing people?”
Lu Tiantian was so provoked by him that she jumped straight down from Xu Yan’s back. She swayed unsteadily and reached out to hit him.
“Hey?” Xu Yan wanted to reach out and stop her, but after thinking about what Ma Zhiwen had just said, he pulled his hand back.
Ma Zhiwen grabbed her wrist with one hand and looked at her with a gloomy expression. “You want to hit me?”
“Zhiwen, don’t be like this. How could Tiantian hit you? She must just be really angry and a bit emotional,” Liu Yue said from the side as she lightly touched Ma Zhiwen’s wrist, as if trying to pull him back.
“Hmph!” Ma Zhiwen flung Lu Tiantian’s hand away, completely ignoring her sprained ankle, and coldly watched as she fell to the ground.
Lu Tiantian collapsed on the floor, her long hair covering her eyes as teardrops fell one by one from her chin onto the ground.
Song Qian watched everything clearly from the side. Lu Tiantian’s eyes instantly turned fierce and icy cold. She looked like a completely different person from the one during the day.
“There’s still some time left. Everyone, take a break for now,” Xu Yan said, feeling a bit tired himself.
“I’ve checked the house already. Only the second floor is habitable,” Ma Zhiwen said as he shook off the last bit of ash from his cigarette and lifted his leg to head upstairs.
Halfway up the stairs, he suddenly stopped. Whether out of a sudden conscience or something else, he turned back, scooped Lu Tiantian up by the waist, and carried her upstairs with him.
“I’ll take the first room on the right with Tiantian. You all pick from the rest.”
“What does he mean by that?” Yuan Yuan asked quietly.
Song Qian shook her head, feeling like something was going to happen tonight.
There weren’t many rooms left, so in the end, the four girls shared one, and Xu Yan and Jiang Yi took another for the two guys.
Song Qian didn’t sleep on the bed. Instead, she found a chair, leaned against the wall, and closed her eyes to rest.
Feeling the familiar cool aura beside her, Song Qian inexplicably felt much more at ease.
“This room has other people in it too.”
