Xia Zhiming exited the dorm building and prepared to navigate directly according to the address Qi Xu had given her, but Qi Xu grabbed her. “Walking is too slow. Come on, ride my little bike-bike.”
Qi Xu went outside the dorm building and pushed over a bicycle. Bicycles were practically standard issue for students, and this one was the kind that could be passed down for three generations. Qi Xu’s little bicycle had been acquired from a senior sister graduating from her fourth year when Qi Xu entered the school.
However, it was a particularly standard single-person bicycle with no seat in the back, only a slanted bar in the front. Xia Zhiming could only sit sideways on the slanted bar.
But Xia Zhiming was unwilling, and fortunately, there were small footrests extending outward on both sides of the rear axle, allowing someone to stand on them. It just tested the balance of the person standing in the back.
Xia Zhiming was particularly confident in her sense of balance. She directly held onto Qi Xu’s shoulders and stood on those two little footrests. She even patted Qi Xu’s shoulder, urging her to pedal faster.
Qi Xu, however, felt that this wasn’t ideal, because the beautiful dream in her heart of having Xia Zhiming sit on the front bar and fall into her arms had been completely shattered.
She still had to pursue, so Qi Xu resigned herself to pedaling the bicycle. Meanwhile, Xia Zhiming held her phone and checked Zhuo Zi’ang’s latest address, directing Qi Xu on how to go.
The bicycle was indeed much faster than walking. Xia Zhiming had parked her car in the Education Park parking lot, snuck in by blending with the school’s students, and then walked for a long time to reach this dorm building. After getting on the bicycle, they left the dorm area in just a short while.
Qi Xu rode the bicycle, pedaling along the tree-lined paths in the school. Xia Zhiming’s palms were a bit hot where they rested on Qi Xu’s shoulders, making her feel inexplicably warm. There were speed bumps on the road, and when the bicycle rolled over them, there was a momentary jolt.
Xia Zhiming’s body leaned forward and bumped slightly into Qi Xu.
In this critical moment of pursuit, what Qi Xu thought in her heart was: ‘This feels just like dating Xia Zhiming in a campus romance.’
Qi Xu’s heart was sweet, but her speed did not drop. Because if she slowed down even a little, Xia Zhiming would definitely scold her. Qi Xu tucked away that bit of sweetness and soon arrived at the location of the latest surveillance footage capturing Zhuo Zi’ang.
Along the way, Qi Xu also noticed the yin energy left behind by Zhuo Zi’ang.
She couldn’t help but feel curious and asked Xia Zhiming, “Zhuo Zi’ang is clearly human. He’s not a ghost, so why does he have such heavy yin energy and can even use it? He’s way better than me at it. He can command a mass of yin energy under himself to support him. If I fell from that height, the yin energy definitely wouldn’t come out to catch me—it would let me splat on the ground and flatten into a pancake.”
On this point, Xia Zhiming did not hide anything and told Qi Xu the truth directly. “Either he’s possessed by a ghost.”
Thinking about it this way, it did seem possible. In many Chinese horror movies, possession by ghosts was a very common scene. Qi Xu had watched a movie as a child where a very slender girl was possessed by a starving ghost. She kept eating and eating until she nearly burst her stomach.
That scene had left a huge psychological shadow on the young Qi Xu.
Dying from being stuffed with food was too terrifying! She absolutely did not want that!
However, Qi Xu did not notice that Xia Zhiming had started her sentence with “either.” Normally, this structure would be “either… or… ,” but Xia Zhiming had only said the first half “either,” concealing the latter part of the sentence.
When they arrived at the location, a message came from the Information Processing Department: The latest surveillance they could find was from five minutes ago. There was no further sighting of Zhuo Zi’ang afterward. They could no longer provide assistance to the investigators. Wishing you success in cracking the case.
Xia Zhiming saw this message, wrinkled her nose, and let out a “snort.”
She was jealous. This was treatment that Xia Zhiming had never received.
Those guys in the Information Processing Department were really playing favorites. She wanted to screenshot this sentence and post it on the forum, letting all those investigators who cursed the Information Processing Department every day see their two-faced attitude.
Unfortunately, the phone wasn’t hers.
“Xia Zhiming, my phone.”
Before Xia Zhiming could screenshot it to send to herself, Qi Xu had parked the bicycle and come to retrieve it. Xia Zhiming was unhappy and directly tossed the phone toward Qi Xu. Qi Xu clumsily caught the phone with her hands and feet, then watched as Xia Zhiming walked into the building in front of them—the abandoned research building of the Medical School.
This research building was relatively old and remote. Later, when the Medical School expanded enrollment, they built a Medical School teaching area with three teaching buildings, three research buildings, an independent student service center, a comprehensive building, and a plaza. This research building was then abandoned.
It was said that the school also wanted to reuse this teaching building, after all, space on campus was limited and every building was valuable real estate. Leaving a six- or seven-story building abandoned was quite wasteful. But for some unknown reason, this building had never been put back into use and remained abandoned.
However, though abandoned, it was cleaned daily, and the classrooms inside were lent to various student clubs for activities.
Qi Xu had come to this research building a few times—to play script killing games.
Normally, Qi Xu really didn’t think there was anything off about this abandoned teaching building. Everyone came here often. But now, with everyone in class or in classrooms, there wasn’t a single person inside. Looking at it this way, it instead felt eerie and creepy.
Qi Xu thought she might be imagining it, but then Xia Zhiming pulled out her pink Daoist robe from the bag she carried, took out the peachwood sword and other gear, and equipped them directly.
“?”
Xia Zhiming glanced at Qi Xu and snorted. “Are you dumb? The Ghost Domain has already unfolded. Doesn’t this mean we’ve directly entered the boss fight phase?”
“……?”
Qi Xu was even more confused. She had only felt that something was off right now, but she hadn’t expected it to be straight to fighting the boss. Qi Xu swallowed and gripped her backpack tightly. Inside were all the peace talismans she had gotten from Xia Zhiming.
She had brought all the talisman paper with her, without leaving any elsewhere or having any backup plans like a rabbit with three burrows. Qi Xu’s thinking was: carry them all, bring them all. Who knew when something might happen or when those ghosts might come for her? Rather than encountering trouble but not finding a peace talisman, better to carry them all and feel a bit more at ease.
Xia Zhiming took the lead and entered the teaching building, not giving Qi Xu a chance to say “you go in and I won’t.” Seeing Xia Zhiming go in, she could only follow closely behind. As soon as Qi Xu entered the main door of the research building, she was dumbfounded.
There were two things: one, Xia Zhiming was gone; two, the inside didn’t look like a teaching building at all.
Moreover, Qi Xu encountered the boss blocking the door right in her face.
After entering the door, the world spun before her eyes. It was no longer the research building scene but more like a pawnshop from a TV drama. However, some aspects differed from a typical pawnshop. First, the door she had reached out for was still an automatic glass door, not the wooden door from TV dramas.
Second, aside from a tall counter at the very back like in a pawnshop, with a circle above it containing the traditional character for “pawn,” the surrounding environment resembled a modern boss’s office more.
And right in front of a curio shelf against the left wall stood a rosewood table, chair, and a complete set of tea brewing tools on a trading tea tray. On that chair sat a middle-aged man. The middle-aged man was very fat, with a round face and layers of double chin. Even from across the table, Qi Xu could see his round, bulging belly. The whole ghost gave off the vibe of a bloated wormy thing.
To be honest, this kind of appearance would normally give people a sense of broad kindness, like Maitreya Buddha. Especially since this ghost was smiling amiably and looked very friendly. But even with such an exterior, it was hard for Qi Xu to let her guard down. In fact, it made her feel nauseous.
She had never been to a modern pawnshop—the legendary pawnshop—or she would have realized this was a standard pawnshop setup.
That bloated wormy thing—no, the middle-aged male ghost—beckoned to Qi Xu. “Little girl, what do you want to pawn?”
Qi Xu was stunned and found that the distance between her and the middle-aged male ghost had rapidly closed. Looking down, she realized she was already sitting across from the middle-aged male ghost. After saying this, the middle-aged male ghost did not rush to do anything else. Instead, he first picked up an ornament on the table and performed a set of tea ceremony.
Qi Xu had seen it on short video platforms before—pouring tea, scattering tea to smell the aroma, skimming foam and shaking for fragrance, all the little terms in a full set. That middle-aged male ghost truly followed the tea brewing steps one by one.
But at the end, in the cup in front of him, there was no tea water, but rather six ancient coins and two sheets of white paper.
Qi Xu’s eyelid twitched. Her hand subconsciously reached for her pants pocket. The six ancient coins had filled it completely, easy to touch, but now, her pocket was empty.
“Oh, so you want to pawn yin energy. Then I’ll use these six ancient coins to buy your yin energy.”
The middle-aged male ghost laughed. The folds of fat on his face were numerous, and when he laughed, the fat piled up together. His squinted eyes became mere slits, but from within those slits, one could see his pitch-black eyes revealing a greedy gleam.
At this moment, Qi Xu felt her heart thump hard, and her entire body seemed to be tugged. She subconsciously clutched her heart, cold sweat sliding down her forehead.
She had been in the Spiritual Countermeasures Bureau for nearly four months and had some understanding of ghosts. Each ghost’s abilities were different. Like the Tiger Granny she had encountered before, who was good at using mist and deception; the Ghost Bride she had just met was even better at transforming into others’ appearances to deceive the living.
This one was even more outrageous, directly using something like life-borrowing red packets and “trading” methods.
Qi Xu’s heart hurt a bit now, but after the pain passed for a while, she seemed fine. Qi Xu took a deep breath and steadied herself. The expression on the middle-aged male ghost’s face changed.
Because Qi Xu… was exploiting a glitch right here.
Yin energy was the aura of the dead. The stronger it was, the more resentment, the heavier the yin energy. But the problem was, Qi Xu now had a human body. She was a living person—where would she have so much yin energy to give to the middle-aged male ghost?
