C144.3 — [6.10 — The Strange Tales of Fengjia Town]
by UntamedSLaying back on the bed, Jiu Shu blinked, a little confused about the ghost’s thought process.
According to reason, it should be full of resentment towards human beings right now; sneaking a few touches was quite normal, but now that he was awake, it was a bit bold for it to be so wanton.
[Let go of the priest! Can’t you see he’s not feeling well?]
[You damned monster! Let go of the priest!]
In a place where Jiu Shu couldn’t see, Gu Yin’s voice was so gloomy that it no longer had the tenderness of the past.
His voice was so spiteful that it seemed like it would drip bloo-d at any moment.
Even though he was already desperate to the extreme, he still couldn’t watch the priest being slighted by the ghost.
Oblivious to Gu Yin’s voice, the ghost even flaunted and rewrapped its arms around Jiu Shu’s waist.
Jiu Shu’s waist was slimmer than the average human youth, but it didn’t look thin; instead, it was well-boned and felt good to the touch, with a supple musculature.
It had to say, every part of this priest’s body was nice to touch.
Soft and smooth, it touched it fascinatedly for a long time, not even noticing that the human in its arms had woken up.
So much so that just now, without the slightest mental preparation, it let go in a panic.
Actually, being discovered was no big deal.
It wasn’t like the priest could see it anyway, and he had no idea who it was.
There was no need for it to let go at all.
It wasn’t as stupid as Gu Yin, who had turned away from what he wanted to get and was a hundred times more torn up about it.
Laying down on a bed and just touching hands was just plain stupid.
The ghost had figured it out.
Anyway, the priest was just a puppet under its complete control, so naturally, whatever it wanted the puppet to do, the puppet had to do.
It didn’t matter at all if it touched him now; when it fully occupied the body later, it would do more.
Gu Yin, a fellow who would sooner or later go up in smoke, could only be envious.
It would be the one to live to the end, the happiest fellow.
“Who the hell are you?”
Jiu Shu’s stern reprimand interrupted the ghost’s thoughts. As a normal human being, this reaction was normal when discovering that there was an extra weird, unseen thing in the room.
The ghost, however, froze in the face of the reprimand, and just as it was about to answer with its name, it stopped.
It had already given an order before, so that Jiu Shu couldn’t fall in love with Gu Yin again.
Right now, Gu Yin hadn’t completely dissipated, so it couldn’t reveal its identity. But what if the priest fell in love with it again?
After all, now that the love compulsion was under its control. The priest, the one who had been poisoned with the love compulsion, would definitely do whatever it said.
If Gu Yin’s hope was rekindled, it would have done all this work for nothing.
So after thinking about it, the ghost still didn’t say its name and chose to remain silent.
But it never let go of its hand, until Jiu Shu struggled in a disgusted tone, “Let go of me!”
Jiu Shu was no longer as gentle as before.
The ghost froze for a moment as it looked at the obvious look of repulsion and disgust on Jiu Shu’s face, and for some reason, its heart throbbed.
It clearly didn’t care what the priest thought at all; after all, it could control everything about this weak human at any time.
“Get out of here! Get out of here; whatever you are, you’re not welcome here.”
Jiu Shu sat up from the tangle of his arms with difficulty, frowning in a way that seemed unusually cold.
It was very different from the gentleness he had shown when facing the believers during the day.
Cold to the point of being overwhelming.
“……”
The moment it was opposite to Jiu Shu’s eyes that were full of detached disgust, the ghost violently let go, and the original confident emotion on its face instantly dispersed, and it was actually a bit bewildered and at a loss.
The expression on Jiu Shu’s face was almost as if he was disgusted by it and hated it to the bone.
In accordance with the habits of a severe ghost, for humans who dared to resist it like this, it would directly torture them to death.
But this time, in front of this priest, who was supposedly in the palm of its hands, the ghost didn’t make a move, and it couldn’t understand why.
It didn’t want to see the cold expression on Jiu Shu’s face again, yet it didn’t want to leave here either.
In the end, it had no choice but to curl up in the corner of the room and continue to cautiously peek at Jiu Shu because humans couldn’t see it.
Although, according to its initial thoughts, as a dominant ghost, it shouldn’t have been so careful.
Being as cowardly as a child who didn’t know what to do after doing something bad was simply a disgrace.
But right now, this was the only thing it could think of to do.
This was the only way to make the cold expression on Jiu Shu’s face that made its heart throb slightly fade away.
The resistance around it disappeared.
Sitting on the bed, Jiu Shu looked around, not seeing anything out of the ordinary yet still able to feel the slightly cool air.
He lowered his eyes and rubbed his wrist, his short black hair falling over the corners of his eyebrows, casting a slightly depressing shadow over his already fair face.
Any normal person would be disgusted and terrified at the thought of encountering a transparent monster that would harass them, right?
[Jiu Shu must be sad.]
[You monster! Damn monster! It’s all your fault! You’ll surely die by a thousand cuts!]
Gu Yin spoke in a low, spiteful voice, but the ghost ignored him as always, not even glancing at him.
To the strong who had the upper hand, the weak looked so ridiculous with their threats.
Understanding this for the first time, Gu Yin didn’t remain silent but laughed out lowly, hoarse, and gloomy.
For a moment, it was extremely similar to the voice of the ghost.
He was indeed weak to the point of being pathetic; what could he do? He could do nothing but snarl and bark, ridiculous to the extreme.
Why couldn’t he be stronger?
It was so ridiculous that Gu Yin felt like he was simply a joke.
What he needed now was more power.
Gu Yin had never had a moment where he craved for power as much as he did right now, but now, under the suppression of the ghost, he could still only remain apathetic, staring at the outside world with a deadpan stare.
Watching the ghost take over his body, it approached his unattainable priest, taking everything he had and destroying everything he had.
The marks on Jiu Shu’s wrists, in particular, made his heart twist with every glance, but he still didn’t look away.
It was because he had to firmly remember every single humiliation brought to him by the ghost.
Sooner or later, he would return each and every one of them, tearing it into pieces.
Hoo hoo—the cold wind outside the window was blowing colder and colder.
Jiu Shu put on his clothes, walked to the window, watching the original summer evening become as cool as an autumn day, and after a pause, he closed the window tightly.
The fog was getting thicker.
Was it a representation of the mood of the object of the discipline?
Both of them didn’t seem to be in a good mood.
Jiu Shu gently massaged his brows and seemed to sigh lightly.
After that, the room became much calmer, and there was no sign of anything around him again until Jiu Shu had finished his dinner and lay down on his bed to fall asleep.
It seemed as though the ghost that had intruded without permission and behaved so lightly towards him had already left.
But only Jiu Shu himself knew that the coolness spreading through the room never disappeared.
It just became a little wary, as if it was afraid to see that cold expression on Jiu Shu’s face that was so hard to bear.
*
On the other side.
In the flat block outside the church.
After witnessing everything in the church hall, Xiao Hong, who had drawn the curtains, stayed in her room and prayed all day.
She followed the priest’s teachings today and didn’t go out, staying at home all day.
Originally, she should have been fully immersed in devotional prayers to God.
But as her mind kept replaying the scene that happened during the day, the jealousy that was still spreading in her heart had completely dissipated and turned into trepidation that made it difficult for her to sit still.
Although she was a devout believer in God, she firmly believed that there were no ghosts in this world, and even if there were, the priest and God would protect her well.
But she still couldn’t help but feel a chill in her bones, like a deep genetic fear of unknown death that made her sleepless.
All the while guessing over and over again what exactly ‘Ai Lan’ had said to the bearded man during the day to scare him into that state.
Daydreaming and nightdreaming, Xiao Hong dreamt of the daytime scene again that night.
Only this time, instead of standing outside the door and watching, she stood next to the bearded man, facing ‘Ai Lan’s’ gaze as directly as he did.
At the same time, she heard her curious words.
“You saw it.”
A strange smile pulled at the edge of ‘Ai Lan’s’ pale lips, an eerie expression that was by no means humanly possible, giving off a strong sense of dissonance.
Combined with the intense malice in those hollow eyes, it was enough to scare a person to death.
Saw what?
Xiao Hong didn’t understand what ‘Ai Lan’ meant and asked out in her dream.
“I saw it!”
The bearded man answered the question for her.
Xiao Hong saw the bearded man turn his head violently to look at her.
But at that moment, the bearded man was stitching his mouth shut, stitch by stitch, with a trembling hand.
A pair of eyes had also been densely stitched up with needles and threads, with beads of bloo-d constantly seeping out of the stitches.
Even for the sake of conversing with Xiao Hong, the bearded man had rigidly ripped the stitches from his mouth, revealing a bloo-dy mouth and white teeth.
“Help me!” The bearded man ripped his own mouth open and cried out for help, clutching Xiao Hong’s shoulders in a death grip, looking frantic.
“I was wrong! I won’t tell, I won’t tell; let me go! Let me go!!!”
Xiao Hong watched the scene in horror, scared out of her wits.
“Ahhhhhh!!!”
Xiao Hong woke up from her nightmare to see that it was already dawn.
It was another morning and time to go to Mass.
This was supposed to be the happiest time of the day for Xiao Hong; she always felt incredibly excited and happy every time, her spirits lifted by each prayer.
But today, she looked particularly haggard.
When she arrived at the church, the believers had almost all arrived, and Xiao Hong sat in the corner like a scared bird, looking uneasy, no longer having the energy of yesterday.
And when there was a gap at the end of the prayers, she no longer chatted with her sisters, but instead, like the bearded man before her, she behaved strangely and was obviously nervous.
Her companions beside her didn’t pay much attention to her, chatting to themselves.
As she was getting restless, Xiao Hong suddenly heard the bearded man’s name.
“Did he really sew up his eyes? How could he be so ruthless to himself?”
“I won’t lie to you!”
“…Just this morning, someone saw that guy wandering by the roadside with a needle and thread by himself, he was obviously taking advantage of the foggy weather; he wanted to sew the eyes of passersby, saying it was all for their own good.”
“I think he is crazy; crazy people shouldn’t come to church!”
“Yes, it’s a relief that he won’t come, but it’s a bit strange; it seems the fog hasn’t lifted since the day before yesterday; it’s the same day and night; I heard that some people got up in the middle of the night and saw the ghosts of old people who had died!”
“Don’t scare people all day long; there are no ghosts. God bless us!”
“I also heard that more than one person said so; it is said that some people have seen many ghosts walking back and forth on the street, taking advantage of the fog; they probably wanted to fish for a few scapegoats.”
Perhaps the fog was too thick these days, so the townspeople began to talk about it.
Already deep in superstition, they guessed that the ghost gate had opened, the Yin ghosts had crossed the gate, and so on, and even more exaggeratedly, there were also guesses that it was a nuclear leak.
In short, there were various speculations and no logical coherence.
Xiao Hong became more and more fearful; she didn’t know whether the dream she had last night was true or false, but she could feel the coolness emanating from her bones, as if she were being stared at by something terrifying.
In order to ease the tension in her heart, Xiao Hong had no choice but to pick up her mobile phone and scroll through it.
Although she couldn’t even go out recently due to the fog, her mobile phone still had a signal.
Before Xiao Hong could even tap on the video software she usually liked to watch, she saw a news headline.
A news blog that had a story about the ghost Seeker Anchor’s live broadcast room.
Looking at the picture of the live broadcast anchor, Xiao Hong paled on the spot.
Wasn’t this that, Ai Lan?
The title of the news was written in bold, several large words that were extremely eye-catching.
— Beautiful Anchor is suspected to be possessed by a ghost!
Snap-snap-
Before Xiao Hong could take a closer look, she heard heavy footsteps coming from behind her, as if they were carrying a heavy weight.
But the figure glimpsed out of the corner of her eye was slim and well proportioned.
“You… saw it?”
In the next moment, Xiao Hong heard a gloomy voice ringing in her ears.
It was the same as the voice heard in last night’s dream.
Xiao Hong’s breath trembled, and after seeing ‘Ai Lan’ standing not far from her side, her pupils immediately dilated and her body stiffened.
She finally understood the meaning of what the bearded man said in the dream.
She also saw it.
Saw its true colors.
The horrifying true colors.
Intertwined arms, grotesquely twisted limbs, ghastly white skin, and pitch-black, lightless vertical pupils.
In an instant, Xiao Hong’s already miserable face became whiter than paper, and she rolled her eyes and fainted on the spot.
The believers, who were originally still earnestly preparing for the prayer, were in an uproar and hurriedly helped Xiao Hong up.
“What’s wrong, what happened?”
The commotion under the stage was seen by Jiu Shu.
He walked over to Xiao Hong, who had been placed on a chair, and looked at her pale face and thoughtfully swept a glance at the ghost, who wasn’t far away with ‘her’ head lowered.
After last night’s incident, the ghost had become much more silent, with a feeling of weakness and cowardice.
“She suddenly fainted!”
The bystanders actively took care of Xiao Hong, showing their friendly sides in front of the priest.
After Jiu Shu calmed the crowd, he contemplated and spoke, “Let’s send her to the next-door lounge to rest for a while first.”
Anyway, there were plenty of empty rooms in the church, so she could just stay in any one of them.
“!”
Hearing these words, the ‘Ai Lan’ not far away suddenly raised her head, looking at Xiao Hong with an extremely unfavorable gaze.
Before Jiu Shu could arrange for someone to send Xiao Hong over, the next moment Xiao Hong woke up on her own with a scream.
Waking up, Xiao Hong burst into hot tears immediately after seeing the priest, fear rendering her incoherent.
“There’s a ghost—Father, there’s—”
“Don’t worry, there won’t be ghosts in here; calm down.”
Jiu Shu patiently soothed Xiao Hong before she finally calmed down.
She trembled and held Jiu Shu’s hand, as if she were holding the last straw to save her life.
“I… I…” Xiao Hong wanted to say something, but in the next second she met a pair of gloomy eyes and immediately silenced her voice.
“No, nothing.” Xiao Hong didn’t dare to continue speaking.
Fear from the depths of her soul made her not dare to make the truth public, even if she knew that there was a terrifying ghost standing right in front of her.
Otherwise her downfall would be like the bearded man’s; it couldn’t be more obvious.
Xiao Hong was now so scared that her brain was blank, and she had no courage to speak of at all.
She actually knew that if she did speak out, the merciful priest would definitely lend her a helping hand and would not give up on her.
But this was a terrifying ghost.
If it was revealed in public, it would definitely trigger extremely serious consequences.
Even if Xiao Hong was an ignorant woman who had spent more than ten years in Fengjia Town, she knew how terrifying ghosts could be.
At least the ghosts in ghost stories never showed mercy and never blinked an eye when they ki-lled.
It would be too bad if she angered the ghost and dragged the priest down to be hated by the ghost as well.
Although God favored the priest, he couldn’t manifest himself anytime, anywhere, so the ghost was the biggest threat at the moment.
She couldn’t risk hurting the priest to reveal the ghost’s true colors.
Thinking of this, Xiao Hong’s forehead was glistening with cold sweat, but she lowered her head and stopped speaking.
Moreover, judging from last night’s dream, the bearded man had that kind of end purely because he had seen the true colors of the ghost and had been discovered by it.
Then all she had to do now was pretend that she hadn’t seen anything.
That’s right, just don’t tell the truth.
Xiao Hong was trembling all over, holding on to the hope that this might be able to make the ghost calm down and let her go.
However, for some reason, she was still cold, it was even getting colder and colder, so cold that her teeth were chattering.
“Sit down and take a rest; if you can’t, go to the guest room and lie down for a while; don’t be too hasty to pray; the Lord won’t take into account a moment’s lapse in your appointment.”
“Father, I’m fine; I’m really fine…”
Xiao Hong’s eyes reddened as she listened to the priest’s words of concern, but she still held herself together and shook her head, unwillingly letting go of the priest’s hand she was holding tightly.
Although she had been shaken by the priest in the past during the first initiation ceremony, ever since then, they, the believers, were rarely able to get that close to the priest.
Right now, although she was scared to death, Xiao Hong still cherished this opportunity for contact.
In her eyes, the priest was God’s spokesperson in reality, and if they had more contact, he would definitely be able to make all the ghosts back off.
Strangely enough, just as soon as she released her hand from the priest, Xiao Hong realized that most of the coolness in her body had dissipated, and she froze, somewhat at a loss for words.
Jiu Shu looked at Xiao Hong and arched an eyebrow. “Continue resting; we’ll continue the ceremony in a while.”
After saying that, Jiu Shu got up and sat to the side, flipping through the Bible as usual.
Originally, after hearing the “ghosts” in Xiao Hong’s words, everyone was a bit unsettled; after all, there were indeed many strange events in the past two days, making people begin to doubt if there were really ghosts.
However, after seeing the priest’s calm and collected appearance, the crowd settled down again and began to pray silently again.
Xiao Hong’s face finally eased up after a half hour’s rest.
Mass was able to continue without incident, and soon the day’s church duties were completed.
Jiu Shu stood on the platform, glancing at the dusky sky outside the window, and let the congregation disperse in advance.
There was no point in staying in the church now, so they might as well all return home.
“Okay, Father, see you tomorrow; may the Lord bless you!”
“Goodbye Father, may the Lord bless you!”
The people said their goodbyes and then dispersed, leaving only a few people in the church who didn’t want to leave.
Seeing this, Jiu Shu didn’t force them to leave but simply packed up neatly and left the hall.
He decided to go out for a stroll today.
Yesterday he wanted to carefully study the changes in the town, but he didn’t go out to take a closer look, so today was the right time.
And after leaving the church, Jiu Shu soon realized that an unnoticeable shadow was following behind him.
It was ”Ai Lan” who was extraordinarily silent today.
After last night’s events, the object of discipline had become much more docile, even with a feeling of being overly cautious.
Watching that shadow’s every move, Jiu Shu didn’t make much of a statement about it, only pretending that he hadn’t noticed it as he continued to walk towards the depths of the mist.
At this time, at the other end of the town, the female lead, Feng Qi, who had just woken up from her coma, also looked at the thick fog that filled the entire town in front of her, and her expression hardened.
Previously, she had followed her friend to the abandoned primary school to do a live stream of ghost detection, but she had accidentally met a ghost and had been in a coma for two days before waking up.
And during this coma, she dreamt of many broken images, much like memories of her other self.
Although she didn’t know why she suddenly got the memories of her other self, it was a great thing for Feng Qi.
She was determined to change the ending of her previous life’s self.
In her memories, the tragically dead Gu Yin had later come to seek revenge on her with extremely cruel means, without the slightest bit of mercy for her.
But Feng Qi knew that Gu Yin was still kind before his death, and perhaps while he hadn’t turned into a ghost, she could use her love to sensitize him.
In that case, no one would have to die, and Fengjia Town wouldn’t be deserted.
Feng Qi clenched her fists and gave herself a pep talk before stepping into the thick fog in front of her, heading straight for the direction where Gu Yin stayed.
She knew that Gu Yin must be kind, and even after his death, he didn’t intentionally seek revenge. He was just blinded by resentment.
She would save Gu Yin and also save this town.
TN:
🕯️for Feng Qi
That ghost is getting trained 😹
I was going to post this in three parts over a span of three days, but I decided it would be better to post them all at once.
Thank you so much for the chapters!