C39 — Deadly Lover

Lin Anqi was so scared that he fell on his butt on the grass. He was shocked and pointed towards the first floor with a trembling hand; however, the figure had already disappeared as if it had never existed in the first place.

 

“Lin Anqi, what’s wrong with you? Did you drink too much?”

 

Several people helped the shivering Lin Anqi up, and Lin Anqi himself rubbed his eyes in disbelief; indeed, there was no one.

 

It was impossible for someone to disappear in front of his eyes all of a sudden.

 

Could it be that the pressure of keeping the secret was too great, causing him to hallucinate?

 

Either way, Lin Anqi had a bad feeling; he stomped out his cigarette and went back to the villa hall with a few friends.

 

Because there were no servants, the table was filled with crayfish and seafood dishes from takeout, but the friends had done something wrong and couldn’t eat much, especially Lin Anqi, who was scared by the hallucination just now and had no appetite at all.

 

He hesitantly inquired, “It was said to be a reception, but where is Jiang Xingyu? Why haven’t we seen him?”

 

Zhuo Yu looked at him suddenly with some nervousness; his face was very pale, as if he were being haunted by something unclean; both his body and spirit had a sense of weakness.

 

“He’s resting, and I don’t think you’d much like to see him now, would you?”

 

Zhuo Yu suddenly laughed in a low voice; somehow, this laughter actually made Lin Anqi’s body tense, a kind of eerie feeling lingered.

 

“Since he needs to rest, we won’t stay long, cough…” Lin Anqi almost choked on his own saliva: “We’ll leave first; call if there’s anything.”

 

The friends hadn’t even warmed up their arses on the seats before Zhuo Yu’s appearance made them want to run away.

 

The sound of the sports car roared; the four people had left the villa’s garage; the only thing left in the large house was Zhuo Yu, who let out a soft sigh.

 

It was useless; it was useless to run; once you were targeted by a severe ghost, death was just a countdown.

 

Zhuo Yu picked up a yellowed ancient book from his hand.

 

This was what he found by the character’s bedside; it seemed that he had been reading it for many days now. The character either drank heavily or studied this book, it was clear what he wanted to do.

 

— The Secret Art of Qiankun and Yin Yang.

 

This was a book that recorded a lot of evil spells; Zhuo Yu didn’t even know where he got it. After thinking for half a day, he remembered a name, which was one of the most prestigious temples in the city—Baoshan Temple.

 

It was the abbot there who gave it to him.

 

On page 18 of volume 13, there was a method recorded that allowed the soul to remain in the present world on the seventh day of the deceased’s death, which was the first seven days. However, this method was only effective for ghosts who died suddenly.

 

That was by… k-illing.

 

[Ki-ll a man and a woman who are closest to you, apply their bloo-d and brain marrow to the tombstone at 1:00 a.m. on the seventh day, and then read out the incantations from the books, and the ghost will return to the earth.]

 

Zhuo Yu then understood that at the beginning of the story, he went to the bar to get drunk because he ki-lled his friends and needed to vent his emotions.

 

He really didn’t expect at the beginning that the seemingly indifferent character would actually engage in this kind of evil spell and k-ill, which didn’t match his characterization at all.

 

Zhuo Yu concluded, there was a chance that he was really crazy. Jiang Xingyu was actually a severe ghost that he had personally summoned.

 

In that case, the words he said when archive point 1 was reached made sense, that was why Jiang Xingyu didn’t ki-ll him again.

 

“They’re all gone.” A gentle whisper sounded beside him: “What a bummer.”

 

“It’s good to be gone, so as not to dirty the house.” Zhuo Yu calmly replied.

 

“Baby, you really opened my eyes.” Jiang Xingyu wrapped his arms around his sweetheart, “Why did you do that?”

 

“Since the doctors can’t save you, then we’ll use other methods. I, Zhuo Yu, have lived for more than twenty years, and my path has always been smooth; I won’t fail with you.” Zhuo Yu’s neurotic voice was covered with another layer of sickness and arrogance: “I’m going to let you stay and see you again.”

 

“Either be ki-lled by you and go with you. Or be tortured by you, but I’ll be able to live on with you. That’s my own choice.”

 

“Hahaha ……” Jiang Xingyu laughed and covered his face, “That’s really your style.”

 

Zhuo Yu lowered his eyes, his thick eyelashes covering the faint bluish green marks under his eyes.

 

It wasn’t that he wanted to act crazy, but when living with a severe ghost of this level, the human body would really be affected; his nerves were now so sensitive that he couldn’t sleep well throughout the night; he didn’t mean to scare Lin Anqi, this was his true state right now.

 

Jiang Xingyu peeled shrimp for Zhuo Yu as if nothing had happened, stuffing the shrimp meat into Zhuo Yu’s mouth, smiling with arched eyebrows, and that gloomy aura dissipated a lot.

 

But from the surveillance, it was just Zhuo Yu mumbling alone.

 

On the road, Lin Anqi raced along, stomping that Aston Martin to a roar.

 

He drifted off and saw a man in white on the side of the road waving to him; on one side was the scene of a car accident; the man was injured; it seemed he wanted to tell him to call 120.

 

“Bad luck.”

 

Lin Anqi cursed and stepped on the accelerator to skim over the man.

 

The road was spacious in the middle of the night, so he relaxed, turning up the music to the max.

 

Another white shadow swung by, the white shadow was still waving at him.

 

“……” Illusion, right, it was just an illusion.

 

Lin Anqi lit his cigarette and continued to ignore the man’s pleas for help, driving away as soon as the green light came on, and within half a minute, another waving white shadow swung past on the side of the road.

 

He immediately broke into a cold sweat.

 

The rock music in the car didn’t do much to warm up his frozen bloo-d, and he stared wide-eyed to the curb; there was that crash scene again.

 

A green-skinned truck rushed onto the sidewalk, its flashing lights flashing on and off, making people feel annoyed. Under its massive wheels, a fragmented body was pressed down, with blo-odstains dragging for dozens of meters and scattered body parts on the ground. He even saw an eyeball lying alone on the roadside.

 

The visual impact of that body was too shocking, and the blo-od-stained white shirt seemed to be hinting at something.

 

Lin Anqi once again looked at the man who was waving at the scene of the crash; his face was blurred.

 

But that white shirt was exactly the same.

 

“Holy shit…” Lin Anqi’s scalp tingled in fear as he frantically pressed the convertible button, trying to cover the roof of the car that was folded in the boot. He suddenly felt that being exposed to the air that smelled of bloo-d was disturbing.

 

But at some point there was no other vehicle on the side of the road; he was actually the only one on the road this late at night in his Aston Martin.

 

With the car top covered, Lin Anqi clicked on the navigation in a trance.

 

In these more than ten minutes, he had actually been spinning in place and hadn’t left the scene of this car accident at all.

 

“No, no, no.” Lin Anqi didn’t care if he broke through the red light at this moment; he stepped on the gas like a madman and sped towards the direction of his home. This time, he was slightly relieved because the navigation display was normal, and he didn’t see that white shadow again.

 

 

“Damn, what a living hell.”

 

The yellow hair on his forehead was already wet with cold sweat. Lin Anqi caught his breath and reached towards the side frame of the car, wanting to take a bottle of water out to suppress the shock.

 

He touched left and right but didn’t feel any water; instead, his fingertips touched something slippery, cold, and with a bit of elasticity, as if it were a round ball.

 

“What the hell?”

 

Lin Anqi reached out and pulled it out.

 

The car creaked and braked sharply, almost overturning, while the driver screamed frantically.

 

In the palm of his hand was a human eyeball.

 

He threw the eyeball out of the window as if he were electrocuted; scared to the point of physiological tears, he kept chanting, “It’s all fake; everything is fake; it’s just a hallucination from the stress I’ve been under for the past two days; just go home and sleep it off.”

 

Lin Anqi trembled and restarted the car, his hands shaking like chaff, and the movements of the car also twisted and turned. But he couldn’t care anymore. He even ran a red light and went all the way back to his villa in the suburbs.

 

However, what he didn’t see was that when he parked the car and opened the door to get out of the car, the rearview mirror had already illuminated the man in white on the passenger seat.

 

That face was clearly the already-dead Jiang Xingyu.

 

Lin Anqi ran back home in a hurry; he kicked off his shoes out of breath, and without even having time to change his clothes, he collapsed on the sofa.

 

He glanced at the floor-to-ceiling windows, not feeling safe enough, he pulled the curtains in the whole house tightly and turned all the lights on. Tonight was destined to be a sleepless night.

 

To divert his attention, Lin Anqi turned on the TV.

 

The local news evening news was being reported.

 

The female anchor’s solemn voice rang out, “It was reported that a huge murder occurred yesterday; the victims were four in total, and the bodies of the deceased have already been found by the police.”

 

The headshots of the deceased were immediately broadcast on the screen.

 

Lin Anqi’s brain was no longer able to distinguish why the dead weren’t coded and such things, because the faces of the four dead were clearly the same friends who had gone to Zhuo Yu’s house with him.

 

His ears suddenly rang; intense fear made him hug the blanket tightly.

 

Died… yesterday. Died yesterday?

 

Then… the people who went to Zhuo Yu’s house together with him, in the end, who were they?

 

Lin Anqi’s eyes bulged; his sanity value was already shaky, but the news still kept stimulating him.

 

“The body of one of the deceased was stuffed into a sewer pipe, and when the police found it, the body had already been squeezed into strips by the pipe. Another was torn apart by his family’s Pitbulls, and the skeleton was shallowly buried in the garden, and another…”

 

Lin Anqi switched off the TV.

 

“It’s all fake…” His hands trembled even more as he picked up his mobile phone to play the Great Compassion Mantra, then he made himself a cup of coffee.

 

His mouth was dry, but before he could take more than a few sips, the grip of the mug cracked and the hot liquid splashed all at once.

 

“Fu-ck!”

 

Lin Anqi took off his clothes and threw them into the laundry basket, then he pulled a bathrobe and went into the bathroom. His coffee was sticky, and he couldn’t bear the dirt on his body. At the same time, he also felt that taking a hot bath to relax his nerves was a good choice.

 

“Hahaha, I’m sure it’s because of stress.”

 

Lin Anqi hypnotized himself; after listening to the Great Compassion Mantra playing on his phone, he was much calmer.

 

“Damn, it can’t be that Zhuo Yu knows something, so he’s playing tricks on me. I drank water at his house; it’s likely that there was ISD in the water or something like that.” Lin Anqi submerged himself into the bathtub, and the warm water flow made him feel at ease.

 

“Let’s take a trip to Baoshan Temple tomorrow and the day after tomorrow; doesn’t Zhuo Yu’s brother worship there?” Lin Anqi thought for a while and dialed the number of the person he had always avoided.

 

“Who is it?” A cold voice rang out.

 

 

“It’s me, Lin Anqi.”

 

“What, the money given to you isn’t enough to pay off your debt?”

 

“No, no, no, I wanted to ask you about Baoshan Temple; is it really spiritual over there?” Lin Anqi touched his head before continuing, “Although I didn’t cause any deaths, I feel uneasy; it’s been weird these past two days; I have to go and pay my respects.”

 

“Heh.” The man laughed coldly, “You only think of worshipping Buddha after doing something wrong.”

 

“You were also involved in this matter. Why are you pretending to be a big-tailed wolf?” Lin Anqi’s anger suddenly flared up, and he cursed, “Big deal, if you want to die, we’ll die together.”

 

It was clearly this man who asked them to invite Zhuo Yu to a party as friends, and that route was where Zhuo Ran planned to ki-ll him.

 

The mastermind was clearly him!

 

“…… ” The man sighed helplessly, “Calm down. What? Is betraying your best friend making you uneasy? Baoshan Temple is indeed very spiritual; it’s just that it isn’t a traditional Chinese temple; the founder has a bit of a historical legacy, which involves the Japanese Shinto religion; if you believe it, you can go and try.”

 

“Okay.” Lin Anqi hesitated but still said, “Zhuo Ran, your brother doesn’t seem to be mentally normal anymore; he called us all over today, saying that he wanted to honor Jiang Xingyu, saying that he had survived a great disaster and was revived.”

 

The other side of the mobile phone was silent.

 

Only after a long time did he speak, “Jiang Xingyu did die; I saw Zhuo Yu bury him with my own eyes.”

 

Lin Anqi was flooded with a vicious chill.

 

“I didn’t expect that; even though I didn’t ki-ll Zhuo Yu, well, it’s not bad to make him crazy. I’ll be exempt from suspicion. In a couple of days I will take him to the psychiatric department. As long as it is identified that he has mental problems, the matter of inheritance won’t be his turn; that’s also counted as being innocent. Jiang Xingyu died well.”

 

“What happened at that time? Zhuo Yu’s words confused me.”

 

“From the photos sent by my private detective, when the truck crashed into those two people, Jiang Xingyu did want to push Zhuo Yu away to suffer death himself, but Zhuo Yu was one step faster than him and should have subconsciously pushed Jiang Xingyu towards the truck, and he himself fell down due to the reaction force and wasn’t affected.”

 

“Hiss, Jiang Xingyu wanted to save Zhuo Yu, but Zhuo Yu ki-lled him.”

 

“That’s right, so this is also considered one of our trump cards; it’s just that I can’t take out these photos; if I do, it will show that this matter is deliberate.”

 

Lin Anqi couldn’t listen to any more because he suddenly remembered the scene of the car accident that he passed by when he was going home.

 

The truck, the white man whose face couldn’t be seen, the dead Jiang Xingyu.

 

All sorts of things threaded together. Lin Anqi panicked all of a sudden; his mobile phone shook and fell into the bathtub, and when he fished it out, it had already gone black.

 

“Damn, today is really fucking bad luck.”

 

The water in the bathtub had gone cold, and the Great Compassion Mantra came to an abrupt end. He stepped out of the bathtub to dry his body and stood in front of the mirror, muttering.

 

“Jiang Xingyu, don’t blame me; I also have bitter feelings; a few of us lost money in Macau; if our families knew, it would definitely be bad; it was Zhuo Ran who extended his hand to us; if you want to find someone, you should find Zhuo Ran.”

 

Lin Anqi chanted, and after blow-drying his hair, he laid down on the bed in his bedroom.

 

People shouldn’t be curious or inquisitive, he scolded himself in his heart, but he still opened his laptop and checked the news about the death. The very thought of it made him shiver again, his heart thumping on the verge of beating out of his mouth.

 

It wasn’t true; those dead people just looked alike. Obviously, just now there was a small gathering at Zhuo Yu’s house; how could it be possible?

 

Lin Anqi swallowed his saliva, carefully typing in the names of those people. The enter key was pressed, and instantly, the overwhelming news covered the page.

 

“Bizarre rich second-generation deaths”

 

“Vengeance or love k-illings? Multiple heir deaths have occurred in the local area of C City; is there a hidden agenda?”

 

Lin Anqi casually clicked on one, and bloo-dy images instantly came to his eyes, and he almost threw up.

 

There were those who had been dismembered, those who had been eaten alive, those who had been stuffed into the sewers, and there were also two people that he was all too familiar with; it was Liu Jingyun and Luo Musheng. The two of them had their throats cut sharply, their heads had been smashed to pieces, and their brains were dripping all over the place.

 

These two were the culprits who organized the gambling trip to Macau, although they weren’t involved in the plan, he didn’t expect that they actually died as well; the date of death was just yesterday, and the body was found by the police this morning.

 

Yesterday… yesterday?

 

Lin Anqi froze, if according to the time of Jiang Xingyu’s death, yesterday happened to be the seventh day; it was the night of Jiang Xingyu’s return, and yesterday, although he called Zhuo Yu and said that he had been looking for him for the whole night, he actually stayed over at the old mansion for a day.

 

His family’s old mansion was also said to be the site chosen by the Baoshan Temple to be able to counteract evil qi, so maybe that was why he hadn’t become one of those dead people.

 

“Can’t stay at home anymore.”

 

Lin Anqi immediately pivoted; he had to go back over to the old mansion.

 

Just as he set his laptop aside, the reflective screen seemed to shine on something, like seaweed or a large mass of black mist, hanging from the ceiling of his home.

 

Lin Anqi froze for a moment.

 

Cold sweat continued to emerge from his freshly showered body, and his neck was so stiff that he didn’t even dare to look up until drops of water fell on his shoulders, along with a tickling sensation.

 

He didn’t dare move, and all he could do was glance at it with his afterglow.

 

–Hair.

 

It was a woman’s long hair.

 

“Come with me, it’s only you left.”

 

The girl’s eerie voice rang out, “We’ll be reunited soon.”

 

The next morning, the aunt who came to clean up found her employer dead on the bed. He seemed to have been cut into pieces by some fine thread, and the entire deluxe bed was stained bloo-d red. There was also a ruined laptop next to him.

 

C City had added another bizarre murder case that couldn’t be reported.

 

Zhuo Yu switched off the news on his mobile phone and crossed out a name on the list.

 

At the same time, on the other side of the city, someone also sighed and crossed out “Lin Anqi” on the death list.

 

“Obviously he was still talking to me last night; how come he died the next day?” Zhuo Ran slowly sipped his tea. “It’s because that severe ghost was too fierce, right?”

 

A master with a goatee and round glasses, clad in surplice robes and dressed in an unorthodox manner, spoke up, “It has already exceeded the category of a severe ghost; this time it wasn’t it that struck; it was a woman transformed into a ghost of a devourer, who became a henchman.”

 

“Devouring ghost?”

 

“Have you never heard of working for the tiger?”

 

[TN: this is off my head, but there’s a Chinese tale that people who are ki-lled by a tiger in the mountains, start working for the tiger by going to lure people to be eaten, correct me if I’m wrong]

 

“Then I understand, Liu Jingyun… she seems to be called this name.”

 

Zhuo Ran sighed, “I didn’t expect things to get this big.”

 

The Grandmaster squinted at him, “When you decide to take away another person’s luck, you should have thought about what would happen if you failed.”

 

Zhuo Ran lost his smile. “It’s also true, I wanted Zhuo Yu’s death, but it turned out to be that hostile one, but I heard that he was obedient to my younger brother, who beat and scolded him at will; how come he’s so ferocious after death?”

 

“No dog that bites loves to bark.” The master stretched out his right hand and pinpointed, “This person has been unfortunate in his life; his spirit is repressed, and your brother is even more of a bogeyman in his life.”

 

Zhuo Ran nodded in agreement. “I did a detailed investigation when he first moved into my brother’s house. Jiang Xingyu’s parents were criminals, and after they were released from prison, they got involved in gambling and loan sharks. Jiang Xingyu was abused as a child, and later, his parents were ki-lled by loan shark collectors in front of his eyes, making him an orphan. It wasn’t easy for him to rely on government funding to go to school and get into the best high school in the city, and then he was subjected to school violence because of his family, and at that time, it was my younger brother who relieved him of his burden.”

 

“Oh?” The grandmaster became a bit interested, “So the fate is here.”

 

“But according to my brother’s character, I guess he just disliked those little kids for being too noisy, but he caught Jiang Xingyu’s attention. The private investigator said that Jiang Xingyu had been Zhuo Yu’s stalker for thirteen years, and his home was filled with pictures of the other party, and although he acted like a proper human being, he was an unapologetic lunatic and per-vert.”

 

“No wonder, this kind of paranoid person won’t stop even after death.”

 

“Moreover, his acquaintance with my brother was also very dramatic; it was he who was caught stalking my brother. Zhuo Yu opened the door and asked him what he wanted. Jiang Xingyu said that he liked him to the point of madness and had loved him for thirteen years. Anyone with a clear head wouldn’t say yes, right?”

 

“But Zhuo Yu said yes, right?”

 

“That’s right, he even let Jiang Xingyu live in his house, so that’s why these two are not normal people.”

 

The master pinpointed again and said with interest, “Because he was betrayed and ki-lled by someone he loved, that’s why Jiang Xingyu’s hostility is so heavy, and coupled with all the suffering he suffered as a child and his abnormal psyche, it would be strange for him not to become a severe ghost.”

 

“Alas, this tricky guy will trouble you, Master; the reward will definitely satisfy you.”

 

The master waved his hand. “Originally, I was also the one who asked you to directly solve your brother and then take his soul to practice the fortune-transporting technique. Since something went wrong, I will help you to wrap up the matter. Go; your friends are already waiting for you outside.”

 

As soon as the words fell, Zhuo Ran’s mobile phone rang.

 

“Master really sees things in advance.”

 

Zhuo Ran smiled easily; he put the jade pendant amulet he had begged for around his neck and left the Baoshan Temple.

 

Outside the gate of the temple, several uniformly dressed people were waiting for him.

 

“Captain, why are you so slow? Did you get the amulet?”

 

Zhuo Ran nodded. “The stuff arrived, it’s the real deal.”

 

He took out the remaining six and gave them to his teammates to put on. “It can withstand the attacks of ghosts; now we have a means of self-protection.”

 

“I didn’t expect the first round of the audition to be this difficult.” The bald muscular man touched the goosebumps on his arms; he hadn’t forgotten that the captain almost died at the hands of a male ghost yesterday; if it wasn’t for the fact that someone in the team had brought a spirit damage weapon, he would have died right after the start.

 

“It doesn’t matter; the enemy is in the light, we are in the dark; Zhuo Yu still doesn’t know that this matter was ordered by his brother.”

 

Zhuo Ran got into the passenger seat and combed through the knowledge gotten by his teammates.

 

“The advantage is currently with us. Although the NPCs we won over are dead, we still have other means, such as Baoshan Temple. The abbot has already promised me to clean up that ghost; we have the strongest allies; if the situation gets out of hand, we’ll hide in the temple for a few days.”

 

The woman driving the car drew out the dagger between her legs and said as she wiped the blade, “The opponent is that famous Zhuo Yu, are you confident?”

 

“Hmph, I’m not afraid of him, this time is a good opportunity for our Tianxiang Trade Union to become famous, as long as Zhuo Yu is completely trampled on……”

 

Zhuo Ran and Zhuo Yu’s name was only a word difference, but their treatment in the game was like heaven and earth. He felt that his strength wasn’t bad, but he was robbed of all the limelight by Zhuo Yu, that cripple.

 

If he could ki-ll Zhuo Yu in the film this time, their votes would definitely be unprecedentedly high.

 

Zhuo Ran was enjoying thoughts of the future when he suddenly felt a cool breeze hit his neck.

 

He reached over and turned down the air conditioning temperature.

 

It was time to reach out to his dear brother.

 

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