“So we got found after all...”
Panic hit first, cold as midnight rain. The figure behind Lu Ming that should’ve been Xuduo had turned into Li Bo at some unknown moment, his voice hoarse and wild, like a caged beast finally snapping.
Lu Ming’s heartbeat stuttered. The old man before him breathed a chill of graveyard frost, and the fire axe he raised caught the candlelight, whispering without words that a wraith had come to collect souls.
His throat felt jammed with ice shards. As Li Bo’s axe dropped, Lu Ming yanked a fistful of talisman papers from his pocket and flung them.
The orange-yellow papers touched the air around Li Bo and burst into flame, a ring of foxfire. Li Bo reeled like he’d seen a natural enemy, roaring while he hacked, a storm trapped in human bones.
They were talismans Lu Ming had written in the mountains. Not half as strong as Xuduo’s earlier Talisman, but enough to buy a breath. Using that sliver of time, he rushed to Xuduo and worked the knots loose, heart thudding at how this villa hid riddles like stones beneath dark water.
Stay longer, and life or death would blur like fog.
“Mr. Lu?”
The other shadow beside Xuduo jerked awake at Li Bo’s guttural bellow. She lifted her head and saw Lu Ming working at Xuduo’s bindings. “Why are you here?”
“It’s complicated. I’ll explain later. We leave first.”
He freed Xuduo’s ropes, then hurried to Wang Yan. The yellow talismans were burning down to ash. Li Bo’s arms bulged with rope-blue veins from the strain, his face a mask of fangs. Bound to the chair, Wang Yan jolted fully awake at the sight of the axe-bearer in the flames.
“What is going on?”
Her world tilted. The butler who’d served her for years peeled back his skin to show something blood-slick and cruel.
A sound like an animal baring its teeth scraped the room. Lu Ming slipped the woozy Xuduo toward Wang Yan, then grabbed a fallen club, ready to hold off the man the Red Robed Wraith had taken.
“What is that!”
The two women flinched together. Not far away, a figure hung from iron chains in the dark, swaying like a drowned bell.
Only the corridor candles bled a thin light inside, yet Wang Yan saw the face. A woman, black hair a tangle, cheeks swollen for no clear reason, eyes bulging out—terror carved where a face should be.
Wasn’t that Li Yan, the one who supposedly resigned two days ago? Why was she here?
Shock froze, then disbelief cracked it. Had Li Bo lied about her resignation and brought her here? Wang Yan remembered the workers who “resigned” one after another lately, all tied to Li Bo. Her face went pale, like paper dipped in milk. Had she been living with a killer all this time?
But why would an old man she saw daily twist overnight and slaughter the people he worked with?
Before she could string a reason, Xuduo was already up, hauling Wang Yan toward the door.
“Where do you think you’re running!”
Li Bo, snarling while he fought the talisman flames, saw them try to slip past. He howled, then charged through the burning ring, skin blistering, rage a tide that wouldn’t break.
His mood surged and snapped. As if he wouldn’t allow Wang Yan and Xuduo to leave his orbit, he lifted the axe and chopped hard at the two running shapes, a guillotine swinging in candlelight.
“Stop—!”
His roar battered at their eardrums. Dizzy washed over them; legs went watery, as if the floor turned to river-silt.
Li Bo’s black suit had caught the yellow talisman fire; it blossomed into flame, and charred patches fell from him, ember-bright scales shedding from a dragon made of smoke. His face was feral; his speed didn’t falter. The axe was about to cleave them when—
Lu Ming reached him in a rush and brought the club down on Li Bo’s dried-out forearm.
Bang!
The axe wobbled and slammed into the doorframe instead. The two women yelped, then something raw and fierce kicked in; they hauled each other by the sleeves and bolted from the room.
“Damn you! You all deserve to die!”
Li Bo ripped the stuck axe free. His face, parched and lifeless, lit with madness, like wildfire in dead reeds.
“Die die die die die die die die! All of you—die!”
It was like someone flipped a twisted switch. Gripping the axe, he started raving names Lu Ming had never heard, and the blade smashed at anything within reach, thunder in a narrow hall.
From the shadows around Li Bo, fine dark-crimson threads crawled out, a swarm of blood-silk. They climbed the doorframe like ivy, and with every swing a blot of those threads splashed onto him.
The blood-silk moved with a mean intelligence, worming over his skin. Watching Li Bo get swallowed by living scarlet, Lu Ming felt his scalp prickle like frost along a fence.
This exorcism wasn’t like what his Master taught. Was every Red Robed Wraith this bone-deep unnerving?
No holding back now. Lu Ming pulled out the treasured artifact his Master had pressed into his hand on his deathbed and hurled it at Li Bo by the doorway. Then he followed, swinging his club, a storm bottled in his grip.
……
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
“Ghost sis, what are you doing?”
Seeing Nana Toki drifting around the house, Xiaoxiao Ji shrank her neck and trailed after her, curiosity fluttering like a moth.
Once she got used to this ghost sister hovering nearby, the fear dulled, like tea after the first bitter sip.
“Nothing much. I’m plastering the house with Talismans so nothing unclean follows us back.”
Nana Toki stuck yellow Talisman slips around the room, speaking without looking, calm as a moonlit pond.
...
Wait—why does a ghost carry ghost-expelling Talismans?
And who told you it’s “our house”? You’re the only unclean thing here!
She swallowed the urge to snark and was about to retreat to her room when Nana Toki swished past and slapped a yellow Talisman right onto her forehead.
“Don’t peel it off.”
“...”
Is this really necessary?
She wanted to ask, but seeing how seriously Nana Toki was working, she clamped her mouth and went along. Talisman fluttering on her brow, she trudged into her room, feeling like a paper puppet.
Too much had happened today. She needed quiet—like a pond without wind.
By the look of the plot ahead, the Protagonist Lord might do a good deed tonight and run into a gravely wounded evil ghost. Then that ghost would flee right into Xiaoxiao Ji’s home and get her killed.
Mm. To prevent disaster, Nana Toki figured preemptive strikes were due.
Watching Xiaoxiao Ji slip into her room, Nana Toki finished talismaning every object in the place, then floated through the wall, soft as smoke.
Given that touching level of courage, Nana Toki decided she should tell the girl what might happen tonight.
Otherwise, if she was alone, terrified, and running around the house, wouldn’t that be pitiful?
“What’s up, ghost sis?” Nana Toki drifted in from the doorway, and Xiaoxiao Ji’s heart stumbled. She held it together. Growth counts, right? A ghost sis sliding through a wall wasn’t enough to KO her now.
Nana Toki realized the girl had been calling her “ghost sis” this whole time. She hadn’t even introduced herself.
She hovered closer and thought for a moment, then spoke slowly. “I have a name. It’s Ling Jiang. Don’t keep calling me ghost sis—it sounds distant.”
This world’s Nesting Phoenix was silly-cute, not tsundere like the last few. Nana Toki was delighted, like spring waking the garden.
“...” No! This beautiful maiden refuses!
Who wants to deepen relations with a ghost!
“By the way, there’ll be a haunting tonight. If you’re not in immediate mortal danger, don’t leave this room.”
Xiaoxiao Ji’s gaze stayed flat water. Nana Toki caught the misunderstanding fast. “By haunting I don’t mean me. Another ghost’s going to pay us a visit.”
“What?!” Xiaoxiao Ji almost sprang up to bolt.
“Why are you so worked up?” Nana Toki gave her a sidelong look. “Try having some backbone.”
“...” I want backbone! But my courage budget is bankrupt!
“Anyway, I’ve layered this place like a web. As long as you don’t go looking for death, that ghost won’t even get a glimpse of you.”
She wasn’t lying. Xiaoxiao Ji’s room had at least triple the talismans of the rest of the house. And while Xiaoxiao Ji was flustered, Nana Toki slapped a few more on her, protective as armor made of paper and ash.
“...” This only makes everything creepier, okay!
