Chapter 161: The Cannon Fodder Who Can’t Survive Three Chapters (4)
“What… what do you want?” Bei Xing asked, her heart pounding, but her expression remaining calm. Like a traveler encountering a tiger, knowing escape was impossible, she still tried to maintain a fierce gaze, delaying the inevitable, even if it was pointless.
Su Mingxiu had also recovered some fragmented memories from this soul’s life, but they were meaningless, offering no clues about her death.
She looked at the girl lying on the pile of gold ingots, her eyes blinking rapidly to hide her fear, remembering how Bei Xing had encouraged the Su family to shower her with gold.
Although she hadn’t been hit directly, it had still been annoying, and now she wanted to settle the score.
So she remained silent, only leaning closer, enjoying Yu Nian’s struggles to maintain her balance on the unsteady surface, her arms and legs flailing, her face contorted in pain as she bumped against the hard metal.
A ghost’s yin energy was harmful to mortals, even a slight touch could cause illness, or worse.
Bei Xing, knowing this, tried to avoid Su Mingxiu’s touch, her movements surprisingly agile in this ghostly realm.
Seeing the red marks on her arms, Su Mingxiu finally stopped teasing her, her voice calm and steady. “Stay away from Chu Yinxi.”
Her voice was melodious, not the raspy, terrifying voice Bei Xing had expected,
Almost making Bei Xing think that this ghost was more rational, more composed than a living person.
But her blood-red dress was a stark reminder not to be fooled.
“Why?” Bei Xing asked, her body covered in sweat, her muscles tense as she maintained her balance on the edge of the golden mountain, her eyes meeting Su Mingxiu’s, a flicker of defiance in their depths.
Why?
Su Mingxiu, remembering her inability to approach Bei Xing when Chu Yinxi was present, felt a surge of irritation, perhaps amplified by her ghostly form.
And she had sensed a strange aura from Chu Yinxi, both alluring and repulsive. Until she understood it, she didn’t want Bei Xing near her.
But she hadn’t figured out the situation yet, the missing piece in her memories, she could only protect those she could.
“Didn’t you say you loved me deeply?” the ghost asked, her blood-red lips curving into a smile, a tempting invitation.
Bei Xing’s gaze was drawn to her lips, tracing their perfect shape, as if mesmerized, as Su Mingxiu leaned closer…
“If you love me, how can you sleep in someone else’s bed?”
Bei Xing: “…”
She cursed inwardly.
Under the ghost’s intense gaze, she felt like she would be devoured if she didn’t give a satisfactory answer.
Her sweaty palms clenched, she forced a lovesick expression, a mix of heartache, tenderness, and despair.
“Of course I love you…” she said, her gaze fixed on Su Mingxiu’s, “but I’d rather you have a peaceful afterlife, be reincarnated, and live a better life, Susu, than be selfish and keep you here with me.”
In short—
Don’t stay, it’s pointless.
If she weren’t in a ghost’s realm, she would have chanted scriptures and struck a wooden fish, guiding Su Mingxiu towards reincarnation.
Su Mingxiu, seeing the sweat on her collar, almost believed her, but then, her smile fading, her expression turning cold and dangerous,
The grey mist surrounding them trembled, the ground shaking!
Bei Xing felt herself being lifted—
She sat up in bed.
Warm sunlight streamed through the window, making her instinctively close her eyes, but before she did, she saw golden lines, shimmering like a spiderweb, on the walls and floor.
As her eyes adjusted to the light, the golden lines vanished, as if it had all been a dream.
Her phone vibrated.
She reached for it, seeing the bruise on her arm, a faint red mark in the ghostly realm, now a dark purple, as if she had been abused.
“Hello?” she answered, distracted.
She was certain the golden lines hadn’t been a dream. The Chu family must have some way to ward off evil spirits. She walked towards the bathroom, looking at her reflection in the mirror as she took off her pajamas, listening to the voice on the phone.
It was Chu Yinxi.
“Xingxing, are you awake?”
The protective array buried beneath the Chu residence had been triggered, and someone had contacted them. Chu Yinxi had initially thought it was an accident,
But remembering Bei Xing’s confession at the funeral, and what her family had told her about such things, she wondered if it was related.
Bei Xing, looking at the bruises on her body, knew that those who didn’t know would think she had been… intimate with someone.
She pulled her pajamas closer, certain that interacting with ghosts was dangerous.
“Yes,” she replied listlessly.
Chu Yinxi, unsure how to explain these supernatural occurrences, since she herself didn’t understand them, asked tentatively: “Did you… sleep well last night?”
“No.”
Between the supporting character and the protagonist, Bei Xing decided to stick with the protagonist. Besides…
After her experience in that ghostly realm, she realized that the Chu family and Chu Yinxi offered her a sense of safety.
But she couldn’t stay with Chu Yinxi forever.
As she was thinking, she sighed, forcing a melancholic expression, and said: “I dreamt of Susu.”
“In my dream, she told me to stay away from you.”
Chu Yinxi was silent for a moment, wondering whether to tell her to stop grieving or to explain that she and Su Mingxiu hadn’t had that kind of relationship.
She decided to explain—
“I know,” Bei Xing interrupted, her expression a mix of sadness and understanding, as if hearing Chu Yinxi’s explanation of her past with Su Mingxiu. “She… she cared about me too, but… I’ve lost my chance to be with her.”
“Xingxing, I wanted to tell you yesterday, since she’s gone, the best we can do is to move on, so she can rest in peace,” Chu Yinxi said.
But she also knew that the fact that her family had been contacted meant that Su Mingxiu’s spirit wasn’t ordinary, it must be powerful, even dangerous.
After a pause, she continued: “Didn’t you ask about getting a protective amulet? My parents told me where to get one, it’s at Bei Mang Mountain, our department is having a field trip there in a few days, do you want to come with me?”
Bei Xing, eager for protection, readily agreed. “Okay.”
Bei Xing stayed at the Chu residence for the weekend, then went to school with Chu Yinxi. If they had been in the same department, she would have followed Chu Yinxi everywhere.
Sitting in the small, cramped classroom, her elbow bumping against her classmate’s, she opened her textbook, and her classmate leaned closer.
“Hey, have you heard?”
“What?”
Bei Xing was about to reply when she felt a sudden chill, her throat tightening. Unable to leave, with classmates on both sides, she froze.
“I heard someone from the next department was in a car accident a few days ago, that beautiful, alluring girl you also know…”
Her classmate’s gossiping voice reached her ears.
Bei Xing’s body stiffened. She instinctively raised her hand, as if to protect herself, but under her classmate’s curious gaze, her hand only hovered over her shoulder, a strange, protective gesture.
Her classmate: “?”
Why is she acting like I’m going to attack her?
Bei Xing’s face flushed red, but she couldn’t explain. She stood up abruptly. “I haven’t heard anything. Excuse me, I need to—”
“Ring, ring, ring!”
The bell rang, and the professor entered, his gaze sweeping over the class. “Class has begun, please return to your seats and take out your textbooks.”
Bei Xing, trapped: “…”
She sat back down, as if seeing the red-clad ghost before her, toying with her like a mouse.
She swallowed nervously and looked down at her textbook, but before she could focus, she felt a burning pain in her left chest.
“Ah!” What kind of ghost is this? A lustful demon?
She could only endure the pain silently, her grip on her pen tightening, then loosening. She thought this was the worst of it, but then the pain shifted to her right side, then back to her left, making her squirm in her seat, her shoulders trembling, her lips bitten, the class stretching endlessly before her.
Leave a Reply