Chapter 108: The Wish of the sc*m
The store manager was currently dealing with something that wasn’t just a simple case of ghost possession. If it was indeed the evil spirit he mentioned, was the evil spirit the same as the evil god? If so, what did this guy have to do with Ping Shan Village?
The text on the wind chime couldn’t explain everything; right now, it was just speculation.
Anyway, the risks weren’t great, and the benefits were limited. The key was still the so-called evil spirit.
One more thing, the manager had some serious issues; it would be good to know a bit more. There was definitely a benefit in that.
After returning from Eternal Life Village, Zhao Mingyue had little to do. She could go to the task site whenever she wanted. Following this guy to exorcise ghosts would also be a good way to sharpen Zhao Mingyue’s skills.
With Zhao Mingyue and Bai Yu joining, the boss kicked the sitting man lightly. “I’ll take care of your daughter’s situation. But before that, let’s grab a meal. By the time it’s fully dark, we can head over. No rush; your daughter won’t be in danger right away.”
Hearing this, the man perked up immediately, scrambling to his feet. “Really? You’re willing to save my daughter?”
“Well, I didn’t really want to give up on you guys in the first place. It’s just that you don’t listen to advice, and things turned out this way, so what can I do?” The store manager gave Zhao Mingyue a meaningful look and stepped toward the door.
“Today, we’re closing the store. Mingyue, if you have nothing planned for tonight, come with me.”
“Sure! No problem!” Zhao Mingyue nodded vigorously.
The manager opened the door and stepped outside, waiting until Zhao Mingyue followed before letting go of the handle. “No need to hurry. Let’s get some food first. You need to eat well to have the energy, right?”
The man trailed behind, not daring to say much, afraid he’d annoy the manager. He could only follow behind the manager and Zhao Mingyue into a grilled fish restaurant.
Today’s treat was on him, naturally; that was how it should be.
They went into a private room, with the manager taking the host seat and Zhao Mingyue sitting opposite him.
While ordering, Zhao Mingyue was a bit shy at first, but upon realizing someone was treating her, she let loose and ordered four dishes in a row. After all, if someone else was paying and she was there to work, why not indulge in a bit of good food? Otherwise, wouldn’t that be a waste?
When it came to money matters, Zhao Mingyue’s thought process was all about winning and losing.
The dishes arrived quickly, and the air conditioning in the restaurant blew a cool breeze. The manager spoke softly, “Mingyue, you should know my name. My last name is Li, and my first name is Li Tianan. Actually, I’ve been doing this my whole life. Look at this.”
Rolling up his sleeves, he revealed a series of tattoos underneath, all intricate characters packed together like a mass of green bugs.
“Every time I exorcise a ghost or an evil god, I get a tattoo of a talisman. This keeps the remnants from bothering me.”
“Over the years, I’ve collected this many tattoos.”
“I was quite young and fearless back then, thinking that I would tattoo my entire body. Before I went crazy, I swore I wouldn’t let those evil ghosts or spirits run amok.”
“I even gave myself a nickname: Nightmare.”
“Not for people, but for those evil ghosts and spirits! Hahaha, thinking back, it was quite amusing. Then a lot happened, and I stopped doing that. I went to university and studied abroad for a while.”
“It was during that time overseas that I learned a lot.”
“Those lessons hit deep, and I decided not to stay longer. I returned home, used some of my savings to start a small company, made a bit of money, and after selling it, I opened this convenience store.”
“Don’t get scared, but this convenience store was actually left to me by my grandfather. Before I turned it into a convenience store, it was a coffin shop.”
“I heard you’re from Ping Shan Village, so you should know my grandfather. His name is Li Dingshan; people often call him Li Banzai.”
As the manager spoke, he poured a cup of hot tea into a disposable cup and pushed it toward Zhao Mingyue.
“Ping Shan Village was established under my grandfather’s guidance.”
Li Tianan dropped a bombshell — that legendary figure from Ping Shan Village, whom Bai Yu wanted to meet, was his grandfather! This confirmed Bai Yu’s guesses.
Zhao Mingyue was also shocked. “So that immortal was your grandfather?”
“Immortal? It’s more about saving people.”
“Do you know anything about the incident in Ping Shan Village?” Zhao Mingyue hurriedly asked.
“The incident in Ping Shan Village? I don’t really know. My grandfather specifically warned me never to go to Ping Shan Village, especially the back village,” the manager said, a hint of melancholy in his gaze. “I know it’s dangerous there, and I’ve never been. I only know that before it was renamed to Ping Shan Village, it was called Eternal Life Village.”
“Alright,” Zhao Mingyue said, a little disappointed, thinking she could ask for more information.
Just then, an idea struck her.
How did the manager know she was from Ping Shan Village? She used her ID when she was at work, but it didn’t state Ping Shan Village.
Seemingly reading her mind, Li Tianan added, “You mentioned once that you lived in Ping Shan Village when you were a child, so I remembered. I have a sensitivity to the name of that village.”
“Oh, really?”
“Okay, enough talk. Let’s eat! After we finish, I’ll tell you more about the situation at their house while we’re on the way.”
During dinner, Zhao Mingyue ate a lot because she’d recently gained a ton of strength. Her appetite was so wild that even the man named Chen was left dumbfounded. He truly hadn’t expected a little girl to eat so much, racking up over 250 bucks in bills.
After they finished and stepped outside, Li Tianan waved for Zhao Mingyue to get in his car.
He knew where the man lived — in a small apartment about ten kilometers from here.
There was a pleasant scent from a type of aroma fill in the car, faint yet refreshing, complemented by a soft piano piece that indeed helped calm the heart.
Along the way, Li Tianan was introducing Zhao Mingyue to the housing situation.
The man’s name was Chen Hao; he had two daughters. The eldest was eighteen and in high school, always skipping classes and hanging out with a gang, priding herself on being trendy. Walking down the street, she’d make passersby narrow their eyes and point.
Recently, however, she seemed to have changed drastically, as if she were a different person.
She stopped hanging out with the punks, discarded her scandalously revealing outfits, and took out her piercings. Aside from being anti-social and a little rough around the edges like a boy, she didn’t seem much different from a normal girl.
The reason she came up was that Chen Hao suspected his daughter was possessed by an evil spirit; otherwise, how could she change so much?
In reality, the eldest daughter was fine, but she was indeed behaving a bit strangely, especially since she was exceptionally skilled.
Mentioning her, Li Tianan looked exasperated.
Not long ago, this girl had stolen money and bought a motorcycle, attempting to tail him.
Her goal? To have him extract the evil spirit from her sister and relocate it onto her!
In years of experience, he had never encountered such a situation before.
Most people would run a mile away from the term ‘evil spirit,’ especially a girl who had seen one with her own eyes!
As for Chen Hao’s youngest daughter, she was the task target this time.
The youngest was ten-years-old and still in elementary school. Due to her naturally introverted nature, she struggled to make friends, so Chen Hao placed her in a small school with mostly left-behind children, hoping she’d at least meet a few friends.
The evil spirit had appeared during this time.
A year ago, his youngest showed odd behaviors, like demanding an extra pair of utensils and a bowl at mealtimes, insisting that her “aunt” wanted to eat. This aunt was her good friend.
After a while, Chen Hao had noticed something was off and asked who this ‘aunt’ was.
The answer shocked him: the ‘aunt’ was actually a centipede.
Chen Hao took his youngest to the hospital for an examination, and everything was normal, but her health was steadily declining.
Until one day, she dropped the bombshell that her “aunt” was her mother.
Hearing that, Chen Hao managed to contact Li Tianan through a friend.
At this point, Zhao Mingyue was puzzled as to why Chen Hao was suddenly panicking and searching for an exorcist.
Li Tianan’s explanation was that this “aunt” was indeed the little girl Chen Bingtang’s aunt.
And this “mother” was indeed Chen Bingtang’s mother.
An “aunt” generally refers to a father’s sister.
Chen Bingtang’s aunt was Chen Hao’s biological sister. She had given birth to Chen Bingtang but was said to have died of illness afterward. Chen Hao didn’t want to talk more about the specifics, and Li Tianan didn’t pry. In any case, Chen Bingtang’s biological mother and aunt had transformed into an evil spirit and had come knocking.
At this time, the evil spirit was still in its growth phase; initially, Li Tianan had thought it was just a vengeful spirit.
He was confident he could handle it, but a misjudgment led to the first exorcism failure.
The wrath of the evil spirit resulted in the d*ath of Chen Hao’s wife, who was also the mother of his eldest daughter.
The evil spirit was evidently connected to Chen Hao’s wife, and its demands were simple: devour her ghost and take Chen Bingtang away.
To pacify the evil spirit, Li Tianan agreed, then cautioned Chen Hao not to worry about Bingtang’s safety for the time being but absolutely must not let his wife’s ghost in.
If it hadn’t been for Chen Hao holding him back, he would have eliminated Chen Hao’s wife’s ghost right then and there to prevent further issues.
Once the wife’s ghost escaped, she turned into a vengeful spirit, haunting the apartment. She meant no harm; her only aim was to reclaim Bingtang.
With talismans plastered throughout the rented apartment, the evil spirit inside was trapped from escaping, while the vengeful spirit outside was too weak to enter.
The manager took a few days to gather materials for a final showdown.
The result? Chen Hao’s heart softened between his sister and his wife. After being swayed, he let his wife’s ghost in.
The outcome, of course, led to his wife’s soul shattering, and his sister’s power increasing exponentially.
After hearing this, Bai Yu just wanted to know what the difference was between an evil ghost and an evil spirit. Li Tianan explained that an evil ghost could both possess and appear, while an evil spirit could only possess; it typically had no physical form but had immense growth potential.
As for the specifics of the differences, he didn’t know. Regardless, the methods of dealing with the two were completely different.
Having reached their destination, they stood before a building even more shabby and remote than the Sunshine Apartment.
“This is the place. Let’s check it out.”
Getting out of the car, Li Tianan retrieved a box from the trunk and stepped ahead, while Chen Hao’s red sedan arrived a moment later, following behind.
As they walked into the apartment building, Zhao Mingyue instinctively covered her nose.
A damp, rotten smell lingered inside. At the stairway, she spotted discarded old food that had already started to stink, even noticing a mouse within the mess that appeared to have been stepped on. Strangely, the mouse was flattened while the food underneath remained fine.
Before even entering, the whole apartment gave her a vibe of dampness and darkness.
Old bulbs flickered dimly, failing to dispel the gloom, casting a more eerie atmosphere in the corridor.
Once inside, she noticed old advertisements plastered everywhere in the hallway, no new ones in sight. All presented faded letters that were nearly illegible, cluttered like wounds throughout the space.
There was a small puddle around a corner, suggesting someone had just walked past. The bulb above flickered, causing that puddle to ripple as if someone had just stepped through.
One more thing—she noticed that every door had a small incense burner with three burnt sticks of incense. From the spider webs and dust on those sticks, she could tell which homes were occupied and which were not.
She also picked up on a detail: any vacant house had those sticks; they were always arranged with two short and one long.
There’s a saying: people fear odd number lengths, and incense abhors two short and one long.
Shivering from the chilly breeze, Zhao Mingyue vaguely saw a black mist drift through the hall.
At this moment, what she wanted to say was, why did this old apartment look so creepy? She had thought the Sunshine Apartment was bizarre, but turned out this place was even more outrageous.
Honestly, she didn’t believe there were no ghosts here.
“This place is super eerie.”
“It is pretty creepy, but most of the time it’s just little spirits that can’t cause any harm,” the manager said, walking over and pressing the elevator button with his key.
Yes, this rundown apartment building actually had an elevator.
Zhao Mingyue wasn’t too keen to ride it, given the building’s uncanny nature; it would be strange if there weren’t any ghost stories in the elevator.
Following the manager into the elevator, Zhao Mingyue tilted her head to peek outside. As Chen Hao entered, she noticed a motorcycle parked outside that looked familiar. It took her a moment to remember it was the same one that had snatched away Lu Liangting’s daughter earlier that day.
“Could she be the eldest daughter?”
“With a place like this, would Lu Liangting show up?”
“Forget it, hope he doesn’t come.”
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I’m asking for tickets, sob sob sob.
