Chapter 256: A Case of Mutual Misery
Dinner time arrived, and the meal prepared by the spider was Zhao Mingyue’s first real venture into the world of culinary creativity. She was now able to witness the second type of ghostly cooking, and while it wasn’t as masterful as Bai Yu’s, it was, at the very least, edible. I mean, how many ghosts out there can even cook?
Honestly, the spider was starting to look like a budget version of Bai Yu—cold and aloof on the outside but secretly fussing over you like an overly protective mother. She was far less attractive and definitely less powerful, but hey, you could count on her to whip up dinner and babysit. Plus, she could throw a punch while keeping a watchful eye over the little ones. Quiet as a mouse, sharp tongue but softer heart—that’s her to a T!
When you zoom in on the details, it was clear that the two ghosts were quite different, which made sense. You couldn’t expect two ghosts to be carbon copies of each other, right? If one is a “weaker version” of Bai Yu, the other couldn’t possibly be an exact clone.
As Zhao Mingyue pondered, she realized that this was probably why she felt such sympathy for the duo. Maybe she saw a reflection of herself and Bai Yu in them.
As dinner unfolded, Zhao Mingyue finally understood the symmetry of the courtyard. As night fell, the half where she and Lu Liangting were chilling remained unchanged, while the other half erupted with the angry wails of countless evil spirits. Suddenly, it became a cacophonous gathering with many voices chattering away.
Among those voices, she spotted Little Moon’s family—the deceased who had long since become a part of the afterlife.
To her shock, their corpses came “alive,” controlled by some unseen force, moving awkwardly and reliving the mundane events of their last day alive. They were chatting, eating, and drinking in a courtyard that remained hauntingly silent during the day—only to spring to life under the cloak of night.
No wonder the villagers claimed Little Moon’s house was haunted; once nighttime fell, sounds would erupt from within like a poorly scripted horror movie!
Zhao Mingyue couldn’t quite pinpoint what she felt at that moment.
She saw Little Moon standing far away in the other half of the yard, gazing at her “family” in disbelief.
One ghostly lady, looking about forty, moved with stiff, jerky motions. To Zhao’s horror, a ghastly expression—a remnant of living emotions—was plastered across her ashen face. She clutched her neck, which clearly bore stitches from some sadistic handiwork, and rasped, “Oh dear, why is my neck so sore today? It feels a bit out of place…”
“Maybe I should visit a massage therapist, eh?”
“Where did Little Moon scamper off to? That child never listens to my warnings about wandering off!”
“How could I rest easy? I ought to go look for her. What if something happened?”
“I’m such a terrible mother! What if she’s facing some trouble out there?”
Even in d*ath, a mother’s love didn’t fade, it seemed.
Zhao Mingyue could clearly see the stitching on Little Moon’s mother’s neck.
Rumor had it, someone had attempted to use her family’s heads as a sacrifice to open the Ghost Gate but failed spectacularly. Little Moon narrowly escaped, emerging to stitch her family back together.
To be honest, when she first heard of this tragic tale, Zhao Mingyue felt an uncomfortable tightness in her chest—a complexity of feeling she couldn’t articulate, just an overwhelming sense of unease. It was unfathomable to picture such a frail little girl witnessing her family’s heads get chopped off one by one.
Imagine the icy touch of her loved ones’ bl**d caking her hands as she painstakingly sewed their heads back onto their bodies.
She had never ventured far outside her cocoon of a world; her frail body was far from the powers that governed the spirits around her. To begin with, she barely had a connection with the Ghost Gate, akin to possessing just the basics of a ghostly eye, as Spider would say. In other words, she wasn’t that different from a regular human back then.
She wouldn’t have been able to distinguish between life and d*ath.
So on that fateful night, as she took up the needle and thread to stitch the dead, what could have been racing through her mind?
A child younger than fourteen, undertaking a task so harrowingly adult.
Using the softest heart to execute the most excruciatingly painful duty.
Perhaps her only bit of luck in life was meeting Miss Spider through the Ghost Gate.
But there was a catch: the appearance of the Ghost Gate was a result of her family’s sacrifice.
Without Miss Spider, she wouldn’t have survived this long, and she would have joined her family in eternal slumber.
And if her backstory was already this tragic, life was looking extra cruel to her.
The evil god yet to be born in the Ghost Gate was like a parasite, leeching her life force, leaving her with a meager seven days to live.
If after enduring all this anguish, she couldn’t step into the light, wouldn’t that be a true tragedy?
Her failure wouldn’t merely mean d*ath.
Two ends lay before her: becoming the umbilical link for the unborn evil god in the Ghost Gate, her soul completely devoured, or falling under the control of the murderer, using her body as a vessel to evolve into something far more powerful.
Her family had been killed, she had no means of revenge, and she inadvertently set up the killer for further success. How is that not the definition of tragedy?
It gave Zhao Mingyue a weird sense of relief that she had Bai Yu by her side. Otherwise, her fate wouldn’t have been much better than Little Moon’s.
She felt gratitude for having gained her current strength after meeting Bai Yu. Even if she was outmatched, at least Bai Yu was there—refusing to let Little Moon’s fate end that way.
Knowing the ending in advance and realizing she had the capability to change it was a wonderfully empowering feeling.
Redemption was an abstract concept.
She felt deep down that what she was doing right now was singularly about redemption.
“Tonight, our opponent will certainly strike again,” Spider set her black silk threads across various corners of the yard, crafting the place into a spider’s lair. Little Moon’s “revived” family simply couldn’t perceive any of this—they were still stuck in their old routine.
One by one, evil spirits began to emerge from the house, heads bowed as they followed Spider.
Some were standard evil spirits, while a few donned red clothes—though they were only three in number and frankly of subpar quality.
These red-clothed spirits were meant for Spider’s “beast fights,” wearing down the enemy.
Zhao Mingyue scratched her head; she had clearly raised her standards. Red spirits barely registered on her radar anymore.
Now, with her current strength, busting a single red spirit was child’s play. If she were to face a high-tier one like Old Yang, it would be more of a sparring match rather than a challenge. And yet, she found herself snubbing the other red spirits.
Who knows if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
“Alright, I’ll still need you guys to step back this time. Just observe the opponent’s strength for now.”
“This guy will unleash his spirits in this village, randomly killing and testing my reactions. If I don’t show any response, he’ll come at me directly.”
Spider laid out the timeline of their skirmishes, revealing how the looming threats had escalated to this point—all of which was predicated on the opponent’s desire to provoke her.
Ignoring them would lead to more villagers dying, turning into evil spirits, which would only amplify the opponent’s power here, essentially a power struggle over territory.
The layout of this village was intriguing—it formed a large formation. As the enemy continuously gobbled it up, it was completely detrimental to her.
Yes, she was a ghost, but she didn’t mind being subdued by this large formation.
In fact, it acted as a protective barrier; within this range, the opponent bore greater suppression than she did.
The essence of these two villages was to suppress the evil god—their effect on ghosts was secondary; the opponent here was an evil spirit, on the brink of transformation, teetering closer to godhood, thus subject to even more suppression.
Spider contemplated whether restoring these two villages back to their original configurations could effectively contain the unborn evil god lurking in the Ghost Gate.
But she didn’t know and didn’t dare to gamble.
The costs of failure were simply too steep for her.
For some time now, she had been contemplating a certain question.
Throughout her life, she’d killed countless people—good and bad a-like, but the outright sc*m of humanity hardly deserved salvation.
Until she met Little Moon, that is.
Gradually, as she bonded with Little Moon, she found herself in denial, repeatedly convincing herself that her connection to the girl was only because she represented a part of herself.
Bit by bit, she found that self-deception crumbling.
This quiet little sister had become an irreplaceable part of her heart.
Perhaps it was because she filled the void in her life—she could find in Little Moon everything she lacked, which made her feel indispensable.
Whether it was due to that or something else entirely, the feeling was absolutely undeniable.
Ultimately, she grew tired of crafting excuses for herself.
What kind of nonsense main quest was it that a ghost like her could ever complete to woo Lu Liangting?
The sc*m game was purely intended to off her.
While everyone else was blessed with beauty, she was a spider with six eyes, bound to that identity for life.
Rather than dwell on this horror, she figured she might as well live her own little life.
As she mused, Spider shot an observing glance at Zhao Mingyue.
Look at her predicament—what about the doctor?
From the looks of it, her connection with this girl, Zhao Mingyue, wasn’t the product of mere charade.
Did that mean she, too, shared a similar fate?
Indeed, the world was absurd; even a lunatic like the doctor was capable of experiencing love.
Once upon a time, she couldn’t fathom the doctor ever having a chance with women, let alone a brawl of emotions.
It defied logic to imagine how the doctor interacted with Zhao Mingyue.
What was it about her that stripped away his usually dominating nature?
It was difficult to conceive what it meant for Bai Yu to be pinned beneath him.
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At the same time, a suffocating fog surrounded the entire Qiugang Village.
Within that shroud, several ghostly shadows swept through, haunting the streets.
The evil spirit loomed, eyeing the direction where Spider stood; impatience gnawed at him.
“Patience! You don’t devour a meal all at once,” the Masked Person said with crossed arms, squinting his eyes.
“With your strength, and the backing of our Ghost Domain, what could possibly intimidate you?”
