chapter 17

No escape.

I felt her slender fingers tighten around my neck.

My breath constricted.

The air all around was thick with a rotten, sickly-sweet stench.

She dragged me out of the wardrobe and lifted me into the air.

My brain started to go blank from the lack of oxygen.

I gasped desperately, my throat making a hissing sound from the pressure.

Just before I lost consciousness-

The door to the room was kicked open by someone.

Next, a bluish-gray figure stood in the doorway.

I was saved.

I don’t know what happened after that.

When I woke up,

I found myself in a hospital bed.

In front of me stood a young man in a gray robe, probably just over twenty years old.

Seeing that I was awake,

he came forward and gently helped me sit up. “You’re finally awake.”

Standing beside him was Aunt Lan.

It was such a relief-at the moment I saw Aunt Lan, I couldn’t hold back my tears.

I threw myself into her arms. “Mom, you’re okay, thank goodness. I knew you were possessed by an evil spirit. How could you possibly want to swap your life for mine?”

My mom hugged me tightly, stroking my hair.

“Mom loves Shengsheng the most. How could I bear to exchange Shengsheng’s life?”

From Master Qingyun, I learned that

when my candle went out, he had just found me.

The female ghost had set up a Barrier in the building, and he struggled greatly to break the formation.

Then he climbed sixteen floors, and that was when he saw me being used for a Blood Sacrifice.

I had already lost a lot of blood and fallen into a coma, while the female ghost was engaging in Contract Formation with me.

If he had been even a second later, I never would have woken up again.

I didn’t really understand all that. I only asked with concern, “What about that female ghost? Why did she possess my mom?”

He sighed. “That thing is your neighbor, Zhao Xiaofang.”

Zhao Xiaofang-Aunt Zhao.