Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I thought I had misheard, so I quickly held my breath and pricked up my ears.

“Wuu, wuu-haa-haa-”

The sobbing suddenly stopped and turned into rough, heavy panting.

The sound was very, very close. It was as if it were coming from right beneath me.

My heart clenched, and goose bumps rose all over my body.

To be honest, my very first thought was to run.

“The rules of lying in yin are all in the word lying. Keep your back firmly against the ground and make sure as much of your body as possible stays in contact with the yellow talisman paper.

“Only then can your breath seep far and carry deep. Only then can the things below sense it.”

Dad’s stern face appeared before my eyes.

“Especially for the first two days. You can’t roll over, and you can’t move around. Forget anything else-try lying in bed for six hours straight. You wouldn’t be able to stand it! And you really think it’s that easy for me to make money?”

My eyes reddened again.

Right. I had to save Dad. I had to lure out the thing underneath so my father could live.

I forced down the urge to flee, gritted my teeth, and pressed my back tightly against the ground.

In my heart, I kept telling myself, It’s fine. I’m just scaring myself.

It’s all an illusion. Just an illusion. It’s the fear in my heart projecting things from all the horror movies I used to watch.

It took me a long time to finally feel a little less afraid.

Then the yellow paper beneath me suddenly bulged up into a lump the size of a fist.

After that, the lump grew bigger and bigger. Something was pushing up against the yellow paper, trying to bore its way through.

That thing was hard and round, pressing right up against my butt.

I was so scared I was about to cry. I steeled my heart and pressed down hard with my hips, refusing to let it come out.

But I hadn’t expected it to be so strong.

With a pop, several layers of yellow talisman paper were punctured.

I was shoved upward until my butt lifted off the ground, and my body slid backward uncontrollably. Propping myself up on my arms, I landed hard on the ground.

A head poked up from underground.

The night was too dark and the moonlight too hazy for me to tell whether it was a man or a woman.

All I knew was that the hair was very long, with a few strands of bangs hanging down and plastered across the face.

And there I sat in the deep pit, staring at it face-to-face.

A moment later, that head suddenly puffed out its cheeks like a frog.

“Haa-ptui!”

A huge mouthful of bloody-smelling spit landed on my face.

My whole body jolted, and I screamed in terror, “A ghost!”

The deep pit was only about half a meter wide, just barely enough for one person to lie down in. I had nowhere to dodge. As I shouted at the top of my lungs, I mustered all my courage, clenched my fist, and slammed it viciously into that head.

Thud!

The dull sound of fist meeting flesh rang out.

The thing opposite me actually let out a scream too. “Ah-”

The voice was clear and pretty. It was actually a female ghost!

From underground came another shout:

“Lingzhu, what happened? What did you see?”

The female ghost’s head shrank back down.

“Fuck! He’s a tough one. He actually isn’t afraid of my tongue-tip blood.

“Qiao Moyu, dig the opening wider. Once I get up there, I’ll beat him to death!”

Immediately after that came the sound of a shovel digging through soil. There were several crunching sounds beneath my butt, and then I felt the ground give way. My whole body dropped down.

Luckily, it wasn’t a long fall. Aside from my butt hurting a little, I wasn’t injured.

Dirt rustled down from overhead. After the dust cleared, I sat on the ground and stared blankly at the scene before me.

In front of me was a long, narrow tunnel, roughly half a person’s height and only fifty or sixty centimeters wide. Two young girls stood on either side of the tunnel entrance, watching me warily.

The one on the left had a high ponytail and pretty, heroic features. She was holding a flashlight, shining it over me with a curious expression.

The one on the right had her hair tied up like a Daoist nun, but her bun had completely fallen apart, making her look like a female ghost. She was puffing out her cheeks in a huff.

The girl on the left spoke in surprise.

“Huh. Full of yang energy. Not a ghost. It’s actually a kid.”

“Heh heh heh, Lingzhu, what happened to you? Did this child beat you up?”

“Bullshit!”

The one called Lingzhu snorted coldly and lifted her chin.

“I could tell he was human from the start. That’s why I didn’t hit him. I am the great Master Lingzhu. How could I beat up a child?”

As she spoke, she walked over and deliberately patted my head in a casual way.

“Hey, kid. What are you doing here?”

In reality, she used a vicious amount of force. Her pats were extremely heavy. My head was already fuzzy to begin with, and after those two solid smacks, I felt even dizzier.

This woman was so petty. She was definitely taking revenge for the punch I had just given her.

Was there really such a petty ghost in the world?

Her palm was warm, and when she came close, there was a warm, comforting aura around her. She was definitely not a female ghost. She was a person!

My eyes widened in surprise.

“Who are you people?”