Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Hua Yuling and I both wore the same “confused old man on the subway” expression.

“This idiot actually looks pretty happy about it.”

“Right? He got possessed by a Dodomeki. For the next year, this guy’s going to have a habit of stealing things. He can just wait to get arrested.”

Hua Yuling looked at Yamada, who was performing with all his might onstage, and let out an envious sigh.

“Qiao Moyu, if you ever can’t make money someday, you could go perform Palm Thunder and burn talismans with your bare hands.”

“It won’t come to that. I can make more than this just by casually exorcising an evil spirit or doing a ritual. I never thought the onmyoji of Sakura Country would be this down on their luck.”

I made the offhand comment, thinking Yamada was only using these ghosts and monsters to put on a show and earn some money. Clearly, I was far too naive.

After Sōta came down from the stage, Yamada suddenly turned to Hua Yuling.

“This beautiful young lady, may I invite you onstage to take part in my performance?”

Hua Yuling quickly waved her hands and refused. She was the holy maiden of the Miaojiang Gu Clan, and she kept a Golden Cicada Gu inside her body. Ordinary ghosts and monsters couldn’t possess her at all. If she went up there and ruined his act, that wouldn’t be very nice.

But Yamada refused to give up. He even had his assistant come down to invite her.

A wave of boos rose from the audience.

“What’s wrong with that girl? She’s not giving him any face at all.”

“She bought a ticket to come here, didn’t she? So timid. She really can’t handle the stage.”

Everyone began chiming in at once. Yamada even came down from the stage himself. Hua Yuling had no choice but to follow him up.

Yamada picked up a wig from the table beside him.

“In Sichuan, China, there is an incredible art known as Face-Changing.

“Put on this wig of mine, and anyone can learn Face-Changing-”

Yamada lifted the wig, about to place it on Hua Yuling’s head. But in the next second, something unexpected happened.

A scorpion suddenly leaped out from Hua Yuling’s braid. Waving its two large pincers, it clamped onto the wig in one snap.

Immediately after, a deathly pale young woman’s face emerged from beneath the wig. She opened her bloody maw wide, and her scarlet tongue lashed out toward the scorpion.

The scorpion jumped aside and crawled onto the woman’s nose.

The tongue kept attacking the scorpion. The two sides went back and forth, fighting so fiercely that the audience, having no idea what was really going on, burst into enthusiastic applause.

“Amazing! What an amazing magic trick!”

I stared at the stage, my brows tightly furrowed.

What a vicious onmyoji. He was actually raising a Hair Ghost!

A Hair Ghost had no body, only a long mass of hair. Whenever it saw a pretty girl, it wanted to steal her face. That meant countless young girls’ faces were hidden beneath that long hair.

Normally, it looked like an exquisite wig. But once a girl put it on, the skin of her face would be peeled off alive, and she would die in an extremely miserable state.

Now the Hair Ghost had taken a liking to Hua Yuling and signaled for Yamada to call her onstage. If Hua Yuling had been an ordinary person, she would probably already be dead.

I clenched my fists, so angry my teeth ground together.

How hateful! Why didn’t it choose me instead?

That kind of taste was unforgivable!

Onstage, the scorpion and the Hair Ghost were evenly matched. Beside the original human face, another face with heavy makeup suddenly emerged.

That new face flicked its long tongue, about to swallow the scorpion. Hua Yuling reacted instantly and grabbed the scarlet tongue, snatching the scorpion back.

“Mr. Yamada, that was a wonderful magic trick.”

Before Yamada could react, Hua Yuling jumped straight off the stage. Thunderous applause erupted from the audience.

Yamada stood onstage, looking at us with a meaningful gaze.

Hua Yuling opened her palm and showed it to me. Because she had grabbed the Hair Ghost’s tongue, there was a faint black mark on her fair palm.

“Qiao Moyu, that wig is full of evil energy!”

“I know. That’s a Hair Ghost.

“That thing collects human faces. The more people it kills, the stronger it gets. Once it collects a hundred face skins, it will even evolve. We need to find a chance tonight to deal with it.”