Chapter 34
Chapter 34
The bottle of water in its hand suddenly seemed scalding hot.
“Jiang Lulu” did not know whether to throw it away or drink it.
As it looked at its “friend,” Xie Qingling, it suddenly found her extremely troublesome.
This human was even harder to deal with than it had imagined.
At this point, there was no longer any reason to keep pretending.
Painted-Skin Ghosts truly could not consume human food or drink.
It had revealed a fatal flaw – though it had no idea how Xie Qingling had noticed. It had disguised itself so well, unlike its idiot parents, who could not even laugh or cry properly.
“Jiang Lulu” threw away the bottled water and burst into wild laughter, its expression wicked and distorted. The face still belonged to Jiang Lulu, but it no longer resembled Jiang Lulu in the slightest.
“I don’t understand,” it said. “Where exactly did I give myself away? When did you start suspecting me?”
The Painted-Skin Ghost was simply too curious.
It had believed its art of disguise was sophisticated enough to fool anyone.
It could not accept failing so easily.
It wanted to know why it had failed.
If it learned from this failure, no one would be able to spot its flaws next time.
As for this woman, Xie Qingling, it only needed to kill her here. Then no one would know the ghost’s identity.
All it had to do was change its face, and it could still live as a human.
“In the underground parking garage,” Xie Qingling said. “All of us were trapped in the illusion. We couldn’t distinguish friend from foe, and our perceptions and understanding were completely distorted.”
“My teammates have all received professional training, yet even they lost control of their behavior under the illusion. So why were you, an ‘ordinary person,’ so calm after the Painted-Skin Ghost took control of your mind? You didn’t even show the slightest intention of suddenly attacking anyone. That was when I began to think you were hiding something from me – at the very least, there had to be more to the story of the Painted-Skin Ghost controlling your mind.”
The Painted-Skin Ghost nodded thoughtfully. “So you tested me? But back then, you still thought I had simply fallen under a deeper form of control. Why did you suddenly decide I wasn’t ‘Jiang Lulu’? Was it only because of the food?”
“Of course it wasn’t only because of the food. In fact, that was just a guess. In the underground parking garage, the reason I couldn’t decide whether you were a Painted-Skin Ghost was that I couldn’t understand your motive. If you were one, why would you deliberately lead us to kill your father and mother?”
“But just now, when I became certain that you were a Painted-Skin Ghost, I finally understood. Your motive made sense too.”
The Painted-Skin Ghost grew even more interested, as though it were not the one being questioned. “Oh? And how did you become certain?”
“Because of empathy.” Xie Qingling’s gaze abruptly turned much colder. “You want to become human, but you have none of a human’s emotions. Two people had just died – or perhaps three – yet you were far too happy and excited, as if their deaths meant nothing to you. My friend had a powerful sense of justice. She would never behave that way.”
The Painted-Skin Ghost’s eyes suddenly lit up. Agreeing with Xie Qingling, it nodded excitedly. “Yes, you’re right! My disguise still wasn’t perfect after all. If I act as though I have empathy, would even someone like you be unable to see through me?”
“Wonderful! I think I finally know how to disguise myself perfectly as a human.” The Painted-Skin Ghost trembled all over with excitement. “So the first step is to possess human emotions.”
Xie Qingling shook her head, her face cold. “Actually, I don’t think you could ever become a true human.”
“Why?! What gives you the right to say that?! I’m closer to being human than any other Painted-Skin Ghost!” The ghost’s voice cracked with agitation. It seemed to come from somewhere high in the sky and no longer sounded human at all.
“Why? It seems you’ve already stopped caring about your parents’ deaths entirely.” Xie Qingling’s voice was icy. “In that case, let’s start with the phone call.”
“At four yesterday afternoon, Lulu sent me a plea for help on WeChat. My guess is that Lulu herself sent that message. Later, I called her. The one who answered was either you or one of your parents. In any case, it wasn’t Lulu herself.”
“That phone call gave you my address. The next day, you came looking for me. Perhaps you wanted my skin, or perhaps you simply didn’t want me to spread the story and turn it into a bigger incident. Either way, you came to kill me. That was your original objective.”
The Painted-Skin Ghost nodded. “Correct.”
“But at the entrance, you discovered the qilin protecting the building, and you couldn’t enter my office at all. You never expected such ancient power to still exist in the mortal realm, nor was I as easy to deal with as you had imagined. So you quietly changed your plan.”
The Painted-Skin Ghost’s expression began to sour.
Xie Qingling continued, “Once you learned that we could kill ghosts, you became afraid. Your goal changed to surviving safely. And to secure that safety, you needed to gain our trust and make us fully believe you were a victim so that we would protect you. That was why you began spewing lies and deceived me. The Painted-Skin Ghosts never controlled you at all.”
“But how could lies alone be enough? A flimsy lie would collapse at the slightest touch and only make your identity more suspicious. To win our trust and make us believe you were harmless, you decided to sacrifice your partners – your father and mother.”
“In the span of half a day, you transformed yourself from the aggressor into the victim, joined our side, and led us in hunting down your parents. Your father and mother were nothing more than your initiation offering. If you succeeded, you would become a hero to humanity. If you failed, it wouldn’t matter. You could simply remain a ghost.”
“Isn’t that right? Did I get anything wrong?”
Xie Qingling finished speaking.
The Painted-Skin Ghost roared with laughter. “No wonder we’ve never been able to disguise ourselves perfectly as humans. So there are many clever people among your kind. You guessed correctly. At first, I did come to kill you.”
Xie Qingling shook her head. “Wrong. It’s not because you aren’t clever enough that you can’t become human. It’s because… creatures like you that worship survival of the fittest have no humanity. Over the long course of our evolution, humans developed an emotion that does not belong in nature – altruism, a sense of morality.”
“Altruism completely defies nature’s laws of survival, yet it brings us joy. Some people will even sacrifice their lives for it. But filthy things like you deserve to be nothing more than animals, stinking insects in the gutter.”
“You… you… I’ll kill you!” Thoroughly enraged by Xie Qingling, the Painted-Skin Ghost cursed viciously, “Humans who think themselves above all others! Arrogant humans! Insufferably conceited humans! One day, you’ll pay for your arrogance!”
The Painted-Skin Ghost continued spewing curses. “Once I’ve killed you, I’ll peel off your skin and turn it into a lantern! I’ll make you watch with your own eyes as I live in the human world!”
“Oh, that’s right. Since you’re so clever and capable, why don’t you imagine how many times your friend screamed as she died and how many cuts it took before I could peel away her skin? Aren’t you so capable? Were you able to save your friend? Would you like to hear her agonized wails before she died? What a beautiful piece of music they made! And you? You’re nothing but a weak, pitiful, blustering, vicious human!”
Xie Qingling’s face turned cold. She swiftly unfastened the handgun strapped to her lower leg and aimed it at the Painted-Skin Ghost.
“Don’t try to provoke me. It’s meaningless,” she said. “In the underground parking garage, I touched ‘Yang Zhenhua’s’ skin, and I touched yours. The two felt different. The skin you’re wearing doesn’t belong to Lulu at all. I may not have become an exceptional forensic pathologist in the end, but don’t underestimate my professional expertise.”
The Painted-Skin Ghost choked on its fury.
The two faced each other in tense confrontation, and the atmosphere seemed ready to erupt at the slightest spark.
It glared at Xie Qingling resentfully. A moment later, it began cackling strangely again.
“You’re very difficult to fool. Your friend really isn’t dead. Right now, I’m possessing her. Possession works differently from wearing someone’s skin directly.” The Painted-Skin Ghost stroked its face and said smugly, “You want to shoot me? Go ahead. I’m inside your friend’s body right now. At worst, I’ll simply drag her down with me.”
“Trading your friend’s life for a medal honoring you as a human hero – doesn’t that sound worthwhile?”
The Painted-Skin Ghost mocked her wantonly. “Weren’t you just preaching benevolence and morality? Then let me see how committed you really are! If you’ve got the nerve, pull the trigger!”
Xie Qingling stared fixedly at the Painted-Skin Ghost. Then, all of a sudden, she smiled.
“What are you laughing at?” Seeing her smile, the Painted-Skin Ghost was seized by a terrible premonition. The feeling even made its scalp prickle.
Xie Qingling said, “I’m laughing at your naivety.”
“You already know how rapidly the human world has developed and that it is nothing like it once was. So why didn’t it occur to you that our weapons have improved too?”
“The gun in my hand was designed specifically to deal with ghosts like you that love possessing people.”
“It’s loaded with air rounds, not physical bullets,” she said. “They only harm a ghost possessing a human and are harmless to the human host. In other words, I can pull the trigger whenever I want.”
As she spoke, Xie Qingling flicked off the safety with a click and swiftly aimed the muzzle at the Painted-Skin Ghost.
The Painted-Skin Ghost’s face went ashen. Its body reacted before its mind could –
It shed the skin it wore, revealing its true, hideous face and recovering its abilities as a ghost. Then it leaped away, fleeing far from its original position.
That had been close.
The vicious human had almost shot it. The Painted-Skin Ghost still trembled with lingering fear.
And yet… something still felt faintly strange.
Xie Qingling looked at the shed skin piled on the ground and murmured, “You weren’t possessing Lulu. You lied to me.”
The Painted-Skin Ghost instantly became smug.
But before it had time to savor its triumph, Xie Qingling added something else.
“I suppose that makes us even.”
“I lied to you just now too.”
With a bang, Xie Qingling fired. “Air rounds? Bullets that only harm ghosts without hurting humans? There’s no such thing.”
The Painted-Skin Ghost froze for a moment before realizing it had been bluffed.
Its face twisted with rage. “You deceitful, vicious human! I’ll kill you!”