Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Fang Lin’an’s words made Zhou Benxin feel like his life was already over. Yun Jianyue kicked him as he stood there looking utterly devastated.

“I’m still breathing. What’s with the funeral face?”

At Yun Jianyue’s words, Zhou Benxin burst into tears with a howl. He clung to her leg and refused to let go. “You have to save me, Senior! I’m still young! I’ve never even been in a relationship! I don’t want to die!”

Fang Lin’an’s attention was instantly diverted. “What? You’re already twenty and you’ve never dated anyone? That’s pretty pathetic, bro.”

Yun Jianyue wrenched her leg free with all her might and kicked Zhou Benxin again. “Are you trying to make my leg join you in the grave? How vicious can you get?!”

That guy had been holding on so tightly, he’d nearly ripped her leg off!

Daoist Chu blinked in bewilderment. He clearly didn’t understand the world of these young people.

In the end, Daoist Chu arranged a guest room for the three of them. Inside was one large sleeping platform that could accommodate eight people once the bedding was laid out.

After they entered the room, a young Daoist acolyte brought them toiletries.

“Are the three of us sleeping together tonight?” Fang Lin’an glanced at Yun Jianyue, the tips of his ears turning red.

Most of the time, Yun Jianyue didn’t act like much of a girl. But objectively speaking, she really was beautiful, as long as she wasn’t wielding a chainsaw or opening her mouth.

Yun Jianyue stared at Fang Lin’an suspiciously. “Why are you blushing? Do you have a death wish?”

Zhou Benxin immediately pulled Yun Jianyue behind him and shielded her like an overprotective mother hen. He glared fiercely at Fang Lin’an. “Don’t tell me you have improper thoughts about my senior!”

“I deserve to die. I truly deserve to die for that wicked thought I had just now.” Fang Lin’an wanted nothing more than to slap himself twice. How could he have been stupid enough to think of Yun Jianyue as a pretty young woman? Had he lost his mind?

What a joke. What young woman could make his kidneys explode with a single punch?

Clutching his kidney in agony, Fang Lin’an rolled onto the bed and bit down on the covers, desperately holding back his tears.

Yun Jianyue withdrew her fist and looked at Zhou Benxin in disgust. “Next time, if you can use your fists, quit wasting your breath.”

Zhou Benxin silently pulled out his phone and started dialing 120 for an ambulance. After a moment’s thought, he changed it to 110 for the police. In the end, he deleted all three digits and put his phone back in his pocket.

Lu Changxue emerged from the jade pendant and patted Zhou Benxin on the shoulder with the air of someone who had been through it all before. “You’ll get used to it. I used to want to call the police and have this lawless maniac arrested too.”

Thanks to the Ox Tears applied to his eyes, Zhou Benxin could see Lu Changxue. He looked at her as though he’d finally found a kindred spirit. “You must have had it rough.”

“It wasn’t rough. I just have a hard life,” Lu Changxue replied with a solemn nod.

When Yun Jianyue returned from washing up, she found the man and ghost on the verge of collapsing into each other’s arms and sobbing. With no idea what was going on, she climbed onto the sleeping platform, chose a spot against the wall, and lay down.

Fang Lin’an and Zhou Benxin soon returned from washing up and went to bed as well.

The Daoist temple had been built many years ago, and several of the rooms in the rear courtyard had no electricity, including theirs. All three of them were too lazy to move, so Lu Changxue used her ghostly power to blow out the candle.

There were a lot of mosquitoes in the mountains at night. Even the mosquito-repellent incense didn’t help much, leaving Yun Jianyue tossing and turning in restless sleep.

Suddenly, the wooden door creaked.

Yun Jianyue’s eyes snapped open, clear and alert as she looked toward the doorway.

The sight gave her quite a shock.

Zhou Benxin’s eyes were tightly shut as he slowly walked out of the room, one step at a time.

“He seems to be sleepwalking,” Lu Changxue, who hadn’t slept at all, observed. If Yun Jianyue hadn’t woken up, she had been planning to wake her herself.
Yun Jianyue glanced at Fang Lin’an, who was drooling in his sleep, and gave up on waking him. She casually pulled a chainsaw out of her backpack and prepared to follow.

“Where the hell do you keep getting these chainsaws?! Didn’t your husband already wreck one?” Lu Changxue clutched her head, looking utterly tormented. Why was there no end to these chainsaws?

“Who says you can only bring one chainsaw when you leave the house? I’ve got another one in my backpack.” Yun Jianyue followed Zhou Benxin. She and Lu Changxue weren’t exactly speaking quietly, yet Zhou Benxin didn’t hear them at all. Still sleepwalking, he continued down the corridor.

Lu Changxue recalled Yun Jianyue’s backpack, which was practically the size of a suitcase, and swallowed every retort she had been about to make.

What kind of normal person left the house with three chainsaws? Was it too late to grab Zhou Benxin’s phone and call the police?

Zhou Benxin ventured farther and farther into the secluded reaches of the building. Yun Jianyue soon recognized where this path led.

It was the way to the room where the Doppelgangers were kept.

After walking for another ten minutes or so, Zhou Benxin arrived outside the Doppelganger room. He stiffly raised a hand and slowly pushed open the wooden door.

Dust billowed everywhere, but he didn’t react at all. Without the slightest pause, he walked inside.

Yun Jianyue followed him in and saw Zhou Benxin walk to the spot where his Doppelganger had originally stood. Moving rigidly, he took its place.

His face had already been expressionless. Now, with his eyes closed as he stood motionless among wooden puppets the height of children, the scene looked especially eerie in the dead of night.

Even Lu Changxue, a ghost herself, found the sight unsettling. She gingerly tugged at the hem of Yun Jianyue’s shirt. “Is he going to be okay like this? Why does it feel like he’s about to turn into one of those wooden Doppelgangers?”

Her words alerted Yun Jianyue to the danger. She immediately stepped forward, intending to haul Zhou Benxin back.

Just as her hand was about to touch his arm, Fang Lin’an’s voice suddenly rang out from the doorway.

“Don’t touch him!”

Yun Jianyue turned and saw Fang Lin’an standing in the doorway with his hair sticking out like a bird’s nest, as if he had just woken up and rushed after them.

Under the moonlight, Yun Jianyue’s 5.2 visual acuity allowed her to make out Fang Lin’an’s features with perfect clarity.

But there was no shadow beneath his feet.

Yun Jianyue slowly withdrew her hand and smiled at ‘Fang Lin’an.’ “Why can’t I touch him?”

“Because he’s about to become a Doppelganger, while the Doppelganger will replace him and become Zhou Benxin. If you touch him, you’ll be the one who becomes the Doppelganger.”

‘Fang Lin’an’s’ pitch-black eyes remained fixed on Yun Jianyue’s hand, as though terrified that she might touch Zhou Benxin and turn into the Doppelganger.

Yun Jianyue let out a thoughtful hum, then asked in confusion, “I can’t just stand by and let him die, can I? How do I save him?”

“I know how. Come with me.”

Yun Jianyue licked her lips and obediently walked to the doorway.

Seeing her come out, ‘Fang Lin’an’ secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He promptly turned to lead the way. “First, we need to…”

Before he could finish, the chainsaw tore through his neck from behind and severed his head.

“Thud!”

His head hit the floor with the dull, heavy sound of falling wood. Concentric growth rings covered the stump of his neck, without a single drop of blood in sight.

The severed head happened to land faceup. He stared at Yun Jianyue in utter disbelief, his mouth opening and closing. “How did you know I wasn’t the real one?”

Yun Jianyue planted her foot on ‘Fang Lin’an’s’ head and crushed it. With a humorless smile, she said, “Next time you pretend to be human, remember to bring your shadow, idiot.”