Chapter 7
Chapter 7
The city where Lu Changxue’s parents lived was only a four-hour high-speed train ride from City A.
Once they boarded the train, Lu Changxue emerged from the jade pendant. Taking advantage of the fact that no one else could see her, she drifted through the cars in ghost form before returning to Yun Jianyue’s side.
Yun Jianyue put in an earbud and pretended to be on a call. In reality, it was just so she could talk to Lu Changxue without anyone thinking she was crazy.
“This is my first time riding the high-speed train without buying a ticket.” Lu Changxue sounded rather excited. It gave her the illicit thrill of fare evasion.
“Your ID has already been canceled. You couldn’t buy a ticket even if you wanted to,” Yun Jianyue said, mercilessly exposing the bleak truth.
Lu Changxue let out a pitiful whine, then eagerly began recounting everything she had just seen.
In Car No. 2, a brat had been running around and screaming until a burly man picked him up and gave him a scolding. The boy’s mother was still shrieking at the man and arguing with him.
In the restroom of Car No. 5, a man and a woman were doing something decidedly not safe for work.
They chatted for a long while before Yun Jianyue suddenly asked, “Why didn’t you kill Wang Hui?”
Back then, after Lu Changxue used her phone to call Wang Hui, he had fallen into an illusion she created.
Everything that followed had been a hallucination seen by Wang Hui. Aside from the psychological trauma, Lu Changxue had not actually harmed him.
That was why Wang Hui’s mother had later been able to come after him for revenge.
If Lu Changxue had killed Wang Hui right away, none of what happened afterward would have occurred.
Several days had passed since then, and Lu Changxue had assumed Yun Jianyue had forgotten about it. Caught off guard by the sudden question, she pursed her lips, unsure how to explain herself.
After a long moment, Lu Changxue scratched her head sheepishly. “I was planning to torture him for a while longer before killing him. Who knew his mother would come looking for him to get revenge too?”
Wang Hui had murdered her so brutally that killing him in one go would never have been enough to quell her rage.
Yet by a strange stroke of luck, her failure to kill him immediately was precisely what had allowed her to survive until now.
If she had killed Wang Hui, the Paranormal Bureau definitely would not have let her off.
“I thought you might still be hopelessly obsessed with him.” Yun Jianyue breathed a sigh of relief. As long as Lu Changxue was not still blinded by love, everything was fine.
“Anyone that blinded by love deserves to die!” Lu Changxue declared viciously. Then she realized what she had just said and burst into tears. “Oh no, I really did deserve to die!”
If she had not been so blinded by love, why would she ever have dated scum like Wang Hui and ended up being murdered by him?
Yun Jianyue had warned her countless times that Wang Hui was bad news, right from the moment she first met him.
The four hours passed quickly, and Yun Jianyue arrived in City Z. It happened to be Saturday, so neither of Lu Changxue’s parents was at work. Both of them were home when Yun Jianyue came to their door.
Yun Jianyue handed Lu Changxue’s death report to her parents and told them how their daughter had died.
Lu Changxue’s father’s eyes reddened on the spot. The grown man seemed to age more than a decade in an instant. Her mother nearly fainted. Fighting back his own grief, her father caught his wife and pressed hard beneath her nose to keep her conscious.
“Xue’er… my Xue’er…” Lu Changxue’s mother clung to her husband and broke down sobbing. When the couple had Lu Changxue, their relatives had looked down on her for being a girl and urged them to try again for a son.
But they had both decided against having another child. So what if she was a girl? She was their daughter!
Who could have imagined that, before their own hair had even turned white, they would be forced to bury their child?
Lu Changxue had watched everything in ghost form. She threw herself toward her parents, desperate to embrace them, but her body passed through them again and again. No matter how hard she tried, she could not hold them.
Although she was a vengeful ghost, she currently had very little resentment left, so she couldn’t manifest at all.
“Yueyue, what should I do? I want to hug my mom and dad.” Lu Changxue’s eyes were red, but she could no longer shed tears. Only crimson blood swirled in her eye sockets.
Yun Jianyue gave Lu Changxue a reassuring look. She stepped forward and patted her parents on the shoulders. “Uncle, Auntie, please don’t be sad. Ah Xue is right beside you, watching over you.”
At those words, Lu Changxue’s mother sobbed so hard she could barely breathe. “Xue’er… Where is my Xue’er?”
“Uncle, Auntie, please stop crying for a moment. Ah Xue really is here. Trust me.” Yun Jianyue took out the Ox Tears she had gotten from Du Minghao before leaving. Du Minghao had even swindled her out of two hundred yuan for them.
Once the Ox Tears were applied to their eyes, Lu Changxue’s parents saw her faint, translucent figure.
“Dad! Mom!”
“Xue’er!”
The family of three burst into tears. Yun Jianyue discreetly stuck two talismans she had gotten from Du Minghao onto the backs of Lu Changxue’s parents, then went out onto the balcony to give the family some privacy.
With her back to the living room, Yun Jianyue gazed at the high-rises outside and the endless stream of traffic in the streets below.
It was such a beautiful, sunny day. People who should have been enjoying time with their families were instead forced to endure the pain of being torn apart by death, all because of a criminal.
The family clung to one another and cried for a long time. Once her parents had finally calmed down, Lu Changxue told them that she had to stay with Yun Jianyue.
Holding Lu Changxue’s hands, her parents walked over to the balcony and called Yun Jianyue’s name in trembling voices.
Yun Jianyue turned around just as they shakily began to kneel before her.
“Thank you, Xiao Yun. Our whole family can’t thank you enough!”
Yun Jianyue dropped into a sliding kneel before they could, her knees hitting the floor with a resounding bang. She ended up kneeling face-to-face with them like a bride and groom bowing to each other at a wedding.
Lu Changxue’s parents stared at her in stunned silence. All the words of gratitude they had prepared lodged in their throats, and they even forgot to cry.
“Uncle, Auntie, since when do elders kneel to their juniors?” Yun Jianyue grimaced in pain. Thank goodness she had reacted quickly, or that would have taken years off her life!
In the end, Lu Changxue’s parents insisted on giving Yun Jianyue a bank card. Lu Changxue would be staying with her from now on, so there were bound to be expenses. Besides, Yun Jianyue had spent a considerable sum on that jade pendant. They couldn’t let her pay for everything out of her own pocket.
Yun Jianyue didn’t refuse in the slightest. She swiftly accepted the card and promised to bring Lu Changxue back to visit them often.
Only after Yun Jianyue accepted the card did her parents feel a little more at ease.
Lu Changxue’s parents simply took these two days off work and stayed home with her, cherishing the precious time their family of three had finally regained.
They used to work themselves to the bone for Lu Changxue’s sake. Now that their daughter was gone, who were they supposed to spend all that hard-earned money on?
On the first day, they learned how to burn incense, spirit money, and offerings for Lu Changxue, turning her into a filthy-rich ghost in one go.
On the second day, they held Lu Changxue’s hands and told her to live a good, responsible afterlife.
On the third day, they lectured Lu Changxue that even a ghost shouldn’t stay up all night and sleep all day.
On the fourth day…
On the fourth day, Lu Changxue finally snapped. Clutching her head, she repeatedly rammed it against the wall in despair. “Mom! Dad! I’m already dead, and you’re still telling me not to stay up late? How does that make any sense?! What respectable ghost sleeps at night instead of during the day?!”