Chapter 230

Chapter 230

The environment in the urban village really wasn’t great.

The place was lively, sure, but the transient population was simply too large. There was no guaranteeing the quality of the people there, and filth and disorder could be seen everywhere.

Song Xiaotian and I had a hard time finding that guesthouse.

It really was deserted. A four-story building, ten rooms per floor by rough count, forty rooms in total-and only three had their lights on.

When we went in to get a room, the owner looked extremely nervous.

“You two want a room? Are you sure?”

I said we were sure.

“Then I’ll make this clear in advance. If anything goes missing, don’t come asking me to pay for it.”

The owner was a chubby man in his forties. With a worried look on his face, he said to us, “If you’ve got cash or valuables on you, you’d be better off not staying here.”

Song Xiaotian laughed. “Is it really that scary? What is this, a shady inn?”

The owner said, “My place isn’t shady. It’s just that public security around here is bad. Things keep getting stolen. I’m telling you this for your own good.”

I said, “Then we’ll stay on the fourth floor. Surely a thief can’t climb walls and leap over roofs, right?”

The owner sighed. “You could stay on the rooftop and it still wouldn’t help. If they’re going to steal, they’ll steal. I installed security bars on every room’s windows, and it still didn’t do anything. What’s the use?”

Song Xiaotian asked, “There are cameras in the hallway, right? You’ve never caught the thief even once?”

The owner shook his head. “This thief is something else. The cameras can’t catch him at all. My place has been hit at least a dozen times already. That’s why I’m warning you. Otherwise, with business walking through the door, who wouldn’t take it, right?”

Song Xiaotian and I didn’t say anything more. We just told him to get us a room, and specifically the one at the very end of the hallway.

A lot of people know that whether you’re staying at a hotel or a guesthouse, the room at the end of the hall is considered taboo. People say you’re more likely to run into something unclean there.

In reality, it’s because the rooms at the very end of the hallway have a lower occupancy rate. Long periods of vacancy leave them with very little human presence, while the yin energy inside becomes too heavy. That does make it easier to encounter something unclean, but the odds are actually very low.

The biggest effect is that if the person staying there happens to have poor luck lately, or has a weak constitution, they’re more likely to be affected by the magnetic field, leading to nightmares, auditory hallucinations, or sleep paralysis.

We had come today precisely to wait for a ghost to appear, so of course we weren’t afraid.

But it was still early. After getting the key card, we left the guesthouse and went to grab something to eat nearby.

After eating, Song Xiaotian and I wandered around the urban village for a while.

The poorer a place was, the more alive it often felt.

The night market in the urban village was even livelier than the ones downtown. There were people setting up street stalls, and vendors pushing carts through the alleys.

Everywhere on the street, you could see young guys covered in dragon and tiger tattoos. Some of them still looked like students, riding little electric scooters with several girls squeezed on behind them.

I thought to myself, Aren’t these the wannabe tough guys from Gui City? What are they doing here?

As we walked, Song Xiaotian and I arrived beside a river.

There was only this one river in the area, and that little boy nicknamed Rat had been killed by the riverbank.

There was water in the river, and water belonged to yin. You could clearly feel that the temperature around us was lower than elsewhere.

“That Little Ghost didn’t die right here, did he?”

Song Xiaotian suddenly said to me, “How about we give it a try and summon his soul up right here? He’s just a little brat anyway. No need for us to be scared of him.”

Naturally, there was no need to fear a Little Ghost.

As long as it wasn’t an Infant Spirit, ghosts who died between the ages of a few years old and under eighteen generally didn’t have much ability.

But I still felt it was inappropriate. “The yin energy here is heavy, and there definitely hasn’t been only one person who died by this river. If we fail to summon the Little Ghost and end up calling over some other dead soul instead, that would be bad.”
Song Xiaotian cursed, “What the hell are you scared of? Worst comes to worst, we run. You’ve been studying this stuff for so long. Besides fortune-telling, what else can you even do? Are you useful at all?”

Damn it!

That was a seriously hurtful thing to say!

The worst part was, I really was useless.

“Fine. Just you wait. You wait right there.”

I pulled a Yin Gathering Talisman out of my pocket. It was one I had asked Seventh Master for yesterday.

Seventh Master’s Talisman was not something those charlatans’ Talisman could compare to. His Talisman had been personally empowered by him through ritual, and once a ritual had been performed, it actually worked.

This type of Talisman was not an offensive Talisman, so it could take effect on its own.

Holding the Talisman between my fingers, I began to chant, “Heaven’s gate, earth’s gate, ghosts from all directions, open the gates. Enter the Netherworld early, swiftly reveal the true soul!”

After I finished chanting, the temperature around us started dropping again, as if winter had suddenly arrived.

I shivered, knowing a ghost had appeared, but I had no idea if it was that Little Ghost.

I still couldn’t see where the ghost was. It had definitely shown up, but it hadn’t revealed itself to me.

I formed the Palm Formula, trying to figure out where it was. As I counted on and on, I happened to land on “Zi Water.”

This ghost belonged to the Year of the Rat. Three years ago happened to be a Rat year, and the previous Rat year before that was 2008.

So this ghost was either three or four years old, or around fifteen.

That kid nicknamed Rat was exactly fourteen.

Could it really be him who had appeared…

I took two steps forward and looked out over the river. Right in the center of the surface, a whirlpool suddenly formed, as if something was about to float up.

I stared for a while longer, and then I suddenly saw a floating corpse rise from the bottom of the river.

The corpse was a young man in his twenties. I couldn’t tell his exact age, but he definitely wasn’t Rat.

The Rat year before 2008 was 1996. Someone born in 1996 would be either twenty-six or twenty-seven this year, which matched the age of this floating corpse perfectly.

Then I suddenly remembered: half a year ago, there had been a brawl in this urban village. The gist was that a few gangsters had hacked at one another with blades. One of them was killed, and the others, afraid of going to prison, threw the dead young man into the river.

That vicious case had already been solved. I had seen it back then while scrolling through news on my phone.

Now that I looked at the corpse in the water, it had multiple knife wounds all over it. This floating corpse was probably the victim from that case, the young man who had been hacked to death.

I cursed inwardly. Sure enough, I had summoned some other ghost instead.

The ancients said one should respect ghosts and gods while keeping one’s distance. Since I had disturbed him, I had to send him away.

I was just about to recite the Ghost-Sending Spell when I suddenly realized my mouth wouldn’t move. I couldn’t speak at all.

And it wasn’t just my mouth. I couldn’t move my body either.

I was done for.

I’d played too big this time.

Courting death came with risks. Summoning ghosts required caution!

Every hair on my body stood on end. This was the ghost’s magnetic field affecting me. He was extremely unhappy that I had disturbed him, and he was probably planning to seize a Body Double.

Just then, I saw him move. He was about to open his eyes.

I couldn’t let him open his eyes. If he did, I would die.

I quickly bit the tip of my tongue. The piercing pain snapped me awake instantly. When I looked again, the floating corpse was gone.

“Run! I told you we shouldn’t-”

As I spoke, I reached out to grab Song Xiaotian, but my hand closed on nothing.

I turned around and realized Song Xiaotian was gone. He had run off into the distance to hide. Even from far away, I could see the terrified look on his face.

Damn it!

He told me to summon the ghost, then he ran first!

“Song Xiaotian! You miserable bastard!”