Chapter 257

Chapter 257

Luo Xiuzhu had been only nine when she died, an age when a child still understood very little.

And when children became ghosts, they were only low-level Ghosts. They could barely harm people and might even be afraid of them.

She remained terrified of us even after we softened our voices.

There were wounds all over her body. She had probably been abused often while she was alive.

Everyone in Luo Mansion had bullied her. She was the most pitiful ghost of them all.

Seventh Master asked how she had been killed.

For a ghost, that question was taboo and could easily make one lose control. But this nine-year-old Little Ghost was not capable of doing much even if she did.

Instead, she looked bewildered by his question. Her lips puckered again, as though she were about to cry, and she shook her head at us.

“You… don’t know how you died?” I asked.

She nodded without speaking.

Seventh Master and I were baffled.

The child did not know how she had died.

That was strange.

Her Ghost had remained at the original site of Luo Mansion, which proved she had died there.

But if she had died at Luo Mansion, why had no one found her body?

Unless she had still been alive when the massacre occurred and died at Luo Mansion sometime afterward.

If that were the case, she must have died within that same year. She had been nine when the massacre took place, and she was still nine when she died.

But how could she have returned to Luo Mansion and died there after the authorities sealed it off?

I tried a different question. “Xiuzhu, what were you doing before you died?”

She thought for a moment and finally spoke again in a timid voice. “Washing clothes.”

“Whose clothes?”

“Second Mother’s… and the others’.”

Second Mother probably meant the Second Concubine.

The others must have meant the remaining concubines.

Luo Mansion had countless servants, yet they made a little girl wash grown women’s clothes. Luo Xiuzhu truly had been abused there.

“Did you do anything else besides wash clothes?” I asked.

Her lips puckered as though she might cry again. “Getting hit.”

Getting hit?

Seventh Master and I looked at each other.

She had been beaten while washing clothes?

Even if the people of Luo Mansion were absolute bastards, she had been working. They beat her while she worked?

I suspected Luo Xiuzhu’s limited ability to express herself was due to her young age.

Seventh Master said, “Perhaps the clothes weren’t clean enough, so they beat her.”

I said, “I asked what she had been doing before she died. If she was washing clothes or being beaten immediately before her death, then the people of Luo Mansion killed her. That would mean she died before they did.”

“Why couldn’t anyone find her body?”

“Could her death have enraged the Seventh Concubine’s wronged spirit and driven her to take revenge by killing everyone else in Luo Mansion?”

If so, this little girl was both the key and the catalyst.

If the Seventh Concubine had wiped out the entire Luo household for her sake, then she must have cared deeply about her daughter.

Perhaps we could use this girl to persuade the Seventh Concubine to reincarnate. Once that Vengeful Ghost was gone, no matter how many other ghosts remained, they would at least no longer threaten our lives.

But this was only speculation. The main problem was that the little girl could not express herself clearly and did not even know how she had died.

“Hard to say.”

Seventh Master shook his head, then asked the little girl, “Do you know where your mother is?”

She shook her head.
Seventh Master frowned. “That’s strange. If they died in the same place, how could this girl not know where her mother is?”

After thinking for a moment, he asked, “Have you seen your mother since you died?”

The little girl shook her head again. She had never seen her.

“Never?”

Seventh Master and I stared at each other.

They had died in the same place, and the Seventh Concubine was the most powerful ghost there. How could the little girl never have seen her mother?

I suspected that either her mind was muddled, or she was lying to us.

Our agitation seemed to frighten her again.

She was exceptionally timid, like someone who had been bullied constantly. But the bullying had happened while she was alive, and she had been dead for nearly a hundred years.

“Have the other ghosts been bullying you?” I asked.

She nodded, answering without hesitation this time.

That only left Seventh Master and me more confused.

If the people of Luo Mansion had killed Luo Xiuzhu first, and the Seventh Concubine then killed them, that would make the Seventh Concubine the most powerful ghost here and the one responsible for all the later killings.

So how could she allow the other ghosts to bully her own daughter?

And how could Luo Xiuzhu have gone all this time without ever seeing the Seventh Concubine?

If everything Luo Xiuzhu said was true, there was only one possible explanation: the most powerful ghost here was not the Seventh Concubine, and the Seventh Concubine had not killed everyone in Luo Mansion.

Perhaps we had been wrong from the very beginning.

But if that ghost was not the Seventh Concubine, then who was it?

“Xiuzhu, who’s been bullying you?” I asked.

“My father.” She named the one person neither Seventh Master nor I could have expected.

Luo Baichuan!

The master of Luo Mansion!

“How does he bully you?” I asked.

The little girl raised her right hand. “He hits me.”

I stood frozen for a long while before looking at Seventh Master. “The information Boss Lin found is probably full of inaccuracies. This happened a hundred years ago. Even the locals at the time didn’t know what occurred inside Luo Mansion. Maybe they began spreading rumors right away. Those rumors have been circulating for a century. The version we’re reading could be a world away from the truth.”

Seventh Master scratched his head, baffled too. “But the version Brother Lin showed us seems the most reasonable. The people who died in Luo Mansion were obviously killed by a ghost. Who else could that ghost have been but the Seventh Concubine, who died unjustly?”

“If the Seventh Concubine wasn’t taking revenge, then who wiped out the Luo household? Luo Baichuan himself?”

“Luo Baichuan was alive. He did kill several concubines with his own hands, but how could he frighten those servants to death? He was a man, not a ghost.”

I said, “Maybe the version we know was wrong from the very source. We’ll have to investigate all over again to learn the truth.”

Seventh Master nodded. “We’ve been in here for a while, and Zi Hour is almost here. We should leave first and discuss the rest later.”

With that, Seventh Master pulled me toward the stairs.

I looked back at Luo Xiuzhu. The little girl gazed after us longingly. Perhaps because she knew we would not hurt her, she did not seem to want us to leave.

When Seventh Master and I reached the first floor, she followed us down.

She watched us, and we watched her.

Suddenly, she said, “You can’t get out.”

I froze and stared at her uneasily.

Seventh Master immediately went on guard. “Why can’t we get out?”

Luo Xiuzhu pointed toward the hotel’s exit. “If you go outside, you’ll die just like me.”