Chapter 361
Chapter 361
Brother Liu drove us to Seventh Master’s house.
The front door stood open, so we walked straight in.
Daoist scripture recitations sounded from a room on the ground floor. Seventh Master had a radio playing.
Most people, even those who didn’t believe in Daoism, felt calm and peaceful when they heard Daoist scriptures.
There was one exception: people who were terrified of ghosts. Once that fear reached a certain level, it spread to everything associated with the occult, and they became wary of all of it.
People like Brother Liu.
He had feared such things ever since I first met him.
The moment he entered, he wrapped his arms around himself, instinctively feeling a chill inside Seventh Master’s home.
The house wasn’t cold at all.
There were statues of the Three Pure Ones here and a statue of the Thunder Ancestor upstairs. Unless a ghost had a death wish, it generally wouldn’t enter.
I led him toward the room where the chanting came from.
When I opened the door, Seventh Master was seated inside, having just offered incense to the Three Pure Ones.
The room looked perfectly normal to us, if a little dim. To Brother Liu, it was terrifying. He kept glancing around, afraid a ghost might be hiding in some corner.
“Seventh Master,” he greeted him.
Seventh Master invited him to sit and poured tea. “Little Liu, it has been a while. How is work?”
“All right. Just tiring,” Brother Liu replied quickly.
Seventh Master lifted the filled cup and handed it over.
Brother Liu failed to catch it. The cup hit the floor and shattered with a sharp crack.
The sound wasn’t especially loud, but Brother Liu jumped. His nerves were stretched too tight.
What he didn’t notice was that Seventh Master had dropped it deliberately.
Seventh Master smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll clean it up later.”
He poured another cup and handed it to him.
“Little Liu, are you afraid of ghosts?”
“Yes, Seventh Master.” Brother Liu smiled awkwardly. “I’ve feared them since I was a child.”
Seventh Master grinned. “Turn around. What is that behind you?”
Brother Liu went rigid and looked back in terror.
“Ah!”
“Aaaah!”
“Holy shit!”
Shrill screams echoed through the room.
One of them came from me. I had been scared too.
Ding Ruoning’s Ghost had appeared in the corner without anyone noticing. She stared directly at us.
After Brother Liu screamed, he froze in place, his face vacant.
I collapsed onto the floor in fright.
I was practically immune to ghosts by now, but no one could withstand a scare that sudden.
Ding Ruoning even waved at me. “Mr. Chennn… long time no seeee…”
I clutched my chest and gasped for air. “Long… long time no see…”
After greeting me, she disappeared.
I climbed up and snapped, “Seventh Master, could you warn me next time so I can prepare myself?”
He glanced at me. “Pathetic.”
Only then did I notice Brother Liu was still holding the same pose. His eyes were open, but his gaze was utterly vacant.
“What’s wrong with him?”
After Brother Liu screamed, Seventh Master had also burned a Talisman before his eyes.
“This is a hypnotic state, though more stable than ordinary hypnosis,” Seventh Master explained. “We cannot recover his lost memory while he is conscious. I had to put his Human Soul to sleep, weakening his conscious mind so his subconscious becomes active.”
I didn’t understand. “How did you put him into this state?”
“I don’t know hypnosis, so I began with psychological suggestion,” Seventh Master said calmly. “His dominant emotion was fear. He feared being punished for losing evidence, feared ghosts, and feared the environment in my home. His nerves were extremely tense.”
“I dropped the cup and startled him. Imagine a spring compressed to its limit. The next moment, it rebounds. His taut nerves suddenly relaxed, leaving him dazed. Then I showed him Little Ding’s Ghost. In that state, his Three Souls could easily be frightened from his body, much like a patient suffering hysteria. I burned the Talisman to keep his Three Souls inside while putting his Human Soul to sleep.”
“His present state is more stable than hypnosis. It will be easier to draw out things he saw but cannot remember.”
I was deeply impressed.
No wonder Seventh Master traveled farther and farther down the road of secretly learning other people’s arts. If I had his powers of comprehension, I would steal lessons everywhere too.
Even more impressive was Ding Ruoning. When Seventh Master first captured her, she had wanted to skin him alive. Now she was helping him scare people.
Seventh Master walked up to Brother Liu and asked in a low voice, “What is your name?”
Brother Liu answered stiffly, like a machine. “Liu Jianye…”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-five…”
“What is today’s date?”
“The twenty-fourth.”
It really was the twenty-fourth, but Seventh Master contradicted him. “No. Today is the twentieth. It is eleven at night, and you are watching surveillance footage in your office.”
“Today is the twentieth…” Brother Liu repeated.
Seventh Master continued, “Suddenly, you receive a call. Someone asks you to come out, and you leave the precinct.”
“I left the precinct…”
“After leaving, you met someone. Think back. What did that person look like?”
Seventh Master snapped his fingers.
The entire room transformed in an instant.
We should have been inside Seventh Master’s house. Instead, we now stood in the alley near Brother Liu’s precinct, in the dead of night.
I looked around and quickly understood.
Ding Ruoning had created a Ghost Wall. She was sensing Brother Liu’s magnetic field and giving physical form to his memory.
Brother Liu remained vacant, but the muscles in his face began to twitch as he tried to recall the person.
Soon, an old man appeared.
He was ancient and stooped, smiling as he looked Brother Liu in the eyes.
Terror seized Brother Liu. It rose to a peak until he cried out involuntarily, “Grandpa!”
That one word stunned Seventh Master and me.
Brother Liu began trembling all over. Seventh Master frowned and snapped his fingers again, making the scene disappear.
We returned to the room.
Seventh Master and I stared at each other, unable to understand why Brother Liu had called the man Grandpa.
Had he met his grandfather that night?
That made no sense. It was absurd!
“It appears we have met a worthy opponent,” Seventh Master said thoughtfully, watching Brother Liu tremble. “The person who hypnotized him placed a barrier in his memory. Whenever we try to awaken what he lost, he remembers the person he fears most. That person’s face automatically replaces the hypnotist’s.”