Chapter 188
Chapter 188
Xiao Huai pointed at the headstones. “I want to dig up every grave belonging to someone surnamed Huo. Can you help me?”
Lu Qian burst out laughing. What had people named Huo done to deserve having Xiao Huai dig up their graves after death?
Fog covered everything here, and some instinct told him that staying in it too long would damage his eyes. No wonder everyone else wore goggles.
He took a mint from his pocket and bit down with a crunch, a faint light shining in his eyes.
His lips curved upward. “Piece of cake. Take a break. I’ll have it done in ten minutes.”
“Mm.”
Xiao Huai leaned naturally against a headstone and narrowed his eyes. The others were surprised that he could entrust something so important to another person so easily.
Jiang Wenmei was even more stunned that Xiao Huai intended to dig up someone’s grave.
Finding the Huo family’s young master’s grave was already difficult enough, and now he wanted to exhume it too.
The challenge was no joke.
Yet in the next instant, nearly everyone froze as more than a hundred water ghosts appeared around Lu Qian.
Still sucking on his candy, Lu Qian pointed at the surrounding graves like the Monkey King commanding his troops. “Don’t miss a single Huo.”
Excitement lit the water ghosts’ eyes. Hissing laughter rose from their throats as they darted at astonishing speed past every grave.
In less than a minute, one water ghost had already begun clawing through the dirt with its hands.
They possessed enormous strength and exceptional night vision.
They were born grave diggers.
Xiao Huai had never considered the possibility of failure after entrusting the task to Lu Qian.
Lu Qian stretched lazily and let out a satisfied burp. Only then did he notice that everyone around him was staring as though *he* were the monster.
Only Xiao Huai beckoned to him, casually extended an open palm, and asked,
“Do you have any more candy?”
Lu Qian was about to place one in Xiao Huai’s palm when a strawberry lollipop landed there first.
It had not come from Lu Qian, but from Lu Yuanshi, who had appeared behind Xiao Huai at some point.
Lu Qian had never seen Lu Yuanshi in person. He had only glimpsed him through a screen a few times using the Scrying Eye.
Strangely, he could not find Lu Yuanshi’s livestream room, and whenever he tried to learn more about Lu Yuanshi through the Scrying Eye, his supernatural ability would malfunction.
He knew absolutely nothing about Lu Yuanshi.
The first time Lu Qian saw him in person, he inexplicably sensed hostility from him.
Lu Qian withdrew his outstretched hand and coughed twice. “He already gave you one.”
Xiao Huai closed his hand around Lu Yuanshi’s strawberry lollipop and frowned.
Since when had Lu Yuanshi carried lollipops around?
Strawberry flavored ones, no less…
Never mind. Candy was candy. Xiao Huai peeled off the wrapper and casually raised it to his lips.
His lips parted, and the pink tip of his tongue flashed like a spark.
It was an entirely ordinary movement, yet Lu Qian could not stop himself from staring for a moment.
He had looked for barely one second when someone blocked Xiao Huai from view.
Lu Yuanshi inserted himself between them and expertly sat beside Xiao Huai. He even tried to rest his head on Xiao Huai’s shoulder, saying as he did, “Darling, let’s sleep together again tonight.”
Lu Qian nearly swallowed his mint whole.
His eyes went perfectly round.
What was going on?
Were they really in the kind of relationship he was imagining?
Lu Qian’s face flushed, and he quickly looked away.
Lu Yuanshi glanced at him from the corner of his eye, the faintest curve lifting his lips.
Xiao Huai lightly patted Lu Yuanshi’s approaching head. “What are you saying? People will misunderstand. Tonight, you can either behave and sleep on the floor or return to your own room.”
Lu Yuanshi touched the spot where Xiao Huai had patted him, his eyes curving. “All right. I like floors, especially the floor in your room.”
Xiao Huai said nothing. He simply watched the water ghosts digging earnestly.
When Lu Yuanshi leaned into him restlessly again, Xiao Huai did not object. He tacitly allowed Lu Yuanshi to stay that way.
The cemetery was rather cold, but with Lu Yuanshi sitting beside him, it seemed to grow a little warmer.
Precisely ten minutes later, several water ghosts cried out to signal that their task was complete.
Lu Qian lifted his fingers. Little Magician poked his head out of Lu Yuanshi’s pocket, and several bell-strung threads appeared in the air.
The threads connected to the water ghosts that had found corpses.
Lu Qian turned toward Xiao Huai, indicating that they could inspect the results.
The water ghosts had found five corpses in total.
Two skeletons were clearly female and could be eliminated immediately.
On the headstones of the remaining three bodies, only the names remained barely legible. Moisture had worn away the epitaphs and everything else.
Xiao Huai glanced at the three skeletons and murmured, “None of them.”
“They worked so hard to dig them up. Are you sure? Why don’t you look more closely?” Lu Qian stroked a water ghost whose body was covered in mud.
The water ghost raised its head blankly. Had Lu Qian not smacked its hand, it would almost have stuffed its mud-caked fingers into its mouth.
The three skeletons had indeed belonged to men, but their heights were wrong. They were too short.
Judging by the proportions in the photograph, the man had been slightly taller than Xiao Huai.
Xiao Huai pointed at himself. “The man I’m looking for was a little taller than me. Do you think his bones would be this small after death?”
Lu Qian pursed his lips. “Fair point. Hey, now that you mention it, who are you looking for? Do you have a picture?”
Lu Qian had been summoned by Xiao Huai without even learning the instance’s name.
Xiao Huai handed him the family portrait. Lu Qian accepted it, and his eyes widened slightly.
“You’re looking for him? Oh, right. Is this game *Town of the Blind*?”
Xiao Huai had nearly forgotten that Lu Qian qualified as an intelligence expert in the horror game.
He had identified the game from a single glance at the photograph.
“What do you know about him?” Xiao Huai asked.
Lu Qian waved a hand and shook his head. “Eh, he isn’t an important character. If I remember right, this game is about finding someone, isn’t it? What day are you on?”
“The second day,” Jiang Wenmei answered first.
She was intensely curious about Lu Qian’s background, from his supernatural ability to the depth of his knowledge about the game.
Because of the horror game’s restrictions, even players who had cleared an instance could not freely share information with others. Any critical clues they spoke would automatically be censored.
Lu Qian naturally knew this, so he chose the simplest phrasing least likely to be blocked.
“Anyway, he’s worthless. Just background decoration.”
Those who understood his meaning understood it very well. Some barely dared look at Xiao Huai’s expression.
After all, everyone had spent a great deal of time accompanying him here, only to learn that what he sought held no value whatsoever.
Anyone else would probably have been upset.
Yet when they glanced at Xiao Huai, his expression remained perfectly calm and unruffled, as though he were not surprised to be doing something wholly devoid of value or meaning.