Chapter 92

Chapter 92

In the afternoon, when the sunlight was at its most scorching, a chill wind suddenly rose outside the window for no reason at all.

The temperature plummeted, turning the air into tiny liquid droplets. Looking down from upstairs, one could see the two great locust trees wrapped in white mist, like something out of a fairyland.

Several furtive figures crept into the rear courtyard on the first floor. The rustling of locust branches and leaves filled their ears as they pulled their hospital gowns tighter around themselves, shivering in the cold wind.

A male streamer looked at the thin veil of white fog before him and frowned uneasily. “Fan Jianqiang, are you sure that big-shot streamer you mentioned will come here?”

He was a little skeptical. After all, he had already checked the livestream list, and it was nothing but Blue-Name Streamer accounts. It was far too rare for a true Red Name big shot to come down to the grassroots like this.

Fan Jianqiang stared in conflicted silence at the blurred layers of tree shadows behind the haze, then shook his head. “Not necessarily. I just heard the cleaner comes here around this time to dump the trash.”

The male streamer gave a quiet hum and said nothing more.

He had heard of Fan Jianqiang before. Among mid-tier streamers, the man had a bit of a reputation. There weren’t many people who could curse a ghost into backing down. And if a streamer could earn such high praise from Fan Jianqiang, they had to have some real skill, right?

At the very least, they had thought of working at the hospital instead of lying in a hospital bed as a patient.

With that in mind, the male streamer grew more eager. He desperately wanted to get some information about the Instance from that “kind-hearted big-shot streamer.”

But then, the useless teammate behind him let out a sudden, shrill “Ah!”

Fan Jianqiang jumped in fright, then pointed at that person and cursed, “Hua Mulan, you dumbass, can you stop freaking out over every little thing?”

But the streamer named Hua Mulan was trembling like a sieve. She raised a hand and pointed ahead. “There… there seems to be something unclean in that tree…”

Fan Jianqiang narrowed his eyes and looked over. Aside from the leaves swaying in the breeze, he saw nothing at all. “Are your eyes playing tricks on you? It’s broad daylight. What unclean thing would be out here?”

The moment he finished speaking, a sharp female voice rang out from midair. “You’re the unclean one!”

Whoosh-an unknown sinister wind swept past, tearing a gap through the heavy fog. At the far end of that white mist hung a female ghost in white, suspended from the tree.

Where the female ghost’s eyes should have been were two hollow, bloody pits. Her bluish-white calves swayed left and right with the leaves, making for an utterly chilling sight.

Any ghost that could manifest in broad daylight was a malicious ghost!!!

“Aaaah-”

The scream from downstairs was exceptionally miserable. Qiao Yu subconsciously frowned and, irritated, buried his face in the beige long trench coat.

Just as drowsiness was about to drag him back into sleep, the ward-round nurse came to Shang Yan’s room again.

The wheels rolled with a rumbling clatter…

His sleepiness was completely ruined. Qiao Yu still refused to open his eyes, only burrowing his head deeper into the coat in annoyance.

“Bed 614… patient surnamed Shang.”

Perhaps because the Live Stream Room did not contain Shang Yan’s ID, the Nurse Ghost addressed him according to the admission documents from that morning.

Of course, throughout the process, the Nurse Ghost did not lower her voice in the slightest just because Qiao Yu showed his impatience. Instead, expressionless, she filled in the note on the nursing label.

“Gastric cancer…”

Qiao Yu could no longer stay lying down. His eyes snapped open.

“Terminal stage.”

After saying that, the nurse lifted her pen to write, but an ice-cold hand abruptly seized her wrist.

The nurse’s head instantly rotated ninety degrees. She glared viciously at Qiao Yu. “Nurse Qiao, your workplace is the first-floor lobby. Please do not disturb my work here!”

Shang Yan sat silently by the bed, his gaze stuck to Qiao Yu’s pale, slender fingertips where they gripped the Nurse Ghost’s arm. His lips pressed together unconsciously, revealing a faint, hidden displeasure.

Qiao Yu, however, remained completely unaware. He continued looking at the ward-round nurse, his usually smiling eyes pitch-black and faintly threatening. “I have no intention of disturbing your work. I just want to remind you… he only has an ordinary external injury. It is not terminal gastric cancer.”

“He has terminal gastric cancer!” the nurse said in a stiff voice. Dark blotches began surfacing across her face. The hand holding the pen moved toward the nursing label, with so much force that even Qiao Yu could not pull it back.
The instant the pen tip touched the care label, Qiao Yu suddenly narrowed his eyes.

“Pen Spirit, Pen Spirit, you are my past life, and I am your present life…”

The Nurse Ghost on rounds: ??

-Pfft, this move is way too damn flashy! The streamer is so outrageous I genuinely don’t know what else to say.

-+1.

-I really want to know how his brain even got wired like that.

“If you wish to continue this bond with me, draw a circle on the paper.”

In a flash, it was as if some strange, unknown force had descended upon the pen. The Nurse Ghost instinctively tried to pull her hand back, but it was already too late.

At that exact moment, the sun outside the window was abruptly swallowed by a thick bank of dark clouds. Heaven and earth dimmed in an instant. In the rapidly darkening room, an eerie cold wind blew from nowhere.

Withered locust leaves, swept up by the wind, drifted in through the open window. Faint, miserable wails seemed to echo by their ears, and the floor grew so cold that a thin layer of frost even began to form.

The sudden change had come completely out of nowhere. Even Qiao Yu hadn’t expected his spur-of-the-moment idea to summon such a high-profile fellow.

Shang Yan, meanwhile, stared at the faint black mist appearing in the air, looking puzzled.

Pen Spirit?

Although he had spent four years running Instance after Instance, he had honestly never seen a Pen Spirit before.

The black mist turned into a shadow, its outline gradually taking on human form. At the same time, the faint scent of ink, mixed with the metallic stench of blood, spread through the room…

-9999999! As expected of the Pen Spirit. I’m already trembling.

-Painted Skin: She’s alright, I guess. She’s not as pretty as me.

-Sadako: She’s alright, I guess. Her internet speed isn’t as fast as mine.

-Li Xiaoqin: She’s al… actually, never mind. Is the competition this fierce now? I’m breaking the formation!

-Did the streamer just order a whole bomb? Is he insane??

-I don’t know if the streamer is going to get blown up, but I do know the Nurse Ghost is about to explode~

Qiao Yu lifted his face slightly and looked at the shadow behind the Nurse Ghost as it gradually solidified.

The female ghost wore a blood-red qipao. Her long black hair was lifted by the wind, covering most of her pale face. The exposed pair of eyes seemed utterly devoid of warmth. Most horrifying of all were her deeply sunken eye sockets, with two trails of bloody tears streaming down from the centers of her lids.

The instant their gazes met, the Pen Spirit’s cold eyes suddenly widened. Then, sweeping away her gloomy air from moments before, she descended from midair with no regard for her image, tilted her head up slightly, and stared straight at Qiao Yu’s face.

After a long while, she said, “No, wait. You look kind of familiar…”

Confusion filled the Pen Spirit’s eyes, and an ominous premonition rose in her heart.

Qiao Yu, meanwhile, also gazed at her thoughtfully. He blinked. “You look familiar to me too…”

Shang Yan: …

What did she mean, “You look kind of familiar”?

And what did he mean, “You look familiar to me too”??

Qiao Xiaoyu, you can’t even recognize a pickup line this cliché!

It had only been a few days. Was he about to get cheated on again?

He couldn’t take it. He really couldn’t take it. Why did this guy have to be so popular with every Ghost he met?!

Shang Yan lowered his eyes, suddenly clutched his ribs, and hissed.

But the effect was minimal. Qiao Yu seemed to have fallen into some sort of memory. He didn’t even glance over and continued staring unblinkingly at the beautiful, vicious ghost in front of him.

Of course, during this process, Qiao Yu did not forget to reach out and pat Shang Yan on the head. It was obviously perfunctory.

Shang Yan: ??

But right then, Qiao Yu abruptly raised his head to look at the female ghost before him and said,

“That problem about the cane plus Palace Jade Liquor plus the big hammer minus the little hammer, did you ever solve it?”

Pen Spirit: …!

Fuck. Dead memories had suddenly started attacking me.