Xia Jiayi felt like coughing up blood.
This hotel was owned by Chinese proprietors who strongly believed in feng shui.
Because the pronunciation of “four” sounded like “death,” there was officially no fourth floor.
After the third floor came the fifth.
The elevator buttons likewise had no number four.
Yet after the elevator doors closed, Xia Jiayi discovered that, without anyone noticing, a fourth floor had somehow appeared between the third and fifth floor indicators.
The elevator had remained there ever since.
At first, she thought she was seeing things.
She rubbed her eyes several times before realizing it wasn’t an illusion.
Although Xia Jiayi always claimed she didn’t believe in supernatural things, she had heard plenty of stories within the entertainment industry about people raising ghost spirits to improve their luck.
There was no way she was completely skeptical.
At this moment, both her legs were trembling with fear.
Meanwhile, the Xu Xiao beside her had completely lost the calm composure he usually displayed in the business world whenever Qin Su was around.
Instead, he was behaving like an immature young man, bickering with Tu Qing out of jealousy, completely oblivious to the abnormal situation.
Unable to bear it any longer, she finally protested.
The moment she spoke, Xu Xiao immediately looked toward the control panel.
The illuminated “4” button glowed a startling crimson, like some ominous warning steadily drawing closer.
Xu Xiao immediately pressed the “Open Door” button.
The elevator remained completely motionless.
His face darkened.
He pressed the emergency alarm button beside it.
Still nothing happened.
Qin Su watched the elevator with considerable interest.
Someone actually dared to play supernatural tricks in front of her.
They certainly had guts.
Standing inside the elevator, she could clearly sense a wave of yin energy outside the doors.
Suddenly, Xu Xiao’s voice sounded beside her.
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
Qin Su’s eyelid twitched.
“Thank you for the offer, but it won’t be necessary.”
She pulled out a stack of talismans from her sleeve and handed one to each person.
“Keep these on you, just in case something dangerous happens.”
Under normal circumstances, protecting them wouldn’t be difficult.
Still, it never hurt to prepare for unexpected situations.
Ordinarily, Xia Jiayi would never have accepted anything from her romantic rival.
She had her pride.
But no matter how stubborn she was, she wasn’t about to gamble with her own life.
Although she wasn’t convinced that the strange talisman Qin Su had casually produced would actually work, treating a dead horse as if it were alive was better than doing nothing.
Perhaps it might help.
She stared at the symbols drawn across the talisman.
Almost immediately, her head began to spin slightly.
She couldn’t understand any of the markings.
Seeing that they had accepted the talismans, Qin Su added,
“Remember to transfer me the money for the talismans afterward.”
She certainly wasn’t giving them away for free.
Xia Jiayi nearly threw the talisman back at her.
Just then, the elevator doors suddenly slid open.
A gust of icy yin wind swept inside, sending chills down the backs of their necks.
Qin Su looked toward the elevator entrance.
Beyond it stretched a desolate wasteland. Two female ghosts stood there, both shrouded in dense baleful energy. Blood streamed from all seven orifices of their faces, and their eyes were frozen with deep hatred. Judging from the baleful aura that was almost blood red, both of them had undoubtedly claimed many lives.
Qin Su frowned.
Without question, this was a road to the underworld.
Strange. This hotel had never been known for supernatural incidents before.
The baleful energy surrounding the two ghosts was so intense that even people without spiritual power could see them.
When Xia Jiayi witnessed the nightmare before her, she let out a terrified scream, her face turning pale.
“Ah!”
Instinctively, she shrank into a corner of the elevator, wishing she could turn into a rock and be completely ignored.
The two female ghosts stared fixedly at them before floating straight toward Xia Jiayi and Tu Qing.
Qin Su’s expression sharpened.
Two talismans in her hand burst into flames without any external spark. Two masses of blazing fire materialized out of thin air and landed on the ghosts.
This spiritual fire was the natural bane of evil beings. It immediately burned the two fierce ghosts, causing them to let out piercing screams of agony.
Fortunately, she had wisely prepared plenty of talismans in advance.
Otherwise, she would have had to let Qianjin out.
Qin Su stepped on the two ghosts and said coldly,
“You actually came out to scare people without even cleaning yourselves up first. What if the blood on you splashed onto me?”
Watching the terrifying ghosts get beaten into submission in the blink of an eye, Xia Jiayi was unable to process what had just happened.
Since when had Qin Su become so powerful that she could beat up fierce ghosts?
Then she heard Qin Su’s complaint and couldn’t help twitching at the corners of her mouth.
“That’s not the important part!”
Who worried about getting blood splattered on them when encountering ghosts instead of worrying about their own safety?
She didn’t realize that, because of Qin Su’s ridiculous remark, the fear weighing on her heart had unconsciously eased.
The two fierce ghosts tried to escape from beneath Qin Su’s feet, but an overwhelming force they instinctively feared kept them pinned down. They dared not move, afraid they would accidentally have their souls scattered.
Although they were vicious ghosts, they still possessed intelligence and had no intention of throwing their lives away.
Still standing on them, Qin Su said,
“This is very serious! They’ve been dead for at least half a year. The blood on them has long since gone bad. If it splashed onto your face, wouldn’t you find that disgusting?”
Tu Qing nodded in agreement.
“Yes. That’s absolutely disgusting. Completely unacceptable.”
Xia Jiayi opened her mouth slightly but found herself speechless.
She looked down at the two ghosts.
The moment their eyes met, the overwhelming hatred and malice in their gaze made her recoil in fright.
After hesitating for a moment, she quietly edged closer to Qin Su and Tu Qing.
Standing near Qin Su simply felt much safer.
Qin Su asked the ghosts,
“Who sent you?”
It was obvious these two ghosts had come specifically for her and Tu Qing.
As for Xia Jiayi and Xu Xiao, they had merely been dragged into it because of them.
The female ghosts clamped their mouths shut, clearly unwilling to answer.
Qin Su smiled pleasantly.
“You don’t want to talk? Do you really think I’m that good-tempered?”
A ball of spiritual fire appeared at her fingertips as her gaze slowly swept over the two ghosts.
“Tell me, what do you think roasted ghost tastes like? Should I start roasting your brains first, or your hands and feet?”
Of course, she had absolutely no intention of eating them herself.
She would feed them to Qianjin instead.
After thinking for a moment, Tu Qing sincerely offered a suggestion.
“I’ve heard grilled brains are pretty delicious.”
Xia Jiayi involuntarily imagined the scene and immediately gagged.
This is too much! I’ll never dare eat grilled brains again. I’ll be traumatized for life! It’s all these two women’s fault. They’ve ruined another delicious food for me.
Expressions of despair and terror appeared on the ghosts’ faces, as though Qin Su were some villain bullying helpless victims.
The spiritual fire hovered less than an inch from their hair.
With a cold expression, Qin Su said,
“My patience isn’t very good. Whoever speaks first gets to keep one more hand from being roasted.”
“It… it was Madam Jing who sent us to bring you back.”
…
The elevator stopped at the fifth floor once again.
At the same time, the fourth-floor button quietly disappeared as though it had never existed.
Qin Su concealed the forms of the two female ghosts lying on the floor to avoid frightening passersby.
Xia Jiayi stared blankly at the elevator buttons, feeling as though everything had been a dream.
Yet the talisman still clutched in her hand reminded her that everything had truly happened.
Suddenly, she realized she had forgotten something.
She abruptly looked toward Xu Xiao.
Ever since the ghosts had appeared, Xu Xiao had remained strangely quiet, so quiet that she had almost forgotten he was even there.
Looking more closely, she discovered he was standing perfectly upright like a pillar, his eyes tightly shut.
A memory suddenly surfaced in Qin Su’s mind.
The transmigrator had once wanted to watch a horror movie with Xu Xiao.
He had rejected the suggestion without the slightest hesitation.
Could it be… he’s afraid of ghosts?
Xia Jiayi gave Xu Xiao a shove.
His head jerked slightly before he slowly opened his eyes.
A trace of confusion flashed across his cold face.
He rubbed his temples, glanced at his watch, and saw that ten minutes had passed.
His deep voice carried faint displeasure.
“Did this elevator break down?”
Xia Jiayi’s red lips parted in astonishment.
“You don’t remember what just happened?”
Xu Xiao stepped out of the elevator, his voice as cold as ever.
“What happened?”
Qin Su and Tu Qing also stepped out.
The way they looked at Xu Xiao became rather complicated.
He’s incredible.
He had actually scared himself into selective amnesia.
Now that’s an impressive survival mechanism.
Tu Qing smiled sweetly.
“I didn’t expect you to have one adorable side after all.”
Being so terrified of ghosts that he automatically forgot everything deserved full marks.
Upon hearing the compliment, Xu Xiao looked thoroughly disgusted.
“Shut up.”
When he saw Qin Su nodding in agreement, he fell silent for a moment before simply turning around and returning to his room.
As for Xia Jiayi, she kept her mouth shut.
She had absolutely nothing she wanted to say.
She needed some time to recover from everything she had just experienced.
Qin Su had the invisible Qianjin drag the two female ghosts back to her room.
Because they had been inside the elevator earlier, she had stopped questioning them after hearing the name “Madam Jing.”
Some matters simply weren’t appropriate for outsiders to hear.
She thought for a moment before saying to Qianjin,
“Take the short-haired one to Qingqing’s room and interrogate her there. Later, we’ll compare what each of them says. If either of them leaves anything out…”
She let the threat trail off with a cold smile.
An unknown punishment was always the most terrifying. Both female ghosts trembled simultaneously, all the arrogance they had displayed when they first appeared completely gone.
Qianjin quickly carried one of the ghosts away in her mouth.
Qin Su looked at the medium-haired ghost lying on the floor and asked coolly,
“Who is Madam Jing?”
After Qin Su’s earlier threats, the ghost no longer dared to hide anything.
“…Madam Jing is our master. She’s searching for women with spiritual power and orders us to bring them to her.”
Understanding dawned on Qin Su.
No wonder the ghost’s baleful aura was so intense. Part of it came from her hatred, but another reason was that she had possessed spiritual power while alive. After becoming a ghost, she was naturally much stronger than ordinary spirits.
Unfortunately for her, she had run into Qin Su.
The ghost cautiously glanced at Qin Su.
Since Qin Su had complained earlier about their disheveled appearance, the blood that had been flowing from her seven orifices had already disappeared. Judging by her features, she had been a respectable-looking woman in life.
“You and Miss Tu both possess spiritual power, so Madam Jing took an interest in you.”
Qin Su understood now.
That was why the two ghosts had tampered with the elevator. Their goal had been to lure them onto the road to the underworld so they could take them away without difficulty.
Qin Su continued,
“Why is she gathering these women?”
The ghost took a deep breath. Hatred flashed through her eyes.
“To create blood jade.”
Qin Su’s heart stirred, and she suddenly felt as though she had grasped a thread of destiny.
“She found a cultivation method in an ancestral book. She tortures those women and collects their baleful energy, blood, and tears to dye rough stones red. Blood jade created this way looks completely natural. Humans can’t detect anything unusual and only believe it’s naturally formed red jade.”
Qin Su immediately thought of the blood-red jadeite rough that had astonished everyone at the exhibition hall and sighed softly.
So that’s why.
No wonder it had contained such overwhelming baleful energy.
It had been created through such a cruel method.
That also explained why, after Qianjin devoured the baleful energy, the jade had quickly reverted to its original appearance.
Behind every piece of that jade were countless blood-soaked lives.