Chen Yun stood at the entrance of the shrine. Her hair was messy, and she wore a faded blue T-shirt and shorts, Han Fengchen guessed the clothes had once belonged to her older brother, Chen Ming, when he was young.
Chen Yun was probably eleven or twelve years old, but she was so small and thin that she looked more like eight or nine.
Chen Yun had autism. She didn’t like interacting with people and even less liked talking to them. Yet here she stood in this eerie, dark ghost shrine, without the slightest trace of fear on her face.
Han Fengchen admired her courage. He whispered to Chu Mingjia, “So people with autism are this brave?”
Chu Mingjia looked at Chen Yun and tried asking, “How did you get up here?”
Chen Yun didn’t answer. She just stood blankly at the shrine’s entrance, as if she hadn’t seen them at all.
Han Fengchen also whispered, “Did your father bring you up here?”
Chen Yun still didn’t speak. She suddenly turned around, grabbed a small jar with both hands, and sat down on it like a stool.
Everyone: “…”
The little jar: “…”
The little Jar Ghost, who had been happily spectating, was utterly bewildered. Being used as a stool, it didn’t dare make a sound. It could only shrink inside the jar and call out in a faint voice, “Mountain Lord, Mountain Lord… help… save me! QAQ”
Everyone: “…”
Han Fengchen gave a stiff smile and silently stepped back a few paces, retreating behind Chu Mingjia. He said awkwardly, “Sorry. My apologies.”
So she was a real pro. He had simply been too narrow-minded.
Even Chu Mingjia was a bit surprised. Chen Yun was truly an ordinary person, there was no aura of evil spirits or the supernatural about her. She was just a regular little girl.
Perhaps she was born with yin-yang eyes, able to see what ordinary people could not.
Some people are born with heavy yin energy, allowing them to walk between the realms of the living and the dead. But because this goes against the laws of heaven, such people often have some kind of affliction, blindness, lameness, deafness, muteness, or the like.
Chu Mingjia looked at Chen Yun and gave up on trying to talk to her. The three of them hadn’t been standing there long before they heard the sound of police dogs in the distance, along with the glare of various flashlights.
Han Fengchen finally breathed a sigh of relief. He felt as though the one foot he had set in the underworld had finally been pulled back.
“Thank goodness. The police uncles are finally here.”
Han Fengchen looked like he was about to cry. “Their righteous energy will definitely drive away the yin energy!”
Chu Mingjia: “…”
Han Fengchen lowered his voice even further. “Sis, there’s a question that’s been bothering me for a long time. I’ve been wanting to ask you.”
Chu Mingjia: “Ask.”
Han Fengchen glanced left and right, then whispered in front of the livestream, “It’s about why I can see these things now. I couldn’t see them before.”
Ever since he came down from the rooftop, he had been able to see them.
Chu Mingjia glanced at his arm and coughed lightly. “Did you forget you’re wearing my bracelet?”
Han Fengchen: “???”
Han Fengchen’s realization hit him late, and he suddenly jumped up. “What? Didn’t you say this bracelet was supposed to protect me?”
He had been touched by that for a long time!
And now, it was because of this bracelet that he could see all those strange things?
Han Fengchen stared at the bracelet with a look of profound anguish.
Livestream chat: 【Hahaha, Chenchen’s expression is so funny. He looks so pitiful, like his feelings have been betrayed.】
【Is this bracelet really that powerful? Sister Chu, are you selling them? Doge face jpg.】
【Please drop the link, Sister Chu! I really want to experience this!】
【Starting tonight, I bet a bunch of people from the mystical arts world are going to come asking Sister Chu to buy bracelets. After all, even though they’re in that world, a lot of them don’t have enough skill to make up the numbers. Sister Chu’s bracelet will do them a huge favor!】
【I’m dying of laughter. All these people saying they want to buy one, if you actually bought it, would you dare wear it? If you really saw something, don’t die of fright on the spot.】
……
Chu Mingjia looked at Han Fengchen. “As long as you wear this, those things can’t harm you. If you don’t wear it, you won’t be able to see them, but you’ll have nightmares and end up on the rooftop again. Are you scared of that?”
Han Fengchen: “…”
Han Fengchen quickly shoved the jade bracelet, which he had halfway taken off, back onto his wrist. “This jade bracelet is actually quite nice-looking. I’d really hate to take it off, hehe.”
Chu Mingjia: “…”
As the group was talking, the police from Qishan County along with the special agents from the special department finally made their way up.
They had enlisted local villagers to clear the path and followed the route that Chu Mingjia and the others had taken. Because the night was too dark and the mountain paths were difficult to traverse, they had also requested police dogs. The trip up the mountain had not been easy, over a dozen police officers and special agents were all out of breath and exhausted.
When the police saw Chen Yun, they exclaimed in surprise, “Chen Yun? How is she here too?”
Most of the police in the county town already knew Chen Yun, as she often wandered off. A couple of years ago, Chen Ming had even filed a missing person report, and the police had helped search for her. Later, Chen Ming stopped filing reports; whenever his sister went missing, he went out to find her himself.
Of the three people at the scene, one was a mountain lord and one was a minor, so Jiang Meng stepped forward himself to handle the police’s questions.
Chen Li, who had fallen down the slope, was given a simple examination and bandaged by the accompanying medics. Since he wasn’t seriously injured, they didn’t put him on a stretcher. They woke him up, gave him water and food, and told him to follow the police down the mountain.
When Chen Li woke up, he was still disoriented. Looking around at the police, he nervously raised both hands and said anxiously, “Officers, I haven’t been to the massage parlor on the corner of the alley for a long time. Why are you coming after me again? Didn’t I write a letter of guarantee last time?”
Everyone: “…”
The officer was a bit speechless. “We’re not here about the massage parlor this time.”
Chen Li, feeling guilty, asked, “Then what is it about?”
The officer said, “Why don’t you take a look at where you’re standing before you speak?”
Chen Li was dazed for a couple of seconds, then slowly looked around. The eerie, dark mountain scenery terrified him. His hair stood on end. Wearing only a vest and shorts, he turned pale as the cold mountain wind blew against him.
“Wh-what am I doing here?!”
He asked somewhat frantically, “Did you bring me here?”
The officer replied, “We’re not that bored.”
Chen Li: “…”
Chen Li looked around in confusion and asked again, “Huh? Where’s my girlfriend? I remember she just came to pick me up in her car.”
Everyone: “…”
Han Fengchen sighed. “Hopeless. Take him away.”
The police pointed at Chen Yun and asked Chen Li, “Is this your daughter?”
Only then did Chen Li follow the officer’s gaze and see Chen Yun standing quietly in the corner. Chen Li’s expression immediately darkened, a mix of disgust and anger. “Why are you here? Tell me, is this your doing again? Did you scare away my girlfriend again?”
Everyone: “…”
Chen Li’s face turned cold and gloomy. Limping over to Chen Yun, he raised his hand as if to strike her. “I knew it was you again! You useless waste!”
The officer standing next to Chen Yun quickly stopped Chen Li before he could actually hit her. The officer was visibly annoyed. “A child like her, what does she know? As her father, instead of caring whether she’s hurt or scared, you’re trying to hit her?”
Chen Li was very afraid of the police. Being yelled at by the officer, he immediately backed down, cowed and hesitant. But he still glared at Chen Yun with disgust and said to the officer, “Officer, you don’t understand. She’s an idiot. She doesn’t know anything. If she were capable of being scared, that would be a good thing. But she’s not. Look at the middle of the night, why did she come all the way up here by herself? Isn’t she looking to die? And now you’re blaming me? I swear, I owe her nothing but trouble…”
Chen Li was led away by the police, still grumbling and cursing. The special department had sent four people this time. They found Chu Mingjia to get a full account of what had happened.
“What exactly happened tonight? Have you found any leads on the fortune-borrowing case?”
Chu Mingjia didn’t hide anything. She needed the help of the special department to get to the bottom of what was going on at Qishan Mountain as soon as possible.
Chu Mingjia said, “Yes, but I didn’t catch it. It got away.”
The special agents looked grave. “Where could it have gone? It’s so good at disguising itself and can even blend in with people and interact with them. That’s terrifying.”
Jiang Meng was more familiar with Vengeful Beauty Ghosts, after all, he had patrolled Qishan Mountain for years and had seen all kinds of evil spirits and malevolent beings.
Jiang Meng said, “Even for it to blend in with people, certain conditions must be met.”
Although the Vengeful Beauty Ghost was skilled at painting skins, that alone wasn’t enough for it to walk among the living. In places with crowds, yang energy is strong, and evil beings generally avoid them.
Jiang Meng continued, “For it to walk among people and evade our pursuit, the most likely scenario is that it makes a deal with someone who has desires, binding a contract to become that person’s contracted spirit.”
That way, it could possess that person’s body, receive their offerings, use their body, and consume their fortune.
The special agent looked grim. “That would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Jiang Meng didn’t deny it. Indeed, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
The person making a contract with the Vengeful Beauty Ghost would surely have desires. The ghost would exploit those desires to reach an agreement, and the person would be willing. That way, the ghost could even evade divine punishment.
Many ferocious evil spirits survive on people’s fortune. Once they accumulate enough, they can escape divine punishment and the suffering of reincarnation.
Chu Mingjia, who had been silent, looked up thoughtfully and said, “It’s not like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s actually not that hard to find.”
The special agent’s eyes lit up. “Ms. Chu knows how to find it?”
Chu Mingjia said, “Before it escaped, it severed one of its arms. So first, we can narrow our focus to people with issues or limited mobility in their right arm.”
“Limited mobility” was a bit broad, but since the entity was skilled at disguise, they would still need to observe carefully.
The special agent’s eyes brightened. “That alone would rule out most people.”
Even though they didn’t have any suspects to investigate at the moment.
Chu Mingjia pondered for a moment. “A Vengeful Beauty Ghost’s abilities are limited to a few things: painting skins and paper-man manipulation. Perhaps you can prioritize investigating people involved in makeup, beauty, paper-cutting, and the like.”
But in reality, even that was too broad. For example, when it came to makeup and beauty, it might be manageable for influencers with video accounts, but how could they possibly investigate every unknown, ordinary worker in those fields?
Aside from makeup and beauty, there might also be some simply beauty-loving girls who made contracts with the Vengeful Beauty Ghost just to become prettier, that was also possible.
As for paper-cutting, that was even more niche. Most people in that line of work were elderly artists. There was no justifiable reason to go investigating them.
This predicament was clearly something no one had anticipated.
The special agents, working with the police, had already begun searching for suspects. Everyone was sighing and lamenting, except for Chu Mingjia, who remained completely calm.
Han Fengchen looked at her and noticed that no matter what situation she faced, she always wore an expression of calm composure, as if nothing in this world could ever stump her.
Han Fengchen asked in a low voice, “Sis, will we be able to find that Vengeful Beauty Ghost?”
Chu Mingjia nodded. “Yes.”