"You monster…
"The legend of 'there's one more person among us' is commonly seen at things like camping trips, parties, or after playing with a Ouija board.
The typical story goes something like this: people play the four-corners game, yet there's always an extra person walking around the wall's edge; or cards are dealt to five people, but six cards end up being dealt.
Rong Chunsong, watching the livestream, pondered: was it because this Miss Song hadn't been in the Li residence before and hadn't had her mind "contaminated," so she noticed something off about the number of people the moment she walked in?
Then Song Siniang spoke again: "Haven't you always kept only twelve maids? Because my second brother—well, not that, he just fancies himself refined—named them after the twelve flower months. But I can't help feeling there are thirteen people here."
Shang Daoling finally spoke, smiling with an air of casual indifference: "Since Miss Song feels there's one extra person, why don't we try to find which flower has multiplied."
He could have simply drawn a talisman and dragged the demonic entity out, but since this family had discovered it on their own first, playing a game of cat and mouse wouldn't hurt.
Just as he expected, this cunning rat wasn't the sort that could be found with a single search.
At first, the steward had the maids take turns announcing their names. The names announced were indeed the twelve flower months. But the steward, who had been counting each voice, discovered that thirteen female voices had actually rung out in the hall.
They tried having them call out numbers instead of names—same result.
Cold sweat trickled down the steward's forehead.
He then ordered someone to fetch chopsticks and distributed them one by one to each maid. After distribution was complete, thirteen pairs of chopsticks had been handed out. But counting the people from left to right, then right to left, counting with the naked eye—no matter how one counted, there were clearly only twelve.
Shang Daoling shook his head inwardly. Had this demonic entity only recently gained spiritual awareness? It couldn't even perceive his cultivation level. Surely it didn't actually take him for an ordinary Daoist priest, daring to show off like this.
Just as he was leisurely observing the employer's family's expressions—some grave, some terrified—the Ghost Immortal spoke in his ear again.
"Why do you enjoy watching drama so much? The atmosphere has been built up to this point—isn't it time you showed your hand?"
Heaven and earth as witness, she was merely offering an objective evaluation of this pleasure-seeking male lead.
As a result, this male lead suddenly raised an eyebrow slightly and glanced vaguely at the air, as if she were using some kind of provocation tactic on him.
Since he thought she was provoking him, then she'd provoke him a bit more—otherwise that little painter's condition would only drag on and get worse.
Rong Chunsong spoke again: "Don't tell me you only know how to fight and kill crudely, and aren't well-versed in other spells?"
What a joke.
He had wandered the four seas, gathering the strengths of a hundred schools.
Because others were present, it would be too strange for him to reply to the Ghost Immortal aloud. Shang Daoling, with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, addressed the row of maids: "I say, 'you' might as well stop playing tricks, or else the Lotus Sect Leader I worship might send me a dream urging me to deal with you."
Seeing that still no one stepped forward, he let out a long sigh. As if he truly were a kind and compassionate Daoist priest, wanting to see whether the demonic entity before him could reform and return to the right path.
Now, that unrepentant Demonic Entity had disappointed the "kind" him.
"Ah." The handsome Daoist priest's long lashes lowered slightly.
The next moment, a dark yellow talisman paper with a fierce aura flew from his sleeve—
Paint, paint, young miss, paint.
The "voices" that mimicked human speech poured into her ears unceasingly, like a nest of snakes surging out.
The voice was neither male nor female, neither old nor young—hoarse yet smooth, deep yet shrill, like overturned paint, a murky mess.
She sat in pitch darkness. The only things she could see were the desk before her and the paper and brush.
Paint, paint, young lady, paint.
Paint paint paint paint paint paint paint.
The moment she stopped painting, a myriad of agonies surged up from her chest. Were it not for a faint wisp of peach blossom fragrance stealing through the darkness to protect her, she would have nearly coughed up blood.
At first, she had resisted. But after being tormented by that heart-carving pain several times, now Li Qianshu's bony hand gripped the brush tightly, endlessly, endlessly painting on one sheet of raw xuan paper after another. She did not know how much time had passed—seven days, ten days? A month, a year, ten years? She felt she had been painting here for a hundred years. The finished paintings piled higher and higher beside the desk, the snow-white raw xuan paper heaped into a white grave mound.
As she painted, on the other side of the desk, another set of paper and brush was also placed.
Another pair of hands reached out from the darkness, picked up the other brush, and swiftly copied her painting as she worked.
Those hands were not human hands at all. At first, they were withered and grotesque, their color a greasy grayish-green, long nails curled inward. When she painted, she had to try her utmost to avoid catching them in her peripheral vision, or she would nearly vomit.
But gradually, those hands grew whiter and whiter.
White, slender, the ten fingers tapering to fine points.
Most importantly, those hands grew more and more agile, more and more dexterous. From paintings that were unbearable to look at at first, they gradually copied seventy or eighty percent of her work.
It was gradually becoming a painter's hands. Her hands.
Countless beads of cold sweat dripped from her forehead.
She recited silently in her heart: Boundless Heavenly Venerable of Fortune and Life, Bodhisattva Who Saves from Suffering, save me, save me…
But soon, another voice sounded in the darkness.
"Heavenly Venerable, Bodhisattva, save you, save you, hee hee hee, hee hee hee hee."
It even eavesdropped on her thoughts.
She could not hold on much longer. She was going mad. If this continued, one day she would completely collapse, completely lose her mind.
She did not know how much time had passed.
One day in this darkness, she was groggy, having painted to the point of extreme exhaustion. In her haze of suffering, she seemed to murmur a few words—Mother, Father, Mama, Papa…
"Mother, Father, Mother, Father, one person, two people, one piece of meat, two pieces of meat, one family, one pot of meat… before eating, play a little, my mother, my father, my mother, my father, hee hee hee, hee hee hee hee hee."
As if waking from a dream.
After regaining clarity, her whole body trembled. After the trembling, a tremendous rage surged up in her heart.
Li Qianshu finally could bear it no longer. She abruptly stood up and with one sweep pushed all the ink and paper off the desk.
"You monster, I won't allow you… won't allow you to harm my family!"
She reached toward the position of those hands in the darkness, wanting to drag this monster out—
The young painter's hand sank into a strange, viscous stickiness. What she pulled out was her own face.
This face, which at first glance looked exactly like hers, was yet incomparably eerie—high-arched brows, eyes opened extremely wide, a nose as narrow as a single line, lips perpetually curved upward in a smile, like a bizarre distorted painting modeled after her. Li Qianshu's gaze trembled as she looked downward. In the darkness, there were also its two arms, so long they dragged on the ground.
It said nothing, only smiled with a giggle, staring at her without moving.
…She had had enough.
The hand of a painter, a frail hand, a hand that idly swept fallen flowers in the courtyard, a hand that in childhood had been held by family as they strolled through misty rain and lake light—she smashed her fist into this monster's face.
She knew that punching this Demonic Entity was utterly futile, and might even enrage it further.
Li Qianshu steadied herself, retreated a few steps, then quickly turned and ran.
Would there be an exit in this darkness?
The familiar scent of peach drifted over again. It seemed to be… guiding her toward some direction.
Before that piercing pain surged up again, she should run as far as she could.
But the familiar agony did not appear. Instead, from behind her came a shrill, miserable scream.
The talisman paper flying from Shang Daoling's sleeve blazed fiercely, and a scream burst out from the ranks of maidservants.