Creeeak— Creeeak—
The sound of grinding bones echoed through the room. A wind from nowhere lifted the bed curtains, its cold fingers sneaking down her neck and raising goosebumps.
Something seemed to be chewing on the bedposts, emitting sharp crack-crack sounds.
On the canopy, which had been changed several times already, a blood-red eye suddenly appeared, glowing eerily in the moonlight.
Her body was rigid, impossible to control, as if pinned down by a ghost, forcing her to stare directly at that crimson eye.
Scraaape… Scraaape…
There seemed to be someone under the bed, scratching the wooden planks with sharp fingernails. Each scrape felt like it was dragging right across her own back.
With such a commotion inside, the activity outside the door hadn’t ceased either. A frantic bang, bang, bang knocking had persisted all night. The tightly shut wooden door groaned and creaked under the pressure. She felt like the door might explode into splinters any moment now.
Li Ruoshui trembled uncontrollably on the bed. She couldn’t move and her back was soaked with cold sweat.
“Big sister, big brother, open the door and let me in!”
A child’s innocent voice called from outside the door, even as the banging intensified.
Li Ruoshui managed to turn her eyes toward the sound. The door bolt was visibly bending, and through the widening crack, a single eye was pressed against the opening, staring directly at her.
“What the f-ck!”
The shock sent her heart racing and her hair standing on end. She cursed aloud, straining to move her limbs, but her body remained unresponsive.
“I’m coming in now!”
The door crack seemed to be widening further. The child giggled and pushed harder, making the door shriek in protest.
Rustle, rustle. The latched paper window was punctured, revealing pairs of dull, lifeless eyes, all fixed on her.
The scratching from under the bed grew more frantic, the sound slowly moving from the center toward the edge, until a bloody hand reached up from beneath and gripped the side of the bed.
“Son of a—! I’ve had enough!”
Just as she was being assaulted from all sides, a sharp pain in her shoulder broke the spell. Strength flooded back into her limbs.
Freed from the paralysis, Li Ruoshui shot upright. She grabbed a wooden staff leaning nearby and swept it under the bed. Then, hoisting the staff onto her shoulder, she yanked the door open and shouted defiantly into the empty corridor.
“I know someone’s behind this! If you’re not a coward, come out and fight me one-on-one!”
“Using child labor, too! Did you even pay them?!”
Finally venting the fear and anger that had built up inside her, Li Ruoshui leaned against the doorframe, panting heavily, her eyes darting nervously around the hallway.
She had known someone would try to scare her and had mentally prepared herself. But the reality was still terrifying.
Her undershirt was stuck to her back with dried sweat, the stiff fabric chafing her skin—a constant reminder of her recent terror.
Taking a deep breath, Li Ruoshui turned back, closed the door, and pushed a heavy table against it for good measure. Only then did she walk over to the couch sofa.
Zheng Yanqing lay there, stiff and unmoving, only his eyes able to swivel in her direction.
“Are you okay… Don’t look at me.” Li Ruoshui took a step back. Seeing him like this inevitably reminded her of the eye at the door.
Zheng Yanqing turned his gaze back to the ceiling, his tone apologetic. “I’m sorry. They’re targeting me, but you had to endure this as well.”
Li Ruoshui waved a hand dismissively, tossed the staff aside, and lit three or four oil lamps. The room gradually brightened.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to catch them.”
As frightening as it was, the worst part was the relentless harassment over several nights, severely disrupting Li Ruoshui’s sleep.
She was someone who needed a regular schedule, but this had forced her to sleep during the day and stay awake at night. She was utterly exhausted from this reversed cycle.
“Why don’t your parents just post guards instead of finding someone for a ‘joyous marriage’ to ward off evil?”
At the mention of his family, Zheng Yanqing’s apologetic demeanor faded slightly. “I told you before. They posted guards for a month, but nothing happened. The hauntings started again as soon as the guards left. They decided I was haunted by evil. They wouldn’t listen to any explanation.”
Li Ruoshui looked at him, probing carefully. “What do you think about your illness?”
“Just bad luck. Afflicted with disease. There’s nothing to be done about it.” Zheng Yanqing knew the hauntings were deliberate, but he had never suspected his illness might be connected.
【Host, please refrain from spreading your wings too far, to the edge of spoiling the plot.】
Li Ruoshui: “…”
This useless system is always silent when needed. It only spoke up to ruin her ideas and plans.
Zheng Yanqing was stunned for a moment, then gave a weak smile. “Perhaps.”
Even if he knew who was behind it, he was already trapped in a cage. Why waste energy worrying about a minor illness?
“Miss Li, if you’re tired, please sleep. I’m used to being paralyzed. It’s no trouble.”
Li Ruoshui yawned widely and slumped over the table. “I’ll keep sleeping here. I’ll go back to bed after we catch the culprit.”
Lu Feiyue and Jiang Nian had turned the Zheng residence upside down but found no letters. They had gone to report to the local Case Inspection Bureau branch a couple of days ago. It seemed she would be stuck here for a few more days.
“That ‘Flame Blaze Grass’ I asked you about recently, did you find out where it is?”
“My mother said I don’t need it, so she didn’t give it to me.” Zheng Yanqing sounded even more apologetic. “I only know there’s a hidden room, but I don’t know how to get to it.”
It’s probably also where the letters are stored.
The original book mentioned the secret room was found in the study, and the mechanism to open it wasn’t complicated. Yet Lu Feiyue and Jiang Nian had failed to find it. Something must have gone wrong.
She would have to mention it again when they returned.
Life is so hard. She had to worry about every little thing.
Li Ruoshui sighed, her voice still hoarse from her earlier shouting. “It’s strange. This is your home, but you don’t seem to know anything about it.”
Zheng Yanqing managed a strained smile, biting his lip in silence for a long moment. “Yes. I don’t know anything.”
No more sounds came from the table, so he guessed Li Ruoshui had fallen asleep.
Zheng Yanqing stared at the ceiling and let out a silent laugh.
He had thought Li Ruoshui would flee after the first terrifying night. He never expected her not only to stay but to charge out with a staff and fight back.
“Miss Li, you are truly brave.”
“Good morning, Young Madam.”
Hearing the address, Li Ruoshui felt a pang of awkwardness. She nodded and continued walking.
To catch the “ghosts,” she definitely needed Lu Zhiyao. But these past few days, she had been catching up on sleep during the day and being harassed and paralyzed by “ghosts” at night.
By this point, after counting the days, she hadn’t seen him for four days.
He couldn’t have already left Cangzhou, could he? She had practically dragged him here to Cangzhou in the first place. If he had left sometime during the past few days, that would be a huge loss for her.
Suddenly struck by this possibility, Li Ruoshui hitched up her skirts and broke into a run. The more she thought about it, the more worried she became.
After all, she had left Lu Zhiyao to his own devices for four days!
“Sister-in-law, wait!”
A woman in a blue gauze dress approached from the front gate. Her posture was graceful and her demeanor dignified, but her sharply arched eyebrows and the hint of arrogance in her pressed lips made her seem unapproachable.
This was Zheng Yanqing’s older sister, Zheng Mei.
Li Ruoshui was anxious but stopped. “Elder Sister Zheng, I have something urgent to do…”
Zheng Mei stopped her, getting straight to the point. “I just have one question. You said the gentleman in white who sparred with you last time was at the Fortune Inn. Why couldn’t I find him there this morning?”
“Couldn’t find him?” Li Ruoshui was taken aback, then frowned. “I’ll go check.”
Not dwelling on Zheng Mei’s actions, Li Ruoshui’s mind was wholly occupied with his absence from the inn. She gathered her skirts and sprinted off like the wind.
Had she really slept so soundly the past few days that she hadn’t visited him once? This was a surefire way to lose favorability points!
Bursting into the Fortune Inn, Li Ruoshui ran up to the second floor and pushed his door open. The sight of a white figure by the window made her sigh with relief, her frantic heart finally settling.
“I thought you’d left.”
Gasping for breath, she went to the table to pour herself some tea. She hadn’t rested properly for days, and the sudden sprint left her feeling a little dizzy.
“Are you afraid of ghosts?”
Lu Zhiyao sat on the windowsill with his back to her, the morning sun outlining him in gold from her perspective.
“Is that so?” Lu Zhiyao responded ambiguously.
Then, something seemed to be squirm in front of him, forcing him to lean forward with his shoulder slightly as his arm pressed down. The taut fabric of his robe accentuated his slender waist.
So thin.
Li Ruoshui silently put down her teacup and stood up. “What’s wrong with you?”
The tip of a tail poked out from his embrace, and then the creature jumped onto his head.
A short-haired cat with drooping ears stared back at her with dark, liquid eyes.
Li Ruoshui: “…”
“You weren’t playing with this cat for four days, were you?”
Lu Zhiyao turned to face her. The cat also turned around on his head, continuing its stare-down with Li Ruoshui.
While prolonged eye contact with cats can provoke an attack, Li Ruoshui didn’t feel any hostility from this one. It seemed to want her to come over and take it down.
Lu Zhiyao gently stroked the cat’s dangling tail, his expression content, a soft satisfaction radiating from his eyes and brows. He pondered for a moment before speaking.
“I played with a different cat for four days.”
???
He had another cat?
For a moment, Li Ruoshui forgot about the ghost-catching mission, her attention wholly captured by this feline revelation. Someone as disagreeable as him, who even dogs would avoid, had a cat willing to play with him for four days?
“What kind of cat?”
“Long-haired, big-eyed, timid, afraid of ghosts… but very good at pleasing people.”
Does a cat like that exist? Where did he even make up such an idea? Li Ruoshui stifled a laugh, sparing his dignity by not calling him out.
She wiped the sweat from her brow from her run, stepped forward, and lifted the cat from his head.
“Be careful, or you’ll annoy it and it’ll scratch up your face.”
The highly-strung short-haired cat immediately relaxed, nuzzling Li Ruoshui’s palm and meowing incessantly.
“Scratch my face?” Lu Zhiyao tilted his head slightly, as if suddenly remembering something. “How could I forget? You’re a woman who cares about looks.”
Lu Zhiyao said this softly, but it carried a strange, mocking tone that Li Ruoshui found rather novel.
“You can actually be sarcastic? I thought you only had one default tone.”
Lu Zhiyao, his eyes closed, leaned his head against the window frame, “looking” at her against the light, amusement in his voice. “What tone is that?”
“That perpetually smiling tone, talking to everyone like you’re trying to borrow money from them—excessively gentle and excessively polite.”
“That’s an interesting analogy.” Lu Zhiyao gave a light laugh, returning to that very tone. “So, why have you come to find me?”
Li Ruoshui, stroking the cat, leaned against the windowsill, a mere two centimeters away from him, and looked up at his face.
“To ask you to catch some ghosts. It’s really interesting. Want to come?”
“I’m very expensive.”
“I have no money.”
Li Ruoshui closed the two-centimeter gap, her sleeve brushing against his. Without another word, she stuffed her head into his waiting hand, her voice muffled. “If you catch those ghosts, you can pet my head as much as you want.”
She remembered Lu Zhiyao seemed quite fond of her hair. Letting him pet it was a small price to pay for a good night’s sleep. This would be quite a worthwhile deal.
Lu Zhiyao’s fingers twitched like his fingers felt itchy. He moved his hand down, brushing against her cheek. It was warm, soft, unlike anything he’d touched before. Even the allure of her smooth hair seemed to pale in comparison.
His eyelashes fluttered slightly. He withdrew his hand and, as usual, began stroking the ends of her hair. He then asked a quiet question.
“Between me and Young Master Zheng… who is better looking?”
TLN: This author really likes using super fancy ways of describing things xD
EDN: Ahuh. 👀