Chapter 41: Doesn’t Feel Right
“Xiao Jing, set it to sixteen degrees.”
As soon as he got home, Li Mu shouted into the air.
Even though the temperature had dropped to around thirty degrees during the National Day holiday, Li Mu, who had been addicted to air conditioning all summer, still wasn’t happy with the current weather.
He could feel the temperature quickly dropping. He casually grabbed a jacket from the TV cabinet by the door and put it on to avoid catching a cold.
He walked to the bathroom mirror, washed his hands and face, then looked up at his reflection.
A whole day had passed, but he didn’t seem to have changed much. At least, his developing chest still hurt when he pressed on it.
His eyebrows looked a little more feminine, but if you looked closely, it was hard to tell exactly what had changed.
“Xiao Jing, are you free to come out with me?” he asked the mirror.
“No way. I’ll get eaten if I go outside,” the Li Mu in the mirror quickly shook her head and took a few steps back, looking scared.
Li Mu had already figured out what that meant. After all, evil spirits need to eat other ghosts to keep from fading away. Someone harmless like Xiao Jing probably wouldn’t last more than a few minutes if she ran into other ghosts.
He looked at the mirror and thought for a bit, then tried to tempt her. “How about I let you watch TV every day, all day long?”
“You think I’m a kid or something?”
But your voice does sound like a little girl...
Li Mu didn’t know what Xiao Jing’s real form looked like, but from her loli-like voice, he guessed she was probably a girl around ten years old, maybe about the same age as his late little sister.
Of course, she could also be in her twenties, or even older, and just faking a little girl’s voice... But wait, do ghosts even have vocal cords?
Li Mu put on a smile like Yu Fan's, reasoning with her both logically and emotionally, “You’re always stuck in here. Don’t you feel bored?”
“Aren’t you curious why you lost your memories?”
“Don’t you want to know what your unfinished business is?”
“Don’t you want to get out of the mirror and be free?”
After a string of questions, Xiao Jing finally showed a hint of emotion. “You look just like a kidnapper right now.”
Who’s ever heard of someone kidnapping a ghost?!
“......”
Li Mu immediately lost his enthusiasm, trying to deceive someone was still a bit too difficult for him.
If it were Yu Fan, he’d definitely be good at it.
“Forget it.” His smile disappeared, and he yawned, ready to take a nap in his room.
But just then, someone knocked on the door.
Li Mu paused, then slowly walked over to open it.
It was Chen Yi outside. He was still wearing a suit and tie, looking like a so-called successful businessman, but also kind of like a real estate agent.
Back when Li Mu’s parents were still around, Chen Yi used to visit the house a lot, so he seemed very familiar with the place.
“Xiao Mu.” He nodded and greeted him, then took off his leather shoes and walked inside. “You sent me a text message saying you had something to discuss with me?”
“Yeah.”
Li Mu nodded, took a pair of slippers from the shoe cabinet, and closed the door before continuing. “I was going to ask Yu Fan too, but he got caught and dragged off to watch a movie.”
“That kid’s popular with the girls.”
Chen Yi sat down on the couch. After Li Mu handed him a glass of warm water, he turned the small mirror on the table toward him.
“Can you see ghosts?”
“Yes. I’m wearing contact lenses.”
“???”
Seeing Li Mu’s very confused look, Chen Yi was a bit surprised.
“You didn’t know? Then how do you and Yu Fan see ghosts?”
“I had a car accident once...”
“Must’ve been serious, huh? That makes sense. Some people can see ghosts after near-death experiences. I guess you’re just naturally gifted.”
Li Mu nodded with a little fear in his eyes.
Chen Yi didn’t say anything for a while.
“Yu Fan saw ghosts by playing a spirit-summoning game, but it only lasted for a few days.”
“Hmm, then give this to him,” Chen Yi said, placing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on the table. “This belonged to his grandfather.”
So you were the one who took his grandfather’s stuff?
Chen Yi was Yu Fan’s grandfather’s student, and since Yu Fan hadn’t dealt with ghosts before, it made sense that Chen Yi would take the items related to them.
And now that there are even high-tech things like contact lenses to see ghosts...
Li Mu couldn’t hold back his curiosity. “So how do you get rid of ghosts?”
“Physically,” Chen Yi said as he took out a dagger and a handgun, placing them on the table.
“I usually don’t bother with weak spirits, but even though strong ghosts are tricky and hard to find, they also have a weak spot. If you destroy it with one shot, they’re done.”
He gave a brief explanation. “Most strong ghosts have a core, kind of like the ‘soul container’ you read about in novels, or the weak spot of a monster in a game. If you destroy it, the ghost disappears. Also, the ghost can’t go too far from the core.”
Ah, so that’s why the raincoat ghost left behind a chopping knife last time. It must’ve been its core.
Then, that means Xiao Jing’s core is the mirror, right? If the mirror breaks, she might disappear.
If he had known, he would’ve just taken that chopping knife to the scrapyard or found a way to break it.
But this whole thing doesn’t feel the way he imagined.
If you’re not holding up paper talismans and chanting stuff, it just doesn’t feel like real ghost-hunting.
Seeing the doubtful look on Li Mu’s face, Chen Yi smiled and pulled out a piece of yellow talisman paper.
“This is just for show when we’re doing business, makes it look more spiritual.”
While listening, Li Mu picked up the handgun from the table. It wasn’t loaded, but the feel of it was incredibly smooth, like touching the perfect skin of a beautiful girl.
To many men, this kind of gun might be a dream come true.
“Sometimes people come to us because a ghost is bothering them. If the ghost is weak, it’s easy to deal with, but we can’t just ask the client to pay right away. That would look unprofessional,” Chen Yi explained seriously. “So we’ll put on a show, act like a shaman, burn some talismans, pray a bit, to make them feel like their money was well spent.”
Got it. Lots of industries do that kind of thing.
As Chen Yi was speaking, he suddenly noticed the reflection in the mirror making a face like “Ah, I see.”
Surprised, he touched his own face, he was sure he didn’t make that expression.
“This the ghost you were talking about?” he asked Li Mu, pointing at the mirror.
“Yeah. She’s probably been living in our mirror for a long time.”
Chen Yi frowned, looking at the ghost in the mirror who moved just like a real person. Then he looked around the room and muttered, “No wonder it’s so cold in here.”
Xiao Jing’s appearance changes to match the person looking in the mirror, so in Chen Yi’s eyes, she looked like a copy of himself.
“If it’s too cold, just ask her to raise the temperature,” Li Mu said. He was wearing a jacket and actually felt the temperature was just right.
“Oh right, let’s talk about your idea.”
Chen Yi kept staring at the ghost in the mirror, looking unsure of what to think.
Li Mu finally shared what he was planning.
“You said that vengeful ghost was about to dissipate, so it started killing people to create a new ghost, right?”
“Yeah, from what I’ve found out, that seems to be the case, but I still can’t find where it is.”
Once that was confirmed, Li Mu suggested, “Then if we bring Xiao Jing outside, wouldn’t that attract the ghost?”
Xiao Jing’s face instantly turned pale. Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked like she was about to cry. But Chen Yi actually nodded in agreement.
“The question now is, where does that body-chopping ghost usually appear?”
“The first three times were near your school, out in the suburbs,” Chen Yi said. “But the most recent one wasn’t in the city center, so the core must’ve been moved.”
So there have already been four attacks? There wasn’t even any news about the last one...
Li Mu nodded. “Then let’s take Xiao Jing downtown, walk around late at night, and draw the ghost out. Once it shows up, you take care of it.”
That way, he’d be avenging Lin Xi. Maybe then, she’d leave his body.
“If we manage to draw the ghost out and get a look at it, I can use the police database to figure out what the core looks like and where it might be.”
Chen Yi thought this plan could work. “If we’re lucky, the core might be on the ghost itself.”