Chapter 54: Is this my house?
The room was almost completely dark, with only the light from the master bedroom and their phone flashlights helping them see.
At some point, heavy rain had started falling outside. A flash of lightning lit up the room, and the group was shocked to see a shadowy figure clinging to the window outside.
Li Mu quickly pointed his phone’s light at the window. There, they saw a thin girl pressed up against the glass. Her pale face pressed tightly against the glass, her nose and face distorted by the pressure, her mouth stretched to the ears, and her large, bloodshot eyes were rolling around, staring at them from outside.
The three of them freaked out immediately.
“The wallet! The wallet!” Chen Yi quickly reached out to Li Mu, pulling out his lighter with his other hand.
Li Mu hurriedly pulled the yarn wallet from his pocket and was about to hand it over when, flash!
A cold light streaked by. He didn’t even have time to think, his hand pulled back on instinct. A sharp bone cleaver shot past and stabbed into the wall behind them with a loud thunk, the handle still shaking from the impact.
They turned, stunned, to look at the ghost girl, only to see that she had already passed through the glass somehow. Now she was standing in front of them, smiling.
“This is bad,” Chen Yi said, his face serious.
The skinny girl in the red jacket slowly walked toward them, speaking softly and kindly. “Give me back my things, and I’ll let you go.”
With every step she took, the three of them stepped back three times. Finally, she reached the wall and picked up the bone cleaver again.
“If you don’t return it now, there won’t be another chance.”
“Wait! Uncle, haven’t you been dealing with ghosts for years? You don’t have a way to stop this?” Yu Fan asked in panic.
“What do you expect? How are humans supposed to fight ghosts?” he sighed, pulling out a short sword. “Looks like we’ll have to…”
Then he froze, because he saw Li Mu suddenly take the wallet and run straight toward the kitchen.
The ghost girl chased after him without hesitation, and Yu Fan grabbed the chainsaw from the floor and ran after them clumsily.
“Stop right there!” Yu Fan shouted. But even though the chainsaw was small, it still slowed him down. He could only watch as the ghost girl floated lightly behind Li Mu, raising the bone cleaver in a wide arc.
But somehow, Li Mu seemed to know what was coming. At the last second, he slid to the right, dodging the slash just in time.
Chen Yi was stunned.
Come on, don’t mess around! If either of you gets hurt, how am I supposed to explain this to your families?
“Go! Stop her!”
A red mist started flowing from Chen Yi’s sword, floating in the air like thin threads, drifting toward the ghost.
Yu Fan stared in shock as the mist gathered in front of the ghost girl and turned into a bride, her head covered with a red veil and dressed in a bright red traditional wedding gown.
“Get out of my way!”
The ghost girl slashed sideways with her bone cleaver, cutting the red bride in half in an instant, but then the bride turned back into red mist and surged forward, wrapping around the ghost when she least expected it.
Meanwhile, Li Mu had already reached the kitchen. He lit the stove and threw the wallet into the flames.
“Ahhh!!!”
The moment the fire touched the wallet, a sharp, horrible scream tore through the air.
Li Mu instinctively covered his ears, but the scream was so loud and piercing that it made his eardrums throb in pain. His mind went fuzzy, and he dropped to the ground, curling up in pain with his eyes shut tight and his brows furrowed.
The windows shook like they were in a typhoon, creaking loudly. In just two seconds, cracks spread all over the glass.
Bang bang bang! Sounds echoed all over the room. The windows, table, flower vase, TV screen, anything made of glass shattered one after another.
After about ten seconds, the screaming finally began to fade away…
Li Mu shook his dizzy head and slowly stood up with the help of the kitchen counter. His ears were still ringing loudly.
He looked up and saw the ghost girl lying weakly outside the kitchen, her body twitching. She was scratching the floor with her nails, still trying to crawl toward him.
Her bloodshot, crazy-looking eyes stared straight at Li Mu, filled with hate.
The bride in red stood silently behind the ghost girl, her cold eyes under the red veil watching the girl’s struggle without emotion.
When the yarn wallet was completely burned to ashes, the ghost girl’s body also turned into grey-black dust. A breeze blew through the broken window, and the dust scattered into the night.
The whole house looked like a super typhoon had torn through it, everything was a mess.
At some point, Li Mingjuan’s parents had fainted and were lying on the floor.
“Li Mu! Nice work!”
“Mm.”
But Li Mu still couldn’t hear Yu Fan clearly because of the pain in his ears.
“Uncle! That ghost bride! Is she one of yours? Did you make her help you?” Yu Fan asked excitedly as he grabbed Chen Yi’s arm. “I want to learn how to do that!”
“Learn my foot!” Chen Yi rolled his eyes, then nervously swallowed and walked up to the ghost bride.
He stood in front of her and held out the short sword. “Want to go back inside?”
The bride didn’t answer. Instead, she extended her slender fingers, lifted Chen Yi’s chin with her red-painted nail, and whispered.
“Tonight… three times.”
“......”
Chen Yi gritted his teeth. “Fine!”
Only then did the bride turn back into red mist and enter the sword.
He let out a long breath and leaned tiredly against the wall, then glared at Li Mu.
“What were you thinking?! Couldn’t you just behave? I brought you two here because I was sure I could handle it, okay? Why’d you go and mess things up?!”
Li Mu rubbed his aching ears and muttered, “Weren’t you the one who said humans can’t fight ghosts?”
“Yeah, and who knew you had a ghost helping you?” Yu Fan teased, elbowing Chen Yi in the side. “What did she mean by ‘three times’? Is it what I think it is? Aren’t you like forty? Still that strong?”
“How does that even work with a ghost?” Yu Fan leaned in, curious.
“Get lost!” Chen Yi shoved him away with an annoyed look and pulled out his phone. “Hello? The ghost girl’s taken care of. Come help clean up. It got pretty messy this time.”
“Don’t forget to send me the final payment.” He hung up and looked at Li Mu and Yu Fan with a tired smile. “You two did okay.”
“Li Mu, you were way too reckless. You've almost gotten into trouble twice in a row. And Yu Fan, guess your grandpa making you learn martial arts wasn’t totally useless. Keep training.”
Yu Fan pouted. “It just felt like I was being chased the whole time. Still more exciting than a haunted house.”
Li Mu sat down nearby. His head was still buzzing.
“Let’s go to the hospital,” Chen Yi said as he stretched. “And let’s check on that girl, Li Mingjuan. Who knows what kind of damage being possessed for so long might have done to her mind. I’ve still got a mountain of work waiting.”
Just then, the front door suddenly opened.
Everyone jumped and looked over, only to see Li Mingjuan standing there, looking completely confused.
“Hey! Weren’t you supposed to go to the hospital?” Yu Fan grinned and waved. “All patched up? That doctor sure works fast.”
Li Mu turned his head awkwardly and asked quietly, “We don’t have to pay for all this… right?”
Li Mingjuan looked around at the destroyed room, everything broken, like a war zone, and softly asked.
“Is this… my house?”