Chapter 531: Unexpected Gain

Midnight. There were still four minutes left until the time when, according to campus rumors, Jiang Yuzhen was murdered.

The exact time of Jiang Yuzhen’s death could no longer be verified. The security guards only found her body at roughly a few minutes past midnight, a vague timeframe at best.

As for 12:04, that time was probably added by some student to make the haunting legend scarier as it spread around campus.

Over time, everyone came to believe it as truth.

In fact, with high-tier hauntings, during the spread of their haunting legends, changes in power or corruption and fall often stem from these tiny alterations to the legend, accumulating over a long period.

……

The night was like a dying man, the drifting cold wind like a final breath stuck in the throat, making a hoarse, muddled sound.

Midnight.

Jin Yecheng arrived at the middle section of the main path of Gate No. 4, next to the nearly-collapsed, decaying bulletin board. He glanced around, squatted down, took out the bundle containing incense candles and paper money, then checked the time, lighter in hand, waiting for 12:04 to arrive.

The faint glow of the screen illuminated his pale face, reflecting in his eyes. He stared unblinkingly at his phone until the time on the screen jumped to 0:04.

“Click… click…”

With two soft sounds, the lighter sparked a flame. The cold wind blew, making the flame flicker as if it might go out at any moment.

Jin Yecheng raised a hand to shield the flame, carefully bringing it close to the red candle stuck in the soil.

Then.

As if deliberately toying with him, the wind suddenly picked up. With a “whoosh,” it blew up the yellow paper held down by stones, sending it swirling through the air, and snuffed out the tiny flame of the lighter.

The moment darkness fell, a faint rustling reached Jin Yecheng’s ears.

“Sha-sha–sha-sha–!”

The sound came from the distant grass.

On both sides of the main path of Gate No. 4, there used to be two small groves of peach and pear trees, one of the experimental fields of the College of Agriculture, with stone paths winding through the woods.

But ever since the haunting incident spread here, the area was quickly abandoned.

Over time, the neglected peach and pear trees mingled with wild grass and flowers, growing wildly in the limited space, twisting themselves into bizarre shapes.

The weeds were so dense that they could easily hide something as big as a person–or even bigger, Jin Yecheng thought.

He felt something was watching him.

“Whoosh–!”

Suddenly, about ten meters away, a dark figure parted the weeds and sprang out in a twisted posture, landing steadily.

It was a girl in a blue dress. Her limbs were bent backward, crawling on the ground, her neck torn open at the throat, headless.

Seeing this, Jin Yecheng’s face turned deathly pale, his body numb, chest heaving violently a few times before a desperate, hoarse wail burst from his lips.

“Ah! Ah–ah–! Jiang, Jiang Yuzhen, don’t come any closer! I was wrong! It was Hu Chuan who killed you, not me! Please let me go!”

Indeed, he had come to beg Jiang Yuzhen’s forgiveness, but when the shadow of death truly approached, he still couldn’t face it calmly.

This was the instinct for survival!

The headless girl rushed at him, then paused slightly less than five meters away, darted into the small grove beside the path.

Her figure was instantly swallowed by the grass, nearly as tall as a person…

——–

On the other side.

After darting into the grass, Lu Yibei secretly observed the man for a while, then froze.

“Why does that guy look so familiar?”

“Wait… damn, isn’t that Jin Yecheng?”

“No wonder I caught a faintly familiar scent on him earlier–it was the smell left by burning incense candles!”

Still, even if he was a fellow disciple, he had to be scared. Otherwise, if she used her charm ability to search his memories directly, an ordinary person wouldn’t be able to withstand it.

Lu Yibei grumbled inwardly, calmed herself a bit, and quickly began to think.

Students of Hua City University of Technology, as well as nearby shopkeepers and residents, all knew the main path of Gate No. 4 was haunted. No one came here during the day, let alone at night.

Risking an attack by a haunting, coming here in the middle of the night to burn incense and paper, and even shouting the senior sister’s name in fright, saying those things…

Didn’t this mean he was not only closely connected to the senior sister’s death, but also felt guilty because he knew some hidden truth?

If that was the case, she couldn’t scare Jin Yecheng too much all at once… Lu Yibei thought.

Sudden terror was like a bomb, shattering a person’s mental world to pieces–at best, causing fainting; at worst, insanity or instant death.

But then, she wouldn’t be able to get Jin Yecheng to confess everything he knew.

The cause of the headless senior sister’s death was still a mystery.

Even the files of The Midnight Watchers Society only recorded briefly: [Died from a haunting or psychic attack. Cause of death: decapitation. Perpetrator: unknown.]

Sometimes, when Lu Yibei thought of the headless senior sister, she always felt sorry for her. It was bad enough to meet the wrong people, but even in death, she didn’t know why she died. And she was so foolish, never even considering revenge on the bitches and dogs who indirectly caused her death.

All day long, she just fools around with the little Hauntings on campus, sometimes hiding in the corner of a classroom to listen to lectures, or sneaking into the boys’ bathhouse to peek at handsome boys bathing, never having done anything to harm anyone.

The handsome boy Lu Yibei looked at the headless senior sister’s silly and pitiful appearance and once thought about helping her find the real culprit who killed her.

However, after going through the files of The Midnight Watchers Society, Lu Yibei fell silent.

Her situation was like a vicious criminal drifting from place to place, passing through a city by chance, and for some reason, randomly killing a girl walking alone late at night.

There was simply no way to investigate!

Every year, tens of thousands of homicide cases occur in Country Z, half of which are haunting or psychic attacks.

Although this number is still less than the data from most countries before the nights grew long, and not enough to cause widespread panic,

to identify haunting attack incidents among these staggering numbers of homicide cases, and then find the real culprit–even The Midnight Watchers Society finds it quite a headache.

If, on top of that, the killer is transient and not committing serial crimes, the difficulty increases by several levels.

Reality once made Lu Yibei give up the idea of helping the headless senior sister find her killer.

But now……

Hello, boy, want to play a game!

Lu Yibei looked at the panicked Jin Yecheng, narrowing her eyes, a cold glint flashing in her gaze.

Don’t worry, senior brother, until you’ve confessed everything you know, I absolutely won’t harm your body.

Even if you pass out, I have ways to revive you and keep you conscious, Lu Yibei thought.

She’d already tried it before–under the effect of [royal authority], she could withstand even the level of psychic shock from someone like Wang Yingying, let alone a little fright.

As long as she kept things under control and didn’t scare Jin Yecheng to death all at once, it would be fine.

So, Lu Yibei focused her mind and began to try controlling that half “lost” Paper Cicada Immortal.

Very soon, she discovered that, perhaps because she’d shifted from her previous careless attitude to a more serious one, her control over the half-lost Paper Cicada Immortal had become much stronger.

Then……

She glanced down and saw the half Paper Cicada Immortal, limbs on the ground, joints bent backward like an insect, crawling toward her, raising its half-neck. The corner of her eye twitched.

It seemed to be looking at her, along with the head cradled in her arms.

With that pitch-black gaping hole where its neck had been torn open.

……

Alright, maybe I’m overthinking it.

Although its movements were still bizarre, at least it wouldn’t run off on its own anymore, right?

That’s already progress–progress is a good thing! Lu Yibei thought.

——–

That headless figure had appeared briefly and then vanished, but it didn’t ease Jin Yecheng’s nerves in the slightest; instead, it made him even more tense.

He’d braced himself, but the fear didn’t come as expected–it was like a bomb strapped to his body, the fuse burned out but there was no explosion.

The fear that couldn’t be released kept brewing in his heart, brewing and brewing, until it became a block of ice stuck in his throat–he couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe, chilled to the bone.

The wind seemed to grow stronger, tugging at the thick wild grass and branches, casting bizarre and distorted shadows.

The wind sounded like wolves howling, or like a woman sobbing softly.

Jin Yecheng knew that figure hadn’t gone far; it was still wandering nearby.

He saw it!

He saw the black shadow flicker as it darted through the dense grass.

Sometimes it ran on two legs like a human, sometimes it hopped like a Jiangshi, sometimes it moved on all fours like a beast, and sometimes it would crawl rapidly in twisted, unimaginable poses no human could understand.

“Wuuu–!”

Suddenly, Jin Yecheng heard a burst of crying and shuddered.

“Ah! Ahhh–! Don’t come near, don’t come near!”

He couldn’t help but scream, running forward with all his might.

This time, he heard it clearly–it was definitely not the wind, but a woman crying.

The crying was a dry wail without tears, the tone muddy, stiff, and tragic, with a broken, damaged sound like a bellows, as if her throat had been slit–enough to make one’s hair stand on end.

Indeed, Jin Yecheng had come here out of guilt toward Jiang Yuzhen, longing for her forgiveness, and should have faced whatever might happen with composure.

But when the shadow of death completely envelops a person, they become an animal.

Guilt, pain, fear… all emotions pale before the instinct to survive.

Perhaps, that wasn’t Jiang Yuzhen at all, but the thing that killed her! Jin Yecheng thought.

His mind was filled with scenes of that thing chasing him, hunting him down.

It would catch him as easily as grabbing a chick, tear all the flesh from his body piece by piece, eat his brain, his eyeballs, his organs, and finally crush all his bones and suck out the marrow!

“Run? Do you think you can get away? Even if Shui-Ge showed up today, you still wouldn’t escape!” Watching Jin Yecheng’s panicked figure fleeing, Lu Yibei spat out viciously.

As she spoke, she willed it, and that half of the Paper Cicada Immortal instantly soared into the air, swooping over the dense peach tree canopy like a hawk, catching up to Jin Yecheng in the blink of an eye.

Then, it overtook him, swept past above his head, stopped three or four meters ahead, hooked its toes onto a branch, leaned forward, and, like swinging on a swing, shot out with a “whoosh!”

As the half Paper Cicada Immortal swept through the air, Jin Yecheng happened to run right beneath it.

So, the torn neck brushed over his head, and both hands seized his shoulders, locked its joints, and yanked him upward!

“Rip—-!”

With a crisp sound, the half Paper Cicada Immortal’s hands tore open at the wrists and, together with Jin Yecheng, crashed to the ground.

“……”

Seeing this, Lu Yibei in the distance clicked her tongue expressionlessly, moved with silent footwork, and approached without a sound.

Emmm, though there was a little hiccup, as long as the result isn’t affected, it’s fine.

So now…

It’s time for talk therapy!

Lu Yibei thought, quietly activating [royal authority], using a faint mental shock to keep Jin Yecheng alert and prevent him from fainting, while secretly preparing a healing spell formation she had secretly learned from Fu Xinyi.

Medic No.1 Lu Yibei, ready for action!

Thinking this, Lu Yibei grabbed the head in her arms, and, like serving a ball, threw it forward with force, watching as the head traced an arc, landed on the ground, and then bounced like a springy rubber ball, rolling to Jin Yecheng’s side.

——–

Feeling something sweep over his head, then his feet left the ground, and he crashed down hard.

After all this, Jin Yecheng slumped on the ground, dazed for quite a while before coming to his senses.

Feeling the tight grip on his shoulders, he cautiously glanced sideways, and when he saw the severed hand gripping him tightly, his scalp tingled and he quickly looked away.

“Creaaak… creaaak…” The soft rustle of swaying branches came from above.

Jin Yecheng swallowed hard and looked up. In that instant, the fear that had been brewing in his heart exploded.

On the branch above, the “corpse” of a headless, handless girl hung upside down, her toes hooked onto the branch.

Her severed neck was a gaping black hole, like a huge, deep, eyeless eye, staring down, as if to devour one’s soul.

Jin Yecheng couldn’t move anymore, frozen like a clay statue, staring blankly upward.

Yet in this state, he was surprised to find himself extremely clear-headed.

It was as if some strange force was stimulating his nerves, giving him strength.

Several times, when he felt he was about to pass out, that force forcibly jolted him awake.

It was like not even being allowed to die.

“Thud… thud… thud…”

A muffled sound came from behind, like a rubber ball bouncing.

Then, Jin Yecheng saw a head roll to his side.

That head had long, pale hair, with a hint of red at the tips, probably stained with blood.

Amid the messy hair, a pair of wide, round eyes locked onto the ashen-faced Jin Yecheng, and then a raspy voice invaded his mind.

“Long time no see, Jin Yecheng. Do you still remember me?”

Hearing this, Jin Yecheng’s pupils contracted violently, but surprisingly, he didn’t react excessively. He just gave a bleak smile and said calmly, “Jiang Yuzhen, are you here to take revenge on me?”

At this point, there was nothing left to fear!

“That’s right, I shouldn’t have joined in with them that day, otherwise I wouldn’t have…”

Lu Yibei, “……”

Did he mistake me for senior sister?

Good, that’s exactly the effect I wanted!

This state is just right–not losing his mind and turning into a human cannon, but still easily influenced by a slight mental nudge, Lu Yibei thought.

“Revenge? Heh, those who don’t respect life don’t deserve to have it, but you’re not the real culprit, are you?”

“I… of course not.”

Jin Yecheng, on the verge of a mental breakdown from fear, seemed like a puppet on strings, easily manipulated by a bit of charm, answering everything without reservation.

“Oh? Then let me guess, was it Hu Chuan who did it?”

“No, it wasn’t!” Jin Yecheng hurriedly explained.

“Shut up!”

A scream exploded in his mind, cutting his words short.

“Even now, you’re still lying for Hu Chuan? Heh, maybe I should start by eating your tongue!”

“It wasn’t Hu Chuan, really! I can tell you everything!” Jin Yecheng said. As he spoke, his eyes went blank, as if recalling something, then he began to mutter.

“That day, after you left…”

Hearing her senior sister’s scumbag boyfriend and that green tea honey plotting to find someone to teach her a lesson, Lu Yibei felt a surge of nameless rage. Both hands, already resting on Jin Yecheng’s shoulders, silently tightened their grip, nearly unable to resist the urge to twist his neck.

But reason told her that Jin Yecheng was at most an accomplice, and he hadn’t finished speaking yet.

Besides, if she really killed him, Professor Ma would definitely be heartbroken. After Lu Xu’s accidental death in a haunting incident last time, his hair had turned much whiter, and he’d aged considerably.

“You called someone over? Who? Hah, you think I’ll fall for such childish tricks?”

“A really ugly guy, seems to be some kind of mage,” Jin Yecheng replied.

Lu Yibei, “……” Mage? I’m a knight, thank you very much! A Centaur Knight–aren’t you scared?!

“His name… seems to be Zhang Shuo.”

“Wait! Who?” Lu Yibei’s heart tightened, blurting out in surprise.

She hadn’t expected that standing up for the headless senior sister would yield such an unexpected gain.

It was like trying to pull an SR, and getting a hit in a ten-pull, plus an accidental SSR.

“Uh……” Jin Yecheng seemed startled by her exclamation, paused, then explained, “Actually, I’m not too sure. I just heard Hu Chuan call that guy ‘Master Zhang,’ and also ‘Shuo.’ I guess he’s probably called Zhang Shuo……”

Zhang Shuo, codename Offering Epidemic, a high-ranking member of the Eclipse Society, one of the culprits involved in the ambush on Lu Ming.

But could it really be such a coincidence, the same person?

If so, an A+ level psychic coming to Hua City definitely wouldn’t be just to kill the senior sister.

So what’s his real purpose? This is worth digging into!

Lu Yibei thought, then sternly pressed, “Speak! Where is Hu Chuan now, can you contact him?”

Someone of Zhang Shuo’s psychic level, Jin Yecheng probably couldn’t reach.

However, since that guy named Hu Chuan had interacted with him before and could even ask him for help, maybe he’d be a good breakthrough point.

“This……” Jin Yecheng looked troubled. “I can’t reach him. Ever since you were harmed, that guy’s been like a different person, stopped hanging out with us, always messing with Buddhist and Daoist stuff. Probably worried you’d retaliate?”

“We thought he was weird and creepy, so we stopped hanging out with him. Eventually, we lost contact.”

Tsk, you’re the one who got harmed!

Lu Yibei first controlled the head on the ground to glare fiercely at Jin Yecheng, then fell into deep thought.

He was scared like this, and under the influence of the charm ability, he probably wasn’t lying.

Thinking carefully, finding Hu Chuan shouldn’t be too hard–just check the school records, or worst case, ask the haunting chat group for help.

Since that’s the case……

“All right, you’re done here. You can go!”

As she spoke, Lu Yibei lifted the charm ability and [royal authority] from Jin Yecheng, and from afar, cast a healing spell formation onto him.

Jin Yecheng’s body went limp, collapsing to the ground. In a daze, he heard words echo in his mind and let out a surprised sound.

“Huh? You’re actually letting me go?”

He doubted his own ears.

“What? If you don’t want to leave, I can always bury you somewhere nearby and let you be a ghost under the peach tree,” Lu Yibei said coldly.

Hearing this, Jin Yecheng’s lifeless eyes gradually regained their shine. He scrambled to his feet and was about to bolt.

“Wait!” Lu Yibei suddenly remembered something and called out softly.

Jin Yecheng froze, turned around, and nervously stared at the dead head on the ground, not daring to move.

“Don’t think being alive is a given. When you get back, you must pray for forgiveness every day, respect your teachers, and care for your junior brothers–especially care for your junior brothers. Help them with paperwork, get their meals, answer roll calls in class, copy notes, that sort of thing.”

“And you can only eat meat on Saturdays and Sundays, no gaming, no watching porn, no staying up late, no smoking or drinking, exercise two hours daily, read at least three books a month, learn one new skill a year, hmm… hmm… that’s it!”

“I’ll be watching you at all times. If you break the rules, you bear the consequences.”

After hearing “Jiang Yuzhen” deliver the most outrageous demands in the fiercest tone, Jin Yecheng was dumbfounded.

What is she trying to do?

Why does she want me to do all this? It doesn’t really seem like revenge!

And……

“What am I supposed to pray for? To whom?”

“Oh right! Forgot that part, just…” Lu Yibei thought for a moment, then said seriously, “Just pray according to the prayer I give you!”

“Listen up! Fruit born of the divine tree of Fusang in days past, king of myriad magpies, the one who defies misfortune with money, sovereign of the eight-hundred-li Taoyuan, master of matchmaking and offspring, exalted being who benefits the people with the virtue of wood, your subject Jin Yecheng beseeches your protection.”

“Just pray like that!”

Trust me, with this prayer and those self-improvement requirements, you’ll have so much peach blossom luck your kidneys will be torn apart. Lu Yibei added silently in her heart.

“Go on, before I change my mind!”

Hearing this, Jin Yecheng felt as if he’d been granted amnesty, scrambling on all fours along the main path of Gate No. 4 toward the campus exit.

Lu Yibei watched him leave from the shadows, only stepping out once his figure disappeared from sight, ready to retrieve the scattered Paper Cicada Immortal parts from the ground. Suddenly, a heart-wrenching scream echoed from afar.

“Ah—-!”

Was that Senior Brother Jin’s voice? Did he just get silenced after giving me intel? Lu Yibei’s gaze sharpened.