Chapter 534: Senior Brother, Run!

After the headless senior sister broke free from her restraints and advanced, and was even witnessed by the patrolling security uncle, Lu Yibei grabbed her and quickly fled the “crime” scene.

Honestly, campus, cherry blossoms, a red-dressed female ghost, and an old building steeped in history–mix these elements together and spread the story, and the adorable students of Hua City University of Technology could soon spin a chilling haunting legend.

Rumors are like living things–they grow on their own!

……

A moment later, inside a small warehouse near the main path of Gate No. 4 at Hua City University of Technology.

Lu Yibei listened intently to the faint sound of ambulance sirens outside the warehouse. Only after confirming the ambulance had left did she lift the spell formation that shielded the small warehouse and blocked psychic energy fluctuation.

Using spell formations learned from The Midnight Watchers Society’s “textbooks” to block the Society’s detection–she was getting more and more skilled at these illegal activities lately.

“Click, click!”

In the darkness, two soft clicks of a lighter sounded.

A bean-sized flame flickered, lighting a candle. The gentle firelight illuminated the twenty-square-meter warehouse.

The candle was something Lu Yibei picked up. Anyway, Jin Yecheng had used it to pay respects to the headless senior sister, so now using it for her was just right.

In the small warehouse, several cardboard boxes, forgotten for who knows how long, were piled in the corner. Their surfaces were stained with marks left by dead mold, covered in thick dust.

The little Hauntings’ scavenged odds and ends were scattered messily on the floor–broken ballpoint pens, lidless lunch boxes, yellowed notebooks… there were even sparrow and mouse bones.

Two white memorial candles printed with the character “奠” sat on the ground, making the already dilapidated warehouse even more eerie and sinister.

Two girls squatted there–Lu Yibei staring at the time capsules, the headless senior sister watching her, and a group of oddly shaped little Hauntings gathered around them.

This bizarre scene looked like some kind of ancient and evil ritual.

In the silence, the headless senior sister took a deep breath and reached toward the time capsule. Just as her fingertips were about to touch it, Lu Yibei let out a soft cry.

“Wait, don’t touch it!”

Hearing this, the headless senior sister jerked her hand back as if shocked, then looked at Lu Yibei and asked weakly, “Is… is there a problem?”

“Yeah!” Lu Yibei nodded. “There’s a problem–a big one!”

Her eyes felt slightly hot. In her vision, the two time capsules were shrouded in silk-like, thick blood mist.

Through her psychic sense, she could also detect faint psychic energy fluctuation and a disturbing, filthy aura.

These two time capsules, dug up from under the cherry tree not long ago, had become like this.

But if it were just that, it wouldn’t be a big problem.

The psychic energy fluctuation leaking from the blood mist was the same as the headless senior sister’s–it was her residual psychic energy fluctuation.

To put it simply, she’d fiddled with the thing for so long it had developed a patina.

However, after observing for a long time, Lu Yibei finally confirmed that within the blood mist swirling around one of the time capsules, there were also faint traces of pitch black.

That was most likely the source of the heat in her eyes.

Even though it was just heat and not a burning pain, it still meant there was risk…

The senior sister didn’t know what that scumbag had put in the time capsule either. It was like opening a blind box–who knew what would come out? Better to be cautious!

As she pondered, Lu Yibei stood up, turned around, and waved at the little Hauntings. “Alright, scatter, all of you. Go outside the warehouse and watch from a distance. Things might get dangerous next.”

The little Hauntings stared at her with dozens of strange little eyes, unmoving.

Seeing this, Lu Yibei thought for a moment, narrowed her eyes, and said darkly, “I’m a bit hungry. I’ll randomly pick two lucky little spectators for a snack. Who’s in favor, who’s against?”

As soon as she finished, the little Hauntings scattered in a panic and disappeared in an instant.

Lu Yibei rubbed her forehead helplessly.

Can’t you just understand human language?

Oh, right, you’re all hauntings. Never mind then.

As she thought, Lu Yibei looked at the headless senior sister, opened her mouth to say something, but saw her shiver, her expression panicked, eyes darting away, and she said weakly, “I… I don’t taste good.”

Lu Yibei: “……”

Why would you have such an “adorable” thought? Is it because you don’t have a head?

“Ah—-!”

Amid a pig-slaughtering scream, Lu Yibei forcibly dragged the headless senior sister out of the small storage room and tossed her aside, then casually threw the shovel she’d used to dig under the cherry blossom tree in front of her.

“Senior sister, please dig a pit.”

“Who are we burying?” The headless senior sister tilted her head, her neck splitting open like a mouth to reveal a gruesome scar.

Lu Yibei glanced around at the little Hauntings gathered nearby and said seriously, “Us.”

All the little Hauntings and the headless senior sister, “???”

Seeing this, Lu Yibei rubbed her brow and explained, “Don’t be fooled by the dense vegetation around here, there’s not a single cover. When we open the time capsule later, if there’s an explosion or something, how are we supposed to dodge it? Better to prepare in advance!”

“Oh, oh.” The headless senior sister nodded, the scar on her neck opening and closing.

“Alright, you start digging, I’ll get ready.”

As she spoke, Lu Yibei turned around, focused her mind, and instantly opened the passage to the embryonic Divine Land, “spitting out” fifty palm-sized Paper Cicada Immortals and a Broken Sword.

Gazing at the Paper Cicada Immortals on the ground, her eyes narrowed slightly. She picked up the Pure Lotus Sword and gently cut a small wound on the ring finger of her left hand.

“Hiss—-!” Lu Yibei grimaced in pain.

As a sharp, piercing pain shot through her, beads of blood welled up on her slender fingertip. She quickly reached out and tapped the foreheads of the fifty Paper Cicada Immortals.

Her finger moved like the wind, swift as lightning!

Then.

She’d only finished a fifth when the wound had already healed.

“……”

Looking at her perfectly healed finger and thinking of the tens of thousands of Paper Cicada Immortals in stock at Xingfu Community, Lu Yibei’s mood grew heavier.

She felt that, after being “stabbed eighteen times,” she was probably soon going to become the “Calamity cut a thousand times.”

——–

After cutting herself five times in a row and activating all fifty Paper Cicada Immortals, Lu Yibei sat to the side eating spicy strips, watching the headless senior sister dig the pit, like a cold-blooded slave master squeezing her laborers.

After losing so much blood, she had to replenish it!

A moment later.

Once the headless senior sister had successfully dug a pit about three square meters wide and nearly a meter deep in the woods five meters from the small storage room, Lu Yibei sprang into action.

She directed the headless senior sister and the little Hauntings to hide in the pit, then jumped in herself, casting ten defensive spell formations to wrap the earthen pit in three layers inside and out.

Seeing the faint golden light swirling above, Lu Yibei nodded in satisfaction.

If Ah-Hua knew that, back at the Cinnabar Pharmacy bus stop, while we were surrounded, I still found time to secretly learn her spell formations, she’d probably be hopping mad, right?

Serves her right if she gets angry, hehe!

That’s why, silent chanting of spell formations is a must-have skill. Otherwise, who knows if there’s a dog Dong… or a little genius nearby stealing your techniques?

Thinking this, Lu Yibei focused her mind and began to control the small Paper Cicada Immortals.

Controlling these little guys was much easier than controlling the 1:1 Paper Cicada Immortals.

With a thought, the fifty Paper Cicada Immortals lying on the ground immediately stood up, forming a square formation of five rows and ten columns.

“Squad one, ready!”

“Three, two, one, go!”

At her command, ten Paper Cicada Immortals sprang into action, their round, chubby bodies surprisingly agile, gliding short distances with three steps at a time, rushing into the small storage room.

They were as cheerful as a group of elementary school kids playing and running wild on their way home from school.

As soon as they entered the storage room, the ten Paper Cicada Immortals headed straight for the abnormal time capsule and, following the password the headless senior sister had given, began clumsily unlocking the combination lock on the capsule.

There were four digits in total; as soon as two were aligned, the ten Paper Cicada Immortals were corroded by a dark aura hidden in the blood mist and, with a “pfft!”, spontaneously combusted.

Lu Yibei had expected this; otherwise, she wouldn’t have prepared fifty Paper Cicada Immortals for the task.

In fact, she’d originally planned to use a hundred.

Fifty was just the vanguard, but after cutting her finger five times, the pain was too much, so she reduced the number.

So, before the first ten Paper Cicada Immortals had finished burning, the next ten rushed in to take their place.

Forty, thirty, twenty…

When only ten Paper Cicada Immortals were left on standby, a soft click sounded from inside the storage room.

“Ka-da—-!”

The abnormal time capsule opened.

In the pit, all the Hauntings including Lu Yibei held their breath, and the area around the storage room fell into dead silence.

After waiting quietly for about ten minutes, the headless senior sister twisted the upper half of her neck to look at the expressionless, grave-eyed Lu Yibei and whispered, “Looks like it’s fine? Should we go check?”

“Wait a bit longer. If nothing happens after an hour, then we’ll go out,” Lu Yibei said.

If time allowed, I’d even want to wait for a uranium-235 half-life… Just as this bit of trash talk flashed through Lu Yibei’s mind, a sudden change occurred.

A series of dizzying whispers came from the small storage room, as if hundreds or thousands of people were cursing under their breath, merging together into a buzzing hum.

A biting, fierce wind suddenly burst forth, carrying black mist, spreading in all directions. Countless tiny, unknown incantations, like debris swept up by the wind, mixed within the black fog.

Wherever the strong wind passed, the lush vegetation instantly turned a poisonous dark purple, as if infected. In the blink of an eye, it turned into chunks of charcoal.

As if something had burned it.

“Boom, boom, boom!”

Several explosions erupted, and large sections of the small storage room’s four walls collapsed.

At the same time, the black mist and fierce wind swept over, crashing instantly into the defensive spell formation. Web-like cracks appeared inch by inch, followed by the light sound of shattering glass at their ears.

The first layer of the defensive spell formation shattered, then the second, the third…

Before all the defensive spell formations broke, Lu Yibei hurriedly patched on another one, barely holding off the corrosion.

However, although she managed to resist the corrosion, when she came into close contact with the black mist, Lu Yibei felt her Spirit Pattern grow restless, a burning sensation flaring across her back.

Her little brother seemed to be plotting a rebellion.

The headless senior sister widened her eyes, looked at the crumbling storage room, then at Lu Yibei, her face full of disbelief.

“You knew about that time capsule all along?”

“I knew a little, not much…” Lu Yibei said in a low voice.

How could I have known?

I just noticed something was off about that thing, but I never guessed it was this big of a problem!

What the hell did that scumbag put in the time capsule? How did it cause such a huge commotion? Lu Yibei wondered.

She had thought the senior sister became an earthbound spirit simply because of the two time capsules and her own stubbornness, unable to let go.

But now, it seemed things weren’t that simple!

As for what was really going on… Lu Yibei glanced at the black mist that hadn’t fully dissipated yet, frowning.

She could only wait an hour or so, and once she could get out, she’d study it further.

——–

On the other side.

Hua City east district, in a certain express hotel, suite 3024.

“Beep—-!”

With the sound of the door card being read successfully, the suite door opened.

Li Xuan hurried in, turned on the light, and when he saw Huá Sāng lying on the bed, he was stunned, his mouth twitching violently.

On the snow-white bed, the girl lay quietly, her face covered in blood. Under her left hand, bright red blood stained the sheets, making it look just like a wrist-slitting suicide scene at first glance.

Hearing the door close, Huá Sāng lifted her eyelids, glanced at Li Xuan, then closed her eyes again.

Seeing that Huá Sāng was still alive, Li Xuan snapped back to his senses and exclaimed, “Wait, didn’t you say you just had a minor injury and needed some treatment? You call this a minor injury?”

A minor injury could bleed this much?

Li Xuan had thought Huá Sāng was just too lazy to treat herself and called him over, but when he arrived, he realized things weren’t as simple as he thought.

“It started as a minor injury.” Facing Li Xuan’s barrage of questions, Huá Sāng finally replied weakly.

Li Xuan walked to the bedside, took out a healing talisman from his pocket to treat Huá Sāng, and asked irritably, “Look at you, three finger-length wounds on one hand, the deepest one shows bone.”

“How does a minor injury turn into this?”

“……” Huá Sāng opened her eyes, silently looked at Li Xuan, and shook her head.

She didn’t know how it turned out like this either. She was just sleeping, and suddenly wounds appeared on her hand, splattering blood all over her face.

You might not believe it, but her hand split open on its own.

Li Xuan carefully avoided Huá Sāng’s blood, slapped a talisman onto her wound, and complained, “Couldn’t you have treated yourself first?”

“I did. Twice,” Huá Sāng replied flatly.

But it was completely useless!

In less than thirty seconds, new wounds appeared again.

So, after trying to treat herself twice, Huá Sāng gave up and contacted Li Xuan, asking him to bring healing talismans over.

“So you just gave up? Don’t you know, ‘give up’ has 15 strokes, ‘persist’ has 16, persisting is just one more than giving up, so why not keep going?”

Huá Sāng rolled her eyes at Li Xuan and drawled, “Because ‘sudden death’ has 17 strokes.”

“Also, senior brother, run.” As she finished her last sentence, she suddenly felt her Spirit Pattern grow restless, so she added calmly.

Li Xuan, “???”

Then, as if realizing something, he suddenly looked down at his hands. He saw clusters of eczema appearing on his fair skin, and immediately stared wide-eyed at Huá Sāng, “Why didn’t you say so earlier?!”

“Because you have to finish one sentence before you can say the next,” Huá Sāng replied.

Li Xuan’s mouth twitched, his vision went black, and his body slumped to the side. With a “thud,” he collapsed to the floor, convulsing, foam coming from his mouth.

Footnote: In Chinese, each character is composed of a specific number of strokes. The humor here comes from comparing the stroke counts of the words for “give up” (放弃, 15 strokes), “persist” (坚持, 16 strokes), and “sudden death” (猝死, 17 strokes). The reply implies that persisting might lead to sudden death, which has one more stroke—so why bother?