Chapter 89 - 88: Wife...

Chapter 89: Chapter 88: Wife...

Despite the minor mishap, the Yin Qi in the room had dissipated just as she’d hoped, and visibility had improved considerably.

Gu Qingyin led Mao Mao to the doorway again. The inside was hazy, filled with blurry shapes. At a glance, she could only make out furniture, but in the center of the room, there seemed to be... a coffin?

Gu Qingyin’s brow furrowed. "Huo Xingchen?" she called out.

Huo Xingchen heard her but couldn’t answer. The electric shock had paralyzed him. He couldn’t move his arms or legs, and even his tongue wouldn’t obey him. He suspected he’d been shocked half-to-death. A wave of fear and indignation washed over him, and to his own surprise, he began to cry pitifully.

At first, he only shed silent tears, but the more he cried, the more heartbroken he became, until he finally let out a choked whimper.

The moment the sound escaped, footsteps approached.

Huo Xingchen looked up to see a blurry figure. He tried to move his numb tongue, but no words came out.

The figure sighed and squatted down. It was, as he’d expected, Gu Qingyin.

She briefly checked Huo Xingchen’s condition. It was a little more serious than she’d thought, but still manageable. It wasn’t a major injury; she just needed to draw the electrical current out of his body.

Gu Qingyin rummaged through her shoulder bag again, took out a talisman, and placed it on Huo Xingchen. In moments, it was completely saturated.

"Get up and move around a bit. You’ll be fine in a moment." Gu Qingyin reached out and pulled her son to his feet.

Huo Xingchen staggered to his feet and began moving his limbs stiffly and slowly, as if he were in physical therapy. He also made a few "ah, ah" sounds, testing his voice.

"What is this?" Gu Qingyin asked.

Huo Xingchen froze. He slowly turned his head and, sure enough, saw Gu Qingyin staring intently at the coffin in the center of the room. His heart hammered in his chest. A sudden idea struck him. "Merch!"

A question mark practically appeared over Gu Qingyin’s head. "Merch?"

"Yes!" The jolt of fear seemed to speed up his recovery. "It’s game merchandise. It looked so realistic I just had to buy it, hahaha."

Gu Qingyin turned to him with a deadpan expression. "Did I forget to mention that I was born with the Yin Yang Eye? The source of the Yin Qi in this room is that coffin."

Huo Xingchen’s laughter died in his throat. He began to swallow nervously.

Seeing his reaction, she narrowed her eyes. "You don’t have a body hidden in there, do you?" She paused, then asked with a frown, "Did you kill someone?"

"No way!" Huo Xingchen retorted. "I’m a university student! I’ve had a proper legal education!"

"Then why are you so nervous?" Gu Qingyin’s gaze was heavy as she stared at him. "Just who is the Fierce Ghost being suppressed in there?"

Huo Xingchen opened his mouth, wanting to deny it, but then he remembered Gu Qingyin had the Yin Yang Eye. There was no room for argument. The words caught in his throat.

"Not going to talk, are you." Gu Qingyin hefted her Fire Burning Stick. "Fine, I’ll take a look for myself."

Huo Xingchen wanted to stop her, but his legs were still unsteady. Even if they weren’t, he knew he couldn’t stop Gu Qingyin.

As Gu Qingyin’s hand rested on the coffin lid, the terror in his eyes could no longer be suppressed. His body instinctively retreated, but the bedroom was only so big. After just two steps, his back was against the wall. All he could do was watch helplessly.

He watched as the secret he had tried so desperately to hide was exposed—and to the one person he wanted, and needed, to hide it from the most.

The instant her palm touched the coffin, Gu Qingyin’s heart suddenly skipped a beat. A gut feeling told her that the ghost inside was connected to her in a thousand intricate ways.

This realization flustered her, and her movements involuntarily paused.

She composed herself, then pushed with renewed force.

CLICK. The coffin lid slowly slid open, and a wave of Yin Qi several times denser than before billowed out.

Instantly, Gu Qingyin’s hands and feet turned ice-cold, as if she had been soaked through by the gloom. A chill began to radiate from the very marrow of her bones.

Gu Qingyin’s expression sharpened. Just as she was about to retreat, a deathly pale hand shot out from the coffin and clamped down on her wrist. Before she could react, it began to forcefully drag her inside.

Gu Qingyin pulled back, bracing her knee against the coffin as she raised the Fire Burning Stick in her other hand, ready to bring it down.

But just as she lowered her gaze to take aim, she spotted a red mole on the outer side of the hand’s pinky finger. It was small, but its color was a perfect, vibrant red, as if painted on with the finest vermillion.

This mole... she had not only seen it before, but had also touched it more times than she could count.

Gu Qingyin froze. "Huo... Yunjing?"

Her voice was quiet, but Huo Xingchen heard it and instinctively flinched.

’It’s over,’ he thought. ’She recognized him just from his hand. Just how well did she know him? Combining that with my previous discoveries, there’s no doubt about it—Gu Qingyin is one hundred percent my mom.’

This should have been a happy occasion, but as Huo Xingchen looked at the scene unfolding before him, his gaze turned bleak.

’Once his dad gets out of that coffin, it might not be a bad idea for him to lie down in it himself.’

At the sound of the name, the hand in the coffin clearly paused. A cold, ethereal voice, seeming to drift from a great distance, called out, "Wife..."

Gu Qingyin swung the stick, smacking the back of the hand. "Who are you calling wife? Have some decency!"

A crack visibly formed on the back of the deathly pale hand, leaking wisps of black energy, but it healed in an instant.

The cold, ethereal voice sounded again, now tinged with a strange hint of grievance. "Wife..."

"Let go!" Gu Qingyin said coldly. "Get out of the coffin and then we can talk."

After a two-second standoff, the ghostly hand didn’t release her. Instead, it dissolved into a black mist that coiled around her wrist. The mist then flowed out of the coffin to her side, where it coalesced back into a human form.

A tall, handsome man appeared. He looked to be nearly 1.9 meters tall, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and long legs. His eyes were sharp, his nose high-bridged, and his lips on the thinner side. He was handsome in an aggressive way, made all the more so by a bewitching tear-drop mole under his right eye, though who he was trying to entice was anyone’s guess.

The man’s eyes were clear, and he didn’t appear to be irrational, but the moment he opened his mouth, he exposed his apparent lack of intellect.

"Wife, come be with me..." As he spoke, his hand crept up to Gu Qingyin’s neck, intending to tighten and choke the life out of her.

Gu Qingyin didn’t flinch or dodge. In fact, she craned her neck forward. "That’s right, strangle me. Go on, hurry up. The second I’m dead, I’ll go straight to be reincarnated!"

The large, cold hand, just about to tighten, froze. "Reincarnated?"

"Of course I’ll be reincarnated when I die. I don’t have any lingering attachments. The sooner I reincarnate, the sooner I’m born, and in eighteen years, I’ll be another genius Mystic Master!" Gu Qingyin pressed his hand against her neck. "Come on, don’t dawdle."

Huo Yunjing seemed frightened. He didn’t dare to use any force and shook his head in a panic. "No, wife, don’t get reincarnated. We have to be together."

Gu Qingyin shot him a sidelong glance. "So you don’t want me to become a ghost and be with you anymore?"

Huo Yunjing shook his head miserably. The tall, imposing male ghost looked like a bullied young bride.

Gu Qingyin snorted and turned her head away, a hint of sorrow in her eyes. ’He was such a wise and brilliant man when he was alive,’ she thought. ’How did he become so foolish after turning into a ghost?’

She raised her eyes to look at Huo Xingchen. The boy, looking both guilty and panicked, immediately lowered his head, not daring to meet her gaze.

Gu Qingyin’s gaze turned cold, and her voice became deceptively gentle as she asked, "Xingchen, is there nothing you’d like to say to your mother?"