Chapter 15 Chapter 15 The first thing that flashed through her mind...

The first thing that flashed through her mind was the sentence Lu Hun said before leaving last night. Could it be...?

Wei Yin dared not take off her clothes any more, tightly gripped the amulet, and carefully looked towards the door through a screen placed in front of her.

Outside the door, footsteps gradually became clearer. Then, the half-open door to the purification room was pushed open, revealing a pink figure. Although the misty water vapor blurred the entire purification room, Wei Yin could tell that it was not a ghost, but Chen Xuanhua, who had come to pay her respects just yesterday. She was still wearing the same pink dress, but now she was carrying a food box.

Chen Xuanhua carefully approached Wei Yin and paused when he saw her staring blankly at his face.

"Sister, what's wrong with you?"

She's been too stressed lately, Wei Yin clutched her chest.

Why did you come here?

"I heard that my sister slept in her room for a whole day and night after she came back yesterday, and didn't eat much," Chen Xuanhua said. "So I made her a bowl of soup and some other dishes, which she can eat while she takes a bath."

Wei Yin: "Is that so? Then you can put it down. I'm actually a little hungry."

Chen Xuanhua smiled and placed the food box on the white jade table beside him. He saw that Wei Yin was preparing to bathe. Wei Yin had already taken off her outer skirt, revealing a glittering jade around her neck. The jade was made of red jadeite, and the outer layer was made of gold and silver thread to form a flower pedestal to support the jade. It was simply tied around her neck with two long red ropes.

Chen Xuanhua asked in a low voice, "Sister, this jade is really beautiful. May I take a look?"

Upon hearing this, Wei Yin's gaze tightened instantly, but Chen Xuanhua's expression remained unchanged, still looking at her with the same careful and gentle gaze as usual. Wei Yin relaxed slightly, but she remembered Lu Hun's words and knew that the amulet should not be taken off her person. So she simply held up the amulet with her hand: "I'm always afraid that I'll forget it if I take it off. If my cousin really wants to see it, then just take a look at it like this."

Chen Xuanhua didn't insist that she take it down, and obediently bent down to look at the amulet she was holding in her hand.

"It is a fine piece of jade, with exquisite craftsmanship. The jade is translucent and clean, and it feels warm and smooth to the touch."

Chen Xuanhua praised.

He remained respectful and gentle on the surface, and his voice was as peaceful as usual, showing no signs of anything amiss.

Just as Chen Xuanhua uttered those last words, she suddenly trembled. Wei Yin hurriedly asked her what was wrong, but Chen Xuanhua's previously normal expression instantly became blank. She stared intently at Wei Yin's amulet, then suddenly yanked it off her neck with all her might. The immense friction caused Wei Yin to clutch her burning neck in pain. However, Chen Xuanhua didn't even glance at Wei Yin again, and ran out with the amulet in her hand.

Wei Yin never expected Chen Xuanhua to suddenly come up and snatch it.

She endured the pain and chased after him.

However, she hadn't even reached the door yet.

The candlelight in the clean room suddenly went out.

The surroundings instantly fell into darkness.

Fortunately, some pale moonlight shone through the high window. In the dim light, Wei Yin then saw that the door to the clean room was slammed shut by a gust of wind from the outside. She quickly went up to try to open it, but found that the door was as if it were rusted and she couldn't open it no matter what she did.

At that moment, she vaguely felt a surge of coolness under her feet.

She looked down, her pupils shrinking in shock. She didn't know when, but water had somehow flooded the washroom. As her eyes widened, the water flowed faster and faster, now visibly rising from her ankles, calves, up to her waist, and up to her chest…

The suffocating fear of being dragged into the river last night returned.

Although she didn't know what was going on, she saw the water pouring in from somewhere like a flood, and the food box on the white jade table was floating on the water, about to submerge her head. Her survival instinct made her subconsciously search for a higher place to avoid the flood.

However, the clean room was not large, containing only a bath tub and a white jade table. These items were all low and submerged in water. Even the large mica screen was washed away by the water.

Unable to get out, Wei Yin had no choice but to step onto the white jade table to raise herself a little.

She had thought the water level wouldn't rise any further.

But to everyone's surprise, it kept rising steadily.

Then, it was poured directly into her mouth and nose.

Wei Yin felt like she couldn't breathe, but the closer she got to death, the calmer her mind became.

She finally realized something was wrong.

How could there be flooding in a clean room?

Even if there was a flood somewhere, this is a desolate region that is prone to drought and has never experienced a flood in eight hundred lifetimes.

She remembered Lu Hun saying that ghosts could only haunt people until they were sick and died, or use ghost magic to create fear and blind people.

This can't be another one—

Thinking of this, she tried to calm herself down and not be afraid of what was in front of her.

Gradually, she seemed to really stop hearing the sound of the floodwaters pouring in. She opened her eyes and found that everything in the clean room was normal. The bathtub was still there, emitting steam, the food box on the white jade table was placed there peacefully, and the mica screen was still standing quietly in place, not washed away by the flood.

And that's why they suffocated.

It was her hands that were forcefully gripping her own neck.

Everything that just happened.

It's all an illusion.

Wei Yin was so terrified by this bizarre scene that she dared not stay in the clean room any longer and hurriedly ran towards the door. However, as soon as she put her hand on the door, her feet were tightly bound by something, and her heart skipped a beat.

Slowly, slowly.

I mustered my courage and looked down.

The arms that held her legs were extremely thin and pale, and the owner of those arms, Ah Zhu, was squatting at her feet, her face buried in her knees, her long hair covering her face.

After a while, Ah Zhu slowly lifted her face from her thick, long hair and looked around eagerly. She affectionately hugged Wei Yin's calves closer with her slender arms, and then pressed her face against Wei Yin's calves.

"Father, you've come. You've come to take Ah Zhu out, haven't you...?"

Although Wei Yin was wearing a dress, she felt that her legs were wet and cold, as if she had just washed clothes and put them on without drying them, which made her feel very uncomfortable.

Seeing that she didn't speak, Azhu became a little flustered. She tentatively reached out with her two ghostly hands to touch Wei Yin's waist, but her movements were extremely careful. As if no one else was around, she gently held Wei Yin's hand, as if Wei Yin was her father, Hu Datian.

"Ah Zhu is really scared."

"A-Zhu will listen to Father from now on. Father, please don't lock A-Zhu up, okay?"

Wei Yin was so trembling that she couldn't utter a single word.

Seeing that Wei Yin hadn't reacted for a long time, Azhu finally realized something and carefully raised her face.

"Ah, you're not my father...!"

She finally regained some clarity, but the next moment she became even more delirious and confused. Her youthful face disappeared, replaced by a rotting, maggot-infested face. She stretched her neck out to its limit, the veins on her neck twisting as if thousands of small snakes were crawling inside. Inside the ill-fitting red wedding dress, her hands were also a bloody mess.

"Ah Zhu doesn't want to be locked up! Ah Zhu doesn't want to be locked up! Ah Zhu doesn't want to!"

She abruptly rose from the ground, her two eyeballs, seemingly about to pop out of their sockets, began to sneer at her.

“Ah Fu, your second uncle and aunt used to always leave you with your older sister. Your older sister would often tell you and Ah Hu stories and cook for you. But now I’m all alone here, it’s so cold, so painful, and so scary. Can you come and keep me company? Ah Fu… oh no, you’re not Ah Fu, you took Ah Fu away. So come and keep me company in Ah Fu’s place…”

As she spoke, her mouth moved, and blackish-yellow corpse fluid mixed with the flesh on her face, maggots, and other jumbled things sloshed down from inside, making her look completely frantic and chaotic.

Wei Yin smelled the pungent, putrid stench that sent shivers down her spine.

Before she could even vomit, Ah Zhu had already grabbed Wei Yin's neck with her ten rotten fingers.

A note from the author:

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