Chapter 72 I Won't Let You Escape
Humans cannot imagine things they have never seen before, let alone something that is exactly the same as the object in her hand. Pingyu's mind went blank.
Is this why Nezha doesn't allow anyone to enter his room?
It is meaningless to investigate who painted these works or where they came from.
Does Nezha fall asleep surrounded by her every day?
Does he fall asleep every day under her gaze, with her different expressions and attire?
The mere thought of this possibility sent chills down Pingyu's spine. The people inside were clearly dead, yet she felt as if Nezha was omnipresent. The shadows cast by the paintings hanging on the walls were sticky, like tar, connecting into lines. These numerous shadow lines formed a spiderweb, climbing and linking up on the walls, enveloping the girl standing in the room.
Bang!
The door was closed.
Pingyu: !
"Mimi?"
The cat didn't follow.
The tabby cat landed at her cry, having closed the door itself. The cat, oblivious to its own strength, slammed the door shut with a thud, knocking the latch off from the outside.
Ping Yu rushed to the door, taking two steps at a time, and tried to pry open the door, shaking it vigorously.
But her actions were futile; the door remained unmoved, and the way out was blocked.
She was firmly locked up from the outside by Mimi.
I'm sorry, human.
Mimi backed away and jumped down the steps:
The cat, unable to win, can only aid and abet the evildoer TT
It felt remorseful and ran away without looking back.
Pingyu stared at the closed door, utterly bewildered. First, he discovered his friend's room was filled with portraits of himself, then he was locked in a room by a cat. Everything that had happened today was absurd. Who on earth had ordered Mimi to do such a thing?
She had no choice but to temporarily abandon her idea of going out and instead look at the portrait paintings covering the walls.
"There are only two possibilities when someone's room is covered with portraits of other people."
Pingyu's mutterings were clearly heard by Nezha, who was standing next to her.
Nezha had no qualms about the paintings in the room. Scholars also had a penchant for creating portraits of beautiful women; these were simply sketches he casually drew while designing Pingyu's flying daggers.
I just ended up drawing more without even realizing it!
But he also wanted to know Pingyu's reaction, so he listened quietly to her analysis.
The girl counted on her fingers and muttered to herself, "Either you like someone, or you want to kill someone."
"That's right, that's right," Nezha nodded. "It's the first possibility, you guessed very accurately! It's good to let Pingyu know sooner rather than later, so that someone else won't get there first while he's still alive."
“But Nezha isn’t that weird,” Pingyu said, rejecting the first possibility before Nezha could agree: “He’s not that kind of nerdy guy, haha… that’s impossible!”
What does "perverted" mean? Nezha was very wary of this word, which he had never heard before, and he had a bad feeling about it.
Ping Yu continued, "Could it be..."
Nezha held his breath.
He saw the girl's previously calm expression suddenly turn into one of terror. Pingyu cupped his face and blurted out, "Does he have a problem with me?!"
Nezha: ...
From which joint did this conclusion come about?
Are you sick?!
The girl spoke quickly, recounting the details of her interactions with Nezha: "I just liked to steal his snacks, go against him, occasionally want to use my Wind Fire Wheels when I couldn't walk anymore, and often ordered him around..."
The more Pingyu spoke, the more alarmed he became.
"Oh Goddess!"
Thinking about it carefully, Nezha, such an arrogant child, does seem exceptionally obedient in her presence. Although he can be quite sharp-tongued at times, he will obediently do whatever she asks him to do.
Nezha is known for his unwavering principles and vengeful nature. Could it be that his usual obedience was just a facade, a way of suppressing his discontent and waiting to settle scores later? In that case, the paintings covering the wall look like wanted posters, each one a fast ticket to the underworld.
As Ping Yu's words became increasingly erratic, Nezha's thoughts raced in the opposite direction. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, he struck!
The sun, round and low, drifted down, intensifying the yin energy permeating the air. With a flick of Nezha's finger, the temperature inside the room plummeted. Pingyu could clearly feel the bone-chilling cold explode around her the instant she finished speaking.
Small bumps quickly adhered to the skin of her entire arm, and she shivered from the cold. Ping Yu opened her mouth and exhaled, as if puffs of white mist were about to come out. The next second, a burst of blue light flashed in her face.
The more powerful the demon, the fiercer and colder the fire it can wield. Ordinary will-o'-the-wisps are only used to frighten people, but this fire can ignite and devour everything in its path, demonstrating just how ferocious the monster inside is. Dragon scales can only defend against the demon's attacks, but they cannot prevent damage from a collapsing building. Ping Yu should be tense, but she watched the scene before her without making a move. Because the fire was precisely burning the painting, without igniting anything else.
The fire raged fiercely, and the blue light engulfed her.
The flames, rising and falling, nearly reached the sky, as if venting their anger and fiercely refuting all her previous guesses.
After all the portraits on the wall were burned away, the will-o'-the-wisps, under Nezha's command, peeled off the wall and rose into the air.
The fire outlined the characters, forming three words in Pingyu's eyes:
Get out.
Nezha was so angry that his ghostly aura leaked out, causing white frost to form on every corner of the room. He came to have Pingyu take the small knife made of lightning-struck wood that he had made for her, so that she wouldn't have any wild thoughts.
"How could I possibly kill you!" Nezha gritted his teeth, barely able to maintain his human form. If he could speak, he would definitely poke Pingyu's forehead and ask her what kind of person he really was in her heart.
After writing, the will-o'-the-wisp coiled into a tornado and rudely slammed open the locked door. The door swayed precariously against the frame before finally crashing heavily to the ground.
The road ahead was opened up, but Pingyu was not as happy as he had imagined.
"Nezha?"
She looked around at the air and tentatively called out.
But when the will-o'-the-wisp dissipated, Nezha, in a fit of pique, ignored her completely
The noise of the door being damaged attracted the attention of the surrounding slaves. The woman in green, accompanied by several tall thugs, pushed the door open and entered. She herself felt a little apprehensive entering the courtyard filled with corpses. The female slave, mustering her courage, shouted, "Who's causing trouble here!"
She recognized the person in the courtyard as none other than her own young mistress. The girl did not leave her room; she remained motionless inside.
The woman in green took a few steps closer: "Miss?"
The Lin residence was often haunted. She gave a wink to the thug beside her who was carrying a basin. If it turned out to be a female ghost, she would throw a basin of black dog blood at her.
Fortunately, the person in front of her had a shadow, which was none other than Ping Yu. She pondered deeply in Nezha's room, feeling somewhat aggrieved. Who would return on the eve of their seventh day after death and immediately begin by cursing? It seemed that the ghost who had led her here with the cat was none other than Nezha.
But why did he both invite her here and then tell her to get lost?
Pingyu hadn't considered his own problems at all.
The girl sighed softly and said to the nervous female slave in front of her, "Green Robe, may I ask you something?"
Being called out unexpectedly, the woman in green was puzzled but complied: "Please ask, Miss."
"If a ghost takes you to its dwelling and tells you to leave in a rude tone, what do you think would be the reason?"
A single sentence revealed the reason why the girl was in this courtyard, and the woman in green boldly guessed: "Could it be that the Third Prince has appeared?"
Pingyu nodded emphatically.
“Tomorrow is the seventh day after the Third Prince’s death, and today is the day for gathering spirits. Miss and the Third Prince have a very close relationship, so it’s understandable that he would come to see you. If I were to answer, I think…” Green Robe understood. She recalled her conversation with the other slaves and carefully chose her words to reply: “Perhaps the Third Prince has something to say, or he’s short of money? I’ve heard that people who commit suicide will fall into hell, where Yama will remove their tongues that can speak good words, leaving ghosts only able to utter evil words and suffer the most severe punishment. So the Third Prince probably doesn’t have a bad way of speaking, he just can’t say good words… I think Miss should not take his evil words to heart.”
"So that's how it is..."
So when Nezha said "get out," it wasn't that he was cursing her; it was just that he could only say it that way!
She tried to replace the words "get out" with more polite phrases.
for example:
Please leave.
Get out of here.
Go outside.
Based on what Green Robe said about Nezha being short of money, Pingyu arrived at what he believed to be the correct answer:
"So he wanted me to go out so he'd let me spend his money!"
Without anyone to arrange a funeral for Nezha or burn money for him, he would be empty-handed. Without a single penny in his pocket, he would indeed find it difficult to move an inch in the underworld.
The woman in green was very perceptive. She asked, "Should I go and prepare a mountain of gold bricks?"
"Prepare more." Ping Yu waved his small hand with great enthusiasm: "If the Li family won't give Nezha any, we'll burn double portions for him!"
Nezha remained silent.
As dusk slowly descended, the mist that had veiled the boy's face dissipated considerably. His handsome face was ashen with death. His eyes were dark, his lips red, and his black hair, soaked with the rain and blood of that day, clung heavily to his body like seaweed, making him resemble a flamboyant water ghost from a folktale. He gazed at the girl's feigned expression, a smile playing on his lips.
How intelligent she was! From the moment Pingyu removed her hairpin, Nezha knew his own feelings; in fact, she already understood.
He knew Pingyu all too well; she was as cunning as a fox, a liar, and as smooth as an oil pot. Those absurd and unfounded guesses were just her habitual avoidance of the sharp truth.
Pingyu liked to keep everything in a state of confusion under the window paper in order to maintain the peaceful status quo.
Lin Pingyu.
He murmured silently as the wind brushed against the girl's face. She seemed to sense something and looked to her left.
Her gaze fell on an empty space, unaware that it was actually the boy looking directly at her.
Nezha parted his lips and uttered a sentence:
You can't keep up this act for long.
Burning paper money can communicate with spirits, and on the seventh day after his death, he can take human form. At that time, he will appear before Pingyu and give her a surprise.
Those avoided speculations and erroneous conclusions will all be corrected and laid bare.
He smoothed out the wrinkles in Pingyu's clothes, his translucent hand passing through the girl's heart. Seeing that he couldn't touch her, Nezha simply embraced her with both hands. His body intertwined with Pingyu's, the two seemingly becoming one.
The seamless integration with her allowed his fingers to pass through her flesh and blood, to touch every bone and every internal organ, and even to grasp her beating heart...
Nezha imagined himself as a seed planted inside the girl's body, nourished by her body temperature, which could even melt his cold soul.
He closed his eyes happily and murmured softly:
I won't let you escape, Pingyu.
Whether it's his heartfelt intentions or his thoughts, Nezha will reveal everything tonight.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
