58 058 (Updated on 7.11)
◎The Barber◎
Just as this thought flashed through her mind, a chill touched the back of her neck. It was not wind, but more like the breath of some living creature, with a strong earthy smell, as if it had just crawled out of the soil.
【later! 】
A sharp-eyed viewer in the live broadcast room caught a black shadow flashing by the edge of the camera, and the barrage of comments exploded instantly.
Jiang Chuxu's reaction was astonishingly fast. She didn't look back, but lunged forward, almost rolling on the ground. Her movements were clean and neat.
Xiao Hei also rushed out at the same time as she moved, heading straight for the place where she had just stood.
“Puff!”
A muffled sound.
The cell phone camera shook violently during the tumble, but it barely captured the scene behind it.
A short, human-shaped creature made entirely of hair was standing stiffly where Jiang Chuxu had just stood.
Xiao Hei's sharp claws dug deep into the thing's "chest", tearing off large clumps of wriggling hair.
That thing had no facial features, only a mass of rolling black hair. It was twisting violently and making silent roars.
Oh my god, there's something behind this.
[I was scared to death]
【Xiao Hei is awesome! 】
What the hell is this?
Jiang Chuxu had already turned over and stood up, holding the phone steady again, and shining the flashlight on Xiao Hei and the hair-shaped figure who were wrestling with each other.
The thing seemed to be extremely afraid of Xiao Hei's strength. The hair that was torn off quickly withered and turned gray. It struggled to retreat, but Xiao Hei held on tightly. Xiao Hei's pupils were frighteningly bright in the darkness.
Jiang Chuxu let out a low cry and raised his left hand to tightly grasp the necklace.
An invisible thrust suddenly erupted, slamming hard into the hair-figure.
The thing flew backwards and hit the courtyard wall heavily. Most of the hair that made up its body instantly shattered. The remaining part twisted a few times on the ground and quickly turned into ashes, leaving only a pungent burnt smell.
Xiao Hei landed lightly on the ground, licked his paws, and then growled towards the stairs to the second floor.
At the stairs to the second floor, the cloudy eye was still staring down, but in the gap between the drooping hair, there seemed to be another equally gray eye.
These two eyes should not belong to the same ghost. Jiang Chuxu stared at them and judged the current situation in his mind.
K's people didn't seem to be around, which meant they were simply trying to make trouble for her. It seemed they were angry because they failed to recruit her last time.
“Rustle…”
The sound above my head became dense, rapid and aggressive again.
The hanging hair curtain began to shake violently, and more hair poured down like a black waterfall, gathering madly in mid-air, and was about to condense into a larger shape again.
Jiang Chuxu didn't look at the second floor again.
She quickly glanced at the screen of her mobile phone and saw that the live broadcast room was already filled with fear and worry.
"I don't have time to play with you." Jiang Chuxu's voice was not loud, but it clearly penetrated the increasingly louder "rustling" sound and reached the ears of the audience in the live broadcast room.
She took a step forward, which, against the backdrop of her hair, looked almost like a challenge.
The half-body outline made of hair on the top of the head suddenly leaned forward, accompanied by a sharp "whoosh" sound, and the sharp hair shot down towards Jiang Chuxu and Xiao Hei like a dense rain of steel needles.
This time the attack covered a wide area, almost blocking all the dodging space at the door.
Jiang Chuxu didn't look up, and she didn't seem to move either.
But a force spread upward with her as the center, without any earth-shaking sound, only a dull hum.
Those strands of hair seemed to hit an invisible wall less than half a meter away from her.
A breaking sound was heard, and the tough hair broke into pieces, turning into countless tiny black dust particles, falling down. An even stronger burnt smell instantly spread, ten times more pungent than when the hair figure was burned just now.
At the stairs to the second floor, those two cloudy eyes suddenly widened, filled with incredible horror.
The hanging hair curtains swayed violently, making a more rapid "rustling" sound, full of panic.
Xiao Hei shook his head impatiently, shook off the black dust on it, and bared his teeth at the upstairs.
"The things are upstairs." Jiang Chuxu said to the camera, as if he was talking to someone.
She held Xiao Hei in her arms and walked up the stairs.
The old wooden staircase groaned under the weight, which was particularly harsh in the silent room, and every step raised a cloud of dust.
The higher we went, the stronger the strange smell became, almost nauseating. At the end of the stairs was an equally narrow second-floor corridor with a room door on each side, both tightly closed.
The corridor was unusually quiet, and the drooping hair and prying eyes seemed to have never existed.
“Rustle, rustle.”
That hair-raising sound now came clearly from behind the right door.
[No, this sound gives me a headache]
[Don’t say it, it makes me feel uncomfortable too]
[It feels much better after turning off the sound]
Jiang Chuxu stopped in front of the door on the right. She did not push the door open immediately, but stretched out her right hand and lightly pressed her palm on the door panel. The necklace felt slightly hot.
In an instant, some fragments of memory flooded into her mind.
The dim oil lamp flickered, and a man wearing a tattered short coat and a sparse gray braid was seen. He had sunken eyes, a sad face, and his hands were covered with calluses and small wounds.
His name is Liu San, and he is a barber.
At this moment, he was hunching over a razor on a whetstone.
The blade flashed a terrifying cold light in the dim light. He seemed to be in a cramped cubicle. The air was filled with the smell of cheap soapberries. This was the tool he relied on for survival, but also the beginning of his nightmare.
Suddenly the scene changed, with the sound of harsh gongs and ferocious soldiers appearing. Liu San was being dragged roughly with a heavy wooden yoke around his neck.
His face was covered with tears, and he shouted hoarsely, "It's unfair, my Lord. I can only shave people, how can I know any magic?!"
He was surrounded by indifferent or contemptuous faces of villagers. The crime he committed was "using the magic of shaving to bewitch souls and murder the gentry". His method of shaving people's heads so comfortably that they would fall asleep was misinterpreted and reported by someone with ulterior motives.
Then came the gloomy ancestral hall, filled with the smoke of incense. Liu San was pressed hard on the cold and hard floor tiles, his forehead bleeding. Standing around him were several well-dressed but sullen-faced elders of the clan.
The clan leader was in the lead. His goatee trembled with anger. He pounded the ground with his cane, the sound like a broken gong: "You have tarnished our ancestral heritage, committed evil deeds, and misled the people. You will be punished according to clan rules as a warning to others!"
What followed was a bloody and cruel scene. Several burly clan members held down the struggling Liu San. A heavy, rusty hatchet was held high by the executioner with a face full of flesh and a numb look in his eyes.
No mercy, no hesitation.
The blunt knife cut down fiercely with a sound of wind, not severing the hair, but cutting into the scalp fiercely. Blood spurted out, staining the floor tiles red, splashing on the clothes of the elder standing solemnly beside, and even a few drops splashed on the ancestral tablet on the altar.
Liu San's body twitched violently like a fish out of water, and his eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets due to severe pain and fear.
In the last moment before his life and consciousness completely dissipated, boundless pain, overwhelming injustice, and deep hatred completely devoured Liu San's soul.
He watched his bloody head being discarded, and watched those indifferent elders, all the resentment that had condensed in them, suddenly exploded the moment he breathed his last. The candles in the ancestral hall were all extinguished with a few "puffs", and the temperature dropped sharply.
Liu San's twisted soul shadow was suspended above the pool of blood in the center of the ancestral hall, with a razor in his hand.
He roared silently to the void, his resentful gaze piercing through the bricks and tiles of the ancestral hall. He heard those people saying that he deserved it. They knew he was innocent, but because of those despicable little thoughts, they sent him to his death.
So he sent all those who reported him, said he deserved it, and those indifferent elders to the lower hell, and made them experience the same pain as he did.
These blood and energy nourished him, making him stronger, and he has been entrenched here ever since.
But he still retains a bit of rationality and would not harm others under normal circumstances.
But a few days ago, a group of people appeared. I don’t know what they did, but it made him become manic, so he appeared again and killed three people.
After all, Liu San has existed for a long time, so he was only affected and not controlled, but his current state is not much better than being controlled.
Jiang Chuxu opened her eyes, and the scratching sound behind the door became a little disordered, like irritation, or like some kind of warning, interrupting her thoughts.
【Why is the anchor not moving?】
【Did you discover something?】
[That sound makes my teeth ache]
Jiang Chuxu withdrew her hand. Her eyes were complicated for a moment, and then she regained her usual calmness.
"It's no use."
She whispered, not knowing to whom.
Then she no longer hesitated, took a half step back, raised her leg, and kicked the center of the door with all her strength.
A loud bang exploded in the silent second-floor corridor. The entire wooden door bounced inward and hit the wall inside, stirring up a cloud of choking dust.
The flashlight shone through the door, revealing bottomless darkness and mountains of debris. Large patches of dark brown splattered stains covered the walls.
The sound rang out again, and this time Jiang Chuxu could tell that it sounded particularly like a barber's.
Xiao Hei's fur exploded instantly, and the sound coming out of his throat was full of hostility. His cat pupils were fixed on the direction where the sound came from, and his front paws were slightly pressed down, ready to attack.
Jiang Chuxu did not go in immediately, but continued to sweep with the flashlight. The scraping sound suddenly became violent and rapid, as if disturbed by the light, full of irritability and malice.
Then, the darkness squirmed.
A hunched figure slowly stood up from the shadows behind the pile of debris. It was dressed in tattered clothes, and the most frightening thing was the position of its "hands".
There were no palms there, but two huge razor shapes extended out, and the razors exuded a bloody smell.
This ghost is none other than the barber ghost Liu San!
[This image really reduces your sanity]
[Stop talking, I'm scared]
[The most terrifying thing is to look like a human but not be a human]
The barber ghost didn't make any sound. His hunched figure was like an arrow shot from a bow. He ignored the debris piled in the middle and rushed directly towards Jiang Chuxu.
The two razors crossed in front and headed towards Jiang Chuxu's throat, the attack was fierce and direct.
Jiang Chuxu's eyes focused, and he slid to the right at the moment the razor hit his body. His movements were simple and smooth, and he accurately avoided the attack.
Two razors narrowly brushed past her left shoulder, and the yin energy on the blades caused the air temperature to drop continuously.
The razor passed over the wall, and silently, cracks appeared on the surface of the wall.
The barber ghost's attack missed, and without stopping, he suddenly twisted his body from the momentum of the forward rush, with a very strange posture.
Meanwhile, those hairs reappeared.
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