Chapter 72: Does the uncertainty of fate affect animals?
In this world, encountering a ghost is a rare occurrence for ordinary people. This doesn't mean ghosts are rare; it's simply that most people's five senses can't detect them. However, some children, those with extraordinary five senses, or those born with a weak constitution can occasionally witness unusual sights.
"Mom! There's a girl crossing the street with a bunch of kittens in a big red net!" A little boy, about four years old, holding his mother's hand while waiting for the traffic light, pointed to the center of the street and asked curiously, "Is she Santa Claus?"
The child's mother looked in the direction he pointed. The traffic light was red, and all the people and cars were waiting patiently. The center of the road was completely empty. She patiently said, "Baby, first of all, it's only the beginning of October, so Christmas is still two months away. And secondly, Santa Claus is a foreign grandfather with a long white beard. Did you miss some sleep last night?"
Chang Xile, overhearing this exchange, couldn't help but glance back. She met the boy's gaze, smiled, and placed her index finger to her lips in a hushing gesture before turning back and hurrying on. The boy didn't cry or make a fuss. He muttered to himself, "This isn't a dream."
Chang Xile had chosen to run a red light to avoid the crowds. Xie Wuya had told her that being directly pierced by a ghost could easily lead to illness. After all, she was carrying so many kitten spirits on her own, so she had to be extremely cautious. However, there were always setbacks. As Chang Xile crossed an alley, she saw a young man with headphones in his ear, strolling leisurely while looking down at his phone. She debated for a moment whether to take a detour. The alley was long, with ordinary people living on both sides. Passing through someone else's home through the wall would be disrespectful of their privacy.
As the young man listened to music, he began to hear a faint electrical hum in his headphones. It was pleasant to the beat of the music, but after hearing the hum for two songs in a row, he realized there might be something wrong with his headphones. He took them off to adjust them for a moment, and just as he was about to put them back on, he heard the faint sigh of a young woman behind him.
He got goose bumps all over his body and felt a little cold, but when he looked back, the alley was empty again. The young man couldn't help but quicken his pace, stopped playing with his phone, and walked straight out of the alley.
Chang Xile smiled and bowed to his back, then picked up the soul-catching lock that she had turned into a big net, and continued on her way with a bunch of kittens.
This time, she didn't need to look for a key or use a door-opening talisman to enter Yang Shu's house; she could just walk through the wall. Chang Xile slapped her head and cried out, "Ouch!" when she reached the door. That night, she had intended to burn paper money for Yang Shu, but Wang Yuejun, who was walking down the street, intercepted her. She had sent Wang Yuejun to the underworld, and because of this delay, she hadn't bothered to check whether Yang Shu had received the paper money.
Chang Xile put the cats aside after entering the house, and looked around for Yang Shu while calling her name. But no one responded to her call, and Chang Xile's heart sank, worried that something had happened to Yang Shu during her absence.
Fortunately, she soon found Yang Shu in the corner next to the bedroom curtains. She looked even more transparent than when Chang Xile last saw her, and looked quite listless. Even when she saw Chang Xile coming, she only raised her head slightly to acknowledge him.
"Yang Shu, what's wrong with you?" Chang Xile held her arm and helped her stand up.
Yang Shu sighed, but her words were not weak at all: "Who the hell is it that deliberately tricked me? Last night, I was in a trance and heard someone calling my name, and I smelled the scent of food. I ran all the way to the place where the sound came from, and there was only a few ashes left, and no one was there. I was even more tired when I came back... Xile, am I going to die?"
Chang Xile touched her head guiltily and comforted her, "No, ghosts won't starve to death."
"But this feeling is worse than death..." Yang Shu leaned weakly on her shoulder, "I was too naive. I thought my family would remember to burn paper money for me."
Chang Xile had always been puzzled. If Wang Yuejun didn't offer sacrifices because her loved ones had passed away and her remaining family had forgotten her, then what about Yang Shu? It seemed her parents had paid for her college education and supported her renting a house, so they must have had some affection for her.
Yang Shu held her face in her hands with a melancholy expression and shook her head. "My family, especially my mother, I haven't seen her since they took my body away. She's the type of person who doesn't believe in superstitions."
Chang Xile thought to herself that it was no wonder, and she secretly made up her mind that when she had time, she would burn a big villa and gold ingots for Yang Shu.
"Oh right!" Chang Xile suddenly remembered the most important thing she had come here for. "I brought Xiaojia back!"
When Yang Shu heard this, her dizziness and weakness were gone, and she rushed out. But when she reached the door, she hesitated.
"Tell me... Does Xiaojia want to see me? Will it blame me?" Yang Shu leaned against the door frame, her face becoming worried. She thought of the screams that tormented her day and night and kept her awake. Suddenly, she couldn't bear to imagine what Xiaojia looked like now. "It's all my fault for not protecting it..."
"How could that be?" Chang Xile squeezed her shoulders. "If it didn't want to see you, it wouldn't have followed me here."
Yang Shu nodded, then slowly made her way out the door with a determined look. Since no one was present to touch the switch, the room was illuminated solely by the moonlight streaming in from the window. Despite the dim light, Yang Shu recognized Xiao Jia instantly from the twenty or thirty kittens of various colors nestling in the entranceway. She hesitated to approach, so she simply stood at the outermost circle of the group and called softly, "Xiao Jia."
As soon as Xiao Jia recognized his owner's voice, he immediately took two steps forward and threw himself into her arms. He sniffed her scent and meowed eagerly several times.
"Xiao Jia, Xiao Jia." Yang Shu was crying so hard that she could hardly speak. She checked Xiao Jia's hair inch by inch, but did not feel the painful and terrible wound she had expected. "Why are you crying so sadly? Are you in pain somewhere?"
Chang Xile understood what Xiaojia said, and she squatted down as well, lowering her eyes and telling Yang Shu, "It was very sad and asked why you died too."
But Xiao Jia soon stopped wailing. It licked the back of Yang Shu's hand gently and meowed a few more times.
"What did Xiaojia say?" Yang Shu asked.
"It said, 'It's okay, it's happy to be with its owner.'"
The man and the cat snuggled together like this. Even though they no longer had body temperature, they felt the warmth of home from each other.
"Then what about these cats?" Yang Shu looked at the kitten ghosts sniffing around her feet curiously, but not daring to move around. She had a bad feeling in her heart. She looked at Chang Xile and asked, "Could it be that group of people who did this too?"
The next second she saw Chang Xile's left face with a slight scar in the moonlight: "What happened? You are injured!"
Chang Xile nodded heavily and told Yang Shu what happened today. She cursed, "Fuck you! This kind of person has lost all conscience and should be jailed for life!"
Although he agreed with this statement, Chang Xile felt that making Chen Moxin pay completely wouldn't be easy. The damage he'd inflicted on Chang Xile wasn't even considered minor, and Chang Xile had just inquired about the animals he'd harmed. Some of these cats lived at Shancheng University, while others were strays living in Shancheng. With the exception of Xiaojia, none of them were private property or protected by Country C. Even if they vanished from the world, no one would notice.
This is why Chang Xile is so eager to find out that Chen Moxin is the person in charge of "Love Loan". If he can prove that victims like Yang Shu were all killed by him, the outcome of the case will be very different. Although Chang Xile is not sure, he still firmly puts his palm on the back of Yang Shu's hand and says, "I will make him pay the price."
Yang Shu also nodded. She was silent for a moment and asked, "Then... are you going to send me to the afterlife?"
Chang Xile was stunned for a moment, thinking to herself, "That's right. She had been working so hard to find Xiaojia and reunite her with Yang Shu, just to fulfill Yang Shu's last wish and let her leave without regrets." But at the moment, Chen Moxin's matter was still unresolved, and Yang Shu's current condition was no longer suitable for staying in the human world for long.
Yang Shu saw that she was in a dilemma, so she pulled her hand away and placed it on the back of Chang Xile's hand. She smiled and said, "I am already satisfied to be reunited with Xiao Jia. I believe you can handle the rest."
"But..." Yang Shu looked a little worried, "Can I pass away with Xiaojia?" They were finally reunited and really didn't want to be separated again.
"That... I'm not really sure." Are the Wuchang who manage humans and animals the same group? Chang Xile, a new rookie, had never dealt with animal-related incidents. She asked, "Do you mind if I ask my teacher?"
"Your teacher? The Wuchang?" Yang Shu's mind flashed with the image of Xie Wuya, and a smile that was hard to describe appeared on her face. "He looks like a scary ghost... But it doesn't matter. I know it's very troublesome for you to do all this. No matter what the rules are, just ask them."
"He's actually quite nice." Chang Xile scratched her head and began to think about how to call Xie Wuya. She had no physical form now and couldn't burn incense, so would just calling his name work?
【Xie Wuya, hello hello, Xie Wuya? 】
Chang Xile turned around in circles and did not see the Impermanence.
It's not really necessary to burn incense and paper money to meet, right? Ghosts shouldn't be too snobbish, okay? Chang Xile curled his lips and called out a few more times without giving up. Suddenly, he felt the red circle on his wrist light up.
Hey, is there any connection between the soul-binding locks that Wuchang used? Chang Xile said softly to the red rope wrapped around his wrist, "Xie Wuya, Xie Wuya, can you come over? I have a question to ask, urgent."
Only a gentle breeze brushed the curtains. The room was silent for a moment, but still no response. Chang Xile said dejectedly, "Alas, maybe it really won't work."
When she raised her eyes, the ghost and countless kittens in front of her had quietly moved away from Chang Xile, trying to huddle together against the wall, as if they were very scared of something.
"What's wrong with you?" Chang Xile was confused. Following their gaze, he turned around and heard a yawn.
"You better be in a hurry to wake up the teacher who finally fell asleep."
By the way, the doors and windows in this room are closed tightly, so where does the wind come from?
It was Xie Wuya who came.
Chang Xile turned around, her face full of smiles, not even a hint of fear, and walked over to him and called out, "Xiao Xie!"
Xie Wuya raised his eyebrows. This guy, when he needed help from others, he called them teacher, but when he came, he changed his address to "Xiao Xie"?
"How did you know I was calling you?" Chang Xile asked curiously, "I didn't even prepare any incense this time."
Xie Wuya sighed, grabbed her wrist and lifted it up to his eyes. Chang Xile glanced down. The two hands were one large and one small, each paler than the other. The only similarity was a red string around each wrist, which glowed faintly in the night.
"You are the Living Impermanence I found, so the Soul-Snatching Lock naturally comes from me. They are essentially the same thing," Xie Wuya said. In other words, every time Chang Xile used the Soul-Snatching Lock, he could sense it.
"Oh..." Chang Xile suddenly realized.
"Let's have a discussion." Xie Wuya's expression showed a rare hint of helplessness, and he said to her, "Next time, don't talk so close to the Soul-Snatching Lock."
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