Chapter 12 12 20.22
They reached the bottom of the lake, and Tu Lanxun said, "But there's nothing there."
Visibility was extremely low here, the water a dark grey-green, and N was a blurry black figure beside the blue-painted Xun. The direction they were facing was empty, with only the shadows of water plants.
There are no ghosts, nor are there any corpses of the so-called fishermen.
A transparent piece of glass appeared in Tu Lanxun's hand. It was a monocle. N said in a low voice, "Use this to see. Stand still so he can't see you. If the situation changes, try not to let him appear behind you."
N swam alone to the center of the clearing. Tu Lanxun raised his glasses, and the scene there changed again. Two skeletons were half-buried in mud and sand, their outlines hazy. Countless black deathly auras lingered on the surface, concealing the skeletons.
After adjusting the angle of the lens, Tu Lanxun was suddenly startled to find another person, or ghost, standing near the skeleton.
The ghost's appearance was not as scary as the other small fish and water ghosts. It looked as if it had just died. It was wearing fishing clothes, its skin was bruised, and its eyeballs were obviously bulging due to drowning. It was turning towards N who was approaching.
N hovered in the water, "Zhang Xingwang, I'm here to retrieve Liu Maosheng's remains."
The water ghost named Zhang Xingwang squinted at N. His eyeballs had probably been separated from his eyelids for too long, and he couldn't close them. He looked like a lychee about to be squeezed out of its shell. He laughed hoarsely, his yellow teeth showing. "I've seen you before. You were from over there. You died later. You were young, even earlier than me."
His gaze turned around and swept over Tu Lanxun, without focusing.
But Zhang Xingwang was not to be fooled. He had been entrenched at the bottom of the lake for a long time, and every stream of water was closer to him than his son. His skin was visibly rotting, his eyes were as white as a dead fish, and his resentment was shooting out in all directions, bringing up streams of water arrows.
Tu Lanxun covered her mouth and dared not move, but the mud and sand under her feet began to tremble, and fish bones and broken hooks and nets that had fallen to the bottom of the lake floated up. A large river clam nearby opened its hard shell, opening and closing it, and bit towards her ankle.
The shell of the river clam had a hole in it, and the clam meat had rotted and become fluffy, containing black mud. It was obvious that it had died a long time ago.
Severe pain spread from his ankle. Tu Lanxun suppressed his reflex to scream in pain, but he moved his feet to the bottom, and his figure appeared in the waves.
"Hey, you brought a living person, a little girl at that." Zhang Xingwang said excitedly, "How about we make a deal?"
Before he could finish his words, N had disappeared from the spot, and a hand wearing a black leather glove reached out to grab Zhang Xingwang.
N's strength was obviously beyond Zhang Xingwang's ability to resist, but the latter was as slippery as a loach. After escaping for a while, he was always hunted down and caught by N again. Their figures disappeared alternately at the bottom of the water, and Tu Lanxun's monocle soon lost track.
She looked around nervously. N had reminded her to try not to let Zhang Xingwang stand behind her.
Even N himself, when he was suppressing Zhang Xingwang with force just now, avoided turning his back or even sideways to him.
"Looking for me, little girl?" A slick voice suddenly appeared behind her shoulder.
Tu Lanxun reacted quickly. Instead of running forward subconsciously, he turned his body as fast as he could, facing Zhang Xingwang, and swam backwards with one foot kicking.
She certainly wasn't as fast as Zhang Xingwang, but there were others who were faster. Before Tu Lanxun could even see N's shadow, he suddenly rushed out from the side, slamming into Zhang Xingwang like a high-speed car, and swept away Zhang Xingwang, who was reduced to a shadow, right before her eyes.
"You're looking for death."
The sound of bones breaking continued to ring out, and Zhang Xingwang almost became a ball in N's hand, which reminded Tu Lanxun of the pinching he often encountered.
"You want Liu Maosheng's corpse? Hahahaha..." Zhang Xingwang laughed distortedly, "Dream on!"
A ball of black gas exploded under the water, and Zhang Xingwang's figure instantly exploded. A white light escaped from the middle and rushed towards the place where the bones were buried. "Even if I have to detonate the ghost, I will destroy it in front of you!"
N followed closely behind the white light, gradually approaching, but still one step behind. Zhang Xingwang's white light was about to destroy the two corpses, and then, he stretched out his hand -
The mud and sand at the bottom of the lake were flat, and the human bones that had just been buried there were nowhere to be found. Someone had stolen them!
Tu Lanxun dragged the two skeletons with great effort, walking on the muddy and sandy ground. Fortunately, most of the skeletons were entangled in fishing nets and fishing lines, but she still had a hard time dragging them.
The water resistance was too great and the corpse was too heavy. She looked like a stupid octopus dragging a coconut shell with its tentacles!
Tu Lanxun was extremely angry. He stared at the two human corpses and secretly thought: one is N, and the other is also N.
A little further away, Zhang Xingwang's roar resounded from the bottom of the water, but was suppressed by N. The white light completely dissipated, and the evil water ghost lurking in the lake left the world forever.
Back on shore, Tu Lanxun threw a rare fit of rage, standing aside and refusing to help N move the two bodies. Of course, N didn't let her, and the two piles of human bones automatically floated behind her and drifted toward the parking lot.
If someone else saw this, it would be a monstrous scene.
There was a noise behind Tu Lanxun. The couple in jackets were standing by the lake. "Sir, when can we leave?"
N's expression was indifferent. "Wait a little longer, it will be your turn soon."
The girl was delighted to hear this and smiled sweetly at Tu Lanxun, no longer looking as spooky as before. Tu Lanxun was dumbfounded. The couple ghost in the windbreaker turned out to be N's person.
They had deliberately frightened her into going into the lake. That was so cruel.
#
The silver-gray Jetta started its return journey, Tu Lanxun held the steering wheel. One of the two piles of bones was placed on the back seat, and the other was thrown into the trunk. She guessed that the first pile belonged to Uncle Liu.
Ah, I am afraid of being stopped by the police for inspection, but I also hope to be inspected.
As they were almost back at the convenience store, she finally managed to utter, "Why do you always have to take me with you?"
Is it because it would be more satisfying to have someone watching him crush other ghosts? She speculated maliciously.
N looked at her, "There are other reasons, but it's mainly because of your necklace."
Necklace? Isn't that a junk item? The style is also ordinary.
Tu Lanxun didn't understand, but still insisted, "I gave it to you because you like it. Please treat it as me and keep it with you from now on."
N glanced at her. The skylight reflected by her shattered eyeballs had a slightly different angle, creating a star-like illusion.
The car slowly stopped. Tu Lanxun didn't even step on the brakes. The two got out of the car on the side of the road. She didn't know what N was going to do.
"Stand still." N said, walking away from Tu Lanxun.
His back shrank smaller and smaller, gradually becoming no longer than a thumb, and he continued to move forward. Just when Tu Lanxun thought he was scolding her in a subtle way, an invisible force pushed her whole body.
Tu Lanxun slid forward uncontrollably. She grabbed the side railing of the road, her palms rubbing against the rough paint surface, like a cat being dragged forward.
“Ahhhhhhhh stop————”
And when N stopped, the force pulling her away also disappeared.
N returned to Tu Lanxun in an instant. She was still in shock, and her thoughts flashed through her mind for a few times before she finally realized the problem. "You mean, we are bound together?"
After she finished speaking, she realized what she had said. Her whole face froze. She gestured between the two of them with her fingers and pulled the chain out of her collar. "Yes, was it this necklace?"
The metal reflected a cold light in the sunlight, and Tu Lanxun was stunned. It wasn't that the necklace had no effect on the ghost that night, but it was just working in the wrong direction. Did it accidentally bind her to N?!
Tu Lanxun wanted to cry, "What's the furthest distance we can be apart from each other?"
"Twenty meters," N replied. "The exact number is 20.22 meters."
So it’s not that N wants to stay in the convenience store and with her, it’s that he can’t leave at the moment.
The two were silent all the way back to the convenience store. Tu Lanxun couldn't accept that he was bound to the evil spirit within twenty meters. Although N was very good-looking and more handsome than most models and stars, this... this was an invasion of privacy!
If she gets a boyfriend in the future and does something intimate, will N also listen within twenty meters?
She glanced at N. His tall and well-proportioned profile was silent in the light. Each eyelash was distinct. His face was cold, and she suddenly thought of a question.
"If you can't stay within twenty meters of me, then this set of clothes you gave me." Tu Lanxun tugged at his sweatshirt. "Where did you get it from?"
N said indifferently, "I asked someone to deliver it."
She felt that N's definition of "human" might be different from hers.
However, his worries were somewhat alleviated, so Tu Lanxun decided to try his best to survive in the hands of N and N's acquaintances.
#
After returning to the convenience store, within a few hours, Liu Maosheng hurriedly appeared at the door of the store.
The corpse was placed in the warehouse on the first floor by N. Now it was moved to the cashier counter. When Liu Maosheng opened the zipper bag, he almost burst into tears.
A ghost weeping over its own bones—how eerie is that scene? Furthermore, Tu Lanxun saw tiny green dots of light rising from the bones and merging into the skin of Liu Maosheng's ghost.
When it was all over, she asked, "What's with the green light?"
"It's a memory." N didn't say anything. It was Liu Maosheng who answered her. He clenched his fists and lowered his head. His whole ghostly aura was much more violent, and his voice was hoarse. "It takes a while for a ghost to wake up after death. The first feeling after waking up is confusion, and they will lose some important memories."
Tu Lanxun quickly thought, "Lost among the bones? But what kind of memories were lost?"
Liu Maosheng's tears fell on his knees as he nodded. "Everyone is different. Most ghosts have lost their memory of the cause of death, while others have forgotten their most beloved family members. I've also heard of ghosts who were more dedicated to their work and have forgotten their former occupations and positions."
"Only by touching my own corpse and reclaiming that part of my memory can I dissipate my resentment and finally become a part of the world again."
In other words, it is difficult to free a ghost that has lost part of its memory.
Tu Lanxun looked at N suspiciously. Wasn't he a BOSS from the game? How could he know Liu Maosheng and Zhang Xingwang, ghosts who looked like real people?
And N seemed to know very well about their deaths - Zhang Xingwang's strength and speed behind people were many times stronger than in other directions.
It is hard not to suspect that Liu Maosheng was pushed into Qingshan Lake from behind by Zhang Xingwang while fishing and drowned, and Zhang Xingwang may have slipped and fell in.
"Then Uncle Liu, what memory did you lose?" she asked.
Liu Maosheng paused, and his expression as he looked at N had more meaning than before. He seemed even more tense, and slowly said, "It was the cause of my death."
"It wasn't the direct cause of death. I remembered what I was involved in, and that person sent Zhang Xingwang to kill me. I remembered everything!"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
