Chapter 33: The Little Ghost

Can't get ahold of your teammate, then he says he's busy, then he goes quiet, and in the end you find out he's dead!

It was a joke that circulated among long-term instance players. Chen Zheqin had heard it before and laughed it off.

Not long after, something like it happened to someone around him.

Chen Zheqin was vacationing in the transit world, a place no different from the normal world except for the addition of a batch of infinite-flow players with temporary permissions, currently scattered across the globe.

The mirror in the elevator lit up Chen Zheqin's face. He'd tanned a bit at the beach these past two days, and his hair was cut short.

His phone kept buzzing. He opened it to find a message from a former teammate, asking when they'd next enter an instance, wanting to arrange something with that Zhong-surnamed teammate, and asking for his contact info.

Chen Zheqin flipped through his contacts, found a name—Zhong Xian—copied the number, and sent it over.

By afternoon, the former teammate messaged him again: [Zhong Xian's phone keeps being off. Have you reached him? I need him for something.]

Vacation time—who would bother responding to a former teammate they didn't even know well?

Chen Zheqin took some effort to find Zhong Xian on WeChat. He hadn't noted down the real name before, and the guy had changed to a new nickname—[Pig Ears Pinched by Headphones Hurt].

He frowned, half tempted to delete this guy as a friend.

He sent a message, briefly saying someone was looking for him.

As expected, no reply.

Chen Zheqin promptly forgot the whole thing, resting at home for a few days, occasionally going out to work out.

Until the former teammate sent him a message: [Zhong Xian is dead.]

He called. "What's the situation?"

"Couldn't reach him at all, so I doxxed him. No activity on any of his accounts, no idea where he is, phone never turned on. What modern person doesn't touch their phone?"

That was the former teammate's explanation.

In instances, teammates died every few days. Dying in an instance—that was fate. Dying outside...

The next day, the former teammate sent him an address, saying he couldn't find the person there either, and asked: when was the last time you saw Zhong Xian?

"What exactly do you want with him?"

"Revenge."

The former teammate said it breezily.

Chen Zheqin realized there was something wrong with this guy. Now it was hard to say how Zhong Xian had actually disappeared.

The unfamiliar address was in a residential complex nearby—Chen Zheqin could see the entrance gate just by looking up.

He climbed the stairs to Unit 13, twelfth floor. Nothing unusual at the door. Nothing placed outside, no couplets, decorations, or video doorbell. No useful information at all.

He knocked three times.

Knock, knock, knock.

No answer.

Just as he was about to leave, the door suddenly opened.

A very pale face. Long hair draped over the shoulders, messy and ink-black, a pointed chin, thick lashes—looks like a very beautiful cat.

Sleepy-eyed, wearing pajamas, exuding the scent of lemon shampoo, clean and soft, utterly out of place in the dim hallway.

A beauty whose gender was impossible to determine.

Those eyes were a dark blue, and probably because of being disturbed, the gaze looked extremely cold.

"Who are you looking for?" Seeing that he didn't speak, the beauty had to open first, voice equally cold, without emotion.

"Zhong Xian."

"He's not here."

With that, the door was about to close.

Chen Zheqin blocked it with one hand. He was strong; with a light push, the door swung open.

"I'm his friend." He stood in the entryway, surveying the interior. "Zhong Xian's been out of contact for a while. You should know that."

"..."

That was fast.

Ji Yue had been playing games these past few days and wasn't ready yet.

[Yes yes, this is the male lead Zhong Xian's good brother, Chen Zheqin.]

The male lead's good brother, also a teammate, a famous player in the infinite-flow instances, sensitive to this kind of disappearance case, with a strong sense of responsibility and action in instances—something of a captain-type figure. The moment he noticed his friend had gone missing, he came to check in person.

Chen Zheqin stepped inside, first sweeping a glance over the sofa, where a pair of white shorts lay.

He shifted his gaze to that pale face.

"Are you two... living together?"

[Oho, he's suspicious of you!]

This time, the cannon-fodder role Ji Yue was playing was a scheming little ghost—one who not only controlled the male lead, but also acted thoroughly uncooperative when the male lead's teammate came knocking, then complained to the male lead when he returned, sowing discord between them.

"None of your business."

His tone was even colder than before.

"Roommate?"

Chen Zheqin was unmoved and kept pressing.

"..."

"He left something here. I'll get it from his room."

"You may not."

Chen Zheqin ignored Ji Yue's objection; his right hand had already pushed open the nearest door.

By the time Ji Yue reacted, the man was already inside.

"...This is my room."

Chen Zheqin had never been to his friend's place, but he didn't care whose room he'd opened—he was only investigating the circumstances before the disappearance.

The curtains were drawn tight; not a thread of sunlight got in. The whole room was dim.

The bedroom was tidy, with traces of daily life. A dim yellow bedside lamp glowed. On the coffee table sat a few mystery novels, the top one bearing a skull on its cover. In the corner, a wilted green plant, the same kind as the one in the living room.

His gaze slid past the white underwear hanging in front of the wardrobe and landed on the desk—a newly published mystery collection by Shirai ○-yuki.

Nothing abnormal.

A hand abruptly grabbed his arm.

The hand was very white, so white it formed a stark contrast with the man's arm, the knuckles thin and slender, yet gripping with surprising tightness, almost like scratching.

The hand was cold.

Chen Zheqin followed the hand upward. From this angle, a pair of blue eyes was glancing up at him, lashes very long, blue under the lamplight like copper sulfate solution in a test tube—cold, without warmth.

"This is my room. Get out."

"Sorry." Chen Zheqin looked at his face and said, "May I ask—are you a girl or a boy?"

"I'm a girl, of course."

Ji Yue's expression didn't change at all.

Chen Zheqin nodded and turned toward the second bedroom.

The second bedroom also looked normal at first glance. Bed made, desk clean, wardrobe doors shut. He crouched down, his gaze sweeping the wooden board under the desk—a yellow paper talisman was pasted there.

He took out his phone and photographed it.

He pulled open the wardrobe. Another yellow paper talisman was pasted inside.

Turning around, the mysterious long-haired beauty had at some point appeared in the doorway, half a face hidden behind the doorframe, blue eyes fixed on him, expressionless, making no sound even upon seeing him taking photos.

Silent, like a cat.

"Before he left, what did he say to you?" Chen Zheqin asked.

"He didn't say anything."

"Which day did he leave?"

"Go ask him yourself."

A very obvious posture of showing the guest out, but Chen Zheqin pretended not to hear and looked around again.

The living room curtains were likewise drawn tight, solidly blocking the afternoon sun outside. Every window was sealed airtight.

This place seemed to hide things that couldn't bear the light.

On the kitchen fridge was a sticky note. He walked over—a line of handwriting:

"Xiao Yue, remember to eat the strawberries :)"

"You can leave now."

The long-haired beauty's figure appeared by the door again.

"What's your name?"

Chen Zheqin turned his face.

"None of your business."

Having met cold shoulders several times and found no trace of his missing teammate, Chen Zheqin showed no sign of frustration. He merely nodded an apology and walked toward the door.

The front door slowly closed behind him...

He turned his face for one last look inside.

The long-haired girl called "Xiao Yue" still stood there, watching him through the narrowing crack of the door.

An indifferent, observing gaze, like some animal quietly crouching in the dark, assessing the stranger who had intruded on its territory.

Bang.

The door shut completely.

Chen Zheqin stood in the hallway, staring at that gray-white door for a few seconds.

The former teammate messaged him: [I found someone's living at his place. Girlfriend or roommate?]

Chen Zheqin thought to himself: that's not a human. That's a ghost.

From the first meeting, he'd sensed the icy aura on the other party, no different from the ghosts in the instances—definitely not human.

Coincidentally, that very afternoon, the missing friend actually called.

Chen Zheqin was at the city archives looking up records of the dead. When his phone rang, his first instinct was that the little ghost was calling from Zhong Xian's phone.

"What is it?"

He'd already concluded the other party had ill intentions, so his tone wasn't good either.

But the voice that answered was Zhong Xian's.

"I've had some things going on these past few days, didn't turn on my phone. What's up? Someone looking for me?"

"..."

"Can you hear me?"

"I thought you'd gone missing," Chen Zheqin frowned slightly, fingers tapping lightly on the file folder. "Convenient to meet up?"

[Pig Ears Pinched by Headphones Hurt] sent a location.

They arranged to meet at a café.

Chen Zheqin picked up a stack of documents before heading over.

At first sight, he confirmed this was the real Zhong Xian, not the little ghost in disguise.

Zhong Xian was an active infinite-instance player, in reality a rich second-generation male college student with a keen interest in adventure and a lack of fear toward death—a pure hobbyist. Someone like that naturally made a compatible teammate, and privately they got along well too.

Zhong Xian looked perfectly normal, smiling. "I had some personal matters, disappeared for a few days. You went to my home looking for me?"

"Yeah. At one point I suspected you might be dead."

"It's not that serious, I just went out for a trip." Zhong Xian sipped his coffee. "Though, if there's nothing urgent in the future, don't just show up unannounced."

"Your girlfriend doesn't like it?"

"Mine just has that kind of personality." Zhong Xian showed a slightly helpless smile.

...He's possessed.

Chen Zheqin understood in his heart. He set down his coffee, found an excuse, and left.

He held certain permissions and could obtain lists of the deceased from recent years.

Since the ghost appeared in this city, by the underworld's conventions, it had died here.

The little ghost was clearly quite young when it died—whether it had even reached adulthood was unclear, and pinning down the time of death was hard. If it was decades ago, the archives were incomplete and extremely difficult to search.

"Xiao Yue" might be a childhood nickname, not necessarily the registered name.

Chen Zheqin commissioned a Taoist priest and roughly described the situation. The reply matched his guess—yin peach blossom: Zhong Xian had encountered a ghost in dreams, bewitched without knowing it.

The priest took the photos of the talisman patterns Chen Zheqin had shot and leaned in to examine them closely.

The priest had seen plenty of such things. Stroking his beard dismissively, he said, "Male college students are prone to sexual repression; they dream of a pretty ghost and... Just go to his home and perform a ritual. Done."

Chen Zheqin thought to himself: showing up to exorcise his girlfriend—Zhong Xian would never agree to that.

"Zhong Xian hasn't realized he's cohabiting with a ghost," he added some details from that day. "This little ghost's power is formidable."

That was also why he found it thorny. Zhong Xian had survived more than one ghost-type death instance; he couldn't possibly fail to recognize the state of being bewitched.

Presumably Zhong Xian had once realized the other party wasn't human, hence the talismans in the bedroom—but the little ghost came and went freely, so the talismans had likely lost effect.

The priest suddenly yelled, "Not good!"

Chen Zheqin looked at the talisman photos in his hand.

"These yellow talismans aren't for repelling ghosts!" The priest's face changed; his fingers zoomed in on the image. "I can't tell what these are. The ghost probably made them itself! Wait while I ask my senior brothers at the temple!"

After copying down the talismans, he ran off, leaving Chen Zheqin alone in the studio.

The suburban night was very quiet.

When he went upstairs to fetch the registry, the lightbulb flickered silently a few times. Chen Zheqin glanced up, paid it no mind, and continued flipping through scans of death registrations. He filtered with fuzzy conditions and found nothing in recent years matching a "Xiao Yue."

Looking for a needle in a haystack.

He changed angles and looked into the building they were currently living in.

An old apartment in an aging complex, two bedrooms one living room, registered under Zhong Xian's name, purchased last month. Logically, as a rich second-generation, Zhong Xian had properties elsewhere and hardly needed this one. Unlikely he'd buy here—mediocre location, not a new home either.

It was bought for the little ghost, and carried some other significance.

A haunted house?

Chen Zheqin began investigating whether any young people had died in this complex.

Just then, the light suddenly went out.

Without warning, the room was instantly swallowed by darkness.

He turned on his phone flashlight, changed the bulb, and on his way down caught sight of a line of messages floating up on the screen.

Former teammate: [Do you know his girlfriend's name? Or where she goes to school? I saw her today.]

Chen Zheqin ignored him and flipped the phone face-down on the table.

That man carrying his vendetta onto this little ghost would only complicate things further. Time to rescue Zhong Xian was running short.

Late into the night, Chen Zheqin left the studio and parked by a 24-hour convenience store to buy a bottle of water. Across the road was a bus stop. He twisted open the bottle, and when he looked up again, a figure had appeared on the other side.

Fair, delicate, black hair like drifting mist, stirring quietly in the air, half-veiling a pale face—reminding one of the moon rising over the sea.

Chen Zheqin stopped in his tracks. He kept some ghost-repelling items in his car, but hadn't brought them down.

"Xiao Yue" crossed the road soundlessly, very law-abiding, walking properly within the crosswalk, step by step toward this side.

Chen Zheqin paid and messaged the priest. The moment the message went out, the convenience store's glass door was pushed open from outside. From the corner of his eye he caught a flash of white cotton skirt hem, lifted by the wind, then fluttering back down onto the thighs.

The little ghost seemed not to notice anyone observing.

No—rather, this ghost was used to being stared at by passersby. A man in the store was staring at the entering little ghost, gaze excessively fixed, yet the other party was wholly unbothered, picking out a chocolate bread from the shelf on his own.

Chen Zheqin walked out of the store and back to his car. From this concealed angle, he could see the little ghost push the door open and leave.

Zhong Xian didn't come pick him up? He's this comfortable letting the little ghost wander out alone?

Chen Zheqin suddenly thought.

The little ghost walked fast, steps very light, making not a sound on the road. The wind was strong today; the long hair behind was blown scattering and swaying, like a black banner.

Chen Zheqin got out of the car and called out.

"Miss, are you alone?"

[Why does that line sound like an old creep hitting on someone!]

The system complained.

Ji Yue stopped and turned his face. "Is something the matter?"

His face looked especially cold under the streetlight, without any expression between the brows.

"Where you live is pretty far from here. Shall I drive you back?"

Chen Zheqin walked closer. He guessed the little ghost must have had other business going out—otherwise there'd be no need to appear in a store this far away.

"Xiao Yue" lifted his face, a very calm, fear-less expression: "Then I'll trouble you."

The ghost showed no panic at all, agreeing directly to the invitation into the car.

Chen Zheqin's heart sank slightly. What exactly was this little ghost's background?

Once in the car, even with the bagua mirror and other exorcism items inside, "Xiao Yue" merely sat down ordinarily, smoothing his skirt—that thin, soft skirt clinging at mid-thigh.

He sat properly, motionless.

The thighs were very white, a bit fleshy, a red mark being pressed into them by the edge of the passenger seat cushion.

Dressed so lightly in the cold air-conditioned car, anyone would feel cold just looking—exactly like the first impression this little ghost gave.

[This guy isn't driving properly, he keeps looking at your thighs. That's not right, is it?!] the system pointed and commented. [The male lead's good brother clearly suspects you're not human!]

[No need to worry too much. The male lead and his brothers are in the transit world—this place is normal spacetime. The anti-ghost methods from the instances can't be used here; they can only try exorcism!]

'I know. He's never met a fierce ghost like me.'

Unfortunately, in this world, his cover blew quickly. At their first meeting, Chen Zheqin had discovered he wasn't human. Not long after, other friends came one after another to rescue their good brother bewitched by a ghost.

The fierce ghost fought them for a while, and in the end was sealed away by their combined efforts, never again able to plague the protagonist's group.

Ji Yue kept gazing out the window, lashes drooping, as if somewhat tired.

The ghost-repelling devices in the car—peach wood, exorcism talismans, cinnabar... such things actually had no effect on him, only making him somewhat uncomfortable, like having a cold.

Counting the intersections and traffic lights they passed, the sixth one brought them to the complex where he now lived.

Chen Zheqin got out of the car. A corner of white cotton skirt swept past his eyes, the color of moonlight.

"Thank you for driving me back."

"You're welcome."

"Goodbye."

Ji Yue bid him farewell.

Seeing him about to walk toward the apartment building, Chen Zheqin called out to stop him.

"If it's convenient, could you leave your contact info?"

"It's not convenient."

"Why?" Chen Zheqin looked straight into his eyes and said slowly, "Is it because you're not human?"

The night wind blew, lifting a few strands of the pitch-black long hair, scattering them before his face. "Xiao Yue" stood at the entrance of the building, turned around, and answered very coldly: "If you're sick in the head, go get treated. Stop harassing me."

The words came out righteous and confident, without any trace of lying. Anyone who saw it would think Chen Zheqin was baselessly suspecting others.

...The little ghost's provocation.

Chen Zheqin didn't get angry. His gaze rested on the other's face for a few seconds before he said, "Just you wait."

Words like these were undoubtedly a naked threat.

Ji Yue turned around, pushed open the building door, and disappeared into the corridor.

The male lead's good brother was an infinite-flow player, a permanent instance resident.

Consistent with the original novel's description—tall, dressed in dark clothes, rarely smiling, giving an impression of steadiness and meticulous thought.

He knew this good brother of the male lead had something of a saint complex—if I don't descend into hell, who will? He would surely pursue the fierce ghost relentlessly.

Chen Zheqin watched the other party go upstairs, then turned back to his car.

By the moonlight, he made out the appearance of the old building—a perfectly ordinary apartment block in the city.

Based on current information, there had been no accidental deaths in this complex, nor natural deaths matching the age profile. Where exactly had "Xiao Yue" come from?

Chen Zheqin went home and received a message from the priest. The priest explained: these talismans weren't for repelling ghosts—they were for raising a little ghost. Southeast Asia had many similar spells, extremely harmful to the living person residing inside.

The moment Chen Zheqin finished reading, he dialed Zhong Xian's number directly, wanting to ask him out.

But the one who answered was another young voice.

"He's in the shower."

"Xiao Yue's" voice was icy cold, as if something had been interrupted.

[Ohhh, what a classic line!] the system cackled. [You sound like you're sitting on the bed waiting for your boyfriend to finish his shower, and then his brother calls and ruins the mood, so you take it out on him!]

Chen Zheqin: "I need Zhong Xian for something. Put him on."

"No need to call tonight. He's busy."

With that, Ji Yue hung up and deleted the call record.

He knew the password to Zhong Xian's phone, and Zhong Xian let him play with it as he pleased.

Ji Yue lay prone on the bed, legs kicked up, and played a round of Honor of Kings.

WeChat buzzed a few times—a group chat, the university dorm group.

Not interested. Swiped past.

Scrolling down, he could see a black avatar, noted as [Chen Zheqin].

He browsed through the recent chat history. He had to admit, the male lead's good brother really was good to him.

The sound of water flowed in the bathroom, with faint traces of other sounds, like heavy breathing.

Every time Zhong Xian showered, he showered for a very long time.

Ji Yue always took advantage of such times to sneak in and play with his phone, slipping away as if nothing happened before he came out.

A fierce ghost, yet without a phone of his own! This was currently his greatest annoyance.

[Guess what else the male lead does in the bathroom besides showering? Why does he take so long every time?]

'...'

[You know what I mean. All I can say is, even as a ghost, watch your backside!]

Ji Yue ignored the system and turned to send Chen Zheqin a message.

To provoke him, he sent some emoji stickers.

Pig Ears Pinched by Headphones Hurt: [(angry)(fist)(fist)]

Chen Zheqin: [What?]

Pig Ears Pinched by Headphones Hurt: [(vomit)(fist)(fist)]

No more reply from the other side—probably angered to death.

As soon as he sent the messages, Ji Yue destroyed the evidence, deleting the records.

[The male lead's good brother really will be infuriated by you. He's that old-fashioned, feudal daddy type!]

The next second, a friend request popped up on Zhong Xian's WeChat.

Request message: [Bro, your girlfriend is that pretty? You'd better watch out (playful)(playful)]

The person's nickname: Gorgeous Straight Man.

[Who is this guy? Why don't I remember such a thunderous ID in the original novel?] the system scratched its head.