After the Sickly Beauty Was Haunted by an Evil God - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The Lin Family Ancestral Hall.

Led by the current head of the Lin family, Lin Zhengyang, a group of people stood within the hall with solemn expressions.

A young boy, looking to be six or seven years old, knelt before the shrine, performing three kowtows and three bows in a proper manner before carefully picking up a candle from the altar.

Three sticks of incense were inserted into the incense burner; he used the candle flame to light the middle stick.

A wisp of green smoke rose slowly. Everyone couldn’t help but hold their breath, staring at that stick of incense without blinking.

A few seconds later, as if a gust of wind had brushed past, the incense went out.

“Sigh…”

“What a pity…”

“How much of it burned?”

A burst of whispers erupted within the ancestral hall. Lin Zhengyang raised his hand slightly and spoke: “Take Xiao Jing down first.”

As the family head spoke, the ancestral hall became quiet once again.

After the little boy stepped down, Lin Zhengyang spoke again: “A-Yu, you come.”

As soon as he finished speaking, a stir rose in the crowd again, with everyone casting their gazes toward the young man standing behind Lin Zhengyang.

The young man, with a clean and elegant figure, wore only a shirt and western trousers. He stood there with his head lowered and eyes downcast, his slightly long bangs resting on his forehead, obscuring his brows and eyes. One could only clearly see his pale, thin jawline and a small, vermilion mole on his left earlobe that was as red as blood.

In such a serious setting, he looked as if he had accidentally fallen asleep, showing no reaction to the outside sounds.

After a moment, Lin Zhengyang called out in a deep voice: “A-Yu?”

“Mm…” Lin Yu lifted his long eyelashes extremely slowly, squeezing an unwilling, blurry hum of response from his throat.

He really did look like he had just woken up.

Under the gazes of the crowd, which held varying expressions, Lin Yu moved his long legs and walked unhurriedly toward the offering altar.

When he knelt before the shrine, for some unknown reason, Lin Zhengyang’s heart suddenly sank, as if something had struck his heart heavily.

The elders on both sides were clearly uncomfortable as well; their expressions shifted, but no one spoke.

At the same time, the juniors present suddenly felt flustered and weak in the knees, almost kneeling down along with the person on the offering altar.

Lin Yu was oblivious to the situation below. After three kowtows and three bows, he habitually held the candlestick close to the incense burner.

The candle flame licked the middle stick of incense. A miraculous scene occurred: the standing incense seemed to turn into a flower on a high mountain; no matter how earnest the flame was, it remained unmoved.

“As expected…”

“If it doesn’t work, it just doesn’t work…”

A trace of hidden disappointment rose deep in Lin Zhengyang’s eyes, but he hid it well. His voice didn’t sound unusual at all: “Come down.”

Lin Yu gave a slight shrug, put down the candlestick, and walked down.

The family head and the two elders stayed behind to discuss matters, while the rest of the Lin clan left the ancestral hall in an orderly fashion.

Lin Yu walked slowly at the back. Just as he stepped out the door, he heard two piercing voices coming from not far away.

“Seriously, our Lin family has never produced a clansman who couldn’t light the incense, right? Could it be that Lin Yu isn’t actually…”

“Shh! Don’t talk nonsense. If someone hears you, you’re finished!”

Eight hundred years ago, the Lin family ancestor founded an independent sect. In the eight hundred years since, the Lin family’s incense has continued without interruption, and they remain the most prestigious lineage among Celestial Masters today.

All descendants of the Lin family must hold an incense-lighting ceremony in the ancestral hall at the age of six to determine whether they are suitable for cultivation.

Because whether it’s magical artifacts or talismans, they all require the Celestial Master to inject their own spiritual power. Spiritual power depends first on talent, and second on cultivation.

Those with extreme talent can light all three sticks of incense and let them burn out; every head of the Lin family has been like this.

Those with average talent can burn one stick completely. Those slightly worse can at least burn a small section.

Only Lin Yu—he could not light the incense at all.

In eight hundred years, the Lin family had never produced such a person, yet this person happened to be the son of the current family head. One could only say it was a cruel joke of fate.

“Hehe…” The person who spoke earlier chuckled a few times and lowered his voice. “Reincarnation is truly a skill. If he weren’t the family head’s biological son, with him being such a purebred piece of trash, could he stay in the Lin family being served with good food and drink, and still dare to look down on us?”

The other person asked in confusion, “How does he look down on us?”

“Didn’t you see his ‘eyes-on-top-of-his-head’ look? Every time someone talks to him, he faces them with his nostrils—” Lin Wu’s voice stopped abruptly.

The young man walking toward them had long, crow-feather eyelashes obscuring a pair of phoenix eyes. His nose was elegant and straight, and his lips were light red and full. He should have had a bright and beautiful appearance, but because of his paper-pale complexion, he looked sickly and ghostly.

However, this did not damage his looks; instead, he seemed to have a kind of morbid aesthetic beauty.

Although he despised Lin Yu for relying on his father, as soon as Lin Wu saw the person himself, his gaze became dazed and fixed.

As the person drew closer, he subconsciously switched to a smiling face: “Xiao Yu, where are you going?”

However, Lin Yu didn’t even look at him, passing by his side with composed steps.

His pointed chin was slightly raised, and his gaze beneath the long eyelashes held no fluctuations, as if nothing was worth even a glance from the corner of his eye.

Only after he had walked far away did Lin Wu’s voice come from behind, gritted through his teeth: “See that? He’s always been like this toward me!”

It was the peak of the summer heat, and even the night breeze hadn’t become any cooler.

Lin Yu opened the bathroom door, wiping his dripping hair while walking toward the floor fan.

Just then, Qing Mei walked in carrying a glass of milk and cried out in exaggerated shock: “My little young master, you can’t blow the fan with wet hair!”

“Tsk…” Lin Yu’s movements paused slightly, his tone somewhat dissatisfied. “I’m not even allowed to use the air conditioning, and now I can’t even use the fan?”

It wasn’t that the family was stingy with the electricity bill; it was just that he had been frail and sickly since childhood. A common cold or fever could take half his life. Cooling off had always been done through primitive means—placing ice buckets in every corner of the bedroom to lower the temperature.

Only after he became an adult and his body wasn’t as weak did his father reluctantly agree to give him an electric fan at his strong insistence.

“I didn’t say you can’t use the fan, little young master. Just blow your hair dry first.” Qing Mei put down the milk, her face full of eagerness. “If your arms are tired, I’ll blow it for you!”

“Forget it.” Lin Yu glanced at her, saying with a half-smile, “Do you really think of yourself as a little maidservant from ancient times?”

“Why not?” Qing Mei blinked. “So many people want to be the young master’s little maid but can’t even get the chance!”

When Han Qing Mei was seven, her parents died in a car accident. Her greedy relatives monopolized the inheritance and insurance money, heartlessly sending her to an orphanage.

The deceased parents could not let go of their daughter, who had lost them at such a young age, and wandered the human world, refusing to leave.

At that time, Lin Yu saw them by chance. Under their bitter pleading, he finally brought Qing Mei back to the Lin family to grow up with him.

That’s right—although he couldn’t light the incense, he could see ghosts.

Ordinary Taoist priests generally rely on magical artifacts to judge sinister things; some highly talented Celestial Masters can open their “Heavenly Eye” after cultivating to a certain degree. But there is another kind of person: those born with Yin-Yang eyes, who can see things ordinary people cannot from the moment they are born.

Unluckily, Lin Yu hit this jackpot.

Not only that, his “Extreme Yin Pure Body” was the best nourishment for nourishing evil spirits. To those monsters and demons, he was no different from Monk Tang’s flesh—every demon and ghost wanted to find an opportunity to take a bite.

In the darkness, things were stirring at every moment.

Fortunately, he was born into the Lin family. Even though he couldn’t cultivate himself, top-tier magical artifacts and treasures never left his side since childhood, making it difficult for evil spirits to get close.

However, there was one exceptional thing…

Thinking of this, Lin Yu frowned slightly.

Qing Mei thought he was unhappy because of her words and quickly changed the subject: “By the way, young master, have you been dreaming of that thing lately?”

Mentioning the very thing he didn’t want to talk about, Lin Yu’s brow furrowed deeper. He turned to walk toward the bed, his voice turning cold: “Fine, you go rest first.”

After drinking the milk and blowing the fan for a while, Lin Yu lay on the silk sheets, brewing a sense of sleepiness.

In his hazy consciousness, a thick black mist appeared before his eyes. He immediately realized that the thing had entered his dream again.

From his initial terror to his current indifference, no one knew what he had experienced in his dreams all these years.

However, that thing could only threaten and intimidate him in his dreams; it couldn’t truly harm him.

Lin Yu gave a cold laugh and stood still, intending to just endure it until he woke up.

But the thing clearly wouldn’t allow him to provoke it like this. In the next instant, several strands of black mist emerged out of thin air from the darkness.

Those black mists were like thick black tentacles, rapidly rolling and twisting as they lunged toward him, instantly entangling his limbs and neck, hanging him in mid-air in a spread-eagle position.

“Cough, cough…” Lin Yu started coughing, making no useless struggle.

But the black mist binding him seemed to have a physical form. The slimy, wet, and slippery sensation was truly disgusting. He couldn’t help but curse in a low voice: “Isn’t this disgusting?”

As soon as he finished speaking, the black mist entangling him seemed to become manic. The strand of black mist on his neck suddenly tightened, choking his throat.

Lin Yu’s breathing gradually became difficult. His thin chest instinctively arched up, only to be forcibly pressed down by the black mist wrapped around it, rising and falling weakly.

He was no stranger to this feeling of suffocation. But this thing would always let him go at the critical moment, as if it just enjoyed his fear and struggle and didn’t really want his life. Everything would vanish like smoke once he woke up.

It was almost like some kind of sick joke…

Lin Yu closed his eyes, his chin forced high up, revealing his long, fragile neck.

In a posture almost like a sacrifice, he looked both beautiful and desperate.

A dozen seconds later, the black mist choking his throat loosened. Lin Yu’s heart stopped for a moment, and he coughed violently.

His skin was originally white as snow, but because of the coughing, it showed a sickly red, forming a bizarre yet harmonious picture with the black mist coiled around him.

It was heart-stoppingly beautiful.

After catching his breath, Lin Yu thought tonight’s nightmare was over. In the next instant, his slender body suddenly tensed.

He preferred the cool, so after his shower, he wore a silk robe, which was only loosely tied with a knot at his waist.

And right now, that strand of black mist wrapped around his waist actually…

“Get lost!” Lin Yu gritted his teeth and cursed, “Get out!”

The black mist turned a deaf ear and flexibly drilled its way inside.

The red that had finally faded from his face reappeared. Lin Yu steeled his heart and bit down hard on the tip of his tongue.

“Tongue-tip blood” can drive away evil. The yang energy is strongest in the blood from the tip of the tongue. He had no spiritual power and couldn’t use spells, but he could bite his tongue—it worked every time.

Sure enough, the second the tongue blood spurted out, Lin Yu abruptly opened his eyes.

In the darkness, his scattered gaze had not yet focused. He panted slowly to calm his mind.

After a long time, Lin Yu wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and cursed softly: “Pervert.”

After cursing, he felt his throat was uncomfortable. He was about to get out of bed to drink some water when his upper body moved, and he sensed something was wrong.

His movements froze. Lin Yu looked down at his own splayed-open silk robe, and then suddenly lifted his eyelashes.

The heavy curtains blocked the moonlight, and the bedroom was plunged into a deathly silence.

But under his gaze, the mass of pitch-black in the corner seemed to vaguely ripple and move.