Yin and Yang - Chapter 13

Yin Zheng glanced at the Head Ghost, her expression puzzled but cautious. The Head Ghost drifted toward Shen Qingwei, and if her face weren’t smeared with blood, her reluctant expression would have been clear.

“What’s wrong?” Shen Qingwei asked with a smile. “Bored? Isn’t it nice of your jiejie to keep you company?”

Jiejie now? When she was begging for mercy, she insisted they weren’t related!

The Head Ghost was petty, vengeful, and—surprisingly self-aware. Knowing she couldn’t defeat Shen Qingwei, she meekly asked, “What do you want?”

“That’s more like it,” Shen Qingwei said. She reached out to touch the Head Ghost, but then noticed her tangled hair, blood-streaked face, and the crimson tongue lolling out of her mouth. She quickly withdrew her hand.

The Head Ghost: ……

Could you be any more obvious about your disgust? Don’t ghosts have any dignity?

She clamped her mouth shut, puffing out her cheeks. Yin Zheng spoke up, “What’s going on here?”

Shen Qingwei hurried to explain, “Senior Sister, this is… a little sister I met in the elevator.” She hesitated for a moment. “We wanted to know if Fu Yuan came that night. The surveillance cameras were broken, but she wasn’t. Why not just ask her?”

The Head Ghost never imagined she could serve such a purpose. Floating in mid-air, she listened to Shen Qingwei’s explanation. At the end, the handsome man beside Shen Qingwei glanced at her and waved his hand. The Head Ghost felt an immediate sense of lightness wash over her. She opened her mouth, and to her astonishment, her reflection in the elevator mirror no longer showed her bright red tongue!

“Much better,” Shen Qingwei muttered. “Why didn’t I think to cleanse your face sooner?”

You heartless woman! the Head Ghost dared only think to herself. But without the blood and grime, her face now clearly revealed her thoughts. Shen Qingwei shot her a sideways glance. “Calling me names?”

“No,” the Head Ghost replied. Cleansed, she looked far more delicate than before, her face barely the size of a palm, with pale skin and faint eyebrows. Shen Qingwei pulled out her phone from her bag. “Here, have you seen this man before?”

The Head Ghost drifted to Shen Qingwei’s shoulder. Now that the stench was gone, Shen Qingwei could see the Head Ghost’s refined profile in her peripheral vision. The Head Ghost stared at the phone for a long moment, then frowned. “I don’t remember.”

So many people passed through this elevator every day; she truly couldn’t recall them all. “Who is he?” the Head Ghost asked.

“The Haunted House upstairs,” Shen Qingwei explained. “Remember?”

The Head Ghost bobbed up and down, as if nodding. Shen Qingwei suppressed a laugh at the comical gesture. “This man might have been here that night.”

The Head Ghost’s face remained tense as she earnestly tried to recall the memory, but the passage of time made it impossible to remember instantly.

Shen Qingwei quipped sarcastically, “Don’t ghosts need good memories?”

The Head Ghost pretended not to notice the sarcasm.

Shen Qingwei put down her phone and asked curiously, “Why have you been stuck in this elevator all this time?”

The Head Ghost seemed unaccustomed to Shen Qingwei’s sudden seriousness. Glancing at Yin Zheng beside Shen Qingwei, she retreated slightly and said, “I don’t know.”

Shen Qingwei and Yin Zheng exchanged a look for two seconds before Shen Qingwei asked the Head Ghost, “You don’t know?”

The Head Ghost nodded. “Yeah, I woke up here, and I have no idea why.”

“What about your family?”

“I don’t know,” the Head Ghost replied.

Faced with such complete ignorance, Shen Qingwei said, “Then how about this? Try to remember what happened that night. If you can help me recall the events, I’ll help you by performing a ritual to send you to the afterlife. How does that sound?”

The Head Ghost seemed hesitant. After a long pause, she said, “I can help you remember, but I don’t want to be sent to the afterlife.”

Shen Qingwei frowned. “Why not?”

“I don’t know,” the Head Ghost said blankly. “I just feel like I’m waiting for someone here.”

“Who are you waiting for in the elevator?” Shen Qingwei shook her head slightly. “Then let’s make a deal. You help me figure out if this man appeared, and I’ll help you find your identity. That way, you’ll know who you’re waiting for.”

The Head Ghost considered the offer a good bargain. She bobbed up and down, as if agreeing. Though her face was now much more delicate and pleasing to the eye, her floating around the elevator still carried an eerie, unsettling aura.

Shen Qingwei spoke first. “Tell me, who went to the 24th floor that night?”

“There are three households on the 24th floor,” the Head Ghost replied, her mind drifting back to that night. After a moment of recollection, she added, “In the afternoon, the family from the Haunted House went out for dinner.”

“Later, they kept talking about taking medication in the elevator.”

“Medication?” Shen Qingwei interrupted. “What kind of medication?”

“I don’t know,” the Head Ghost admitted honestly. Shen Qingwei gestured for her to continue.

“After that, the other two households returned as well.” The Head Ghost suddenly exclaimed, “I remember now! There was another person who went up to the 24th floor that night.”

“When was this? Was it the man in the photo?”

The Head Ghost shook her head. “He was wearing a hat and kept his head down, but his build was definitely male.”

Shen Qingwei casually swiped through her phone. Moments later, a photo of a man’s back appeared on the screen. The Head Ghost said, “He looks a bit like that.”

Yin Zheng pressed down on Shen Qingwei’s phone, her expression grave. As they stepped out of the elevator into the corridor, they noticed a window had been left open, letting in a chilly draft. The floor was eerily silent, the doors of the neighboring apartments tightly shut. The wind whistling through the corridor sounded like someone weeping.

After standing in the corridor for a few seconds, Shen Qingwei pushed open the door to the Haunted House and stepped inside. The windows inside were also wide open, the curtains billowing wildly, their rustling filling the air. As Shen Qingwei approached a window, a sudden force shoved her forward, nearly pushing her out. Caught off guard, she leaned forward, bracing herself against the windowsill. With a swift motion, she flung a Yellow Talisman behind her. A sharp, cracking sound echoed through the air, and the wind vanished instantly. Shen Qingwei closed the window.

Turning around, Yin Zheng said, “Someone’s been here.”

Shen Qingwei looked down and noticed the shards of glass that had littered the floor last night were gone. During her struggle with the Malevolent Spirit, she had shattered a crystal lamp, scattering glass everywhere. Now, the floor was spotless, as if someone had cleaned it up.

“Was it Mr. Zhao?”

Yin Zheng caught a familiar burnt smell in the air. She nodded. “Mm.”

“His OCD is pretty severe,” Shen Qingwei remarked. “Why didn’t he fix the lamp for us?”

Yin Zheng shook her head slightly after Shen Qingwei finished speaking. She casually pulled a white candle from her bag, lit it, and placed it on the coffee table. The flame leaped up, casting a hazy glow across the living room. Shadows danced on the walls like clawing, snarling monsters, poised to strike.

Shen Qingwei sat on the sofa and said to Yin Zheng, “She mentioned earlier that Fu Yuan came here late at night. Judging by the timing, it was roughly after this family took action.”

“So why would he come so late?”

Yin Zheng paused for two seconds. She suspected she already knew the reason, but the truth would be too cruel for the mother and daughter. Shen Qingwei muttered, “Could it be…”

She didn’t finish the sentence, her face darkening. After a few minutes, she cursed under her breath. As soon as the words left her lips, the candle flame surged upward, climbing higher and higher. When it reached its peak, a shadow appeared on the wall behind their sofa—a figure combing its hair.

One stroke, two strokes. The shadow leisurely combed its long, flowing hair. The strands grew longer and longer, cascading down the wall. Upon closer inspection, wisps of black hair seeped from beneath the wall, writhing as if possessed by a soul. These strands crept toward the sofa where Shen Qingwei and Yin Zheng sat. Before long, Shen Qingwei glanced down and noticed the dark, writhing mass beneath the sofa. The hair surged in clumps, like ravenous beasts poised to tear open a gap and devour them whole!

Shen Qingwei pulled her legs onto the sofa, studying the strands. Each one was thin and sharp as a blade, capable of taking a life in an instant. The writhing mass intensified, engulfing the entire living room in a suffocating darkness. The floor was completely covered in inky blackness, leaving no space to step.

The area around Yin Zheng remained strangely clear, as if automatically shielded. A few strands of hair tentatively reached toward her legs, but recoiled immediately before touching her, their movements growing more frantic. Yin Zheng spoke, “I’ve been pondering something.”

“If this ghost was created to suppress Malevolent Spirits, why are people still dying?”

The livestreaming adventurers had died violently, and she and Shen Qingwei had been attacked the previous night. Shen Qingwei nodded. “Exactly! Why?”

“Because this ghost only helps one person suppress the Malevolent Spirit.”

And that person uses his vital energy to nurture and refine the Female Ghost.

That’s why he wasn’t afraid to come here in the middle of the night, even willing to accompany them. He knew that as long as the Female Ghost was present, the Malevolent Spirit couldn’t harm him.

Shen Qingwei suddenly realized, “Mr. Zhao!”

She scoffed, “It was him all along. So after his death, he had someone refine the Female Ghost, fearing the Malevolent Spirit would seek revenge?”

This explained everything: the illness, the medication, the ghost refinement, the suppression, the real estate speculation. Which step was the beginning? Shen Qingwei and Yin Zheng exchanged glances. Yin Zheng said, “We can contact the police now, but I still want to meet Mr. Fu alone.”

There was still a lingering doubt, and perhaps meeting Mr. Fu would clarify everything.

As they spoke, the black hair covering the floor surged more violently. Shen Qingwei lowered her gaze for a long moment, then set her foot down. The fine strands brushed against her ankle, attempting to bind her tightly, but they slipped through her grasp like smoke. The hair coiled tighter and tighter, yet Shen Qingwei remained calm, her movements completely unaffected by the entanglement.

Her gaze flicked upward, catching a glimpse of a figure faintly visible behind the white curtains. The curtains shifted, and the figure vanished. “Senior Sister,” she said, “there’s actually a way to find out what happened that night without meeting Mr. Fu.”

Yin Zheng turned her head, but before she could react, Shen Qingwei had already moved toward the curtains. Black hair surged around Shen Qingwei, yet failed to harm her. Shen Qingwei turned back, her lips parting in the flickering candlelight. “Let her possess me.”

“Don’t be reckless!” Yin Zheng shot to her feet without hesitation, striding to Shen Qingwei’s side in a few quick steps. Sensing her anger, the swirling hair retreated as if burned. Shen Qingwei pressed two fingers to her crown, closed her eyes, and, as Yin Zheng reached out to stop her, twisted her body, slipping behind the curtains. Yin Zheng’s rarely angered voice rang in her ears: “Shen Qingwei!”

Being called by her full name meant Senior Sister was truly furious. The thought had barely crossed Shen Qingwei’s mind when her body froze. A bone-chilling coldness poured over her from head to toe. Suddenly, a hand appeared without warning, wrapping around her shoulder. The hand’s owner spoke: “Xiaoqian, did you have fun today? Do you like your new uncle?”