Wei Jianguo withdrew his hand as though he had been burned. His heart pounded wildly, and his hands and feet went weak. He lowered the car window and spent quite a while calming himself down before taking out his cellphone and calling his wife.
The old ancestor’s body was still lying beside him. Its limbs were rigid, with no breathing whatsoever. It was no different from a corpse.
Wei Jianguo clutched his heart, not even daring to glance sideways with his peripheral vision. After the call connected, he hurriedly lowered his voice and said, “Honey, come to the Nanming school gate. Something happened. I need your help.”
Wei Jianguo absolutely did not dare leave this kind of matter to anyone else. Otherwise, if the news leaked out, he would probably never be able to explain himself.
His elderly father was definitely already asleep at this hour. The only people he could trust were his wife and son.
“Mom, why is Dad asking you to go to my school this late at night?”
His son’s wary voice came through the phone.
Wei Jianguo felt his wildly beating heart calm down a little.
“The situation is rather complicated. I can’t explain it clearly over the phone. You’ll know when you get here. Oh, right—bring your dad’s wheelchair, too.”
Bai Shanshan hung up the phone, found the folding wheelchair at home, grabbed the car keys, and prepared to leave.
Wei Yao suspected that Old Wan had gotten his parents involved and secretly complained about him, so he stubbornly insisted on going along.
“Mom, I’ll go with you.”
It had taken him an enormous amount of effort to finally placate the Goddess Jinhua. He absolutely could not let things go wrong at the last moment and get himself dragged down by Old Wan.
Bai Shanshan couldn’t persuade him otherwise and could only agree. She reminded him, “You have to tell them before you go out, right?”
“Oh, right. Mom, wait for me.”
Wei Yao hurried to the shrine to tell the Goddess Jinhua where he was going, then bowed three times.
The incense he had inserted into the censer was burning normally, which meant that the Goddess Jinhua agreed to let him go out. Wei Yao was overjoyed and quickly got up to go to the garage to find his mother.
When he opened the car door, Wei Yao suddenly froze.
His eyes shifted toward the back seat, then moved back again. With his body stiff, he carefully shrank into the passenger seat and quietly nudged his mother with his elbow. He squeezed the words out between his teeth in a hushed voice.
“Mom, did you see it?”
Wei Yao really wanted to convince himself that his eyes had deceived him and that it was all an illusion.
Unfortunately, his 5.0 vision told him that the Goddess Jinhua, whom he had just finished worshipping, was now sitting in the back seat.
Bai Shanshan looked puzzled.
“See what?”
“…Nothing.”
Realizing that his mother apparently couldn’t see her, Wei Yao didn’t say anything else, lest he frighten her.
Wei Yao quickly glanced at the rearview mirror, then immediately looked away.
Half of the Goddess Jinhua’s face was reflected in the mirror. Long black hair hung in front of her deathly pale face, and behind it, there seemed to be a single black pupil standing upright.
Wei Yao’s back was pressed tightly against the leather seat. His hands helplessly gripped the seat belt as he frantically recited in his mind, “Namo Amitabha,” and “The Supreme Lord Lao, urgently as the laws command,” pretending that he had seen absolutely nothing.
When they finally arrived at the entrance of Nanming School, Wei Yao got out of the car with his limbs weak and went looking for his father.
“Dad, what are you doing out so late at night?”
As usual, he bent down and stuck his head through the open car window to talk to his father.
As a result, he happened to see the “corpse” sitting in the passenger seat.
“Fuck, Dad, did you kill someone?!”
Wei Yao jumped in fright. The back of his head hit the window frame, and he crouched down while clutching his head, tears shooting from his eyes from the pain.
Bai Shanshan pulled her troublesome son aside and also saw the “corpse” in the passenger seat.
She was much calmer than he was. After looking twice, she recognized that this was clearly the old ancestor their Wei family had recently acknowledged.
“Old Wei, what happened?”
Wei Jianguo wore an indescribable expression as he struggled to push open the car door.
“It’s hard to explain in a few words. In short, the old ancestor told me to take him to Jiahe Garden. My heart feels a little uncomfortable right now, and my hands and feet are weak. I can’t drive. I don’t trust anyone else, so I could only call you over.”
After saying that, he supported himself against the car door and got out, then moved to the back seat.
Bai Shanshan took over the driver’s seat. She used a blanket to cover the passenger seat slightly before driving toward Jiahe Garden.
From Nanming to Jiahe Garden, it was only a short drive.
After parking the car in the underground garage, the three of them sneakily transferred the old ancestor into the wheelchair, then sneakily got into the elevator.
Only after they finally entered the apartment did the family of three breathe a collective sigh of relief.
Wei Yao stared blankly at the “corpse” lying on the sofa. He still couldn’t bring himself to believe that this young man wearing a shirt and suit trousers was actually the Wei family’s old ancestor.
“Dad, is this really our old ancestor? Could Grandpa have made a mistake?”
Wei Jianguo sat on the other side, continuously rubbing his chest to calm his breathing. He decided to go to the hospital for an examination tomorrow.
“If your grandfather said he is, then he can’t be wrong. And this person is obviously not ordinary. Even if he isn’t our old ancestor, we absolutely cannot offend him.”
Wei Jianguo sat for a while and, after feeling somewhat recovered, held onto his wife’s arm and stood up. He said to his son, “I’m getting old. I really can’t handle this kind of stimulation anymore. Since you managed to placate the Goddess Jinhua, I’ll leave the old ancestor to you from now on as well. Do your best to build a good relationship with him.”
“You stay here and keep watch tonight. We went through so much trouble, so we absolutely can’t let it all go to waste. We have to make sure the old ancestor knows. Your mother and I will go home and rest first.”
After saying that, Wei Jianguo suddenly neither felt dizzy nor weak in the legs. He quickly left with his wife, leaving Wei Yao only with their heartless retreating backs.
Wei Yao stared at the closed door.
“???”
Was he really their biological son?
At the same time, Xu Muchan finally remembered what he had forgotten.
When he had gone upstairs, his older brother seemed to have said something like, “I’ll come pick you up after school.”
At the time, Xu Muchan’s mind had been entirely occupied with figuring out how to deal with his homeroom teacher. The words had gone in one ear and straight out the other.
Xu Muchan: “……”
He guiltily lowered his head and looked at the statue of the deity.
The statue showed no reaction whatsoever.
He shook it a little and tentatively called out, “Brother, brother? Are you there?”
There was still no response.
Only afterward did he remember that his brother had now possessed someone else’s body, so things were somewhat different from before.
He took out his phone again and, squinting, opened his contacts and searched for the number.
On the way back to school, his brother had saved his phone number in Xu Muchan’s phone.
The number was the very first one.
Xu Muchan tried calling it. It rang several times before someone answered.
“Who is this?”
“Brother.”
The two voices sounded at the same time.
Xu Muchan paused, and his tone immediately became strange.
“Wei Yao? Why is it you?”
“Fuck, I want to ask the same thing. Why is it you?”
Wei Yao now recognized Xu Muchan’s voice as well.
When the phone rang, it had scared him badly. He had spent quite some time mentally preparing himself before finally mustering up the courage to take out his phone and answer.
He looked at the “corpse” on the sofa, then lowered his head to look at the phone.
The caller ID read: “A-Chan.”
He was just about to ask Xu Muchan why he knew their family’s ancestor when the call abruptly ended.
Xu Muchan stared at the call-ended screen. His eyes quietly shifted to the side.
His vision was hazy, and he couldn’t see clearly, but the shadows in the room seemed to have grown much denser.
Most importantly—
He hadn’t been the one to end the call just now.
His brother had come.
Xu Muchan placed the phone aside and turned his head around in confusion, searching everywhere.
“Brother, where did you go? I kept calling you just now. Why didn’t you answer me?”
A tall human figure covered him from behind. Both hands pressed down on his shoulders as the figure bent down to look at him.
The voice sounded deep.
“A-Chan has been disobedient again.”
Xu Muchan raised his face blankly and blinked his misty eyes.
“Did I do something wrong, Brother?”
Wei Xilou, who had been preparing to interrogate him, was caught off guard by the question.
Looking at the young man’s confused and innocent face, he said, “Didn’t I say I would come pick you up after school?”
Xu Muchan looked surprised, his eyes widening into round circles.
“When did you say that? I didn’t know. I thought Brother would be waiting for me at home like before, so I came looking for you as soon as I got back.”
As he spoke, he even opened his palm and lifted the palm-sized stone-carved deity statue upward, proving that he really had come looking for his brother as soon as he returned.
“Did Brother really go to school to pick me up?”
Xu Muchan tilted his head. There was a restrained delight in his expression, and his misty eyes seemed to brighten as well.
Wei Xilou gave an indistinct “Mm.”
His tall body completely enclosed Xu Muchan. After thinking for a moment, he said, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow.”
Xu Muchan obediently nodded several times.
“Okay.”
Afterward, he secretly turned his face to observe his brother’s condition. Once he confirmed that his brother no longer seemed angry, he raised both hands in front of the human figure holding him and complained softly.
“Brother, after I took a shower, my fingernails turned black again, and they grew a little longer too. I also feel like my heartbeat is much slower than usual.”
Not only that, he felt that his skin seemed to have become even paler.
His skin had already been extremely fair, but now it was so pale that it was somewhat eerie.
“Is this a side effect of eating the Black Taisui?”
This was the only reason Xu Muchan could think of.
“More or less.”
Wei Xilou didn’t explain much. Instead, he pulled over the nearby Mountain God plaque and put it back around Xu Muchan’s neck, instructing him, “The Mountain God plaque can suppress the ghost transformation. Don’t take it off casually from now on.”
“What does ghost transformation mean?”
Xu Muchan frowned.
“Do you mean that if I take off the Mountain God plaque, I’ll turn into a ghost?”
Wei Xilou avoided answering. Instead, he picked Xu Muchan up and stuffed him into the blankets, then pulled the blanket up to his chin.
“This isn’t a bad thing. A-Chan doesn’t need to worry.”
Xu Muchan still wanted to ask more questions.
He had only just lifted his upper body when an invisible force pressed him back down. His hands and feet were restrained, leaving him unable to move.
The cold sensation on his wrists and ankles, almost like the touch of human hands, made every hair on Xu Muchan’s body stand on end.
He immediately became obedient.
An icy finger pressed against his lips.
Wei Xilou made a quiet “Shh.”
“A-Chan, be good. It’s time to sleep.”
The next day was the fifth day of the lunar cycle.
Xu Muchan got up early and first went to the basement to worship the deity.
Xu Wangchuan was eating breakfast in the dining room. He watched Xu Muchan’s slow descent downstairs with an inscrutable expression.
Ever since they had brought home the new deity statue, he could no longer enter the basement.
It was as though an invisible barrier separated him from the room, so the task of worshipping the God of Joy every fifth day had been completely handed over to Xu Muchan.
This wasn’t exactly a good task.
Xu Wangchuan couldn’t say he hated it, but he certainly didn’t like it.
But now that this had become Xu Muchan’s exclusive responsibility, he couldn’t feel happy about it at all.
Xu Muchan finished worshipping the deity very quickly and returned a moment later.
Xu Wangchuan picked up his soy milk and took a sip, studying him.
“How did your eyes suddenly get better? The deity we worship at home is very effective. Did you make a wish to it?”
“When you make a wish to a deity and it comes true, you have to repay the vow. I can’t afford the price, so I won’t make wishes lightly.”
Xu Muchan turned toward him and curled the corners of his lips into a smile.
“How do you know the God of Joy is so effective? Have you ever made a wish to it?”
Xu Wangchuan’s hand trembled, spilling a little soy milk.
He pulled out a tissue and wiped it up.
“I lack nothing. There aren’t any wishes I need to ask the gods or Buddha to fulfill.”
“Is that so?”
Xu Muchan responded lightly, impossible to tell whether he believed him or not.
“The driver is here. I’m going to school first.”
Xu Wangchuan did not continue the topic. He got up and walked outside.
In Xu Muchan’s blurred vision, his upright figure looked somewhat distorted and warped.
Xu Muchan did not go to school with him today because he had an appointment with the doctor in the morning for a follow-up examination of his eyes.
After all the necessary tests had been completed, they still could not find anything wrong. Xu Muchan’s eyes had gone blind for no apparent reason, and now they had recovered for no apparent reason either. The old professor looked at him with a fanatical gaze, as if he were looking at a walking research paper.
Xu Zhifei had quite a few complaints about this and even began to question the old professor’s level of professionalism.
Xu Muchan, on the other hand, remained very calm. After all, it was perfectly normal that something unscientific could not be detected through scientific methods.
After cooperating with the examinations, Xu Muchan went straight to school.
His phone kept vibrating along the way. When he took it out to look, he discovered that Wei Yao had actually created a small group chat. The three of them—himself, Wen Dajiang, and He Jiaqi—were all in it.
Wei Yao talked far too much. Xu Muchan could not see the words clearly, so he put on his earphones and turned on text-to-speech.
Wei Yao was actually inviting the three of them to the Wei family’s old residence tomorrow to attend the ceremony acknowledging their relationship with their godmother.
Wen Dajiang was the first to jump out, incredulous.
“You’re really going to acknowledge that thing as your godmother?”
Wei Yao was dissatisfied. “Unfilial son, show some respect to our godmother.”
Wen Dajiang responded with a string of periods to express his speechlessness.
He Jiaqi chimed in. “Sorry, I have something going on at home this weekend. I’m afraid I won’t be able to go.”
Wei Yao replied, “It’s fine,” then @-mentioned Xu Muchan.
“Why did you suddenly hang up the phone yesterday? I couldn’t get through when I called again later. How do you know my family’s old ancestor? You even exchanged phone numbers.”
The person possessing Brother was Wei Yao’s family’s old ancestor?
The more Xu Muchan thought about it, the stranger it seemed.
“What’s your old ancestor’s name?”
Wei Yao said, “The memorial tablet says Wei Xilou. Apparently, he was the first ancestor of our Wei family. Even my grandpa has to kneel when speaking to him.”
Xu Muchan had originally thought that “old ancestor” was simply a way of referring to someone of an extremely senior generation. But after hearing Wei Yao say this, how could it sound as though he really was an actual ancestor?
“Your Wei family’s first ancestor should have already been reduced to bones, right?”
Xu Muchan tentatively asked, “Could he possibly have climbed out of his coffin?”
Wei Yao chuckled. “Wouldn’t you know it? He really did climb out of his coffin. My grandpa saw it with his own eyes.”
Xu Muchan: “……”
For a moment, his feelings were complicated, and there was even a little sense of relief.
At least Brother had not possessed a living person. He did not have to worry about Brother being discovered and hunted down by Taoists.
Hearing that Xu Muchan was not saying anything, Wei Yao thought he did not believe him and frantically @-mentioned him in the group.
“You don’t believe me? Next time I’ll take you to see him. My old ancestor can even leave his body in spirit form!”
The car had already stopped at the school entrance. Xu Muchan paid no further attention to the chatter in the group. He turned off the screen, picked up his schoolbag, and got out of the car.
It was just after the third period had ended. Xu Muchan went to the restroom first to wash his face, but unexpectedly, as soon as he entered, someone blocked his way.
The face before him was blurry and unfamiliar, but the voice was very familiar. Xu Muchan frowned.
“Jin Qi?”
Ever since the incident in the equipment room, Jin Qi had been taking leave and had not come to school.
For one thing, he really had been badly frightened. In just a few days, he had lost a huge amount of weight, and his parents had made him stay home to recuperate.
For another, the video from the equipment room had gone viral in all the school group chats in Jiangcheng. Jin Qi felt humiliated, so he simply stayed home to recover and waited for the video’s popularity to die down.
But he was truly suffocating with resentment, so after resting at home for several days, he deliberately came to school to confront Xu Muchan.
“The equipment room incident before was your doing, wasn’t it? There weren’t any ghosts at all. You were just pretending to be some kind of ghost, weren’t you?”
Jin Qi had never suffered such a huge loss in his entire life. Now that he saw Xu Muchan, he was so furious that he gnashed his teeth.
Xu Muchan smiled. “What kind of ghost could I have conjured? I can’t control whether you guys wet your pants.”
“You fucking……”
Jin Qi was so angry that he was about to make a move, but the two lackeys beside him stopped him.
“Brother Jin, let’s talk this out. You absolutely can’t hit him. If this blind guy gets injured and goes and complains again, it’ll probably cause trouble……”
The fist Jin Qi had raised stopped in midair. In the end, he lowered it forcefully again. Gritting his teeth, he pointed at Xu Muchan.
“Just you wait. You’re going to pay for this.”
“And there’s that little bitch in your class, He Jiaqi. She secretly tipped you off, didn’t she? Tell her to be careful on her way home from now on.”
After saying this, Jin Qi turned and walked out. Then the restroom door came crashing shut with a loud “bang,” followed by the sound of metal clashing and scraping.
Jin Qi fastened the chain lock, then hung a sign saying “Under Maintenance” on the door. Grinning, he said to the people inside, “I’ll give you a little lesson today to warm things up.”
Xu Muchan frowned and tried to pull the door open, only to discover that the restroom door had been locked from the outside.
Jin Qi had not left yet. He was clearly planning to watch Xu Muchan make a fool of himself.
Xu Muchan put the phone he had taken out back into his pocket and instead took out the deity statue he carried with him.
He had originally brought the statue along to comfort Brother, so that Brother would not suspect that he was being disobedient again. He had not expected it to come in handy now.
He pressed the statue against his forehead.
“Brother, Brother, I’ve been locked in the restroom by someone.”
A string of calls was enough to summon Wei Xilou very quickly.
The light inside the restroom dimmed somewhat. Shadows surged and gathered together, stretching upward and growing taller until they formed the shape of a tall human figure. He lowered his head and gazed at Xu Muchan.
“What does A-Chan want to do?”
Xu Muchan rolled his eyes and said, “Just help me open the door. I want to scare them.”
The moment his words fell, the restroom door, which had been locked from the outside with a chain, suddenly began shaking violently, as though a pair of hands were desperately pulling at the door. The metal chain securing the door was repeatedly pulled taut, making a sharp scraping sound.
Jin Qi, who was standing not far away, burst into laughter.
“I thought this blind guy was so brave. Turns out he’s scared out of his mind.”
One of the lackeys grinned and chimed in, “Don’t let him get so scared that he wets his pants later.”
The two lackeys were also from the international department. Their families relied on the Jin family’s business, so naturally they fawned over Jin Qi, the Jin family’s precious darling.
Jin Qi, who had been laughing loudly, instantly turned cold and glared ominously at the person who had spoken.
The lackey belatedly realized that he seemed to have said the wrong thing. His face turned pale as he hurriedly apologized.
“No, Brother Jin, I wasn’t talking about you……”
While he was still stammering out his explanation, the restroom door behind them suddenly gave a tremendous bang.
The metal chain wrapped around the doorknob was forcibly torn apart and fell to the ground with a clang.
The three of them were startled and turned around in unison.
They saw the restroom door hanging precariously open. The blind boy’s left hand was raised upward, as though he were being led by something invisible, and he walked out of the restroom.
The eerie scene sent chills through all three of them, and for a moment, none of them dared to approach.
“B-Brother Jin, what’s wrong with that blind guy?”
“How the hell would I know? You ask me, and who am I supposed to ask?”
Jin Qi clenched his teeth so tightly that his voice did not tremble. He suddenly remembered what he had seen that night in the equipment room.
And at this exact moment, another person said, “Could there really be a ghost?”
“You fucking shut up!”
Jin Qi shouted at him.
The two lackeys immediately fell silent, their expressions terrified as they watched Xu Muchan being led by something invisible toward them.
Jin Qi stood stiffly in place, watching helplessly as a blind boy calmly walked back to the classroom.
Before entering the classroom, Xu Muchan turned his head and looked at him once. Then he turned his head toward the empty air beside him and said,
“Thank you, Brother.”
The two lackeys heard it as well. They immediately let out a scream and turned to run.
Jin Qi, however, seemed to be nailed to the spot, unable to move.
A cold, gloomy current of air brushed against the back of his neck, as though something were blowing directly against him.
The extreme fear finally awakened his instinct to survive. He let out a scream and ran into the distance without looking back.
Beneath his feet, the dense shadows merged into his own shadow and followed him away.
The successive screams attracted attention. Someone in the classroom stuck their head out to look.
“Who’s screaming so horribly? Did they see a ghost?”
Xu Muchan sat at his desk, resting his chin on his hand in a very good mood. He slipped his hand into his schoolbag and touched the deity statue inside.