When Xu Muchan woke up, he found himself sitting against a bench.
He vaguely remembered that his brother seemed to have come looking for him. But where was his brother now?
Xu Muchan looked around in confusion and discovered that he was still in Rose Garden. Not far ahead was Building Nine. The incandescent light above the unit entrance was still dim and ghastly, illuminating only a small patch of ground.
At first glance, one could almost think that he was still inside the ghost domain.
Could everything that had happened before have been a dream?
Xu Muchan lowered his head and looked at himself. He discovered that the Mountain God Tablet, which had been removed earlier, was hanging around his neck again. His fingernails had been trimmed very round and were of normal length.
He subconsciously raised a hand to touch the ends of his hair and discovered that its length had changed. The hair that had previously been cut to behind his ears had now grown to the back of his neck. The ends were cut evenly, so they should have been hurriedly trimmed short.
At this moment, the faint noise of traffic and people’s voices could also be heard from the street outside the residential complex.
Only then did he confirm that he had come out of the ghost domain.
But where had his brother gone again?
And where were Yan He and the others?
Xu Muchan rubbed his somewhat swollen and aching eyes and reached out to search for his phone, only to realize that the phone had been in the pocket of his school uniform. And now, the clothes he was wearing were not his school uniform, so naturally, he had no idea where his phone was.
Xu Muchan: “……”
Just as he was thinking about what to do, three people suddenly walked out of Building Nine. The light was too dim, and Xu Muchan was still struggling to make out who they were when Wei Yao and the others had already recognized him first.
Wei Yao shouted and rushed over.
“Xu Muchan?!”
He rushed to the bench, lowered his head, and circled around Xu Muchan, examining him from every angle.
“You’re not dead? How did you get out?! You have no idea how long we searched for you in the ghost domain. We even ran into a really powerful ghost halfway through. That ghost looked exactly like you, you know? We thought it had eaten you……”
“And that ghost had a weird quirk. It didn’t eat people, but it especially loved stripping people’s clothes. It stripped off my school uniform too. This outfit I’m wearing now is borrowed from He JiaqI’s dad……”
He was like a mosquito, his mouth buzzing nonstop the moment he opened it.
Xu Muchan’s head was made dizzy by his rambling, but he seemed to vaguely remember some blurred fragments of memory……
What Wei Yao was talking about actually felt somewhat familiar to him.
He immediately glanced guiltily at the obviously ill-fitting polo shirt made for a middle-aged man that Wei Yao was wearing and changed the subject.
“How did you get out? Where’s He JiaqI?”
Wei Yao’s attention was immediately diverted. He began talking about the He family.
“After the ghost domain collapsed, we brought He JiaqI out with us. After we came out of the ghost domain, she woke up, but she looked very weak. Then we discovered that her parents were unconscious in the room, so we simply called an ambulance.”
“We came outside to wait for the ambulance, and then we saw you.”
While they were talking, the sound of an ambulance siren could be heard.
The ambulance arrived very quickly. The group had no time to continue talking. After the medical personnel carried all three members of the He family onto the ambulance, they also hailed a taxi and followed them to the hospital.
When they arrived at the hospital, the three members of the He family were all sent for examinations. Wei Yao, Wen Dajiang, and Yan He handled the payment, hospital admission procedures, and staying with them, respectively.
Only Xu Muchan, a half-blind person whose eyesight was inconvenient, was arranged to rest in the lobby.
After waiting for a short while, He JiaqI finished her examination first and came out. Her body was still very weak. The doctor prescribed an IV drip, and Wen Dajiang took the paperwork to pay and get the medicine, while He JiaqI was temporarily left in Xu Muchan’s care.
She sat down beside Xu Muchan and softly said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Xu Muchan turned his head to look at her. After thinking about it, he took the opportunity to ask the question that had been troubling him.
“Did you still have consciousness after you were possessed?”
He JiaqI thought for a moment and said, “I should have had a little bit of consciousness, vaguely, but it came and went. It felt just like sleepwalking. Whenever I was conscious, I wanted to find a chance to call for help……”
But she did not have any particularly close friends, and the He family were not originally from Jiangcheng. Their relatives were not here either, so she actually did not know whom she could ask for help.
However, just when she was lost and helpless, she seemed to have seen Xu Muchan.
But she could not tell whether it had been an illusion at the time, or whether she had really seen Xu Muchan for some reason.
After thinking about it, she still told him.
“I think I saw you, but you weren’t very clear. It felt as if I was underwater while you were on the shore. I vaguely saw you from beneath the surface of the water, but I wasn’t sure, so I tried calling out to you twice……”
Xu Muchan suddenly understood.
So the voice asking for help that he had heard in the Black River really had been He JiaqI.
He guessed that it was probably because there was the Black Tai Sui inside the Judge’s body. After He JiaqI was possessed by it, she formed some kind of connection with the Black Tai Sui.
And the Black Tai Sui had originally come from the Black River, which was why Xu Muchan had been able to hear her cries for help through the Black River.
But there was no need to tell He JiaqI about any of this.
In the end, he only vaguely said, “Maybe your desire to survive was too strong, which was why you sent those messages in the group. If we hadn’t thought those messages were too strange, we wouldn’t have thought of going to your house to take a look.”
He JiaqI smiled. Her face was still very pale, but she looked much more energetic.
“It’s all thanks to you guys. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known what to do.”
Wen Dajiang quickly returned with the medicine, and the nurse started He JiaqI’s IV drip.
On the other side, the examination results for He JiaqI’s parents also came out. Yan He and Wei Yao walked over and sat down. With an expression as constipated as if he had severe indigestion, Wei Yao said to He JiaqI,
“The reason your parents are unconscious is because there was a large amount of foreign matter in their stomachs. The doctors induced vomiting, but the chunks of meat they vomited out had human characteristics……”
“They suspect it’s human flesh and have already called the police.”
He JiaqI froze for a moment. After a while, she hesitantly asked,
“…Was it my grandmother……or my younger brother?”
“We don’t know……But when we were at your house, we really didn’t see your grandmother or your younger brother.”
And inside the ghost domain, they had truly seen He Grandma being dismembered and eaten, with her head even frozen inside the refrigerator.
As for He JiaqI’s younger brother, he should have been eaten by the Hungry Ghost.
Wei Yao thought to himself that fortunately, they had left in such a hurry. At the time, they had not thought to check the He family’s refrigerator. Otherwise, they would have suffered another mental blow.
He JiaqI remained silent and did not speak again.
Wen Dajiang, however, looked hesitantly at He JiaqI. He was thinking that inside the ghost domain, they had personally watched all three members of the He family eat meat.
Now there were chunks of meat in He JiaqI’s parents’ stomachs. Could He JiaqI have some too?
But seeing He JiaqI’s pale face, he hesitated and struggled repeatedly. In the end, he did not dare to frighten her any further.
In any case, He JiaqI still had to stay in the hospital. Even if there really was some problem, the doctors would discover it during the examination.
It was better not to scare her tonight.
When He JiaqI was transferred to the hospital ward, the police also arrived.
Originally, Wei Yao and the others needed to cooperate as eyewitnesses and give statements. However, it was really too late at night. Wei Yao, once again putting on his full acting performance and playing up how badly they had been frightened that night, asked whether they could give their statements during lunch break tomorrow, since they still had to get up early for school.
The police saw that the three of them really were quite young, and Wen Dajiang was still wearing his school uniform, so they made an exception and allowed them to go to the police station tomorrow at noon to give their statements, leaving only Yan He behind.
The others waved goodbye to Yan He and ran off first, showing absolutely no loyalty.
Xu Muchen also took a taxi home.
Since he had lost his phone, Wei Yao was the one who helped call the taxi.
By the time he got home, it was already past three in the morning.
Unexpectedly, the Xu family villa was brightly lit. Xu Muchen initially thought it was because he had come home so late. He was already wondering how he should explain himself, but when he got closer, he noticed that Xu Qingming was suppressing a trace of anger on his face, while Xu Wangchuan, standing beside him, seemed to be faintly gloating.
Only Xu Zhifei came forward. She grabbed Xu Muchen and looked him up and down. She noticed that the clothes he was wearing were not the school uniform he had left the house in that morning, and his hair hung messily over his shoulders. Hadn’t his hair been cut recently? Had it really been this long before?
These doubts flashed through her mind, but this clearly was not the time to dwell on such trivial matters. Xu Zhifei asked gently, “Muchen, where have you been so late at night? Your father, your brother, and I were all very worried about you.”
Xu Muchen briefly explained what had happened to the He family, skipping over all the supernatural events in the middle that did not make sense. He only said that after school, he had gone to visit a classmate, only to discover that something had happened to the classmate’s entire family. They had helped take them to the hospital, which was why he had been delayed until now.
His phone had also been lost along the way, so he had had no way to notify his family.
“Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang were with me. They can confirm it.”
While they were at the hospital, the group had already agreed on their story. Wei Yao was nothing to worry about, considering that the Wei family was still worshipping the Golden Flower Goddess.
But when Xu Muchen and Wen Dajiang faced their parents, they had to be selective about what they confessed.
As expected, Xu Zhifei’s expression softened somewhat. She patted her husband’s arm and gently urged him, “Muchen stayed out so late because he was helping his classmate. Whatever you have to say, talk to him calmly. He still has school tomorrow.”
The anger on Xu Qingming’s face did not lessen at all. Clearly, he was not angry simply because Xu Muchen had come home late.
Xu Muchen frowned slightly and waited for him to speak.
Xu Qingming’s eyes swept over Xu Muchen’s body. After a long while, he finally spoke in a heavy voice.
“What is that thing in your wardrobe?”
Xu Muchen froze and abruptly raised his head.
Seeing the astonishment on his face, Xu Qingming repeated himself.
“What is that thing in your wardrobe?”
Xu Muchen finally understood.
So the reason they were still awake in the middle of the night was not because he had come home late, but because they had discovered the shrine dedicated to his brother.
His gaze turned cold. He stared expressionlessly at Xu Qingming.
“You went into my room without permission and searched through my things?”
Seeing that Xu Muchen actually dared to question him in return, Xu Qingming showed not the slightest trace of guilt. Instead, his anger grew even stronger.
“You disappeared in the middle of the night. Wangchuan only went into your room because he was worried about you. You didn’t even close your wardrobe door properly. That thing was sitting right there inside the wardrobe for everyone to see, and now you’re blaming others for finding it?”
But Xu Muchen was certain that he had closed the wardrobe door before leaving for school.
He turned toward Xu Wangchuan.
Xu Wangchuan looked at him apologetically. “I’m sorry. I was suddenly frightened too, so I called Auntie Shao over. Auntie Shao was frightened as well, and that’s how Mom and Dad were alerted.”
Xu Qingming said, “You don’t need to explain so much to him.”
He stared at Xu Muchen, his tone already extremely impatient.
“What exactly have you been worshipping in this house?”
There had been some problems with the business recently. On top of that, the Joy God statue had suddenly been disturbed before. After Xu Qingming learned that Xu Muchen was worshipping some unknown deity in his room, he immediately connected the two things.
Xu Muchen lowered his eyes.
“It’s just the village custom of worshipping the Mountain God. I’ve been doing it since I was little, so I brought it along with me.”
Xu Qingming immediately became even more furious.
“I don’t care what mountain god or earth god it is. The Xu family already worships a god. Throw out all this crooked-path nonsense of yours.”
Xu Muchen, who had been extremely calm the entire time, suddenly raised his face and stared straight at him.
“I won’t throw it away. You say the god I worship is some crooked-path evil thing, but is the Joy God you worship really some righteous deity? That’s an evil spirit. It almost ate me when I was little. If you hadn’t sold me off in time, I might not even have lived this long!”
“Muchen, what are you talking about?”
Xu Zhifei’s face suddenly went white. She stared at him in disbelief.
Xu Qingming’s eyes nearly bulged with rage. He abruptly raised his hand—
“You want to hit me?”
Xu Muchen stared straight at him, without the slightest trace of fear on his face. Instead, he smiled, tilting his head slightly as he asked, “What right do you have to hit me?”
“Because I’m your father!”
Xu Qingming brought his raised hand down, but Xu Muchen grabbed him by the wrist.
He looked fair and thin, but his physical condition was actually excellent, and he was very strong.
He had grown up in an isolated mountain village. Every day, he had gotten up before dawn and walked three or four kilometers along the mountain road to school, then walked another three or four kilometers home after school. In the earlier years, Leigong Village had not even had running water. Whenever the family needed water, they had to carry buckets to the river behind the village and fetch it themselves.
Although life had been hard, it had also given Xu Muchen a strong and healthy body.
Xu Qingming’s wrist hurt terribly from Xu Muchen’s grip. He stared at the son before him as though he no longer recognized him. His eyes were filled with astonishment, his face flushed red, and his expression looked extremely comical.
Xu Muchen pushed his hand away. There was even a trace of mocking amusement at the corners of his lips.
“Dad, you probably don’t know this, but my adoptive father used to hit me all the time when I was little. Although he died later, I still really hate being hit by people. You can understand that, right?”
Xu Qingming was so furious that both his hands trembled, and he could not speak.
Xu Zhifei’s eyes widened even further. She covered her mouth with one hand, tears filling her eyes as she stared in disbelief at the son who seemed to have suddenly become an entirely different person.
Only Xu Wangchuan, like an uninvolved outsider watching everything from the sidelines, concealed his gloating expression very well. He hypocritically criticized Xu Muchen.
“Muchen, how can you talk to Mom and Dad like that?”
Xu Muchen finally noticed him. The smile disappeared from his lips, and he looked at him coldly.
“You entered my room without permission and searched through my things. That’s very rude.”
He brushed past Xu Wangchuan’s shoulder and walked toward his room. After taking one step, he turned his head back and said maliciously,
“Do you think you’ve quietly breathed a sigh of relief because the Joy God hasn’t come looking for you lately? Don’t celebrate too soon. It’ll come looking for you very soon. You made a wish to it. Sooner or later, you’ll have to pay the price.”
Xu Wangchuan’s expression immediately changed drastically. He forced himself to look at Xu Muchen’s back.
“What nonsense are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
Xu Muchen did not pay any further attention to any of them. He entered his room, and the door slammed shut behind him with a heavy bang.
His previously tidy room was now filled with signs that it had been searched. The old shrine and stone statue had been casually thrown onto the floor. Clearly, whoever had discovered them had been so frightened that they had not even bothered to pick them up and take them away before hurriedly leaving.
Without saying a word, Xu Muchen picked up the shrine and stone statue and held them against his chest. He rested his forehead against the shrine and stared blankly, falling into confusion.
Perhaps he should not have fallen out with them so quickly.
After all, he was unfamiliar with everything in Jiang City, his eyes had not yet completely recovered, and he had only just gotten used to his new school.
Besides, Nánmíng’s tuition seemed to be very expensive. He could not afford it himself.
Xu Muchen stared blankly with his eyes wide open, wondering how he would solve the problem of going to school if he really left the Xu family.
A pair of arms reached around him from behind and lifted him up. Cold fingers brushed across the corners of his eyes, and the voice sounded somewhat helpless.
“A-Chan, why are you crying?”
Xu Muchen turned around and glared at him.
“I’m not crying.”
Wei Xilou smiled.
“You were only gone for a little while. How did you manage to get yourself into such a miserable state?”
Xu Muchen said, “It’s all your fault.”
If the shrine and statue had not been discovered, Xu Qingming would not have ordered him to throw them away, and he would not have gotten angry and argued with Xu Qingming.
Judging from the astonished expressions on the couple’s faces, they might even think he had been possessed by a ghost.
Wei Xilou rarely said anything. He gently stroked the stray hair against the young man’s cheek. The hair that had originally reached his waist had already been cut short. But at the time, he had been in a hurry to return to Yundong to retrieve his body, so he could only hastily cut the boy’s fingernails and hair before placing him on the bench.
A blunt, straight-across haircut with no technical skill would certainly have been a disaster on an ordinary person. But Xu Muchen was simply too good-looking. His head and face were small, while his features were large and delicate. Such a somewhat rustic hairstyle actually made him look even more exquisite than a meticulously carved doll.
“Let’s keep your hair this length from now on,” Wei Xilou said, completely out of context.
Xu Muchen secretly rolled his eyes and did not want to answer him.
Wei Xilou continued, “A-Chan, do you want to stay with the Xu family, or come with me?”
Xu Muchen said gloomily, “Where would I go with you? Don’t you still live in the Wei family’s house?”
Back in Leigong Village, at least he had the Mountain God Cave.
The villagers were superstitious. After sending Xu Muchen there and discovering that he had remained perfectly alive, even coming and going freely inside the Mountain God Cave, they believed that the Mountain God had kept him and that he had become the Mountain God’s person.
As a result, they had also become respectful and fearful of him. After asking the Mountain God for permission, they had built him a simple little house inside the Mountain God Cave, giving him somewhere to live.
The Mountain God Cave was crude, but Xu Muchen had lived there for so many years that he had actually worked hard to make it a little more comfortable. At least, it looked somewhat like a home.
Unfortunately, he had left home and come to Jiang City to treat his eyes.
He had originally thought that even if the Xu family was not his home, it could at least serve as a temporary place to stay.
But now it seemed that even this temporary refuge had been something he had overestimated.
“I brought some things back from Yundong, but it’ll take some time to turn them into cash. Stay at Jiahe Garden for now. After a while, we’ll be able to change to another place,” Wei Xilou said vaguely.
Xu Muchen mistakenly thought that he had returned to the Mountain God Cave. He knew perfectly well what was in the Mountain God Cave, so he shook his head.
“Forget it. I’ll figure something out myself. Being dependent on someone under the Xu family’s roof isn’t much different from being dependent on someone under the Wei family’s roof.”
He placed the shrine and stone statue into the backpack he had brought back from Yundong, then neatly packed up the few belongings he had. Only after that did he wash up and go to sleep.
Although he had gone to bed late, Xu Muchen still got up very early the next day.
Perhaps because he already had a vague idea in his mind, after getting some sleep, Xu Muchen was no longer depressed like he had been the night before. Instead, when he got up to wash, he suddenly discovered in surprise that the world before his eyes seemed to have become clearer.
Previously, although he could still vaguely see things, the world appeared doubled in his eyes. Everything looked as though it had been distorted and twisted, covered in a hazy glow. He had to squint hard and focus before he could see things a little more clearly.
But now, it was as if his two-thousand-degree myopia had dropped by a thousand degrees overnight. The world before Xu Muchen’s eyes had become much clearer, and those distorted, blurry double images and halos were gone.
Although his eyesight was still far worse than when his vision had been normal, he was no longer practically blind.
Xu Muchen even wondered if, with his current eyesight, he could just get a pair of glasses and everything would be normal again.
It seemed the Black Taisui he had eaten had taken effect. Xu Muchen widened his eyes in delight, turning his head curiously to look around. For the first time, he could see his bedroom so clearly.
He walked over to the window and pushed it open to look at the scenery in the garden outside.
Although everything in the distance was still blurry, he could clearly see the petunias blooming vigorously nearby, their colorful flowers swaying in the breeze, looking as if they were very happy.
Xu Muchen was happy too. So happy that when he saw Xu Qingming and Xu Wangchuan at breakfast, he even smiled at them.
Xu Qingming, however, clearly wasn’t in as good a mood as him. His face was as dark as water, and he gave a cold snort, ignoring Xu Muchen’s attempt at friendliness. Xu Wangchuan, meanwhile, looked somewhat haggard.
Xu Muchen didn’t care. Before leaving for school after breakfast, he informed them, “I’m going to school today. I’ll ask the teacher to let me live on campus.”