Ye Huohuo’s slap was remarkably loud, and after it echoed, the entire room fell silent.
Li Mohan had never been slapped before. His parents and grandfather had never struck him, and the first slap he received was from Ye Huohuo.
His eyes instantly turned red, and he raised his hand to hit Ye Huohuo. Yet, strangely, his eyes would flicker between red and normal, and the hand he’d raised froze mid-air, hesitating to strike or not, as if two people were holding his hand, one trying to hit and the other trying to stop him.
The atmosphere became peculiar.
After delivering the slap, Ye Huohuo felt as if she’d been doused with cold water from head to toe. She jolted and, at the same time, regained her senses.
Something was wrong. The current situation was too bizarre. Although her second senior brother was usually jovial and liked to joke around, he wouldn't say things without regard for the occasion.
He wasn’t foolish; his recent words were clearly intended to provoke conflict between Ye Huohuo and Li Mohan. He wouldn’t have said them normally.
Li Mohan was even stranger. He was usually very calm. How could he get angry and say such things, like "what happened last night," just because she shook hands with her second senior brother?
Ye Huohuo felt a sense of unease. She carefully observed the expressions of Li Mohan and Qin Chu and noticed a faint green aura shrouding their brows.
The green aura wasn't black; this was…
She stopped speaking and scanned her surroundings, her gaze meticulously sweeping across the room.
Li Mohan’s eyes grew redder. Fortunately, A Cheng reacted quickly and restrained him.
Qin Chu’s emotions were also on the verge of losing control, but as he knew more about metaphysics, he had already sensed something was amiss.
He dug his thumbnail into the fleshy part of his middle finger, silently chanting a mantra to stabilize his mind.
“Huohuo, the southwest direction. See if there’s anything there,” Qin Chu said, sweat beading on his forehead, clearly struggling.
Ye Huohuo hurried to the southwest, which led to the kitchen.
As she entered, a chilling sensation washed over her.
That wasn't right. They had just eaten here, and she hadn't felt this way then.
How could it feel like a different place after such a short time?
Ye Huohuo secretly formed a finger seal and slowly moved inside.
Li Mohan’s kitchen was exceptionally clean. This cleanliness wasn't just about tidiness; it was about the sparse nature of its contents.
He mostly resided in the villa; he only came here when he stayed out too late from work or when he needed to do something discreetly from his family.
A cleaning lady came every couple of days to tidy up, but he rarely ate here. Even when he did, he'd mostly order takeout and didn't cook himself. kuAiδugg
Thus, although it was called a kitchen, it lacked any trace of culinary activity. The stovetop was immaculately clean, everything laid bare for inspection.
Ye Huohuo searched for a long time but found nothing unusual.
Just as she was about to return to the living room, a shadow outside the window caught her eye.
At first, she thought it was a tree branch casting a shadow on the window. When she was at the Wuji Temple in Shanyang Mountain, there was a large tree in their courtyard, and she often fell asleep watching the swaying tree shadows projected onto her window at night.
So, when she initially saw the shadow, she didn’t feel anything amiss.
But when she turned back, she suddenly remembered that Li Mohan’s apartment was on the eighteenth floor.
What kind of tree could grow that tall?
Her scalp immediately prickled. She recalled the expert in shadow control she had encountered in Li Mohan’s office building before.
She looked at the shadow again and finally realized it was a person’s shadow.
No, more accurately, it was a human-shaped shadow, though it wasn’t large, appearing to be about the height of a doll.
But the shadow’s head and limbs were projected onto the window.
And within the short time she was watching, the shadow made several movements, as if dancing.
“Damn it, a nightmare curse!”
She dared not be careless. When she first entered the kitchen, she hadn’t turned on the lights, fearing she might startle whatever was in there.
It was precisely because she hadn’t turned on the lights that she saw the shadow cast on the window.
At this moment, she turned on the kitchen light and simultaneously struck the spot where the shadow had been with her palm.
At that instant, it seemed as if the kitchen light was absorbed into her palm and then struck into the shadow’s chest.
A piercing scream, transmitted through the window, entered the room.
Simultaneously, Li Mohan’s body went limp, like a deflated balloon.
If A Cheng hadn't been holding him from behind, he would have collapsed to the floor, his gaze clearly vacant.
A Cheng quickly helped him sit on the sofa, looking somewhat flustered.
Qin Chu was in much better condition. With the scream, his expression eased considerably.
He exhaled deeply, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and looked at the pale-faced, slumped Li Mohan, shaking his head with a wry smile. “Mr. Li’s willpower is astonishing. He was affected by the nightmare curse yet managed to retain the last shred of composure and didn’t hit Huohuo. As for me, I’m truly shameful; I was almost overcome without realizing it.”
“Director Li’s condition is very poor. Master Qin, can you take a look?” A Cheng supported Li Mohan, having never seen him so weak.
Qin Chu took out a talisman from his bag. With a flick of his finger, the paper talisman ignited. He held the burning talisman between his fingers and drew a strange circle in the air. The smoke generated by the burning talisman transformed into a thin stream that drifted directly into Li Mohan’s nostrils.
Li Mohan’s entire body trembled, and he exhaled deeply. When he opened his eyes again, he was completely clear-headed.
His gaze shifted, and he sat up straighter on the sofa, though his head still felt dizzy intermittently. “What… what happened to me just now?”
Qin Chu poured him a glass of warm water and handed it to him. “We were all affected by someone else’s nightmare curse just now!”
Li Mohan took a sip of water but didn’t understand what Qin Chu meant by “curse.”
A Cheng, standing nearby, also asked, “Master Qin, what is this curse you speak of? And why did only Director Li become like that?”
Qin Chu smiled faintly. “It wasn’t just your Director Li; I almost lost control myself. This is a type of nightmare curse that usually affects the emotions of people within a certain area.
The more emotionally volatile a person is, the greater the impact. Li Mohan’s emotions fluctuated the most just now, so he was affected the most severely. If Huohuo hadn’t quickly disrupted the source of the spell, in a serious case, it could have caused his blood to surge and led to death.”
A Cheng thought of Li Mohan’s bulging veins from earlier and felt a genuine sense of dread.
At this moment, Ye Huohuo also walked in, her brow furrowed in thought.
“What is it? What was the source of the spell?” Qin Chu asked.
Ye Huohuo sighed deeply with helplessness. “I didn’t see the source, but I can be sure that the person casting the spell is the same expert in shadow control from yesterday.
He must have been controlling a puppet’s shadow from somewhere to cast the spell. I dispersed that shadow with my Palm Thunder, which should have injured the source to some extent, but it’s difficult to inflict effective damage on the caster.
This person is like a shadow; you can see them, but you can’t do anything about them. They can attack us, but we can’t even find out where they are.
It’s like having all the strength in the world but nowhere to direct it.”
Ye Huohuo then looked at Li Mohan again, seeing that he had mostly recovered.
However, when he looked at Ye Huohuo, his gaze was noticeably evasive. Although he had said those things while not in his right mind, they had still come from his mouth, making him feel embarrassed.
Ye Huohuo didn’t dwell on it. Instead, she felt a slight warmth in her right palm, the hand that had slapped Li Mohan.
“Alright, let that person hide in the shadows. We can’t find him right now, and we don’t have much time to look for him. We have important business to attend to shortly; if we don’t go now, we’ll miss the time for Lu Qing’s place.
We’ll just have to play it by ear for what happens next,” Qin Chu reminded them.
“I think tonight’s plan needs to change!” Ye Huohuo suddenly said.