Chapter 16 Crisis Above

When I heard the ghostly voice behind me, I had already turned away from the back of the truck.

Before I could steady myself, I saw Old Man Lu standing bloodied by the wheels, grinning coldly at me. His gray cloth clothes were now dyed crimson with blood, making it look like he was wearing a bright red vest.

I asked, "Were you waiting for me?"

Old Man Lu chuckled eerily, "I told you, don't talk to red, don't reach for yellow. Why don't you listen!"

It finally dawned on me that the driver who spoke to Lin Zhao was wearing a yellow vest. He was giving Lin Zhao something! And I was talking to someone wearing red.

The first line of the *Living Song* had gotten us completely.

At that moment, if someone were standing in the distance, they would have seen two people standing on either side of a truck.

One was muttering to himself with his hands behind his back, the other was reaching out into the air.

Just as Lin Zhao and I were confronting the ghosts, a car approached head-on. Even before it arrived, the high beams were shining in my eyes.

The driver might have been doing it on purpose, or perhaps he was just being kind.

Drivers who often travel at night know that if they see someone standing by the road talking to themselves, they are probably being haunted. In that case, a flash of high beams might save their life.

After flashing the lights, the car sped past me. In that instant, as the headlights swept across my vision, Old Man Lu's face turned deathly pale, his eyes became demonically bloodshot, and his white hair flew wildly as he lunged at me.

"Kai—!" I stood my ground, exhaling like thunder. True qi erupted from the base of my tongue, instantly piercing his body. He flew backwards ten feet before exploding into will-o'-the-wisps. I turned and ran towards Lin Zhao.

When I reached Lin Zhao, she was already holding hands with the driver, black mist faintly rising from where their palms met.

As I stepped forward, the driver’s right arm suddenly snapped in two at the elbow. As he recoiled with half an arm, a large coin appeared in Lin Zhao's left hand.

The coin, as sharp as a knife, pierced through the driver's forehead, and his body shattered on the spot. The right hand that Lin Zhao had been holding also turned into will-o'-the-wisps.

I looked at Lin Zhao's clenched right hand and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Let's go back first," Lin Zhao said, not loosening her grip on her right hand.

As soon as we ran back to the guardhouse, I immediately raised my hand to stop Lin Zhao behind me. "Someone's been here!"

Jianghu people have a habit of remembering every detail of a room before they leave, in order to confirm whether anyone has secretly entered while they were gone.

When I left just now, the chair was clearly against the wall, but now it had been moved to the window. There were still traces on the chair cushion indicating that someone had been sitting there.

While Lin Zhao and I were dealing with the ghosts, someone had been sitting in front of the window, watching us confront the ghosts as if it were a show. They had calmly left the guardhouse just before we returned.

I used my ghost eyes to scan the room twice, but saw no traces of yin energy.

Lin Zhao lay on the ground, looking for a long time. "There are no footprints on the ground."

No yin energy meant it must have been a person who came in.

No footprints meant it must have been a ghost who came in!

I instinctively looked up at the ceiling. "When we were talking to Old Man Lu, did you look at the ceiling?"

"Footprints!" Lin Zhao also saw the footprints on the ceiling when she looked up.

This meant that while we were taking over the shift with the old man, someone had been hanging upside down from the ceiling, eavesdropping on our conversation.

If you consider the height of the guardhouse, that person was so close to us that the yin energy they exhaled could have touched our hair.

Yet, none of us noticed the danger above.

Lin Zhao whispered, "No wonder I felt a breeze in my hair. And that old man kept looking up. Was a person talking to us just now, or was it a ghost?"

I narrowed my eyes and said, "Is he trying to provoke us? Never mind him for now, let's see how your hand is."

Lin Zhao placed her clenched right hand flat on the table. She pinched the skin on her right wrist and gently peeled it upwards, like taking off a glove, revealing a thin layer of skin coming off her hand.

It wasn't skin, but something like a human skin mask. Except, instead of wearing it on her face like an expert of disguise, Lin Zhao had put it on her hand.

Lin Zhao dangled the glove and said, "What do you see?"

I could only vaguely see something like a cloud of yin energy floating inside the glove. "I can't tell. It doesn't look like a Soul-Reaping Mark, but it shouldn't be yin energy either. If it were yin energy, it would have dissipated by now."

Lin Zhao said, "Wait here for a moment. I'll take care of this."

Lin Zhao quickly rummaged through her backpack and pulled out a set of clothes. She also tore down the bedsheets and curtains, stuffing them into the clothes to create a straw figure. She then attached the glove to the straw figure's wrist.