Chapter 311

Pangzi, are you sure you don't need to prepare more stuff?

No need, we have talismans and a ghost-catching rod—what are you afraid of, a bit of thread?

It's not fear; I think it's better to bring my command flag just in case.

Don't, your command flag is too powerful; a light strike would dissipate a ghost's soul by three zhang.

In the pitch-black night, amidst the mottled woods, two shadowy figures furtively appeared, whispering to each other.

Needless to say, those two shadows were me and Pangzi. After finishing our exams today, we decided to head back to school to secretly investigate that strange art studio.

Pangzi wore a splendid Daoist robe, holding talismans and a ghost-catching rod. I, meanwhile, wore casual talismans and also held talismans and a ghost-catching rod.

There are two kinds of talismans: one is the Guan Sheng Emperor's Evil-Slaying Talisman, the other is the Six Jia Soul-Collecting Talisman. Plus there's a ghost-catching rod made from peach wood and yellow paper.

Peach is the essence of the five elements, thus it can suppress evil energies. Ancients believed peach wood repels ghosts and wards off evil, able to restrain a hundred ghosts. Even the earliest door gods were made as two little figures from peach wood. A ghost-catching rod crafted from peach-wood talismans is more powerful than ordinary peach wood; it is one of the commonly used magical implements in the Daoist Sect, requiring the Heavenly Marshal's Ghost-Catching Chant to be used.

The Guan Sheng Emperor's Evil-Slaying Talisman and the ghost-catching rod are used for dueling, while the final Six Jia Divine General's Soul-Collecting Talisman is for collecting ghosts. Although the battle plan's steps are clear… I still feel this whole getup is a bit unreliable.

"Pangzi, are you sure this will work?" For some reason, I've had a bad feeling all night.

Pangzi curled his lip: "Don't waste talk—I've got everything covered."

I… could tell you, it's precisely because you're this unreliable factor that I'm so worried, right?

Following the darkness, Pangzi and I pushed aside waist-high weeds and arrived beneath the art studio's small building.

"My sister said it's the third floor—let's go up." Pangzi eyed the five-story dilapidated building and twisted his waist.

"Pangzi, wait a moment." Suddenly I heard a tinkling sound coming from under Pangzi's feet. I pried apart his foot and picked up… a string of little bells from where he stood.

This string of bells is tiny yet exquisite; I've never seen one like it, and it's purple. To be honest, I don't know why, but I've loved bells since childhood—especially hearing that clear, pleasant chime makes me feel comfortable. Seeing this string of bells now simply brightens my eyes.

"Never mind the junk, let's go up first." Pangzi turned, urged me on, opened the stairway's iron door, and marched ahead.

I slipped the bells into my pocket, followed behind Pangzi, and entered the small building.

During the day we had observed this small building; although not extremely dilapidated, from the outside the walls had shed several layers of skin due to the years, leaving the whole building lifeless.

The stairwell had no light at all; I followed Pangzi behind, relying on our senses as we stepped up the stairs one by one.

Perhaps due to the structure, the empty stairwell echoed with thudding sounds—our footsteps—but through the wall's reverberation it seemed as if the sound came from the whitish walls themselves, then drifted into the air.

In the gloom, I felt a slight itch on my skin; my idle right hand reached out and grabbed a handful of sticky substance—I couldn't see it, but I knew it was spiderweb. Looking up, the stairwell's ceiling leaked a dim white, emitting a hazy glow in the pitch‑black night, flickering on and off.

Even without lighting, walking the distance of three floors wasn't particularly difficult.

Yet why does my heart feel filled with an uneasy sensation that I can't quite describe, but this unease truly exists, throbbing with my breath like a pounding beat. It isn't fear; it's an intangible oppression.

I have practiced with the command flag on a mountain of graves, and I have gone to a pauper's graveyard to seek skulls for refining yin energy, but back then my heart had never felt as oppressed as tonight.

No matter how deep the night grows, I wouldn't feel afraid. Yet why do I constantly sense a pair of eyes watching me, like a leopard lurking in jungle undergrowth, ready to pounce the moment I show a hint of fatigue and tear me apart without hesitation?

"Pangzi, let's go back." I said, furrowing my brow in the hallway.

Pangzi turned back, surprised, and asked me: "What's wrong?"

I said: "I don't know why, but tonight's atmosphere feels weird; I think we should go back, prepare a bit, and come again."

"You're probably overreacting," Pangzi replied without worry. "Haven't we dealt with nights creepier than this before? What's there to fear?" He added, "We're already at the door—let's just go in and have a look."

As we spoke, we arrived at the art studio Mengxue mentioned; Pangzi pushed the door open and went in first.

Even if I hesitated further, I had no choice but to follow Pangzi inside.

After entering the art studio, Pangzi switched on the incandescent lamp and sat cross‑legged on the table.

"There's nothing strange about it; I don't feel any yin energy at all." Pangzi sat cross‑legged, pulled an apple from his pocket, gave it a quick rub, and popped it into his mouth.

I wordlessly shook my head—this glutton never forgets to bring food, no matter the time.

The art studio isn't large, only about fifty square meters. The empty classroom had a few desks scattered about; since it hadn't been used in ages, the podium and many desks were covered in dust.

At the back of the studio, some students' past works remained, sealed in oiled paper and also dust‑covered.

In the whole classroom, the only thing that looked clean was the purple desk and chair in the center, matching the color of the bells—suggesting someone had been here not long ago.

That person must have been Mengxue.

Outside the hallway, as the moonlight grew deeper, my heart became increasingly uneasy. For some reason, despite being a disciple of the Yin Mountain Sect most familiar with ghosts, I sensed not a trace of ghostly energy. If it's spiritual perception, the Yin Mountain Sect is the most sensitive to such things. Yet after sitting here for over an hour, there wasn't even a hint of ghost or yin energy.

I walked to the blackboard, running my hand over its shiny surface—just like any ordinary classroom blackboard, nothing special about it—but Mengxue actually said she saw a legless little bird on this very board the night before.

"Could it be that my procedure is wrong?"

I frowned, pondering whether I had missed some detail.

According to Mengxue, the blood‑colored little bird and the long‑haired woman appeared only when she was drawing. That suggests these strange phenomena might occur solely while painting.

Could it be that one must actually paint for that female ghost to appear?

Such a reason isn't strange; ghosts wandering a certain area of Yangjian often retain the things they loved most in life, or a particular image from their moment of death. If that scene is reenacted, it may trigger their memory and draw them forth.

I once heard a story like this. In ancient times there was a scholar who loved books as his life, studying in a ruined temple; later he died of wind‑cold in that very temple. On his deathbed he still clutched a volume, posed as if carefully reading.

Afterward, whenever someone passed by that ruined temple and read at the spot where the scholar had been before his death, lighting a lamp for night study, the temple would echo with chilling sounds of reading.

This is the obsession of a wronged spirit, yet such a case is an exception among exceptions—out of a hundred instances, it might not even occur once.

Generally, a vengeful spirit won't harm people for no reason, even if you live where it once dwelled. As long as you don't provoke it, you can coexist peacefully. But if you disturb its belongings, or accidentally place your bed on the spot where it died wrongfully, pressing down on it, then it's not strange for it to appear and mess with you.

There is another, comparatively exceptional case: the first one mentioned. Doing the same thing stirs the spirit's memories of its past life. However, this is rare—unless one is a book‑obsessed or painting‑obsessed person who retains a frenzied passion for those things after death.

Then could the lingering vengeful spirit in the art studio be a painting‑obsessed ghost?

While thinking that, I walked to Mengxue's spot and opened the drawing board. At our school, chairs and desks are balanced; one sits, then places the drawing board on top to paint.

I opened the drawing board, took out the colored pens, and prepared to draw.

To be honest, my drawing skills are terrible; the only thing I can draw is a duck—and that's only because of a folk song I heard as a child.

There's a folk song that goes like this: 'Mom taught me to write the number two, but on the test I wrote "egg" and nearly scared her to death; Mom grabbed a stick and beat me "three times," I fled from the back of the house back to the door.' The numbers two, egg, three— the final stroke swings from the tail back to the duck's beak, forming a complete duck. Though it's a bit mismatched, I'm still relatively satisfied with it.

"Hahaha, you killed me—why is this duck's beak so pointy? From any angle it looks like a duck that grew a chicken's beak." Pangzi, biting into half an apple, burst out laughing without any image.

My face flushed; I quickly tore open the drawing paper and glared at him fiercely: "You're so talented—you draw."

Pangzi hehe‑ed: "Let's not talk about that. You say why, after all this time, that little bird and woman still haven't shown up."

Little bird and woman…… Why does a scene that was originally gloomy and terrifying, when spoken from Pangzi's mouth, always make me want to think dirty…… Is it that I'm impure, or is Pangzi too lewd, anything that comes out of his mouth seems to change its flavor.

"How would I know? I'm not that bird, asking me is useless." I rolled my eyes at him, said glumly.

Pangzi raised his eyebrows, leaned in, but why was that expression so lewd, his eyebrows kept twitching nonstop.

"Hai Sheng, it's late and no one's around, let's blow a bit."

I damn, blow…… blow your sister.