Chapter 937: A Female Ghost!

Sai Fei Er hunched over, Fox Ears pressed against her scalp and pulled back, Tail tucked between her legs, only two eyes peeking out from the edge of the iron pot, scanning outward.

All around were people, all light, all the bustling noise.

Safe.

She had just about to sigh in relief when she suddenly felt a gaze.

That temperature was all too familiar—cold!

It dropped from the roof behind her left side, landing precisely on the back of her neck.

Sai Fei Er's breath halted for half a beat; she slowly turned her head, looking toward the roof behind her left.

Jing Liu stood on the eave of the tea house across the street.

Moonlight cast a silver rim behind her, her white hair and sash fluttering in the night wind, the black Eye Mask standing out sharply in the moonlight.

Her silhouette was cut by the moonlight into a cold outline, standing between the cyber‑retro Nihong sign and the eave's upturned corners.

She lowered her head, her gaze passing through the night market lights and crowds, through the lanterns' warm glow, precisely locking onto the white figure curled up behind the chestnut stall.

Then her mouth moved.

The distance was too great, the street too noisy; Sai Fei Er couldn't hear what she said.

But the shape of those lips was easy to read.

Two clear words—'Wait!'

Sai Fei Er's pupils snapped shut.

Her Fox Tail behind the iron pot suddenly burst into a static sphere.

Immediately, the figure on the eave vanished in an instant.

Only the empty eave remained.

Sai Fei Er shot out directly from behind the chestnut stall, her legs kicking two shallow marks into the ground, her whole body like a marble flung forward, sprinting at full speed toward the densest crowd.

Almost simultaneously, the spot where she had crouched formed a silent layer of thin ice; the ice took the shape of a hand, the fingertips aligning exactly with the height of Sai Fei Er's back of the neck.

If she had launched even a fraction of a second later, that icy hand would have clamped onto her neck.

Sai Fei Er didn't look back to see what she missed.

Because she had already surged into the main street crowd, Bai Hang's disguise began to show tiny cracks while running; the hair color was correct, but occasionally a strand or two briefly reverted to silver‑blue in the night wind, the Fox Tail remained the same, yet a tuft at the tip of the Tail constantly retained Sai Fei Er's original silver‑gray base color.

The disguise could still hold, but it was no longer as solid as when she was strolling.

She darted left and right through the crowd, like a fish swimming upstream.

She leapt over the rear cargo box of a freight Star Chariot parked by the road, her foot striking a metal guard rail with a loud 'Bang', dashing between two side‑by‑side marching Cloud Cavalry; the speed was such that the Cloud Cavalry only felt a gust of wind, and one of them touched the back of his head, saying, 'Did something just run past?'

Relying on inhuman speed, Sai Fei Er made a sharp right turn at the intersection, veering straight into an even narrower alley.

Both sides of the alley were packed residential houses, clothes and cured meat hanging on the windowsills, several quilts crisscrossed overhead, swelling and deflating in the night wind.

Sai Fei Er lowered her body to run beneath the quilts; the quilts' shadows cast irregular black patches on the alley floor, her footsteps muffled by the fabric and cotton, leaving only a faint patter.

She sprinted past a side‑street entrance, planting a foot on the wall to pivot, her body twisting in the air at an angle that almost defied physics, then slipping into a stone slit barely wide enough for one person to pass sideways.

At the end of the stone slit lay another alley, without a single streetlamp, only the distant main street's Nihong casting a dim orange halo on the horizon.

Sai Fei Er leaned against the alley wall, breathing lightly; her Fox Tail hung limp on the ground, the fur still half‑static, and the small tuft of original silver‑gray fur at the tip of the Tail stood out.

"Hoo—Ha—" she slid down the wall to sit on the ground, her legs finally giving out.

It wasn't fatigue, just pure excitement.

She glanced at her Tail; the fur remained half‑static, the small tuft of original silver‑gray fur at the tip of the Tail glaring in the dark alley like a tiny white surrender flag.

Then the corners of her mouth lifted slowly, her eyes narrowing into two crescent‑shaped smiles.

"Interesting."

"So interesting!"

Sai Fei Er said, lifting her head to glance at the dim orange sky at the alley's end, her gaze showing no fear.

To be precise, her eyes were filled with excitement.

She'd been holding it in too long; finally she found a worthy opponent to play with seriously.

"But—"

Sai Fei Er released her Tail from her arms, stood up and brushed the dust off her skirt, "Bai Hang is truly miserable. Having a friend who keeps thinking about them, even death won't bring peace; if they actually ran into this, they'd probably be frozen into an ice sculpture on the spot and locked into the Basement—no, maybe they've already been frozen several times."

She shivered, purely on Bai Hang's behalf.

At that moment, Sai Fei Er's ears caught a sound.

It wasn't a footstep.

It was the sound of ice crystals forming, like frost spreading on a night‑time window pane, crack—crack—crack, inch by inch advancing from the darkness deep within the alley.

The air temperature dropped at least five degrees within three seconds, and her breath began to turn white.

Sai Fei Er tilted her head, watching the silhouette emerging from the darkness: white hair, flowing robe, the crescent pattern on the Eye Mask.

A female ghost~~~

Jing Liu emerged from the shadows deep in the alley, moving silently; each step landed on a freshly formed thin ice layer, the ice spreading automatically before her boot heel touched the ground and shattering automatically after her boot tip left, crack—crack—crack, the sound ricocheting through the narrow alley.

She then stopped about ten steps away from Sai Fei Er.

"Stop running."

Jing Liu's voice floated lightly, "You ran the whole street. I chased the whole street, too."

She paused; the crescent pattern on the black Eye Mask glowed faintly in the darkness, "You run once, I chase once. You run a hundred times—"

"You chase a hundred times?"

Sai Fei Er supplied the latter half, her tone a careful snark, as if someone watching a horror movie couldn't help but say to the character on screen, "Don't open the door, you idiot." After saying it, she blinked, "That line sounds a bit familiar—did it come from some romance novel?"

Jing Liu was silent for a moment.

"I wrote it."

Sai Fei Er's Fox Ears on the top of her head stiffened for about 0.3 seconds.

Awkward!

Sai Fei Er opened her mouth, about to say something, a bit ruining her persona!

But after doing it twice, she forced a dry laugh from deep in her throat: "Ha—haha—your writing is quite good, really, especially infectious; after reading it I almost wanted to stop so you could catch up!"

She said this while stepping back half a step, but accidentally stepped on a loose stone slab; the slab lifted and struck the wall with a crisp "pop", "Just one question: what do you think Bai Hang would think of you in your current state?"