Chapter 398: Shadow of the Qionglong Stone: Reverse Psychology

The three of us exchanged glances, then looked up at the skylight again, too stunned to speak. I frowned, trying to figure out what was going on, and for a split second I thought I understood, but then I didn't. I cursed, "Holy shit, this is creepy!"

Looking at Huo Xiuxiu, she was real and present, definitely not an illusion, and I knew something was seriously wrong. Poker-face stood up in one motion, leaped onto the table, flipped himself up to the beam, and went out through the skylight.

Fatty and I stood up too, knowing we couldn't match that, so we just watched helplessly from below. Huo Xiuxiu came over, looked up at the skylight, and asked, "Was there a rat?"

Without knowing why, we both stepped back involuntarily. She stared at us in surprise, a bit bewildered. The people who came in with her didn't know what was happening either, looking up at the skylight with amusement as they put down their things.

We heard Poker-face walking on the roof, and soon he came back down through the skylight, dropping into the room. I asked him what was going on, and he shook his head. "The person is gone."

Fatty exploded, grabbing his hair. "Damn it, no way! What kind of crap is this? Did God hit rewind?"

I had calmed down and suddenly realized a possibility. I looked at Huo Xiuxiu and said, "Little girl, are you messing with us? That's not funny."

"What are you talking about?" Huo Xiuxiu frowned. "I came to bring you bedding out of kindness, and you put on a show for me?"

"Didn't you come here just now? Then you suddenly said your grandmother was here, climbed out the skylight, went downstairs, met up with these outside helpers, and came back pretending you just arrived. If that's not messing with us, what is?" I said.

Huo Xiuxiu's mouth dropped open. "What the hell? I came here?"

I thought for sure that was it, she was really playing it well. I was about to snap at her, but Poker-face tugged my arm and said quietly, "It's not her."

"What?" I turned around, and he said, "There's no way she could have climbed down from the skylight, gotten to the ground, and not even be out of breath." He reached behind Huo Xiuxiu's ear and touched it. "Her body temperature hasn't risen either."

Poker-face's judgment was usually correct, so how to explain this? I didn't know how to react. Huo Xiuxiu asked what had happened, so Fatty told her the whole story.

When he finished, Huo Xiuxiu didn't believe it at all. Fatty insisted and pointed out the things the previous "Huo Xiuxiu" had brought, and only then did she gradually accept it.

The atmosphere in the room became extremely eerie. Afraid of being discovered, we hadn't lit any lights, and now the moon was hidden too, making everything feel incredibly gloomy—I'd never felt it like this before.

One of the young men who came with her muttered, "Could it be a fox spirit?"

"Fox spirit?"

"There's a story from my hometown. A family got married and went into the mountains to pick up the bride. After a long mountain drive they finally brought her out. The bride got out of the car and took a few steps, but suddenly everyone screamed. The groom turned around and saw another bride get out of the car. The two brides were identical, even the wedding dresses were exactly the same. Everyone was stunned, no one knew what to do. They called the police, and the police didn't know either. Then an old man said one of them wasn't human, and the only way to tell was to use a stun gun. If you shock a person with a stun gun, they'll fall, but if it's not human, nothing happens. So the police officer picked up the stun gun, and just then one of the brides ran away like a flash, faster than any human could run. The old man later said it might have been a fox spirit."

I got goosebumps listening to him. How could that be? He painted a vivid picture. Fatty looked at Huo Xiuxiu and asked us, "So who's got a stun gun?" "How dare you!" Huo Xiuxiu glared at Fatty.

I shook my head. That was definitely nonsense. I told them to cut it out, took a breath, and said, "Never mind the mood just now, but that 'person's' manner of speaking—it definitely wasn't a demon. I think demons wouldn't be this boring. That person was human. Damn it, we've been set up."

Looking at the current Huo Xiuxiu, I started to notice that although the girl earlier was very similar to Huo Xiuxiu, there were differences in certain expressions. "That person must have been wearing a disguise to pump us for information."

"Damn, can a disguise be that accurate?" Fatty didn't believe it.

"If it's someone you know well, definitely not. Perfect disguises are fictional. But we don't know Xiuxiu well, and we've been tense the whole way. Our attention wasn't on her, so as long as the person looked roughly similar, they could get by," I said. That was the flaw of disguise that Third Uncle had told me about.

Poker-face nodded in agreement. Fatty looked over Xiuxiu and said, "Yeah, I just noticed that the one earlier had a slightly fuller chest than this one. Who was that girl? Why would she do this?" He glanced at Xiuxiu. "Only the Huo family knows we're here? Is there any chance of a leak on your side?"

Fatty was always suspicious, so Xiuxiu was a bit annoyed, but she showed rare restraint and immediately made a phone call, apparently to ask her grandmother. After a few words on the phone, she asked us, "When you left Xinyue, did you take anything from anyone?"

Fatty was about to shake his head, but he froze mid-motion, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card—the one Pink Shirt had handed him. He looked at it, then one of the young men behind Huo Xiuxiu took it, sniffed it, and frowned. "This might be it."

Huo Xiuxiu took it and sniffed it. "You guys were way too careless, taking things from strangers in that kind of setting. This card has a special scent. If someone has a trained dog, they could track you anywhere. As soon as our car came out, he would have known you were in it and followed us all the way here."

"Was it that guy?" I thought of Pink Shirt, feeling something was off. I paced a few times, wondering if that girl was sent by him. Why would he be interested in our past? Was he in on this too? But that girl's behavior was hard to explain. The things she talked about made perfect sense. If she was just trying to get information out of us, she knew way too much. Even the best novelist couldn't fabricate such a coherent story in such a short time. Her actions seemed completely unnecessary.

No, something was wrong. Either there was a very complicated reason behind it all, but we had just stirred up a huge mess not long ago—how could someone have planned this so quickly?

Or maybe the Huo family and other powerful families in Beijing were already locked in some complex struggle, and we just walked right into it, getting our backgrounds checked. But the conversation with that girl was all about the Old Nine Gates and our affairs. If it was their internal strife, why bring that up? I was completely baffled. I clucked my tongue, and Huo Xiuxiu said, "Forget it. Since it's already happened, let's move to a new place immediately. Grab your things and follow me."

I sighed. Sharing a living space was so unstable—what was the point? I was about to follow, but Fatty and Poker-face didn't move. I froze and stayed put too.

Xiuxiu asked, "What now?"

Fatty said, "Stop pretending. I may not recognize faces, but I never forget a woman's figure. Who are you really?"