Chapter 129 Xiao Hui (ETL) Part 1
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Chapter 129 A Twisted Fate, What a Twisted Fate!
Shao Yin Fan’s health was extremely poor. According to the doctor’s diagnosis, all his health indicators were like those of a person in their fifties or sixties, and of an ill body. The cause of all this was that female ghost.
Ignoring Shao Yin Fan’s objections, his parents got a wheelchair and insisted on taking him to find Xiao Hui. They believed that if they didn’t drive the female ghost away, he would die.
Gu Ye and Xie Cheng didn’t say much, simply following behind the family of three. If the family said they didn’t need their help, they would leave immediately. If they wanted to help, they would; it was the rule to finish the job after accepting the money.
Upon arriving at the residential complex, Gu Ye and Xie Cheng’s expressions changed drastically; they sensed a murderous qi. Recognizing the source of the qi, the two quickly ran forward. When they reached Shao Yin Fan’s building, they saw a girl sitting on the ground, staring ahead with a terrified expression.
Xie Cheng ran over and asked, “What’s wrong? Did you see something abnormal?”
“No, yes! My best friend suddenly went crazy and ran away! No, she didn’t run away on her own!” The girl was frantic and incoherent, almost crying. “It seemed like someone was pulling her along! Anyway, it was a really eerie way of running away!”
Gu Ye sensed the ghostly aura and immediately said, “She hasn’t gone far, chase after her!”
Xie Cheng quickly followed. At this moment, Shao Yin Fan and his family of three were also caught up in a wheelchair. Seeing them chasing, Shao Yin Fan stood up anxiously, grabbing Gu Ye and Xie Cheng one in each hand, “Don’t go! You can’t hurt her!”
Xie Cheng said impatiently, “Are you blind or deaf? She kidnapped an innocent person!”
“Xiao Hui wouldn’t hurt her. She’s kind-hearted and wouldn’t kill anyone. You don’t understand her at all!”
Gu Ye’s expression turned cold. “I can already sense the murderous qi.”
Xie Cheng was also anxious. “Let go of us quickly, otherwise innocent people might have already died in the meantime.”
Shao Yin Fan held on tightly, refusing to let go. “No! She won’t kill anyone!”
The two impatiently shook off the man’s hands. Shao Yin Fan tried to grab again but failed, shouting angrily, “If you dare hurt her, I’ll kill you both!”
Seeing this, Mother Shao’s heart pounded with anger. Clutching her chest, she cried out anxiously, “Son, are you crazy?! Are you crazy?! They’re here to save you!”
With a grim face, Shao Yin Fan chased after Gu Ye and Xie Cheng. But he was weak and unsteady on his feet. As he walked, he replied, “I don’t need their help!”
Mother Shao burst into tears, “How could you become like this? All that education you received has been wasted!” Father Shao raised his hand in anger, but seeing his son’s current state, he couldn’t bring himself to hit him. He said angrily, “If that master doesn’t save you, you’ll die, do you understand?”
Shao Yin Fan declared defiantly, “So what if I die? I’ll die anyway if Xiao Hui’s gone!”
Father Shao’s face flushed with anger. “How could you be so selfish! What will your mother and I do if you die? What will happen to your loving grandmother? We raised you all these years just for white-haired burying the black-haired1?”
Shao Yin Fan didn’t care at all. He tripped and fell, but immediately got up. He continued chasing after Gu Ye while stumbling along. His parents were angry, but they couldn’t ignore him, so they could only follow behind.
Gu Ye and Xie Cheng gave chase to the underground parking garage of the opposite apartment complex, where they saw a girl shrouded in a ghostly aura hiding. Gu Ye said coldly, “You can’t hide. No matter where you hide, you can’t hide away this ghostly aura. Just come out obediently from that girl’s body.”
Seeing she couldn’t escape, Xiao Hui emerged from behind a pillar, her voice chillingly menacing, “Why are you forcing me? I just want to be with him, I just want to meet his parents like a normal person.”
Gu Ye coldly replied, “You can’t. You’re not human. You’ll kill him.”
“No, I won’t hurt him!”
Xie Cheng persuaded, “Being with him IS hurting him. Don’t you know what his body has become? Is he even living now?”
Gu Ye said, “His yin energy is so heavy that he doesn’t feel like a living person. He could die at any moment. Even if we were to remove the yin energy, he’ll be very sick for at least half a year.”
“No! It wasn’t me!” Xiao Hui shook her head, unable to believe what they were saying. “I wouldn’t do anything. Is it wrong to like him?”
Gu Ye helplessly took off his mask. Feeling hot from running, he fanned himself with his hands. “Yes, love is not wrong, but capturing innocent people is wrong. Get out of her body right now. What do you want? Let’s talk.”
Upon seeing Gu Ye’s face, Xiao Hui’s eyes darkened, and she said. “I’ll let her go, but I want your face!”
Gu Ye’s breath hitched, then he gave an angry laugh, “Thank you for thinking so highly of me. Come and take it then!”
Xie Cheng noticed Gu Ye’s change of attitude, quickly tried to calm him down, “Dude, calm down! She’s holding a hostage!”
But Gu Ye simply walked forward coldly. “A hostage is nothing, she’s not my mother anyway. Come on, go ahead and kill her, let’s see how you do it.”
Seeing Gu Ye approach, Xiao Hui, unsure of his abilities, cautiously backed away. Just as her attention was focused on Gu Ye, a whip lashed out from her side, wrapping around her and binding her arm and body together.
Taking advantage of this moment, Gu Ye rushed forward and grabbed Xiao Hui’s head. With a pulling motion, he forcefully pulled her soul out. Immediately afterward, with a flick of his vermilion brush, a red thread wrapped in golden light bound Xiao Hui’s soul, controlling her.
Xie Cheng quickly checked on the innocent girl. “She’s alright, she just fainted.”
Gu Ye nodded. That’s good news.
Xie Cheng helped the girl to the side. Looking at Xiao Hui again, he saw that her face was cracked. Her complexion was bluish-purple, and she looked like a real ghost, but she really did resemble Gao Yingjing.
Xie Cheng asked in surprise, “Who exactly are you?”
Xiao Hui looked at the two young men and struggled a little, but the more she struggled, the tighter the rope became. The rope contained a power that restrained her; even a touch caused excruciating pain to her very soul. This made her dare not struggle any longer, and she answered cautiously, “My name is Xiao Hui.”
Hearing that, Xie Cheng was speechless. “Xiao Hui is a character from a movie. How did you come to life from that? Where did you come from?”
Xiao Hui honestly replied, “I don’t know. I’ve been wandering the human world since I had memories. It has been over 20 years, and my power is gradually weakening. Until one day, my power suddenly increased. So I followed the aura that gave me that power, finding Yin Fan by the roadside.”
Gu Ye asked in confusion, “By the roadside?”
Xiao Hui’s voice softened, “He burned paper money and clothes for me, treating me like a normal person, worshipping me.”
At this point, Gu Ye and Xie Cheng’s expressions changed. They started to understand why Xiao Hui had appeared.
If a non-existing person is believed to exist by many, this belief will create a strange magnetic field. The longer this belief lasts, the stronger it becomes, and the more likely it is to actually come true.
Gu Ye once solved a case like this: a mother whose child had died. She was usually in good spirits, but she firmly believed her child was alive. She cooked for her child 3 meals a day, always adding an extra pair of chopsticks for him during meals, buying him clothes, arranging a bed for him, and telling him stories at night.
10 years later, that child truly appeared, looking exactly like the woman’s deceased child. However, this wasn’t her original child, but rather a filthy entity accumulated in the world. Corrupted by her willpower, it transformed into her son’s likeness. In the end, except for the woman, her entire family was killed by that child, and Gu Ye destroyed it. This Xiao Hui is very likely formed by absorbing the willpower of everyone.
The film she came from was incredibly popular back then. There weren’t many ghost films at the time, so this film can be considered a pioneer in the ghost film genre. Back then, people had limited access to information, so it was understandable that they sympathized with Xiao Hui in the film and treated her as a real person. This ‘Xiao Hui’, having absorbed the power of belief at that time, became Xiao Hui.
Unfortunately, as time progressed, the film was quickly forgotten. Just as it was about to fade away, Shao Yin Fan appeared. Shao Yin Fan treated her as a real person, even burning paper money for her. The more people believed in her existence, the stronger her power became.
Xiao Hui pleaded pitifully, “Yin Fan likes me. He said he would protect me. He didn’t lie to me, and I didn’t hurt him. Please let me go, please let us go!”
Xie Cheng’s lips twitched. “How did things get to this point? Why do I feel like I’m the villain?”
On the other hand, Gu Ye was uninterested in his banter. He saw the skin on the ground and bent down to pick it up. After rubbing it with his thumb and index finger, he said with a grim face, “Where did you get this human skin?”
Xie Cheng also picked it up and examined it. “Holy crap, human skin! Your cosmetic procedures must have been incredibly expensive.”
Xiao Hui said nervously, “I didn’t hurt anyone!”
“Then where did this human skin come from?”
Xiao Hui explained, “Someone gave it to me! I really didn’t hurt anyone!”
“Who gave it to you?”
“I can’t say.”
Gu Ye threw the human skin away, scoffing, “If you don’t tell me, you’ll die. I don’t have time to waste with you.”
Xiao Hui, sensing Gu Ye’s bad temper, asked Xie Cheng, “Will you let me go if I tell you?”
Xie Cheng thought for a moment, “Say it and I’d let you live until you see him one more time; otherwise, you’ll die now.”
Xiao Hui said desperately, “An old lady taught me. She could sew human skin, and she knows how to sew lanterns made of human skin. She collected human skin and asked me to cut off human skin to sell to her. But I didn’t do it! I didn’t do anything wrong!”
Gu Ye frowned, “Where is that old lady?”
“It’s in that alley, called Old Locust Tree Alley. I don’t know if she’s still there; it’s been many years.”
Upon hearing this alley, both Gu Ye and Xie Cheng frowned, “Isn’t that the ghost market?”
Gu Ye asked doubtfully, “Is the ghost market this chaotic now?”
Xie Cheng asked softly, “Have you ever been there?”
Gu Ye smiled, “No.”
But he had been there in his past life. When he was a child, his master said he would take him to broaden his horizons, specifically during the Qingming Festival and the fifteenth of the lunar month. That feeling was incredibly exhilarating.
Xie Cheng said regretfully, “My master never took me there. He said I didn’t need to learn so much.”
Gu Ye nodded, “Your master still loves you and can’t bear to part with you.”
“Is it scary?”
“I heard the first half of the night is okay, but the second half is terrifying.”
Xie Cheng was stunned. Even Gu Ye said it was terrifying? What must it be like there?
Seeing their expressions soften, Xiao Hui quickly pleaded, “I’ve told you everything, please let me go!”
Xie Cheng clicked his tongue. “So, you kidnapped this woman just to get her skin to give yourself a face?”
Xiao Hui cried desperately, “I just want to be with him, I really do! I have no other choice!”
Gu Ye sighed. “Even for love, you can’t hurt others.”
Xiao Hui shook her head, crying, “You don’t understand. I’ve only met someone who loves me after all these years. I don’t want to give up.”
Gu Ye crouched down, looking at Xiao Hui. “But your love will kill him. Do you want that? He has a family. His parents only have one son. If he dies, their hearts will die too. Have you thought about that? His life has just begun, and you’re going to let it end like this? The living and the dead walk a different path, girl. You two don’t have that red thread of fate between you.”
Xiao Hui listened quietly as Gu Ye finished speaking. The sinister aura on her ghostly face grew heavier and heavier. After hesitating for a moment, her expression suddenly turned cold, and she said viciously, “I’ll make him die with me. I don’t care about anything else.”
Gu Ye Ye sighed. Fine, there was no point in negotiating; he’d have to send her away by force.
Just then, Shao Yin Fan finally staggered over. Seeing Xiao Hui sitting on the ground, he shouted, “Don’t touch her!”
Hearing this shout, Xiao Hui froze. The malevolent energy emanating from her was growing stronger, almost driving her to madness. She was nearly corrupted by darkness, but the shout pulled her back to her senses. Her first reaction was to hide her face. “Don’t look at me! Don’t look at me! Don’t look at me!”
Now that Xiao Hui’s ghostly energy was locked, she could no longer conjure illusions to deceive Shao Yin Fan. Her bluish-purple ghostly face was impossible to hide. Shao Yin Fan was startled upon arrival and froze on the spot.
Xiao Hui noticed his reaction and immediately broke down in tears, “I didn’t want this to happen, I didn’t want it to!”
Shao Yin Fan walked over and asked fiercely, “What did you guys do to her?”
Gu Ye calmly replied, “We didn’t do anything. She’s always looked like this.”
“Impossible! No! It must be you guys, right? What did you do to her? How could she be so… scary?!”
Hearing that, Xiao Hui froze. She gave a bitter smile and slowly turned her head back. “Yin Fan, you also think I’m ugly like this, don’t you?”
Shao Yin Fan stood there, his face grim. Seeing Xiao Hui’s ghostly expression, he simply didn’t have the courage to approach her.
Xiao Hui said bitterly, “You used to say that no matter what I became, you would still love me, and you would never lie to me.” Even though she knew she wasn’t pretty, she still longed to hear her beloved say, “I don’t care.” Even if it was a lie, she just wanted a word of comfort. But judging from Shao Yin Fan’s behavior now, it was just wishful thinking on her part.
Faced with Shao Yin Fan’s silence, Xiao Hui’s resentment grew stronger. She clenched her fists tightly, ignoring the harm the red thread was causing her, and struggled fiercely. With a piercing scream, Xiao Hui finally broke free of the thread and grabbed Shao Yin Fan by the neck.
Seeing this, Xie Cheng’s expression turned cold. He was about to act when Gu Ye grabbed him. Gu Ye simply shook his head almost imperceptibly, silently watching the couple.
Xiao Hui’s gaze was icy, her eyes filled with tears; she was already a sobbing mess. “Seeing me like this, do you still want to die with me?”
Shao Yin Fan couldn’t speak, his eyes slightly darting away.
Raw word count: 7173 (whole chapter)
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