The ghost paid no attention to the humans approaching behind it. Curiously, it lifted the canvas even higher. Xu Sanyu caught a fleeting glimpse—
A naturally extended leg resting on the edge of the bed, slightly curled, toes gently flexed, pale and eye-catching...
Xu Sanyu's heart skipped a beat.
Even with 800 times more courage, he wouldn't dare to look any further.
In that split second, Bai Yuhuai raised his hand, pulling down his shirt sleeve slightly to reveal a strong, powerful wrist. The bracelet on his wrist began to spin rapidly, as if it might explode at any moment.
He made a grabbing motion in the air.
A blurry figure finally appeared.
From head to toe, not a single part remained transparent.
It was a man in his thirties, with half of his head missing. No, not just that. Xu Sanyu's heart trembled, and he could barely bring himself to look. But humans are strange creatures—the more afraid they are, the harder it is to look away. Instead, he found himself almost compulsively examining it in detail.
It had three heads.
The other two were those of an Old Lady and a Little Girl.
Their faces were twisted in grotesque expressions, blood dripping from their bodies.
Bai Yuhuai grabbed one of its necks and lifted it up.
"Looks a bit familiar," Jing Jiujiu murmured.
It'd better not be familiar.
This was fucking disgusting and terrifying.
Xu Sanyu nearly threw up.
But before he could, Bai Yuhuai crushed the figure in his grip.
Its neck snapped, and its body seemed unable to withstand some kind of force. With a loud bang, it exploded, flesh and blood splattering in all directions, nearly hitting them in the face. Xu Sanyu quickly closed his eyes in fear.
When he opened them again,
The canvas had fallen back down, completely covering the contents of the painting.
The surroundings were still clean, without a trace of blood or flesh, as if it had all been an illusion.
Young Master...
Oh, the Young Master was already hiding in Bai's arms.
"It's alright now," Bai Yuhuai said softly, lowering his head.
Jing Jiujiu wrinkled his nose and responded quietly, "Mm."
Xu Sanyu looked down at his lonely self.
He had nowhere to hide, even from a ghost.
We're different...
Jing Jiujiu finally emerged slowly from Bai Yuhuai's embrace and asked in a low voice, "Don't you think it looks like that strange ghost we extracted from the Daoist master last time?"
Bai Yuhuai: "Yes."
"It probably isn't one of the owners of this building, so how did it get in? Because it's powerful?" Jing Jiujiu asked again.
Bai Yuhuai: "Correct. The other entities in this building couldn't stop it, or maybe they didn't even try. They're counting on us to kill each other first."
Jing Jiujiu: ?
Jing Jiujiu: "That's quite clever."
It's not cleverness, it's knowing how to read the situation.
Just like when Bai Yuhuai went to get the canvas, all those entities retreated.
"As for why this thing wanted to come in here..." he paused before continuing, "It might be because you're here."
"Because I'm here?" Jing Jiujiu was taken aback.
"This city is a signpost..."
"And so am I," Jing Jiujiu finished.
"Mm."
Neither ghost nor human, neither deity nor mortal, with a body formed from chaos.
Jing Jiujiu had become an existence that was extremely attractive to all sorts of entities.
Xu Sanyu once again found himself unable to understand their conversation.
Meanwhile, Jing Jiujiu was still quietly talking to Bai Yuhuai: "Then next time, should we keep one of the ghosts to question?"
Bai Yuhuai: "I'll try my best."
If only the ghost hadn't started by lifting Jing Jiujiu's painting.
Xu Sanyu rubbed his cheeks until they hurt, finally feeling a sense of reality. He asked in a trembling voice, "I wonder how Director Gong and the others are doing now?"
"They're fine. They've probably seen scenes like this countless times," Bai Yuhuai said calmly. "Those on the verge of death naturally communicate with both the living and the dead."
Xu Sanyu couldn't help but curse: "Then why the fuck didn't they warn us?"
"The reason he sought you out directly through connections was probably because he heard some rumors."
"What rumors?" Xu Sanyu was confused for a moment.
"Rumors about Bai knowing a bit about the mystical arts," Jing Jiujiu added.
Xu Sanyu thought to himself, is that what you call knowing "a bit"?
Xu Sanyu: "...Otherwise I would've torn that film crew apart!"
As he spoke, he turned and headed upstairs.
The sound of people jumping to their deaths could still be heard outside.
Xu Sanyu arrived on the second floor and pushed open the door to the filming scene. Inside, dim lights were on, and actors were still moving around and rehearsing their lines in front of the camera.
Everything seemed normal.
Xu Sanyu quickly walked forward.
Almost immediately, everyone turned to look at him, their eyes fixed on what was behind him.
"Is Mr. Bai done resting?" Director Gong asked.
At this moment, the sky outside was just beginning to brighten with the first light of dawn.
Xu Sanyu slapped his hand on the sound recording equipment: "...Why isn't the sound recording on? Are you afraid of picking up unwanted noises?"
"Actually, recording like this might make it more authentic," he said coldly.
Director Gong remained silent.
However, the man behind him smiled and said, "We're just running lines, so we didn't turn it on. Mr. Xu, don't get excited... Did you see something? It's alright. That's just the residual consciousness of this place. It's not a real ghost."
Bai Yuhuai slowly stepped forward: "Director Gong, sell me this city when you die."
Director Gong laughed at this: "Sure, no problem." He showed no resentment at the mention of his impending death.
Xu Sanyu choked, unable to say anything more.
Perhaps it was because he could only be an ordinary person, unable to understand why there are people in this world who, when faced with their obsessions, treat even their own lives as insignificant...
Director Gong suddenly became energized and said, "Let's revise the script again..."
Xu Sanyu: "..." They've gone mad.
Turning to look at the scriptwriter nearby, he saw that she too had an excited expression, showing no sign of dreading the rewrites.
This film crew is sick.
Xu Sanyu sat down by himself, beginning to regret ever showing the script to Bai Yuhuai in the first place.
Jing Jiujiu sat in the corner and asked quietly, "What's that?"
He had kept his voice very low, but for some reason, everyone in the crew suddenly turned their heads to look at him.
Even Director Gong's old, cloudy eyes seemed to brighten a bit.
Jing Jiujiu usually appeared as a ghost on set, invisible to everyone except Bai Yuhuai. Until this moment.
Everyone whispered among themselves, stealing glances at him.
The young man before them was still as beautiful as ever, but compared to when they first saw him, for some reason, he now gave off an untouchable, lofty aura.
Director Gong lowered his voice and said, "That's also a character in the script."
But Jing Jiujiu found it a bit strange.
Was that an actor? No.
It was a mannequin, draped in layers of gauze, wearing a wig, sitting on a chair entwined with thorns.
Director Gong said softly, "That represents what the Celestial Master pursues in his heart, existing only in his imagination... It is a deity, the Celestial Master's longing and nostalgia for the past when demons and spirits coexisted with humans in the world."
Director Gong stared at Jing Jiujiu's appearance and suddenly paused.
He said, "If it had a form, perhaps it would look like you..."
Jing Jiujiu felt a bit uncomfortable under his gaze, so he turned his head slightly. Just then, the phone in his pocket started ringing.
Jing Jiujiu took it out and glanced at it.
Ah, it wasn't his.
So it must be Bai Yuhuai's phone ringing.
Xu Sanyu couldn't help but strike up a conversation with him: "Young Master, don't you think everyone's acting a bit weird?"
Jing Jiujiu: "Mm, a little."
"Then why does Bai still want to buy this film city? I think it would be best if we just left..."
Jing Jiujiu paused: "Because I want it?"
Xu Sanyu: "..."
Oh, that's fine then. So it's because you want it.
Xu Sanyu leaned back against the chair, feeling numb.
This old man's way of dating is really something else. While others give diamonds or property deeds, you give a large-scale haunted house, fearless of any danger for the sake of love, huh?
Jing Jiujiu: "Shh."
He answered the phone.
At this moment, the scriptwriter was discussing the new plot with Bai Yuhuai. As they talked, she turned her head and secretly glanced at Jing Jiujiu again.
Xu Sanyu couldn't help but want to say something to Jing Jiujiu, but when he turned his head, he found that Jing Jiujiu was already talking on the phone, so Xu Sanyu had to swallow his words.
"Is that little friend? Is Mr. Bai busy?" Master Tingyi's voice came from the other end of the line.
Jing Jiujiu nodded and responded, "Yes." He asked, "Have you returned to the capital? Yin Mo mentioned earlier that you had something to discuss with us?"
"That's right," Master Tingyi said. "I took a trip to Fen City. Do you know about Fen City?"
Of course, Jing Jiujiu had no idea.
Master Tingyi seemed to understand this, so without waiting for a reply, he continued, "The 'Zhuangzi' records that on Mount Miao Gushe, there lived divine beings... Thus, Gushe Mountain is called the Immortal Mountain, a place where immortals are said to dwell. In Fen City, there's a place that's believed to be Gushe Mountain. I found some things there – 'divine prophecies' left by an immortal named Zhuo Wu, carved onto bones... He detailed a process of rebuilding the nine heavens and guiding all the gods and Buddhas back to their positions after his own physical death and spiritual dissipation..."
Zhuo Wu.
It sounded familiar.
Oh.
Jing Jiujiu suddenly remembered – wasn't that the first ancestor of the Cloud Return Sect that the Old Lady had mentioned before? Bai Yuhuai's past life? The figure that even that Daoist master had to revere and worship upon hearing about.
Essentially equivalent to Bai Yuhuai.
"It's hard to explain clearly. It's best if you come back," Master Tingyi said, then paused before continuing, "The people from the Cloud Return Sect asked me to relay another message. They haven't caught Daoist Master Qu Yi's accomplice yet, but someone calling himself Lin Zhi said he's helping to search."
At this point, it seemed like someone had snatched Master Tingyi's phone.
The Old Lady's voice came through, "Master's wife." She addressed respectfully.
"The formation couldn't completely refine the evil god. We've taken photos and sent them to Master's phone. Please spare some time to return and deal with the remaining matters."
"Let me see," Jing Jiujiu said as he lowered his phone and began scrolling through WeChat and his inbox.
As he scrolled, his thoughts were in disarray.
Ah, I can help Bai Yuhuai handle affairs now.
I'm so awesome!
His scattered thoughts came to an abrupt halt when Jing Jiujiu opened a photo from his multimedia messages, with quality reminiscent of a landline phone picture.
In the photo, the castle's evil god sat solemnly.
Its face, which had never been clear before, was finally fully revealed.
Its countenance wasn't ugly; on the contrary, it was extremely handsome—
Eyes like cold stars, eyebrows as if drawn with ink, unlike any mortal.
It wore layered, wide-sleeved robes that seemed to be from ancient times, its garments billowing.
The corners of its mouth were curved up slightly, its smile arrogant and imperious.
It looked exactly like Bai Yuhuai.