Free Web NovelChapter 63: Chapter 63: Fierce Ghosts Prohibited
The black-and-white television, which had clearly been turned off, had somehow turned itself back on.
"Please do not... arbitrarily... turn off the television..."
Standing at the door, Zhao Zhenjia, who was controlling the Wind Attendant Buddha inside the room, began to hesitate. He didn’t know whether he should just smash the TV to bits with one punch.
He preferred a more direct approach—just get it done and over with.
Xia Ta, on the other hand, had a different personality. She calmly analyzed the situation:
"Whether the mummified corpse on the sofa is a ghost is yet to be determined. But the hosts on the TV can communicate with reality, so they can be confirmed as ghosts.
"The only question now is, turning off the TV was very likely an act that triggers their kill condition. Why haven’t they attacked yet?
"Or could it be that the true master of Room 413 is somewhere else?"
Zhao Zhenjia asked:
"Should I just attack the TV directly and see what happens after I break it?"
At the same time, the Wind Attendant Buddha, standing beside the television inside the room, also clenched its fist, ready to strike and demolish the annoying piece of junk at any moment.
Xia Ta said:
"Don’t touch the TV for now. Have the Wind Attendant Buddha go and check the other rooms.
"Gao Tian said he often hears the sound of marbles and a little girl’s voice from upstairs. The room directly above him is this unit’s bedroom. You might be able to find that little girl in there.
"Our mission is to find the cause of the supernatural subsidence. Compared to that, everything else can wait."
Gao Tian recalled the little girl often saying her mom hit her, and that her parents were frequently not home.
’They’re always home now, aren’t they? Except they’ve turned into mummies.’
The Wind Attendant Buddha immediately turned, pushed open the ajar bedroom door, and its burly figure vanished into the darkness.
After a long moment, there was still no sound from the bedroom. Standing in the hallway, Gao Tian couldn’t see what was happening inside. He even began to suspect that Zhao Zhenjia’s puppet had been ambushed by the little girl in the bedroom and had already dissipated.
After a while, the Wind Attendant Buddha finally emerged, holding a handful of colorful toy marbles.
Zhao Zhenjia also reported what he had seen in the darkness:
"I searched the room. The floor is covered in these marbles. You weren’t imagining things, Gao Tian.
"But I checked the bedsheets, under the bed, and in the closet. There’s no trace of this so-called little girl."
Afterward, the Wind Attendant Buddha explored every other room and corner of 413, but it still couldn’t find any sign of the girl Gao Tian had mentioned.
It was strange. If a person was really hiding here, there were only so many places to look. How could they not be found?
Could the little girl have run out of the room before the team arrived?
The Wind Attendant Buddha’s search was fruitless. It returned to its position in front of the television.
"Go ahead and attack it."
Xia Ta gave the order.
Without hesitation, the Wind Attendant Buddha smashed a heavy fist into the screen.
The old-fashioned television was already rickety. The punch made a bunch of its internal parts rattle, and the screen instantly filled with black and white static.
The two hosts on the screen, their dark eye sockets staring silently ahead, let out a sound like dry heaving:
"Please do not... retch... attack... the television...
"The next... retch... news is... television... damaged..."
The Wind Attendant Buddha, expressionless, smashed a second fist into the screen.
The fluorescent screen began to crack, with fissures spreading outward like a spiderweb.
A third punch, a fourth, a fifth. Like a furious storm, fist after fist rained down on the old television’s screen.
The pitiful old relic’s glass panel soon reached its limit and shattered with a CRASH. At the same time, the body of the TV began to sizzle with electrical noise as its internal circuits fried completely.
Now it was completely destroyed.
The two hosts on the screen let out a beast-like wail and vanished together.
The strange thing was, despite the Wind Attendant Buddha’s rampant destruction in Room 413, no vengeful spirits appeared.
’Could this place really be just an empty shell, the scene of a past murder with no ghost actually living here?’
Just then, the Wind Attendant Buddha suddenly collapsed. Countless streams of air scattered from its massive body, and the giant instantly dissolved into a swirl of air on the floor.
The Wind Attendant Buddha’s time was up.
The investigation came to a temporary halt.
Zhao Zhenjia sounded a little anxious:
"Wait a minute. In about five more minutes, I can whip up another puppet."
Xia Ta said:
"No, we can’t wait five minutes.
"Every minute we spend in the fourth-floor hallway is another minute of danger. Besides, your puppet couldn’t find any clues."
Zhao Zhenjia retorted:
"Do you have a better idea, then?"
In a flat tone, Xia Ta proposed the most radical course of action:
"There are two possibilities.
"One, the ghost in this room has already left and is deliberately wasting our time. We’ve been fighting with thin air for ages.
"Two, the ghost’s kill condition can only be triggered by a real person. A puppet like the Wind Attendant Buddha can’t trigger it."
For the second possibility, she crisply offered her solution:
"The rest of you will stay at the door and provide support. Jiang Yang and I will go in. We’ll use ourselves as bait to lure out the master of this room.
"Your job is to watch closely and see how it kills."
Jiang Yang had no objections. He and Xia Ta had worked together many times.
He shrugged his shoulders and warmed up, getting ready to enter the room.
Zhao Zhenjia immediately objected:
"No, that’s too risky.
"What if you go in and die?"
Xia Ta said:
"I have a special Supernatural Artifact. If I’m attacked, I will activate it immediately.
"This Supernatural Artifact is a warning sign, codenamed ’No Vengeful Spirits Allowed.’ As long as I hold up the sign, for eight seconds, all vengeful spirits within a five-meter radius of me must obey four rules.
"1. You must not kill humans.
"2. You must not harm humans.
"3. You must not have any physical contact with humans.
"4. You must not subject humans to mental manipulation.
"Eight seconds is enough time for Jiang Yang and me to retreat from the room safely and lure out the ghost on the fourth floor."
Gao Tian was a bit stunned.
’Did Xia Ta write those four rules herself?’
This Supernatural Artifact, from start to finish, only stipulated what ghosts couldn’t do. It never said anything about what the living couldn’t do.
In other words, during those eight seconds, Xia Ta’s and the others’ Supernatural Artifacts would still be effective. They could freely attack, imprison, restrain, and contain the vengeful spirit, and the ghost wouldn’t be able to fight back at all. It would have to just take the beating.
The most insane part was that the warning sign’s effective range was quite large. Anyone standing near Xia Ta would receive the same protection.
All he could say was, she was truly the backbone of this generation of residents. No wonder Xia Ta had the confidence to walk straight into a haunted room.
Zhao Zhenjia still felt it was a bad idea:
"Even though you..."
The words reached his lips, but he held his tongue.
When dealing with supernatural incidents, how could there be no risks involved?
If you weren’t willing to take even the slightest risk, you might as well have stayed downstairs. Why bother following everyone to explore this murderous, ghost-infested place?
Lan Chu laughed and clapped Xia Ta on the shoulder:
"Sister Ta, why wouldn’t you invite me along for something so dangerous?
"Anyway, your ’No Vengeful Spirits Allowed’ has such a wide range, one more person won’t make a difference. And if we run into any trouble in 413, a peerless master like me can even protect you.
"This sickly little boy Jiang Yang, his arms are as thin as bamboo sticks. If something really happened, wouldn’t he just piss his pants on the spot?"
Unexpectedly, this lunatic Lan Chu had suddenly taken an interest in Room 413. She pestered Xia Ta, insisting on going in to have a look. freewebnσvel.cøm
Zhao Zhenjia frowned, clearly about to tell Lan Chu to shut up. That woman’s brain wasn’t wired right; who knew what she might trigger if she went inside.
Unexpectedly, Xia Ta just said coolly:
"You want to go in? Fine, no problem.
"But you have to stay close to me, within five meters. Otherwise, if something happens, ’No Vengeful Spirits Allowed’ won’t be able to save you.
"Likewise, staying by my side isn’t one hundred percent safe either—nothing is one hundred percent safe in a supernatural incident. If something does happen, you’ll have brought it on yourself."
As it happened, her goal was to lure out the filthy thing inside the room anyway. Bringing along a troublemaker like Lan Chu might not be a bad idea.
Letting her touch this and poke that might even lead to an unexpected discovery. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
Lan Chu gave a carefree laugh.
"Hahaha, don’t worry, of course I’ll listen to you completely."
Since Xia Ta had spoken, Zhao Zhenjia, standing to the side, couldn’t say anything more.
The burly man stood guard at the door of 413 with Gao Tian, ready to provide backup for those entering the room.
Xia Ta lifted the heavy skirts of her Lolita dress and was the first to step into the dust-laden room.
A faint stench of decay, not too strong, entered her nostrils. The two mummified corpses seemed to have been dead for a long time.
After Xia Ta stepped inside, nothing in the room changed. It was the same as before.
Jiang Yang and Lan Chu followed her in.
Xia Ta first walked over to the mummified corpse on the sofa, reached out, lifted the female corpse’s chin, and pried open its mouth to check if anything was hidden inside.
Finding no clues, she then inspected the wine bottle in the male corpse’s hand, pulled open his collar, and glanced at the state of the body’s decomposition.
Even after being manhandled like this, the two corpses remained completely still.
It seemed they were truly dead and at peace.
