Free Web NovelChapter 116: Chapter 114: Transformation of the Drama Robe (Happy New Year)_3
Seeing the girl’s determination, Yang Xiao had no choice but to obediently stuff the towel into his pocket. Fortunately, the clothes he wore today were quite loose, which allowed him to move his hands conveniently.
After giving Yang Xiao ample time to prepare, Zhu Yina suddenly rushed toward him, raising her hand to deliver a right hook. Yang Xiao subconsciously raised his arm to block, but to his surprise, Zhu Yina switched from a fist to a palm midway and, while striking his arm, grabbed his wrist. Then, thrusting her body forward, she slammed her shoulder into Yang Xiao’s chest. Taking advantage of his unsteady stance, she swiftly turned and executed a shoulder throw.
Yang Xiao was thrown into disarray by the sudden move, and then he felt something wrapping around his back, one hand controlled, with a sense of pressure on his neck. He struggled to get up, but Zhu Yina’s long legs tightly wound around him like an octopus clinging to his body. As the pressure on his neck continuously increased, Yang Xiao’s consciousness became more and more blurred.
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Having pinned Yang Xiao down with her ground technique, Zhu Yina inwardly sighed. Although his fighting skills were lacking, his willpower was incredibly stubborn. Normally, anyone trapped in such a hold would have waved the towel in surrender long ago, but Yang Xiao was still desperately struggling. His only free left hand kept fiercely trying to reach the ground, as if to leverage himself up.
"He truly is captain material, with remarkable resilience," Zhu Yina finally relaxed her grip, unable to help but praise him, "Captain Yang, you are really tenacious."
But the moment Zhu Yina stood up, she was flabbergasted. Yang Xiao lay almost motionless on the ground, spasming occasionally, his eyes rolled back.
"Captain Yang! Captain Yang, please wake up!"
To Zhu Yina’s horror, the white towel had fallen beside Yang Xiao’s left leg, less than 10 centimeters from his desperately outstretched left hand.
Zhu Yina suddenly understood; he wasn’t being tenacious—he had intended to surrender from the beginning, but unfortunately, the towel fell out of reach, and he had been unable to grasp it.
When Yang Xiao regained consciousness from the blackout, the first thing he saw was the pristine white ceiling above. He was lying in a hospital room, an IV drip still attached to him.
"The captain’s awake!"
The sound of Xi Menxiu’s voice rang out, followed by a crowd swarming around—Beibei, Da Xiong, Yu Shu, everyone was there except for Zhuge Zhijie.
Yang Xiao’s head was still a bit foggy, and he saw double visions, "What... what happened to me?"
"Captain, you were choked unconscious by Zhu Yina, but it’s all right, the chief personally avenged you. I heard he scolded Zhu Yina for half an hour until she cried," Beibei, who loved to watch drama unfold, babbled on to Yang Xiao.
"Right, Ms. Wen came by just now and said that the chief wants you to go see him as soon as you wake up, there might be an emergency," Beibei reminded.
After resting for a moment and holding his IV drip, Yang Xiao went to the chief’s office; after all, Zhu Yina’s mistake was unintentional, and he intended to help her clear the air.
As soon as he entered, he saw the chief sitting on the sofa, smoking a cigarette, with the office enveloped in thick smoke.
"Chief, I’m all right now, you don’t need to..."
Yang Xiao hadn’t finished speaking when he saw Nalan Shuo lift his head, his expression looking somewhat grim, and he asked, "Did you really restrain that ghost child with the lantern?" freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
Yang Xiao paused for a second, then carefully replied, "I should have... yes, chief, did something happen?"
Nalan Shuo slowly stood up and walked over to his desk to pick up a document, which he handed to Yang Xiao, "Two hours ago, a message came from the provincial office. The technical team has searched the entire building and has not found the Resentful Eye that triggered the paranormal event. The instruments haven’t detected any suspicious signals either. At first, they thought the detectors were malfunctioning, but after changing three groups of people, the search results were all the same. The Green Lantern... has disappeared."
"Disappeared?" Yang Xiao felt a sudden thud in his heart.
"We don’t know what this means, and the technical team can’t make sense of it either, but they’ve proposed a hypothesis," Nalan Shuo said somberly, "that Ghost Lantern might still exist in a way we can’t understand, following one of the survivors."
Yang Xiao spent the entire afternoon in a tense atmosphere. Today, Beibei and Da Xiong were also asked to stay behind, and the three of them would spend the night in the office. Ms. Wen had already arranged for the necessary folding beds, bedding, and toiletries to be delivered in advance.
Beibei and Da Xiong had a rough understanding of what was going on. For safety’s sake, the three of them slept in the main office. Yang Xiao’s backpack, which contained the life-saving Nether Garment, was placed beside his bed.
Not long ago, he had taken out the Nether Garment to inspect it and noticed that a piece of square-holed paper money was missing from it. Yang Xiao remembered clearly that it was the piece he had removed.
The removed paper money had disappeared, and Yang Xiao had a rough guess. Each piece of paper money could summon a funeral procession once. He counted and found that there were more than 30 pieces of paper money of various sizes stitched onto the Nether Garment, meaning that if used correctly, it could handle more than 30 ghosts.
The reason it was "more than 30" rather than a specific number like 33 or 35 was that Yang Xiao couldn’t count them clearly. There was something odd about the Nether Garment; he had counted three times, and each time the number came out differently. If he continued to count, he was afraid he might summon a ghost.
The night deepened, and the three of them lay in their beds, not daring to sleep, only chatting intermittently. One moment, Da Xiong was comforting the others, but suddenly he fell silent. Yang Xiao turned his head and saw that Da Xiong had closed his eyes and, with his hand resting on the bed’s edge, had fallen asleep.
Yang Xiao immediately turned to look at Beibei, and she had also fallen asleep. He realized something was wrong and was just about to get up when suddenly, a wave of intense dizziness hit him, and he too collapsed.
In the next second, he woke up abruptly on the bed. The lights in the office were out, shrouded in an eerie pale light, and the two beds beside him were empty. Beibei and Da Xiong were nowhere to be seen.
Uncontrollably, he stood up and walked towards the door, leaving the office. As he opened the door, the corridor was foggy, filled with a deathly pale mist.
Suddenly, the mist seemed to be stirred by some force, and a group of people in mourning garb burst forth from the depths of the fog—the funeral procession again, carrying behind them the Big Red Blood Coffin.
But this time, Yang Xiao saw that same ghost child among the procession, her terrifying little face raised, hopping along next to the Big Red Blood Coffin, holding that dismal green Paper Lantern in her hand.
Yang Xiao’s body shivered, and he awoke once more, but this time, Da Xiong and Beibei were right by his side, "Captain, what’s wrong?"
Yang Xiao was sweating profusely from his forehead, "I... what just happened to me?"
"You fell asleep. We were talking, and suddenly you stopped responding," said Da Xiong, his eyes full of concern as he looked at Yang Xiao.
Yang Xiao threw off the bedding, relieved that he wasn’t wearing the Nether Garment. He grabbed the backpack beside the bed and pulled out the Nether Garment.
"Phew—"
The Nether Garment was still there, unchanged, and the missing piece of paper money hadn’t returned. But as Yang Xiao was about to stuff the Nether Garment back into the backpack, he suddenly noticed a small lantern stitched onto the hem on the Drama Robe’s side.
The lantern was small, a sickly green, and like the paper money, it was embroidered onto the fabric.
