Nightmare Apostle

Chapter 568: Chapter 494: The Butcher

Back at the Nie Family Teahouse, he gagged the man’s mouth, threw him into the Mirror World, and, not trusting the Silver Box with the kitchen knife, he placed it on the table.

Apart from the clothes for Daoist Qingfeng, he still had a waist drum and the ivory-handled dagger from Hao Laojiu in his possession.

The waist drum, a gift from the City God Master, could summon a City God who grew stronger with each beat of the drum. As long as one’s spiritual power was sufficient, one could exhaust the enemy to death, but the flaw was obvious—the moment the drum ceased, the City God would turn and strike down its summoner.

The effect of Hao Laojiu’s ivory-handled dagger was unknown, but Yang Xiao had little interest in the Magic Artifacts wielded by the Yuan Generation Angel Envoys.

After pulling the curtains tight and locking the door, Yang Xiao opened the Silver Box with the care as if it were a treasure and examined the rust-flecked kitchen knife from every angle. No matter how he looked, it didn’t seem to have the bearing of a Ghost Level Magic Artifact he had in mind. If he tossed such a thing into a vegetable market, no one would even pick it up.

He sniffed closely, the bloody scent on the knife was pungent, but if he moved slightly farther away, he couldn’t smell it at all.

Turning the Silver Box upside down, he found no instruction manual or user’s guide. Considering the high price paid for this kitchen knife, the Head of the Wounded Door must know its value, but given the current relationship with him, it was certain that he would not tell Yang Xiao.

Yang Xiao planned to explore it himself first, and if that failed, he would use the young man as a bargaining chip to negotiate with the other party.

"Buzz—"

The phone on the table vibrated once. Picking it up to check, it was a message from Beibei, informing him to return to the Provincial Office tomorrow afternoon. Someone from the Provincial Office was coming to conduct a thorough check on all the members of the 7 investigation teams in Rongcheng, testing their spiritual power strength.

Yang Xiao’s first reaction was that this was targeted at him, potentially a trap set by Huang Guozhao and Qu Muzhi. However, Beibei said this was an annual routine related to job grading and professional title promotions.

A day passed quickly, and Yang Xiao decided to rest another night and return to Rongcheng the next morning.

Such a treasure as the kitchen knife could not be stored in the Mirror World. Yang Xiao had wanted to sleep with the box in his arms, but after some consideration, he decided to place the Silver Box that held the kitchen knife on the bedside table, where he could see it the moment he opened his eyes.

Extremely tired from the past few days, Yang Xiao lay down and soon fell asleep, but he didn’t know how much time had passed when he heard a strange scraping sound in a groggy state.

"Scrape—"

"Scrape—"

Once Yang Xiao heard it clearly, he instantly became alert. The sound was like... like someone sharpening a knife.

Even more chilling, the sound of sharpening was very close, just beyond one door, right outside his bedroom.

Surrounded by darkness, the quiet night was pierced only by the "scrape, scrape" of sharpening, the sound getting faster, the knife correspondingly becoming sharper.

Holding his breath, he slowly reached for the light switch. He found the switch alright, but after several tries, the light didn’t come on. To think it was a power outage was only self-deception; Yang Xiao knew his spirit summoning physique had been triggered, and he had stumbled upon yet another paranormal event.

Slowly, he reached towards the bedside table, only to feel an open metal box empty of its contents.

The source had been found; the kitchen knife was gone.

Through the friction noise outside the door, Yang Xiao could even imagine such a scene—a ghost crouched outside the door, sharpening the knife on the ground stroke by stroke. The once rust-flecked kitchen knife was now sparkling clean, its edge razor-sharp, able to cleave a grown man in two with a single slice.

Luckily, Yang Xiao had been cautious recently, always placing his backpack by the bed where he could easily reach it, but when he reached out to where it was supposed to be, he found nothing. Both the backpack and the Drama Robe inside were missing.

Cursing silently in his heart, he still carefully got up from bed and tiptoed towards the bedroom door.

The door was ajar, leaving just enough of a gap for Yang Xiao to see, by some faint, unknown light, a sturdy man dressed as a butcher squatting outside, repeatedly sharpening a kitchen knife against a pitch-black stone.

"Shhh—" ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

"Shhh—"

The sound of sharpening made one’s skin crawl.

But while Yang Xiao was momentarily startled, the sharpening noise outside ceased, and the man dressed as a butcher vanished. Peering through the crack in the door, Yang Xiao searched the living room with the help of the dim light, until he heard a soft scraping sound.

The scraping was so faint that it would have gone unnoticed had the surroundings not been so quiet, from top to bottom, the scraping sound of a blunt knife edge against the wall.

Yang Xiao didn’t dare to move, breaking out in a cold sweat that soaked his back, because the sound was coming from right behind him.

"Thump."

"Thump."

Someone was knocking the heavy spine of a knife against the wall, over and over. Yang Xiao thought it better to uncover the other party’s intention than to be scared to death, so he slowly turned around to see a person standing against the wall.

This person was broad and round, easily two meters tall, with his upper body bare, wearing a dirty, colorless, tattered apron. In his left hand, he held a rust-streaked kitchen knife upside down, emitting an intense Evil Qi all over his body. His exposed skin was covered with scars, both old and new, with fresh wounds layered over the old ones. Even his face, with its sideburns, was terribly disfigured.

Yang Xiao couldn’t imagine what kind of hardships a person must endure to become like the man before him, and these wounds...

The next second, the butcher raised the kitchen knife in his hand and, under Yang Xiao’s terrified gaze, chopped down on his own right arm. The broken blade was not sharp; half of the knife merely embedded in the arm, failing to sever it. But at the same time, Yang Xiao screamed in agony. He stumbled backward, crashing into the door. Now his right arm was gushing blood, only half remaining, while the other half, with the hand attached, fell to the ground, creating a gruesome, bloody scene.

Then, under Yang Xiao’s despairing gaze, the butcher raised the knife again, angling it toward his own neck.

"Whoo—"

"Whoo—"

Suddenly sitting up, Yang Xiao awoke from the nightmare, finding himself still in bed. He was propped up, panting heavily, his bedding and pillow drenched with cold sweat.

A dream...

Another dream like this...

Last time, he dreamed of a little girl in red, but the horror was far less direct than this time. The ghostly butcher exerted more pressure than the Pingxi Marquis ever had.

After catching his breath, Yang Xiao rolled out of bed and automatically turned on the light. Sure enough, the Silver Box on the bedside table was open, and the kitchen knife was nowhere to be found.

The backpack beside the bed was still there; its zipper had been opened, a red sleeve of exquisite workmanship dangled out, pointed toward the bedside table.

Pulling out the Drama Robe to inspect it, as expected, a new pattern had appeared on the red garment.

The pattern was vivid, embroidered stitch by stitch with colored silk thread, archaic in design, depicting a rust-streaked kitchen knife.