Got It Done

"I never expected Master Pu Hu to have gone through something like that. Whether what I'm facing is human or ghost, at least the old master has been good to me. Forget it, I should deal with what's in front of me first."

Zhang Chen sat in the car on his way home, clutching the blood-character talisman paper he had taken from 'Wen Juan's' mouth in his hand as he thought.

"That little thing hid after the night before last and hasn't shown itself since. It must have sensed something on me that threatened it, just like 'Wen Juan.'" Thinking of this, Zhang Chen could not help recalling how he had bitten off the female ghost's Right Hand that morning.

"Still, the knocking from the wall last night means this one will probably be harder to deal with than 'Wen Juan' was this morning. I don't even know whether I can enter that state again. I have to settle this when I get back this afternoon. If I wait until my parents return, things will get difficult."

Thinking of how the female ghost had killed Grandma Yu that morning, Zhang Chen did not want to drag his parents into this. If anything happened to them, it would be too late for regrets.

"If they refuse to come out, then I'll have to use this move. But it will only work if my entire deduction is correct." With that thought, Zhang Chen closed his eyes and began connecting all the pieces. In his Mind Palace, he sorted through everything again and again, constantly searching for flaws. At last, he punched his Left Hand into his Right Hand.

"Wait, this case itself doesn't seem like much of a problem anymore. But why have I changed so much? Before, even for a Chinese reading question like, 'Through the blue curtains in the text, what thoughts and feelings do you think the author had at the time?' I wouldn't even bother thinking about it. And even if I did, I'd get it wrong."

"But now, how can I analyze such a complicated murder case step by step? Could I have been born to be a detective? Maybe if I study hard, I can get good grades too. Maybe Wang Ban Hua will even take a liking to me then." Zhang Chen smiled as he thought, seemingly forgetting just how terrifying things would be when he got home.

When he arrived home, Zhang Chen carried a small stool from the living room straight into the bathroom. He took a deep breath, slowly shut the door, and plopped down.

"It's still that uncomfortable feeling, like the air conditioner's blasting cold air."

He sat there for half an hour, yet there was still no movement in the bathroom. Zhang Chen checked his phone. It was already 3:12 p.m.

"This thing really is cautious. Looks like I'll have to provoke them."

"Wen Jing!" Zhang Chen suddenly roared. The temperature in the bathroom instantly dropped by three or four degrees Celsius, but nothing else happened.

"Looks like I guessed right." Zhang Chen steadied himself and continued.

"Wen Jing, do you think you treated your sister well? When you were young, you were useless and refused to study. Your sister not only had to worry about her own schooling, but also spare part of her attention to worry about you. When you grew up, you couldn't earn money. Your sister had to give part of what she earned to your mother and another part to support you. You had no home, so you ran to your sister's place. She kindly took you in, yet you stole the man she loved most and drove her life into a dead end." Zhang Chen spoke slowly and methodically.

"Knock, knock, knock... Knock, knock, knock..." The sound of knocking on the wall rang out.

"Without your sister, would you have lived until now? She treated you like that, yet you drove her into a dead end. Is that what a sister does? You're shameless!" The knocking against the wall quickened, as though something inside wanted to crawl out. At the same time, a baby's crying echoed through the bathroom again.

Zhang Chen remained calm, his mind focused to the extreme. If anything came out, he would dodge it immediately.

"There's something else you probably don't know. A few days after your sister moved back to her hometown, she hanged herself."

The moment he finished speaking, a glass on the sink flew up and smashed into the wall, shattering into pieces. Then the second and third glasses flew up as well, crashing around the room before breaking into fragments that rained to the floor. Soon after, the bathroom window seemed to be covered by something, and darkness swallowed the entire room.

Then the ceiling light began flickering erratically, making the scene even more eerie. An ordinary person would probably have been scared senseless by now. But Zhang Chen remained highly focused, watching every change in the bathroom.

"Why aren't you coming out?" Zhang Chen was getting anxious as well. "Forget it. I have no choice." He took out the talisman paper he had pulled from 'Wen Juan's' mouth.

"There's one more thing. Your mother seemed to want to turn your sister into a Living Corpse Cultivation, but I killed your sister." As he spoke, he casually tossed the talisman paper beside the toilet, where the knocking had come from.

At once, the light stopped flickering. The objects flying around dropped to the floor one after another. But the talisman paper by the wall floated up. After pausing for a second, it was instantly torn to shreds.

An invisible yet enormous force suddenly pressed down on Zhang Chen's body. He had been sitting, but the force immediately restrained him. It was as if something controlled him, dragging him against the wall behind him. His limbs were spread wide, leaving him utterly helpless.

A bloated, rotten little hand stretched out from the toilet, followed by the same decayed face as before. The teeth in the baby's mouth were a full fifteen centimeters long. Beside the baby stood a long-haired woman, her face obscured by the hair hanging before it.

Before Zhang Chen could struggle, the baby sprang directly at him, its sharp teeth aimed at the main artery in his neck. Zhang Chen, meanwhile, stared at the incoming baby and used Full Strength to break free from the invisible force.

An ordinary youth or even an adult might have strained with all their might and still died here. But the moment Zhang Chen exerted himself, his Right Hand broke through the invisible force. His whole body tipped right, and the flying baby bit into his left arm.

Its fifteen-centimeter fangs instantly pierced Zhang Chen's left arm. Intense pain shot into his brain, but with a shred of awareness left, Zhang Chen grabbed the baby biting his left arm with his Right Hand and yanked hard, tearing it away along with a chunk of his own flesh.

"Why can't I enter that state from last time? It hurts so much. My left arm's ruined." Zhang Chen gripped the baby with his Right Hand and slammed it into the wall with all his strength, actually cracking its skull. Then he hurled it hard at the opposite side. The throw dented the wall.

"Ahhhh!" A horrifying wail came from the baby. Its already cracked skull suffered another impact, splitting its brain apart completely. Its exposed brain was clearly visible. It fell to the floor without moving, as though it had lost the ability to act.

Zhang Chen also noticed a detail. There seemed to be a man's face on the baby's abdomen, wearing an expression of extreme agony, as though enduring torment in hell. Zhang Chen did not lower his guard, because besides the baby, there was also 'Wen Jing.'

"Fuck, that hurts!" Zhang Chen's left arm had gone numb. Just as he raised his Right Hand to cover the wound, the fingers of the long-haired female ghost in the corner twitched slightly. He immediately sensed an extremely dangerous aura.

Zhang Chen could no longer care about the pain in his left arm. He rolled sharply to the left. Sure enough, the instant he moved away, the wall where he had just stood was struck by a violent impact and deeply caved in.

Still reeling from the shock, Zhang Chen lay sprawled on the floor after his roll. His left arm struck the ground, and the pain nearly made him pass out. Then a despairing scene unfolded: the baby with the cracked skull moved again. It kicked off the ground with both legs and lunged at Zhang Chen.

Zhang Chen still had a sliver of awareness. He watched the baby rush toward him, its fangs like the Grim Reaper's scythe aimed straight at his head.

He remembered that his family had been poor when he was little, living in a tiny house in the village. His parents left early and returned late, yet never forgot to make sure he drank milk every day. Their income was meager, but they always managed to scrape together money for his schooling. They wore clothes from years ago while buying their son nice new clothes.

I don't want to die. I don't want to die! Zhang Chen screamed repeatedly in his heart. Then a sudden change occurred. Just as the baby's fangs were about to reach him, Zhang Chen shouted, "I don't want to die!" His mouth instantly opened enormously, becoming as large as it had when he swallowed 'Wen Juan.' But this time, Zhang Chen had opened it himself.

Before the baby could react, it fell straight into Zhang Chen's mouth and never emerged again. At the same time, new flesh rapidly began growing over Zhang Chen's left arm.

The long-haired woman in the corner clearly had not expected things to turn out this way. Seeing the baby swallowed by Zhang Chen, her hair whipped wildly through the air. Looking closely, her eye sockets were completely empty. There was nothing inside them but deep darkness.

The female ghost clearly was not the same type of ghost as 'Wen Juan.' She immediately sank into the wall, and thin streams of blood began seeping from every wall in the bathroom. Before long, the room had turned into a hell of blood.

Zhang Chen's left arm had already recovered. He stood up from the floor and looked at the blood, which had risen to his calves. He could not help swallowing.

"Eating 'Wen Jing's' son seems to have made her furious. But if she keeps sinking into the walls like this, there's nothing I can do to her."

Suddenly, a bloody hand reached out of the Blood Pool and grabbed Zhang Chen's right leg. An ordinary person would surely have been dragged down by that pull, but Zhang Chen's limbs had been strengthened. He stood firm.

Keeping calm, he grabbed the bloody hand with both Hands, borrowed strength from his waist, and pulled diagonally. He yanked the female ghost out of the Blood Pool in one motion and smashed her hard into the large mirror above the sink.

"Ah..." A piercing shriek filled the bathroom. Zhang Chen was not affected. Knowing this was a perfect opportunity, he immediately opened his mouth wide and bit at the female ghost, tearing off her right leg.

Amid the female ghost's scream, Zhang Chen tried to bite down again, only to be struck in the chest by an invisible force and sent flying.

Bang! Zhang Chen slammed heavily into the wall behind him and spat out a mouthful of blood.

The female ghost, now missing her right leg, slowly sank back into the wall. Zhang Chen felt that the last blow had likely broken several of his ribs. But gritting through the pain, he grabbed the female ghost's severed right leg lying not far away and began taking huge bites out of it. Before long, his injuries started to heal. During that time, the female ghost made no further move.

After Zhang Chen finished eating, he noticed this abnormality. It seemed the female ghost no longer dared approach him. "What is she waiting for? Right..." Just as Zhang Chen figured it out, he sensed danger and immediately rolled to the right. Sure enough, the wall where he had just been standing was struck and dented again.

"So that's it. This female ghost seems to have an ability similar to Telekinesis, but after using it once, there's a long cooldown." Zhang Chen thought that if there were no cooldown and she could use it continuously, he would probably have been smashed to pieces long ago.

"But if she keeps hiding like this, how am I supposed to drag her out?" Although Zhang Chen understood the female ghost's ability, the biggest problem remained: how could he force her out? He thought about it for a long time but could not find an answer.

"Damn it, this thing is so damn slippery. She's even copying Grandpa Mao and fighting me with guerrilla tactics." Zhang Chen gritted his teeth, unable to think of a strategy. Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of danger entered his mind again.

"Fuck, it's behind me this time!" Zhang Chen clenched both fists and moved right with Full Strength, but the distance was too short. A force struck his left waist, sending him spinning twice through the air before he fell into the Blood Pool.

Zhang Chen braced himself with both Hands and rose from the blood. He spat out a mouthful of blood, clearly seriously injured.

"I'll die if this keeps up." Zhang Chen struggled to stand and saw that he had dodged half of the invisible force's attack. The other half had hit the wall before him, knocking bits of rubble into the blood.

"Right, I have a way." Looking at the wall dented by the impact, Zhang Chen instantly thought of a solution.

Enduring the pain, he walked step by step toward the toilet. He crouched down and knocked on the wall with his hand. An echo rang out.

"So it's hollow after all." Zhang Chen did not hesitate. He punched the wall to the right of the toilet.

Boom! The wall was punched through. He followed with several more blows. His hands became drenched in blood, but a large hole was smashed into the wall, revealing a skeleton inside.

"If I destroy your true body, let's see whether you'll come out." Zhang Chen yanked the skeleton out of the wall, gripped its skull, and prepared to crush it. At that moment, the blood surged up and swept toward Zhang Chen, while a pair of Hands emerged from the water and tightly gripped his neck.

"I've been waiting for you!" Zhang Chen roared. He grabbed the female ghost's Hands in return, opened his mouth, and it expanded to half a meter wide. He swallowed the female ghost in one bite. At once, the blood receded, and the bathroom returned to normal.

"Finally got it done." Zhang Chen collapsed onto the floor in exhaustion.