Washing His Hair at Midnight

On a summer night, a patrol car drove along a deserted, silent street.

Before long, it stopped outside the entrance to a narrow alley.

A middle-aged officer who looked to be in his thirties got out of the car, followed by three mysterious figures dressed in black tactical uniforms.

The middle-aged officer was Zheng Hai, the veteran criminal investigator who had previously arrested Lu Siye and taken him to the Police Station.

Ever since Zheng Hai had come into indirect contact with the Takeout Ghost incident, he had been assigned as an auxiliary member of the Town Demon Suppression Division.

The primary duty of auxiliary members like him was to inspect the scene after members of the Town Demon Suppression Division handled supernatural incidents.

As soon as he entered the alley, Zheng Hai felt a chill wash over him.

But the badge from the Public Security Bureau on his uniform immediately glimmered with a golden light, driving away the Yin energy around them.

The four of them walked over to a small disc-selling cart not far from the alley entrance.

They immediately spotted the chaotic scratches on the concrete. Judging by their shape, they looked to have been made by human fingers.

Between the scratches on either side was a hole about the size of a human face.

The marks looked as though someone had once been forced to press their head into the ground and subjected to some unknown form of torture.

Before dying, they must have struggled so desperately that their fingers had gouged all those marks into the hard ground.

Those ghosts were vile! How could they torture someone like that?

Thankfully, the Town Demon Suppression Division had already dealt with this ghost.

After a few seconds of silence, Zheng Hai and the others turned their attention to what lay on the cart: a kidney that looked as though it had been frozen.

Zheng Hai wasn't surprised. When he had joined the Town Demon Suppression Division as an auxiliary member, he'd been told what to expect.

When ghosts died, they generally left something behind. It might be blood, eyes, hair, or some other organ.

These remnants made it easier to assess a ghost's strength afterward and determine the reward for whoever had slain it.

Zheng Hai took a palm-sized Bagua Mirror from his pocket. A faint green glow emanated from it.

Holding the Bagua Mirror, he walked over to the cart.

The closer he got, the brighter the green light on the mirror became.

Recalling the inspection procedures he'd memorized before setting out, Zheng Hai placed the mirror on the frozen kidney.

The green light on the Bagua Mirror began to go out at the Qian Trigram, then faded counterclockwise until only three trigrams still glimmered green.

Then the light rose from the mirror and formed the number 32 in the air.

"Low-level Evil Ghost. Strength rating: 32 points!"

Zheng Hai told the others the result, then put away the Bagua Mirror, which had returned to its ordinary appearance.

The three mysterious figures nodded to one another and deftly took out an evidence bag.

After bagging the kidney, they loaded everything else from the cart into the car.

Once they were back inside, the patrol car turned around and drove off into the distance.

They still had another scene to inspect.

For auxiliary members of the Town Demon Suppression Division, a busy night was only just beginning.

Under the dark night sky, the sharp edges of Tianhai City's towering buildings blurred into shadow.

There was no moonlight tonight. Once the lights went out in every household, Tongjiang Residential Complex sank into darkness.

Shi Yimin collapsed onto his bed, his right forearm resting across his forehead.

Everything he'd experienced lately had shaken the worldview he'd held since childhood.

First, he'd watched the cheerful college student next door—usually such a sunny, upbeat guy—slice open a delivery worker's kidney like a crazed murderer.

Then the officers arrived and took that murderer away. They took the neighbors, too.

It wasn't until that afternoon that the officer who'd taken him explained that the delivery worker had actually been a ghost, and the college student next door was a ghost hunter.

Was a person like him supposed to be called a ghost hunter, too?

Whatever. He'd just call himself a ghost hunter.

After telling him the truth, the officer had handed him a nondisclosure agreement and a sizable sum in compensation for emotional distress, then let him go home.

Back at Tongjiang Residential Complex, Shi Yimin looked at the compensation on the table and felt no joy at all.

Who could feel happy after living for over twenty years, only to be told one day by the authorities that ghosts really existed in this world?

Who could?

After night fell, Shi Yimin sat on his bed, nervously eyeing the wardrobe, shoe cabinet, space beneath the bed, drawers...

He couldn't shake the feeling that ghosts were lurking in all the places he couldn't see, waiting for him to come close so they could peel off his skin, tear him apart, and devour him.

The more he thought about it, the more frightened he became. The light in his bedroom did nothing to make him feel safe.

In the silent bedroom, every sound seemed to grow louder.

Whenever the faintest noise came from somewhere in the room, Shi Yimin would curl up like a startled bird.

Before long, he was drenched in sweat, his face deathly pale.

In a daze, he felt as though he were trapped in a sealed fish tank. An endless terror rose like the water level, slowly swallowing him whole.

Suddenly, he heard a door open next door.

The college student ghost hunter was back!

Shi Yimin's mind conjured up an image of Lu Siye straddling an Evil Ghost, cleaver raised.

The fear in his heart vanished in an instant. His tense muscles relaxed, and exhaustion washed over him.

Shi Yimin fell backward, his arm resting across his forehead. Before long, he was fast asleep.

It itched...

So itchy...

After an unknown amount of time, Shi Yimin began scratching at his scalp in his sleep.

After a while, he couldn't stand the itch anymore.

He climbed out of bed and padded barefoot to the bathroom sink. Turning on the tap, he wet his hair, squeezed out a huge dollop of shampoo, and started washing it.

Once, twice, three times...

He scratched furiously at his scalp, even tearing his skin without realizing it.

The water running from his hair gradually turned pale red as it mixed with blood.

But he seemed not to notice, continuing to scratch his scalp wildly.

No matter how many times he washed, his scalp still itched.

He reached for the shampoo bottle beside him again, but no matter how many times he squeezed it, nothing came out.

Only then did he realize that the entire bottle of shampoo beside him had been used up.

"Darling, are you looking for shampoo?"

Suddenly, a sweet woman's voice sounded behind him.

"Yes, hurry and give it to me!"

With his head under the running water, Shi Yimin scratched his scalp with one hand and reached behind him with the other, shouting impatiently.

"Darling, here's your shampoo!"

Two or three seconds later, the sweet voice sounded again, and something cold and squishy landed in his palm.

Without thinking, Shi Yimin drew his hand back and smeared it into his hair, rubbing furiously.

Suddenly, he noticed the water flowing before his eyes had turned a vivid blood red.

Clumps of hair fell onto the sink, with patches of pale flesh clinging to them.

His hands froze. He stared at the hair before him, seemingly dazed.

"Darling! What's wrong? Is the shampoo not working?" The sweet voice came from beside him.

"Oh, it's nothing. It's just a little..."

Shi Yimin's eyes suddenly widened. His whole body trembled violently, and his lips quivered uncontrollably. The words died on his tongue.

He suddenly remembered that he wasn't married. Where would he have gotten a wife?

Besides, he lived alone in this apartment. He always had.

Shi Yimin's hair stood on end. Stiffly, he lifted his head and looked at the mirror in front of him.

At some point, all his hair had fallen out, and most of his scalp was gone, exposing the pale bones of his skull.

Behind him stood a woman in white, her head stripped of every trace of flesh.

Maggots crawled across her skull, writhing in her eye sockets, nostrils, and mouth.

In her hand, she held an eyeball that had burst open.

"Darling, what's wrong?" Five icy finger bones crawled up his face from behind as the sweet voice whispered in his ear.

"Ah!!!"

Shi Yimin jolted awake. He looked around in a panic. His bedroom was bright.

"So it was a dream! That scared me to death!" he said, still shaken.

Relieved, he lay back down to sleep, unaware that some foam clung to the soles of his feet.