The First Chapter: Zhao Yijiu in the Darkness

Playing in the snow was fun and the three of them felt much better after the deduction. But the consequence was... After seeing Zhao Mou, Zhao Ruru and Zhao Yijiu stood with their heads down in the room and were severely scolded by him.

Yu Xing sat on a chair to the side, eating sunflower seeds while watching Zhao Mou, the smiling fox, cold-faced and cursing. To be honest, it was a rare opportunity to see Zhao Mou lose his smile up close, and he couldn't miss it.

Zhao Mou probably watched the whole thing as a spectator, and then he was busy dealing with a lot of calls from his own family. Only then did he have time to invite the three of them to his room for a very heated debriefing.

"Aren't you good at divination? Look at the rhythm of your divination in this simulation. There are many times when you don't need to do divination, and when you do need it, you can't use it. In the next few simulations, you need to specifically train this kind of awareness!" Zhao Mou was relatively polite to Zhao Ruru, but his tone was a bit stern, and his words were all sincere and effective advice.

Zhao Ruru held back, then apologized dejectedly, "I know, I didn't utilize my fortune-telling skills properly. I'll study and practice. Also, I was originally supposed to help you take care of your brother, but in the end, I had to trouble him to save me. I didn't fulfill your request. This time, I won't consider it repaying your favor. If you need anything next time, just call me."

"... This isn't your fault. I admit I underestimated this brat's abilities. He's no longer the A Jiu who needed my protection for everything he did." Zhao Mou softened his tone, then glared at Zhao Yijiu, who stood calmly to the side, showing no sign of lingering fear.

Zhao Yijiu glanced back at him, her hands in her pockets.

So Zhao Mou said a few more words and told Zhao Ruru to go back to her own place. He immediately turned his attention to Zhao Yijiu, first reaching out to remove the somewhat girlish baseball cap from her head, then pinching her Zhao Yijiu to examine her dark red eyes. After a long while, he squeezed out a sentence through gritted teeth. "Luckily, Yu Xing reacted quickly, otherwise what were you planning to do? Let all the audience know that you have a vengeful ghost living inside you?"

Yu Xing paused in her eating of sunflower seeds, raised an eyebrow, and glanced at the two of them.

Zhao Yijiu impatiently removed Zhao Mou's hand from his chin. "That's enough. Do you really think you're the Dean of Students?"

He was never polite to his brother. His obediently accepting the scolding just now was purely for Zhao Ruru's benefit. After all, Zhao Ruru wasn't from their branch, and it was better for Zhao Mou to maintain an image of absolute authority in front of other branches.

But now that Zhao Ruru has left, Zhao Yijiu strode over and sat down next to Yu Xing. She drank a cup of untouched hot water, crossed her long legs, and looked like she was saying, "Say what you will, I'm not wrong."

"Hey, hey, what are you doing? That's water I poured," Zhao Mou clicked his tongue, "I'm saving it for when my throat gets dry!"

"Now, two minutes, finish." Zhao Yijiu stared at his reflection in the water glass, then closed her eyes.

"..." Zhao Mou was so angry... so angry he couldn't do anything. He sat down opposite Zhao Yijiu. "Are you the older brother or am I the older brother? Why do you never give your older brother the respect he deserves?"

Zhao Yijiu: "One minute and forty seconds."

"Alright, alright, I'll tell you quickly." Unconsciously, Zhao Mou's tone softened. He truly had no way to deal with his younger brother, and with Yu Xing clearly enjoying the drama, there was also Yu Xing present. He sighed, "Why were you so irrational this time?"

"Irrational?" Zhao Yijiu repeated, a hint of confusion appearing in her eyes.

Zhao Mou could tell at a glance that he himself hadn't realized it at all, "Don't you think things started to get a little strange from the second stage onwards? Aren't you usually quite rational? You have such a cold face, why are you so enthusiastic at crucial moments? In the second stage, when you noticed that the Master was acting strangely, you even took the initiative to follow him to check?"

Zhao Yijiu's eyebrows twitched, and her eyelashes fluttered.

"Others might not realize it, but I'm your brother, I know you too well." Zhao Mou smiled slightly at Zhao Yijiu, practically ready to roll up his sleeves and punch her, but whether out of reluctance or a sense of defeat, he could only verbally reprimand her, "You would never normally do that. You'd prefer nothing to bother you at all."

"Given your usual personality, if you had just run far away, you wouldn't have been so badly injured. What, do you think these red eyes are ugly and want to gouge them out?"

When this topic came up, a flash of heartache crossed Zhao Mou's eyes, but fearing that Zhao Yijiu might not take it seriously, his tone became even more stern.

He used to be so unruly around Zhao Yijiu, a complete scoundrel. This was a rare instance of him being cold to Zhao Yijiu. Zhao Yijiu looked at him and suddenly felt a sense of oppression from Zhao Mou that she had never felt before.

In that instant, Zhao Yijiu realized that the person in front of him was not only the older brother who couldn't beat him when they were young, but also a star predictor who single-handedly supported their family's side branch.

But he wasn't easily intimidated. After a two-second silence, he turned to Yu Xing and asked, "Do Lingren have the passive ability to influence people's emotions?"

Yu Xing let out an "Oh ho," leaned back in her chair, and curled her lips into a smile, "Probably. Whether you know him or not, you'll be led by the nose by him for different reasons. Your guess makes a lot of sense. So, the reason you didn't make the right judgment back then might also be because you were influenced by the Lingren."

He noticed that when it came to Lingren, Zhao Mou and Zhao Yijiu had little to say, and were just staring at him expectantly. He shrugged and said, "That can be left to the Research Institute to study. Now you can finish your rant in the remaining minute."

Zhao Yijiu: "..."

His dark red gaze had already shifted to Yu Xing's face, carrying a complex mix of "Do you really want to hear me get scolded?" But the next second, for some unknown reason, he immediately withdrew his gaze, looked at the cup in his hand, and remained silent.

Zhao Mou noticed this and sighed almost imperceptibly. He explained to Yu Xing, "A Jiu's condition... if his eyes were locked on you, you would feel suffocated, like being stared at by a vengeful ghost, so he dares not look at you."

Yu Xing waved her hand. "It's okay, I'm very adaptable. If you want to watch, then watch. After all, I'm so handsome."

Zhao Mou: "..."

Zhao Yijiu: "..."

As it turns out, Yu Xing always has a knack for getting people speechless.

"Alright... let's change the subject." Zhao Mou rubbed his temples, stood up, and patted Zhao Yijiu's head. "I doubt you'd be interested in listening to anything I say. I'll go find a way to restore your eyes. Within three days, the vengeful spirit inside you must be suppressed."

Zhao Yijiu dodged backward. "Don't touch me."

"Tsk, what are you being shy about? I'm your own brother." Zhao Mou was almost laughing in exasperation. "Let's see how you get a girlfriend like this. Ha, Female Ghost friend would do too."

"Get lost." Zhao Yijiu glanced at him coldly. "I don't need it."

"Yes, yes, you only need your right hand!" Zhao Mou slipped to the door before Zhao Yijiu could suddenly attack. He cleared his throat, which was still dry from lack of hot water, and reached for the doorknob. "I'll be very busy for a while. Besides helping you find a way to suppress the vengeful ghost, I also have to deal with a lot of family and divination matters. Ha, that Lingren really knows how to give me things to do... I don't ask anything of you, just one thing."

"Your life comes first. Don't do anything too dangerous when you're alone." He opened the door, adjusted his glasses, and glanced at Yu Xing for a moment. "Don't do anything too dangerous when you have someone you trust around."

"Alright, once you've rested enough, go back to your own room and don't mess up my things."

After saying his last sentence, Zhao Mou closed the door and left, leaving Yu Xing and Zhao Yijiu. One of them ate sunflower seeds, while the other reached for his hat and put it back on.

There was a long silence between them, and the atmosphere in the room gradually became heavy. Yu Xing took out her phone, glanced at the time and the messages that had accumulated over the past few days, and chuckled softly.

Do you know why your brother left in such a hurry?

Hearing him speak first, Zhao Yijiu unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief, "He's busy."

"Yeah, he might even have to negotiate with the higher-ups in your Zhao family to give you the right to form your own team." Yu Xing showed no sign of pulling himself out of the soft chair, sinking deeper and deeper, his snow-white fur collar making him look completely harmless. "Look at the look in his eyes just now, he's trying to get you on my side."

Zhao Yijiu nodded; he knew that what Yu Xing said was very likely.

Zhao Mou is a cunning old fox. After seeing Yu Xing's strength and speed of progress, he will definitely not let go of such a promising young talent. In addition, the Zhao family and the Lingren are now definitely on opposite sides. If he can put him in Yu Xing's team, the benefits will definitely outweigh the drawbacks.

Or rather, at present, it seems there are almost no drawbacks, because Yu Xing is not only a powerful figure, but also a very good one to him.

"There's another reason," Yu Xing mimicked Zhao Yijiu, crossing his legs, "He wants you to tell me yourself what's going on with your eyes and the vengeful ghost inside you. Hmm? Tell me?"

"Exactly, literally." Zhao Yijiu was no longer as flustered as when the Lingren exposed him. He could see that Yu Xing did not hate the coexistence of humans and ghosts as the Lingren claimed.

He warmed his hands with the steam rising from the hot water cup, reminisced for a moment, and then tried hard to put his memories into words. "When I was little, probably five or six years old, something happened to my family. There was an elder uncle I really liked... His Personality Assimilation Degree that he turned into a monster." (Mentioned in Chapter 29 of Haunted Bar)

"He broke into my house one night and killed my father. Zhao Mou and I hid in the closet and witnessed some of it..."

That day, the monstrous appearance of the elder uncle, whose neck was covered with countless eyes, cast a deep shadow over Zhao Yijiu, who was only five or six years old at the time.

Zhao Yijiu couldn't hold back any longer. He didn't know what he was thinking, but he opened the cabinet and rushed out, delivering himself right in front of that monster.

Even though he rushed out, it was no use; by then, his father had already been torn to pieces by the monster.

The monster, of course, didn't remember their past relationship. In its eyes, Zhao Yijiu was just a smaller piece of prey. If Zhao Mou hadn't desperately pulled Zhao Yijiu away, he would probably have already become one of the monster's pieces of meat.

Later, they were rescued because other elders in the family arrived and killed the monster.

Zhao Yijiu's memory at the time was very chaotic. He only had a few terrifying and fragmented impressions of what happened that night, such as the eyes on the monster and that familiar face, his father's bulging eyes lying in a pool of blood, and the abyss-like pain in the eyes of the monster's elder uncle's wife when she personally cut off its head.

The rescuers repeatedly told him, who was in a daze, that the nightmare was over, everything was alright, and everything would pass.

But that's not the case.

Zhao Yijiu's nightmare has only just begun.

"I was quickly diagnosed with an abnormality. My eyes turned dark red, my nails became sharp, and even my emotions were gradually fading. I couldn't laugh or cry. I would spend entire days in a daze in the ward. Occasionally, I would utter words that humans couldn't understand in the dead of night. Even my demeanor was gradually decaying. I didn't even need to eat or sleep. During that time, no one who saw me would think I was alive." The hot water in Zhao Yijiu's hand cooled down. He put down the cup, raised his hand to touch the corner of his eye, as if he could touch something hidden beneath the cold skin.

"I was locked up. Because I was very averse to light, they locked me in a dark, enclosed space. All of Zhao Mou's opposition and anger were like stones thrown into the sea... The elders of the Zhao family have been investigating the reason. Finally, after I was locked up for more than a year, one of the elders discovered the truth about the uncle's transformation." Zhao Yijiu took a deep breath. It was clear that he was not entirely calm about this matter.

Yu Xing interrupted him, looking at him with an incredulous gaze. "Wait, they locked you up for a year, and you didn't see the light of day or eat anything for a whole year?"

"Yeah, I don't need any of these anyway." Zhao Yijiu's tone was surprisingly matter-of-fact, as if it wasn't wrong for others to treat him this way.

Yu Xing clicked his tongue and sneered, "The Zhao family is truly consistent in word and deed, treating those who have no use to them like livestock?"

"I have value, research value," Zhao Yijiu said. "They're waiting, waiting to see where my limit for not eating is, so they can record it."

Wouldn't that be like being a test subject?

Yu Xing felt a strange unease, but he suppressed it and said, "Please continue."

"Yes, the reason that elder uncle's mutation level increased so drastically was because during the simulation, he saw a terrifying vengeful ghost. It was something indescribable; in short, it was terrifying."

"That vengeful ghost burrowed into my uncle's body, turning him into a monster from soul to body. After leaving the divination, it came to my house. When I rushed out of the closet, the vengeful ghost took a liking to me and replaced me with its body."

"Back then, I was imprisoned in darkness, constantly trying to merge with it, but the progress was very slow. My current personality is partly due to that vengeful ghost," Zhao Yijiu said. "Not long after, someone delivered something to suppress the vengeful ghost, which allowed me to retain my human consciousness."