286: Visible
"Ha~~" During the Chinese class, listening to the teacher's monotonous voice narrating boring content, Yomi Yurika couldn't help but yawn. She wondered if it was just her imagination, but she felt a little tired today. Moreover, even though she ate twice the usual amount of food this morning, she still felt like she hadn't eaten enough.
"It can't be that I've reached puberty, can it?" Baihe Hua looked down at the obstacle that blocked her view from her feet, and immediately felt that her idea was absurd. She turned a page of her notebook and pretended to listen to the lecture attentively, while casually glancing out the window.
Then...
"Whoosh!"
Despite the absence of any sound, Baihe Hua suddenly felt a ringing in her ears, and at the same time, she seemed to catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye.
"Is it a bird?" Baihe Hua looked out the window but didn't see anything of interest. However, she felt a sharp gaze fall upon her.
She immediately turned her head and saw the teacher looking at her with a very intimidating gaze. Realizing that she had been caught daydreaming, Baihe Hua quickly gathered her thoughts and refocused on her book.
But for some reason, she had particularly difficulty concentrating today.
Finally, class ended, and a wave of hunger made her walk straight to Rinka's desk.
Seeing her best friend appear beside her as if in a flash, Rinka was clearly startled and hesitated before saying:
"Yuri-chan, you don't look well..."
"You have snacks, right? Give me a few packs, and I'll make it up to you during lunch break!" Baihe Hua said bluntly, certain that her best friend had plenty in her School Bag.
Seeing Baihe Hua's serious expression, Rinka took a pineapple bun out of her bag and handed it to her best friend.
"When did you start having snacks during breaks?"
"I don't know, I just suddenly felt a little hungry." Baihe Hua tore open the pineapple bun packaging, took a bite, and the crispy crust and soft bread rubbed against each other in her mouth. Before she could savor it, she had already swallowed it.
"?" Rinka watched Baihe Hua eat and suddenly felt a little hungry. She was about to grab a piece of bread to eat, but then, remembering her best friend's strange behavior today, her eyes sharpened instantly. Then, she suddenly stretched out her hands...
"Ah!" Caught off guard, Baihe Hua hugged her chest and glared at Rinka.
What are you doing?!
"Looks like everything's alright! I thought you were possessed by Hungry Ghost Soul!" Rinka clenched her right hand twice, as if savoring the sensation from before, her tone tinged with a strange melancholy. However, Baihe Hua was in a heightened state of alertness at the moment, and upon hearing a strange term, she immediately became wary and pressed for an answer:
"Hungry Ghost Soul? What's that?"
"Legend has it that this monster is born from the souls of people who starved to death. It possesses passersby, rapidly depleting their body's nutrients, making them emaciated, and causing them to experience intense hunger, never feeling full no matter how much they eat. However, your cellulite is still so large, so it should be fine."
Rinka waved her hand, but Baihe Hua cautiously assessed the situation and, after confirming there was no change, said irritably:
"So, it seems like you're the one who's possessed!"
"Yeah, so every year when my Shi-zui, my family sends me to the shrine to pray for blessings and exorcise demons. And Bean-scattering Festival, I'm always the one who gets hit by the beans..." Rinka said, her lines sounding like she'd been bullied, which made Baihe Hua's face darken. She quickly swallowed the remaining half of the pineapple bun in her hand, finally feeling a little better. But just as the satisfaction of her meal was lingering, something seemed to flash in her peripheral vision again.
"!!!"
I turned around abruptly, but only saw a few classmates chatting together. Listening to their discussion about last night's TV program, I couldn't help but relax a bit.
"Yuri-chan, are you alright? Do you want to go to the infirmary to rest?" Rinka looked at Baihe Hua with some concern. Upon hearing this, Baihe Hua simply rubbed her Jingming acupoint and said, looking slightly tired:
"Maybe I didn't sleep well last night."
"Then go to the infirmary and sleep for a while. Anyway, the next class is home economics, and I'll ask for leave for you." Rinka immediately put Baihe Hua's hand on her shoulder, as if she were "carrying a comrade who was seriously wounded in the war," and walked towards the infirmary.
"Wait a minute, Rinka-chan! This is too much!"
"Not at all!" Rinka stubbornly led Baihe Hua to the infirmary, left two pieces of bread, and then quietly left.
"I'm not hungry anymore!" Baihe Hua sighed as she looked at the two loaves of bread, but then an expression of disbelief appeared on her face, because she saw a faint, blurry figure slowly passing by outside the window.
Yes, a phantom. It felt like the air distorted by the heat of a steaming pot of soup. It couldn't even be described as having a specific shape, yet it was clearly there, just like... just like an invisible man in a movie wearing Optical Camouflage!
Well, Baihe Hua knew her example was very unladylike, but it was the closest analogy she could think of to the current situation.
"What is this? A ghost? A spirit? A monster? Or some other kind of Weird Tale?"
Baihe Hua was in a state of utter confusion. She wanted to look away, but she couldn't help but want to observe the distorted figure.
"Calm down, calm down! Legend has it that those who have witnessed Weird Tale are either severely injured or die on the spot. We can't let anyone find out that we saw it!"
Baihe Hua bit her lip, but as she tensed up, the phantom seemed to become clearer and clearer.
No, not only outside the window, but also inside the medical room, a ghostly figure appeared!
Moreover, it's becoming more and more realistic!
It was a short, stout, bald figure. Although it was still blurry, Baihe Hua could vaguely see a huge eye that took up half of its face.
It seemed to be casually scanning the entire infirmary, especially the beds where other students were lying, checking each one one by one, and even getting close enough to stare at each other.
Those classmates who were either faking illness to skip class or genuinely feeling unwell seemed to notice nothing, which made Baihe Hua increasingly nervous.
Tap tap, tap tap...
The one-eyed bald man drew closer to her bed, and the scene before Baihe Hua's eyes became clearer. She could see his robes and monastic attire, the repulsive veins and wrinkles on his bald head, and his long tongue protruding from his mouth, dripping viscous liquid...
She could even hear the "clack-clack" sound of the other person walking, like the sound of wooden clogs hitting the floor!
A physical discomfort made Baihe Hua want to distance herself, but her subconscious action seemed to attract the other person's attention.
The one-eyed bald man dropped the bed in front of him and slowly approached Baihe Hua with an imposing pace. Tears involuntarily welled up in his eyes. Seeing this, the one-eyed bald man became even more excited. He brought his face close to Baihe Hua's and said in a slurred voice:
"Visible?"
There Weird Tale about the East that seem rather unusual...
To put it simply, the acquisition of [knowledge] can be roughly understood as a function curve that is high at both ends and low in the middle. The horizontal axis represents the transition from ignorance to knowledge, while the vertical axis represents the intensity of [knowledge] gained from the Weird Tale.
Whether you understand or not, the more extreme you are, the more knowledge you gain; conversely, the more you compromise, the less knowledge you gain.
For example, even among dogs, unfamiliar breeds tend to attract more attention than common breeds, because a lack of knowledge breeds curiosity.
Conversely, your own dog is more likely to attract your attention than Wild Dog on the street. This is the care that comes from understanding.
You wouldn't care as much about common, half-baked dogs from ordinary households.
In conclusion, although both are forms of Group Supernatural Tale, the idea that "Yan Country People Know Martial Arts" and the idea that "Everything Can Become a God" represent two extremes.
The former includes humanity, and humanity itself is the Main Body; even the slightest change will cause them to worry and thus generate awareness.
The latter group, however, doesn't include most humans in Weird Tale, so no matter how they change, it won't affect ordinary people. In this case, if they see them every day, they'll get used to it and feel like "a familiar dangerous element"—"as long as they don't bother me, it's no big deal"—leading to a decrease in attention.
Take Nurarihyon for example. If you remove his mystique, he's just an old man who freeloads. If you saw him every day, who would have any special impression of him?
Even if you see superpowers performed every day, you'll get used to it eventually.
Therefore, maintaining a sense of novelty and mystery is very important for Hundred Tales.