A flash of red light flickered across Black Sister, and red mist streamed out of her, gathering into two human shapes in front of her.
Jin Shanshan's eyes widened as she stared at the two things that were neither human nor ghost. When the red mist surrounding them dissipated and ghostly energy poured out, Xu Zhou and Hao Zhiyi's twisted faces lunged straight at her, stopping nose to nose with her.
Jin Shanshan instinctively tried to flee.
The two ghosts toyed with her, circling around as their sharp nails tore into her arms and thighs.
Jin Shanshan was powerless to resist and fell to her knees.
The two ghosts closed in again. With eerie laughter, they seized Jin Shanshan by the throat and squeezed together, but they didn't snap her neck right away.
They lifted Jin Shanshan high into the air.
She didn't look at the two ghosts. Instead, she looked at Black Sister, her face still bewildered.
A faint smile played across Black Sister's face.
Behind her, the owner of the little shop chuckled. He raised the hand hanging at his side, lifting the banner he held upright. A line of bluntly worded characters, written in brush ink, read: "Beat the Little People: 20 each. Guaranteed to work."
Jin Shanshan's eyes widened.
In an instant, an unbearable pain spread through Jin Shanshan's body.
It felt as if an icy rope had wound around her neck, snapping her cervical vertebrae. In her mind, she saw Bao Jiaxiu. Then a tremendous force slammed into her body, as though she'd been hit and run over by a speeding car. The gruesome crash on Guangyuan Road appeared in her mind. Decapitation: in a haunted house somewhere, the owner had been possessed by a ghost in his sleep and chopped off his daughter's head.