Red-robed Hanging Ghost

Red-robed Hanging Ghost

Wu Xian opened his icy eyes. Warm lamplight drove the chill from his body.

He hadn't returned to the Detective Agency. Instead, he had appeared in a room that looked like a hotel room. It wasn't very large, and had a terrazzo floor, pale floral wallpaper, blue-checkered bedding, rosewood furniture, a private bathroom, and an old television.

A key lay on the table. Its tag read Room 406.

Outside the window was pitch-black. He could vaguely make out that he was in a city, but there were no lights. The city seemed dead. He could faintly hear clapping and eerie prayers.

"So this is the blessed land. Were all those missing people brought here?"

Thinking back to what had happened earlier, Wu Xian was beginning to understand what the blessed land was.

The so-called blessed land was like a massive survival game. The missing people had actually become players in the game. Black Hand Cover Eyes had been like a cutscene, while the earlier worship of the gods... had been a newbie perk?

The missing people had all died in the blessed land.

"She must have hanged herself. So the rope holding her up must be pretty sturdy."

Silence reigned for a long while. Wu Xian never straightened his back.

The two little feet were as cold as ice, and they smelled faintly of rotting flesh.

Knock, knock!

Since there was no way to communicate, Wu Xian began considering how to escape.

To test his theory, Wu Xian decided to go outside and take a look.

Wu Xian lifted his coat, and his brow immediately furrowed.

But Wu Xian still clung on tightly. He suddenly raised both legs, letting his entire weight hang from her.

The True Fire Incantation looked like nothing more than a piece of rough Yellow Paper inscribed with clerical script. But according to the information in his mind, it was far more than it seemed.

The sound of her movements was a soft scraping, like a mop mixed with grit being dragged across the floor. As the sound gradually faded, Wu Xian finally straightened up, let out a sigh of relief, and slowly backed away.

But he had barely reached the door when he stopped. He caught a salty-sweet smell laced with rust.

The only thing he could rely on was that True Fire Incantation.

"Looks like tonight's not a good night to go out."

Based on what he'd learned from horror movies, neither bolting in a panic nor looking up would do him any good. And even if he stayed perfectly still, he'd still die eventually.

This ritual was called "Tuo Yin."

Wu Xian could almost picture a grotesque woman crouched against the door, pressing her body against it, her eyes jammed against the peephole as she twitched like she was having a seizure, greedily sniffing for traces of the living.

"What should I call this thing? A ghost, a monster, or an evil spirit?"

Unfortunately, its color had turned bluish-green, and it gave off a stench of decay. It had clearly been dead for a long time.

Since he couldn't go outside...

It was the smell of blood.

"I'm going to eat you for the rest of your life!"

The talisman was only a medium. The information written on it was what mattered. As long as he imprinted this information onto something, any object could wield the talisman's power.

"I'm going to eat you for the rest of your life."

His shoulder brushed against something.

A resentful woman's voice came from above.

A hotel employee was hanging in midair, his face full of terror as he flailed about. A huge hand had reached in from beyond Wu Xian's field of vision and grabbed his head. Like an iron vise, it tightened bit by bit, crushing the employee's skull.

Wu Xian held his breath. The room was so quiet it seemed unoccupied, and the woman outside had gone still, too. Right now, even a needle dropping to the floor would have been audible.

Wu Xian's mouth twitched. "Miss, we've only just met. This whole 'rest of your life' thing is a big commitment. Shouldn't we get to know each other first?"

After her fit of rage, the woman outside finally left.

This meant that apart from clothes and people, nothing brought in from the outside could work in the blessed land.

Wu Xian knew without looking up that someone was hanging right above him.

Like a child who'd gotten a new toy, Wu Xian wrapped the Yellow Paper around his middle finger, eyes full of anticipation. Following the information he'd received earlier, he silently recited a phrase.

Suddenly.

Those who survived by sheer luck were unwilling to have anything more to do with the blessed land after the terrifying ordeals they had suffered there.

The woman spoke again, her voice turning even more venomous and shrill, steeped in a deep-seated hatred that stabbed painfully at Wu Xian's eardrums.

"Ah, no, don't! Let me go, I..."

In just two minutes, the woman had tried several different stories. She sounded sincere, her emotions vivid, whether plaintive and mournful or panicked and terrified. Just from what she said, it was hard to find anything wrong.

He'd start by seeing what he could do.

"Please, have a heart. I'm really not lying. I'm Yu Yinghua, the owner of this hotel!"

"You're so cruel! When he comes up and sees me at your door, he won't spare you either..."

From farther away, he could see a woman dressed in red hanging above Wu Xian's head. A hemp rope held her aloft. Her face was blue-purple, her eyes bulged, and her black-red tongue slipped from her mouth, stretching longer and longer like a snake.

Knock, knock, knock!

The sound was muffled. It didn't seem to come from someone tapping with their hands.

It was as if a woman were kneeling against the door, banging her head against it mechanically!

Her face was twisted with malice. Her tongue was about to loop around Wu Xian's neck. In another moment, she would hang him until he died, leaving him as grotesque as she was.

Wu Xian glanced sideways and saw the red hem of a dress draped over his shoulder, along with a pair of women's feet. They were slender and well-proportioned, their bones and tendons faintly outlined, and their nails neatly rounded.

Wu Xian fell silent for a moment.

Wu Xian held up his middle finger and studied it for a long while.

"Stars Lead the Way, Heavenly Official bestow the talisman!"

"Right, she only knows one line."

Wu Xian quietly moved to the side of the door, bent down, and pressed his ear against it. That way, whoever was outside couldn't spot him through the peephole or the gap in the door.

This was the first time Wu Xian had encountered anything like this. The terror of something beyond his understanding made his skin crawl, and his hands and feet trembled slightly. At the same time, though, he felt a strange sense of familiarity.

The talisman paper burned on its own. The words "True Fire" appeared on Wu Xian's middle finger, then vanished without a trace.

But now everything had turned into delicate paper figures. They had lost their original colors and become feather-light. Even the Steel Wire hidden in his clothes snapped with a single tug.

He immediately leaned toward the peephole to look outside.

Wu Xian had his ear pressed to the door, yet all he could hear was speech. There was no hurried breathing, nor any sound of a body colliding with the door or the floor.

Bang!

A muffled impact came from outside, as if something had slammed into the door. Then came a low scraping sound.

"Hello? Is anyone in there? He's gone mad. He wants to kill me. Please, let me in so I can hide for a little while..."

The problem was the voice.

But just then, Wu Xian suddenly grabbed her foot!

To prepare for the disappearances, he had hidden several weapons on his person, both melee and ranged, along with a lighter, a magnifying glass, a ring concealing a blade, and other odds and ends.

Wu Xian's eyes darted around twice, and he came up with a plan.

Then he heard a knock at the door.

The woman outside sounded more urgent now.

Wu Xian didn't respond.

But Wu Xian was certain she wasn't human.

After coming to a stop, he heard someone outside calling for help.

After backing away two steps, Wu Xian suddenly stopped. His heart gave a jolt.

Crack!

Notes from the Thatched Cottage of Minute Observation, Volume Thirteen: A Folk Witch says that whenever someone hangs themselves wearing red, their ghost can pass in and out of rooms, and even the Mad God cannot stop it. Women aren't buried in red, for red is the color of yang and makes them seem like living souls. I don't know the origin of this saying, but women believe it deeply. So those who die with a grudge often hang themselves in red, hoping to become vengeful spirits.