Ruyi

Chapter 34: Ruyi

Bai Yanliang's voice wasn't impassioned, but each word stabbed straight into Ding Peng's heart like a sharp knife.

He had Ding Lei's face, wore Ding Lei's clothes, used Ding Lei's identity, and enjoyed Ding Lei's wealth, but... he wasn't Ding Lei.

He was just a petty thug who got dragged into the Criminal Police Bureau every few days.

Bai Yanliang released his grip on Ding Peng's hair and looked away.

The safe was still open.

He stepped closer. Only when he reached it did he realize that what lay inside was an antique jade ruyi.

The jade ruyi was shaped like a long-handled hook. Its hooked head was flat like a shell leaf, and the whole piece was smooth and rounded, pure white and lustrous. Its delicate white surface seemed to hold flowing clear water, moist and glossy.

But... upon closer inspection, Bai Yanliang spotted a faint red thread inside the antique white jade ruyi.

"You did all this for it?"

Bai Yanliang turned to look at Ding Peng.

The man had been silent since earlier, his head bowed as if lost in thought.

At the sound of Bai Yanliang's voice, he raised his head slightly and looked at him. His voice was hoarse and dry as he said, "Do you know... why this place is called the Ruyi Inn?"

Bai Yanliang merely watched him in silence.

Ding Peng forced out a rather derisive smile. "This is the most valuable thing in the inn. It's a family heirloom of the Li family."

Seeing that Bai Yanliang remained silent, and hadn't even glanced at the jade ruyi again, Ding Peng finally looked him in the eye.

"You and I are different."

"Ah Qiao... I was the one who caused her death..." A trace of pain crossed Ding Peng's face. Bai Yanliang could tell this pain was different from what he'd felt when a dagger had been plunged into his palm.

"I stole the Li family's heirloom, and I let a monster out..." Ding Peng clutched his face with his left hand, his voice trembling.

Bai Yanliang finally spoke. Looking at the jade ruyi, he asked, "Did it kill Zhang Qiao?"

Ding Peng nodded, his expression tinged with remorse and fear.

"After I got the thing, I gave it to Ah Qiao to keep, but... after that, she started having nightmares every night."

As Ding Peng told his story, Bai Yanliang heard a terrifying tale and finally understood why Zhang Qiao had died beneath the bed in Room 405.

"At first, it could only appear vaguely in Ah Qiao's dreams, but then... it became clearer and clearer, and drew closer and closer to her..."

"Ah Qiao was terrified, but at the time... I thought it was all caused by her own unease, so I didn't take it seriously. Not until... it crawled out of Ah Qiao's dream and appeared right in front of us."

Ding Peng trembled like a leaf. Just thinking of that monster made his scalp crawl with terror.

"As soon as it appeared, it headed for Ah Qiao. She ran out of the room in terror, and I... I was so scared I couldn't think straight. I grabbed the jade ruyi and ran... By the time I finally worked up the courage to go back, Ah Qiao was already dead... dead beneath the bed in Room 405."

Looking at Ding Peng, who seemed to be in great pain, Bai Yanliang's eyes held a clear trace of mockery for the first time.

The pain and regret he felt now had little to do with mourning Zhang Qiao. He was still just indulging in self-pity.

Selfishness and vileness were etched into his bones. It was obvious from the way he told it: when life and death were at stake, his first thought had been to flee with the treasure.

Bai Yanliang couldn't be bothered to look at him again.

He turned and picked up the jade ruyi. The moment it touched his hand, Bai Yanliang couldn't help shivering.

The jade ruyi had none of jade's warm, smooth feel. Instead, it was as cold as ice, as if... it had just been dug out of a thousand-year-old tomb...

"Where... where are you going?"

At the sound of Bai Yanliang's movement, Ding Peng hurriedly looked up and asked.

Although he was asking Bai Yanliang, his eyes instinctively followed the jade ruyi in Bai Yanliang's hand.

Bai Yanliang stopped and glanced back at him. He didn't say a word, only closed the office door.

He had no interest in saving or lecturing a beast like him.

And what he had to do now was, of course, the last thing.

Put the thing that had been let out... back where it belonged.

It was getting late.

Li Yuejun was already on her way with the police officers. In the end, the woman hadn't listened to Bai Yanliang.

Jiang Li and Xu Zhi'an were hiding on the rooftop. Three water tanks stood together on the other side, and two corpses were rotting inside two of them.

Xu Zhi'an wasn't worried about his severed hand. As long as he could return to Mist Gathering, he could come back to life even if he had only one breath left.

What worried him was whether this operation would succeed.

As for Jiang Li, she was leaning against the wall, silent, gazing up at the familiar yet strange stars, lost in thought.

The night deepened. A chill, gloomy aura swirled above the Ruyi Inn, like the stench of blood leaking from a rotting corpse.

"Ding..."

The elevator stopped on the fourth floor.

A man stepped out.

Bai Yanliang looked at the place before him, now utterly unrecognizable, but felt little emotion.

Although he'd already expected the fourth floor to be dangerous, he still hadn't imagined it would become like this.

Stains of water spread everywhere, resembling congealed blood beneath the dim lights.

The corridor, which should have been snow-white, was coated in filthy, foul marks.

At a glance, it looked as though the place had been abandoned and left to rot for years.

Bai Yanliang stepped onto the sodden floor. The stains felt unnaturally sticky.

Looking down, he saw that they had become a series of blurry, bloody faces.

An unsettling, terrifying aura stretched all around him. The walls and floor seemed to be living skin, beginning to rot, and a nauseating stench wafted through the air.

Room 406 was just ahead. Its door stood open.

Bai Yanliang ignored the grotesque scene before him and walked straight toward it, the jade ruyi in his hand.

But just then, a drop of water quietly fell onto Bai Yanliang's head.

Bai Yanliang looked up. Even his usually unruffled heart stirred slightly.

Because... a pale, bloated woman with no pupils was clinging to the ceiling, drenched from head to toe and staring at him with malice.

At the same time, a figure slowly appeared in the dark stairwell before him.

And when that figure appeared, Bai Yanliang's eyes filled with overwhelming delight for the first time.

It was a mature-looking man in a suit, with a face that bore a strong resemblance to his own.

The man was smiling at him...

Brother...

The delight in Bai Yanliang's eyes vanished in an instant. He quickly returned to his calm and ignored both the female ghost above him and the man in front of him.

He continued toward Room 406.

The malicious, pupil-less eyes of the ghost on the ceiling followed his movements. The smile on Bai Yanren's face grew increasingly strange.

But... Bai Yanliang was absolutely sure.

These two ghosts couldn't hurt anyone.

Because the one that truly killed people... was it!

Bai Yanliang stopped at the entrance to Room 406 and looked inside.

There... a twisted, human-shaped shadow was spreading through the darkness.

Like a boneless snake, it moved toward Bai Yanliang in a strange, contorted manner.

Its long, twisted limbs reached past Bai Yanliang toward the space behind him. A terrifying chill rose at his back, and he could clearly feel its presence... the presence of death.

But... the more terrifying it was, the more confident he felt.

"Though I don't know what you are, this place... isn't your world."

Bai Yanliang raised the jade ruyi and hurled it with all his strength toward the depths of Room 406.

There... a huge mass of twisted darkness was taking shape.

The moment the unremarkable jade ruyi touched the darkness, a sudden change took place.

The twisted monster seemed to be sucked in by something and rapidly recoiled. The female ghost on the ceiling and Bai Yanren in the corridor were sucked in too.

Yet Bai Yanliang felt no pulling force at all.

He calmly watched the jade ruyi lying on the floor. It glowed with a faint white light, frantically absorbing the eerie things around it. After a few breaths, every strange sight vanished.

Bai Yanliang finally let out a breath and leaned against the doorframe, removing two earplugs from his ears.

He'd done it!

He'd taken a gamble, and this time, he'd won!

There was no way it was a coincidence that Ding Lei, Li Yuhua, and Zhang Qiao had all become ghosts.

They'd been affected by the thing inside the jade ruyi, but they didn't have the ability to kill.

The one that could truly kill was the twisted black monster.

And the medium it needed to kill was... sound.

More precisely, the sound of water.

Bai Yanliang, who had just let out a breath of relief, suddenly froze. A blood-red mist rose from above his head, and at the same time, the world around him rapidly faded.

Bai Yanliang watched the strange scene before him, his eyes flickering. He had just started to reach out and touch the door beside him, which had turned black and white,

when the world shattered into pieces like a mirror.

One figure after another gradually appeared before him.

He... was back!