Chapter 22
Su Cheng sneered. They certainly had it all worked out.
In the darkness, the mirror strangely refracted a faint light from some unknown source.
Su Cheng's Soul-Pointing Needle still pointed at her.
Su Cheng slowed her breathing. Dagger in hand, she approached the mirror step by step.
The mirror reflected her.
And the long-haired female ghost in a red dress sitting on her shoulder, her neck crooked...
A chill spread down Su Cheng's neck and across her entire back. The ghost's cold was seeping into her skin.
She tightened her grip on the dagger. Aside from the icy temperature, she sensed no killing intent. She already had an answer in her heart:
"Is... is that you?"
"Mu Ling?"
The female ghost slowly raised her head, revealing a deathly face amid her black hair.
Her eyes were rolled back, and the blood-red knife wound on her neck was still bleeding, staining her originally yellow dress red...
The visual shock of facing a ghost made Su Cheng's heart quiver. She swallowed, trying to straighten her weak legs and recover from the blankness in her mind.
"Are you trying to tell me something?"
Mu Ling remained motionless, as though she couldn't hear her.
Click, click-
The Soul-Pointing Needle suddenly turned.
Click, click, click, click, click-
The long needle spun erratically, faster and faster, showing no sign of stopping, as though it had malfunctioned.
The air in the restroom abruptly chilled. There was a sinister cold mixed into it, as though it would seep into a person's body...
The Soul-Pointing Needle wasn't broken. Another ghost had arrived.
Su Cheng's teeth chattered despite her clenched jaw. A cloud of red mist appeared in a corner of the restroom.
The malice in the red mist was as sharp as needles.
It was the ghost that had been killing people all along!
Mu Ling floated off Su Cheng's shoulder. With a roar, her loose hair rapidly lengthened and stabbed toward the red mist!
Not to be outdone, the red mist swelled. There seemed to be hands inside it, viciously tearing out Mu Ling's hair.
"Ah-"
Mu Ling's scalp tore. She screamed in fury, and more hair sprouted from the places where it had been ripped out, stabbing wildly at the red mist.
The two ghosts tangled in combat, gusts of chilling wind knocking over the trash can.
The cramped space grew colder and colder. The mirror shattered, and frost spread across the walls.
Mu Ling's body began to grow faint, while the red mist had only faded slightly.
Su Cheng shivered with cold, growing anxious.
Mu Ling was clearly at a disadvantage in this fight. She had to find a way to help her.
With a glance, Su Cheng spotted something stuck to her shoulder in the mirror!
Su Cheng reached for the yellow object. Wasn't this the talisman paper Xunfang had handed out earlier?
Without a doubt, Xunfang must have taken the chance to stick it on her back when she bumped into her!
"So you're playing dirty!"
Anger flared in Su Cheng's heart, overwhelming her fear of ghosts and even warming her body a little. She crumpled the talisman paper and tossed it onto the floor.
In that brief moment, the hands in the red mist seized Mu Ling, tangling with her black hair.
Mu Ling's body grew fainter and fainter...
The red mist was devouring her!
Gritting her teeth, Su Cheng hurled her dagger at the red mist.
The moment the dagger pierced the red mist, it stopped in midair as though it had struck something solid, rather than passing through and embedding itself in the wall.
The red mist twisted for an instant. Mu Ling seized the opportunity to sever its hands with her long hair and swiftly devour the severed limbs.
Mu Ling's body grew a little more substantial. Pressing her advantage, she whipped her long hair around the red mist...
"Courting... death!"
A powerful surge of resentment erupted from the red mist, snapping the hair wrapped around it. The dagger fell to the floor.
"All... must die... die..."
The red mist spat out indistinct words in fury.
Although the red mist had no eyes, Su Cheng felt it staring at her. A chill spread over her back, as though some dangerous creature had locked onto her!
Boom, boom, boom-
The red mist abruptly dispersed.
Mu Ling glanced at Su Cheng, then vanished as well.
At some point, the wooden-bead bracelet had appeared around Su Cheng's wrist. Red light flashed, burning hot for an instant.
Bzz, bzz.
The lights came on.
The restroom grew quiet again. Apart from the mess on the floor and the shattered mirror, it was as though nothing had happened.
Su Cheng picked up the yellow talisman paper she had crumpled into a ball.
The ghosts were gone.
Su Cheng looked toward the door and took out her chainsaw. Now it was her turn to "return the favor."
The chainsaw roared to life, vibrating with a bzzzz-
Su Cheng kicked the door open with a bang!
As everyone stared in shock, she charged straight at the young man with her chainsaw, bringing it down without a word.
"You, you!"
The young man tumbled out of his seat in panic.
The chainsaw struck the seat, leaving a deep gash!
Su Cheng kicked the young man in the head. "Trying to set me up?"
The young man spat out a mouthful of blood as Su Cheng planted her foot hard on his chest. He glanced at the still-buzzing chainsaw, unwilling to yield, but could only glare at Su Cheng hatefully.
"What are you staring at? Still not happy?"
Su Cheng raised the chainsaw to strike his face!
The other passengers were all frightened by Su Cheng's sudden frenzy. They stood frozen, not daring to step forward and stop her.
The young man's pupils dilated, and all color drained from his face. He shouted, "Wait!"
Su Cheng sneered. "And here I thought you weren't afraid of dying!"
Su Cheng moved the chainsaw aside and stomped on him again and again.
"Ah-"
Crack. The sound of breaking bone.
Su Cheng had broken his knee.
As for how many ribs she had broken in his chest, she had no idea.
The young man spat out bloody froth and broken teeth. Hiding all the viciousness in his eyes, he lay sprawled on the floor in a sorry state.
Su Cheng hadn't acted earlier mainly because she was worried about affecting her information gathering for the side quest. But now that someone had gone so far as to set her up...
Keep putting up with it? I'd turn into a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle!
"Aren't you awfully attached to that suitcase of yours?"
The young man immediately realized what Su Cheng intended to do. He shook his head in panic. "No, no..."
Amid his pleas, the black suitcase was yanked down and hit the floor with a heavy clang.
The suitcase had a combination lock, but Su Cheng had a chainsaw.
The chainsaw brutally split the suitcase open. The instant it cracked apart, wisps of putrid stench drifted out...
Nauseated, Su Cheng took half a step back.
So this was where the rotten stench she had been smelling all along came from!
No wonder the young man had wanted to sit beside the restroom. First, he could watch the luggage rack; second, he could use the restroom's smell to cover the strange stench inside the suitcase.
The suitcase split fully open, revealing half a head, arms, thighs... body parts sealed in layers of plastic wrap!
A dismembered corpse!
Su Cheng was astonished.
"Ah..."
The watching passengers let out low cries of surprise.
With his secret exposed in public, the young man faced their varied gazes and roared himself hoarse. "Why did you open it!!!"
He seemed to have suffered an enormous shock. He actually stood up as though he weren't injured and pulled out the Boning Knife hidden beneath the seat cushion.
He had endured the beating just now...
Yet only after his secret was exposed did he draw a knife to fight back?
The young man seemed like a different person. He attacked Su Cheng with the knife, and he seemed to have learned professional moves, managing to dodge Su Cheng's chainsaw with perfect timing several times.
But Su Cheng was no pushover either. Her experiences in the previous two worlds alone had greatly improved her physical abilities.
Besides, after the Gene Lock, her five senses had sharpened, making the young man's moves appear slower to her.
Su Cheng drove her chainsaw into the young man's thigh and kicked his knife away, ending his brief counterattack.
Su Cheng confiscated the Boning Knife that had fallen to the floor.
[Boning Knife (enchanted version): category: supernatural weapon. Effect: steeped in resentment and karma, it has a natural deterrent effect on ordinary ghosts. Weight: 0.15 kg]
It seemed this Boning Knife was the weapon the young man had used to commit his crime.
"Ah..."
The young man collapsed into a sitting position in the aisle in pain. Clutching his profusely bleeding thigh, he had truly been forced into submission.
Su Cheng asked, "What's your name?"
The young man said nothing.
Su Cheng stepped on his wound and ground her foot into it.
"He Lie!" He forced out the two syllables viciously, without a trace of his earlier indifference and melancholy.
"Who's in the suitcase?"
Su Cheng stared intently at him. She had originally thought the female ghost in the red mist, who had been killing people all along, was a passenger who had died in the old case, just like Mu Ling.
But after seeing He Lie's suitcase full of dismembered remains, she overturned her earlier theory.
Perhaps the female ghost in the red mist who kept killing people was this female corpse! That was why Mu Ling was so particularly hostile toward her.
She wasn't a passenger who had died on the train. He Lie had brought her aboard!
Su Cheng was fairly confident in this theory, but she still needed more information to confirm it.
When it came to the female corpse, the young man fell silent again.
No matter how Su Cheng ground her foot into his wound, he refused to utter a single word, even as he trembled in pain. His eyes were filled with venomous hatred.
"Even if you don't talk, I'll find out sooner or later."
With this one dealt with, it was time for the next.
Su Cheng turned to look at the nervous Xunfang.
Author's note:
None.
Chapter 22
"What exactly does that talisman paper of yours do? Will you tell me honestly, or do I have to come over and force it out of you?"
Xunfang's face twisted for an instant before she forced a smile. "What are you talking about? The talisman paper just drives away ghosts..."
She hid behind several passengers and urged them, "Has she been possessed? Everyone, get her together and tie her up!"
The passengers hesitated. Wary of the chainsaw in Su Cheng's hands, none dared step forward.
Su Cheng sneered. "Your talisman paper is a Ghost-Attracting Talisman, isn't it? Why did three people die last time? Because they accepted your talisman paper."
Wasn't Xunfang handing these Soul-Summoning Talismans to the other passengers precisely so they would distract the ghosts and keep her safe?
"When you locked me in the restroom just now, you secretly stuck a talisman on my back."
Su Cheng threw the crumpled talisman paper onto the floor.