The Ghost Is Here

"Inviting a ghost to choose an opera."

Zhou Yang made a mental note of it.

He wanted to ask Ding Ling something else, but Li Yichun, who was walking ahead, suddenly said, "Hey, do you think we might run into a ghost while we're out gathering firewood this time?"

The out-of-the-blue question made all three of them tense up!

Li Yichun glanced at Gao Hongbo beside him, then at Ding Ling behind him, and covered his mouth as he laughed. "Why are you so timid? I was only joking..."

Before he could finish, Gao Hongbo cut him off with a scolding. "I know you've never watched what you say, but you need to keep a rein on that mouth of yours now!

"Is this the time to make that kind of joke?!

"Watch out for that filthy-ptui!

"Ptui! Ptui!"

Gao Hongbo spat fiercely several times!

Ding Ling said, "The troupe leader told us beforehand to stay away from Daliang Village's homes and villagers while gathering firewood. We can't go anywhere they frequent.

"As long as we follow the rules, nothing will happen."

Gao Hongbo nodded in agreement. "Our lives depend on that rule!

"Anyone who doesn't take it seriously doesn't care about my life-

"And they'd better not blame me for showing them no mercy!"

As he spoke, he shot Li Yichun a warning look.

Li Yichun smiled awkwardly, but ultimately didn't dare say another word.

His interruption had made the atmosphere among the three turn heavy.

Surrounded by the dim forest, they suddenly felt as though ghosts were hiding in its shadowy corners, silently watching them.

A chill rose in them, raising goosebumps on their skin.

None of the three felt like talking. They each found a spot nearby and got busy chopping and gathering firewood.

The sooner they finished, the sooner they could return to the opera troupe.

Ding Ling chopped diligently, sweat dampening the hair by her cheeks.

Yet she didn't feel tired at all, enjoying her conversation with Zhou Yang in her heart.

"Stay away from Li Yichun from now on," Zhou Yang warned her then. "A person as unreliable as him can't read the room and acts on sheer stupidity. Anyone close to him is bound to have bad luck.

"If trouble really comes, he'll be like a drowning man and push the people swimming beside him underwater to use as a foothold."

"All right!"

Ding Ling answered crisply.

She too felt that Li Yichun's earlier question had been inappropriate for the occasion, and had grown somewhat wary of him.

But although she felt that way, she couldn't explain why.

Mr. Zhou was the one who could explain it clearly.

"You're performing in this place called Daliang Village right now, so where are the people in your opera troupe from?

"And do you know what region and country Daliang Village and your hometown belong to?"

Zhou Yang asked Ding Ling what he most wanted to know.

Hearing this, Ding Ling hesitated. "The people in the troupe all come from different villages and towns. When we're not performing, we each go back to our own village. We must never tell outsiders where our homes are or what direction they're in.

"These days, there are more and more ghosts and fewer and fewer people.

"Many ghosts can also pretend to be human.

"If word of where our homes are gets out and reaches people's ears, then spreads a few times, the ghosts will learn where we live too-and the whole village will be gone."

"If that's the case, and the people in your troupe all live in different villages, how does Chang Dafeng bring you together when it's time to perform somewhere else?" Zhou Yang asked.

"The villages and towns where people live aren't known to outsiders.

"But outside these 'Human Lands,' there are also 'Obstruction Circles,'" Ding Ling replied. "You don't even know about those, sir?

"You're like someone who hasn't gone out in a long time."

Zhou Yang coughed a few times. "My circumstances are very unusual right now. I can't explain them to you in just a few words.

"If that weren't so, I wouldn't have met you inside your body.

"Just think of me as someone who hasn't gone out in a long time.

"What's an Obstruction Circle?"

"I can't really explain what an Obstruction Circle is either..." Ding Ling replied quietly. "I only know that inside one, people and ghosts can't be told apart. People see ghosts as people, and ghosts see people as ghosts. There's always a layer of 'obscuring haze' between them.

"This layer of haze covers an area, and that area is where the Obstruction Circle is.

"The people in the troupe meet every two or three days in an Obstruction Circle called Silver Dipper Town.

"Obstruction Circles are actually very dangerous. Some vicious ghosts can even create Obstruction Circles themselves, drawing people in to lure them to their deaths. But people need food to stay alive, so a lot of the time they have no choice but to enter an Obstruction Circle.

"Some homeless people even settle down in Obstruction Circles and live next door to ghosts."

The conditions inside these so-called Obstruction Circles were so similar to what Zhou Yang had experienced in Guan Village.

He wanted to ask Ding Ling something else, but suddenly Gao Hongbo called out in a low voice from nearby, "Ding Ling!"

Zhou Yang and Ding Ling both looked toward Gao Hongbo.

Gao Hongbo, who was carrying a large bundle of firewood on his back, was pointing in a certain direction.

Li Yichun stood beside him, his face fearful as he looked in the same direction.

The two turned their eyes that way-

A stone house stood alone on a rocky slope, amid tall, upright fir trees.

Half a rotten wooden door hung on the house. It was pitch-dark inside, and nothing could be seen.

Moss had crept up parts of the stone walls, giving it an air of cold, deathly stillness.

At the sight of the stone house, Zhou Yang's heart skipped a beat!

He naturally remembered the important rule Ding Ling's group had to follow when gathering firewood: they must not go where the villagers of Daliang Village went!

Although the stone house looked as though no one had lived in it for a long time.

But what if someone did?

Everyone realized the same thing.

Gao Hongbo pointed in the direction away from the stone house, signaling Ding Ling and Li Yichun to follow him out of there.

The three picked up their tools and hurriedly withdrew from the slope.

Only when the rocky slope and the stone house had vanished from sight did they stop, each panting and catching their breath.

"That place, that place..." Li Yichun's powdered face was flushed red after their frantic run. He looked around, feeling that the surrounding fir forest looked exactly like the one on the rocky slope. "That place-there won't be anything there, will there?"

"We're fine now that we've gotten away." Gao Hongbo looked at the firewood his companions were carrying, then at the light growing dimmer in the forest. "The firewood should be enough, and it's getting late. Why don't we head back?"

Even though they had only seen an ordinary stone house in the forest, everyone was still shaken.

It was like seeing a venomous snake lying across the road in the dim light of night.

It made their scalps tingle and the hair on their bodies stand on end.

Ding Ling nodded in agreement with Gao Hongbo's suggestion.

Gao Hong paused.

Li Yichun should have been the first to agree to the suggestion.

But he received no response from Li Yichun, so he turned to look at him a few steps away. Li Yichun's face was deathly pale, and his eyes were fixed on a certain spot!

They followed his gaze-

Ding Ling and Gao Hongbo's hearts went cold!

Beneath a stand of towering fir trees, a stone house stood in silence.

The rotten wooden door, with only half of it left, the moss creeping up the stone walls... everything was exactly as they had seen it before!

They had clearly run a long way in the opposite direction from the stone house, yet now, in a different direction, they could see an identical stone house again!

At the sight of it, Gao Hongbo felt a chill run up his back to the crown of his head!

"Don't panic.

"If it comes to it, I'll take control of your body and get you out of here."

At that moment, Zhou Yang sensed that something was strange about Ding Ling's condition. He spoke up just then, hoping to steady her nerves.

He had only just learned the Breathing of the Ghost in Guan Village. Now, with a brief thought, he sensed that the wisp of "ghostly aura" was drifting beneath Ding Ling's skin.

At this critical moment, the Breathing of the Ghost would come in handy.

"A ghost! A ghost is here!"

In the silent mountain forest, Li Yichun stared at the stone house and suddenly screamed!

Screaming, he abruptly grabbed Gao Hongbo and pulled him in front of himself as a shield-

Li Yichun's face, smeared with cheap powder, was especially white now. His features were scrunched together from the sight of something terrifying, and the pink rouge made him look grotesque!

**"Where's the ghost?!

"Where is it?!"**

Gao Hongbo could only grip the large brush sickle in his hand tightly. His voice trembled as his gaze swept back and forth over the stone house and its surroundings, but he found nothing.

He couldn't see even the shadow of a ghost!

**"The one in red!

"The long-haired female ghost!"**

Li Yichun cowered behind Gao Hongbo, but kept craning his head to look.

He glanced repeatedly at the stone house, then suddenly frowned and muttered, "Why is she gone...?

"Were my eyes playing tricks on me?"

Gao Hongbo flew into a rage at this. He twisted around, shook off Li Yichun's hand, and glared at him, shouting, **"Did you actually see clearly or not?!

"Do you know where we are? And you're shouting nonsense!

"If we really run into a guest, we'll all suffer!"**

"My fault, my eyes were playing tricks on me..." Li Yichun begged Gao Hongbo repeatedly. "Brother Gao, this place is too eerie. Let's hurry and leave!

"Let's go together!"

Gao Hongbo's brow was tightly furrowed.

He knew perfectly well that this was no time to argue with Li Yichun over who was right or wrong.

Something was wrong with this place. They really did need to leave quickly.

He nodded and was about to say something when he suddenly sniffed hard. "What's that smell?"

A cloyingly sweet, rotten stench drifted into Gao Hongbo's nostrils.

"What's that smell?"

Repeating the question, Gao Hongbo suddenly turned around. Sniffing continuously, he ran straight toward the stone house!

The sudden change left Li Yichun dumbfounded!

He stood there for a moment, then suddenly shuddered, turned and ran for the edge of the forest as fast as he could!

He didn't even think to call out to Ding Ling, who wasn't far away!

A cloyingly sweet smell of decay came from somewhere unknown, quietly drifting with the flowing darkness into Ding Ling's nostrils.

Ding Ling stared blankly at the stone house in the forest.

A woman dressed in a gaudy, colorful opera costume stood in the open doorway of the house.

The woman was dressed as a huadan.

"Her" body swayed, and her headdress and kingfisher-feather tassels swayed gently along with her, jingling.

Ding Ling was entranced by the huadan's movements.

Unable to stop herself, she began walking toward the stone house in the forest, following the cloyingly sweet stench of a corpse.

She even ignored Mr. Zhou's voice calling to her in her heart:

"Ding Ling!"

"Ding Ling!"

"Ding Ling!"

After the third call, an icy aura suddenly raced beneath Ding Ling's skin!

She snapped back to her senses and saw a blurry figure standing rigidly right in front of her!

Waves of icy aura all came from this blurry figure!

Before Ding Ling could react, she saw the blurry figure reach out both arms and grab her hands-

A bone-chilling cold spread from her hands, where they touched the blurry figure, all the way up her arms!

"Waaaah-"

A shrill ghostly wail suddenly rang out from Ding Ling's arms!

Pitch-black holes appeared all over both arms-

Ghost Mouths howled incessantly!