Chapter 59: Grudge of the Death Curse (Part Nine)

"A well-proportioned layout with moderate area. Full sun exposure design, allowing airflow through both north and south sides. Independent bathroom, embracing absolute luxury."

Li Sheng inspected the room's structure, reciting his commentary with a rich, magnetic, and emotional vocal tone, sounding precisely like a brainwashing advertisement echoing inside an elevator.

Real estate prices in Yin City within the real world remained stubbornly high, and with land resources exceptionally scarce, developers had churned out plenty of bizarre floor plans. Meanwhile, those utterly shameless real estate agents would open their eyes wide and spout sheer nonsense without a hint of shame.

A nine-story building lacking an elevator would be brazenly described as a residential community rich in an athletic atmosphere where everyone loved fitness. Proximity to a psychiatric hospital would be marketed as having abundant medical resources. Even a floor plan where the bedroom door directly faced the bathroom door could be smoothly rebranded as "elder-friendly renovation, investing in the future."

The underlying implication was essentially, "Hey, guess what? We traditional folks of Yin City wake up to precisely this routine every morning—other than easing nature's call, there is nothing else."

Following this logic, a haunted house where N people had died could easily be marketed as "a lively household with an ample sense of companionship; you won't feel lonely even eating your New Year's Eve dinner all by yourself."

The clock on the wall remained frozen at five o'clock in the afternoon, the mobile phone displayed no signal, and the lights refused to turn on.

Lifting a flashlight, Li Sheng searched methodically through the kitchen, bedroom, and living room, yet discovered nothing out of the ordinary.

Just as he placed his hand upon the bathroom doorknob, static suddenly hissed through his Bluetooth earpiece, followed immediately by the voice of Jingzhe Xiazhi.

"Hello, can you hear me? It's me," Jingzhe Xiazhi said urgently from the other end of the Bluetooth earpiece. "Don't go in there. There is danger inside."

"Huh? Has the communication been restored?"

Li Sheng released the doorknob, took half a step back, and noticed a faint white light lingering just outside the living room window, resembling the indicator light of a drone. "How is it on your end?"

"Not too bad," Jingzhe Xiazhi's voice replied. "You can't see it from where you are, but I can see a mass of hair growing out from the floorboards of that room, spreading directly toward you."

Hair?

Li Sheng held up the flashlight to scan his surroundings, but saw no sign of the hair in question. Could it be some form of illusion?

He narrowed his eyes slightly, rummaged through his inventory to retrieve a SCAR assault rifle, and swept the floor with a barrage of gunfire. Every bullet fired had previously been consecrated at a temple, theoretically possessing exorcism properties.

"How about now?"

"No effect, the hair is still growing," Jingzhe Xiazhi's voice stated. "There's no time to explain. Hurry over to the Japanese-style washitsu room right now; it's temporarily safe there."

"Understood."

Since Li Sheng could not perceive the hair, he stowed the rifle away, popped out the mantis blade implants from his forearms, inverted his body upside down, drove the blades directly into the floorboards to support his weight, and advanced forward in a handstand.

Just as he reached the exterior of the washitsu door, he spotted a brilliant beam of light penetrating the thin paper sliding door of the washitsu and casting illumination into the living room.

The voice of Jingzhe Xiazhi from the Bluetooth earpiece instructed, "I've shone a light for you, hurry up and follow the light."

Walking on his hands, Li Sheng found a moment to chat while busy. "Speaking of which, did you watch Xiaomi's product launch conference tonight? Boss Lei Jun has really gotten arrogant, daring to sell a single phone for over two hundred thousand. Much more expensive than Huawei, Apple, or Samsung."

"?"

The voice on the other end of the Bluetooth earpiece paused momentarily, as if utterly at a loss for how to respond, and simply repeated, "I've shone a light for you, hurry up and follow the light."

"You haven't answered my question yet. By the way, what brand of phone are you using right now? Nokia or BlackBerry?"

***

Li Sheng chattered cheerfully. "Speaking of this, it reminds me of an experience I once had boarding a plane at an American airport.

"Back then, in the early 2000s, the weather was scorching hot. I was wearing a headscarf and a long robe, and carrying far too many digital gadgets on me. So, I made a few slight modifications to a tactical vest, stuffing it with numerous power banks and data cables, all connected and controlled by a single red button that would emit a beeping charging prompt sound whenever pressed.

"For some reason, though, the security guards tackled and pinned me down the moment I stepped into the airport."

"I've shone a light for you..."

"Enough with the light, little sister."

Li Sheng let out a whistle and removed the left piece of his Bluetooth earpiece. "I quietly removed the battery from this side of the earpiece, yet sound is still coming out of it."

In other words, the entity on the other end of the Bluetooth earpiece was definitely not the real Jingzhe Xiazhi.

"..."

Dead silence filled the room. With a loud bang, the paper sliding door of the washitsu—the very door the voice had continuously tried to lure Li Sheng into entering—slammed wide open, finally allowing Li Sheng to clearly see the scene within.

There was no drone indicator light whatsoever. The so-called light source was actually a gigantic, incomparably enormous eyeball.

A colossal, completely bloodless, and pallid woman's face was pressed directly against the floor-to-ceiling window, wearing a venomous expression and glaring fixedly at Li Sheng outside the door.

Judging by her appearance, it was precisely the female master of the Fujita household who had been brutally murdered twenty-five years ago with her head severed.

"Sister, your face might be a bit on the large side, but your bone structure is great. Once you slim down, you'll definitely look stunning."

Li Sheng offered a compliment, pushed off with his arms to regain a standing posture, and drew his rifle from his inventory.

Bang!

That massive woman's face shattered the window glass, squeezed into the room, and hurtled straight toward Li Sheng.

The latter pulled the trigger, unleashing a torrent of firepower. The dense volleys of consecrated bullets struck her face, stirring up trails of black smoke. Although it failed to inflict fatal damage, it successfully impeded her momentum.

*The Bluetooth voice came through right as I was about to search the bathroom. That means whatever is inside this house doesn't want me to enter the bathroom.*

With this thought, Li Sheng maintained his suppressing fire, retreated all the way to the bathroom door, and kicked the wooden door open.

The modestly sized bathroom contained both a shower and a bathtub system. Abandoned beside the bathtub were two empty red gasoline cans and a cigarette lighter, while the bathtub itself was filled to the brim with an opaque, pitch-black liquid.

Right in the center of the black liquid, the very tip of a hat made of aluminum foil protruded outward.

Could it be...

Li Sheng deployed his ant-hair needles, thrust his hand into the dark water, and hauled a living person out from within.

Kenichi Ishikawa, the long-missing folklorist, was actually still alive. He was still wearing that tin-foil coat, though his face and body bore severe burn scars, and he remained completely unconscious.

A flurry of hypotheses instantly flashed through Li Sheng's mind.

Could it be that he had previously intended to burn down this house using gasoline cans, failed to succeed, ended up severely burning himself in the process, and ultimately survived due to the time-stagnation effect of the Fujita family estate?

***

In a split second, leaving no leisure for Li Sheng to ponder deeply, that human face lunged forward once more. Simultaneously, dense strands of long black hair sprouted from every corner of the room, weaving together into a thick, tangled net.

Clang!

Li Sheng produced a Taoist talisman, slapped it onto the surface of his mantis blade, and swept his single hand in rapid successive slashes to cleave through the hair. With his other hand, he grabbed the collar of the unconscious Kenichi Ishikawa, hauling him up like a fleeing rabbit to dodge the charging face. He lunged through the shattered floor-to-ceiling window of the washitsu and leaped outside.

The moment he hit the ground, the starlight, moonlight, and street lamps returned to normal illumination. Jingzhe Xiazhi hurried to the front of the estate and shouted, "Where is Stacked Soldier?"

"Still inside the house."

Li Sheng tossed Kenichi Ishikawa over to her, turned around, and saw the figure of Stacked Soldier appearing behind the glass of the second-floor balcony.

Wielding a circular shield composed of green data, Stacked Soldier was barely managing to fend off the cleaver strikes of a fierce malevolent spirit as he retreated into the corner of the room.

"Use this!"

Jingzhe Xiazhi urged urgently, tossing a roll of tape and a round, heavy object directly into Li Sheng's arms.

[Item Name: Sarira Ash Bomb]

[Type: Consumable Prop]

[Quality: Excellent]

[Special Effect: Homage and Worship. Detonates three seconds after pulling the pin, generating a forward energy-attribute shockwave with a diameter of twenty meters.]

[Consumption: 50 Spiritual Power Points]

[Cooldown: None]

[Prerequisites: Strength Attribute 6 or higher]

[Remarks: "As people get older, they really need to supplement more iron, zinc, and copper." In order to boost the production rate of sarira relics in the temple, the young newly appointed abbot decided to add a bit more heavy metal to the daily vegetarian meals of his master, grandmaster, and grand-uncle.]

Li Sheng forced his gaze away from the remark overflowing with sarcastic remarks, grasped Jingzhe Xiazhi's intent, and immediately stamped off the ground. Grasping the eaves, he scaled the second floor, pulled the pin of the spherical bomb, and used the tape to secure the bomb firmly onto the balcony's glass door.

He then vaulted onto the rooftop and silently counted down: three, two, one.

Boom!

The deafening roar of the explosion drowned out the muffled thunder rolling through the clouds. The balcony glass door vanished completely, and nearly half of the building collapsed inward.

Dust billowed across the scene, and the cleaver-wielding ghost vanished into thin air. Stacked Soldier stood amidst the ruined debris, his face completely blackened by soot. Opening his mouth, he burped out a puff of dark smoke like an animated character.

"Cough, cough, what on earth was that? Why did a pebble fly straight into my mouth?"