When Baili Wuchang left for Room 1115, even if he told Wen Nuan not to follow him, Wen Nuan still came of his own volition.
Baili Wuchang didn’t understand his own thoughts as he asked, “Why do you seem to care very much about affairs between An Xiangbei and Su Mu?”
After speaking, Baili Wuchang had some regrets. Caring more about other people’s business was never his style.
“It’s a long story.” Wen Nuan didn’t give him a chance to turn back on his word; after hearing Baili Wuchang’s question, he enthusiastically answered, starting to talk nonstop.
On the complete opposite side of the spectrum from Baili Wuchang, Wen Nuan was the type of person who was prone to curiosity. If there was something left ambiguous and half-known, Wen Nuan would feel restless, uneasy, and unable to eat or sleep.
Ever since he came to the Hell Chain Hotel, there were strange things all around, tickling Wen Nuan’s heart, always making him want to find out more.
Not only was the hotel strange, but the guests staying in the hotel were also strange. In addition to this, An Xiangbei was strange, and the guest Mr. Su was strange.
By contrast, the “nice waist” guest from Room 404 suddenly became “amiable and approachable”, unexpectedly “good at understanding others”.
When there was an accident at the charity event, Wen Nuan was present. At the time, the chandelier had randomly exploded, causing the guests to panic. Yang Jie took the opportunity to stab Su Mu with a sharp knife hidden in her purse.
At that time, Wen Nuan felt like something didn’t make sense. There had been a strict security check before entering the charity event. Even if Yang Jie had a purse as a cover, how could the security system not have discovered the knife she had concealed inside?
How did security not notice that Yang Jie had a knife on hand?
Unless…
There was someone like Wen Nuan and An Xiangbei under the identity of a hotel employee at the scene. Wen Nuan and An Xiangbei had been carrying a box to the banquet hall, and they didn’t have to go through the security check.
But the problem was, Yang Jie was not a hotel employee. There had to have been a hotel employee helping her behind the scenes.
Wen Nuan clearly remembered when he was lifting the box with An Xiangbei, they had run into the inattentive Yang Jie. Yang Jie accidentally knocked into An Xiangbei, almost causing him to lose his grip on the box.
Because Yang Jie had caused such a scene in the hotel lobby previously, Wen Nuan had a strong impression of her. He could tell from a glance that it was Yang Jie. Not only that, but her expression at the time was off, so Wen Nuan couldn’t help giving her a second glance.
Wen Nuan had told An Xiangbei to look at Yang Jie, but An Xiangbei had told Wen Nuan he couldn’t see anything…
The crowd inside the charity event was large, so it was normal for An Xiangbei to not see Yang Jie. But at that time, Wen Nuan noticed An Xiangbei was acting a little abnormally.
At that moment, An Xiangbei had turned in the direction Wen Nuan had directed, looking for a trace of Yang Jie. To Wen Nuan’s surprise, his gaze was wavering; An Xiangbei’s gaze wasn’t looking for her at all.
It was the gaze of a liar…
The gaze of a liar?
Baili Wuchang had no expression on his face, but he was internally pondering this information. It was the first time he had heard someone use the phrase “the gaze of a liar”.
Even if someone didn’t tell a lie, was it still possible to tell from their gaze?
Of course, even though Baili Wuchang was very curious, he refused to open his mouth, his lips still tightly sealed.
But without Baili Wuchang needing to ask, Wen Nuan already continued to comprehensively detail his explanation aloud.
Wen Nuan smiled and said, “Senior An’s eyes were subconsciously moving around, looking all over the place. At first, he really looked like he was looking for Yang Jie, but that’s not true. Eye movement and psychology are directly linked. During ‘memory search’ and ‘scene construction’, one’s gaze will subconsciously turn towards different directions.”
This so-called memory search was commonly known as recall, and scene reconstruction was actually fabricating a lie.
As Wen Nuan spoke, he puffed up his chest, smiling confidently at Baili Wuchang. His appearance seemed to be asking Baili Wuchang, Don’t I know a lot? Sort of as if he was fishing for a compliment.
Though Wen Nuan had grown up reading corny jokes, he would occasionally read through some other subjects, amassing a hodgepodge of knowledge in his brain.
He didn’t get Baili Wuchang’s praise, but Wen Nuan expected this from the get go, so he wasn’t disappointed, continuing to talk in high spirits.
When Wen Nuan realized An Xiangbei was lying, he was curious as to why An Xiangbei would lie. But now, he understood everything.
The chandelier exploding during the charity event was An Xiangbei’s doing in order to foment chaos. Baili Wuchang had already looked into this, so he could confirm.
“Senior An helped bring in the knife Yang Jie had,” said Wen Nuan. “Senior An knew that Yang Jie loathed Su Mu, so he wanted to cause chaos to get someone else to do his dirty work.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Wen Nuan stroked his chin, pretending to be deep in thought as he said, “Mr. Su is truly too shortsighted. It was obvious he was trying to provoke An Xiangbei. Even though his words weren’t nice to hear, and his actions were rough, An Xiangbei never got hurt. Instead, it was Mr. Su who was injured.”
When Su Mu forcefully kissed An Xiangbei, An Xiangbei struggled. Su Mu had confined him to stop him from escaping, but An Xiangbei’s person didn’t have any signs of bruising or battery. An Xiangbei had bitten Su Mu’s lips, and it was Su Mu who had suffered, but he didn’t strike back at all.
“This part is really worth thinking over,” Wen Nuan said sagely. “If it were anyone else, I bet they’d fly into a rage. In the next second, they’d give Senior An a big slap or a punch to the face, wouldn’t they?”
Though Su Mu was purposely trying to provoke An Xiangbei, he couldn’t bring himself to hurt him…
Wen Nuan added, “What was stranger, when Yang Jie injured Su Mu, An Xiangbei ran over in concern for Su Mu’s wound, and Su Mu coldly ignored him. Who would’ve thought that after Su Mu returned to his room, he called the front desk, asking for An Xiangbei to bring the first aid kit to him?”
Su Mu initially avoided An Xiangbei, but subsequently asked An Xiangbei to go to his room. This point was very strange to Wen Nuan.
Wen Nuan smiled at Baili Wuchang. “Now, I understand. The reason Su Mu wanted to avoid An Xiangbei was because of you, guest.”
Baili Wuchang furrowed his brow.
Wen Nuan continued, “When Mr. Su called the front desk, he specifically asked for Senior An to bring the first aid kit. However, Senior An wasn’t there, and I had a bellyful of questions, so I couldn’t help taking Senior An’s place.”
“You…” Baili Wuchang’s furrowed brow furrowed even tighter. He gazed at Wen Nuan curiously. “You weren’t afraid Su Mu would do something to you?”
Yang Jie said Su Mu was a murderer. “An Xiangbei” hated him to a teeth-gnashing degree. Su Mu clearly wasn’t anything that seemed like a good person. But…
Wen Nuan laughed, “I thought, no matter what the situation is, it’s important to see through the surface-level facts. Mr. Su only looked like a bad person, but actually…”
“Actually what?” Baili Wuchang heard Wen Nuan pause in the middle of his words, so he couldn’t stop himself from asking.
Wen Nuan’s little dimple appeared. “Actually, I can’t say for sure, but Mr. Su’s so handsome, and his waist is so slim and lean, so he doesn’t seem bad no matter how you look at him.”
Baili Wuchang: “…”
Baili Wuchang was rarely rendered dumbstruck. What did being handsome and having a slim waist have to do with being a bad person, and how were these even connected?
Wen Nuan saw his blank face and couldn’t help laughing. He teased, “Have you never heard? Beauty is justice.”
Wen Nuan went to Room 1115 to deliver the first aid kit.
Wen Nuan said, “When Mr. Su saw that it was me and not An Xiangbei, his mood was cold and contradictory. He wanted me to leave.”
“Huh—” Baili Wuchang sneered. He was seemingly mocking how he had been met with disappointment despite being attracted by appearances.
Wen Nuan patted his own chest, saying proudly, “But I had no choice. I have a naturally friendly face, so it didn’t take long for Mr. Su to change his attitude, letting me hear a story.”
A friendly face?
Baili Wuchang callously glanced down at Wen Nuan’s face, his gaze brimming with unconcealed doubt.
“The point is the story,” Wen Nuan coughed, speaking honestly.
It was a story about a young man and his shadow…
The young man was very lonely, but one day by miracle, he made his sole friend, and that was Ying Zi.
The young man didn’t know that actually, Ying Zi was the same; Ying Zi was also lonely, and the young man was also his sole friend.
Ying Zi liked the young man. He wanted to stay by the young man’s side forever. He thought as long as they were together everyday, he would be fully content.
But as the days went by, Ying Zi felt himself becoming greedier. He gradually came to wish for something more, and he wasn’t as easily satisfied as before.
Ying Zi told Su Mu that he wanted to become a real person. He wanted to experience for himself what it was like to be a human. That way…
That way Ying Zi could hold the young man’s hand. He could accompany the young man to the amusement park he had yearned to visit. In the darkness of a movie theater, he could kiss the young man’s lips.
His wish was too vague. But disaster came suddenly. The young man encountered an “accident”, weakly laying in a pool of his own blood.
Ying Zi stood at the young man’s side. No matter the heartache, fury, or helplessness he felt, he couldn’t do anything. He was just a shadow. He had no way to touch the young man, and apart from the young man, nobody knew of his existence.
Wen Nuan said, “It wasn’t an accident.”
Baili Wuchang guessed this from the start, but as to what really happened, it was impossible for him to unravel.
Wen Nuan said, “And it was completely different from what Senior An thought.”
Ying Zi never wanted to kill the young man or take advantage of the young man to steal his life.
The one who murdered the young man wasn’t Ying Zi, but Yang Jie’s father, the young man’s advisor.
Yang Jie said before that the young man was her father’s pupil. They had been working on an important research project together.
The project had been underway for a long time. The young man unexpectedly noticed that some of the data wasn’t quite right, so he quickly told Professor Yang. He wanted to redo the experiments the next day for new data. But the young man didn’t get to see the next day…
That day, at night, the young man died.
Wen Nuan sighed. “It was Yang Jie’s father who killed him to silence him.”
The experimental data truly did have some faults. Actually, since a few years ago, this research project had already utterly failed. But Professor Yang refused to accept the results. He secretly forged the data, preserving his experiments, and continued to work on them.
Professor Yang didn’t expect that as soon as he was about to succeed, his secret would get found out by the young man…
In order to prevent his research from shutting down, to preserve the years he spent toiling away, Professor Yang heartlessly and dementedly made a decision to murder in self-preservation.
Unfortunately, the young man probably never would have guessed who it was who murdered him…
The young man’s soul separated from his body, and he was about to die. At that moment, Ying Zi only had one thought: no matter what, he couldn’t let the young man pass away like this.
He wanted the young man to keep living, and he wanted to get revenge for the young man.
Ying Zi forced himself to take over the young man’s corpse, using his own spiritual power to cling to the young man’s final breath. The young man was sent to the hospital, and it was like this that he was miraculously brought back to life…
When Ying Zi forcibly entered the shell of the young man, there was considerable damage done to Ying Zi. He was afraid there might be backlash, and it would be easy for his soul to scatter and disappear from then on.
But Ying Zi didn’t care. After taking over the young man’s corpse, he used his spiritual power to repair the young man’s body. This was like digging his own grave, speeding up his own death.
Wen Nuan said, “Ying Zi didn’t want to give up. He wanted to save that person.”
As long as the time to repair was enough, Ying Zi was certain he could fully restore the young man’s body. At that time, he would search for the young man’s soul, and he might be able to “resurrect” the young man.
Of course, during the recovery period, Ying Zi had one more thing he needed to do, and that was revenge!
Professor Yang heard the young man didn’t die, and he was scared out of his wits. He knew the young man would divulge everything, so like the thief crying thief, he said the young man stole the data and sold it to their competitor researchers, wanting to corrupt the young man.
But his final struggle was in vain. Because of Ying Zi’s report, Professor Yang was to be arrested. In a final choice to escape punishment, he committed suicide.
Professor Yang wasn’t killed by Ying Zi’s own hands. After the police investigation, they found that the young man had been threatened, so Ying Zi naturally wasn’t in a difficult position.
However, Professor Yang’s daughter didn’t believe any of it. She felt like her father wasn’t that kind of person, and that it must have been the police who didn’t do a thorough investigation. She insisted that it was Su Mu who was the murderer.
Things became complex. Ying Zi actually wanted to tell the young man that everything was a misunderstanding. He liked him so much, so how could he have the heart to hurt him?
But in the end, Ying Zi couldn’t tell him the truth…
Wen Nuan said, “Mr. Su said the reason he came to stay at the Hell Chain Hotel was because he heard Senior An had disguised himself and stayed here.”
Su Mu heard that “An Xiangbei” was here, so he hurriedly came. He wanted the opportunity to meet “An Xiangbei”, and then…
He wanted to give this body back to him.
Baili Wuchang didn’t need Wen Nuan to continue. He understood now. His tone indifferent, he said, “Using spiritual energy to repair a body and recall the soul is a ‘forbidden technique’.”
This “forbidden technique” wasn’t exactly prohibited by Hell, but nobody was willing to use it.
This technique was very fair. In short, it was a life for a life. It wouldn’t cause a fluctuation in the Underworld economy or cause further injury, so it wasn’t exactly prohibited.
Ying Zi had already nurtured the corpse completely. He was just one step away, and then he could give the body back to “An Xiangbei”.
Baili Wuchang frowned and said, “Blood sacrifice.”
The last step was a blood sacrifice.
In order for “An Xiangbei” to return to his body, there needed to be a “blood sacrifice”, and he could miraculously come back to life.
But this rebirth would mean a new death. Ying Zi would become the blood sacrifice offering, separating himself from the body and becoming a spirit with nothing left behind.
Strictly speaking, between Ying Zi and “An Xiangbei”, only one of them could remain.
Wen Nuan said, “If Senior An knew that Ying Zi had done so much just for him, do you think Senior An would be willing to return to his original body?”
Su Mu deliberately provoked “An Xiangbei”, deliberately causing a misunderstanding between him and “An Xiangbei”. That way, “An Xiangbei” would believe Ying Zi to be evil, and he wouldn’t be sad about Ying Zi’s disappearance.
Su Mu said he wanted the young man to continue living happily. He didn’t want himself to become a burden or a nuisance to him. As long as he was happy, even if he hated himself, even if he misunderstood himself, that didn’t matter…
Wen Nuan felt regretful. “This seems like a sorrowful story.”
Baili Wuchang’s face was expressionless. “Sorrowful? This is a stupid story.”
He said so, but his gaze faltered, probably thinking of something else, becoming absentminded. “I hate…these kinds of stupid misunderstandings the most.”
…
Night fell quickly, and the first ray of early morning light weakly peeked through the window.
Inside Room 1115…
“An Xiangbei” was held tightly by Su Mu, his hands covered in blood.
“An Xiangbei” suddenly felt a sense of vertigo, his consciousness momentarily fading out and in. Stunned, he realized he was no longer just a spirit. He gradually regained material existence, inexplicably regaining control of his original body.
He was no longer “An Xiangbei”, and no longer a wandering ghost. He was Su Mu, Su Mu in the real flesh.
He wore the suit Ying Zi had previously worn with the first button of his shirt undone. His chest faintly ached, and blood mottled his clothes. His wounds had miraculously already healed.
His arms were still in the position to hug someone, but there was nobody left in his embrace…
It was empty…
In the room, he was the only one left.
The author has something to say: [Mini Theater]
[Ding! Please listen to the question~ If there was one sentence that encompassed your sincerest praise, you would say__?]
Wen-Little-Nuan: Mm…Nice waist!
Lord·Hardcore fan of The Ghost King’s Pampered Wife·Baili: You’ve successfully aroused my attention.
Hei Wuchang: …Boss and the little cutie sure are talented!
Bai Wuchang: …A perfect match.
“I hate…these kinds of stupid misunderstanding the most” me too🚬
+1 Could do without those
Didn’t expect to be attached to some side characters so quickly 🫠
My emotions are absolutely everywhere, I really had hoped they would get a happy ending somehow, but Ying Zi is dead 😭😭😭
Nooo 😭 can’t they bring back ying zi somehow?? The real su mu will be devastated if he ever finds out the truth 😭😭
Thanks for the update ❤️
This is why ghost stories hurt so damn much…
Thanks for translating!
Screaming, crying, throwing up. I feel like I just smoked a pack out of distress but I’m not even a smoker.
Banging my table and crying. I hate this kinds of misunderstandings the most too😭😭😭