Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor-PerpetualMreow, Proofreader-adjective
It was dark inside the Bell and Drum Tower. There were no candles or lampstands, and the only source of light that they could rely on was on the lighting outside the courtyard.
Mo Tiangen had entered the Bell and Drum Tower through the window before holding onto the edge of the window and looking outside.
There was a flicker of fire outside the courtyard wall, and it was already coming his way.
“Fuck!”
Mo Tiangen’s back was drenched in a cold sweat.
The group of monsters outside came to find him based on their ability to smell humans. As long as there was no wooden token to hide his identity, even if he climbed a tree and hid in the Bell and Drum Tower, he would not be able to hide for long.
Just when Mr. Dagen was so anxious that he was even considering whether to take a risky breakout, he suddenly heard a faint sound behind him, a “click”.
The sound was very soft and subtle, if he had not paid close attention, he would’ve mistaken it for the movement of the wood deforming and cracking, but Mo Tiangen was so frightened that his hair stood upside down, his heart suddenly tightened, and he almost jumped out of the window.
He clutched his chest and turned back with trepidation.
Mo Tiangen’s vision had not yet entirely accustomed to the darkness of the Bell and Drum Tower, so he could only distinguish the shapes of several large items in the depths of the room, as well as a ghostly figure in white clothes.
Stranger at the first meeting, familiar at the second, when it came to the third time, Mr. Dagen was not surprised, and he was able to face it calmly and rationally.
Sure enough, when Mo Tiangen turned his head, the figure in white raised her hand and gestured towards him, as if to signal for him to come over.
——All right!
Mo Tiangen swallowed hard, quickly made some psychological construction for himself, and walked over to the figure in white.
After his eyes gradually got used to the dark environment, he could clearly see the true appearance of the woman in white in front of him.
It was a young woman in her early thirties, with a lean physique and beautiful features, wearing a moon white embroidered dress. Her hands were folded and hung in front of her. Her posture was very elegant. She looked like a well-educated lady.
But even though the woman’s temperament was outstanding, it still could not change her vague sense of unreality.
Mo Tiangen stared at the beautiful woman in front of him, his lips trembled, barely squeezing out two words, “You, hello…”
The woman in white’s lips hooked up, revealing a bitter smile that hinted at sorrow.
Then she stretched out her hand and pointed her slender jade finger to her side.
Mr. Dagen turned his head following the guidance of the female ghost and saw a Buddhist shrine with an extremely exquisitely carved white jade Buddha statue. There was also a mahogany offering table and three beautiful futons in front of the Buddha.
Only then did Mo Tiangen notice that the second floor of the Bell and Drum Tower was a Buddhist hall.
It was obvious that the demons in this mansion did not believe in Buddhism, so the Buddha Hall had been deserted for a long time.
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.
Dust and cobwebs smothered the White Jaded Buddha. The flowers, snacks, and fruits on the table had deteriorated into a mass of gray-black sludge, and their former appearance was no longer recognizable. One foot of the incense burner was broken—tilted over on one side, and the remaining ash almost all spilled onto the table.
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This made him notice something that he had just overlooked.
In the corner of the offering table, there was a rectangular wooden box, the pattern of peach branches on it was very delicate, but it was covered with dust and looked inconspicuous because of it.
Mo Tiangen reached for the box, opened it, and found that there was a blue and white porcelain vase with a long neck and a wide belly.
He took out the porcelain vase and looked back at the woman in white ghost.
The beautiful woman smiled and nodded toward him.
Teacher Dagen hurriedly removed the vase cork, a strong sandalwood fragrance immediately permeated the air.
In fact, this was a Buddhist temple, incense used to swirl all year round, and the unique smell of incense had long been soaked through the building materials and wood in the house. Even if no one has burned incense for many years, as long as you smelled carefully, you could still distinguish a lingering faint fragrance.
It’s just that the faint fragrance of the room itself is incomparable with the strong fragrance in the vase. Mo Tiangen suddenly smelled it expecting a sudden strong fragrance, and choked and coughed up.
“Cough cough cough!”
Mo Tiangen coughed while pouring out a few dark brown pills from the vase.
“What is this stuff? Incense pills?”
——That’s right!
The moment the word “incense pills” was uttered, Mo Tiangen suddenly realized.
He guessed what the woman in white wanted him to do.
At this time, the group of yard guards who had come after him had gathered in the yard with torches and walked all the way towards the Bell and Drum Tower. It seemed that they would arrive soon.
Mo Tiangen immediately decided to no longer hesitate, crushed the incense pills in his hand, sprinkled the sandalwood-scented mud on the windowsill, stairs, and offering table, and then wiped the rest of the mud on his body.
After doing all this, he climbed on the edge of the window, using both hands and feet, scrambled a few times to reach the roof beam, found the darkest corner, and curled up carefully.
Two minutes later, Mo Tiangen heard the sound of creaking stairs.
Two guards with torches came upstairs to check.
“Bah! What kind of smell is this!”
One of them just walked into the Buddha hall and immediately covered his mouth and nose, “It smells bad, it really smells bad!”
The other demon obviously didn’t like the smell in the house and showed an expression on his face. Disgust wrinkled his nose as he looked around, when he saw the white jaded Buddha on the shrine, the disgust turned into loathing, but there was a faint fear.
Most of the monsters in the mansion are the spirits of the mountains. Of course, they hated the Buddhism and Taoism that could restrain them, and they had a natural sense of fear of them.
When Wutongshen took a group of minions to occupy the mansion, he sealed the Bell and Drum Tower together with the Buddhist hall on the second floor with a big lock. For more than a hundred years, no monster had ever snuck around this place no matter how idle they were.
This time a group of guards followed the smell left by the Teacher Dagen and chased him near the Bell and Drum Tower, after searching the ground floor and first floor and finding nothing, they sent two random demons to have a look at the second floor.
Now the two monsters had just stepped into the Buddhist hall, and they were choked by the lingering smell of sandalwood in the air, feeling so uncomfortable that they fanned their noses and didn’t want to search for the scent of “human flesh” carefully.
The two demons only carried torches and hurried around the room for a round. After they didn’t see anyone, they turned and hurried downstairs. As they walked, they complained that the incense of mortals was really powerful. After many years, the smell was still so strong that it could almost cost them half of their lives.
Mo Tiangen held his breath and crouched on the roof beam like an oversized rat, not daring to move.
When the sound of footsteps along with the torch’s light was far away, the entire Buddha hall returned to pitch black again, Mr. Dagen still did not immediately let down his guard.
He waited patiently for a few more moments to make sure that the group of demons had really left before he got off the beam, carefully opened the window, poked out half his head, looked out, and saw the firelight moving in the distance, indicating that they had gone elsewhere.
“Whew!”
Mo Tiangen let out a long sigh of relief and sat down on the ground.
“Thank you.”
He thanked her sincerely.
At this moment, the woman in white was standing by the Buddhist shrine, and hearing Mo Tiangen’s thanks, her lips curled upwards and gave him a reserved smile back.
Mo Tiangen was stunned to see the pain in the smile from this beauty in white.
“Can I ask a question?”
He rubbed his face and asked with a particularly sincere expression.
“Excuse me, who are you?”
——————————-
Just as Mo Tiangen was hiding in the bell tower and narrowly escaping with his life, the commotion of the demons searching the mansion full of humans also alerted Ji Dong and the others who were hiding in the back room.
In reality, because Teacher Dagen specifically picked a place to hide from the demon to escape, he and Ji xiao’niao and others were actually only separated by a courtyard’s wall.
When she heard the noise outside, Fan Hemian began to fear that someone might break in and see that they were abusing Chief Steward Yan, so she volunteered to go out and find out the news.
A few moments later, Fan Hemian came back.
“They said that a human was found in the mansion, and that a group of guards went chasing after them!”
She explained to the crowd.
“But it doesn’t look like these demons will come to our side to search.”
Ji Dong frowned with slight concern.
“Could it be that one of the participants has accidentally fallen off the horse?”
About fifteen minutes ago, the situation of the hide-and-seek game had changed significantly once again.
The soft teenage voice informed them that the identity of the [Ghost] had been transferred from {Fire A} to {Fire C}. {Fire C} was out for being the [Ghost] for the third time and was punished with “death”. A quarter of an hour later, a new [Ghost] was to be randomly selected among the remaining participants.
It was almost time for the new [Ghost] candidate to be created.
A minute later, at 03:01:32, the four participants in the room heard a new prompt in their ears:
[The game has started again. A new [Ghost] has been born!]
The four looked up together and their eyes met in the middle of the room.
“I’m not a ghost!”
Fan Hemian spoke first, and at the same time took a step back, protecting her younger brother behind her, showing the palms of her hands towards Ji Dong and Ren Jianmo,
“Show me the palms of your hands!”
Ji Dong and Ren Jianmo exchanged a look.
Both of them had not been [Ghosts] yet, so they did not know that the [Ghost] would have marks on their hands.
However, they both knew that Fan Hemian had experience as a [Ghost], so they could guess what the situation was without asking too many questions.
The two of them spread their palms towards Fan Hemian, and their palms were clean.
Fan Hemian looked back at his brother.
“It’s not me either.”
Fan Luming shook his head, showed his palms, and proved his innocence to the three.
Fan Hemian let out a long breath of relief.
“That’s right.”
After making sure that she was safe for the time being, she remembered the information she had just heard from outside.
“I asked, and the group of monsters said that the human was ten feet tall and looked like a giant…”
She said while rubbing her chin.
“I wonder, is this the supernatural ability of anyone?”
Before the girl could finish her words, Ji Dong’s face changed instantly.
“Oh no!”
He looked at Ren Jianmo and said anxiously, “Brother Dagen might be in big trouble!”
I wonder who is the ghost this time
Thank you for the update 💕
They have freakishly good luck not being chosen to be the ghost even once till now