TL: Hua
—
“Ah!” The visitor exclaimed in a small voice, letting out a helpless cry.
Wen Zheliu’s movements stopped before he hit the incoming person, and at the same time he frowned suspiciously: “…A girl?”
His thumb was clasping the cane mechanism, ready to pop out the steel thorn at any time. He asked warily, “Are you a human or a ghost?”
The visitor looked up very quickly in the mottled shadows of the trees, and through the swaying patches of light, Wen Zheliu caught a glimpse of her sandy-blonde hair.
“I’m not a ghost!” She said angrily, “Instead, I should be the one to ask if you’re a human or a ghost? How dare you come here alone?!”
Wen Zheliu didn’t put down his cane because of this. He knew how many cruel and bloody tricks Happy Dawson and the ghosts in this land had up their sleeves.
He was about to answer when he heard a piercing buzzing sound from the wireless earphone, which made him unconsciously cover his ears.
What the hell……
Soon, He Qin’s voice came through: “Baby, are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” He whispered, “It’s just that there is a suspicious person here.”
“Suspicious person?”
“A girl—I don’t know her specific identity, but she grabbed me.” Wen Zheliu frowned. He didn’t shy away from talking to He Qin in front of this girl. There are always thousands of ways that can help him cook up an excuse, but most importantly, at the moment, he really needs He Qin’s advice.
“Oh,” He Qin lengthened his voice slightly, “you suspect she might be a ghost disguised as a human?”
“Yes.” Wen Zheliu nodded. He could feel that the girl in front of him, who was forced to keep her distance, was looking at him in surprise.
He Qin thought for a while: “Listen to her reason; why did she grab you?”
Wen Zheliu continued to point his cane at her to widen their distance and asked vigilantly, “Why did you grab me?”
It seemed the girl was waiting for the chance to prove herself, so she couldn’t help but lower her voice and point to the intersection in front of her, saying, “Look what’s there!”
Wen Zheliu didn’t turn his head directly but moved his footsteps lightly, turned his body slightly, and made a half-circle silently on the wet and soft grass under his feet, but the angle at which he raised his cane remained the same. He looked at the crossroads ahead, and his pupils shrank suddenly.
At some point, a slender figure in white clothes stood there. Even under the dim light of the street lamps, the color of its skin still formed a sharp contrast with the dusty white dress, making it look a bit black and blue. It had its back to Wen Zheliu, a head of long, bloody hair draped over its shoulders, and its body became more and more transparent the further down it went, so much so that its feet could not be seen at all.
“Did you see it?” The girl’s voice was trembling with fear, but there was also a hint of satisfaction, as if she were proving her innocence to the stranger in front of her: “I grabbed you because I don’t want you to die!”
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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“It can even talk?”
The girl said impatiently, “Look at the stupid question you asked. If ghosts could talk when they were alive, why couldn’t they talk after death? If you answer truthfully, it will say to you, ‘I have stood here for a whole year,’ and then suddenly turn into what it was when it died, and then tear you to pieces; if you speculate and give a random number of years, it will instead be confused and let you go.”
“What if I happened to report for the year it died?” Wen Zheliu asked with interest.
“Oh, it’s not like there were unlucky people who died because of this.” The girl muttered.
“So can you trust me now?”
Wen Zheliu hesitated for a moment. He pressed the communicator and asked He Qin for his opinion. He Qin said in a low voice, “Something happened to me here, and I may not be able to meet you until a while. It’s okay to trust her for now. Let’s see what she’s up to?”
“…Okay, stay safe.” Wen Zheliu retracted his cane and looked at the girl. “So, what do you mean now?”
“Come with me; I’ll take you to a safe place.” The girl glanced at him and asked, “Who were you talking to just now?”
Wen Zheliu didn’t change his expression: “My companion, we communicate via radio; it’s military technology.”
“You are from the military?” The girl was very surprised. She shrugged her shoulders a little excitedly and then collapsed in frustration. She shook her head and said, “Forget it; no one can save this place now.”
Wen Zheliu followed her as she weaved her way through the alleyways and low stone walls, dodging the unknown creatures that rose and fell in the darkness. He asked with feigned curiosity, “How so?”
“You won’t believe it.” The girl said in a low and helpless tone, “This place is now full of ghosts, even in the neighboring towns. And the cause of all this… If I say the culprit of all this is just an entertainment program, would you believe it?”
“I believe you,” Wen Zheliu nodded. “Midnight Happy Show, right?”
The girl stared at him blankly for a long time, then nodded hurriedly: “Yes, yes! How do you know?!”
“I know a little bit.” Wen Zheliu said vaguely, “But it seems that you are not affected by it.”
“Because I never watched it,” the girl whispered. “My parents were very strict with me. They never let me watch TV shows, so I survived, but they…”
“How are they?” Wen Zheliu asked softly.
“My father went crazy because of this and killed our family,” the girl’s voice choked up. “I…I…”
Wen Zheliu was silent for a while, not knowing how to comfort her. After a long time, he said softly, “Good girl, so you live alone now?”
“Yes.” The girl sniffed and said, “I forgot to tell you, my name is May.”
“May,” Wen Zheliu nodded, “A nice name.”
As they spoke, they arrived at a cluster of villas, and May led him to sneak into one of them. Wen Zheliu noticed that all the doors and windows of the houses here had heavy wooden boards nailed to them, and there was an uncomfortable, cold, fishy odor floating in the air.
May opened the door with a key and shouted at Wen Zheliu in a low voice, “Come on in! God knows this is already the area where those ghostly things show up the least!”
Wen Zheliu stepped in, and May immediately closed the door tightly, then skillfully lit a few candles and placed them on the candlestick beside the table.
“This is my old home,” May smiled sadly, “but it’s pretty run-down now, and I can’t even use the kitchen on the first floor… Very unfortunate, isn’t it?”
She took a deep breath, and without waiting for Wen Zheliu to say anything, she took off her coat, rubbed her hands together, and said, “You seem to be hungry too; shall I make you something to eat?”
Wen Zheliu was about to decline, but May smiled at him, then turned around and went upstairs.
Wen Zheliu looked at her thoughtfully. Away from the color-distorting light of the street lamp, her hair showed a rusty red under the candlelight.
Within moments, the sound of splashing water rang out from upstairs.
He sat on the couch with his eyes closed, his mind constantly thinking about something.
Suddenly, the phone on the desk rang.
The ringing of these old-fashioned telephones sounded particularly harsh in the quiet environment, but the sound of water seemed to have affected May’s hearing. The phone had been ringing several times without her coming down to pick it up.
Wen Zheliu was afraid that the ear-piercing sound would attract something, so he had to pick it up first.
“Hello?” He asked tentatively, “I’m a guest. The owner of this house is not here now. May I ask who you are?”
There was a buzzing sound from the other end of the phone, accompanied by a light breathing, if anything.
Wen Zheliu’s gaze became focused, and his spine slowly straightened.
Is it a human or a ghost on the other end?
He thought for a while and first sent He Qin a message with the current coordinates, then squeezed his cane tightly, intending to smash the phone at all times.
“You, hello…” The other end hesitated for a moment, and a timid boy’s voice came out: “I was lying on the window, and I saw lights in the windows of that house… May I ask how you got in?”
Wen Zheliu loosened his grip on the cane, but he still didn’t relax completely. He asked, “Who are you?”
The boy’s voice was extremely childish. Wen Zheliu speculates that he is seven or eight years old at most: “I, I…”
Instead of answering Wen Zheliu’s question, he stammered for a long time before summoning up the courage to say: “I just heard you say that the owner of this house… were you brought in by a girl with red hair?”
Wen Zheliu suddenly had a bad premonition, and he said, “Yes, what’s wrong?”
“You, hurry up and go!” The boy’s voice became urgent, and he said in fear, “I know May. She used to have a very close relationship with me. But… she died a year ago!”
Wen Zheliu’s heart stopped beating for half a beat.
……Died? Died a year ago?
On the other side of the phone, the boy was still talking: “Every once in a while, people see lights from that house, and the next morning, an extra dead man is thrown out of the doorway….. You get out of there! Come find me at the house with the red roof! I can help you!”
After speaking, he hastily hung up the phone.
Wen Zheliu took a deep breath and slowly put down the microphone, only to feel the coldness surging all over his body, seeping through his blood flow.
“What’s the matter?” May’s voice suddenly sounded from the stairs: “I seem to have heard you talking to someone just now; did I hear you wrong?”
Wen Zheliu raised his eyes reluctantly, wondering if it was his illusion, but at this moment, May’s slanted and probing face appeared ghastly white in the hazy shadows, her eye sockets dark, and her expression blank.
“I didn’t say anything,” he replied with pretended ease. “You must have heard wrong.”
“Oh.” May nodded, and when she was about to go back, Wen Zheliu pretended to ask casually, “By the way, when I was coming here, I saw a very special red-roofed house; who does that belong to?”
May hesitated.
“It…” She scratched her chin with her wet fingers and said, “There was a murder in that house.”
“…Murder.” Wen Zheliu repeated.
“Yes.” May nodded. “The parents in that family were a disharmonious couple—ironically, they always made a lot of excuses for themselves after a big argument or a big fight as a way of proving that they loved each other, and their children suffered greatly from it. One day, while arguing, they accidentally pushed down their youngest son, who was playing on the stairs, breaking his neck. From then on, that house was uninhabited.”
Wen Zheliu lowered his eyelids and slowly took in a breath of cold air.
“Really?” he murmured.
“Don’t go near there,” May warned him worriedly. “Children are troublesome when they’re alive, and they’re just as troublesome when they become ghosts.”
May went upstairs, and after a while, the sound of running water continued on the second floor, but Wen Zheliu couldn’t calm down for a long time.
Someone must be lying. Who’s lying?
Both?
I think there are no difference between them
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