Huang Shaodiao

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" Continuous, violent pounding on the door suddenly erupted, as if striking Ding Ling's forehead. She was chilled to the bone by this sound from nowhere, and goosebumps rose all over her body. From this knocking, she could sense that the person pounding on the door was brimming with anger and resentment. The pounding turned illusory and ethereal in an instant. It grew faint in Ding Ling's consciousness. And Ding Ling's gaze wandered toward the front door of the house; she pricked up her ears, but heard no knocking from that side. This knocking had arisen from inside her head. She grew even more suspicious and immediately called out to her benefactor in her heart, but the benefactor gave no response. Ding Ling's mind went blank— Not far away, Chang Dafeng stared at Ding Ling, his face full of wariness. Under his questioning, Ding Ling remained oblivious, looking distracted and out of it. This was very abnormal. Could it be that she had not yet fully shaken off the ghost's influence? Chang Dafeng thought while clenching the fist hidden in his sleeve, widening his eyes till they were round, and raised his voice even more, shouting at Ding Ling: "Answer me, Ding Ling! "What are you looking at in the mirror?" The more a ghost is right in front of you, the more you cannot show fear or weakness. If Ding Ling truly still carried ghostly energy, and she herself was afraid, the ghostly energy would swell along with it, in turn confusing her state of mind. Only by raising the volume and matching its ferocity was there a greater chance of scaring away those remaining wisps of ghostly energy! —This was jianghu experience Chang Dafeng had accumulated over years of traveling south and north. Moreover, he still had some skill, and reckoned he could suppress a few lingering wisps of ghostly energy. Under the violent shout, Ding Ling's back tensed instinctively. She glanced and immediately met Chang Dafeng's anger-filled face, realizing at once—this was the situation her benefactor had called "occasionally leaving." Ding Ling felt a little lost in her heart, afraid that once the benefactor left, he would not return. But she remembered the benefactor's instructions, lowered her eyelids to clear her thoughts, and then spoke to Chang Dafeng in a clear voice: "I clearly saw the ghost in the mirror! "In the mirror, there are threads like qin strings, many such threads, woven into a net in the mirror. "Within the net's meshes appeared many human figures, men and women, old and young. "Troupe Leader, there are many ghostly figures in the mirror, which means—" At this moment, Chang Dafeng suddenly raised his voice, interrupting Ding Ling's words: "Gui Silk Ghost Tone. "Ghost Tone is like water ripples, spreading outward in circles, one after another. "Gui silk is strand after strand; Ding Ling, those qin-string-like threads you see in the mirror are most likely gui silk. "Not just eighty percent—one hundred percent they are gui silk! "Now, the ghost wandering outside our house, in Daliang Village, is actually a gui!" Ding Ling did not know why the troupe leader suddenly interrupted her. Hearing his words, she subconsciously responded, then realized—the troupe leader's loud speech was actually meant for the people in the side room, to steady their hearts. But she understood even more clearly that the facts were not so simple. She pressed her lips together, remembering Zhou Yang's warning, and immediately said: "Troupe Leader, actually—" Chang Dafeng raised his brow, and his pair of long, narrow eyes suddenly flashed with a terrifying, murderous light, forcing all of Ding Ling's unspoken words back down! He quickly stepped close to Ding Ling and said in a low voice: "Actually, you want to say that outside there isn't just one gui, but a whole group of gui, isn't that right?" Ding Ling's face changed with alarm, then she nodded. Immediately, Chang Dafeng gave a cold smile, narrowed his eyes, and said: "One gui is enough to scare the wits out of this bunch of timid souls! "You want to tell them there's a whole group of gui outside— "Can our play still go on? "Do they still want to live?!" Ding Ling lowered her eyes in silence. She did not know whether she should follow the troupe leader's words, and thus appeared at a loss. She again called out to her benefactor softly in her heart a few times, but still received not a single response. Even though she was careful, this beautiful dream seemed destined to wake. The knocking that had earlier rung in her head should have been the omen of her benefactor's departure. ... "Bang! Bang! Bang!" Continuous, violent knocking suddenly woke Zhou Yang. Zhou Yang opened his eyes and saw a spiderweb hanging from the ceiling beam. A greasy, fishy stench followed, rushing into his nostrils. This scene completely pulled him out of his immersion in Daliang Village. He realized he had returned from Daliang Village to Guancun, whereupon his pupils constricted, and like a live fish he sprang up from the bed, the coarse cotton quilt covering him sliding to the floor. Cold sweat instantly covered his back, sticking to the clothes on his back. The knocking sounded like a death knell. Interspersed was the shrill, frantic shout of Zhou Yang's nominal mother in Guancun—Huang Shaodiao: "Zhou Yang, Zhou Yang— "Are you getting up, are you getting up?! "I'll skin you alive!" Zhou Yang's face was full of terror! The fear and psychological shock Guancun brought him far exceeded everything he had experienced in Daliang Village. Even when facing the ghost in the mirror while combing his hair in Daliang Village, he had never been as afraid as he was now! If "Right Thought" determined a person's state of mind when facing a ghost— When facing the ghostly figures in the mirror in Daliang Village, he had still been able to maintain a modicum of rationality, but now, under Huang Shaodiao's shrieking, he could barely keep his wits! To what level must Right Thought reach for one to remain calm in the face of Huang Shaodiao and her family? The mirror in Daliang Village had shown so many "gui" figures; relying on his own Right Thought of "5," he could still cope, but his own Right Thought had almost no effect here with Huang Shaodiao—what level of ghost had Huang Shaodiao reached? Zhou Yang rubbed his face hard. He rubbed his facial skin red, and the expression stiffened by terror gradually relaxed. Living in Guancun, the most tormenting thing was not the panic brought by "ghost jumpscares" in a horror game to the player, but rather having to maintain a calm surface while enduring terror, so that no one in the village could see anything amiss. Persona was especially important in Guancun. Once the persona collapsed, the only outcome was death! Before Huang Shaodiao could shout again, Zhou Yang maintained a wooden expression on his face. Together with his face rubbed red from kneading, he now looked like someone who had just woken up. He deliberately got out of bed slowly, slipped on the cloth shoes beside the bed, and folded the quilt. Outside, Huang Shaodiao shook the two wooden doors violently; the door bolt between the two doors, at a speed visible to the naked eye, was gradually shaken loose. "Clang!" The door bolt fell to the ground. Huang Shaodiao burst through the door. Zhou Laogou, Zhou Heigou, and Zhou Baigou followed behind, filing in one after another. "You damn brat! "I told you to get up, why won't you answer?!" Huang Shaodiao's lips trembled, occasionally revealing a pitch-black mouth. Her complexion was strangely hideous, her fleshy white flesh clustering around a pair of round, small eyes; the light shooting from her small eyes was like two sharp blades, wanting to stab into Zhou Yang's heart, "If you want to die, die right now! "It's better to let your own family get the bargain than to let outsiders get it!" After speaking those last two sentences, Huang Shaodiao suddenly had a smile all over her face. She turned her head to look at the three "Zhou-surnamed people" behind her, and the smile on her face actually appeared exceptionally gentle and loving. Compared with her hideous expression when facing Zhou Yang, it was like a complete change of face! And those three Zhou-surnamed people, who originally all had wooden faces, now laughed in unison; on their tight, smooth, wrinkle-free faces, the corners of their mouths suddenly split open, as if tearing wide. They nodded simultaneously: "That's right, it's better to let your own family get the bargain than to let outsiders get it!"