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Chapter 8 – Haunted House Vlog (8)
Gu An held Ming Ye’s head with his hand as he looked in the direction where the voice came from.
He saw the bright roses were in full bloom. With a thick layer of yin qi, the evil spirits that were nourished by flesh and blood faced Mister Lin and the servants behind him, revealing their sharp teeth and talon-like fingernails.
There was still residue staining their hands and mouths, and the gardener’s body had been mostly devoured. Although he wasn’t dead yet, he wouldn’t live for very long. It could be said that he’s on his last breath.
He used great effort to open his eyes and recovered from his old wounds. He looked at Mister Lin, who was sitting on the ground and shaking with fright, and he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
But his physical strength was gravely exhausted. His laughter was stuttered, and everyone who heard began to tremble internally.
Mister Lin recognized the gardener. He reached his hand outward and pointed at him, trembling with fury: “I wasn’t bad to you! Why are you treating our Lin family like this!”
Mister Lin was unpleased about the gardener’s actions at that time. He had done similar things, so he was very familiar with such underhanded actions.
The gardener’s plan was clearly to cause the entire Lin family to die without having a place to be buried!1
The gardener looked at Mister Lin, whose anger was about to make him burst into flame. He was overjoyed, and even the pain in his body felt as if it had been greatly relieved.
He ordered the fully grown evil spirits to drive away all of the immature spirits that were still biting at him. It provided him a short buffer period so that he could take revenge.
“Lin Hai.” The gardener’s voice was light enough that it seemed as if it wouldn’t fall to the ground, but the words that escaped his mouth made Mister Lin burst into a cold sweat. “You’ve stepped on dozens of corpses of my He family just to get ahead. Aren’t you afraid of being killed at midnight while you dream?!”
Lin Hai sat there on the ground, paralyzed. He looked up at the gardener’s face, and finally saw the traces within it. His face was somewhat similar to the young master of the He family who died several years ago.
The ancestors of the He family had foreign blood, so the He family members were tall and had prominent bones along their browline.
That was rare in Huaiyang Town. Other than the He family, there was almost nobody with such features.
Lin Hai saw that the gardener was ashamed, and his previously fleeting courage returned to him. He mocked him fiercely: “Who made you all into such brainless idiots!”
He said: “Your father was just a stubborn old man. I asked him for a place to sell my incense, even begged him for half a month, but he still replied no to us! What was he talking about that the place wasn’t that good, shit! It was because one of his sworn brothers took a liking to that shop!”
“I only wanted it for my own personal interests.” Lin Hai saw that the ghosts were still, and he became much more brave. He stood up and shakily took a jade Buddha from his clothing, then spoke to the terrified servants behind him: “What are you panicking for! This is just a street trick! Trying to fool me, what wishful thinking!”
He yelled loudly: “As long as you kill him for we, you’ll be heavily rewarded when you return!”
But the servants cherished their lives. No one reacted for a while, and they all stood in place. The timid ones paid no attention and stepped back, looking like they were about to exit through the garden gate.
Lin Hai saw it happen in front of his eyes, and he began to grit his teeth. His eyes were fierce enough to kill people: “A gold reward!!”
Now without Lin Hai saying anything more, the servants began to move.
They all grasped wooden sticks in their hands as they surrounded the gardener. They raised their sticks high, and they were about to land blows against him.
That was the scene that entered Gu An’s eyes.
He was a little curious about what the gardener would do.
Hearing that, Ming Ye chuckled and said: “Baobei, do you know where the bones in the house came from?”
Where the bones came from?
Gu An contemplated: “From those who broke into the house?”
“No.” Ming Ye pressed against Gu An’s calf. Before Gu An could react, he continued: “It’s the bones of everyone in the Lin family.”
Gu An’s eyelashes fluttered slightly. He thought the identity of the bones were those who broke into the house, so he had fallen into a misunderstanding.
The bones in the house must be the people of the Lin family who were killed by evil spirits.
As for why he went for the main house, it could either be his obsession, or some other reason.
The reason why the evil spirits absorbed the yin qi from the bones was most likely related to the gardener.
Lin Hai was his enemy. He naturally hoped that Lin Hai’s life was worse than death, so he wouldn’t let him meet his end. As for the others, they may be related somehow.
After all, evil spirits have no humanity. They naturally can’t understand what it means to be wronged or have grudges.
But why did Miss Lin disappear?
From Gu An’s point of view, the gardener stunned Lin Wan and put her in a far away room so that she wouldn’t be implicated.
Could it be that she was also killed by an evil spirit?
Gu An couldn’t figure it out, so he stopped thinking about it and sat quietly atop Ming Ye’s neck, watching the ‘movie.’
Before the sticks that the servants had raised fell onto the gardener, their arms were bitten by the evil spirits that were previously floating motionlessly.
Their screams were unending, but the gardener seemed as if he couldn’t hear them as he spoke coldly: “Lin Hai, you have so many deaths on your hands. Did you really think there would be no retribution?”
Without waiting for Lin Hai to refute it, he yelled: “I am your retribution!”
After that, he ordered the evil spirits to toss the servants away. But the evil spirits had just grown up and were in desperate need of food, so how could they simply listen to the gardener’s commands?
So they opened their mouths wide, and their sharp teeth tore into the flesh of the servants.
In an instant, the strong bloody smell irritated Lin Hai’s stomach, and bile came bubbling out.
He looked at the flesh and blood that had been shredded into pieces. The servants only had time to let out a scream before they were bitten to death by the evil spirits.
Lin Hai watched how the evil spirits were devouring them, and he was so frightened that his entire body felt weak. He didn’t dare to look back as he ran away.
He couldn’t help but feel overjoyed as he got closer to the garden entrance, but the joy in his heart only lasted a few seconds before it disappeared. Just as he was about to step foot through the entrance, he was tugged harshly by something behind him.
Feeling the force tug from behind him, Lin Hai didn’t even have time to struggle. An evil spirit grabbed him by the collar and hung him high in the air as it pulled him all the way to the gardener.
Lin Hai was full of regret. Why did he go to the gardener with an unclear mind, why did he plan against the He family, and why didn’t he kick the gardener out on the first day he came to the Lin family……
There were too many ‘why’s, but not a single shred of repentance.
If it wasn’t for the gardener surviving the attack through sheer luck, that scene wouldn’t be happening today. He was afraid that Lin Hai had over a hundred deaths on his hands.
Soothing incense, sandalwood incense, dragon tiger incense, and all kinds of famous incense powders were prepared with fresh sacrifices.
Soothing incense needed the flesh of a one year old child, dragon tiger incense needed the bones of an adult man, and sandalwood incense needed the flesh of a child.
The rest of the incense also needed a variety of flesh and bones, and the most frequently used materials were human flesh and bones.
The gardener looked at the man before him.
He looked elegant, with a scholarly aura.
Not a single person would have thought that such a man would do such cruel things.
He looked at Lin Hai’s trembling face, and a sinister smile grew out of the corners of his mouth. The gardener spoke: “Lin Hai, weren’t you afraid when you killed your children with your own hands?”
“They were only one year old. They hadn’t experienced the strange wonder of the world, and they hadn’t enjoyed all the wonderful flavors in the world. You just killed them cruelly for your own selfish desires, and even used their flesh and bones to make incense.”
“Even a tiger won’t eat their own children.” The gardener ordered the evil spirits to incite panic in Lin Hai’s heart. Looking at his contorted face, he was ecstatic: “Lin Hai, take your time to enjoy this feeling of life – no – instead, this feeling of death!”
After the gardener finished speaking, the smile on his lips deepened as he looked at Lin Hai’s horrified face.
He took a long look at the house where Lin Wan was, then shut his eyes and let the immature evil spirits devour him.
The evil spirits rushed toward him, and within a moment, they had eaten the gardener’s flesh and wiped him clean, leaving only his white bones to fall beneath the rose bushes and be buried by time.
The gardener’s final wish: For his enemy to be tortured by evil spirits rather than immediately die, and then be eaten alive.
The evil spirits obeyed his wishes like servants. They did their best to torture Lin Hai and make him experience what he was most afraid of.
Ming Ye heard the screams in his ears and asked worriedly: “An An, are you afraid?”
Gu An shook his head and denied: “Not afraid.”
Although he heard Gu An say he wasn’t afraid, Ming Ye was still slightly worried. He wanted to crouch down to let Gu An get off.
As soon as he moved, Gu An was startled. He quickly hugged Ming Ye’s head and spoke in a disgruntled tone: “What are you doing? Don’t move.”
“Oh.” Ming Ye was slightly aggrieved. “I’m just worried that you were scared and wanted to get down. I had no other intentions.”
Hearing Ming Ye’s wronged tone, Gu An’s eyelashes drooped. After a while, the hand around Ming Ye’s head loosened slightly, and he gently rubbed it against Ming Ye’s cheek. His voice was small, but loud enough for Ming Ye to hear.
He said: “Sorry, I was wrong.”
Since they just met, in Gu An’s opinion, he arrived at a conclusion.. He couldn’t deny it. He didn’t reject Ming Ye’s intimacy, and building trust like that takes time, far longer than could be cultivated in such a short time period.
Ming Ye understood the meaning behind Gu An’s words.
He replied softly: “It’s okay. I forgive you.”
— Forgive you for not trusting me anymore.
— But next time you do it, An An, my baobei, I can’t promise that nothing will happen to you.
Ming Ye was never a good person. He possessed Gu Qiuqiang, and he certainly didn’t like it when someone stole Gu An’s memories, and made Gu An, who was originally his, be around others.
Not to mention that Gu An didn’t trust him anymore.
His eyes were deep, and he looked into midair as if in a trance.
“521.” Ming Ye shouted, but didn’t hear a response after waiting for a while.
He sighed quietly, then grabbed Gu An’s calf in his hand, tightened his grip, and then released it.
He really missed their previous life, that time when they were intimate together before.
On the other side, Lin Hai was being tortured.
Lin Hai was extremely frightened when he heard the milky2 screams entering from his ears.
“Father, father, come and play with me, ah.”
“Papa, come and play with me, ah.”
“Daddy, come and play pinwheels with me, ah.”
Lin Hai shut his eyes to prevent himself from looking, and covered his ears with his hands, but the voices didn’t stop. Instead, it got louder and directly entered his ears.
After a while, the voice changed.
“Da-ge, didn’t you say that as long as brother got that person for you, you would pay off your brother’s gambling debts? Da-ge, you actually let someone kill me for my gambling debts!”
“Lao-er3, we’re good brothers who grew up together, but you actually killed me for a shop!”
“Xiao Hai, for the sake of the Lin family shop, you actually murdered your dearest uncle! You…… you, you aren’t worthy of being a human being! Beasts are better than you!”
The evil spirits had drawn out Lin Hai’s deepest and darkest fears.
They were like unrestrained kites, floating as they pleased around the Lin house, frightening the passing servants.
However, the gardener’s orders gradually lost control of the evil spirits after the moment he died.
— Out of control, but just for a moment.
Footnotes
Without honor, like peasants or commoners. [x]Milky as in young, childish. [x]Lao-er is ‘old two’. common way to refer to someone respectfully is by ‘old’ and their comparative age to the rest of their family (second child). sounds weird in eng, so keeping pinyin. [x]