Shadow
Huang Xin gently placed her hand on her stomach, murmuring, “Baby, it seems like your dad is sick.”
Fei Yi, being quite tactful, stepped out of the hospital room to give them space.
Lu Congxing looked at the scene in front of him, his expression growing serious. He suddenly asked, “Are you still not planning to come out?”
“Come out?” Huang Xin raised her head in confusion, her face still streaked with tears, and asked blankly, “What do you mean by ‘come out’?”
Lu Congxing shook his head. “I’m talking to the malevolent ghost inside you.”
Huang Xin forced a smile and said, “Master, don’t joke around at a time like this.”
She stared intently at Lu Congxing’s face but saw no trace of a joke. Gradually, her expression grew more somber.
Lu Congxing remained completely unaffected. He blinked and slowly said, “Actually, I was only suspicious at first. Mr. He mentioned that there was a ghost in this building using Gan Chao grass to parasitize, so I initially considered everyone a potential target, including you.”
“But when Chen Jiatai was taken, it confirmed my suspicion. Miss Huang, do you remember why you initially thought someone in the building might be possessed by a ghost?”
“I often felt like someone was watching me, and there were traces of someone having been in my home,” Huang Xin said in a small voice, a little scared by Lu Congxing’s seriousness.
“Yes,” Lu Congxing nodded gently before suddenly changing the subject. “So, why is it that after proving everything was the work of Chen Jiatai, you still never doubted it and remained firmly convinced that someone in the building was possessed by a ghost?”
“Was it just because of that jade pendant corroded by yin energy? The pendant that you kept on you?”
“Miss Huang, can you still find that jade pendant?”
The last question seemed to snap Huang Xin out of her daze. She quickly searched through her bag but couldn’t find it anywhere. She stared blankly, unable to remember where she had placed the important jade pendant her mother had given her.
Lu Congxing sighed. “Don’t bother looking. It was probably discarded by that malevolent ghost the day after we moved in.”
Everything had a trace to follow. At the time, He Zhouyan had said he smelled the scent of the Southern Abyss next door. Due to a delay, he hadn’t directly encountered anyone, but there was another doubt in his mind.
Had the malevolent ghost really dared to enter someone else’s house during the day? Unless, of course, that malevolent ghost was already attached to someone in the house.
At that time, besides Li Guodong, the only person left was Huang Xin.
“Are you really not coming out?” He asked again. This time, a small flame appeared and watched Huang Xin with a fierce gaze.
Huang Xin’s emotions fluctuated greatly. Seeing the ghost still remain silent, Lu Congxing’s eyes grew cold. Several talismans flew out of his pocket, sticking to the door and windows, preventing any chance of escape.
“If you won’t come out, then I’ll just exorcise you directly.”
As soon as he spoke, the flames surrounded Huang Xin, nearly burning her alive with their intense heat. The white walls of the hospital room were bathed in an eerie glow, as if a demon was dancing on them.
But upon closer inspection, one could see that the flames hadn’t touched a single corner of her clothes, and Huang Xin herself was completely unaware.
She simply felt the young man in front of her suddenly change, as though he had unleashed a blade, radiating sharp killing intent. Confused, she instinctively backed away, clutching her stomach.
But the malevolent ghost inside her wasn’t so lucky. It began cursing and emerged from her body.
Even after emerging, it didn’t stop swearing. It arrogantly shouted at Lu Congxing, “You little thing, do you know who I am? Stop the flames now, and maybe I’ll leave you with a whole corpse!”
“What are you staring at? Be careful, I might actually eat you!”
When it first emerged, it was a large, black mass, clawing and snapping, trying to intimidate them. But after a few moments in the flames, it shrank to the size of a fist and fell to the ground, wriggling.
Still unyielding, it cursed again.
Lu Congxing, expressionless, increased the flame’s temperature, causing the ghost to finally fear.
Realizing that the young man wasn’t easy to deal with, it shamefully began to beg, its voice full of distress, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Don’t burn me, please let me go!”
Huang Xin couldn’t see the flames, but she could see the thing that had emerged from her body. She was terrified and her face turned pale.
Thinking that this thing had been inside her all along made her nauseous. She hurried to the bed, curling up as she tried to compose herself.
The shadow, still begging for mercy, was plotting an escape. A cunning, thousand-year-old malevolent ghost, it looked for a gap in the flames. But as soon as it escaped the circle, it was immediately crushed under He Zhouyan’s foot.
It felt like stepping on rotten mud, and He Zhouyan disgustedly ground his foot against it.
Bai Ze had always been merciless toward malevolent ghosts. Once it was stepped on, the shadow completely lost its ability to resist and couldn’t even speak.
Lu Congxing tugged at He Zhouyan’s sleeve. “Can you at least capture it first?”
Although He Zhouyan wanted to destroy the shadow immediately, he could never refuse a request from the cub. He took a bell and trapped the shadow inside it.
The shadow trembled, listening to their conversation from inside the bell.
To it, Lu Congxing had initially seemed like an infant, barely alive. But seeing how Bai Ze listened to him without question, the shadow realized that if the demon cub hadn’t spoken up earlier, it would have already been reduced to ashes. Now, it didn’t dare to act recklessly and pretended to faint.
Lu Congxing caught the bell and curiously tossed it in the air. It was very similar to the Qiankun Space He Zhouyan had given him, except for the different patterns.
The shadow inside was jostled around a few times. Its thousand-year-old arrogance made it want to curse, but when it remembered Bai Ze’s terrifying presence, it begrudgingly changed its tone and whimpered, “Ying ying ying.”
Lu Congxing paused, frowned, and picked up the bell. “Did it just make a weird sound?”
Before He Zhouyan could answer, the shadow inside the bell wisely let out another soft “ying.”
A chill ran down Lu Congxing’s spine. He shook the bell. “Weren’t you acting all high and mighty just now?”
He sounded completely serious, but to the shadow, it was pure intimidation. Trembling, it whimpered even more pitifully, “Ying ying ying, I just got a little too excited earlier. I’m actually very fragile… ying.”
He Zhouyan took a deep breath and pried the bell out of the cub’s hands, his brows tightly furrowed. “Don’t play with this.”
After a moment of thought, he added, “It’s bad for a child’s mental and emotional well-being.”
The shadow has completely shut itself off.
Only then did Lu Congxing walk over to Huang Xin. She had curled herself into a ball in the farthest corner, clutching her stomach. When she heard footsteps, she trembled in fear.
Lu Congxing gently reassured her, “It’s over now.”
But after enduring one mental blow after another in a single day, Huang Xin was already on the verge of a breakdown. She couldn’t begin to imagine that she would be the one possessed.
Seeing her state, Lu Congxing didn’t move any closer. He kept a few steps of safe distance and said, “At first, I thought your obsession with being possessed was your subconscious trying to send you a warning—that deep down, you sensed something had invaded your body, and that’s why you kept insisting there was a ghost in the building. But that wasn’t it.”
“The real warning came from the baby in your belly. Infants and animals are especially sensitive to evil or spiritual disturbances. It might sound far-fetched, but the bond between a mother and child is real. It wasn’t your subconscious that saved you—it was your baby, who sensed the danger to its mother and kept sending you signals. That’s why, without even understanding why, you found me and asked for help.”
His voice was calm, but the matter-of-fact tone somehow soothed Huang Xin. She slowly stopped shaking, gently touched her belly, and whispered softly, “It was the baby… the baby saved Mommy…”
“I’m so useless…” she muttered, eyes red as she got up from the ground.
“No. You’ll be a great mother,” Lu Congxing shook his head. He had never known his own mother, but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand maternal love.
Even in her greatest fear just now, Huang Xin had instinctively protected the child in her womb. In their own ways, both mother and child had been protecting each other.
Huang Xin’s expression was complicated, but sincere. “Thank you.”
Lu Congxing smiled and pulled something out of his bag of tricks. “This is for you. I hope you and your baby can live a peaceful life from now on.”
As soon as Huang Xin leaned in, her face was hit with a puff of Forgetfulness Powder.
Her gaze went blank for a moment before regaining clarity. She looked toward Li Guodong lying in the hospital bed, her face filled with sorrow.
Forgetfulness Powder would make a person forget most of their direct encounter with a ghost. Now, all Huang Xin remembered was that she had hired an exorcist master from a firm, and though they didn’t catch the ghost, they did discover her husband had schizophrenia.
And by then, Lu Congxing had already grabbed He Zhouyan and left the hospital.
Looking back at the hospital doors, he sighed, “It’s finally over.”
Nine people in one building, each hiding their own secrets—sometimes the human heart is far scarier than any ghost.
Something crossed Lu Congxing’s mind. He summoned his little flame again. Watching it affectionately nuzzle his fingers, he asked curiously, “Mr. He… did you feed it something back at Huang Xin’s place?”
He hadn’t paid attention before, but now he realized the little flame seemed unusually energetic—and it carried Bai Ze’s scent.
This was his origin flame. Having someone else’s scent on it was practically like being marked.
Lu Congxing blushed slightly.
He Zhouyan looked down and mumbled, “Hmm… maybe it brushed up against some of my spiritual energy.”
He left out the part where he had secretly fed it some of his spiritual energy.
Although Lu Congxing was suspicious, there was nothing he could do about the flame that now smelled strongly of Bai Ze. He reluctantly absorbed it back into himself.
He quietly sniffed and blushed even more—his whole body now smelled like Mr. He.
He Zhouyan rested one hand on the steering wheel and casually tossed aside the bell that had imprisoned the malevolent ghost. He changed the topic just in time, “What are you going to do with that ghost?”
Lu Congxing thought for a moment. “I’ll feed it to the mirror ghost when we get back.”
Maybe once the mirror ghost eats it, he’ll remember his past—and finally explain why he’s been stuck in that mirror.
He Zhouyan had no objections. He casually reminded him, “Don’t keep collecting all those weird little things.”
He didn’t seem surprised at all that the cub had a mirror ghost stashed at home. In his eyes, they were nothing more than harmless toys for the cub.
The shadow: ???
Author’s Note:
The answer is revealed! The one who was truly possessed was Huang Xin. Did any of you cuties guess it right?
I never guessed it 😲