Rattle Drum
Lu Congxing didn’t beat around the bush—he asked directly.
Boss Xiang was startled. “I’m just a businessman. How could I possibly have blood on my hands?”
Di Jiang quickly chimed in from the side, “It’s just a routine question.”
He shot Lu Congxing a look, hoping he wouldn’t be so blunt.
But Lu Congxing didn’t catch on. His clear, dark eyes were filled with confusion.
“I really haven’t killed anyone.” Boss Xiang wiped his sweat anxiously. “Sure, doing big business inevitably leads to some conflicts, but nothing that would result in death.”
His expression didn’t seem fake.
Lu Congxing switched his focus and asked, “What about your wife?”
“Me?” Madam Xiang seemed caught off guard by the question. Her face grew even paler.
She leaned against Boss Xiang, looking utterly pitiful.
Before she could speak, Boss Xiang immediately defended her. “That’s impossible! Zhenya is so delicate and weak—she wouldn’t even dare kill a tiny bug. How could she possibly harm anyone?”
A trace of regret flickered across Lu Congxing’s face. “Since neither of you can recall why a ghost would be haunting you, I’ll have to investigate on my own.”
A house with such good feng shui shouldn’t have lingering yin energy. There had to be something hidden from plain sight causing it.
Boss Xiang, surprisingly open-minded about the situation, nodded. “I’ll take you around, then.”
As they walked, Di Jiang leaned close to Lu Congxing and whispered, “Who do you think the ghost is after?”
Lu Congxing hummed thoughtfully. “Judging by their faces, both of them have an impending disaster. At least one of them is lying.”
What he didn’t say out loud was that he had caught a strange scent on Madam Xiang.
It wasn’t just an ordinary presence of yin energy.
The ghost had already left a clue.
Madam Xiang carried a heavier aura of death. One thing was certain—if Boss Xiang hadn’t caught her sleepwalking that night, she wouldn’t have survived.
Boss Xiang and the butler led them through a few rooms. Most were guest rooms with similar decor, nothing out of the ordinary.
Just as it seemed like the search was fruitless, Lu Congxing suddenly stopped in front of a plain, unremarkable door.
“W-What is it? Is there something strange about this room?” Boss Xiang asked nervously.
Lu Congxing stared at the two dark handprints on the door. “Do you see that?”
He directed the question at Di Jiang. Boss Xiang and the butler exchanged puzzled looks.
“See what? It’s just a door.” Di Jiang stepped forward skeptically but saw nothing unusual.
“It’s nothing.” Lu Congxing’s expression remained calm.
The handprints were there to get his attention. Under his gaze, the dark marks morphed into a flowing crimson liquid.
The liquid twisted and curled as if alive, forming a series of words:
Mind your own business!
It was a warning. A warning meant for Lu Congxing alone.
His face showed no reaction, as if he saw nothing strange at all.
Then, he reached out to push the door open.
The moment his fingers were about to touch it, the crimson liquid vanished as if swallowed by invisible flames.
As soon as the door opened, the colors inside were strikingly refreshing. The walls were painted in large sections of sky blue and white, while the bright windows allowed sunlight to scatter gently into every corner of the room.
Unlike the more luxurious style of the rest of the house, this room featured a much fresher and more playful color scheme. A pastel blue rocking horse, oversized building blocks in yellow, white, and blue scattered around, a few artificial white clouds and warm star-shaped lights hanging from the ceiling—all of it created the perfect children’s playroom. The floor was also covered with a thick carpet to cushion any falls, making the space entirely child-friendly.
“Does Boss Xiang have kids?” Lu Congxing reached out and tapped a small wind chime dangling in front of him, listening to its crisp jingling sound.
The fair-skinned young man stood in the whimsical room without seeming out of place at all. The warm glow from the star lights above bathed him in a soft radiance, making him appear even more gentle.
Boss Xiang sighed. “No, my wife decorated this room herself for our future child. But she’s physically frail, and our private doctor advised against pregnancy. So I thought we’d wait a little longer… but time just kept slipping by.”
Lu Congxing glanced at him before crouching down to touch the rocking horse. The middle-aged man, now in his forties, had never paid much attention to self-care. The weariness on his face made him look at least five years older than he actually was.
“This room was decorated by your wife herself?” Lu Congxing’s voice carried a hint of something unusual.
“Yes…” Boss Xiang responded absentmindedly, his gaze suddenly fixed on the object in Lu Congxing’s hand, stunned.
“Then what’s this?” Lu Congxing shook the rattle drum in his hand.
A heavy sound echoed from it.
It was as if something struck directly against their skulls—Boss Xiang and the butler immediately felt dizzy, their heads spinning.
Meanwhile, the two demons, Di Jiang and Lu Congxing, remained completely unaffected.
Di Jiang supported Boss Xiang and asked the question he most wanted to know: “What is this, and why is it inside the wooden horse?”
“If it’s hidden inside the wooden horse, then obviously, someone didn’t want it to be found,” Lu Congxing replied, shaking the rattle drum again.
Listening carefully, the sound it made was unusual—not the light, playful rattle of a typical child’s toy. Instead, it was heavy and ominous. Lu Congxing tried to discern what lay beneath that sound.
Finding no immediate answer, he began explaining Di Jiang’s question.
“A rattle drum is meant to entertain children, but this one serves the opposite purpose. Look, it’s larger than usual, and the materials aren’t right.”
Seeing that Lu Congxing was about to shake the drum again, Boss Xiang hastily covered his head with one hand and shouted, “Stop!”
Reluctantly, Lu Congxing stopped, feeling a bit disappointed—he actually found the drum rather interesting.
The eerie child painted on the drum’s surface smiled at him. Lu Congxing smiled back.
Though his smile was pure and innocent, it was enough to make the painted figure on the drum hesitate, as if intimidated.
“These two small beads inside have been soaked in black dog’s blood,” Lu Congxing observed as he examined the drum more closely. “The drumhead is made of leather, but not cowhide or sheepskin—it’s human skin.”
He spoke these horrifying words as if they were nothing, his innocent round apricot eyes completely at odds with the chilling statement.
The butler quickly pressed a pressure point on Boss Xiang’s upper lip to keep him from fainting.
“And not just any human skin,” Lu Congxing continued, “but the skin of the most vicious criminals, or at the very least, butchers anad hunters. Only such a material can suppress a ghost infant.” He tapped the small painted figure on the drum.
“The child drawn here isn’t alive. And the colors… they’re dull.”
The illustration of the child on the drum was facing forward, its expression caught between a cry and a smile.
“But the most important thing is what’s inside—ashes made from a burned fetus.”
As if those words had broken some unspoken taboo, the sound of crying babies suddenly echoed from all directions.
It was almost like a reward for getting the answer right.
Terrified, Boss Xiang shrieked about ghosts coming and tried to hide behind Di Jiang.
Amid the chilling cries, Lu Congxing remained completely calm and uttered his final conclusion:
“This is a rattle drum designed specifically to suppress ghost infants.”
Di Jiang’s expression grew complicated. “Boss Xiang, why would something like this be hidden in your house?”
“I-I don’t know!” Boss Xiang stammered, his legs trembling violently as the baby wails continued. He was on the verge of passing out.
Lu Congxing pulled out a talisman, and from his fingertips, a small blue flame flickered to life. As it burned, the talisman released a subtle, calming fragrance.
For humans, the scent had a soothing effect. But for evil ghosts, it was like being pierced by needles.
Sure enough, the wailing sharpened into a high-pitched shriek before vanishing completely.
“Of course, you wouldn’t know,” Lu Congxing said as he wrapped the eerie rattle drum in plastic. “Because this room was arranged by your wife.”
The rattle drum was originally created as a musical instrument. Later, people discovered its strange ability to quiet children, turning it into a common toy. But in the hands of those with deeper knowledge, it became a powerful tool—either to summon ghost infants or to suppress them.
The one in Boss Xiang’s house had no summoning function. It was purely for suppression.
Which meant the person who placed it there… was absolutely terrified of something.
“Zhenya put it there?” Boss Xiang looked at the rattle drum in Lu Congxing’s hand, then at the hollow wooden horse where it had been hidden.
Unable to deny the truth any longer, he let out a wail and turned back with his slightly bulky figure, wanting to question her.
Lu Congxing strolled leisurely behind him. If possible, he wanted to keep the rattle drum and put it in his office—it seemed like a fun thing to have around.
Surprisingly, before they could go upstairs, Madam Xiang came down on her own.
Dressed in plain white, her face devoid of any makeup, she still carried a soft, delicate beauty. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, revealing her most attractive and most pitifully fragile profile.
She knew exactly how to appear vulnerable.
At the sight of her, Boss Xiang’s heart immediately softened. The questions and shock he had bottled up inside vanished before he could say a word.
Di Jiang, however, wasn’t swayed in the slightest. In his eyes, no one could ever look better than Lu Congxing, and no one could appear more innocent either. But Lu Congxing was a deceptively violent cub—after witnessing him tear apart a vengeful ghost with an innocent expression, Di Jiang had long since stopped trusting appearances.
So, instead, he asked on Boss Xiang’s behalf, “You were the one who hid the rattle drum in that room, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” Madam Xiang bit her lip.
Before they could question her further, she confessed everything of her own accord.
“The doctor told me I couldn’t conceive. I didn’t want to accept it—I wanted a child of our own so badly. Then, a fellow townsman introduced me to a so-called fortune teller. I begged him to tell me when I would be able to have a child, but… he said I was destined to be barren…”
She choked up for a moment before continuing, “Then he gave me this rattle drum. He told me that if I kept it in the house for a while, I would be able to have a child. I’m sorry… I just lost my way for a moment…”
Boss Xiang’s eyes welled up as well. He truly loved his wife, and seeing her like this, he hurried to comfort her. “I don’t blame you, don’t cry. Master Lu is so powerful—he’ll definitely solve this problem!”
Lu Congxing tilted his head. “Nope. I can’t do anything unless you tell the whole truth.”
The atmosphere instantly froze.
I love how blunt he is!