Ghost Tamer 7
You really couldn’t blame Bai Qiaosheng for his blunt question. In a setting like this, seeing something so bizarre, his instincts told him to rationalize the situation somehow.
The best excuse he could come up with? Props. Maybe this teenager just had a peculiar hobby.
His thoughts turned into words before he could stop himself. But the moment the question left his mouth, he regretted it. He quickly added, “Never mind! You don’t have to answer that. I was just speaking without thinking.”
…Which somehow made things even weirder.
Tang Xi fell silent for a moment before replying, “It’s fine.” He smiled. “It’s just a prop.”
Right now, he really wanted to find a hole to crawl into.
Bai Qiaosheng glanced at the chat, looking for something to break the awkward atmosphere. He picked a question and asked, “It’s pretty late. What are you doing here alone?”
Under normal circumstances, that would have sounded eerie—like the kind of thing a ghost would be asked right before revealing itself as a man-eating specter. I’m waiting for you would have been a terrifying answer.
But because the person in front of him looked so stunning, the question took on an entirely different tone.
The chat section immediately devolved into chaos.
“His full face is even more gorgeous, AWSL, is he cosplaying a character?”
“Right?! What’s a little beauty like you doing wandering around so late at night? Come snuggle into my bed instead!”
“Cat-eared boy, I’m coming for you! Baby, it’s so late—hurry home, come! To! My! Home!”
Some people even started spamming things like “That’s my lost boyfriend!”
And, of course, 1551 very considerately projected the chat messages directly into Tang Xi’s mind.
Every single teasing comment. Word for word.
His face turned red in the darkness, and his cat ears drooped slightly.
Thankfully, normal humans didn’t have night vision good enough to notice. To them, his ears still just looked like incredibly realistic props.
“I—I’m here to film some material!” Tang Xi blurted out, telling a tiny lie. “I’m gathering footage for a horror video.”
Bai Qiaosheng chuckled, his tone turning more familiar. “Oh? So you’re into the supernatural too?”
I am a supernatural being, Tang Xi thought to himself.
But he couldn’t exactly say that, so he just smiled and nodded.
In less than fifteen minutes, he’d somehow gained all sorts of strange labels.
Meanwhile, Ji Fuqing, completely unaware that he’d accidentally left his little shiki behind, was walking ahead with a cold expression. He carried the two unconscious students, eager to hand them off to Ji Ziang and be done with it.
Left in the dark, Tang Xi started feeling uneasy. Without the guiding light of Ji Fuqing’s spiritual energy, the school returned to its eerie, oppressive state.
Not wanting Bai Qiaosheng to go upstairs and discover the truth, he told another little lie. “I just came down from the top floor. There’s nothing up there.”
“To be honest, it’s really run-down. The whole place reeks, it’s filthy, and the floors have holes in them. It’s super dangerous.”
He tilted his head, trying his best to make it sound terrifying—hoping it would dissuade Bai Qiaosheng from going any further.
Bai Qiaosheng fell silent for a moment, studying the nervous teenager in front of him. He looked like a small, anxious animal, timidly reaching out a paw to stop him from leaving.
And just like that, the chat section exploded again.
“Little cutie must be scared but too stubborn to admit it. He’s just waiting for you to invite him to leave together, streamer!”
“The kid clearly looks scared and wants to go with you, but he’s also acting tsundere. Streamer, I advise you not to be stubborn—just give up on going upstairs and walk with him already. Otherwise, don’t make me get on my knees and beg you wuwuwu”
“Baby, don’t be scared! I’m coming to take you home right now!”
It seemed like they had misunderstood something. Seeing the chat comments, Tang Xi wanted to explain but didn’t know where to start.
Bai Qiaosheng didn’t give him the chance to struggle with it and took the initiative to speak. “Then I won’t go up. I’ll walk back with you instead.”
Either way, their goal was achieved. Tang Xi quickly nodded, the little ears on his head twitching slightly.
Bai Qiaosheng turned and led the way. To avoid exposing his cat tail, Tang Xi had no choice but to follow behind him.
The livestream camera was facing forward, causing Tang Xi’s figure to disappear from the screen.
Viewers immediately started complaining in the chat.
I want to see the handsome guy! Turn the camera back!!
I heard there were two handsome guys interacting on the livestream. Where are they???
Bai Qiaosheng was focused on creating a horror atmosphere for the stream and didn’t turn the camera around.
Meanwhile, Ji Fuqing had just reached the ground floor after throwing someone down. When he turned around, he realized that his little shiki, who was supposed to be following him, was missing.
His face darkened as he lifted his foot to step inside—only to see someone walking out with his little shiki.
Bai Qiaosheng had snuck up the other staircase earlier, but when leaving, he walked openly through the front door.
Ji Ziang had been surprised that the two missing students weren’t dead yet, but before he could react, he sensed the sudden drop in the air around Master Ji.
He quickly looked up, his gaze lingering on the cat ears that had popped up on Tang Xi’s head for a few seconds.
His eyes widened slightly in surprise.
To cover up his momentary loss of composure, he turned to Bai Qiaosheng and shouted, “You again? How did you even get in?”
Bai Qiaosheng hadn’t expected to run into them here. He didn’t have much impression of Ji Ziang, but he clearly remembered Ji Fuqing—not just because the man was strikingly handsome, but because he believed this was the person who had taken away the cat he had found.
His tone turned a little sharp. “How I got in has nothing to do with you, sir. You don’t exactly look like a staff member of this school either.”
He was wary of Ji Fuqing, not daring to ask directly about the cat. At the same time, he was extremely curious about this man, who seemed anything but ordinary.
Ignoring the tension between the two young men, Ji Fuqing walked straight over and pinched the cat ears in a reprimanding manner. “Why are you running around everywhere? A shiki should stay close to its master.”
He had originally meant to be stern with the disobedient little shiki, but when he saw Tang Xi’s aggrieved expression, he softened. In the end, all he did was give the cat ears a gentle squeeze.
Tang Xi flinched and twitched his ears in a spoiled manner, trying to dodge his hand.
The two of them were in their own little world, standing so close that Ji Fuqing’s tall figure practically enveloped the younger boy.
This scene was accidentally caught on Bai Qiaosheng’s livestream, and within moments, the viewer count skyrocketed, pushing the stream to the top of the recommendation list.
Just got here—are these two a couple?
This place looks really familiar… kinda like my old school.
I originally thought this little beauty and Qiaoqiao made a cute pair. Sorry! Turns out he’s already taken, hehe…
Wait, don’t tell me that handsome guy (even his back looks hot) personally put those cat ears on the little beauty… Damn, that’s kinda steamy.
With so many people watching, the risk of exposure increased. Now that the lighting was better, there was also a higher chance of revealing their location. Bai Qiaosheng quickly said goodbye and ended the stream.
Ji Fuqing tapped the cat ears and tail, temporarily concealing them.
Tang Xi flicked his tail, still able to feel its presence on his tailbone—it hadn’t disappeared, just hidden.
Bai Qiaosheng then noticed the two unconscious students on the ground. Frowning, he crouched down and checked their pulses. “What happened to them?”
Ji Ziang replied, “They fainted. I already called an ambulance.”
Bai Qiaosheng knew some emergency first aid. Worried they might not hold on, he quickly performed some basic procedures.
Under his care, one of the students slowly regained consciousness.
The moment the student opened his eyes and saw so many people staring at him, he nearly passed out again. But then he realized he had finally made it out of the abandoned school building. His soul seemed to settle back into his body, and his expression shifted into one of foolish relief.
His lips moved several times, but no words came out.
Bai Qiaosheng had come well-prepared for the livestream. He rummaged through his bag and pulled out a bottle of water and some bread, handing them over.
The student immediately grabbed them and started devouring the food ravenously. After just a couple of bites, he couldn’t hold back anymore and burst into uncontrollable sobs—finally releasing all the fear he had been suppressing.
Ji Ziang spoke up. “You’ve been trapped in there for almost a month. What exactly happened?”
As an exorcist, this was the question that concerned him the most.
The eerie presence in the abandoned school building remained, meaning that Master Ji had not yet exorcized the ghost.
It was impossible for Master Ji to make a mistake—there was only one likely explanation: the foolish little shiki he had taken in must have messed up.
If a shiki failed its task, it would likely be punished. Ghost taming had only one method—harsh discipline. Neither sweet words nor bribes of flowers had any effect on vengeful ghosts.
Ji Ziang clearly didn’t like this ghost, who had suddenly appeared by Master Ji’s side. No matter how good-looking it was, it was still a vengeful ghost, inherently opposed to them.
And yet, he couldn’t stop himself from asking what had gone wrong.
This foolish ghost only knew how to look at the student with worry, completely failing to extract any useful clues. No wonder it had gone in and returned empty-handed.
Ji Ziang reassured himself—he was only interested in exorcising ghosts, definitely not in helping this foolish shiki gather information.
Between sobs, the student stammered, “Ghost… There was a ghost! No matter what we did, Lili and I couldn’t escape.”
His explanation was choppy and disorganized, but Tang Xi patiently pieced it together.
After encountering the ghost, these two unlucky kids got separated from four others. The female ghost had locked onto them and kept chasing them.
Realizing they couldn’t escape the school building, they had given up hope and decided to find a place to hide. By sheer luck, they ended up in the boys’ restroom—the one place the ghost refused to enter.
That was how they had survived until now, drinking water that seeped in from outside and rationing the few snacks they had brought with them.
Because of the ghostly influence clouding their senses, neither the rescuers nor the trapped students had been able to detect each other.
Whether that was bad luck or a twisted stroke of fortune was hard to say.
Tang Xi sighed. Do all vengeful ghosts have this same bad habit?
Tian Rourou had also toyed with her prey instead of killing them outright, which had given them the chance to hide in the boys’ restroom. Just like the original character, he had also failed to kill her target immediately, allowing a ghost hunter to escape years ago. That, in turn, had drawn the attention of exorcists from the outside world, leading to his eventual exorcism in the original storyline.
It was precisely because of this that she hadn’t actually killed any innocent people, allowing Tang Xi to investigate her case without any moral burden.
But why had Tian Rourou avoided the boys’ restroom? Was it really just a lingering habit from when she was alive?
After becoming a ghost, most lost their sense of morality—who would still care about trivial things like that?
Besides, from her perspective, the entire abandoned school building should have been her domain.
Tang Xi mentally marked this as a suspicious point, but unfortunately, there was no time to investigate further—the ambulance had arrived.
To let the injured rest, he refrained from asking any more questions.
The vice principal had already driven home out of fear, looking forward to waking up the next morning to the news that the ghost problem had been solved.
Instead, he received even better news in the middle of the night.
The two students who were presumed dead… were actually alive!
The vice principal didn’t even bother putting on his coat as he rushed straight to the hospital. Outside the patient’s room, he grabbed Ji Ziang’s hand and shook it up and down excitedly. “Thank you! Thank you, Master! This is incredibly important for our school’s reputation.”
Instinctively, he reached out to shake Ji Fuqing’s hand as well—only to be completely ignored. To cover up the awkwardness, he quickly shifted his attention to Bai Qiaosheng. “And this gentleman here—is he also an exorcist? So young and talented, truly impressive!”
Bai Qiaosheng’s voice lifted slightly in surprise. “Exorcist?”