Chapter 51
Xiao Li finished writing this and felt more comfortable. He stood up and patted his knee, turning to Tian Ji with blank eyes. The teenager raised his eyebrows. "How did you expect me to read and understand this sentence? For example, this sentence perfectly embodies the cruelty of the pen fairy or something?"
Tian Ji silently turned it over in his head. "...Forget it, I am someone who doesn’t learn from my mistakes."
At the same time, he roared wildly in his heart. He must go to the forum and talk about Sherlock to see if there were any similar victims. He absolutely didn’t believe that he was the only one to experience this person’s evil!
Xiao Li pushed open the door of this carriage, wanting to see if there was any problem with the new passengers. Tian Ji followed him, the expression on this young man’s face like he had given up on thinking.
They stopped in front of the carriage containing the new passengers and happened to meet Jiang Yishe and Wu Tianyi on the narrow road. Jiang Yishe was talking to the girl in an elegant manner. Once he saw Xiao Li, he stepped towards them and said, "Qian Yerong is unusual."
Wu Tianyi added in a whisper, "I’m not sure if it is true. Maybe it was an illusion but I felt the need to tell you."
Tian Ji pushed up his glasses, the gold chain hanging on the side hitting both sides of his cheeks, bringing a cold touch as he told the disturbed girl, "It is good that you can tell us. Thank you."
Wu Tianyi’s eyes drifted to Xiao Li again.
"You did well." Xiao Li slightly nodded to show that he knew and opened the door to the carriage, walking in with ease. The girl’s eyes lit up after receiving the praise of the team’s most powerful man.
Inside, the university students were talking and laughing. Qian Yerong sat in the middle and was shoulder-to-shoulder with the girl called Yao Yan. She showed white teeth when laughing and looked very normal.
The arrival of the reincarnators once again attracted the attention of the people inside. Liu Sinian asked them with a smile, "Uncle, do you also want to play together?"
Before Tian Ji could speak, Xiao Li responded for him in a calm manner. "Yes, what are you playing?"
"Little brother, won’t you sit here?" Yao Yan patted the seat next to her and greeted Xiao Li. "We are playing Fight the Landlord and Yerong is the landlord."
Tian Ji dragged a chair to the side, seemingly complaining while actually wanting to get close to the new passengers. "Why is he a little brother and I am an uncle?"
"It is because he is handsome." Yao Yan smiled while leading on Qian Yerong’s shoulder.
Tian Ji stared at Xiao Li’s face and closed his mouth. Jiang Yishe smiled and reached for the table to pick up the cards, starting to shuffle them. "Let’s play a few rounds with us. Everyone is so lively."
Liu Sinian raised his hands in favour. "Yes, we were worried we would be bored with just the few of us."
The other also agreed and Qian Yerong smiled. "Come, you are welcome. However, you can’t ask to be the landlord."
There was nothing wrong with her expressions and words from beginning to end. Jiang Yishe smoothly shuffled the cards. His actions looked very professional like he had practiced it.
"Wow, this handsome guy, you look like a master." Liu Sinian spoke in an exaggerated voice.
"I’m okay." Jiang Yishe spoke modestly. "Let’s play a betting game."
Yao Yan clapped. "You want to bet?"
Jiang Yishe glanced at Tian Ji and Xiao Li before simply saying, "Okay, a bet is fine. If we lose, you can ask us a question and vice versa."
"Then I think Yao Yan’s first question will be to ask if you are single." Liu Sinian said with a laugh and Yao Yan reached out to slap him.
Yao Yan spoke shyly, "Don’t listen to his nonsense."
Xiao Li’s lips curved. He looked very good when smiling but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. He didn’t pay attention to Yao Yan and kept an eye on Qian Yerong.
For the first round of shuffling, a few people got their cards and one-sidedly died. Jiang Yishe won the first round. He shook his head as he looked at the cards, feeling like he was bullying children.
Liu Sining looked at the remaining cards in his hand and dropped them on the pile of cards. "Amazing. What do you want to ask us?"
Jiang Yishe moved his eyes to Xiao Li, giving up the opportunity to ask a question to Sherlock. Xiao Li thought that he couldn’t ask a question that was too outrageous. He first needed to examine if Qian Yerong was possessed or not. He pondered for a moment before saying, "Qian Yerong, do you have a boyfriend?"
Xiao Li was ready to try the memories first and then test the details. Qian Yerong was somewhat taken aback and shyly lowered her head, long back hair covering her face so that her expression couldn’t be seen.
"Hey, this little brother, do you fancy our Yerong?" Another man in the five person group called An Ming unscrewed the lid of his mineral water bottle and poured it into his mouth.
He was sitting to the side and drinking the money when he heard Qian Yerong say, "No, but there is a person I like."
Then An Ming saw Qian Yerong shyly look at himself. He jerked with a cough, choking and spraying out the water, forming a small pool of water on the ground. "Yerong, if you don’t want to answer this question then you shouldn’t pull me into it." An Ming wiped the water droplets off his face and looked forward.
"I didn’t expect that Qian Yerong would actually secretly like An Ming?"
"It is like beauty and the beast. I’m going to cry."
The group of people were talking among themselves and no one noticed that a human face formed on the surface of the pool of water. It was An Ming’s reflection but the real An Ming was smiling helplessly and hadn’t noticed.
Ah Ming placed the bottle of mineral water on the table and lay down his other hand beside him in a natural fist. The reflection in the water smiled strangely. He raised his hand high above his head in the same position and lowered it in the gesture of ’paper.’
Rock paper scissors. The next second, the real An Ming disappeared. He disappeared like a bunch of foam without any warning. Liu Sinian sitting next to him didn’t even react. Only the four reincarnators directly looked dismayed at where An Ming had disappeared.
Liu Sinian followed their gaze to An Ming’s seat. His mind didn’t have the concept of ghosts and he asked in a silly manner, "Where is An Ming? Did you see him leave?"
Only those sitting opposite him, Yao Yan and Qian Yerong saw it and their mouths dropped open. It was as if their world view had collapsed. Then a high scream emerged from Yao Yan’s mouth. "Ahh— Ghost!" Then she got up and frantically ran out of the carriage.
She ran like this, causing the others to wake up from their shock and confusion and also run outside.
Xiao Li went to An Ming’s original seat and glanced from the table to the chairs and finally all around him. What did An Ming do that the others didn’t do? The young man’s gaze stopped on the bottle of mineral water on the table. He picked up the bottle of mineral water and stared at the water sprayed by An Ming on the ground.
...Water ghost? Xiao Li shook his head lightly and rejected this guess. As Xiao Li checked An Ming’s empty seat, Tian Ji pulled open the door and looked at the passengers escaping. Then he glanced at Xiao Li. "Don’t we need to chase them?"
Xiao Li stood up, took a bottle of mineral water on the table and threw it up and down in his hand like a bowling ball.
**************
At this time, the corridor was empty. The group of university students had already run through two carriages and their footsteps gradually drifted away.
Yao Yan ran in front. She had been sitting across from An Ming and directly witnessed his disappearance. Other people might not have noticed but she saw a hand grab An Ming’s wrist and then he disappeared.
All of Yao Yan’s materialistic common sense had been broken and she shivered, just wanting to leave this place.
Qian Yerong leisurely followed her. As they passed by a window, she reached for Yao Yan’s sleeve and pulled the girl back.
"Yerong, it’s you!" Yao Yan turned around and hugged her friend’s arm as she started to cry. "What the hell is this place? Did you see it? An Ming, he directly disappeared!"
A strange smile appeared on Qian Yerong’s face. Her delicate face with make-up swayed under the light and her normal face gradually turned into a ghost face which had no pupils and only the whites of the eyes. She threw away the arm holding her and the fierce ghost used both hands to hold Yao Yan’s head from behind, forcing the girl to look directly at the window.
"What is it? Yerong, you are scaring me..." Yao Yan’s words came to a stop because she found that in the window that was shaking along with the train, there was her reflection along with Qian Yerong.
In the reflection of the window, Yao Yan was looking panicked while Qian Yerong was still wearing her dress but her entire face had already melted and deformed.
"Ah—" Yao Yan subconsciously closed her eyes and screamed but the girl behind her reached out to cover her mouth while opening her eyes with the other hand. Yao Yan’s eyes filled with tears as she stared into the window and blinked. She blinked again and suddenly, Qian Yerong behind her disappeared, the real body disappearing as well.
The girl turned back. Behind her was empty and there was no one else present. Yao Yan hesitantly looked back and saw her reflection in the mirror, mouth slightly open and expression panicked. Then she found that her reflection in the mirror changed. Her body elongated and her face changed like Qian Yerong as ’she’ raised her hand and slowly lowered it.
Yao Yan felt like she was trapped. She was just a normal person and couldn’t think after suddenly encountering this thing. Her mind was a mess and she could only follow her actions in the carriage window.
The real Yao Yan and the window reflection synchronized as they almost simultaneously raised their hands to play rock paper scissors. However, after the two people extended their hands, they showed something different.
The real Yao Yan showed scissors while the one in the train window showed rock.
Rock smashed scissors, she lost.
The reflection let out a loud laugh. Her left hand showed scissors while her right hand maintained the rock. Then she mercilessly hit her left hand with her right hand. Just as she was manifesting, there was a sound of footsteps from the rear of the carriage. Someone else was coming here.
"Save—" Yao Yan wanted to cry out for help when she was wiped out like a blackboard being erased.
Tian Ji, who was running the fastest, didn’t break in time and almost slipped as he gasped out, "Isn’t the death frequency too fast this time?"
Jiang Yishe and Xiao Li were behind him and Tian Ji heard, "Indeed, from the pen fairy to the ghost bride and this invisible ghost, the interval at which they start killing is getting shorter and shorter, leaving us less time to explore. In other words, the closer we get to the terminal, the sooner the new station ghosts will start killing."
The ghost bride gave them a bit of time to find the husband but the invisible ghost started killing within a few minutes of getting on the carriage!
Once the characters were killed by ghosts, the reincarnators were also in trouble. In other words, if the frequency increased the next time then they wouldn’t survive to the terminal. The presence of items would only allow them to survive for moments, let alone how many days it would take to arrive at the terminal.
They must’ve overlooked something. What was it? Tian Ji was anxious and instinctively glanced at Xiao Li.
Xiao Li didn’t speak and went straight to the place where Yao Yan had disappeared, touching the window. Outside the window was a reed marsh that passed by rapidly. As it drove into the darkness, it faintly reflected Xiao Li’s face. The young man’s eyes were deep as he stared at the night sky outside. He put his forehead on the window and let out a breath.
Water, window...
What did they have in common?
"Did you see the way that Yao Yan disappeared?" Tian Ji moved away from Xiao Li and asked Jiang Yishe and Wu Tianyi.
"I saw something." Jiang Yishe recalled the scene and spoke with less certainty. "It was as if she saw something. Her expression changed and she disappeared."
Wu Tianyi also timidly interjected. She used her left hand to tuck back the hair that had scattered from the run. "I didn’t see anything. I only know that she disappeared."
"Hold this for me." Xiao Li suddenly turned back and threw the mineral water bottle in his hand to the place where the three people were standing. The closest one was Wu Tianyi and the girl reached out her left hand to catch it.
Almost instantly, the reflection of the four people in the window moved today. Like the previous plot characters, their reflections sneered at them and raised one arm in the air.
Tian Ji’s heartbeat rose as he grabbed a pill from his pocket. He admonished himself to calmly analyze it. Why did his mirror image raise his arm? The young man was in a complicated state of mind as he thought of many possibilities: make a final decision, one punch man, respond en masse, this method didn’t work or... a type of game? Tian Ji thought of this action as a hint.
Xiao Li took a few steps back and stared at his mirror self that was showing a strange smile. The teenager rubbed his cheek and condemned in an expressionless manner, "Can you not use other people’s faces to make this type of expression? You are making me feel ashamed."
This feeling was like visiting a web page to see a photoshopped photo of himself kissing a stranger. He knew it wasn’t him but there was still a strange sense of shame.
The mirror ghost in the window, "......"
Tian Ji, “???"
He was about to faint from Sherlock’s ability to focus. At such a critical juncture, this person could still feel ashamed? The young man snorted and pushed up his glasses. "Your face isn’t important. The important thing is what they are hinting with this gesture."
"I don’t know, perhaps it is rock paper scissors." Xiao Li spoke without really thinking. He stopped and stared at himself in the mirror. He experimented by also raising his arm up and in sync with the mirror ghost, he lowered his arm and made a gesture.
Rock paper scissors—
The author has something to say:
Little yellow book: What? There is even a photoshopped kiss?