Carrying My Senior's Coffin (GL) - Chapter 35

Fang Yiyi had expected Bai Xuan to faint from fright.

Unexpectedly, she was rather tenacious. Screaming, she scrambled to her feet and threw herself at Fang Yiyi.

Perhaps she had realized that Fang Yiyi was unnaturally calm, and that the ghost had not bothered her at all. Instinctively, she decided Fang Yiyi must be safe.

Before Bai Xuan could reach her, Fang Yiyi extended one hand and pressed her palm against Bai Xuan’s forehead.

“Stay away from me.”

Her expression was filled with disgust.

Bai Xuan glared at her with resentment in her eyes.

Fang Yiyi was utterly confused.

She still could not understand why she attracted so much hatred.

The ghost did not rise with Bai Xuan.

Instead, it crawled toward them in a posture resembling some kind of reptilian mammal. Its blood-soaked hand closed around Bai Xuan’s calf.

Perhaps Bai Xuan had already been frightened beyond her limits.

Her screaming stopped instantly.

She stood rigidly in place, not even daring to breathe.

“The real one is here,” Li Ting said indifferently.

The moment she finished speaking, an aura hundreds of times colder than before swept over from behind Fang Yiyi, overwhelming everything in its path.

The ghost clutching Bai Xuan’s ankle raised its head and glanced over.

Then it stood, turned around, and left.

It moved just as quickly as it had arrived.

Bai Xuan’s face had become completely bloodless.

Her eyes were threaded with red, and her entire body trembled violently.

She lifted one shaking finger and pointed behind Fang Yiyi.

Her pale lips quivered, but she could not force out a single word.

Fang Yiyi smelled a dense stench of blood.

She turned around and found a ghostly doll floating behind her.

No one knew when it had appeared.

The distance between human and ghost was so small that Fang Yiyi could clearly see the wrinkled, greasy skin covering its face.

The ghost doll was tiny, only as long as an adult’s arm.

Its dark-brown skin had completely dried out, leaving it shriveled, stiff, and rigid. At the same time, a thick layer of grease seemed to coat its surface, making it resemble a waxed mummy.

Its mouth hung wide open, as though it could no longer close.

The lips had dried into leathery strips. At first glance, the mouth resembled a bottomless black hole.

There were no teeth inside, yet fresh scraps of flesh could be seen between its jaws.

A long seam ran from the center of its upper lip all the way to its forehead, stitched together with fishing line.

Near the cheekbone on the right side of its face, two yellowed adult molars protruded through torn flesh.

Beyond being terrifying, it also gave off the decrepit air of something on the verge of death.

Yet it was dressed like a doll.

Its hair was naturally white, like an elderly person’s, sparse and pitifully thin, but tied into two pigtails.

It wore an old, yellowed lace doll dress.

Its lower legs were exposed and wrapped in silk stockings, while a pair of small brown leather shoes covered its feet.

The soles looked as though they had just stepped through a pool of blood.

Drops fell steadily from them.

Each bead struck the stone pavement and shattered into a scarlet flower.

Because Fang Yiyi stood so close, she could even smell the stale odor of old age beneath the overpowering stench of blood.

The ghost doll stared at her and tilted its head.

Two trails of bloody tears flowed from its white eyes.

Every alarm bell in Fang Yiyi’s mind began ringing.

Her instincts told her that the ghost doll before her was extremely dangerous.

She wanted to run, only to discover that she could not move at all.

Bai Xuan was no better.

Her face had turned grayish-white, her brows were tightly furrowed, and the terror in her pupils seemed to reach all the way into her soul.

She looked ready to faint at any moment.

Suddenly, Li Ting pressed down on Fang Yiyi’s head and forced her to bend at the waist.

A steel pipe swept over her scalp in the next instant and buried itself deeply in the trunk of a nearby tree.

Cold sweat immediately broke out across Fang Yiyi’s body.

Had Li Ting not helped her, that steel pipe would now be piercing her skull.

The ghost doll seemed to notice Li Ting’s presence.

It tilted its head, confusion appearing in its grayish-white eyes.

In the next second, a four-inch steel nail shot directly toward Fang Yiyi’s eye.

Bang!

It struck one of her badly warped cymbals.

The cymbal vibrated with a faint hum, its resonance lingering for a long time.

Fang Yiyi’s wrist went numb.

She had to hold on tightly to keep from dropping it.

Bai Xuan finally regained her senses.

She crouched down with both hands over her head and hid behind Fang Yiyi, sobbing hysterically.

“Help! Save me! Someone save me!”

The red mist abruptly thickened and rapidly gathered in front of Fang Yiyi.

Li Ting revealed herself.

Her gaze was cold and sharp.

Her black hair whipped around with the wide sleeves of her crimson robes, creating a striking contrast with the tiny, hideous creature before her.

The ghost doll appeared surprised by Li Ting’s presence.

Its gray pupils narrowed, and a strange sound resembling the chirping of insects came from its black-hole mouth.

“Zzz… zzz…”

The sound passed through Fang Yiyi’s eardrums and seeped directly into her bones.

A wave of dizziness struck her.

She already disliked noise, and although the insect-like buzzing was quiet, it invaded every space.

Covering her ears did nothing.

Before long, her stomach began churning.

It was not nausea in the ordinary sense.

Her blood seemed to surge backward through her veins, while her esophagus twisted as though it were being knotted together.

Every organ in her chest thrashed restlessly, as if trying to burst free.

It was a violent assault of both spiritual pressure and noise.

A metallic sweetness rose into Fang Yiyi’s throat.

Thin streams of red blood leaked from the corner of her mouth.

Li Ting grabbed her own sleeve and tore it casually, ripping off a long strip of fabric.

She took Fang Yiyi’s hand and tied the cloth around her wrist in a bright, beautiful bow.

The buzzing abruptly weakened.

Fang Yiyi’s head still hurt, but now she felt only dizzy.

The sensation of her organs raging and overturning inside her had disappeared.

She lowered her gaze toward Bai Xuan.

No one had protected her.

Blood was now flowing from all seven openings of her face, and she lay twitching on the ground like someone being electrocuted.

“Get farther away!”

Still facing the ghost doll, Li Ting turned her head slightly and spoke in a cool voice.

“Okay!”

Fang Yiyi, who had lost after a single exchange and possessed combat strength barely above zero, grabbed Bai Xuan—whose combat strength was somewhere below zero—by both legs and dragged her forcibly away from the battlefield.

“Senior, you can do it!”

Fang Yiyi cheered hoarsely in a small voice.

The moment she spoke, the taste and smell of her own blood filled her mouth, nearly making her vomit.

Li Ting gave her a look one might reserve for an idiot.

She picked at one ear and said, “Stop shouting. Anyone who didn’t know better would think corpse-eating insects had hollowed you out.”

The ghost doll paused.

The insect-like buzzing stopped.

The shriveled flesh around its mouth twitched.

When it spoke, its voice sounded like fingernails scraping across glass. Judging by the tone and the blurred words, its meaning could barely be understood.

“So you’re the wandering ghost haunting this school?”

Li Ting’s lips curved upward.

“Wandering ghost is too grand a title for me. Compared to you, I’m positively civilized.”

The ghost doll burst into a creaking laugh.

The sound made Fang Yiyi’s hair stand on end and covered her body in goosebumps.

Bai Xuan slowly regained consciousness and immediately clapped both hands over her ears.

“You ignorant little brat! Do you know who I am?”

Li Ting said, “Some time ago, several students played the Saucer Spirit game. It should have been nothing more than an ordinary game, but one of them had an exceptionally weak fate chart, and they also used blood.”

“That was enough to summon a real ghost and bring disaster upon themselves.”

“That was you, wasn’t it?”

“A century-old hopping corpse.”

The ghost doll’s stiff flesh trembled as it creaked,

“So you possess some knowledge after all.”

“You’re merely a ten-year-old ghost. Leave now, and I may spare you.”

“Otherwise, today will be the day your soul is destroyed.”

Li Ting’s eyes darkened.

She enunciated each word clearly.

“Come and try.”

“You don’t know your own limits!”

The ghost doll shouted.

Its gray eyes suddenly widened.

A violent gale rose in an instant.

Its gray-white hair flew wildly, and its lace-trimmed dress snapped in the wind.

Its abdomen vibrated, and an insect-like buzzing a hundred times stronger than before poured from its mouth.

It sounded as though the shrill noise intended to swallow heaven and earth.

Fang Yiyi’s vision went dark.

She watched helplessly as the cloth around her wrist shattered from the sound.

Her blood surged violently.

Unable to control herself, she vomited a large mouthful of blood.

Then it was as though the flow could no longer stop.

Several more mouthfuls followed one after another.

Fang Yiyi lowered her head and braced one hand against a nearby ornamental tree to keep herself from collapsing.

She hurriedly looked toward Li Ting.

A figure floated in midair.

Her crimson robes whipped through the wind, impossible to miss.

Li Ting’s eyes were icy.

Her black hair brushed across her cheeks, and a faint line of blood appeared on her pale face.

Fang Yiyi’s heart sank.

“Senior!”

Li Ting lifted one arm.

The wide crimson sleeve spread open completely like a bolt of silk dancing across the sky, forming a barrier between herself and the ghost doll.

The wind intensified.

As it struck the red fabric, the cloth visibly expanded.

“Senior, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“Shut up!”

Li Ting shouted back without turning around, despite being occupied with the battle.

Another wave rose in Fang Yiyi’s throat.

She bent over and began vomiting blood again.

She raised one hand, wiped the blood from her lips with the back of it, and continued staring fixedly at Li Ting, her eyes overflowing with worry.

Li Ting had said the ghost doll was a century-old hopping corpse.

Fang Yiyi did not know whether that meant exactly one hundred years, five hundred years, or nine hundred years.

But Senior—

Senior had only been dead for ten years!

A mere ten years!

Had she still been alive, she would only be twenty-nine.

She would still be in the prime of her life.

Practically a child!

Could she really win?!

Fang Yiyi’s heart was in turmoil.

In her panic, her fingertips tore through the bark of the tree.

Her nails split, and blood seeped out, but she did not notice.

The insect-like buzzing continued.

Pain stabbed through Fang Yiyi’s chest, nearly bringing her to her knees.

She closed her eyes briefly, trying to ease it.

When she opened them again, Li Ting had disappeared.

Fang Yiyi froze.

Something slammed into the center of the spread red cloth.

Caught by its momentum, the object became wrapped inside and tumbled toward her.

She could not see through the cloth, but judging by the shape, it seemed to be the ghost doll.

As if confirming her guess, the buzzing stopped abruptly.

The crimson fabric fell.

Li Ting appeared where the ghost doll had been standing.

With one hand gripping her sleeve and the other holding the opposite edge of the fabric, she had wrapped the ghost doll inside like a bundle.

Ignoring its struggles, she approached unhurriedly, raised one leg, and stomped down hard.

The ghost doll shrieked.

After writhing for a moment, it flew into the air with the red cloth still wrapped around it.

Li Ting refused to release the sleeve.

She wound the fabric several times around her arm.

The cloth tightened, making the ghost doll resemble a kite trapped at the end of a string.

No matter how wildly it struggled, it could not break free.

It began howling in frustration.

The noise pollution exceeded every limit.

Fang Yiyi felt as though her head might explode.

The wrapped red cloth suddenly bulged near the ghost doll as though air were being forced into it.

The swelling traveled rapidly along the fabric toward Li Ting.

Li Ting’s expression sharpened.

She spun around, the hem of her red skirt flying outward.

Red mist emerged from her palm and wrapped around the cloth, racing against the swelling.

The two forces collided.

The sound of tearing silk rang through the air.

The sleeve Li Ting had used to bind the ghost doll shattered into pieces.

Crimson scraps fluttered down.

Fang Yiyi lifted one hand and caught a fragment.

The instant it touched her warm skin, it turned into fine powder and disappeared.

“I’ll kill you!”

The ghost doll wailed.

A fierce yin wind rose.

Countless tiny nails flew in from every direction, all their sharp points aimed at Li Ting.

“Die!”

The nails shot toward her at once.

Fang Yiyi’s heart rose into her throat.

All her attention was focused on Li Ting, causing her to neglect her own surroundings.

Suddenly, pain slashed across her cheek.

She touched it.

Her hand came away covered in blood.

Had her face been disfigured?

Fang Yiyi froze.

Looking closely, she saw a bloodstained headless nail wrapped in black energy hovering in front of her.

Its sharp point was aimed directly at her throat.

“…”

Fang Yiyi raised one cymbal and slammed it down hard.

A crisp metallic clang rang out.

The black energy dispersed, and the nail lost its support and fell to the ground.

Losing contact with it, the ghost doll froze.

It noticed Fang Yiyi below and creaked,

“Who are you?”

“You can disperse my ghostly energy?”

“A Daoist priest?”

“…No!”

It studied Fang Yiyi for a long moment.

A fanatical light somehow appeared in its gray-white pupils.

“A Pure Yin Constitution!”

“You actually possess a Pure Yin Constitution!”

“I knew a mere ten-year-old ghost could not possibly restrain me.”

“So that’s the reason!”

A string of piercing laughter followed.

The instant the nails had been fired, Li Ting transformed into red mist and vanished.

After they passed, she appeared again in the same place.

But the ghost doll no longer cared about her.

It had discovered something far more tempting.

It rushed toward Fang Yiyi with incredible speed, shrieking wildly.

The ghost doll moved too quickly.

Li Ting tried to intercept it but could not reach Fang Yiyi in time.

“So this little ghost became this powerful because you raised her…”

“How impressive.”

“But now you belong to me.”

The instant its hand closed around Fang Yiyi’s throat, the ghost doll let out a delighted cry.

The sound was too shrill and far too close.

Fang Yiyi could not endure it.

Blood began flowing from her ears.

Then she vomited another large mouthful.

Her consciousness drifted farther and farther away.

Just before it vanished completely, a piercing pain tore through her chest and dragged her abruptly back.

The ghost doll leaned close to her ear and laughed with a buzzing sound.

The stench of blood mixed with the rancid odor of old age, making Fang Yiyi vomit blood yet again.

“Don’t faint.”

“You won’t taste as good if you do.”

Li Ting’s expression darkened like the bottom of a burned pot.

She thought bitterly that she had died far too late.

At that moment, the Buddhist beads around Fang Yiyi’s wrist suddenly released a cold so intense it felt capable of freezing someone alive.

In the next instant, Li Ting appeared from thin air.

Taking advantage of the ghost doll’s momentary shock, she kicked it squarely in the chest.

“Stay away from my person.”

“You’re making her sick.”

Li Ting caught Fang Yiyi’s swaying body and pulled her into her arms just before she could no longer remain standing.