Good Girl, You Can’t Eat This - Chapter 4

Xie Chi raised her head and silently stared at the ceiling.

There was something wrong with her constitution. She could not learn any Daoist arts or techniques. On normal days, when she followed her senior and junior sect members out to perform rituals, she relied entirely on physical exorcism.

This was probably one of the reasons she had been chosen to do the livestream.

But the abnormal change that had occurred just now was something even she had sensed. Something was taking shape directly above her head.

The young man had clearly sensed it too. It was just that at first, his attention had been drawn by the thing inside Xie Chi’s bag. His expression was extremely solemn, and upon closer inspection, one could even sense a hint of panic.

“What’s going on… How could this be…”

The young man pushed Xie Chi. “Hurry and leave! Get out of here right now! The farther away, the better!”

Of course, the people in the livestream room could not sense things like yin energy gathering. Hearing him say this, they all started laughing.

“He’s acting pretty convincingly…”

“These days, scammers don’t even dare come out and show off unless they have some special skills, okay?”

“Hello, I am Qin Shi Huang. I took the elixir of immortality and did not die. I have ten billion tons of gold in the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. I urgently need 2,000 yuan to buy tomb-robbing tools. WeChat or Alipay transfers are both fine. When the time comes, I’ll save you the position of Lord Wu’an!”

“Hahaha, me, King Yama. Send money.”

In the corridor, however, the expressions of the two people were more solemn than the other. Xie Chi carried his peachwood sword and headed straight for the elevator. Strangely enough, although the power had not gone out and the elevator looked like it was operating normally, when Xie Chi pressed the button, the elevator doors showed no sign of opening at all.

She turned and ran toward the stairs. The young man was so anxious that he kept shouting behind her, “What are you doing? Hurry and leave! If you don’t leave now, it’ll be too late!”

Xie Chi had always thought the problem was on the third floor. Most of the people who had seen strange things had also encountered them on the third floor. It was not until that instant just now that Xie Chi sensed something was wrong.

When she climbed up through the stairwell, that bone-chilling cold followed her like a shadow, until she reached the fourth floor through the stairs.

The two of them arrived on the fourth floor almost one after the other. The young man had originally still been chattering, but after seeing the situation on the fourth floor, he immediately shut his mouth.

A thick layer of yin energy covered the floor. It looked like the fog created with dry ice on a stage, except the color of the yin energy was grayish-black, like a dark cloud pressing down on the young man’s heart.

Moreover, this yin energy was still flowing. It surged toward the depths of the corridor, toward the room near the spot directly above where Xie Chi had stood on the third floor.

The livestream room had already gone silent. There was even a brief blank moment with no comments. A scene like this was not something that could be easily explained away as a scammer’s trick.

After all, the young man had not gone up to the fourth floor before, and most likely did not know that someone was inside the building.

Unless Xie Chi and the young man had teamed up to stage the whole thing themselves.

It was not that no one suspected this. It was just that most people held a half-believing, half-doubting attitude toward things like this. After seeing such a scene with their own eyes, it was very hard to stay calm.

Xie Chi fell silent for a moment and felt that she should say something at a time like this. She had to be professional, after all. After holding it in for a while, she gave a dry, stiff explanation.

“This should be a problem with medical dry ice. Maybe there’s a room on the fourth floor specially used to store dry ice. Something went wrong with the storage, and the dry ice turned into fog. As for why it looks gray, maybe something else got mixed into it.”

“There are no ghosts in this world. We have to believe in science.”

To be honest, her explanation was dry and rigid, and even a little clumsy. It was not persuasive at all. But for the moment, there really was no better explanation, so many people could only grit their teeth and believe it.

The young man beside her looked very disapproving. He had just opened his mouth to speak when Xie Chi slapped a hand over it. Xie Chi narrowed her eyes. Her ability to change the subject was also very poor.

“Let’s go up ahead and take a look. Let’s see if we can find the source of the problem. Dry ice wouldn’t leak for no reason.”

The young man looked extremely aggrieved. He wanted to speak but could not.

Only after Xie Chi confirmed that he probably would not say anything reckless for the time being did she let go. The two of them then walked forward. Xie Chi had already had some suspicions earlier. From the first floor upward, she had only seen a few scattered ghosts and monsters, and they were not the especially powerful kind either. All of them were weak little chickens. That did not match the density of yin energy inside this hospital at all.

There were only two possibilities. One was that there were an extremely large number of ghosts inside the hospital, which had gathered into a considerable amount of yin energy. As for the second, there was a fairly powerful fierce ghost hidden here.

She had always guessed it was the second possibility. Now that she had seen the situation on the fourth floor, it could more or less be confirmed.

The two of them stopped in the middle section of the corridor because their path was blocked. The one blocking the way was a woman wearing a hospital gown. The hem of her clothes was covered in bloodstains, and she was holding a white swaddle in her arms. When she raised her head, a bluish-white face was revealed.

The light from Xie Chi’s phone happened to shine over and fall on her face, startling the viewers in the livestream room.

When the young man saw her, he was delighted. “See? I told you!”

He strode forward and grabbed the female ghost by the collar. “I told you there was a ghost! I’m not a scammer!”

The female ghost was immediately dumbfounded. She had scared many people in this hospital, but she had never encountered anyone with this kind of reaction before.

Xie Chi? Xie Chi would absolutely not admit that this was a ghost. She had always been dedicated to her work. Carrying the peachwood sword, she also walked over, snatched the collar out of the young man’s hand, and even reached out to touch the female ghost’s face.

“Nonsense. If she’s a ghost, how can I touch her too?”

“Tell me. Were you sent by this hospital’s competitor? Did you deliberately put on makeup at night and go around scaring people so that patients wouldn’t dare come to this hospital?” Xie Chi was very strong. She reached out and shook the female ghost a couple of times, shaking her until her hair fell loose and she wore an expression of doubting ghost life.

Young Man: “…”

That made sense too.

Ordinary people could not touch ghosts. This was also why ninety percent of the people in this world did not know ghosts existed. To them, ghosts were formless things; they could neither see nor touch them.

If an ordinary ghost wanted to harm someone, it could only haunt that person constantly and use its yin energy to erode the yang energy of the living, gradually lowering their luck and weakening their body.

Of course, this referred to ordinary lonely souls and wandering ghosts, especially newly dead ghosts. They only had a thin layer of yin energy on them, and harming a person would take three to five years before they could make that person sick or something similar.

If resentment became heavy and they turned into fierce ghosts, they could be seen by people. Only even stronger fierce ghosts could be touched by people—or rather, touch people and personally kill them.

Could it be that this female ghost was actually an extremely vicious fierce ghost, and he simply had not seen through it for the moment?

The young man became alert all over. “Step back for now! Let me test what she really is. Don’t let her hurt you!”

Xie Chi was very calm. “It’s fine. I’ve learned sanda. She can’t beat me.”

Young Man: “…”

She’s a ghost! Would a ghost fight sanda with you?!

Just as the young man expected, after the ghost reacted, she raised her palm toward Xie Chi with an expression of having been humiliated. Her nails were grayish-black and extremely long. If they left a wound on a person, yin energy would drill into the body through the wound.

Xie Chi moved even faster than she did. She grabbed the ghost’s wrist, turned, and threw her over her shoulder. The female ghost was immediately slammed senseless. Even the swaddle in her arms was thrown onto the ground. The swaddle was empty. There was nothing inside it, only a clean white cloth.

After pressing the female ghost to the ground, Xie Chi choked her by the neck. “Let’s call the police.”

The young man already felt as if his worldview had shattered all over the floor, especially his view of the world itself. It was so broken he could not even piece it back together. He deeply suspected that all these years of studying Daoist arts had been for nothing; they were not as reliable as someone else’s sanda.

“You… Where did you learn sanda… No, wait! Stay away from her. Leave the rest to me.” The young man’s character was still very good. He was afraid that the female ghost would hurt Xie Chi.

But what Xie Chi was most worried about was him using some Daoist methods. At that point, it would be difficult to explain away. So there was absolutely no way she would hand the female ghost over to him. Therefore, Xie Chi said very calmly, “I think I can still restrain her for now. Aren’t you going to go ahead and take a look? I suspect she has accomplices.”

The young man instantly sobered up. He had already sensed that this female ghost had only come to block the way. Up ahead, an evil ghost was being born. Its gradually strengthening aura was as conspicuous as a firefly in the dark night.

The young man hesitated for a long time, but in the end, he still said, “You must hold that peachwood sword properly. I’ll go and come back quickly!”

“Mm-hm, hurry and go.” Xie Chi wished she could chase him away faster. After the young man hurried toward the depths of the corridor, Xie Chi finally breathed a sigh of relief. She adjusted the camera so that it faced the female ghost, then pressed the peachwood sword against the female ghost’s neck.

“You were sent by the hospital next door, right?”

Female Ghost: “???”

“Were you not?” Xie Chi’s gaze was faint and gloomy. More importantly, a very terrifying aura had emerged from her sleeve. It could not be seen through the camera, but the female ghost could clearly sense that the thing crawling along Xie Chi’s wrist onto her body was absolutely not something good.

A very clear thought came from that thing.

Hungry.

If the female ghost were still alive, her whole body would definitely be covered in goosebumps right now. She was like a cat with all its fur standing on end. If the peachwood sword had not still been pressed against her neck, she would have already jumped up and fled.

There was a wolf in front and a tiger behind. She was like a complete fool caught in the middle.

Perhaps realizing that she could not escape, the female ghost suddenly let out a loud sob. With little whimpers, she bowed her head to the big boss and humiliatingly admitted that she had been sent by the hospital next door to pretend to be a ghost.

Xie Chi was very satisfied and casually educated her. “You know this kind of thing is illegal, right? Don’t do it again in the future. Be a good person, understand?”

Female Ghost: Whimper… I want to be a person too.

“See? There are no ghosts in this world. There are only guilty people and ghosts played by people.” Xie Chi felt that she had completed her mission very well. It was all thanks to so many episodes of Approaching Science.

The viewers in the livestream room: “…”

Something still feels not quite right?