Chapter 14 Evil Spirits
Chapter 14 Evil Spirits
Xue Baoping turned around. The moment he saw what was behind him, his pupils dilated and his scalp went numb. He took two steps back before stopping silently.
She thought that what she saw might be a ghost with a green face and fangs, a demon with a beast's head and a human body, or any evil spirit that her parents had said to scare her when they were still alive. But what she saw in reality was even more evil than those evil spirits.
It looked like a paper figurine, but extremely delicate, with a lifelike nose, eyes and mouth. However, it was the kind that was accidentally soaked in water, blurred in color, and deflated and wrinkled - a distorted human skin stood not far from her, some parts were propped up, some parts were deflated, and the feet were floating, as if standing on the ground, but also as if floating in the air.
Its seven orifices were empty, but numerous white lines protruded from inside, waving gently in the air like tentacles, as if replacing the functions of the original organs. And when he moved gently, there were dense ups and downs under the human skin, as if countless worms were crawling inside, driving his movements.
She tilted her face back, panted several times, swallowed her saliva, raised her hand tremblingly, and wrote: "Help with what?"
Her reaction was perfectly in line with expectations, and Li Wuxiang was very satisfied. After more than ten days of observation, he has realized that this is not an era of peace and prosperity, and most people living in such a world should be submissive, tired and numb. At first, he thought Xue Baoping was also such a person, but then he slowly realized that all the laziness, confusion, and numbness she showed seemed to be caused by her childhood when her parents died early and the long-term psychological repression during adolescence - once she found a little thing "sent by my parents to accompany me", she immediately showed paranoia and concentration.
Li Wuxiang also knew that most people would be crushed after experiencing a similar childhood and adolescence, becoming timid, cowardly, afraid of rejection, and willing to please, but Xue Baoping went to the other extreme, making herself extremely defensive and having a potential tendency towards self-destruction.
This is still a rather morbid state of mind. But if he had fallen into the hands of any less morbid 16- or 17-year-old girl a dozen days ago, she would have been thrown into the fire and burned.
It was very hard to maintain this state, but Li Wuxiang still tried his best to maintain his human form and his previous voice, so that Xue Baoping could alleviate some of his fear through this voice: "Do you have any scissors at home?"
The girl nodded. After a brief hesitation, she walked sideways to the bedside table and took out a pair of black iron scissors with red thread wrapped around the handle from the drawer.
Li Wuxiang exhaled, and his skin immediately floated flat on the ground: "Come here and cut me open."
Xue Baoping half opened his mouth, stunned for a moment, then slowly walked over with the scissors in hand, mustered up the courage to touch the leather bag, and uttered a voice with difficulty: "Ah?"
"Cut my legs off first."
Xue Baoping frowned, stared at Li Wuxiang's skin, thought for a while, and then dropped the scissors heavily.
It was much easier than she thought. Li Wuxiang's skin was like a slightly thicker cloth soaked in water. When the scissors cut it, there was a rustling sound, and his legs fell down.
"Very good. Go on, cut my head and chest open, cut it into--"
"Clothes..." said Xue Baoping.
"Yes, cut it into the shape of a dress."
After a few breaths, Li Wuxiang was cut open and laid flat on the ground. He looked like a hooded cloak, and it was made of leather with gold threads embedded inside. There were originally countless squirming white threads under his skin, but now they were all quietly attached, like velvet inside.
"Now roll me up, roll me up backwards, with the gold thread exposed. Then I want you to go out and find a way to throw me into the Wang family's yard."
Xue Baoping did as she was told immediately, and her expression was much more relaxed, no longer as fearful as before. Firstly, after Li Wuxiang's upper body was cut into a cloak, he didn't look as scary as before, and secondly, she felt that he spoke very kindly. Apart from her parents, no one had spoken to her so kindly in these years...slowly and gently, without rushing or scolding, even though she had accidentally cut open his eyes just now. So, even if he was a man-eating monster, she was happy to send him to eat people.
Xue Baoping took a hemp rope, tied up Li Wuxiang's skin, and then tucked him under her armpits. She did not go out the front door, but went out through the small door at the back.
The night was still long, and it was still pitch black behind the house. But she had memorized the roads nearby, and where there were earth pits, old tree roots, and piles of broken tiles, all of which were firmly imprinted in her mind. There were still five dilapidated houses between her home and the Wang family. She walked silently and lightly in the dark. When she passed an old locust tree and could see the lights of the Wang family still on in the distance, Xue Baoping said softly: "Hey... Hey... Hey what..."
"Why help you?" she heard the human skin in her arms say.
She nodded in the darkness.
"I am also helping myself. You see, I was also a human being, an orphan, without a father or a mother. I was captured by a bad Taoist priest and sealed in your stove—"
"Bad...bad...he..." Xue Baoping gestured at his own face.
"He looks to be in his 40s or 50s." Li Wuxiang recalled Zhao Kui's appearance, "skinny, with a long beard, deep eye sockets, and a long chin."
Xue Baoping exhaled slowly. The Taoist priest who was saved by his father more than ten years ago might be younger, but he looked just like he did.
"Thanks to you for saving me, I am now what I am now. But I may have to stay in your house for some time, so I can't let you get into trouble. I have to find a way to make our lives peaceful."
The girl had been hugging Li Wuxiang tightly, but when she heard this, Li Wuxiang felt her arms loosen. He knew that this meant that she felt a little relieved by this sentence - she didn't care much about being on the road to killing an entire family, but she cared more about whether the ugly human skin in her arms would leave her.
This girl is really seriously ill, Li Wuxiang thought.
After passing a section of the ruined wall, they arrived outside the Wang family's courtyard wall. This was a newly painted wall with green tiles on the top, which looked very impressive. Even if Xue Baoping jumped up, he couldn't reach the tiles on the top of the wall.
When he stood at the bottom of the wall, he heard someone talking on the other side of the wall. The voice was a little far away, but very angry. Xue Baoping knew it was the voice of Wang Peng, the father of Wang Wen and Wang Wu. It seemed that he was angry because his younger son could not find his elder son. Wang Wu was timid and argued a few times before daring to speak.
After a while, the sound disappeared. It was time for the two men to go to the inner courtyard. Li Wuxiang immediately said, "Throw me in where they can see me soon. Wait for me outside."
Xue Baoping walked along the wall, arrived at the main gate of Wang's house, and threw the bundled Li Wuxiang in. Then she walked to the corner at the bottom of the wall, touched a stone and held it in her palm, waiting quietly in the dark.
The second update will be at eight in the morning.
(End of this chapter)