Chapter 015: I Have a Box of Candy.
Without hesitation, Chi Shen hung up the call.
Bai Ba is his biological father, the current head of the Bai family and its clan leader, Bai Xi Ming.
Had it been earlier, he would have been elated upon receiving a call from Father Bai, not only answering instantly but also speaking with utmost respect and caution to his biological father. But now, things were different.
At present, Chi Shen found this person quite bothersome, interrupting him from understanding the challenges faced by his future colleagues.
On the other end of the call, inside Bai Ximing’s study, Bai Ximing sat on his rosewood chair. He Lao was seated beside him, while Bai Ran stood silently and respectfully to the side, still wearing his blood-stained pajamas. Despite trying to maintain his usual gentle demeanor, his disheveled appearance made him look quite pitiable.
Seeing the call being deliberately hung up, all three revealed subtle expressions. Bai Ximing displayed a hint of anger, He Lao looked somewhat worried, and although Bai Ran seemed as respectful as ever, a fleeting sneer of mockery flashed across his face.
He had already informed the two about the situation, clearly stating that the ghost from the old mansion had escaped and that Lu Xiangyang was killed by this very ghost. Surely, something Chi Shen found or did in the mansion led to these consecutive events.
Yet these two old men merely laughed it off after hearing the story, showing no concern at all.
Bai Ran, completely disregarding his own dignity, frantically informed them that Bai Wan had appeared and blamed Chi Shen for the chaos. Only after a while, seemingly as a favor, did Bai Ximing suggest making a call to Chi Shen for clarification.
"The old mansion is most perilous at night," He Lao respectfully advised Bai Ximing, "Chi Shen must have encountered some emergency."
Bai Ximing seemed quite magnanimous. He appeared to understand Chi Shen's position, saying, "If he's still alive, he'll call back right away, and we'll know the situation. Let's give the young man some time."
With that, he picked up his tea cup, gently blew on it, took a sip, and seemed entirely at ease.
Chi Shen had no idea that there were three people in the Bai residence’s study, expecting a return call from him. He was already getting to know his new colleagues. Even if he did know, he would just say, "I'm busy, wait for it."
After hanging up, Chi Shen began to search for cases from two decades ago in or around the Harbor City on his phone. He particularly noted a serial killing mentioned by two girls he met at the cake shop earlier.
The search results were overwhelming. At a glance, Chi Shen frowned. Pinpointing the case involving the death of the girl in the floral dress was like finding a needle in a haystack.
At that moment, Ji Xingchen adjusted his glasses and asked, "Need help?"
Chi Shen promptly handed over his phone. After a few glances at Ji Xingchen, he suddenly said, "Show me your hand."
Ji Xingchen shifted his gaze from the phone to Chi Shen, realizing he was serious, and extended his left hand.
Chi Shen gestured towards the other hand.
Ji Xingchen reluctantly presented his right hand. On his pale, slender fingers, there were numerous fine scars, and remnants of frost lingered around his knuckles, giving his hand a shattered beauty.
The lady in red glanced over with curiosity, "Got hurt?"
She then furrowed her brows in contemplation, "Hurt? Nothing happened just now."
Ji Xingchen was also looking at Chi Shen.
Chi Shen observed the wounds on Ji Xingchen's hand and remarked, "Previously, you always adjusted your glasses with your right hand, but since returning, you've switched to the left. Habits don't change easily. This suggests you're trying to hide something. The most plausible reason being that I've injured you."
Having spent so much time in the game of death, Chi Shen had developed keen observational skills. Without them, he wouldn't have lasted this long.
After hearing his words, a subtle change flickered in Ji Xingchen's eyes, as though he wanted to say something, but he held back.
After examining Ji Xingchen's hand for a moment, Chi Shen took out a string of beads and placed them in Ji Xingchen's hand. He said with a smile, "I apologize for the injury. Here, have some 'candy'."
Spirits are formed of yin energy, so replenishing this energy can heal wounds or make them stronger. Therefore, Chi Shen was offering Ji Xingchen something to consume to restore his energy.
Ji Xingchen stared at the "candy" in his hand, as described by Chi Shen.
They were beads, slightly smaller than ping pong balls, primarily white with black, brown, blue, and green circles on one side. There was a tiny tail attached to each bead, and one of the circles blinked.
Ji Xingchen questioned, "Candy?"
These were clearly eyeballs, blinking eyeballs!
"Once, I helped a child retrieve his lost doll," Chi Shen recalled, a smile forming on his face. "He gifted me a box of these candies as a token of appreciation. These are some of them."
Although he had initially held the doll at knife-point and asked the child, "Do you want the candy or the doll?", resulting in the child trading candy for the doll, he felt calling it a token of appreciation wasn't a stretch.
After all, he did help the child get his toy back.
Ji Xingchen gazed at the eyeballs, realizing that for spirits like them, these were indeed candies, given the yin energy they contained was a potent sustenance.
He hesitated before consuming them.
"Candy," the ghost in the red dress drooled from the side, "I want some too."
The spirit in the floral dress also looked longingly, her parched face filled with desire.
The ghost in the red dress, cautiously and slowly, began to extend the only hand she had left, inching closer to the candy in Ji Xingchen's hand—
Suddenly, Ji Xingchen pulled his hand back, grabbing the candy and swiftly swallowing it. In moments, his wounds healed, and even his translucent form seemed slightly more vivid.
The ghost in the red dress halted mid-reach, looking as if she was about to burst into tears.
With a smile, Chi Shen remarked to Ji Xingchen, "You still believe you're human."
A tone of certainty.
Ji Xingchen didn't avoid the question, admitting, "I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I'm dead."
Chi Shen walked by him, patting him on the shoulder, offering encouragement, "Stay strong."
Ji Xingchen replied, "I will."
Chi Shen stated, "I'm going to check on my sister."
Ji Xingchen responded, "Alright."
After Chi Shen left, the ghost in the red dress looked at Ji Xingchen with a resentful expression, whining, "Candy."
As Ji Xingchen browsed his phone for information on a murder case, without looking up, he said, "Tonight, at midnight, the main house is safe. You can ask him for two drops of blood."
The ghost in the red dress's eyes immediately lit up, and she crawled away gleefully.
Chi Shen hadn't been gone long. He took a stroll in Bai Wan's courtyard, asking if Bai Ran had disturbed her. After receiving a response that Bai Ran didn't dare step into the yard, he returned.
"Where's the lady ghost?" Chi Shen looked around, noticing that the ghost in the red dress had vanished again!
"She stepped out for a bit," Ji Xingchen calmly explained, rotating his phone to show Chi Shen, "I found it, the serial killings from 26 years ago near Harbor City."
Chi Shen glanced at the screen. The blogger was detailing various murder cases, and the article's title was "The Most Brutal Serial Killings of Harbor City." The page Ji Xingchen displayed featured a photo of the ghost in the floral dress at the time of her death, with her white and blue floral dress prominently displayed.
In the photo, the woman in the floral dress looked about twenty years old, starkly different from the withered-faced ghost of today. Only the blue and white dress linked the two images.
Below the image, the text read: Victim Zhao [Name], drained of all blood after being murdered.
"The case was already solved," Ji Xingchen informed, "The culprit is long dead."
Chi Shen scrolled to the end of the article and indeed found that the main perpetrator had been captured and sentenced to death over two decades ago, and the sentence had been carried out.
The murderer had died over twenty years ago.
This revelation sparked new questions for Chi Shen.
He used to think that when people died and became ghosts, it was a natural occurrence. However, a few days ago, he discovered there's an organization responsible for capturing ghosts. So, for ghosts like the woman in the floral dress, born from heinous crimes, was there no oversight? Were they just allowed to wander through time, harming people at random?
In the past, Chi Shen might have called the Bai family or even used this as a topic to strengthen his relationship with Bai Ximing. But now, without hesitation, he dialed Yuan Yiping's number.
Given a choice between the Bai family and public officials, he would certainly trust the latter.
Yuan Yiping answered quickly, his first words being, "Did you encounter a ghost? Listen to my advice: move out of the Bai ancestral mansion. That place is too dangerous for ordinary people like you."
"It's not so bad," Chi Shen glanced at Ji Xingchen beside him, then to the floral-dressed figure standing rigidly with her head bowed inside the room, saying, "I find them quite amiable, but I am a little concerned."
Yuan Yiping questioned, "Amiable?"
Deciding to sidestep the issue, knowing he'd likely never see eye-to-eye with Yuan Yiping on this, Chi Shen voiced a hint of worry, "The person who died outside my room, might they return as a ghost seeking vengeance?"
He didn't inquire about the case from two decades ago, as his trust in Yuan Yiping wasn't absolute. After all, if the ghost-catching organization was so effective, the mansion shouldn't be haunted.
Yuan Yiping sounded choked, "You're not concerned about being haunted in that spectral mansion but worry about a freshly deceased individual?"
"Absolutely," Chi Shen replied earnestly, "The ghosts in this house bear no grudge against me, so they won't target me. However, the newly departed might blame me for not saving them, even though I didn't witness their death. Otherwise, I would have tried to help."
Yuan Yiping: "..."
Chi Shen pondered, "Should I make any preparations?"
Exhaling deeply on the other end, Yuan Yiping reassured, "No need. We've taken care of it. He Chao won't transform into a vengeful spirit. We manage the aftermath of such homicides, ensuring victims don't turn malevolent."
Chi Shen looked at the woman in the floral dress. If Yuan Yiping's words were true, why did she exist?
"Regardless of how old the case is, do you 'manage' every discernible ghost?" Chi Shen inquired.
"Not 'manage'," Yuan Yiping explained, "We internally refer to it as 'liberating.' I only came to Harbor City a couple of years ago. Previously, the Special Security Bureau didn't have such a comprehensive structure and operated more like a family lineage. The Bai family handled events in Harbor City. They might be acting peculiarly lately, but the older generation was quite reliable."
Inside the reliable Bai family mansion, Bai Ximing, the current family head, dialed Chi Shen once more from his study. This time: engaged.
Elder He remarked, "He probably just got out of danger and returned your call. You both happened to call at the same moment."
Setting down his phone, Bai Ximing took another sip of tea, suppressing his emotions and smiling, "Let's give the young ones some leeway."
But those last two words didn't sound as light-hearted as he tried to make them.
Yet, another five minutes passed, and his phone remained silent.
Chapter 015: I Have a Box of Candy.
Without hesitation, Chi Shen hung up the call.
Bai Ba is his biological father, the current head of the Bai family and its clan leader, Bai Xi Ming.
Had it been earlier, he would have been elated upon receiving a call from Father Bai, not only answering instantly but also speaking with utmost respect and caution to his biological father. But now, things were different.
At present, Chi Shen found this person quite bothersome, interrupting him from understanding the challenges faced by his future colleagues.
On the other end of the call, inside Bai Ximing’s study, Bai Ximing sat on his rosewood chair. He Lao was seated beside him, while Bai Ran stood silently and respectfully to the side, still wearing his blood-stained pajamas. Despite trying to maintain his usual gentle demeanor, his disheveled appearance made him look quite pitiable.
Seeing the call being deliberately hung up, all three revealed subtle expressions. Bai Ximing displayed a hint of anger, He Lao looked somewhat worried, and although Bai Ran seemed as respectful as ever, a fleeting sneer of mockery flashed across his face.
He had already informed the two about the situation, clearly stating that the ghost from the old mansion had escaped and that Lu Xiangyang was killed by this very ghost. Surely, something Chi Shen found or did in the mansion led to these consecutive events.
Yet these two old men merely laughed it off after hearing the story, showing no concern at all.
Bai Ran, completely disregarding his own dignity, frantically informed them that Bai Wan had appeared and blamed Chi Shen for the chaos. Only after a while, seemingly as a favor, did Bai Ximing suggest making a call to Chi Shen for clarification.
"The old mansion is most perilous at night," He Lao respectfully advised Bai Ximing, "Chi Shen must have encountered some emergency."
Bai Ximing seemed quite magnanimous. He appeared to understand Chi Shen's position, saying, "If he's still alive, he'll call back right away, and we'll know the situation. Let's give the young man some time."
With that, he picked up his tea cup, gently blew on it, took a sip, and seemed entirely at ease.
Chi Shen had no idea that there were three people in the Bai residence’s study, expecting a return call from him. He was already getting to know his new colleagues. Even if he did know, he would just say, "I'm busy, wait for it."
After hanging up, Chi Shen began to search for cases from two decades ago in or around the Harbor City on his phone. He particularly noted a serial killing mentioned by two girls he met at the cake shop earlier.
The search results were overwhelming. At a glance, Chi Shen frowned. Pinpointing the case involving the death of the girl in the floral dress was like finding a needle in a haystack.
At that moment, Ji Xingchen adjusted his glasses and asked, "Need help?"
Chi Shen promptly handed over his phone. After a few glances at Ji Xingchen, he suddenly said, "Show me your hand."
Ji Xingchen shifted his gaze from the phone to Chi Shen, realizing he was serious, and extended his left hand.
Chi Shen gestured towards the other hand.
Ji Xingchen reluctantly presented his right hand. On his pale, slender fingers, there were numerous fine scars, and remnants of frost lingered around his knuckles, giving his hand a shattered beauty.
The lady in red glanced over with curiosity, "Got hurt?"
She then furrowed her brows in contemplation, "Hurt? Nothing happened just now."
Ji Xingchen was also looking at Chi Shen.
Chi Shen observed the wounds on Ji Xingchen's hand and remarked, "Previously, you always adjusted your glasses with your right hand, but since returning, you've switched to the left. Habits don't change easily. This suggests you're trying to hide something. The most plausible reason being that I've injured you."
Having spent so much time in the game of death, Chi Shen had developed keen observational skills. Without them, he wouldn't have lasted this long.
After hearing his words, a subtle change flickered in Ji Xingchen's eyes, as though he wanted to say something, but he held back.
After examining Ji Xingchen's hand for a moment, Chi Shen took out a string of beads and placed them in Ji Xingchen's hand. He said with a smile, "I apologize for the injury. Here, have some 'candy'."
Spirits are formed of yin energy, so replenishing this energy can heal wounds or make them stronger. Therefore, Chi Shen was offering Ji Xingchen something to consume to restore his energy.
Ji Xingchen stared at the "candy" in his hand, as described by Chi Shen.
They were beads, slightly smaller than ping pong balls, primarily white with black, brown, blue, and green circles on one side. There was a tiny tail attached to each bead, and one of the circles blinked.
Ji Xingchen questioned, "Candy?"
These were clearly eyeballs, blinking eyeballs!
"Once, I helped a child retrieve his lost doll," Chi Shen recalled, a smile forming on his face. "He gifted me a box of these candies as a token of appreciation. These are some of them."
Although he had initially held the doll at knife-point and asked the child, "Do you want the candy or the doll?", resulting in the child trading candy for the doll, he felt calling it a token of appreciation wasn't a stretch.
After all, he did help the child get his toy back.
Ji Xingchen gazed at the eyeballs, realizing that for spirits like them, these were indeed candies, given the yin energy they contained was a potent sustenance.
He hesitated before consuming them.
"Candy," the ghost in the red dress drooled from the side, "I want some too."
The spirit in the floral dress also looked longingly, her parched face filled with desire.
The ghost in the red dress, cautiously and slowly, began to extend the only hand she had left, inching closer to the candy in Ji Xingchen's hand—
Suddenly, Ji Xingchen pulled his hand back, grabbing the candy and swiftly swallowing it. In moments, his wounds healed, and even his translucent form seemed slightly more vivid.
The ghost in the red dress halted mid-reach, looking as if she was about to burst into tears.
With a smile, Chi Shen remarked to Ji Xingchen, "You still believe you're human."
A tone of certainty.
Ji Xingchen didn't avoid the question, admitting, "I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I'm dead."
Chi Shen walked by him, patting him on the shoulder, offering encouragement, "Stay strong."
Ji Xingchen replied, "I will."
Chi Shen stated, "I'm going to check on my sister."
Ji Xingchen responded, "Alright."
After Chi Shen left, the ghost in the red dress looked at Ji Xingchen with a resentful expression, whining, "Candy."
As Ji Xingchen browsed his phone for information on a murder case, without looking up, he said, "Tonight, at midnight, the main house is safe. You can ask him for two drops of blood."
The ghost in the red dress's eyes immediately lit up, and she crawled away gleefully.
Chi Shen hadn't been gone long. He took a stroll in Bai Wan's courtyard, asking if Bai Ran had disturbed her. After receiving a response that Bai Ran didn't dare step into the yard, he returned.
"Where's the lady ghost?" Chi Shen looked around, noticing that the ghost in the red dress had vanished again!
"She stepped out for a bit," Ji Xingchen calmly explained, rotating his phone to show Chi Shen, "I found it, the serial killings from 26 years ago near Harbor City."
Chi Shen glanced at the screen. The blogger was detailing various murder cases, and the article's title was "The Most Brutal Serial Killings of Harbor City." The page Ji Xingchen displayed featured a photo of the ghost in the floral dress at the time of her death, with her white and blue floral dress prominently displayed.
In the photo, the woman in the floral dress looked about twenty years old, starkly different from the withered-faced ghost of today. Only the blue and white dress linked the two images.
Below the image, the text read: Victim Zhao [Name], drained of all blood after being murdered.
"The case was already solved," Ji Xingchen informed, "The culprit is long dead."
Chi Shen scrolled to the end of the article and indeed found that the main perpetrator had been captured and sentenced to death over two decades ago, and the sentence had been carried out.
The murderer had died over twenty years ago.
This revelation sparked new questions for Chi Shen.
He used to think that when people died and became ghosts, it was a natural occurrence. However, a few days ago, he discovered there's an organization responsible for capturing ghosts. So, for ghosts like the woman in the floral dress, born from heinous crimes, was there no oversight? Were they just allowed to wander through time, harming people at random?
In the past, Chi Shen might have called the Bai family or even used this as a topic to strengthen his relationship with Bai Ximing. But now, without hesitation, he dialed Yuan Yiping's number.
Given a choice between the Bai family and public officials, he would certainly trust the latter.
Yuan Yiping answered quickly, his first words being, "Did you encounter a ghost? Listen to my advice: move out of the Bai ancestral mansion. That place is too dangerous for ordinary people like you."
"It's not so bad," Chi Shen glanced at Ji Xingchen beside him, then to the floral-dressed figure standing rigidly with her head bowed inside the room, saying, "I find them quite amiable, but I am a little concerned."
Yuan Yiping questioned, "Amiable?"
Deciding to sidestep the issue, knowing he'd likely never see eye-to-eye with Yuan Yiping on this, Chi Shen voiced a hint of worry, "The person who died outside my room, might they return as a ghost seeking vengeance?"
He didn't inquire about the case from two decades ago, as his trust in Yuan Yiping wasn't absolute. After all, if the ghost-catching organization was so effective, the mansion shouldn't be haunted.
Yuan Yiping sounded choked, "You're not concerned about being haunted in that spectral mansion but worry about a freshly deceased individual?"
"Absolutely," Chi Shen replied earnestly, "The ghosts in this house bear no grudge against me, so they won't target me. However, the newly departed might blame me for not saving them, even though I didn't witness their death. Otherwise, I would have tried to help."
Yuan Yiping: "..."
Chi Shen pondered, "Should I make any preparations?"
Exhaling deeply on the other end, Yuan Yiping reassured, "No need. We've taken care of it. He Chao won't transform into a vengeful spirit. We manage the aftermath of such homicides, ensuring victims don't turn malevolent."
Chi Shen looked at the woman in the floral dress. If Yuan Yiping's words were true, why did she exist?
"Regardless of how old the case is, do you 'manage' every discernible ghost?" Chi Shen inquired.
"Not 'manage'," Yuan Yiping explained, "We internally refer to it as 'liberating.' I only came to Harbor City a couple of years ago. Previously, the Special Security Bureau didn't have such a comprehensive structure and operated more like a family lineage. The Bai family handled events in Harbor City. They might be acting peculiarly lately, but the older generation was quite reliable."
Inside the reliable Bai family mansion, Bai Ximing, the current family head, dialed Chi Shen once more from his study. This time: engaged.
Elder He remarked, "He probably just got out of danger and returned your call. You both happened to call at the same moment."
Setting down his phone, Bai Ximing took another sip of tea, suppressing his emotions and smiling, "Let's give the young ones some leeway."
But those last two words didn't sound as light-hearted as he tried to make them.
Yet, another five minutes passed, and his phone remained silent.
