Red satin

Chapter 24

Qin Jin and Ke Liang exchanged a glance, turned to the stairs, and ran desperately towards the thirteenth floor.

Lu Ziming watched the elevator rise continuously for a very long time, but there was no movement at all. The numbers stopped at the thirteenth floor and didn't move.

He knew something was wrong and desperately tried to stop it, but he couldn't control it anymore. He heard a sigh above his head. When he looked up, it seemed as if someone was hanging above him. He stepped back, and in an instant, the elevator went dark, the lights flickered and then came back on. When he looked up again, there was nothing above him.

He gripped the gun tightly, began pounding the alarm, his heart pounding, his mouth dry, and a chill ran down his spine.

Just then, the elevator doors opened, and a woman walked in. She was dressed in a beautiful evening gown and looked very fashionable. Lu Ziming breathed a sigh of relief as she entered sideways. The woman pressed a button, and the elevator began to descend. He carefully concealed his gun, worried that the woman in the elevator might think he was acting crazy and trying to rob someone.

But the woman didn't look at him; she just stared intently at the elevator vent. Lu Ziming couldn't contain his curiosity and asked, "Miss, what are you looking at?"

The woman looked away, staring intently at him, and then said, "I'm looking for the rope I used to hang myself."

Just then, Lu Ziming suddenly saw his own and her reflections on the elevator wall. They were indeed two very clear reflections, but the difference was that Lu Ziming was Lu Ziming, while the woman was not the woman standing in the elevator, but a long-haired woman wearing a red embroidered dress, with her head down, and her brightly colored embroidered shoes were particularly eye-catching, clearly reflected on the elevator wall.

Lu Ziming picked up his gun and shouted at the woman, "Don't come any closer, or I'll shoot."

The woman laughed, retreating as she laughed, her body seemingly being slowly sucked into the elevator wall. The elevator wall, as if alive, merged the woman into it, and she disappeared.

Lu Ziming stared in disbelief at everything before him, but it was too late for surprise, because the woman's shadow had not disappeared from the elevator wall, but had fully materialized into the appearance of a woman in red embroidered clothes. The shadow was slowly moving, getting closer and closer to Lu Ziming inside the elevator wall.

Lu Ziming fired the gun.

Ke Liang and Qin Jin ran to the middle of the stairs when they suddenly heard gunshots. Qin Jin stopped abruptly and said to Ke Liang, "No, this hospital doesn't have a thirteenth floor."

Ke Liang patted his head. Yes, this mental hospital has at most four floors, where did the thirteen floors come from? But the two of them have been walking for so long, could they have encountered a ghost wall again?

Having experienced something during the day, he calmed down and looked around in confusion. He saw what appeared to be figures downstairs, so he pulled Qin Jin back and ran, saying as they ran, "I know! The elevator is still on the first floor and hasn't moved at all. It might have gone to the thirteenth floor of another dimension. We just need to go to the first floor quickly."

Lu Ziming didn't care about anything else anymore. He closed his eyes and fired wildly. When he opened his eyes again, there was nothing around him except bullet holes.

Just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he suddenly felt something shaking above his head. When he looked up, he saw the woman in red hanging from the skylight of the elevator, her face hanging straight down, facing him. Her eyes had been gouged out, and blood was dripping down her face onto Lu Ziming's face.

The scariest thing was that the woman's expressionless face started to smile.

Ke Liang had reached the elevator door and was banging on it desperately, but to no avail.

Qin Jin was frantic, frantically pressing the buttons.

The two of them were like headless flies, completely at a loss.

Suddenly, Hei Bao jumped out of Ke Liang's arms and slapped Ke Liang on the lips. Ke Liang touched it and found that the skin was broken and bleeding. He didn't have time to blame Hei Bao and went to knock on the door.

At that moment, a miracle occurred. As soon as the hand stained with Ke Liang's blood was placed on the elevator door, the blood-soaked elevator suddenly became bloodless.

Ke Liang looked at himself in surprise, then suddenly exclaimed, "That's right! How come I didn't realize that one of the methods for warding off evil in Grandpa's book is to use one's own blood to exorcise ghosts? Our Ke family are born Taoist masters, and everyone has blood that can ward off evil spirits."

He was cheering when he suddenly received a heavy blow to the nose, causing it to bleed profusely. Just as he was about to get angry, he saw Qin Jin quickly catch the blood with his hand, then sprinkle it onto the elevator button, and press it hard, opening the elevator door.

There was a person hanging in the elevator, it was Lu Ziming. Ke Liang rushed up and grabbed Lu Ziming's feet and pulled him down. Poor Lu Ziming was already hanging so hard that his tongue was sticking out. This pull made him even more miserable. He kicked his legs wildly. Qin Jin saw this and shouted, "Don't pull him down! Pull him up! Pull him up!"

Ke Liang and Qin Jin hurriedly lowered Lu Ziming down. Fortunately, he hadn't been hanging for long, and Lu Ziming was in good physical condition, so he caught his breath in no time.

Lu Ziming sat up and yelled at Ke Liang, "You just pulled me down! Do you have no humanity? Are you trying to murder me?"

Ke Liang covered his nose and said, "Stop yelling. If you hadn't tried to hang yourself, how could I have lost so much blood? I was already malnourished and anemic."

Qin Jin shouted, "What time is it? You still have the mood to argue? Go find Shishi instead!"

Everyone jumped up and ran outside, only to be startled to see Shishi slowly walking towards them down the corridor. The three of them were about to breathe a sigh of relief and run after her when they froze.

Because there was a person floating behind Shishi.

Qin Jin clenched her fist again, ready to punch Ke Liang in the mouth and draw more blood, but Ke Liang had already run far away and hid behind Lu Ziming.

Shishi walked closer step by step, and the figure behind her gradually became clearer. Finally, all three of them fell to the ground at the same time, relaxed, and let out a long sigh. They said to the figure, "Grandpa, please, this entrance was too flashy. We were all scared to death."

Grandpa Ke Dao finally appeared. Ke Liang ran up to him happily, only to find his grandfather looking at him with disdain.

Grandpa said, "Did you use the lowest, most shameful, most incompetent, and most shameless demon-avoiding blood technique of our Ke family?"

Ke Liang said unhappily, "What do you mean by the most shameless and shameless? If it weren't for my blood, Lu Ziming would have been dead long ago, hanging from the skylight."

Qin Jin went to help Shi Shi up, but found that Shi Shi seemed to be asleep.

Grandpa said, "Shishi has already been hypnotized by me. She was just greatly frightened, so it's better for her to sleep to protect her spirit."

Grandpa then turned to Ke Liang and said, "Why don't you study my magic book properly? Why use this most despicable magic instead of so many good methods? Do you expect to spill blood every time you go ghost hunting? Is this ghost hunting? Your blood can be donated to a hospital to save lives, but you're just splattering it everywhere here. You have no shame!"

Enraged, Ke Liang said to his grandfather, "Who said that burning the red cloth together would remove the 'Ka Beng'? We almost lost our lives while collecting the red cloth, and now you're blaming me?"

Grandpa frowned, then said, "You've looked at my draft?"

A draft? That thing is Grandpa's draft? Everyone looked at Grandpa in surprise.

"Of course it's my draft. Can't I even make a hypothesis on my draft paper? This problem of breaking the curse of Kabeng was once the most difficult application problem in our Taoist school. I have proposed many hypotheses but I still couldn't break it. Are you all going to try them one by one?"

Large beads of sweat appeared on the faces of the three of them.

“You’ve been haphazardly collecting red cloth, concentrating the scattered power of the Kabeng, and bringing this blood-stained cloth to this extremely yin place. Open your eyes and look. This place was a mass grave decades ago. You think the faces behind the glass are human faces, but they are actually the vengeful spirits and mental patients of the past, keeping you company day and night.”

Grandpa cleared his throat and said, "What are you all standing here for? Hurry up and go to the rooftop to find Yingqi and Dingdong. Dingdong is being controlled by a terrible force. If you're late, it will be too late."

Grandpa patted Shishi, and Shishi woke up. The four of them got on the elevator before they could say anything. Grandpa didn't follow. His three-minute appearance time was up. He just said to Ke Liang, "If there's really no other way, you'd better cut your own finger to bleed." Ke Liang was horrified and covered his mouth in the elevator without saying a word.

The four of them are now together, and no one is making a sound. Hei Bao is still clinging to Ke Liang's shoulder and refuses to get down. Everyone is frightened. Even though they know that the opponent is strong, they still want to save Ying Qi and Ding Dong.

All eyes turned to Ke Liang again. Ke Liang cursed his bad luck, wondering why he had to learn this one move instead of so many other spells. Everyone looked at him as if they wished he would bleed to death.

The elevator quickly reached the rooftop. If you didn't hear from Grandpa that this place used to be a mass grave, the mental hospital would look quite beautiful from the outside, with green hills and clear waters, and vines everywhere. The rooftop is covered with a dense green carpet woven from fine vines.

As Ke Liang looked around, he thought to himself that his grandfather had written in his book that buildings covered in green vines were actually the places with the strongest yin energy. These green vines were undesirable because they absorbed yin energy to survive and blocked out the sunlight, making them perfect hiding places for vengeful spirits.

The four of them walked carefully, afraid of accidentally slipping and falling. But strangely, the green vines were soft and slippery. If you didn't look, you would think you were walking on a pile of corpses. Everyone had this feeling, but no one dared to say it. They just looked at the huge rooftop and wondered where the child was.

There were indeed two people over there. Upon closer inspection, I was terrified. I saw that Yingqi had placed Dingdong hanging outside. If she let go, the child would surely die.

Dingdong, however, remained motionless, as if it were already dead.

Shishi cried out, "No! Yingqi, don't let go! Don't hurt the child!"

Qin Jin wanted to run up, but saw Ying Qi let go of one of her hands. Qin Jin immediately dared not move. The little Dingdong was hanging outside the rooftop. The wind blew, carrying a strong smell of blood. In the distance were dark mountains, which, upon closer inspection, looked like a group of monsters with their mouths open, about to swallow everything.

Ke Liang gently put Hei Bao down, hoping it could come up with a solution. He now regarded this cat as a talisman. Hei Bao looked up at him, its eyes filled with contempt.

This is the downside of being academically weak; even a cat would despise you. A fire ignited within Ke Liang; he had already pulled out a small knife, ready to cut his little finger at any moment to ward off the demon with his blood. No matter what, he was important now.

Ke Liang was full of fighting spirit, while Shi Shi and Qin Jin were scared half to death. Watching the little ding-dong swaying in the night wind, their hearts were pounding.

Shishi said tearfully, "Yingqi, she is your own daughter. No matter how unwilling you were to accept this child or admit your past, she is your child, your flesh and blood. You can't be bewitched anymore. You can't kill her."

Suddenly, a crisp voice came from the evening breeze: "Put me down, I want to go down and play, don't hold me."

It was the sound of ding-dong.

The rooftop lights were bright enough for everyone to see clearly that Dingdong's fingernails were deeply embedded in Yingqi's hand, reaching the bone, yet Yingqi refused to let go.

Yingqi wasn't trying to harm Dingdong; she was trying to save her.

Ke Liang wanted to run over and help.

Dingdong immediately said, "If you dare come any closer, I'll gouge out her eyes and kill her right now."

And that "she" doesn't refer to anyone else, it's herself.

Qin Jin picked up Hei Bao from the side, and even in the moonlight, the pink cat eyes could clearly see that there was a child lying in Ding Dong's arms.

The child slowly raised his head, and Qin Jin shouted, "It's him!" It was the child Qin Jin had seen on the computer screen before, the little boy who had asked him for his eyes.

He actually possessed Dingdong's body and is now going to take Dingdong down to the underworld.

Ke Liang dared not move, and everyone was at a stalemate.

Suddenly Yingqi said, "I'll go downstairs with you to play, but you have to give my daughter back to me first."

Shishi was taken aback. The fragile Yingqi seemed to have become a different person in that instant, becoming very determined, clear-headed, and brave.

She was saying, "Let me play with you, I'll be your mom."

The little boy wasn't buying it. Dingdong said, "You've never wanted me since I was little. You don't like me. You hate my existence. I don't want a bad mom to play with me."

Yingqi said, word by word, in the night wind: "It's not that Mom doesn't love you, it's that Mom loves you too much. I was afraid that I couldn't give you a good environment to grow up in, so I gave you to my sister. That way you can have a healthy living environment, and no one will ask who your father is, and no one will call you an illegitimate child. Mom did this because she loves you so much."

Tears fell one by one onto Dingdong's face. After a long while, Dingdong suddenly said, "Mom, my eyes hurt so much, they're bleeding, and I can't see anything. Help me."

Dingdong began to struggle in pain, and Yingqi shouted, "No, give me back my daughter, I'll go down with you."

Dingdong suddenly stopped moving and said, "I need eyes, I need eyes, I can't see anything."

Yingqi turned around and smiled at Shishi and the other three. It was a very calm smile, and also a smile of explanation. Before the smile could freeze, she suddenly stabbed her free hand into her eye and gouged out her pupil.

The excruciating pain struck, but she did not faint. Instead, she looked at her child and then lost her eyeballs.

Dingdong seemed to move slightly, and through the cat's eyes, the little devil could be seen chasing the bloodshot eyes. Qin Jin shouted, "Go save the child!" The three of them acted simultaneously and pulled the child down.

But the child didn't wake up; he just lay there in a daze, calling out, "Mommy, come down and play with me."

Yingqi gently touched her daughter's face with her blood-stained hand, her only eye filled with love and tenderness. She looked up at the four people and said, "If I don't stop him, he will come back to harm my daughter sooner or later. I'm leaving the child in your care."

Before anyone could even gasp, she leaped forward and vanished from sight. With a muffled thud, Dingdong immediately stopped babbling and fell into a deep sleep.

Everyone ran outside with their children in their arms. They saw two figures, one big and one small, standing at the entrance to the rooftop. It was Yingqi and that little devil. The two held hands and then turned and walked away.

Shishi knelt on the balcony, crying, "I always thought she hated this child. I really didn't understand her. She can give everything for this child and overcome everything for him. I didn't understand a mother's love at all."

Qin Jin rushed over, and the two of them burst into tears. None of the four dared to go downstairs; they simply waited quietly on the rooftop for the sun to rise.

Qin Jin stood quietly beside Ke Liang and said to him, "I'm sorry, I hit you too hard just now."

Ke Liang turned around and smiled: "It's okay, I'm fat anyway, so I'll just treat it as a way to lose weight."

As Qin Jin watched Ke Liang gradually become clearer in the morning light, she recalled the day she had met him by chance. It all seemed like it was all arranged by fate. This man had appeared in her life again and again, sharing everything with her.

Lu Ziming watched Ke Liang and Qin Jin's figures, his eyes filled with desolation. These past few days, he hadn't had time to consider his own feelings, yet he knew clearly that this man before him was using tactics he couldn't handle to win over the heart of the woman he loved. Yes, Qin Jin had never expressed love for him, but she had repeatedly shown special care for Ke Liang. His heart ached. Was he really inferior to this petty hoodlum?

No one noticed that Tang Shishi's eyes were looking strange.

She didn't know when she started to like Lu Ziming. These days, she hadn't dared to admit that she liked Lu Ziming, but in fact, she clearly remembered that the first person she thought of when she was frightened today was Lu Ziming.

Lu Ziming and Qin Jin were a couple, weren't they? Why did Qin Jin do this, and then get involved with Ke Liang, hurting Ziming's heart? This woman wasn't as pretty as him, yet she managed to win the hearts of two men during such a critical moment.

Shishi has always been the most advantageous of the four women. Her family is incredibly wealthy, and she is smart and beautiful. Qin Jin, on the other hand, is just a follower of hers since childhood. Why should she have so many things?

As Shishi stared at Lu Ziming's retreating figure, she slowly hardened her resolve. "I must have you to prove that I'm no less capable than Qin Jin."

Just then, Hei Bao suddenly jumped from Ke Liang's arms into Qin Jin's arms, arching his back towards Shi Shi as if he could see through her thoughts.

The sun finally rose, and under its golden rays, the four people still stood side by side. However, it was unclear when, but cracks had begun to appear among them.