Зал астрологии с плотью и кровью

Глава 92

"Existence itself is valuable!" Su Qiao said while contentedly munching on a steamed bun.

"It's not a bad thing to learn about it." Fang Lei handed me a breakfast, and only then did I realize I was hungry.

After receiving the breakfast, Fang Lei, Li Yang, and I decided to say goodbye so that Su Qiao could get some rest. The moment I closed the door, I saw a cold glint flash from the round piece on the table, as if sunlight was refracting on a metallic surface, illuminating the photo frame next to it. Su Qiao in the photo looked even more gloomy in that cold light.

As I walked out of Su Qiao's room, the swaying disc seemed to still linger in my mind's eye, as if trying to hypnotize me, making me feel as if all I could see were round, shiny things that kept spinning.

"What's wrong?" Li Yang asked, looking at me with sleepy eyes. "Still not awake?"

"No!" I rubbed my eyes and said, "My eyes are just a little sore."

"Sour?" Fang Lei took my hand with concern and asked, "How could that be?"

"It's alright, it's alright," I quickly replied. "It's all better now."

"Is the dream that Su Qiao mentioned really just a form of witchcraft?" Li Yang asked.

"My master said it's a kind of magic that allows one to foresee the future through dreams, but I don't know the specifics," Fang Lei said regretfully.

"Where is Xingjian?" I asked hastily.

"Then I'm even less sure. But my master said that this spell evolved into astrology, but unfortunately, no one who truly knows it anymore exists." Fang Lei glanced at me and asked, "Why are you so concerned about this?"

"Oh, just curious." I smiled, not directly answering Fang Lei's question.

"Alright, alright, stop dreaming about Xingjian!" Li Yang said impatiently. "Didn't you say you were going to find Abao? Let's go!" "Okay, I know." I nodded, grabbed Fang Lei, and followed Li Yang. Although I could tell that Fang Lei didn't seem to believe my answer, she didn't say anything more and obediently followed behind me.

***********

Inside Su Qiao's room, Su Qiao got up to draw the curtains again. As she sat back on the bed, her expression became very strange, vaguely resembling the photograph in the frame. With a somber look, she picked up the round disc and waved it in front of her eyes. Slowly, her gaze became increasingly unfocused, as if she were half-asleep. A strange smile crept onto her lips.

Suddenly, her eyes widened as if filled with resentment and anger. She gripped the disc tightly in her hand, as if trying to crush it.

With a loud "smack," Su Qiao slammed the photo frame face down on the table, her face a mixture of resentment and jealousy. But after a moment, a look of pity appeared on her face. She straightened the frame again and stared intently at herself in the photograph.

"Don't worry, everything will be alright." Su Qiao murmured to herself in the photo with a somber tone, as if speaking to another version of herself. The dim lighting in the room mirrored the expression on her face, sending chills down one's spine.

Slowly, Su Qiao stood up again, went to the window, and carefully lifted a crack in the curtains. Below, she saw Lin Xiao, Fang Lei, and Li Yang...

As I left the guesthouse, I had a feeling that someone was watching me from somewhere. Looking up, I saw that Su Qiao's room curtains were drawn again, and I vaguely thought I could see Su Qiao watching us from behind the curtains. But upon closer inspection, there was nothing there. Was I just imagining things? I frowned, not thinking about it any further, and was then attracted by Li Yang's calls, so I hurriedly chased after him.

Little did I know, behind those curtains, a pair of eyes were watching us intently...

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 30: Blooming

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 30: Blooming

The vast library seemed to house only the three of us: Fang Lei, Li Yang, and me. The air was eerily cold, as if a demon were breathing chilling air in the night. I touched Fang Lei's slightly cold hand and felt her concerned gaze return to me. I smiled gently and gripped her hand even tighter.

"Please, don't be all lovey-dovey in front of me, okay?" Li Yang said irritably, glancing at us sideways.

"Turn your head away if you don't want to look!" I shoved Li Yang and said, "Hey Bao, didn't we say we'd come together?"

"Here she is!" Just like that, Abao walked towards us with a huge bag, and she looked like a high school student, bouncing around like that.

“This is fine!” Abao led us to a corner of the library reading room, then took out a laptop from his bag. Surprisingly, the laptop's casing was pink, with a cute little pig pattern printed on it.

"No way, how old are you?" Li Yang said with a smile, pointing at A Bao's personal computer.

"That's none of your business!" Abao raised her proud head and said to me and Fang Lei, "I'll try to get into the police station's database right now to see if there's a detailed autopsy report for the body in the water tank!"

“Okay!” Fang Lei nodded and said to Li Yang, “Li Yang, you stay here with A Bao. Lin Xiao and I will look around and see if we can find any clues.”

"I understand!" Li Yang nodded, seemingly very reluctantly.

I pulled Fang Lei along, and we walked into the vast sea of books in the library. It was Fang Lei's suggestion that we go there today, hoping to find some clues, since Zhuo Peici had once worked there. A Bao also needed a quiet place to carry out her hacking plan, so we all went to the library together.

I looked up at the library ceiling. I don't know if the designer intended it this way or if it was left over from the construction, but the ceiling here is very high, as if it were one and a half stories high. That kind of emptiness creates an unusually large contrast in my mind, making me feel cold and eerie, as if something is hanging above my head.

I kept glancing nervously at the ceiling, feeling like someone was watching us from above. Perhaps my unease affected Fang Lei; she frowned and looked at the ceiling a few more times, asking, "What's wrong? Is there a problem?"

"Something feels off!" I said helplessly. Unfortunately, there was nothing there, not even a spider web. I couldn't help but admire the cleaning staff who cleaned this library.

"Don't worry about it. Let's see if there are any other books with Zhuo Peici's annotations!" Fang Lei said reassuringly, taking my hand.

"But there are so many books~~~!" I looked at the seemingly endless rows of bookshelves in front of me with a bit of a headache.

"There's nothing we can do." Fang Lei smiled and patted my head, as if she were comforting a pet throwing a tantrum.

"Okay, okay!" I once again lamented my fate for the next few hours.

**********

Li Yang sat next to A Bao, utterly bored. He considered himself very proficient with computers, but to reach A Bao's level of super hacking was probably just a pipe dream. So he could only obediently keep her company and watch her fingers bloom like lotus flowers on the cold and emotionless keyboard.

Tilting his head, Li Yang silently watched A Bao, who was displaying an unprecedentedly serious and focused attitude. The soft morning light streamed through the glass window, falling on the desk and the beautiful girl beside him, casting a gentle halo around her fair and flawless face. At that moment, Li Yang had to admit that A Bao was indeed beautiful. Of course, this beauty differed from Fang Lei's generous and quiet demeanor, and from Tian Niang's alluring sexiness, but it was A Bao's beauty—young, lively, and vibrant.

Unconsciously, Li Yang seemed to be staring blankly, finding a special charm in A Bao that was drawing him in. Perhaps sensing Li Yang's burning gaze, A Bao suddenly turned around, and their eyes met. A Bao's face flushed bright red, and Li Yang immediately turned his head away. Neither of them spoke, a strange silence filling the space between them.

After a long pause, Li Yang awkwardly blurted out a question: "Why do you like computers so much?"

“Because…” Abao turned his head back to the laptop screen and said, “Because they are the most honest and won’t lie to me!”

"I wouldn't lie to you either!" Li Yang didn't know why he blurted out such a sentence, but once the words were spoken, they were like water spilled, impossible to take back, so he quickly tried to salvage the situation: "Lin Xiao and Fang Lei wouldn't lie to you either, because we're friends!"

"Yes, I know!" Abao nodded solemnly and said, "We're friends, thank you!"

"Silly girl, what are you thanking me for?" Li Yang laughed.

"Thank you for being my friends." Abao looked up at Li Yang without any shyness. His years of wandering and loneliness seemed to have found reward and value in this moment. Nothing made Abao happier than having friends by his side. He was no longer spending holidays alone, no longer eating alone, no longer happy alone, and even in sadness, he was no longer alone.

"Me too." Li Yang looked into A Bao's sincere eyes. At that moment, Li Yang wanted to hug the girl in front of him, not out of any lust, but out of pure pity and affection. In her eyes, Li Yang seemed to see the loneliness and solitude he had once felt, but it didn't matter, it wouldn't be there anymore.

"Hmm!" Abao wrinkled his nose happily, then looked down and started fiddling with the computer again. Just then, Li Yang suddenly felt a chill on his back—the sensation of a pair of icy hands touching his bare back. Li Yang immediately felt a chill run down his spine.

He turned around, but there was nothing there. The quiet reading room was empty except for him and A Bao. Even Lin Xiao and Fang Lei were nowhere to be seen. Were they hidden behind the rows of bookshelves? Or perhaps, those bookshelves themselves were hiding pairs of peeping eyes?

"It's connected!" Abao suddenly shouted to Li Yang in a low but very excited voice. Li Yang quickly turned around to look at Abao.

"What's connected?" I asked.

"It's connected to the police station's database." Abao pointed happily at the screen, but a glance revealed a blood-covered woman standing silently behind her in the image reflected on the screen, or rather, in the image itself. Her face was contorted, her features scrunched up.

"Huh?" Abao exclaimed and jumped up, turning around to see Li Yang looking completely bewildered.

"There's nothing here?" Li Yang stared blankly at the screen filled with static; there was nothing there.

Abao didn't turn around to look at her precious computer. Instead, she looked around in horror, but there was nothing there. It seemed like it was just her imagination. Composing herself, Abao turned back, but the static on the screen almost made her faint.

"What happened?" Abao touched the computer with a pained expression. Had it gotten infected with some kind of weird virus again? Just then, a hand, thin and withered like a piece of wood, suddenly appeared from behind him, dripping with bright red blood. The stench of blood assaulted Abao's nose. Before Abao could even scream, the hand had already gripped his wrist firmly, the sticky, bloody grip making it difficult for him to stand.

"Abao!" Li Yang's voice rang in Abao's ears. In the blink of an eye, when Abao looked more closely, the hand that was holding her wrist had clearly changed to Li Yang's.

Li Yang frowned as he surveyed the increasingly gloomy library. The sunny weather had turned somber in an instant, as if shrouded in a filthy veil. The slightly dusty air made Li Yang feel very uncomfortable, and seeing A Bao's pale face filled with fear, Li Yang's intuition told him that something was definitely wrong.

"Don't make a sound." Li Yang cautioned A Bao, who was about to cry out, while his eyes were fixed on the laptop with the pink pig logo in front of him. The once lovely pink was gradually turning into a strange color, like blood staining a white cloth that could never be washed off. A bloody smell was permeating the air around them. Instinctively, Li Yang pulled A Bao closer to him.

The screen, covered in static, seemed to be slowly finding its channel, displaying a blurry image: figures, two figures, two figures of different sizes, and a moving object speeding by, which looked like a car or a truck!

What are these? Li Yang and A Bao exchanged a glance. The images were both very clear and very blurry, because they could not make out the faces of the two figures.

Could this be a prank by A Bao? Thinking this, Li Yang looked at A Bao with suspicion, but was met with A Bao's firm look that said, "I definitely didn't do it," and even a little fear.

Who did that? Just as Li Yang was about to turn off the computer, he felt a sudden numbness in his body, followed by a piercing scream that seemed to tear his eardrums apart. Looking closely at the screen, he realized it was the sound of a truck's tires screeching against the pavement as it braked suddenly. At the same time, a figure—presumably a woman—appeared as if she was about to be thrown off the screen. Li Yang and A Bao almost simultaneously smelled the pervasive stench, and felt the warm blood splattering on their faces. The sensation was so real that Li Yang and A Bao almost instinctively reached out to wipe the blood from their faces.

The face of the woman who had been hit suddenly magnified on the screen. It was a face that had been run over and crushed by the wheels, and blood gushed from her nose and eyes like a waterfall. This blood actually flowed out of the screen, onto the keyboard, the table, and in an instant, dripped onto the ground.

However, this was not all that shocked Li Yang and A Bao. What surprised them even more was what they saw before the truck braked: that small figure giving the woman a powerful push from behind!

"Li Yang!" A Bao instinctively leaned towards Li Yang, but felt something touch his feet. Looking down, he saw that the person who had just been on the screen was now lying at his feet. The person's bulging eyes seemed to be moving, and the person's blood-covered hands were already on A Bao's trouser legs.

"Watch out!" Li Yang suddenly pulled A Bao, but the woman at his feet had already firmly grabbed A Bao's ankle. A Bao was so frightened that he couldn't say a word, and his body was trembling violently.

Damn it! Without thinking, Li Yang crouched down, intending to pry away the woman's hateful claws. Just then, the female ghost's face, which had long since lost its features, suddenly returned to its original state. It was an extremely delicate face, with a pair of captivating peach blossom eyes.

Zhuo Peici? Li Yang immediately thought of her. The woman in the photo looked just like this ghost. It couldn't be wrong!

"Zhuo Peici, why aren't you letting go!" Although he didn't know magic, Li Yang still knew from Li Hai that ghosts were generally reluctant to have their names called out.

Sure enough, the female ghost immediately released her grip on A Bao's hand upon hearing the name Zhuo Peici. However, to Li Yang's dismay, the ghost didn't disappear immediately. Instead, a cross-shaped slit split open across her face, starting from the center of her nose. Before Li Yang could even realize what was happening, the ghost's head split into four petals like a budding flower, blossoming into a human head flower before Li Yang and A Bao. The yellow, still wriggling core was none other than a human brain. Even more horrifying, this human head flower was moving forward, seemingly about to devour Li Yang's hand, which he had intended to use to help.

Upon seeing this, Li Yang immediately stepped back, pulling A Bao down to the ground. The moment they hit the ground, the human-head flower had moved to their side, its former head and neck transforming into a retractable stem. Even more bizarrely, two of its symmetrical petals each had a protruding human eyeball at their tip, while the other pair each had half of a dark red lip. The split skull became another layer of petals within the human-skin petals, the flower's core being, of course, yellowish human brain tissue. A human-head flower from hell bloomed before Li Yang and A Bao, stretching towards them with astonishing speed.

"Get out of the way!" Li Yang shoved A Bao aside and ripped off the jade pendant hanging around his neck, throwing it into the heart of the human head flower.

"Squeak~~~!" The intense, barbecue-like sound, accompanied by the stench of burnt meat and a dazzling bluish light, made Li Yang and A Bao squint. The human head flower withered as if it had been drained of all its moisture in an instant, and its protruding eyes immediately shrank into two white beads like dead fish eyes.

In the blink of an eye, in just a moment, the human head flower, along with its stem and body, disappeared from Li Yang and A Bao's sight. Only the jade pendant, still emitting a bluish light, remained on the ground, as if telling Li Yang and A Bao that everything just now was not an illusion!

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 31: Possession

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 31: Possession

Sometimes, excessive silence can be terrifying, as if you've become the only person left in the world, with no one else around. Only loneliness remains.

I couldn't hear any sound, not even my own heartbeat or breathing. Only by holding Fang Lei's hand tightly did I feel a strange tremor throughout my body, and my head felt dizzy, as if all the bookshelves had started spinning at the same moment.

"What's wrong?" Fang Lei's concerned face was close to mine, but unfortunately, my ears were ringing. Everything in front of me was brightly lit.

"My head... I feel a little dizzy!" I replied, panting.

"Dizzy?" Fang Lei frowned, and was about to help me up when the lotus hairpin that was originally in my hair suddenly began to shake violently, as if it were having a seizure.

Ghostly aura? Fang Lei removed the hairpin from her hair; the slightly warm hairpin seemed to sense the dangerous presence. I looked up, and suddenly countless small, blood-red figures appeared behind the bookshelves. Their faces were obscured by long hair, and the light in the space dimmed instantly. I saw a pair of bright white eyes hidden beneath the long black hair—countless figures, countless eyes. It was as if they wanted to devour me alive.

"Transform!" Fang Lei suddenly shouted, and the hairpin in her hand instantly transformed into a long purple ribbon, which coiled towards one of the small red figures. Unfortunately, just as the ribbon was about to touch it, the figure vanished. In its place, a small red figure appeared beside Fang Lei.

"Watch out!" I cried out, lunging forward and pulling Fang Lei forcefully behind me. At that moment, the figure suddenly looked up at me, revealing a pale face that was practically just a pair of eyes, as if wearing a mask with only the eyes showing. I instinctively backed away, only to see countless small red figures slowly emerging from behind the bookshelves.

"Evil spirits, retreat!" Fang Lei chanted a spell beside me, and the thin ribbon suddenly formed a small, tornado-like shield, blocking the countless red-clad ghosts that were slowly approaching.

And I just stared blankly as they stood around, expressionless. Those white, mask-like faces were slowly writhing, as if something was lurking beneath the skin. Gradually, familiar faces materialized—the faces of Yin Xue, Li Hai, and all the dead I had ever encountered. Whether familiar or forgotten, they were all reflected on that small, blood-red body. That crimson hue seared my eyes, and a massive wave of grief washed over me. I collapsed to my knees, tears streaming uncontrollably. Those people, those events, were once again etched into my mind. All the faces flashed back and forth.

Disappear, disappear, disappear quickly!!!

I screamed inwardly, hoping those faces would fade from my mind quickly. A feeling of disgust spread like a poisonous vine within me; I felt my fingernails digging deeper into my skin as I clutched my head. The pain, however, brought me release; I felt a surge of violent desire coursing through my body.

The purple ribbon in front of me spun faster and faster, and I felt the air being gradually sucked away. I couldn't look at Fang Lei, so I didn't know that she was actually soaked in sweat and her face was growing paler.

Gradually, I slowly stood up from the ground. I saw countless faces simultaneously displaying the same cold smile. Was it contempt or mockery? I could no longer tell. My body was no longer under my control, and I charged out of the barrier set up by the purple ribbon like a wolf or tiger. When I rushed out, I felt no pain, only a scream from Fang Lei beside me.