Chapter 260: Won''t You Chat With Us?


    “…”


    <em>How is it possible to even open our mouths in front of the potential Queen of Huacheng? </em>Skin thought relentlessly. <em>Whatever she says is King!</em>


    <em>If only I can slither away silently without causing anymore conflict, that would be the best. </em>Yibei thought to herself. <em>If the chance of winning the fight is less than a 120%, is it ever really in my favour?</em>


    After the peas-in-the-pod got to know one another, the three reached a consensus – they are all one and the same!


    After a brief silence, the three urban legends turned their attention to Qin Dalin, still tied to a chair in a helpless, yet not-pitiful state.


    “Well, what shall we do with this human?” Skin pointed at him, waiting for the Witch’s response.


    <em>…seems like they regard me as somebody who is sliiiiightly stronger. They are both fearful and… envious of me? Good. If I can maintain that image in their minds, I can wait it out and obtain useful information. Then, I can fish in troubled waters, and slip away at the right time!</em>


    Thinking about it, she folded her hands across her chest and raised her chin, presenting an arrogant image, “I have my own way of dealing with this man. The two of you can wait outside.”


    “…You’re not letting him go, are you? If he doesn’t die, we won’t be able to answer to Master Lee,” Sack said.“Right?” Skin agreed, their cloudy eyes rolling in their eye sockets. “We don’t want to offend Master Lee.”


    Formting a response, she turned her back towards them, and spoke in a tone that was more in line with her current disy of arrogance, “Hmph, and why should I care about how that Lee-or-whatever feels? Why are the two of you still standing there? Get out!”


    She was slightly worried they wouldn’t move, and peeked at the two through the corner of her eyes.


    <em>Isn’t this how they act in those dramas? Was it not convincing?!</em>


    <em>Shit. I jumped the gun against two urban legends. What if they burst out in anger and end up hurting me?! Logically, urban legends have no human ethics, so they might just jump me from behind…</em>


    Skin and Sack looked at each other, worried, as if telling each other, “<em>Did we fuck up?!”</em>


    <em>She seems to hate Master Lee! Her face didn’t even budge when we mentioned his name!</em>


    <em>Isn’t she so kind? Rece her with another urban legend, and I’m afraid that we wouldn’t be given the same grace that she’s giving us – she’d be ying with our cores like balls!</em>


    The two nced at the Witch with a knowing gaze – they could feel how strong her psychic energy fluctuations were, but they could not gauge the actual depth of her power. They quickly gave up the idea of testing her.


    The two bowed respectfully, and in a gust of wind, the two hovered out the apartment unit.


    Sensing that they were now far away, she breathed a sigh of relief. She picked Qin Dalin up from the chair, turned around, and walked towards the bedroom where the secret passageid.


    To be honest, she didn’t know what she had in store for the unconscious man in her grasp.


    She couldn’t just let him go. With all the bad things he had done, her conscience would haunt her if she just left and went back home.


    However, killing him seemed too cruel of a punishment – after all, he is a living-and-breathing human being.


    Moreover, she had no confirmation that this ‘Master Lee’ person who sent Skin and Sack to haunt Qin Dalin is the same person who stole the ancient sword. She needed to obtain information from him.


    Weighing her choices, she decided to imprison him in the secret torture room.


    <em>First, I’ll stalk the two urban legends – if I can locate the person who pulled out the ancient sword, I won’te back; and if I don’t, I’lle back and ask him.</em>


    Imprisoning him in the rotted cage, she took out a small vial of Disaster from her jacket, opened his mouth, and plopped a single drop into his mouth.


    Disaster holds potent hallucinogenic properties and pollutes psychic energy. It is mostmonly used to induce aa, and just one drop is enough to keep Qin Dalin in deep sleep for less than half a month.


    However, she still felt a little uneasy.


    <em>Yes, he might be unable to leave, but what if somebodyes to save him?</em>


    <em>There’s still that woman living in the building, or the scary woman with the birthmark…</em>


    As insurance, she casted another spell and welded the iron doors leading to the secret room shut before leaving.


    …


    After finding an iron container from his house, Yibei tore off the intact talismans from his apartment door and stored them in the container before leaving.


    <em>It’s not easy to travel here! I must at least leave with something!</em>


    These talismans weren’t very powerful, so she won’t be able to use them for the time being. However, she could still sell them at the ghost market.


    As for the cow skull, she decided to ditch it. She didn’t want to ruin her image by smuggling that away in case she runs into Skin and Sack again.


    <em>Is it logical for somebody powerful to steal weak psychic items used to ward off evil spirits? Nope.</em>


    Walking out into the corridor, she walked towards the stairs, and reluctantly nced at the cow skull that stillid intact in front of Qin Dalin’s door.


    <em>Maaaybe… I cane back another day.</em>


    <em>This isn’t about money – I swear! Do I seem like a person whocks money? I’m just saying! An opportunity to ‘borrow’ something presents itself in front of me! If I don’t take advantage of it, I’ll regret it for the next tens of thousands of years…</em>


    …


    Leaving the apartment, she came to her guitar bag that she had hidden in the corner of thepound.


    Leaving thepound, she stumbled upon something strange.


    It was the dead of night in an empty street, and the dead leaves rustled on the ground.


    Under the dim street light, a figure that resembled human skin stacked on each other, and a tiny humanoid figure with its head covered with a sack let out whispers and bursts of eerieughter, as if they were plotting something terrible.


    <em>…are these two trying to scare people?</em>


    If an ordinary person stumbled upon this, their first instinctive reaction would be to punch them on the spot.


    <em>I need to ask where they usually hang out, then write in an anonymous report to chase them away from there!</em>


    Grumbling, she calmed herself down before stepping forward.


    Sensing her approach, the two urban legends immediately became quiet.


    Skin stepped forward and bowed, “Ah, Great Witch, Master Lee has sent somebody to pick us up after dealing with that man. Please wait a moment.”


    “I see.”


    She didn’t say anything else, and sheltered herself underneath the shadows of the trees.


    <em>I must maintain a sense of mystique by not talking. If I yap too much, I will make many mistakes.</em>


    Because among the strong urban legends that exist, who else yaps like Lu Yibei?


    Although it goes against her very nature to zip her lips, there is nothing she can do about it.


    She wasn’t sure how many other urban legends were under Master Lee’s watch, but she predicts that there are more, and if he was the one who possessed the sword, then taking it from him would be hard.


    Thus, it won’t be easy to know its whereabouts.


    Moreover, if two urban legends were sent out to deal with Qin Dalin, but three came back, Lee Tang Han might piss himself out of fear.


    Therefore…


    ncing at the two urban legends, she narrowed her eyes.


    They were fooled now, but if she truly wanted to infiltrate into enemy territory to know the sword’s whereabouts, she must still be within Lee Tang Han’s circle.


    <em>I need toe up with something real quick – what kind of image do I present to him? What expressions should I force out? What’s my emergency response n?</em>


    <em>Well, if the n involves yapping, rest assured! I can do that with no problem!</em>


    She was still thinking about ways to deal with Lee Tang Han, but at this moment, psychic energy broke into her senses, interrupting her train of thought.


    She looked towards the apartment where she felt the psychic energy, and she swore she could hear the pained wails of Qin Dalin.


    Blinking at the apartment, the old apartment seemed quiet. Just as she was about to look away, another wave of psychic energy washed over her, apanied by Qin Dalin’s miserable wails.


    <em>What is this? What’s going on? Did he wake up? Was he frightened that he woke up in that room?</em>


    Another wave of psychic energy washed over her, sating her hunger.


    <em>…again? Really? Damn, hests long! It’s as if he’s my personal psychic-energy-power-bank!</em>


    …


    In the secret torture room, Qin Dalin woke up.


    Opening his eyes, he was greeted with a pitch ck. He was disoriented for a moment, but the smell that permeated throughout the room told him where he was. His body squirmed subconsciously as it bumped into the railings of the iron cage, and immediately, he felt his heart sink.


    <em>The female g-g-g-ghost locked me up in the torture room that I built with my own two hands…</em>


    In an instant, he felt as if he had been thrown into deep, freezing waters.


    The water was endlessly cold, endlessly dark, and endlessly evil…


    Before he decided to kidnap the ghost, he didn’tmit a single crime for more than half a year. The reason why he stopped was because of this very room – or rather, there was a problem with the entire apartment building itself.


    The girls he murdered never left, and their spirits continue to wander the corridors every night. They cried in dark corners, or they would gently knock on doors one after another, as if they were looking for somebody…


    This strange phenomenon scared most of the residents away, leaving only the woman with the birthmark and the pig-butcheringdy.


    Qin Dalin knew that the spirits were looking for him, and eventually, they will.


    Hence, the urban legend in charge of getting his debts struck a deal with him – in exchange for items that were able to ward off evil, he must pay them his debts. Therefore, he was able to sleep peacefully for a few nights.


    Then, when he came across Yibei, he thought that he would be able to sleep peacefully once again, but…


    Just as he thought about it, the iron door that had been welded shut by the Witch opened with a creak, and several vague figures hovered into the room, with their backs turned to him as they surrounded the cage.


    They all donned torn clothes, like the ones Lu Yibei was wearing earlier.


    It was dead silent, like a tomb, and a strange voice came from outside the cage.


    “Hello. Would you like to chat with us?”


    Qin Dalin’s body trembled as he struggled violently inside the cage – this was the very line he used to tempt those girls into a conversation in order to let their guards down. This line was tried and tested many times against sad, lonely girls.


    He wanted to scream for help, but when he opened his mouth, all he could feel was a sharp burning pain, as if a piece of red-hot coal was lodged in his throat.


    The ghostly figures did not move, but their heads turned 180 degrees, revealing faces that were whiter than the torn skirts they donned.


    Their bodies rose up, suspended in mid-air as they hovered closer and closer to the cage, speaking in unison, “Won’t you chat with us?”


    “Ah…! Mmm!”


    His voiceless throat emitted waves of frightened wails, and he mmed his body against the iron cage. His whole face was the very definition of fear, and his pupils were the size of rice grains.


    Finally, everything fell silent.


    In the dark room, all that was left was a twisted, deformed corpse thatid quietly on a bed of rotten hair.


    There was nothing outside the cage, and the doors were still welded shut, as if the ghastly girls had never entered.


    In thispletely enclosed prison, a whirlwind stirred in the corner.


    The wind stirred up alongside the sound of crying, and blue mes rose in the eye of the wind.


    Through the mes, translucent ripples painted the walls, and an unusuallyrge face with no facial features, save for a mouth, appeared out of thin air.


    It opened its lips and revealed a bright red tongue, and a tall, thin man wearing a tuxedo, a bowler hat, with a ck-and-white mask concealing his features, jumped out of the mouth and walked to Qin Dalin’s side.


    Leaning down, he touched Qin Dalin’s chest and murmured, “Did he die of cardiac arrest and organ failure?”


    As he murmured to himself, he wiped the foam that spilled out of Qin Dalin’s mouth, brought it to the gap of his mask, and sniffed.


    “My god! Such pure Disaster Liquid – no wonder he died of a heart attack! How could you feed this to ordinary humans?”


    “Ah, what a bother… another loss in our business… why are there so many people just evading their debts now? Tsk!”


    The man walked towards the corner of the room, found the crumpled notebook, and flipped through a few pages casually. He shrugged as he read the contents, turning to thest page as he took out a pen from his jacket pocket, and wrote arge [0] on it.


    <strong>TRANSLATOR NOTES:</strong>


    We’re back! I hope you enjoy today’s chapter. Thank you Imp and Alex for bing members of the Ko-Fi!


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