Chapter 18 The Truth

The instant the knock on the door sounded, everyone present, including Ding Zongzheng in the video, flinched.

"Ding Zongzheng?" It was Li Bai's voice. "Ding Zongzheng, are you there? Are you alright?"

Through the screen, everyone could clearly feel Ding Zongzheng's fear at that moment. His first reaction wasn't to look at the door, but to look down at his phone, at the time!

Judging from Ding Zongzheng's reaction, it wasn't yet time for the shift change. So it was simple, the Li Bai outside was a ghost in disguise, a fake.

The knocking grew more intense, and everyone's hearts were in their throats. Fatty had already steeled himself, preparing for the terrifying scene of the ghost breaking down the door and slaughtering Ding Zongzheng.

But the ending was unexpected. The disguised ghost retreated first, retreating without warning. Its shadow on the door gradually thinned until it disappeared.

Fatty was baffled, until Jiang Cheng pointed to the time on the video. "Time's up. I think the next person on shift is coming, so the ghost has to leave."

Li Bai and Yao Shunyu said nothing, apparently agreeing.

Sure enough, after the ghost retreated, Ding Zongzheng's tense body immediately relaxed. Then he slowly stood up. In less than two minutes, footsteps came from outside the door.

The footsteps were light, suggesting the person was being deliberate, a cautious person. At the same time, the person just stood in front of the door, without knocking or making a sound.

Ding Zongzheng quietly went to the door. He didn't dare get too close, but reached out and tapped lightly on the door. Immediately, the person outside responded.

Ding Zongzheng excitedly picked up his phone, apparently sending a message. No doubt, it was to the next Li Bai, a cautious person, verifying the identity of the person outside.

Soon, after receiving the desired reply, Ding Zongzheng gasped for breath, as if reborn. His mind was at its limit, and his condition was poor after having two yang fires extinguished.

"Ding Zongzheng?"

A very soft but clear call came from outside the door, probing, sounding very real.

Ding Zongzheng no longer hesitated, reaching for the door as he replied, "Miss Li Bai, it's me. You're finally here. I've been waiting..."

The next second, Ding Zongzheng's movements and unfinished words stopped abruptly.

From behind, Ding Zongzheng's whole body was trembling. There was no terrifying scene outside the door. Not terrifying, nor bloody. In fact, there was nothing outside the door, it was empty.

Before Ding Zongzheng could react, a voice floated eerily from behind him, "Ding Zongzheng?"

"Ding Zongzheng? Ding Zongzheng?"

The young master behind the curtain had sat up at some point, his mouth moving, but it was Li Bai's voice that came out.

The video ended there. Judging by the length, there was more, but it seemed to be heavily interfered with, the picture severely fragmented, even showing static like an old TV screen.

It provided no useful information at all.

But Jiang Cheng clearly remembered that at the final moment, the agreed-upon shift change time had arrived, but Li Bai, who was supposed to relieve him, didn't appear.

In all fairness, Ding Zongzheng had done well enough. Aside from having two yang fires extinguished in the initial sneak attack, there was almost nothing to fault him for. Even Jiang Cheng would have found it difficult to do better.

To be precise, Ding Zongzheng wasn't entirely killed by the ghost, he died at the hands of his teammates!

Li Bai!

Li Bai didn't go to relieve him at the agreed time at all!

Jiang Cheng even suspected that this was all planned by Li Bai and Yao Shunyu. Li Bai never intended to stand watch, at least not on time. She was waiting, waiting for Ding Zongzheng to die, so that she would be safe tonight.

Faced with Jiang Cheng's scrutinizing gaze, Li Bai readily admitted, "Mr. Jiang, you don't need to look at me like that. I just want to live. After Yao Shunyu came back, he told me about the strangeness of the young master's room. I know my abilities are ordinary, and if I had gone on time, I might not have come back."

Even Fatty understood the subtext of this sentence. She needed to wait until Ding Zongzheng died before she could move, because only then would that night be relatively safe.

Yao Shunyu shrugged indifferently. "If it were an ordinary person, I might not have helped, but Ding Zongzheng, Brother Jiang, you should know what kind of person he is. His being alive is a threat to all of us."

"He's in cahoots with Lin Qianqian, and his methods and temperament are far above Lin Qianqian. I've tried many times to provoke him in order to find a weakness, but he avoided it every time."

Fatty hadn't thought so much about it. He thought Ding Zongzheng was the second weakest in the team, only a little stronger than him, but after hearing Yao Shunyu's words, he realized that this person was much more difficult to deal with than he had imagined.

Naturally, Jiang Cheng had no need to seek justice for Ding Zongzheng. It was best that he died. "Judging from the video, Ding Zongzheng was killed after three yang fires were extinguished."

"That's right. According to Miss Li Bai and my analysis, the young master was already dead before the three of us arrived. In other words, we were guarding only a corpse, and it was a resentful infant (yuan ying) entangled in the corpse that was manipulating it."

"In the end, he was killed by the resentful infant. This can be seen from the fact that the corpse's stomach was emptied, which is consistent with the deaths of Master Wu, Steward Zheng, and the three wooden wives."

"The resentful infant fears yang fire and cannot directly kill people, so it must first use means to extinguish the yang fire on living people. From the video and our personal experience, there are three main ways: first, you must not lower your head when facing the resentful infant. Second, you must not turn your head back. Third, you must be careful of the corpse manipulated by the resentful infant patting you on the shoulder."

Speaking of patting on the shoulder, they had encountered it not long ago, on the way to bury Master Wu's corpse, they encountered a ghost wall (gui da qiang), and Yuan Shanyuan, who was walking at the back, had his shoulder touched by the ghost.

It is said that this is called "ghost shoulder tap" (gui da jian). Li Bai told everyone that ghost shoulder tap is extremely dangerous. Generally, people who are tapped on the shoulder by a ghost will lose themselves and keep walking under the control of the ghost, either falling off a cliff or drowning in a river. In short, there will be no good result. Yuan Shanyuan's ability to survive definitely proves he has some tricks up his sleeve.

"By the way, Yuan Shanyuan was tapped on the shoulder by a ghost, so that means he also had at least one yang fire extinguished, right?" Fatty suddenly became excited. It wasn't just the three of them who were unlucky, Yuan Shanyuan was in the same situation as them.

Li Bai thought for a moment and nodded. "That should be the case. Even with Bai Yu's ability, it's impossible to lend a yang fire to Yuan Shanyuan. After all, she's a ghost, and ghosts are incompatible with yang fire."

"What, ghosts can't do it, but people can?" Jiang Cheng looked at Li Bai in surprise. "Yang fire… can be lent?"