Chapter 19: Forced onto Mount Liang

  Before Wu Lele came out, the red-clothed female ghost disappeared again. I was puzzled, not everyone has yin-yang eyes like me to see ghosts, since Wu Lele couldn't see her, why did she have to hide herself?

  About two or three minutes later, the door opened and Wu Lele rubbed her sleepy eyes and asked me what was going on. I glanced inside the room and saw my mother looking over at us, so I beckoned to Wu Lele to come out. After she came out, she intuitively closed the door behind her.

  When she came to my room, Wu Lele's cheeks were slightly red, and she asked with a hint of shyness: "What is it after all, being so mysterious." I handed the iron box in front of her and said: "Help me open it." Wu Lele was taken aback for a moment, saying "Is that all?" I said yes. Wu Lele rolled her eyes, saying "You called me up just for this? I thought you had something else to say."

  I'm sure this girl must have gotten it all wrong.

  "Can you finally open it?" I was getting anxious.

  Wu Lele said nonchalantly, "I can, but can you agree to my conditions?" She looked at me after finishing speaking. I asked what conditions? Wu Lele said, "From now on, you have to listen to everything I say." I impatiently said, "Can't you just stop nagging? I'm only asking for your help in opening the iron box, and you're asking me to listen to you from now on, isn't that extortion?" Wu Lele lazily said, "Consider it as such, I'll give you one second to think about it."

  I am hesitant.

  "Time's up!" Wu Lele said, turning around and walking towards the door. I quickly grabbed her hand. Wu Lele looked at my hand, then gazed at me warily and asked, "What are you doing?"

  I quickly let go of her hand and said, "Alright, this time you helped me, so I owe you a favor. Next time, I'll help you with something too."

  Wu Lele looked thoughtful, staring at me and asking, "No matter what?" I said yes, no matter what. Wu Lele snapped her fingers and said okay, that's settled. Then she took the iron box from my hand, turned it over a few times, and told me, "I'm going to open it now, you're not allowed to look."

  I turned around gloomily, it's strange that Zhong Ling'er didn't let me watch when she was using the eight-character soul-measuring technique, and now Wu Lele also doesn't let me watch when she opens the iron box. Do all girls like to be so mysterious? It's not like I'm watching you take off your clothes or anything, what's with the secrecy?

  Four or five minutes later, Wu Lele behind me was still motionless. I asked her if she had succeeded, and she said to wait a bit longer, her voice low and labored, as if this iron box were like the secret manual in martial arts novels that required inner energy to open.

  After another four or five minutes, I suddenly heard Wu Lele make a sound, and then whispered: "What's this?" I quickly turned around, but saw that Wu Lele had already opened the iron box. I was angry and shouted: "How could you open it without telling me?" Wu Lele said while looking at the iron box: "I thought you knew."

  Robbing the argument with strong words!

  But I didn't bother arguing with her, and my eyes were soon drawn to the treasure in the iron box.

  There was a knife in the iron box, similar to a surgical knife, but much more delicate, white as jade and thin as a cicada's wing. I stared with my mouth agape, could this be the legendary yin-yang knife? Wu Lele also opened her eyes wide, staring at the yin-yang knife without moving.

  After a long time, the two of us finally came to our senses. I carefully stretched out my index and middle fingers towards the iron box, preparing to take out the yin-yang knife. But as soon as my fingers approached the iron box, a chill ran down my spine, and I instinctively withdrew my hand.

  "What's wrong?" Wu Lele asked with concern and curiosity.

  I said it's very cold, this is probably because of the ice knife.

  Wu Lele said: "This is not an ice knife, it's a yin-yang knife."

  I'm really surprised how Wu Lele knew about the yin-yang knife, this girl's knowledge and abilities are too astonishing for me. Is it that after she woke up from her illness, she really possessed supernatural powers and completely changed as a person?

  Wu Lele slowly stretched out her hand to touch the yin-yang knife, and I quickly reminded her that the knife was very cold. Wu Lele hesitated and withdrew her hand again, muttering: "I understand now, so that's how it is..." I saw that she looked strange, and asked her what she understood. She said why all the monsters and ghosts came to fight for this iron box, because of this yin-yang knife.

  Suddenly I thought, if it's really as Wu Lele said, the monsters and ghosts will come to rob this knife, then putting this knife here isn't extremely dangerous?

  As expected, Wu Lele said seriously: "You have to get rid of this knife."

  "See off? See off where?"

  "Where it comes from, send it back there."

  I hesitated, this knife can cure the ghost's illness, my father has been searching for it all along but couldn't find it, now I'm lucky to have gotten it, if I were to send it away again wouldn't that be a waste? Moreover, the red-clothed female ghost is waiting for me to use this knife to cure her illness.

  Before something bad happens, people always have a lucky mentality. I'm like that now, I don't believe it will be so evil, really having demons and monsters coming to rob me of this knife. Even if they come to rob me, if I can't fight them off, no big deal, I'll just give it to them!

  "Let's talk about it tomorrow," I said to Wu Lele: "Thank you for helping me open this iron box, it's late, you should go back and rest." Unexpectedly, Wu Lele looked out the window and said: "I'll sleep here tonight." As she spoke, she sat down on the bed. I felt a sense of foreboding, won't she play the "there are bugs" trick again?

  My mind is in a knot. To be honest, I don't oppose playing the "having bugs" game with her, and since we played it last time, I often recall that matter and can't forget about it. However, tonight's situation is different, I know that there's a female ghost staring at us from where I can't see.

  We're not shooting AV, so we're not used to having someone - maybe a ghost watching us play live.

  So I moved with emotion and enlightened her with reason, very "putting myself in her shoes" to persuade Wu Lele to go back to my mother's room to sleep. After all, we are not husband and wife yet, and we have not reached the stage of sleeping in the same bed. Wu Lele ignored me, later got impatient and lay down on the bed anyway.

  I'm really shocked, growing up in a rural area with conservative thoughts, I've never seen such a bold and daring girl before.

  I no longer cared about Wu Lele and decided to take out the yin-yang knife.

  When I took out the yin-yang knife from the iron box with my two fingers, it was like holding a piece of cold ice, and my whole hand became cold! Moreover, this chill began to spread from between my fingers to my entire body, so I quickly put it back into the iron box.

  Wu Lele jumped down from the bed, staring at the yin-yang knife, eager to move. I quickly covered the iron box with my hand and tried to open it again, only to find that this time it opened easily. My heart was filled with excitement as I tucked the iron box into my arms and urged Wu Lele to go back to bed. Wu Lele sat on a stool saying she didn't want to sleep yet, telling me to sleep first. I got onto the bed holding the iron box, but before lying down, I saw a ghostly shadow moving outside the window. I knew it was the red-clothed female ghost and worried that if I didn't cure her illness, she would harm me or Wu Lele. So, I tucked the iron box into my chest, made an excuse to go to the bathroom, and walked out, closing the door behind me.

  The red-clothed female ghost was indeed outside, I took a glance at her and walked towards the outhouse, the red-clothed female ghost followed. When we arrived there, I said to the red-clothed female ghost: "I've already obtained the yin-yang knife, but I'm not a shaman doctor, I won't be able to treat your illness until my dad comes back." The red-clothed female ghost however said she couldn't wait any longer and had to be treated now. I asked how to treat her, she said all I needed to do was use the yin-yang knife to cut away the rotten flesh on her body, commonly known as surgery.

  How can it be so simple? I'm half-believing and half-doubting. If it's that easy, then wouldn't anyone be able to become a witch doctor?

  But now there's no way out, forced to go up Mount Liang, can only treat a dead horse as if it were alive.

  Wu Lele was in my room, so I couldn't treat the red-clothed female ghost here. I followed her to the mountain ridge, and the wooden house reappeared. Last time, Father had gone inside, but this time I didn't hesitate and followed the red-clothed female ghost inside. As soon as we entered, I felt a chill run down my spine, and the cold air was oppressive.

  The red-clothed female ghost hastily took off her clothes and turned her back to me, asking me to perform surgery on her. After seeing the black spot on her shoulder, which was as big as a palm, it looked like a piece of charcoal. While the skin on other parts of her body was extremely white and crystal clear, forming a sharp contrast with the black spot.

  "Don't just stand there, operate on me quickly!" The red-clothed female ghost urged.

  I hesitated for a moment, then slowly pulled out an iron box from my bag.