JOS Chapter 124

Stone Statue This female ghost wasn’t a good sort either. When Jiang Feng and the others weren’t around, she had been quite arrogant. But now with a shoe still stuck on her face, she could only put on a forced smile.

Xiao Xia, emboldened by the fact that she couldn’t see the female ghost and therefore wasn’t afraid, had already gotten her verbal revenge. But she was genuinely upset—even if she wasn’t particularly beautiful, she still had her pride, and she was a girl after all; loving beauty was instinctive. In her current state, how could she face people when she went out?

However, she was calmer than Miumiu. Perhaps due to her family environment, she didn’t invest too much emotion in things that had already happened, quickly focusing her attention on the future and acting as if the matter was already behind her.

“My face… I need to see a doctor,” Xiao Xia said urgently. “The dermatologists in this backwater place are no good. I need to go to a big city. I need to go to H Province.”

She looked up and asked, “Hey, are you guys going?”

Jiang Feng replied, “We’re going, and we’ll look for your boyfriend while we’re at it. The hungry ghost is still on Miumiu, so we might need his help.”

Only then did Miumiu remember, her face falling.

Xiao Xia said through gritted teeth, “Then I’ll go with you. When I find him, I’ll beat him to death. Damn it, education really doesn’t correlate with character. That bastard is barely human!”

“What about this shoe?” The female ghost was practically ready to kneel before them. “I have to go home, and I definitely can’t return looking like this. Please, I won’t run away.”

Yama still helped her remove the shoe as promised. Chu Xuanliang wasn’t worried about her escaping—he used the cinnabar from his small box to draw a talisman on her body, agreeing to release her once they reached their destination.

Everyone settled on their travel plans. The female ghost would guide them to the Human Realm Underworld in H Province, where they would also search for the currently missing boyfriend.

Xiao Xia brought a sun hat for cover and also took a gauze scarf. Miumiu borrowed two pieces of clothing from her house.

Getting to the mountain village from outside wasn’t easy, but traveling from the mountain village to H Province was quite convenient. They had someone help them get to the nearest station, then took a direct route.

“If you want to find someone, you can go to the King Yama Hall I mentioned,” the female ghost said, floating on the train roof. Due to Chu Xuanliang’s restriction, she couldn’t float beyond this car section.

She continued, “Many ghosts gather there, and they like to patrol various places in their spare time. The person you’re looking for made a wish to the stone statue. If he’s still in H Province, there will definitely be ghosts keeping an eye on him. You can do the same—make a wish to the stone statue and have the ghosts help you find him. It’s both convenient and safe. You’re not afraid anyway, right?”

Yama thought this made sense.

But deceiving ghosts emotionally and such things weren’t quite suitable for him and Jiang Feng to do, so it would have to be left to Chu Xuanliang.

Chu Xuanliang: “…”

What had he done to deserve this?

After sitting on the train for several hours, they arrived in H Province in the evening. After transferring to a bus to reach the designated township, when they got off at the station, it was completely dark.

The female ghost led the way in front, while Xiao Xia and Miumiu used their phone flashlights for illumination, walking in the middle.

They were girls after all, with an instinctive fear of darkness. Moreover, with the psychological effect of having encountered ghosts, they were very frightened walking at night, huddling together and trembling.

Halfway through their walk, everyone heard the sound of flowing water. They stepped onto a large constructed bridge, walking over a long river.

The female ghost pointed down. “Look, this is the Wangchuan River.”

The river reflected the lights and prosperity of the tall buildings on both sides, with rippling light flowing gently downstream.

This didn’t feel particularly ominous. In a real Wangchuan River, countless white bones would be sunken beneath, devoid of any life, bone-chillingly cold. The shores would be crowded with countless ghosts sentenced to exile—either filled with overwhelming resentment or lonely and sorrowful.

This seemed like just an ordinary river with a strange name.

The female ghost pointed to a small path ahead. “Look, the Yellow Springs Road.”

White street lamps lined both sides in neat rows, with swaying tree shadows all around. The flat concrete road led into unknown darkness—just an extremely ordinary road.

Chu Xuanliang asked, “Is there any significance?”

“No significance,” the female ghost said. “I just think this road looks particularly beautiful.”

Everyone who had been earnestly imagining all sorts of things: “…”

The female ghost continued: “Further ahead, there used to be mountains, but now they’ve been leveled for road construction, leaving only a few. Recently I heard the property owner wants to level these remaining ones to build villas, but every time construction starts, people die, so it’s been temporarily shelved. This area is close to the station, with no residential areas or shopping centers nearby—only vehicles pass through.”

Occasionally, a few cars would drive by with their high beams on. When they reached this area, they would turn off their bright lights.

The female ghost’s eyes were dazzled for a moment, and she grinned. “People often deliberately drive with high beams at night. There’s a sharp turn ahead, and when your vision gets flashed by the light, it’s easy to have an accident. A driver died this way after being blinded, and afterward his soul remained at the intersection. Whenever someone passes with high beams on, he runs out and presses against their car windows to scare them. See, haven’t they learned their lesson?”

Chu Xuanliang asked, “Do the ghosts in your H Province often interfere with the living?”

“It’s just supervision,” the female ghost said with a covered smile. “Our ‘Human Realm Underworld’ should be the safest place. If you don’t do bad things, ghosts won’t bother with you. But if you do bad things, can you hide from ghosts? Some people are completely blinded by profit—if you don’t let them see ghosts, how can they learn to be good?”

She stopped at an intersection that only pedestrians could pass through, with a worn wooden sign stuck outside. Miumiu shone her light on it and found it read “Wu Family Village.”

The female ghost said, “Further ahead is the King Yama Hall. Ordinary people don’t dare enter the hall, but there’s a stone statue by the roadside in front of the hall where you can make your wishes.”

“Is ‘King Yama Hall’ another name you randomly chose?” Chu Xuanliang said. “This place doesn’t look good.”

The surrounding tree branches all grew strangely, irregularly sprawling in all directions. Most were plants that easily accumulated yin energy, like pagoda trees and peach trees. The ground, having been uncleaned for a long time, was covered with many climbing vines—one could easily trip if not careful.

“This one isn’t,” the female ghost said, pulling up the corners of her mouth in an extremely sinister smile. “It’s called King Yama Hall because there are many ghosts here. Evil ghosts that even King Yama couldn’t suppress.”

Yama raised his head slightly upon hearing this.

The female ghost laughed again. “As I said, this used to be a mass grave site, with too much vengeful energy from wartime. The county once had a Taoist temple, and they brought a golden statue of their guardian deity here to help suppress the vengeful souls. Later, the guardian deity died. So the so-called King Yama Hall now is actually the ruined temple of that defeated guardian deity.”

They could already see the stone statue by the roadside. To be precise, it was just something made by stacking two round stones—it couldn’t really be called a statue yet. However, its placement demanded attention.

Jiang Feng’s gaze lingered on those stones for a while, unable to make out the details clearly. The female ghost continued walking forward, and he followed the group’s footsteps.

After a while, they saw more stones piled by the roadside.

These stones were still two pieces stacked together, but the sides of the upper stone vaguely seemed to have carved outlines of arms.

After walking about twenty meters, they reached the third pile of stones.

This time the stones were connected top to bottom, becoming slender, with traces of legs appearing.

Chu Xuanliang found the stones’ transformation quite eerie, but didn’t voice his observation.

The two girls hadn’t noticed this at all. They were focused entirely on watching where they stepped.

Xiao Xia was afraid of mosquitoes and insects in the suburbs—her face couldn’t handle any bites. She had wrapped herself tightly with white gauze and wore large sunglasses, basically relying on Miumiu for guidance while walking.

This area had a heavy atmosphere of terror, with an indescribable sense of eeriness. Even the wind seemed different from elsewhere. When Jiang Feng wasn’t speaking, it felt particularly oppressive.

Looking at the vines spread like sinister veins everywhere, Xiao Xia got goosebumps from nervousness and asked while clutching her phone, “Can I livestream?”

The serious atmosphere was disrupted by her, and everyone turned to stare at her in unison.

How big was this girl’s heart?

Seeing their reaction, Xiao Xia froze her fingers, hesitated for a moment, minimized the app icon and said, “Alright, I know you all hate livestreaming. It’s just a habit—when I see something trending, I want to jump on it. If you don’t like it, forget it.”

Jiang Feng said, “Fine, stream if you want. But when things are unreliable, don’t think about coming to dangerous places like this to livestream for attention. You might really encounter supernatural events. Even if you don’t believe in ghosts and gods, maintaining some reverence won’t go wrong.”

Chu Xuanliang recalled and said, “Jiang Feng and I first met because of a livestream team that deliberately had a delivery boy enter a ghost building to prank him. Jiang Feng was that delivery boy.”

Miumiu asked in surprise, “Was it really a ghost building?”

“More than that. You can think of it as a ghost-suppressing tower,” Chu Xuanliang said. “It was full of ghosts.”

Xiao Xia: “Holy sh*t… I would never do something like that. With this precedent, do you think I’d want another female ghost to possess me?”

Miumiu sneered, “At most you’d only screw over your own people.”

Xiao Xia stamped her foot. “I told you I really didn’t know! I just wanted to livestream and make money. How did I end up being hated everywhere?”

Chu Xuanliang sighed, “No, actually we don’t hate livestreaming itself. Livestreaming is just a relatively new industry that develops along with internet development. If someone can ride the wave of opportunity and make money from public entertainment mentality, that’s their skill. But malicious pranks, self-harm for shock value, vulgar values, fakeness, pornography, etc.—these should be opposed in any industry. The problem is that quite a few people in livestreaming rely on these things to attract traffic and make money, and they’re promoted as success stories with widespread influence. What can you do about that?”

Xiao Xia asked tentatively, “So should I start streaming?”

Chu Xuanliang said helplessly, “Fine, go ahead.”

Xiao Xia nudged Miumiu. “Come on, give me some lighting.”

While they were talking, they had walked further ahead.

The roadside stone statue finally had a human form. It was a chubby little child, though the facial features were still somewhat blurred.

The female ghost’s expression became content, and she began humming an unknown tune in low tones.

Chu Xuanliang’s discomfort intensified. He looked around but couldn’t identify what was wrong.

Jiang Feng and Yama had already sensed countless gazes around them.

They couldn’t see the sources in the darkness, but those gazes were definitely not benevolent—they had the predatory intensity of hungry wolves eyeing their prey. The watchers were deliberately emanating this pressure to make them feel afraid.

The surrounding ghosts maintained their distance while also moving toward the King Yama Hall in sync.

As the stone statue became increasingly clear, the number of surrounding ghosts increased dramatically.

Even voices began to emerge:

“People have come again.”

“Hee hee hee, there’s even a ghost.”

“You don’t recognize Liu Niang? She’s a veteran ghost.”

“You’re back, Liu Niang.”

Yama roughly estimated the numbers.

A thousand?

No, perhaps even more.

This area was truly a ghost nest.

“We’re here,” the female ghost said, pointing to the stone statue ahead. “Make your wish to that one. Can you let me go now?”

The stone statue’s little figure was carved lifelike. It had a chubby round face with eyes smiling into crescents, two little braids on its head, and hands holding a round ceramic bottle.

The surface was polished smooth and clean. Those eyes, when stared at for too long, seemed to open a little more.

The smile at the corners of its mouth was also quite meaningful. Logically, this kind of design and style shouldn’t convey such sarcastic implications.

Yes, sarcasm.

They inexplicably sensed contemptuous emotions from the stone statue.

Jiang Feng frowned. “Who does it look like?”

Yama: “Somewhat familiar.”

Chu Xuanliang said in surprise, “I also think it looks somewhat familiar.”