Chapter 193: Not Bad, You Can Even See Ghosts

“I want you…”

To Shui Miao, those words sounded like a bolt from the blue.

In Shui Miao’s eyes, the young bride was a very innocent girl, completely unaware of worldly matters, and absolutely incapable of uttering such a sentimental phrase. Shui Miao turned around to look at the young bride’s face, which was exuding a seductive charm…

“You’re saying… you want me?”

Shui Miao deliberately asked in feigned confusion.

If the young bride were normal, she would be shocked—how could a fool suddenly speak standard Mandarin so clearly? But she wasn’t surprised at all. Instead, she blushed and nodded shyly, pulling Shui Miao toward the bed. Then she lay down naked on the bed, offering herself in the most blatant temptation.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that to you.”

Shui Miao shook his head, pulled the quilt over the young bride and turned to dress. But this was all an act. He wanted to test what kind of evil spirit had possessed the young bride, and whether it was one of Bai Niangniang’s female ghost subordinates.

“Why? Why don’t you want me? Am I not pretty enough?”

The young bride sat up, grabbing Shui Miao’s arm and asking tearfully.

Shui Miao looked at her and suddenly thought—although Bai Niangniang had sealed his dantian and spiritual awareness, the jade pendant given to him by Ling Shuai was still locked within his soul. Just like last time when he was bitten by a venomous snake, he had quickly neutralized the poison. Perhaps it was the jade pendant’s power. If he could now absorb the evil spirit into himself, it might help break the seal by disrupting it with the evil energy, and at the same time, awaken the jade pendant. Once the pendant revealed its power, the seal would surely crumble.

In Shui Miao’s subconscious, Bai Niangniang’s power couldn’t compare to Ling Shuai’s.

With that thought, Shui Miao suddenly pulled the young bride into his arms, kissed her lips, and sucked hard, drawing in a stream of icy-cold energy.

“Umm… what are you doing?”

The young bride panicked, making heavy nasal sounds as she struggled to push Shui Miao away. But he wouldn’t let go, and after several hard sucks, the icy-cold energy was drawn into his mouth and swallowed. As the cold energy vanished, the young bride suddenly regained her senses. After Shui Miao released her, she felt completely dazed, unable to recall what had just happened.

Meanwhile, Shui Miao sat down heavily and closed his eyes.

The icy-cold energy surged wildly inside him. Shui Miao felt as if countless icy worms were wriggling throughout his body, causing unbearable discomfort. But within about ten seconds, he suddenly felt a tremor in his dantian, and the icy-cold energy vanished without a trace, along with all the discomfort.

Had the female ghost been destroyed by the seal!?

Shui Miao opened his eyes in disbelief.

“Roar…”

A sudden gust of wind howled outside the window, and a white figure whooshed away into the night.

Shui Miao quickly pulled back the curtain to look, but outside was pitch black, revealing nothing.

Turning back, he saw the young bride had already dressed herself. She stood there dazedly, staring at him with fearful eyes. Shui Miao approached her, looked at her for a moment, then grinned foolishly and pulled her onto the bed to sleep. The young bride didn’t know what had happened. She only remembered that she was sleeping peacefully when suddenly her body turned icy cold. When she woke up, she found herself naked while the idiot, Shui Miao, stood beside the bed. She was terrified, convinced she had encountered an evil spirit. She clung tightly to Shui Miao for warmth, but couldn’t fall asleep again—the icy-cold sensation she had felt was too terrifying.

After a while, the young bride buried her head against Shui Miao’s chest and murmured, “Zhang Ling, are you sometimes lucid and sometimes confused?”

“…”

Hearing this, Shui Miao didn’t know how to respond, so he quickly pretended to be asleep with his eyes closed.

The young bride looked at Shui Miao for a moment, saw that her “Zhang Ling” was already snoring, and so closed her eyes too, no longer indulging in wild thoughts. After the young bride fell asleep, Shui Miao opened his eyes again, his mind increasingly puzzled. What exactly was that evil spirit? Logically, Bai Niangniang shouldn’t have done something like this. After all, she was a thousand-year-old ghost—how could she be so easily defeated? If it were one of Bai Niangniang’s disciples, that also didn’t make sense, because the yin energy just now had been extremely weak. With Bai Niangniang’s powerful abilities, her disciples should also be formidable.

Now, Shui Miao began to suspect that there was more to this than met the eye.

He even suspected that the ghost possessing the young bride last night might be connected to the sudden string of misfortunes afflicting Zhang Ling’s family—and perhaps even related to Zhang Ling’s older sister Zhang Juan’s family too! Lying in bed, Shui Miao’s thoughts spiraled, becoming more and more confused, with no idea what the real truth was.

※※※

In the morning, both Shui Miao and the young bride woke up early.

After a night of intimacy, the young bride looked at Shui Miao with even more affection.

She was very capable and didn’t let Shui Miao do any chores.

Today, she didn’t lock him in the room, and he didn’t run off. Instead, he walked around the courtyard and squatted in front of the bulldog’s kennel, staring blankly at the dog. Soon after, the young bride finished cooking porridge, and Shui Miao took a dog bowl, filled it halfway, and brought it to the bulldog. Strangely, the dog didn’t eat it. It only sniffed at the steam before wagging its tail affectionately at Shui Miao.

Maybe it wants better food?

Shui Miao liked this bulldog that was so attached to him, so he went back to the fridge and pulled out a piece of meat, offering it to the dog. But again, the bulldog didn’t eat it—it only sniffed.

Outside the villa’s fence, in the neighboring house, two teenage girls around fourteen or fifteen years old each held a cup of water, preparing to brush their teeth. Seeing Shui Miao squatting outside the doghouse with the meat, one girl shook her head and said, “Ah! Zhang Ling is so pitiful. He’s missing his dead bulldog again.”

“Yeah, Zhang Ling really loved that bulldog. He raised it himself,” the other girl added with a sigh.

“…”

The little girls were still in school, and their speech was somewhat close to standard Mandarin, which Shui Miao understood immediately.

Shui Miao quickly turned to look at the bulldog, his head suddenly filled with question marks.

The bulldog was clearly alive, yet they were saying it was already dead—why?

Shui Miao looked carefully, and there was no doubt—it was alive.

To verify, Shui Miao picked up a small stick and slowly touched the bulldog. To his shock, the stick passed right through the dog’s body!

“Eh! It’s… it’s actually the bulldog’s spirit!?”

Instinctively, Shui Miao rubbed his eyes and looked again. The bulldog was still there, wagging its tail at him.

How could this be?

Shui Miao reached out toward the bulldog. It was big, and he felt a little frightened. When his hand touched it, he distinctly felt a chill—it was a ghost, not a real dog. Taking a deep breath, Shui Miao realized that although his dantian and spiritual awareness were sealed, his eyes could still see evil spirits.

“Woof…”

Suddenly, the bulldog let out a low whimper. Following the direction its paw pointed, Shui Miao saw a red dog leash inside the kennel. Looking closely, there was even a yellow talisman stuck on the leash!

There’s something going on here!

Shui Miao’s heart stirred. He quickly crawled into the doghouse, ready to tear off the talisman, when suddenly a gust of cold wind swept from behind. Turning around, he saw that the place where he had just stood was now occupied by an old man dressed in black clothes and pants. The old man had a long, thin face, a gaunt and ashen complexion, and eyes narrowed to slits. He carried a bamboo basket on his back. In a sinister tone, he said to Shui Miao, “Zhang Ling, you’re not thinking of tearing off that talisman, are you?”

Seeing the old man, Shui Miao noticed the bulldog was glaring at him fiercely, growling lowly.

Moreover, the old man’s feet were floating above the ground.

This proved clearly—he was a ghost, not a human.

“Who are you? Why are you interfering with my business?”

Shui Miao grabbed the talisman and questioned the old man. He didn’t need to ask further to tell that this old man was afraid of the bulldog being released. The old man’s eyebrows twitched, and he retorted, “You dare pretend not to know me? Don’t you even recognize your own great-great-grandfather?”

“Great-great-grandfather?”

More like my great-great-uncle! Trying to take advantage of me, Shui Miao rolled his eyes, scratched his head, and shook his head. “I don’t remember. My mind is sometimes clear, sometimes confused. Maybe you can explain it to me? Which great-great-grandfather are you exactly? And why are you stopping me from releasing the big dog? It clearly doesn’t like you. Did you do something wrong to it before?”

“Wah! Zhang Ling is talking to himself again. He must be seeing Grandpa!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll go call Mom to come listen…”

The two little girls were curious and ran back to call their mother, but their mother scolded them harshly and wouldn’t even let them brush their teeth.

The old man glanced at the two girls, then turned to Shui Miao with an annoyed tone. “I’m your father’s third uncle, which makes me your great-great-uncle. Those two girls are my granddaughters, and you are their third elder brother. So, am I your great-great-uncle or not?” Without waiting for Shui Miao to reply, the old man continued, “All the misfortunes your family has experienced are because of this big dog. It frightened Long Wu, the most sinister蛊 witch in Miaojia Shuilongling. You were personally cursed by Long Wu, which is why you became an idiot. I’ve told you this dozens of times already, but you always forget. Now you’re trying to remove the talisman again. Do you want to get our entire families killed!?”

“Wait, Great-great-uncle. How could freeing it possibly kill our families?” Shui Miao asked curiously. He hadn’t expected this place to be a Miao village, nor that there would be a sinister蛊 witch hiding in the western part of the village, which sounded quite formidable.

The old man shook his head, frustrated. “Oh, Zhang Ling! What can I say to you? I’ve repeated this to you dozens of times already. Long Wu’s house enshrines three black dragons as guardian deities. If you release the big dog, it won’t even be able to harm Long Wu—it’ll be killed by his little ghosts immediately. Once Long Wu finds out it was you who caused this, won’t he come after our families’ lives? Great-great-uncle is begging you—stop opposing Long Wu. You can’t beat him.”