“Xiao Bai!” A middle-aged man wearing a Taoist robe suddenly strode out from the crowd and stalked over with a furious expression. “Why are you here?! Who brought you here?!”
Xiao Bai blinked innocently before turning to look at Shi Sheng. ‘I was kidnapped…’
Shi Sheng shook her fist at him, whereupon he immediately lowered his head and weakly called out to the middle-aged man, “Master…”
When Xiao Bai had looked over to Shi Sheng, the man seemed to have felt something, for he followed his gaze and looked over in Feng Jin’s direction. Upon seeing Feng Jin, his pupils shrunk.
‘This man…is the one from the Feng Clan?’
He calmly gave Feng Jin a polite nod. His gaze subtly scanned the area around Feng Jin, but didn’t find anything off. He thought to himself, ‘Perhaps it was just my imagination… But this boy from the Feng Clan really has a strong aura.’
The middle-aged man quickly shifted his gaze away.
He slapped Xiao Bai on the head as he spoke angrily, “Who brought you here?”
He didn’t believe that this slow-witted idiot disciple of his had the ability to find the way here by himself.
Xiao Bai was very aggrieved!
‘I didn’t even want to come here! Master, didn’t you always boast that you were number one under heaven? How come you can’t even see that ghost with the arrogant expression standing right over there?’
Of course, Xiao Bai didn’t have the guts to say that out loud. His eyes swivelled around before he pointed at An Su with an innocent expression. “It was her.”
An Su was surprised from being called out by the young man. She pointed to herself in disbelief, but quickly swallowed back her words of clarification when she looked at Shi Sheng.
An Su shot Xiao Bai’s Master an embarrassed smile. “Er…the person I’m looking for is supposed to be here, but I couldn’t find the place so… But Xiao Bai volunteered to bring me here! I didn’t force him to!”
Shi Sheng gave An Su a big thumbs-up. ‘This FL is great. She can lie with such a good poker face now!’
“Xiao Bai!” His Master flew into a rage. ‘Just what did I say? Don’t come down the mountain! Don’t come down! Did he not hear a single word I said?’
“Since wh—” Just as he was going to refute An Su’s words, Xiao Bai quivered from being fiercely glared at by Shi Sheng. He didn’t dare to continue. “Master…I was just curious…so I…”
Xiao Bai’s Master dragged him to a corner and scolded him, causing that dummy to immediately betray Shi Sheng’s existence. But his Master merely ordered him not to speak of this to anyone; he had no intention of taking revenge for his disciple.
Xiao Bai was depressed. ‘Am I really your disciple?’
Although Xiao Bai was unaware of the Feng Clan, would his Master be unaware of it?
The Feng Clan was an exorcist clan that had produced several generations of grandmasters!
The title of grandmaster was something that all exorcists dreamt of. It was already rare enough for one to appear in a clan, but the Feng Clan had produced several generations of them in succession. This was the pinnacle of honour in the exorcist world.
Even if the Feng Clan wasn’t as illustrious as it was in the past, the resources they could access wasn’t something a normal exorcist clan could compare to. Hence, it clearly wasn’t a good idea to offend Feng Jin right now…
Xiao Bai was brought away by his Master, leaving An Su standing all alone behind Feng Jin. Because she was very close to him, there were a lot of people whose gazes swept over her. They were curious as to who this lady—who could stand so close to someone from the Feng Clan—exactly was.
An Su was dying from embarrassment. ‘How come these people can’t see Ghost-jiejie? What happened to them being exorcists???’
……
Shi Sheng was plastered onto Feng Jin’s back. Placing her chin on his shoulder, she asked out of boredom, “What’re they all gathering here for?”
‘Is the Exorcist Gathering just a way for them to come together to have a chat? That’d be way too boring…’
“Wait for midnight.” Feng Jin soothed her in a light voice. “There’s only 10 more minutes left, so be patient.”
“We’re going to enter this mansion?” Shi Sheng had noticed quite a few people pointing at it, so she guessed they were planning to enter.
“This mansion has a reputation for being haunted,” An Su timidly spoke out. Seeing that Feng Jin didn’t stop her, she spoke more boldly, “I heard it once belonged to the family of a rich and famous merchant in the Qing Dynasty. But one night, they all suddenly died in a horrendous manner…”
[Side Quest Unlocked: Pieces of Memory]
Shi Sheng had just been getting immersed in the story when her train of thought was interrupted by System’s alert.
‘Wut? What pieces of memory?’
[Find Ning Ying’s memories.] System very ‘considerately’ gave her a hint.
‘Ning Ying’s memories… Fuck! How the hell am I supposed to look for that? Memories can’t just be scattered around, can they? Fucking hell!
#Always being trolled by the System#’
Shi Sheng worked her hardly-used brain to link all the clues together at lightning speed.
‘Hidden quests only appear when the target is nearby.
And side quests appear when relevant information presents itself. We were just talking about this mansion so…Ning Ying probably had something to do with this place?
Just how long has she been dead? The Qing Dynasty! That’s more than a century already!’
“What’re you thinking so hard about?” Feng Jin pressed Shi Sheng’s head. He was unused to her being this quiet for so long.
“Where’d you pick me up from?”
‘This part’s missing from Ning Ying’s memories… It’s as if…she was with Feng Jin ever since she could remember.’
At the beginning of Ning Ying’s memories, Feng Jin had been 18 years old and had just moved out from the Feng Clan. There were occasions where he wouldn’t speak for an entire month, and he’d always have this dark and gloomy expression. If he wasn’t locked up in his room, he was bringing her out to catch ghosts.
Feng Jin frowned. “Why’d you ask all of a sudden?”
“Just wanted to know how we met.” Shi Sheng’s expression was exaggeratedly sentimental.
“We—” Feng Jin was just about to speak when someone in the crowd shouted. “The time has come! The rules are same as always. If there are no objections, then let’s enter!”
The people around them ceased their conversations and lowered their heads to quickly inspect themselves. They then put on a strange badge before swiftly entering the mansion in an orderly manner.
Feng Jin ruffled Shi Sheng’s hair and headed to the entrance. “Let’s go in first.”
Seeing that there were a few people remaining outside, An Su immediately raised her hand. “Er, Gh… jiejie, I’ll just stay out here.”
She didn’t want to experience a second time in there.
Feng Jin hadn’t wanted to bring An Su along in the first place, so he was perfectly fine with her choice of not entering.
……
The mansion was even gloomier than Shi Sheng imagined. The doors and windows were in a dilapidated state, and the entire place was covered with dust and cobwebs. It was so dark, one wouldn’t have seen their own fingers even if they had stretched their hand out.
Shi Sheng tore off her charm the moment they entered.
The mansion was also ridiculously big. Although around 30 to 40 exorcists had entered, they hadn’t encountered a single one.
“What’re we looking for here? And what’s the point of the Exorcist Gathering?” Shi Sheng openly expressed her uncertainty about what was going on.
Feng Jin’s heart shook when he heard her refer to them as ‘we’. ‘She said it so naturally…’
“Exorcist Gatherings are held triennially…” As he began his explanation, it occurred to Feng Jin that Shi Sheng would soon run out of patience if he tried to explain it to her in detail. “In your words, they’re a group of people with too much free time, so they decided to have a big contest to see who’s the best.”
“They really do have too much free time.” Shi Sheng nodded her head with certainty.
Feng Jin was helpless.
The whole purpose of this competition was to let other exorcists know exactly who they could not afford to offend, and who they could bully by stealing business from.
After all, exorcists were people too. Apart from having the ability to catch ghosts, they were just like normal people. They held ambition and greed in their hearts. Without these, pretty much no one would be willing to take on the dangers of being an exorcist.
“So, why enter this place in particular?” ‘If we’re just fighting to show off, why even bother entering this shitty house?’