"Ugh…"The villainess groaned before she took a long breath. Her eyes first burst out with brilliant light before slowly darkening, its glimmer turning unreadable. A moment later, her body was shuddering from the surge of emotions.
At this point, Gu Mochou had already recalled that she lost consciousness. Now playing in her head like a slideshow was everything that took place before that.
A weird thing happened when her eyesight was on Fan Zheng. Her body became paralyzed and she could not move an inch. The car couldn"t change directions even though she, the driver, could see clearly that a concrete lamppost and utility pole were right ahead.
Even if one used their feet to think, the outcome was obvious. In fact, it couldn"t get even more tragic and stupid.
A car crashed.
An explosion shortly followed.
And it fried a brainless victim to death inside a burning heap of rubber, leather, and metal.
If there was surveillance nearby, perhaps all they would see was the silhouette of a stupid-looking girl purposely committing suicide.
Gu Mochou"s breathing turned heavy.
Right now, the woman finally understood that none of her senses were working because she had turned into a ghost.
It made sense. If she were in an astral state, naturally, there would be no heartbeat inside her chest since there was technically nothing there. She would feel no temperature because her sense of touch was non-existent. Not that there was nothing to smell, but that her nose was only a piece of decoration in her face. She was nothing but a smoke-like thing that possessed the capability to think. Even her eyes seemed to be dysfunctional.
Thirty years ago, when she also became a wandering soul, did she also lose her sight temporarily and only regained it after becoming an evil spirit?
Honestly, she could not remember.
Time was enough to erode so many pieces of memory in one"s mind unless the pieces were holdings things or images of great significance.
Anyway, the more important question right now was… did she get locked up here by that vengeful and horrifying ghost king?
For what purpose then? Because if it were to frighten her or to make sure she would not be any deader, the correct way was to shove her to a proper judge. That ghost king defeated her in a mind game so he should not be so careless or moronic to not think of that, right?
Gu Mochou did some tests and concluded that she could float around. But there was no way to pa.s.s through the unseen walls. The place had an area of four-square meters, empty apart from her drifting soul. Until now, there was n.o.body to answer from the outside.
The girl pa.s.sed half a day in a trance, not knowing what to do besides talking to herself. Because most of her senses were shut off, her brain became more active and the issues that had been neglected before surfaced one by one.
At first, Gu Mochou tried to guess the actual ident.i.ty of the enemy ghost. But because of the lack of clues, she gave up. Zhan Rong who served as a link could not be investigated for now since she was at this state.
Her bored brain drifted from thoughts to thoughts. The darkness and silence seemed to have given her more clarity of mind so before she knew it, or perhaps because revenge was one thing her entire existence would not abandon, she remembered about the two remaining Zhao villagers who she planned to toy and kill within a month.
Everything took her thirty years, but finally, her revenge was close to completion.
Gu Mochou felt that all the wait and suffering was all worth it. Her mood brightened. If one could see her soul, they would notice the beautiful arc of her lips.
How could she smile like this when the unknown foe had just defeated her?
Well, her recent failure made her angry at first. But now, it was not bothering her.
"I lost."
"But actually, from the beginning, I know that battling a ghost monarch will not be easy. His abilities are unknown. His ident.i.ty is also unknown. His weaknesses are also unknown. And I do not know of the information in his hands."
"I only know I have to force him out and strike him down while he is in the dark about my new ally"s powers."
"Even if I prepared so many plans and traps, there is no telling which side would win. There are just too many uncontrollable variables."
Gu Mochou had the urge to laugh after remembering that precisely because of this reason that she lost. No matter how good her brain was, there was no way she could predict a ghostly being would impersonate a judge. Actually, the latter was not the greatest issue. It was the ghost king"s ability to influence emotions and his skillful use of it to interfere with her judgment.
"I lost. Thoroughly." This was a fact that she had no choice but to acknowledge.
Yet despite that, hearty laughter rang from her. She spat out after a few minutes. "But so what?"
Gu Mochou spoke again. There was still n.o.body to reply to her, so her next thoughts sounded like she was convincing herself.
Her soul was detained and there was no telling whether she could escape from this gloomy s.p.a.ce at all?
There was no one around to tell her how many hours pa.s.sed since the failed operation?
"So what?" She repeated. Her face wreathed with a smile and her eyes twinkling in mischief.
In her imagination played a scene where her other subordinate ghosts carried out the backup orders which she placed in case she died or fell into an unknown situation after the battle.
Gone was the gloominess in her heart. In fact, a trace of madness and joy flickered in her eyes.
…
Back to the university area.
Fan Zheng"s group finally gave up since the Red Lady seemed to have disappeared. The group of spirit hunters was annoyed by the fruitless battle.
They lost sleep and some of them were wounded. Yet the target of the purge escaped with a significant possibility of bouncing back in full health within a week or so. To soothe their raging hearts, a few unlucky ghosts lingering around the place became their victims. They had even resolved to not go back that night.
Fan Zheng, as one of the dissatisfied spirit hunters, was in the middle of a hunt when his phone buzzed, and the shaky voice of his sister echoed. Fan Lan sounded so worried, scared, and urgent.
"Brother, masked people suddenly infiltrated the house around 12 am and they took Zhao Ai with them!"
"What?" Fan Zheng"s eyes widened. It took him some time to digest the news. He then became anxious and without knowing it, he raised his voice. "Fan Lan. What happened to Ai? Are you okay? Have you alerted the police? Why didn"t you inform me?"
The number of questions overwhelmed Fan Lan. At the end of it all, she only remembered the last question. Her crying voice rang as a reply. "What "I didn"t inform you?" I tried! But I couldn"t reach you and it"s been three and a half hours since then!"
"H-huh?"
It confused the male lead. His phone was working well. He did not turn it off even though he was with his brothers and sisters from the sect fighting a fierce opponent. Or did the call take place when one of his seniors put up an enormous barrier right inside the condo?
He drew a frigid breath, his feet moving further away from the others to a quieter spot. He plugged in his wireless earpieces so the call would not be interrupted. Then, he texted one of the pract.i.tioners before turning around and running. He said to Fan Lan, "Sis, I don"t know what happened but let"s stop the useless chatter. I"m on my way there. What"s the current development? Please tell me everything."
He heard the girl inhaling deeply before her reply echoed into his ears.
"To be honest, we still haven"t saved her. But on the latest breaking news online, at around 3 am, there"s a van in the southern border blocked by the guards there and rescued many abducted girls."
"Go on," he said wearing a frown, his brows almost meeting in the middle.
On the other line, Fan Lan"s voice broke. "Z-Zhao Ai was with them. B-But she was not those among rescued. They… they used her as a hostage to get away. It"s almost certain that she was with the traffickers, their exact whereabouts unknown."
The series of news rendered him speechless for some time. He was also having difficulty breathing. His head turned blank, and his face losing color, as seen from one side, at a speed visible to the naked eye under the scant light coming from his phone.
"Traffickers?" The male lead voiced out in disbelief. "Since you are fine, did you really believe a group of traffickers would break into a rich family"s home just to bring away a random girl?"