When Jiang Li finished the mission a year later, the system whether he would stay or not.The man did not hesitate to leave for the next one, not forgetting to express his annoyance for being asked such a silly question.
Just why on earth would he remain there? To further torture himself watching his wife devote herself to some foreign deity? Or let her call her "brother" every time they meet?
No, thanks. That sounds totally mind-breaking, looking and wanting but without the right to approach and touch.
He would rather go to the next setting to distract himself with the plot than go through the whole experience.
"Let"s leave," he quietly said, mood a bit down.
When he woke up after an unknown amount of time later, he found himself feeling strange, as if he was weightless and tied up in a very dark place. He didn"t know where he was, and if his body was only numb so he couldn"t feel his limbs and other body parts. His head was fuzzy. When he opened his eyes, he was really confused since there was nothing around him. Only darkness.
He frowned, "Strange. Am I still in the void?"
Before he could get a hold of his situation from the system, several gentle voices drifted into his ears. It made him stay still and alert. No matter the circ.u.mstance, he knew it was not advisable to accept the new memories in the presence of others. He planned to eavesdrop first and see if he could get a clue about what was happening.
"h.e.l.loooooo?" That dragged out greeting came from a woman.
Voices continued to echo, seeming like they were far away yet with clarity that suggested they were near. He thought it was really strange.
"Any ent.i.ty nearby…"
"… willing…. to peacefully communicate with us?" It was the same girly voice, sounding like psychedelic music to him. Jiang Li did not speak, busy processing what he just heard. "Who is the ent.i.ty?"
"Spirit… of the gla.s.s… Spirit of the gla.s.s… Are you there?"
"Dear ghost…"
"Please answer us…"
Silence ensued. The atmosphere became more solemn and holy, even though what these guys were attempting was nothing holy.
Jiang Li raised a brow upon figuring out what the owners of the voices were doing. What else but a divination session with the dead using a talking board? Something only curious minds or folks with obsessions with the other world would do.
Now he was really curious about his ident.i.ty here and their current location.
"I hope I am not one of these daredevils who just made a terrible mistake in their attempts to talk with a spirit. What any ent.i.ty? What if the ent.i.ty is a devil or a demon?" He felt a headache.
"I really hope the reason for my strange condition is not I"m currently being possessed by some annoying ent.i.ties, forced out of my own body. I don"t know what I"ll do if that turns out true."
Jiang Li suspected he did not truly manage to open his eyes earlier so he tried it again, wanting to check the real situation around him. However, not long after, he froze when he realized nothing changed in his vision. It was really all dark.
The only thing worthy of the celebration was he could not feel any ghost nearby. So who were they calling? Could it be…
The voices echoed again, started by bell-like laughter. "Geez. Look. Nothing happened. How long since we started?"
"About five minutes?"
"And we"re all so nervous here but it didn"t move… What a joke."
These first three voices were from boys. It seemed none of them were pleased that after all the horror vibe, nothing spooky really happened so they started to laugh and make fun of the whole thing.
"… M-maybe we made a mistake… I mean, in the process." A nervous-sounding girl spoke.
"Actually I"m skeptical about the opening lines. Are we really supposed to say Spirit of the Gla.s.s? Maybe it should be Spirit of the Planchette or the like… What do you think, guys?"
Jiang Li coughed and tried to move his hand to cover his mouth before realizing that his hands were bound. It made him blank out. He then frowned. However, since he had confirmed he really couldn"t move due to the chains, he chose to s.h.i.+ft his focus back to the group doing the session. There was a guess he wanted to verify.
Around the same time, the group repeated the words said before, without revising their words. He took that chance to say, "h.e.l.lo?"
"It can"t be…" A second later, hearing the drag-out sound, his pupils dilated.
A kind of spooky low voice came out of his mouth unexpectedly… He once again stayed still, having a bad hunch when it sounded like it came from the ground.
Sure enough, the moment his voice died, he heard a few girls shrieking from fright. One of them stuttered out, "I-It"s moving! Somebody! S-somebody is really called out!"
"Aaaahhhhhhhh!"
W-who pushed it! Who"s pranking us? Is it you, Yan Mei?"
"No, not me."
"I-it"s not me too!"
"Wait! Don"t panic! Don"t panic! No one"s to move!" One of the guys tried to calm the girls but the momentary serenity that he bought was immediately broken by another person who had spoken loudly.
"H. E. L. L… H-h.e.l.l? Oh, my G.o.d!"
"W-wait, it"s still m-moving."
Thirty seconds pa.s.sed and Jiang Li felt so drained… He didn"t know which was said by who. But within that timeframe, the group had said more than a hundred sentences collectively. All sorts of profanities, prayers, and nonsense graced his ears, to the point that he wanted to meet whoever taught this bunch their wonderful vocabulary. Only after that did he hear somebody spelling out loud that one word that he had said earlier.
"It spelled "h.e.l.lo," said a girl with a mature and soothing voice.
He imagined a young lady exchanging glances with everyone surrounding the Ouija board. The scenario made him want to facepalm.
"Wow, it seems I"m actually the malicious spirit this stupid bunch has called."
"What do you guys want?"
In the realm of the living, the planchette moved around and the people surrounding it tried their best to hold their breath as they commit to mind the letters.
The same girl spelled out the words, facing the other partic.i.p.ants of the game. "The ghost is asking us what we want… You guys talk it out amongst you while I reply."
"O-okay," he heard another girl say.
The other nodded and proceeded with standard steps. "h.e.l.lo again. We have no ill-intent and hope you don"t find our actions offensive. May we know your name?"
"Li." The guy answered considerately, a bit fed up by the length of time long words took to be spelled out.
"Alright, Li. Thank you for responding to us. We gladly appreciate it. If it"s okay with you… there are some questions we would like to consult with you…"
"… I"m afraid these folks are thinking I"m a pen spirit who can take a glimpse of past and future." Jiang Li rolled his eyes.
The fear the group was feeling probably already diminished a bit, gaining some confidence seeing no one was harmed yet. It turned out the game was not really dangerous, they thought. They were now talking amongst themselves what to ask the "friendly" ghost that they had summoned. Amidst this, they were also debating whether the planchette or whatever medium they used really moved.
"Hey, Mei. You sure it"s not you moving it, huh?"
"No. I don"t have the habits of making a fool out of myself." The one who answered was the same girl mostly doing the talking with Jiang Li. Her voice, although a bit cold, was really soothing to the ears and made him wonder if she was the heroine or the villainess.
The bored Jiang Li who was waiting to finish the session before checking out the plot repeatedly moved the thing in a random direction to remind the daredevils that he was waiting.
The four or so people gradually became absorbed in their discussion. However, they seemed to be not very knowledgeable about what they were doing since they did not become alarmed when the planchette moved by itself again. Were they thinking it was simply the summoned friend making its presence known to them? And that they should not be afraid since the ghost seemed friendly?
He found it not funny that two of them even managed to debate whether to ask who their future spouses would be. He was reminded of the bad luck his previous lifetimes had. "If they dare bring that up, I"ll tell them they are all fated to be nuns and celibates."
"Hey, let"s ask the spirit what"s the safest and fastest way to get rich."
"To rob a bank online." Jiang Li answered in his head.
"Or maybe… this…"
"Guys, I think Xu wanted to say something…. Xu? You wanted to inquire about your grandma?"
"Ugh…" It had just been a minute at most. But seeing, or rather, hearing how unprepared and uncautious they were, Jiang Li had this urge to smack everyone on the ground. Did they think this was really fun?
The planchette had already moved back and forth the arc of letters. The group did not know such an event was alarming because it meant the ghost was taking this chance to create a portal to the realm of the living, whether intentionally or not. On Jiang Li"s side, he was simply bored and casually moving the medium. It was unknown even to him that his instinct as a ghost acted up and made him do this, desiring to seize the moment to escape from there.
"Hmmm? I suddenly lost connection to the talking board?"
Jiang Li blinked in confusion, although the action made no difference since he couldn"t see anything and likewise, wouldn"t be seen by anyone.
Shortly after, the noises from the other side suddenly became louder than before. It baffled him. The voices became more psychedelic and messier, lasting for a second or two until a burst of light suddenly descended into the dark room he was confined in.
The light was gentle since it did not burn him or anything. It swiftly turned oval in shape, like a huge mirror pillar.
When it swallowed him and pulled him somewhere, he instinctively didn"t protest and only shut his eyelids to protect his eyes. He could feel it was a good thing for him, leading to a better situation than being chained in the darkness.
His guess… proved to be on spot.
The next thing he knew, the light receded. His vision returned, and although a bit blurry at first, he could see that he was finally in a normal setting with trees, rocks and ancient gate.
He got summoned to the material world!
Body? Jiang Li lowered his sight to see a semi-transparent ghost-like body still floating in the air. "Nice. At least I can see now that I"ve really become a spirit."
The group? He swept his gaze around and saw that apart from him there were seven people inside an abandoned temple. Large statues of Buddha on each side, the room was illuminated by a phone placed atop the table with its flashlight on.
Most of them seemed to have been blown away by evil air, groaning on the floor. In the middle of the messy room was a broken Ouija Board and a planchette with many cracks.
"Well…" It seemed this was all caused by him.
After another brief scan of the place, he froze, seeing the statues again. Why were these sculptures of a fat bald man here?
Ignoring the pained moaning and cries of fear, his expression changed, having guessed where he currently was and remembering his body was no longer that of a G.o.d. When the pressure began pressing on his soul, he came back to himself and then hurriedly turned around.
"Sh*t! I can"t believe these fools attempted a session like this inside a Buddhist temple!"
He exclaimed in a loud voice as he began to fly away from there like he was being chased by thousands of monsters!