Chapter 91: Piano Melody By The Ear
“I’ll keep your mobile phone here for now and hold onto it for you first. I’ll give it back after we get out of the car.” Zhang Qian glanced at the black-screened mobile phone, turned it off, and put it in his pocket.
He didn’t know what method the fierce ghost used to find the driver, but if there was a first time, there might be a second, so it was safer to take precautions.
“Okay…”
The driver naturally didn’t dare to have any objections and timidly nodded before raising the soundproof partition, not even daring to ask where the call came from or how it tracked him down.
“Zhang Qian, should I hang up this call on my end?” Xu Zheng held the incessantly vibrating mobile phone, his expression somewhat grave.
He had only muted the mobile phone but hadn’t hung up yet.
Logically speaking, the call had been going on for over a minute and should have automatically disconnected long ago.
But the timer on the mobile phone screen was stuck at fifty-nine seconds, never jumping to the point where it should auto-hang up.
Zhang Qian nodded and said, “Hang up for now.”
“Unless it’s absolutely necessary, I don’t want to answer this call again, and since the fierce ghost hasn’t attacked me, it means I still don’t meet its attack pattern.”
Being targeted by a fierce ghost didn’t feel good.
The trip to the old house was imminent, and with Zhang Qian’s previous personality, he would definitely clear up any loose ends first, confront this ghost head-on, and then go deliver the message.
But the forum’s description of the ghost call gave him some reservations; words like certain death seemed too terrifying, somewhat similar to that shy ghost said to kill on sight.
When he first encountered the shy ghost, Zhang Qian had suffered a loss, and without the ghost candle, he might have been done for; now facing the ghost call, he naturally had to proceed with caution.
If possible, he still wanted to avoid it altogether.
After turning off the mobile phone, the call hung up accordingly, with no forced reboot or anything like that occurring.
Xu Zheng let out a long breath and looked at the serious-faced Zhang Qian reassuringly. “This ghost isn’t a big deal. As long as you hang up, it’s fine. Even if you can’t resolve it, it’s like an unreachable harassing call—at worst, it’ll just be a bit troublesome later.”
But the seriousness on Zhang Qian’s face didn’t fade; instead, it grew even graver.
“Can’t you hear this ringtone?”
“What?” Xu Zheng was somewhat puzzled.
He perked up his ears and listened carefully, then shook his head. “It’s very quiet inside the car. Besides the sound of the car driving, there’s no other movement. What did you hear?”
“A piano piece…” Zhang Qian looked around, trying to find the source of the sound.
But the sound was clearly coming from right beside Zhang Qian, yet he couldn’t find any source, as if the sound had appeared out of thin air.
Zhang Qian listened intently for a moment and described, “To be precise, it should be a phone ringtone recorded from a piano piece. It sounds a bit distorted, like the recording device was poor, making many notes blurry. Also, the ringtone content is very short, just looping a certain segment.”
“I can’t hear it at all here. This sound is likely targeted only at you; it should be coming from that phone fierce ghost.”
Xu Zheng didn’t say it was an illusion or anything like that; he tried his best to analyze the possibilities. “Probably realized it can’t find you through us, so it’s starting to strengthen its supernatural power.”
“Yeah, but no attack has occurred, meaning I still don’t meet the condition.” Zhang Qian checked his own condition.
Besides being annoyed by the noise, there were no other symptoms.
“What do we do? Should we hide in the gold first?” Xu Zheng suggested.
Although crouching in the gold suitcase was a bit embarrassing, the consequences of being attacked by a fierce ghost were far more serious than embarrassment. If this method could avoid the fierce ghost, what was embarrassment as a price.
“No need, I have a better way.”
Zhang Qian reached into his pocket and took out a scarlet candle that looked like congealed fresh blood.
“You actually have a ghost candle?” Xu Zheng’s eyes lit up the moment he saw this thing. “Then this fierce ghost really isn’t much of a threat.”
The ghost candle had left a deep impression on Xu Zheng; after all, the sight of ordinary person Wang Xiaoming holding a ghost candle while stepping on ghost hair had quite an impact on him.
Back then, if not for Professor Wang holding a ghost candle to help, he probably would have died in the clash between those two fierce ghosts.
“Only this one left.” Zhang Qian nodded, not surprised that Xu Zheng knew about the ghost candle intel.
“I wanted to save it a bit, but now the fierce ghost is dancing in my head. If I don’t use it now, I’m afraid I’ll have money but no life to spend it.”
With that, he flicked his lighter and lit this ghost candle that had been used several times already.
An orange-yellow flame suddenly flared up, and the warm candlelight enveloped Zhang Qian and Xu Zheng.
That mysterious piano ringtone gradually faded until it completely disappeared.
Correspondingly, the ghost candle’s burning speed slightly quickened, but not to an outrageous degree—it could hold out for several hours no problem.
“Did it work?” Xu Zheng stared at the flame, asking concernedly.
“Yeah, at least I can’t hear that sound now.” Zhang Qian scanned the surrounding space, seeing no trace of the fierce ghost.
“That’s good. The ghost candle really is a great thing. Even such a bizarre fierce ghost can’t make waves in front of it. Too bad my contribution isn’t enough yet; otherwise, I’d definitely ask Professor Wang for one.” Xu Zheng eyed the ghost candle enviously.
Something that could immunize against supernatural attacks—probably no ghost controller wouldn’t be moved by it.
Unfortunately, after that experiment, Li Jun had taken the ghost candle back, and Xu Zheng had only gotten a bit of info from Professor Wang, not even having touched one yet.
“It’s only isolated the supernatural for now; doesn’t mean we’re safe.” Zhang Qian didn’t let his guard down; instead, he frowned at the flame.
The ghost candle’s burning speed hadn’t slowed, meaning supernatural power was continuously trying to attack him.
The ghost call hadn’t given up the attack; it was just that all the supernatural power had been transferred to the ghost candle. Once the ghost candle went out, it would definitely latch onto Zhang Qian again.
After nearly a minute, the ghost candle’s burning speed still showed no change, steadily consuming away.
If Zhang Qian hadn’t seen how the ghost candle behaved when no fierce ghost was around, he might have thought this speed was normal.
“Just waiting it out like this isn’t a solution…” Zhang Qian looked at the flickering candle flame, lost in thought.
The fierce ghost could launch attacks tirelessly; from the looks of it, it wouldn’t stop unless Zhang Qian died.
But the ghost candle wasn’t infinite; once it extinguished, the fierce ghost would absolutely come back, and without even a life-saving method left, it would be far more dangerous than before.
Xu Zheng saw Zhang Qian’s gravity and asked, “What’s wrong? With the ghost candle, the fierce ghost shouldn’t be able to hurt you.”
