Chapter 110: Inheritance
The idea of going out to take a look was instantly rejected by Lu Jinzhao herself.
In the real world, she wouldn’t dare to casually open the door alone to check out such a big commotion next door, let alone here on the platform.
Moreover, it wasn’t as if there were no precedents; ghosts could deceive people.
Therefore, Lu Jinzhao simply listened carefully to the commotion not far away, with no intention whatsoever of moving closer to the door.
After listening carefully for a while, Lu Jinzhao noticed something off.
She only heard the noisy commotion, but not a single sound from Huo Ye.
Of course, it was also possible that Huo Ye simply hadn’t made any sound, but out of cautious consideration, Lu Jinzhao had no intention of going out.
She looked out the window, and through the dim yellow window paper, she seemed to see shadows flickering in the distance, very blurry, making her unable to resist wanting to get closer to see clearly.
The noisy sounds persisted for about ten minutes before gradually fading.
From beginning to end, Lu Jinzhao didn’t hear Huo Ye’s voice.
“Perhaps the sounds outside were just a performance put on by the ghost.”
But because the ghost’s “intelligence” was really low, even its traps weren’t very clever.
However, at this moment, it could be confirmed that the ghost was outside.
Outside, there was probably a corpse that could serve as materials.
If there were sufficiently powerful passengers on this platform, they could even open the door at this time to confront the ghost directly and take its skin and bones.
But Lu Jinzhao hadn’t noticed any such person.
Moreover, it couldn’t be determined whether the materials taken from this ghost would be the same as her master’s, after all, the one outside was no longer just a corpse, but a ghost.
“Sure enough… can it only be taken from people?” Lu Jinzhao shook her head, feeling that the more she thought about it, the worse it seemed.
No matter how she looked at it, peace among the passengers couldn’t be maintained.
Perhaps because of this farce, the ghost didn’t come to knock on the door again that night.
By the latter half of the night, Lu Jinzhao’s own skin had mostly dried.
She took the skin down and placed it on the workbench, then skillfully began making the shadow puppet.
As dawn gradually broke, her human skin production process was only about a small half complete.
Clearly both human skin, but the difficulty of making shadow puppets from her own skin versus her master’s skin was vastly different.
However, this also put Lu Jinzhao somewhat at ease.
If her skin also showed those anomalies during the production process, then she would really have reason to feel uneasy.
And what made her feel even more fortunate was that when touching her own human skin, her body showed no adverse reaction at all—at least, it didn’t feel like her soul was being synchronously carved when carving the shadow puppet, as with her master’s skin.
“Perhaps… this path really works.”
Unfortunately, her condition at the time wasn’t sufficient to support her breaking and digging out one of her own ribs.
However, even if she dug it out, if it wasn’t her master’s bone but a real human bone, she might not have any method for that bone.
After daybreak, while Lu Jinzhao was making the new shadow puppet, she always had to divert some attention to keep an eye on the commotion outside; perhaps someone would come to her door to ask if she had heard anything last night, and she absolutely couldn’t let others discover she was making a new shadow puppet.
About half an hour after daybreak, Lu Jinzhao heard footsteps.
She decisively put away the unfinished shadow puppet, sat inside the room waiting, and sure enough, not long after, there was a knock on the door.
Lu Jinzhao didn’t open the door immediately, but waited until the person outside made a sound before walking to the door.
The person outside was Fu Xuesheng; she looked even more terrible, with dark circles under her eyes like they were painted on.
“Did you go out to take a look last night?” she asked Lu Jinzhao directly upon seeing her open the door.
Lu Jinzhao shook her head, and then Fu Xuesheng said something that slightly surprised her.
“I went out to look.”
Hm?
Lu Jinzhao looked at her with some doubt; from a relatively rational and cautious mindset, it was best not to act rashly in that situation last night.
Probably seeing Lu Jinzhao’s doubt, Fu Xuesheng said indifferently, “Anyway, sticking your head out is one slash, pulling it back is another; you’re probably going to die anyway, so why not take the risk to get more intelligence?”
It wasn’t entirely unreasonable.
“What did you see?”
Fu Xuesheng coming to find her early in the morning couldn’t just be to ask if she had eaten breakfast.
“I didn’t dare get too close.” Fu Xuesheng shrugged; although she had just boasted about adventuring, she hadn’t really done anything brainless.
“The commotion at the time came from the direction of Huo Ye’s room; I speculated there was no immediate danger at the door, so I opened it and went out.”
“Then I discovered that nighttime here… is very different from daytime.”
Lu Jinzhao listened attentively; this was a discovery she hadn’t had.
“Very hazy.” Fu Xuesheng thought for a moment and offered that description.
“The lantern light isn’t very penetrating, so in the darkness, everything looks like it’s separated by a thin layer of gauze.”
“Like shadow puppetry separated by the curtain?” Lu Jinzhao asked.
“Right.” Fu Xuesheng nodded vigorously: “When I went out then, I had a strange feeling, like… I was standing on a stage.”
“I had brought my shadow puppet with me, you know, I don’t dare let it leave my line of sight for too long at night.”
“But after stepping out of the room, I felt movement from the toolbox I used to carry it.”
“Like a live rat had gotten inside.”
“I ignored it; it was just moving inside, not actually coming out.”
When Fu Xuesheng said this, Lu Jinzhao somewhat admired her “big heart.”
“After leaving the room, I walked toward Huo Ye’s room.”
“It wasn’t noticeable during the day, but at night, the layout of this house made me feel, while walking in the corridor, like I was behind the curtain; the rows of window papers were like the curtain in shadow puppetry, and I always felt like… something was watching us through these windows.”
“Like an audience watching the shadow puppet performance through the curtain.”
At this point, Fu Xuesheng frowned: “But we checked those rooms during the day; they were just empty houses, without even furniture.”
“I didn’t get too close; when I could roughly see something, I stopped.”
“At the time, I hid behind a pillar and looked toward the door of Huo Ye’s room.”
“In the corridor, guess who I saw?”
Fu Xuesheng even had the mind to play a guessing game with her at a time like this.
Lu Jinzhao answered without thinking: “Ji Xiangchen.”
“…Right.” Fu Xuesheng’s expression showed a hint of boredom: “Well, that’s not a hard question to answer.”
“Only him?” Lu Jinzhao pressed.
Fu Xuesheng nodded: “Yes, only him.”
“He was alone, standing at the door of Huo Ye’s room, wearing strange clothes, just like the clothes on the shadow puppet he made.”
“No props at all, just moving his legs at Huo Ye’s door, waving his hands, striking some opera poses, and those noisy sounds kept coming from him.”
“And”
Fu Xuesheng’s tone became unusually heavy: “Watching those movements, listening to those sounds, unknowingly, I also wanted to join in.”
“I almost really went up there.”
