A large black dog tied in the side yard struggled with the rope and roared towards an old figure in the light reflected through the window frame.
Puff…
Puff puff puff…
The sound of water spraying continued. In the warm yellow room, Mrs. Zhou carefully approached the door with a silk handkerchief in her hand and called the maid next door in a low voice.
"Xiao Huan... hurry up and go outside to see what's going on."
The maid who was sleeping lightly next door and waiting for orders had already woken up at this moment. She had heard this kind of noise before and had no idea what it was. When she heard the lady's order, her face turned pale.
He moved to the door tremblingly, opened it a crack, and took a look outside.
Then... bang, the door closed.
With a pale face, he knocked on the inner room and cried, "Madam... that old woman outside has appeared again... She is right outside."
Mrs. Zhou was also very frightened. She quickly opened the door and let the maid in, which was better than going in alone.
"What should I do?"
The two men in the room could not think of any solution. Their daughter Zhou Rong on the bed seemed to be in a nightmare, moaning constantly, her face covered with sweat.
"Can you see what the old woman looks like? Has she ever been to the mansion before?"
The maid kept shaking her head and stammering, unable to utter a word. Seeing her like this, Mrs. Zhou had no choice but to walk closer to the window frame, stretch out her finger to poke a small hole in the paper window, and look out.
The lanterns under the eaves were swaying, and as the light flickered, I saw an old woman with a short stature, hunchback, and a frail appearance, walking quickly with a cane. In the blink of an eye, she was at one corner of the room, and in less than a few breaths, she walked out from the other corner.
As he walked, water kept spurting out of his mouth and nose, as if it would never stop, leaving obvious wet marks wherever he passed.
Mrs. Zhou was so frightened that her face turned pale and her voice trembled. She was about to say, "We have to find a way to notify the master or the servants in the other courtyards..."
The old woman outside suddenly stopped, and the tied black dog in the distance roared even more frantically at this time.
Woof woof woof…
It was late at night and the sound of dogs barking could be heard from the front yard. The servant walking in front with a lantern looked over there, then turned to look at the scholar following behind him. He stepped aside and bowed, saying, "Master Lu, this is it. I'll be waiting outside."
After saying that, the man looked in the direction of the dog's barking and muttered to himself.
“… It started screaming again.”
"Do the dogs in the mansion usually bark so fiercely?"
Hearing the scholar's question, the servant came back with a lantern in his hand, "This dog was not raised in the mansion. We bought it a month ago and kept it by the young lady's side..."
The conversation suddenly stopped here. In the range of the warm yellow light of the lantern, Master Lu did not go into the toilet, but stood by the water tank and took out a brush from his wide sleeves.
The servant's mouth twitched. Even a scholar has to be poetic when going to the toilet
But he couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Lu... what are you going to do?"
"Shh!"
Beside the water jar, Lu Liangsheng put his index finger on the middle of his lips, then took out a small piece of ink from his other wide sleeve, and with a wave of his hand, a circle of ripples appeared on the surface of the water jar next to him. Under the servant's puzzled gaze, a line of water was drawn out, rolled on the ink block, and quickly formed ink.
"If you see it, don't tell anyone else."
After the ink was evenly distributed, Lu Liangsheng dipped the tip of the pen in his palm and casually drew a horizontal line on the wall as he painted in the past.
The servant was trembling as he held the lantern. He was already very brave as he was not scared away after seeing the previous scene. Now the scholar opposite was the master's guest, so he couldn't help but stammer.
"Lu... Lu... Master Lu... what are you going to do..."
Lu Liangsheng stopped writing and looked at the ink lines he had drawn.
"Of course it's to save people. Do I have to paint a beautiful scene next to the toilet?"
The next moment.
Under the servant's horrified gaze, the ink line on the wall began to twist as if it were alive.
The night breeze blew through the courtyard.
Lu Liangsheng flicked his robe sleeves, turned sideways and raised his arm to point in the direction of the dog's barking.
"go!"
The ink line floated out of the wall and flew out from the side of the servant's head. The hair was blown and swayed by the wind. In a moment, it disappeared into the darkness of the courtyard.
…
In the side yard, the dog's barking became anxious.
A little water stain suddenly splashed onto the paper window. Mrs. Zhou shrank back in fright. The paper window melted away, and she could clearly see the old woman outside. She slowly turned her head, and her face, which was swollen under her white hair, stared at the woman in the room expressionlessly.
At a certain moment, the black dog over there didn't dare to roar. It whimpered and shrank back into its den with its tail between its legs.
Puff puff puff…
puff…
When Mrs. Zhou took two steps back in horror, water began to spurt out of the old woman's mouth and nose again. She took two steps with her cane and suddenly jumped to the window in the blink of an eye.
The master and servant in the boudoir rolled their eyes and fainted from fright.
The chilly wind blew the light, the window frame was pulled open, two swollen hands climbed up the window frame, the old woman's upper body slowly leaned in, and she opened her mouth towards the woman on the bed.
Clear water dripped from the corners of his mouth and chin onto the ground.
Next second.
The bloated old body was about to go in, when the treetops a little further away rustled, and an ink line rushed over, carrying magical power, and flew directly under the eaves, wrapping around the old woman's body. Even her hands that were clinging to the window frame were pulled back in an instant, and she was dragged into the yard.
"There was so much water, did you drown?"
At the other end of the ink line, it flew into the hands of a figure walking towards him. As clear and profound words slowly came, the person also walked into the range of the lantern light.
"Even if you have been wronged, you can appeal. Why bother to hurt others and make it difficult for yourself to be reborn?"
Over there, the bound old woman didn't even look at the scholar, and still walked towards Miss Zhou's boudoir while being tied up with the ink thread.
This ghost has no consciousness
Lu Liangsheng frowned, and the ink thread wrapped around his middle finger suddenly retracted. He walked to the old woman under the eaves, and the ink thread obviously tightened again, leaving deep marks on her gray robe. Her whole body was like a sponge, and a lot of clear water flowed out of it.
“So much water…”
There were not only water stains on the ground, but also a faint fishy smell. Lu Liangsheng used magic to pull the old woman closer. The ink line also tightened. The old woman was strangled with circles of rings, and her eyeballs bulged out.
In less than a moment, right in front of Lu Liangsheng, his bones and flesh had rotted and turned soft into a lump, turning into a pool of water at a speed visible to the naked eye, leaving only his clothes and robes on the ground.
"that's all?"
Lu Liangsheng removed the ink line, observed for a while, and walked quickly into the room. Zhou Rong was sleeping quietly on the bed. He checked Madam Zhou and the maid on the ground. After seeing that they were not seriously injured, he left and returned to the front yard.
In the living room, Zhou Zhen saw him come back and asked the maid to pour more wine.
"Liangsheng has been gone for so long, he should be punished with a drink."
"You should be fined a glass." Lu Liangsheng came over and looked around. The servant who saw him casting a spell was not far away. He didn't dare to raise his face. He smiled, drank the wine in his hand, and said with a cup of wine, "Mr. Zhou, it's getting late now. I'll go back first."
Probably a little drunk, the old man hugged the scholar, asked him to sit down, waved his robe and asked the servant to go to the kitchen to order a few more dishes.
"Since it's getting late, why not just stay at home? There's no need to run around."
Lu Liangsheng waved his hand to stop the servant from going to the kitchen, then stood up, stepped back to the door and bowed again.
"Mr. Zhou meant well. Liangsheng thanks you. It's just that I'm staying overnight suddenly. Mr. Zhou has a daughter who's about to get married. It wouldn't be good if outsiders knew about it."
These words sobered the old man up a little, and he nodded: "Well, I am a little drunk, I will send someone to take you back to the inn."
"That's not necessary. The inn is not far from here. I can just walk back."
After saying goodbye, Zhou Zhen still sent the scholar to the door, turned back to the living room, and ate for a while. Suddenly, several servants ran in panic from the backyard and whispered something in his ear.
The old man sobered up instantly, holding up his robe, followed the guards and servants, and trotted to his daughter's side yard, where several maids were already waiting, and one of them was holding a lantern to illuminate a puddle of water and clothes on the ground.
"Master, Madam, and Miss are all fine, except for the clothes on the ground and the puddle of water... People who have seen the old woman before said that the clothes are very similar to what she was wearing..."
"Master, Master, the lady is awake!"
Zhou Zhen temporarily put aside the clothes and water stains on the floor and entered his daughter's boudoir. His old wife had already woken up and was half lying in the arms of a maid, still in a somewhat dazed state.
Seeing her husband coming in, she became a little more sober.
"Master... there was an old woman spraying water around Rong'er's room..."
"I didn't see any old woman, just a lot of clothes and water stains on the ground."
Zhou Zhen comforted his wife for a while, but he couldn't help but frown and became suspicious about what happened in the side yard. He immediately called the few servants and guards in the mansion.
"Do you know what happened? Answer truthfully!"
The old man had been famous for a long time, and there was a sense of majesty in his words. All the servants and maids lowered their heads and dared not respond, which was also a way of saying they didn't know.
Among the servants, one person was particularly timid and conspicuous. Zhou Zhen looked at him and called him out by name.
"you say!"
The servant was the one who took Lu Liangsheng to the toilet. He stood up reluctantly and looked at the old man with a sad face.
"Master... I dare not say..."
"explain!"
The old man shouted suddenly, and the frightened servant trembled and said quickly: "It's that Mr. Lu..."
"I saw the water in the water tank being sucked into my palm with a 'whoosh'!"
"… I dipped the pen in ink and drew a horizontal line on the wall. The line came alive and flew out! I was so scared that my legs went weak and I sat on the ground…"
"Then, the line flew to the young lady... Mr. Lu followed, and the rest of the little ones only know this much..."
He finished speaking in one breath like pouring beans, and all the servants and maids in the yard fell silent. Zhou Zhen, who was sitting under the eaves, also had a shocked look on his face, and his eyes looked at the puddle of water and clothes on the ground.
"Are you serious about these words?"
The servant nodded repeatedly.
"really!"
Zhou Zhen lowered his voice and said, "Don't tell anyone what happened tonight."