Gray clouds slowly drifted across the night sky, dotted with stars and the moon. Lu Liangsheng led the old donkey out of the courtyard gate, flicked his wide sleeves, strung the copper lock, called the Taoist who was busy playing with his mobile phone, and walked through the wide alley together.
I asked my master for his cell phone and called the school to tell him that I would not be at home for the next few days as I had to go on a long trip for something and would be back in ten days or so.
After hanging up the phone, he turned his head to the Taoist who was lowering his head behind him and said, "Old Sun, follow me." Then the old donkey carried the bookshelf on his back, and the Yuelong Sword trembled and rang, then it unsheathed and flew in front of the scholar. With a flash of light, it merged into his body.
Lu Liangsheng turned around, put his sleeves behind his back, and his feet left the ground. His body turned into a stream of light and flew up into the sky above the wide alley. Sun Yingxian looked up, jumped onto the old donkey, and casually made a talisman and stuck it on the donkey's buttocks. In the bookshelf compartment, the Toad Taoist pulled the rope and tied it around his waist. At that moment, a bluish-white electric light illuminated the alley, shot out, leaped along the street to the tall building, and in the blink of an eye the light disappeared into the night.
It was already the middle of the night when we arrived at the city where Lu Jun was. There were few cars on the streets. Occasionally a car came by and sped past in a hurry. The whistling sound of the car faded away. On a sparsely populated street near a hospital with a red cross light on, the ground shook with a bang, and a stream of light fell from the sky. On the parking strip on one side, cars were shaking and flashing their lights and shrieking, causing the dark window frames nearby to light up, and some people opened their windows to look down.
"Which thief stole so many cars in the middle of the night? He must be an expert!"
Sweeping the invisible shadows at both ends of the street, Lu Liangsheng led the old donkey that had come over and let him stroll nearby. Together with the Taoist who was holding onto the wall and retching, they walked into the building in front. He had seen it on TV and knew that it was a place to save the dying and the wounded, just like the medical clinic back then.
"What's that strong smell in there?"
“I don’t know.”
The two men performed the wall-walking technique and came in through a wall one after the other. They found themselves in a ward. A patient who got up at night to go to the toilet opened his eyes and saw two figures coming in, one black and one white. He was so scared that his eyes widened. He quickly lay down again, slowly reached out to grab the pillow, and pulled it out from under his head bit by bit to cover his face.
'You can't see me... You're not here to find me... You can't see me... I'm blessed with a good life...'
He muttered silently for a while, and then he opened his eyes a little. When he saw that there was no one in the room, he breathed a sigh of relief.
'I don't know which ward will be leaving tonight.'
In the corridor outside, Lu Liangsheng followed the remaining magic power of the copper coins he gave to Lu Jun and went up the stairs. Several men and women were sitting on the bench in the corridor, leaning against each other with their clothes covered. A round-faced man walked back and forth looking at the ward numbers, pointing from time to time and scolding them.
"Why play those things when there are so many other things to play with!!"
"Is it easy for a crew like ours to find someone? My goodness, two of them quit halfway through the performance, one was injured, and the other was killed by you!"
"Today, the director told me that Lu Jun's cousin is very capable and a big shot, and he is surrounded by big stars. After much persuasion, he agreed to come and audition for a cameo role. I'm afraid you guys are going to ruin it!"
He was scolded so harshly that the men and women sitting in a row lowered their heads and dared not speak. Someone felt a shadow passing by with his peripheral vision. He looked up and saw the door of the ward behind the man who was waving and scolding moved. He immediately leaned back with his back against the wall. His face turned pale and he raised his hand tremblingly, pointing to the opposite side.
"Stage Manager... just... just now..."
"What do you mean by talent? I haven't finished my lecture yet!" The stage manager scolded them again, and then he calmed down and looked at the person who interrupted him before: "What did you want to say just now?"
"The door... there's a figure at the door... and it moved a little."
"A figure?"
The stage manager and a few other people looked over at the ward. The door was quietly closed and the curtain behind the small window was motionless. There was no human figure anywhere.
"Oh, you scared Lu Jun, and now you want to scare me, right?"
The stage manager turned around, rushed over, grabbed the man by the collar, dragged him over, and started scolding him. The nurse on duty pushed the medicine cart by and scolded them twice before she stopped.
In the noisy corridor, two figures appeared in the ward, with two rows of patients leaning against the wall. Someone was murmuring as if he was about to wake up, but Lu Liangsheng didn't even look at him. He raised his hand and flicked it back. The patient, who had just opened his eyes and raised his head, only stammered, "You..." The breeze blew on his face, and he fell asleep again with his head tilted.
"Old Lu, how did you perform this coma spell?"
"It's just practice." Lu Liangsheng walked to a bed in front of him and looked at Lu Jun who was sleeping soundly. There was a heart rate monitor next to him that was beating slowly.
The scholar couldn't understand the numbers and foreign letters on it. He touched the sleeping figure's brow with his fingertips and gently hooked it, pulling out a wisp of black smoke that hung in his palm and threw it to the ground. The Taoist was playing with his mobile phone, lazily took out a talisman and casually threw the black smoke, which turned into a vague human shadow.
"Why were you killed?" Lu Liangsheng turned around and looked at the figure in front of him that was like a thin smoke floating in the air. He flicked his sleeves, sat down on the edge of the bed, and when he pulled the other person out of Lu Jun's body, he clearly felt that this evil ghost did not have much malicious intent, and was just trying to warn and scare them.
"Fish...fish..."
Gusts of cold wind blew through the ward, and the ghost's voice hanging in the air echoed in the wind. It still raised its hand and pointed in the direction of the hotel, opening and closing its mouth slightly, as if telling Lu Liangsheng something.
"... Scales... Sea... People... Fish... Scales... My companions killed me..."
Mermaid... scales
The intermittent words gathered in the scholar's mind. These words were not too difficult for him, and gradually they formed a complete sentence in his mind: Because of the mermaid scales, my companions killed me.
He looked in the direction the ghost was pointing and looked at the Taoist for a moment. The latter wrapped the ghost in a talisman and put it into his sleeve. The shouting outside the door was still going on, arguing "There really is someone inside, believe me!" and "There's no one inside, I'll beat you to death!"
The moment the door was pushed open, several people in the corridor outside hid behind the stage manager and looked inside. The window frame was opened, and the curtains were fluttered by the night wind. Immediately, the others turned their faces away and turned their backs. The person who shouted that someone was there forced a smile and pointed at the open window: "Haha... he must have run away."
Then, the production manager turned around, slapped him in the face, and yelled, "It's the middle of the night, and you're still talking to me about ghosts—"
This also attracted the nurse from the nearby ward to stick her head out and yell, "If you yell again, I'll open a ward for you too!!"
Everyone, including the stage manager, quickly left the room, nodded to the nurse, sat back on the bench, put their hands on their knees, and behaved themselves.