Chapter 20: Ghost Blinding

Li Si looked at the Beheaded Ghost and with a thought, its information appeared again in his mind.

Beheaded Ghost

Ghost Level: Low-level ghost creature

Abilities: Ghost Candle Blowing; Etherealization; Long Tongue (Enhanced);

Current Relationship: Contracted.

Current Soul Strength: 30

There wasn’t much difference from before, except for the “Enhanced” that appeared after Long Tongue, and the soul strength had increased from 20 to 30.

He focused his attention on the words “Long Tongue”, and immediately a stream of information appeared in Li Si’s mind.

Long Tongue (Enhanced): A long tongue imbued with resentful energy, capable of coiling around and killing humans, ghost creatures, and monster creatures. Increased damage to ghost creatures.

Li Si was pleased that the Beheaded Ghost’s Long Tongue skill had increased damage against ghost creatures. This was exactly what he urgently needed now, as he would be facing the ghost creature that was Madam Zhang Guo.

At this moment, the Beheaded Ghost was staring at Li Si with an eerie gaze, its tongue slowly extending towards his eyes.

“What’s this?” Li Si frowned slightly, his body instinctively moving back a bit. But feeling the contract connection with the Beheaded Ghost, he didn’t retreat further.

Li Si had a contract with the Beheaded Ghost and believed it certainly wouldn’t harm him, so this action must have a reason.

Clearly feeling the wet tongue on his face, Li Si instinctively closed his eyes, afraid that saliva might flow into them.

As the tongue moved around his eyes, after a moment there was a “plop” sound of something falling to the ground. Li Si felt his head lighten, as if some burden had been removed.

Having completed this task, the Beheaded Ghost quickly withdrew its tongue from his face.

Li Si wiped his face, cleaning off the foul-smelling saliva, and opened his eyes. He immediately felt much clearer, even his nearsightedness had improved, allowing him to see the room very clearly.

Li Si didn’t want to think too much at this moment. He looked towards the ground and saw two somewhat rotten hands lying quietly on the mud floor.

“What’s this?” His body trembled slightly, his teeth chattering, as he touched around his eyes in disbelief. Had he been covering his eyes with two hands for the entire day he’d been here?

Taking a deep breath, he pushed away the chaotic emotions and began to calmly consider these things.

What were these two hands? What were they for?

He crouched down, looking at these two hands. They were already somewhat decayed, a deathly green color, with skin and flesh peeling off in some places, revealing dark red flesh underneath. In the palm of each hand, there was a hole, just big enough for a person’s eyes to look through to the other side.

This is…? Li Si had some guesses. Suppressing his discomfort, he reached out to touch the decaying hand.

When he touched the cold, soft skin of the rotting hand, Li Si focused his thoughts, and a message appeared in his mind.

Ghost Hand (Companion Object):

A companion object of the Ghost Blinding spell. When a ghost creature uses Ghost Blinding on a passerby, the Ghost Hand covers the person’s eyes, allowing them to see through the holes in the Ghost Hand what the ghost creature wants them to see.

Hidden Effect: After this spell is broken, the person’s eyesight will greatly improve.

Li Si’s guess was confirmed, and he felt a chill all over his body. Everything he had seen since entering the Zhang mansion was what the ghost creatures wanted him to see. In other words, he had never truly seen the real face of the Zhang mansion.

This also explained why, although the servants of the Zhang mansion had all become Human Corpses, the Eight Trigrams mirror couldn’t show their death appearances. He had previously thought it was because the Human Corpses were half-dead and not quite ghost creatures, so the Eight Trigrams mirror couldn’t reveal their death appearances.

Taking out the Eight Trigrams mirror, Li Si walked to the window and, from a concealed angle, shone it towards the servants guarding the entrance of the Small Bamboo Courtyard.

Fortunately, after removing the Ghost Hands, Li Si’s eyesight had improved greatly. Through the mirror, he could immediately see the subtle differences between the servants outside and normal people.

For example, the servant standing to the left of the Small Bamboo Courtyard occasionally scratched his neck, which had tiny holes in it.

From time to time, two or three white maggots would wriggle in the holes. His scratching motion had just broken a maggot that was crawling out, leaving half of its body still struggling in the hole in his neck. White, transparent fluid sprayed around the hole, and then it stopped moving.

Seeing this scene, Li Si could barely contain himself. Stomach acid rose to his throat, and his face turned pale.

The other guard wasn’t as extreme. He didn’t look much different from a normal person, except for some decay on his body. In some areas, the surface skin had peeled off, revealing red flesh.

This was much easier for Li Si to accept, at least better than the disgusting worms of the other guard. He was now certain that since arriving at the Zhang mansion, he had never truly seen it clearly.

He suddenly thought of something and used the Eight Trigrams mirror to look at the leftover food from the afternoon meal.

Seeing that the food was normal, Li Si breathed a sigh of relief. He had really feared that he might have eaten something unclean in this mansion. After all, in legends, ghosts and monsters were said to make dishes from maggots and tree leaves.

However, it now appeared that the Human Corpses in the Zhang mansion didn’t know they were dead and continued to live as they always had.

So the food they ate was the same as what humans ate.

Li Si closed the door and windows, glanced at the books on the desk, but couldn’t bring himself to read. He walked to the desk and extinguished the lamp.

As for how to deal with “Madam Zhang Guo”, he didn’t have any good ideas and could only wait until tomorrow to probe her.

Letting the Beheaded Ghost continue to stand in the corner acting as an “air conditioner”, Li Si crawled into the comfortable bed.

Feeling the softness of the bedding, he made up his mind that if he managed to get out of the Zhang mansion alive, he would definitely get this kind of bedding. This silk bedding was truly too comfortable.

Lying in this comfortable bedding, Li Si soon felt his head becoming heavy, and he fell asleep.

Not long after Li Si fell asleep, an eye appeared again at the hole in the window paper.

However, this eye was not the bloodshot eye of the Drowned Ghost, but a clear one with a hint of coquettishness.

Suddenly, this eye stopped moving and slowly looked up towards the ceiling beam.

When this eye saw the ceiling beam, a look of fear flashed in those clear, bright eyes.

After the fearful look appeared, the eye’s expression immediately became dull, then slowly shriveled.

“Ah!!!” A miserable scream inaudible to normal people echoed in the night sky, and the eye disappeared from the window.

Drip…

A crystal-clear liquid dripped from the ceiling beam, falling onto the floor.

The Beheaded Ghost in the corner also looked up at the ceiling beam. Its usually expressionless little face was now filled with fear. Its body began to tremble.