Chapter 110: Spirit Creature — The Smiling Mask
While everyone was having the time of their lives, Qin Xing and the other two quietly slipped out of the villa.
As Su Keke had arranged earlier, the three of them each stood at one of three positions outside the villa, forming a triangle with the main hall as the center.
Su Keke took out cinnabar and a writing brush from her backpack and drew a talisman pattern at each of the four corners of the hall. The four patterns echoed one another, preliminarily forming a square trapping formation. Outside the villa, the three girls used the thin trace of spiritual energy in their protective talismans to form a triangular outer shell, stabilizing the formation.
After the trapping formation was set, Su Keke began searching for that thing.
Inside the hall, masked partygoers were still swaying wildly, shouting and howling. Su Keke lifted her eyes, and couldn’t help rubbing her forehead.
Why were these masks all so ugly—ferocious ghost faces, fanged mouths, snake-like faces… at first glance it really felt like she was in some demon’s lair watching a pack of monsters dance.
Su Keke took out her feng shui compass and stared at the needle.
The needle only trembled faintly, unable to point out the evil presence’s location.
Su Keke frowned slightly.
Was the evil thing so weak the compass couldn’t identify it? Or was it hiding by borrowing something to evade the compass’s search? Or had it grown strong enough to conceal its own evil aura and ghostly aura at will?
It probably wasn’t the last. If it were that powerful, Jiang Yueyue wouldn’t have been so easily tainted by its evil aura.
Su Keke closed her eyes, formed hand seals, and pressed two acupoints—one between her brows and one beside her eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, a streak of light flashed through them.
In that instant, all the evil aura, filthy aura, and yin chill in the room became visible to her.
She looked at the revelers in the hall, and her brows knit tightly.
What was going on?
Why did everyone have a faint wisp of evil aura on them?
She focused her gaze, and quickly spotted the clue.
That wisp of evil aura was coming from the masks on their faces.
Su Keke’s eyes darkened.
The masks?
She understood now!
That thing was hiding inside these masks!
Su Keke immediately lit a talisman for expelling evil and suppressing baleful influence, held the ashes in her hand, then walked into the crowd, sprinkling a little onto each person’s mask as she passed them.
By the time every mask had been dusted with the talisman ashes, the faint wisp of evil aura on each mask dispersed—yet Su Keke still hadn’t found that thing.
Could it be—
Su Keke’s expression changed abruptly.
Was it hiding in the masks of Daxing and the others?
But as soon as the thought came, she rejected it.
The three of them had been with her the whole time. No matter how deeply that thing hid itself, if it were this close to her, she would definitely sense it.
Shifu rarely praised her, but her sensitivity to these unclean things was frighteningly accurate—so accurate that Shifu had once said her perception in this area could rival those truly accomplished masters, though he immediately acted as if he’d never said it.
But now, every mask here had been confirmed as “fine.”
So where, exactly, was it hiding?
“Ugh!” A masked boy clutched his stomach. “No, no, I can’t—drank too much. I’ve got to throw up.”
“Hey, hey, the bathroom’s that way—why are you going outside?”
“Can’t hold it. I’m just going to throw up outside.”
Su Keke glanced at him. He was wearing a black-and-white smiling mask, very clean—he should have been one of the masks she’d dusted with talisman ashes to remove the evil aura.
Su Keke looked away and continued thinking.
The reason these masks had picked up evil aura must be because they had come into contact with that thing. Most likely, from the very beginning, the evil presence had attached itself to one particular mask.
There was evil aura but no baleful influence—so it probably hadn’t harmed anyone yet. Once it stained itself with a human life, it would definitely carry baleful influence…
Wait!
Su Keke’s eyes widened. There was another possibility.
…A spirit creature!
She suddenly remembered: the smiling mask on that boy who just went out—she hadn’t sprinkled any talisman ashes on it at all!
Meaning, that mask hadn’t carried any evil aura from the start.
All the others had evil aura. This single one without evil aura was the truly strange one!
A spirit creature formed from an inanimate object carried much fainter evil aura than living things, and it was extremely good at concealing it—completely capable of evading a compass.
Su Keke rushed outside at once.
She didn’t understand. Even if someone was “helping” the spirit creature leave, the trapping formation had already been set. Even if the formation was aimed at evil entities without physical bodies, it should still have some effect on spirit creatures.
Yet the spirit creature showed not the slightest abnormality. Could her trapping formation have some flaw…?
Zhao Kexin was standing at the southeast corner of the villa.
Listening to the lively cheers from inside, she couldn’t help muttering, “I thought I’d get to eat, drink, and mess around with everyone, but instead I’m stuck out here standing in the cold wind…”
Sigh. What “dirty things”? She’d never seen anything like that in her whole life. Those things didn’t exist at all. It was fine if Su Keke wanted to act all mysterious by herself, but she even dragged the rest of them into it.
As Zhao Kexin muttered, she suddenly saw a masked man walking toward her.
The corners of the mask’s mouth were lifted—a somewhat eerie black-and-white smile.
Zhao Kexin paused.
The man was tall, clearly the build of an adult. And this outfit… why did it feel so familiar?
“You…”
A low chuckle came from under the mask. “What, you don’t recognize me? Didn’t you call me here?”
That voice!
“Oh my god—your voice is exactly like Peipei’s!” Zhao Kexin exclaimed.
And those clothes—she remembered now. This was a trendy new outfit her idol had worn in a magazine spread, her favorite look.
The masked man lifted half the mask, revealing a handsome, sunny face. He was a currently popular male celebrity—Pei Jue—whom fans affectionately called Peipei.
Ever since Zhao Kexin watched a drama Pei Jue starred in, she had fallen deeply for him. But she didn’t dare chase her idol openly like others did—if her mom saw, she’d definitely scold her for not studying. Heaven knew how jealous she felt watching people buy posters and magazines featuring him.
“Peipei… am I dreaming? How am I seeing you?” For the first time, Zhao Kexin was this close to her idol. She was so excited that tears spilled out.
Pei Jue put the mask back on and smiled. “This is your dream. You’re the one who summoned me.”
With a wave of his hand, everything around them changed in an instant.
They were in a luxurious villa, and beside them was a king-size bed.
“Don’t you want to kiss me… to hold me?”
Zhao Kexin’s face turned bright red. “N-no, no! I don’t have that kind of thought.”
The man’s laughter came again from beneath the mask. “What does it matter? Even if you do, it’s fine. This is only a dream. In a dream, you can do anything you want to me.”
As he spoke, he stepped forward and pulled her into his arms.
The two of them fell onto the bed together.
Zhao Kexin went blank for a moment, then—like she was bewitched—wrapped her arms around him as well.
This was Pei Jue, the idol she had longed for day and night!
She had never imagined she could hold him like this, even in a dream. Heaven…
“Hold me tighter…” the man murmured into her ear.
Zhao Kexin felt both flustered and expectant, her heart pounding wildly.
At the moment the two became one, tears spilled from her eyes.
Was it really a dream? Why did it feel so real?
Maybe because the person in front of her was Pei Jue—maybe because she wanted to rebel just once. After that brief flash of regret, she suddenly held him tighter, surrendered completely, and sank with the tide of sensation.
Pei Jue used his finger to take a drop of blood and smeared it onto the upturned corner of the mask’s mouth.
The smiling mask’s mouth seemed to curl upward even more in that instant—eerily so.
