CH 20.1

“Your head is full of love.” Lu Yingjiu pushed Jing Xian’s head back again, “Look carefully, what is it holding?” 

Jing Xian glanced quickly again and said, “A mace. “

Oh, Lu Yingjiu thought, this sheep ghost is quite advanced and can use props. If they know how to drill wood to make fire, maybe they can roast themselves.

Slaughterhouse, corridors, monsters, and mace being dragged on the ground were very in line with the villains of horror movies. He didn’t know what kind of resentment this sheep had before it died.

The sheep ghost grabbed the cattle’s head with one hand, and smashed the ground with the mace with the other. It waved casually, and the mace hit the disinfection cabinet, directly deforming the thick cabinet! The metal dented ferociously, flew out and hit the wall, and landed heavily again. Several pieces of metal flew out and hit the cabinet where Lu Yingjiu and Jing Xian hid, immediately there were several dents on the cabinet.

Even with the talisman paper, Lu Yingjiu subconsciously held his breath.

The sheep ghost smashed several disinfection cabinets again, stepped on and collapsed the table. After a series of impotent rages, it finally seemed to think that the intruder had left the room.

“Baaa”

It turned around abruptly, and quickly walked back to the corridor, the dragging sound gradually faded away.

Lu Yingjiu walked to the place where the sheep ghost was standing just now.

Unexpectedly, the human skin cattle head was still placed in the disinfection cabinet. Since the sheep ghost didn’t want others to touch it, why didn’t it take it away?

Jing Xian seemed to see his doubts, and added, “That ghost only has one hand…or one hoof, and can’t take away the cattle’s head while holding a mace.”

“How do the hoof hold the mace?”

Jing Xian was silent for a while, “Clamped in between.”

Lu Yingjiu imagined the scene, as if he didn’t look very smart. He thought for a few more seconds, “Let’s take the cattle’s head away, it might be useful.” He smiled at Jing Xian, “You take it.”

Therefore Jing Xian held the horn of the cattle’s head in one hand, and followed Lu Yingjiu back to the corridor.

Lu Yingjiu said, “That ghost has a bit of a human breath on it. It should have been in contact with someone not long ago. After we figure things out, we’ll let Xiao Li and Chen Yanyan come in.” He turned on his phone, ready to send out a message to Xiao Li, but it turned out that there was no signal.

Lu Yingjiu: “……This plot is too classic.” Then he pinched a spell.

He was inviting a spirit.

The figure of the little black beast gradually appeared at his feet, and the black mass blended into the background, only its two gleaming white teeth could be seen when it opened its mouth and smiled.

“Aw!” it cried out, and began to rub Lu Yingjiu’s ankle.

Lu Yingjiu rubbed its furry head, “Go, tell Xiao Li that they can’t come in yet.”

With short legs, the little black beast rolled away like a ball and disappeared at the end of the corridor.

Jing Xian asked, “Shall we follow it?”

“No,” Lu Yingjiu shook his head and said, “This human skin cattle head reminds me of the cloud weaving technique I told you just now. The Chen family originally borrowed the slaughterhouse in the name of making masks—no matter how you say it, these things are kind of evil, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was any resentment during the production. I want to go directly to the place where they make the masks.”

He turned on the flashlight of his phone again, and this time, he tried to for several times, however the light didn’t turn on.

Lu Yingjiu: “…..very classic.”

He was about to pinch a piece of talisman paper, but was suddenly held down by Jing Xian, “Won’t the fluctuation of the talisman paper easily attract the attention of ghosts?!”

“That’s what is said,” Lu Yingjiu said, “you have to believe in my level, it won’t be exposed so easily.”

“But there is still this risk, isn’t it?” Jing Xian couldn’t help but say, pressing down his talisman paper with one hand, and wrapping his arms around his shoulders with the other, “You have such a good tool man like me, it’s really wasteful not to use it.”

(t/n Tool man, a buzzword on the Internet, generally refers to someone who helps others without knowing or willingly, works hard, pays when called, and does not ask for rewards emotionally, materially and economically, always like a tool to be used or ordered.)

“You learned idioms from Xiao Li, but this word can’t describe people…..” Lu Yingjiu raised his forehead.

Jing Xian just smiled, “Just understand what I mean.”

What Jing Xian said was also reasonable, this was indeed the best solution.

For some reason, Jing Xian became smarter on the issue of talisman papers – Lu Yingjiu thought about it for a while, and believed it was because Jing Xian didn’t pay attention at all before.

Jing Xian held him all the way, precisely bypassing the miscellaneous things on the ground. They continued to move forward, and this time the ghost hitting the wall disappeared. They left the tool disinfection room, and walked through between the empty wholesale hall and the operation room. Then suddenly, they heard a dull sound.

Thump! 

After a few seconds, there were a few more sounds.

Thump–! Thump!

The sound probably came from the left, Jing Xian looked at the sign in the dark, and said, “The cold storage area and the head and hoof processing room are on the left, will we go and have a look?”

“En.” Lu Yingjiu nodded.

The two walked along the corridor, and the sound of the thud was getting closer and closer, until they reached the cold storage at the end of the corridor. When they got closer, they heard clearly that it was a knock on the door coming from the depths of the cold storage!

The temperature of the cold storage for storing meat in the slaughterhouse was between -18 degrees and -25 degrees. It was summer at present. If someone was accidentally locked in, with thin clothes, they would not survive for a long time. Generally speaking, for the sake of safety, the current cold storage door would be equipped with a switch inside the door to ensure that people who were locked in by mistake could leave.

But this slaughterhouse was built many years ago, and it was very likely that there were no such security measures. What’s more, there was a strong yin energy on this door, which firmly blocked the inside.

The knocking on the door continued.

Is it a human? Or a ghost?

For a moment, Lu Yingjiu thought about many possibilities, but instinctively pulled out a talisman paper and flicked it lightly.

The talisman ignited a fire, illuminating the heavy door of the cold storage in front.

This was a wooden framed freezer door that was used in the early years, and it was opened manually. Lu Yingjiu slapped talisman papers on himself and Jing Xian—the little black beast was taken out and was sent away by him, thus he could not do the “inviting the spirit spell”. Only by this could he strengthen their force.

He threw out two pieces of talisman papers, the talisman papers flew through the air and wrapped around the doorknob precisely, then he tightly held the handle on one side, “You pull the other side!”

Jing Xian heard the words and pulled the other handle.

After the talisman paper was wrapped around it, the yin energy on the door dissipated immediately. It was just an ordinary door that was stuck, and gradually began to vibrate under their strength.

Lu Yingjiu was sweating on his forehead, because of too much force, the knuckles on his hands were obvious, and the veins were about to burst. The situation was urgent, he didn’t notice that there was a notch on the iron doorknob, the sharp broken point scratched his palm, and a smear of blood slowly dripped down his white wrist in the firelight.

The red and white were distinct.

Jing Xian: “……”

Lu Yingjiu was still working hard, when he suddenly heard a clear snapping sound, followed by an extremely terrifying noise of metal being bent.

When he turned his head, he saw that Jing Xian exerted force, the muscles in his hands were tense, and he tore off the entire metal door!!

Lu Yingjiu:???

He felt that his expression at this moment must be that he was very stupefied.

Jing Xian leaned the metal door against the wall, only to see three or four people falling out of the cold storage.

They had probably leaned against the door of the cold storage, but now that the door was gone, they fell out and collapsed on the ground, with their fingertips turning blue and white. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to lose consciousness, and their arms were still moving stiffly.

Lu Yingjiu and Jing Xian helped the person on top, the skin they touched was not too cold, it seemed that their conditions were not that severe.

After turning the person over, Lu Yingjiu’s breathing stagnated for a moment——

This man has no face!

The skin on his face was complete, but his eyes, mouth, nose and ears were missing, and he was also bald. Several other people were exactly the same, without facial features. No wonder they didn’t hear a call for help just now, it turned out that they didn’t have mouths at all.

How did this happen? 

Lu Yingjiu was stunned for two seconds, and there was suddenly a flash of inspiration, “Give me that cattle’s head!”

He took the human skin cattle head from Jing Xian’s hand, and pulled out a blank talisman paper. 

Since he was already injured on his hand, it was just in time to directly stained it with his blood.

With blood on his fingertips, he drew a weird rune, and flicked it lightly, then the rune paper burned.

This time the light of the fire was very dim, thus he brought the talisman paper close to the cattle’s head and searched for it bit by bit.

“Cloud weaving technique” was a secret that cannot be passed on, and outsiders like him would never be able to get in touch with its core. He just read relevant records from many ancient books and unofficial histories, and he worked with the Chen family’s ghost exorcist, therefore he knew the general idea about it.

He was truly gifted.

If he spent a few more years with the members of the Chen family, he might be able to learn the secret technique directly.

The fire illuminated the human skin under his hands.

Generally speaking, the edge marks of the human skin mask couldn’t be seen clearly.

But with this special talisman paper, he could barely see some flaws.

Lu Yingjiu held his breath and focused, using the light of the fire, to find the boundary of the human skin bit by bit.

The scene was a bit scary. There were a few wriggling refrigerated faceless men lying on the ground, he was holding a human skin cattle’s head in his hands, and Jing Xian, who standing beside him, who persisted on holding the burning the talisman paper for him, seemed to have red light flashing in his eyes, which was gloomy and terrifying, and the whole body showed the oppression of a coming rain.

Jing Xian just stared at the wound on Lu Yingjiu’s hand with an expressionless face–the blood was still oozing slowly. 

Lu Yingjiu slowly moved the talisman paper, and suddenly the back of his hand felt warm.

It was Jing Xian who held his injured hand.

He wiped the wound lightly with his fingertips, the pain disappeared after a burst of coolness, and the bleeding stopped immediately.

Because the situation was urgent, Lu Yingjiu didn’t have the time to say anything, but just nodded his head to express his gratitude, and continued to observe the cattle’s head.

Under the light of the fire, he keenly found that there was an imperceptible seam on the edge of the cattle’s head.

It was like the fine seam at the junction of a wallpaper.

He touched it cautiously with his fingers, but there was almost no tactile sensation. He drew out the dagger from the back of his waist, aiming the tip at the gap.

Only in the face of small objects, would one find out how much their hands were shaking, the more anxious they were, the more it would tremble, just like having Parkinson’s disease. But Lu Yingjiu’s hand was extremely steady, as if neither breathing nor the heartbeat could shake the blade. He lifted the knife with his hand and dropped it, and cut a very precise cut along the gap.

He cut like this all the way, knowing that the gap was big enough, put away the short knife, and directly lifted the human skin from the gap with his hands. A few drops of blood emerged from the crack, and he peeled it off gently, and the whole human skin was torn off from the cattle’s head, it dangled in his hands, wrinkled, like the skin of a newborn baby.

The human skin was still warm, thus it should belong to one of these faceless people.

The cattle’s head was much larger than the human head, but when it was taken off, the skin seemed to automatically shrink back to its normal size.

Just as Lu Yingjiu set his sights on the faceless men, wanting to see whose face it was, he saw that Jing Xian had already fumbled around in everyone’s pockets and took out a wallet or two.

He opened a wallet and found the ID card, then he looked at the human skin, pointed to a person and said, “This looks like him——Yang Tianle.”

Lu Yingjiu took a look and could indeed tell that it was the same face.

Jing Xian helped up the man named Yang Tianle and leaned him against the wall. The man was obviously panicked, he didn’t know who was next to him, and he grabbed the air with his frozen hands, but it was too weak to constitute a strong resistance at all.