Chapter 45: The Ghost Hand Appears Again

This hiding spot is right in the corner of the wall—there's nowhere even to run!

Fatty Dong’s expression changed drastically. He formed a bizarre hand seal and rapidly chanted a spell under his breath.

"Heavenly Thunder Edict, wielding the Dipper..."

He jabbed his finger fiercely right between the other man's eyebrows.

I channeled all my inner strength into my hand, executing a rapid five-hundred-coin pressure-point strike directly into the center of his chest.

Old Ou didn't budge an inch.

Yet both of us instantly curled up on the ground.

In our panic, both of us had completely forgotten that we were still poisoned and entirely unable to exert any force. This sudden burst of action caused the tendons in our hands and feet to violently contract, making it impossible to stand.

Old Ou’s face was smeared with horrifying blood, and wearing a spine-chilling, eerie smile, he suddenly reached out and hoisted Fatty Dong up by the collar.

"Slap!"

A heavy blow landed straight across Fatty Dong's face.

Fatty Dong couldn't even emit a miserable cry; blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes bulged outward.

"This Daoist priest is from Yujing..."

"Slap!"

Another blow smashed into his face.

Fatty Dong rolled across the floor twice, propping himself up with his hands, trying desperately to crawl up, but he couldn't manage it at all and collapsed heavily back down.

I cried out in deep anxiety, "Old Ou..."

Before the words could even leave my mouth.

A look of intense killing intent welled up in Old Ou’s eyes. He suddenly clamped his hand around my throat, hoisted me into the air, and slammed me against the wall.

This was by no means human strength!

My chest felt so constricted it was about to explode, my vision kept turning black, and my head pounded as if it were splitting open—I was on the verge of being choked to death.

In this moment of extreme emergency.

My hand suddenly brushed against a lighter. Perhaps driven by a final shred of survival instinct, it momentarily counteracted a tiny fraction of the drug's effects, and I hurled the lighter toward the entrance of the back kitchen.

"Clatter!"

The lighter collided with the floor and suddenly burst into an explosion!

Old Ou was acting completely unlike a human being. Given our current situation, reduced to two useless cripples unable to move our hands and feet, we were practically just waiting to die.

Before entering the back kitchen, I had seen two people out in the main lobby: a middle-aged man dozing off while watching television at the front desk, and an elderly night watchman lying on a wooden sofa in the hall with a magazine covering his face, snoring away.

I could only pray that the sudden explosion of the lighter would lure them in!

Following the loud noise.

"Who's there?!"

A loud shout echoed from outside, followed by the sound of panicked footsteps.

Help was here!

The lights in the back kitchen suddenly clicked on.

Old Ou’s hand, which had been clamped around my throat, abruptly recoiled.

Faced with the sudden glare of the lights, Old Ou seemed utterly terrified. He threw his hands up over his eyes, completely abandoning us, and turned to sprint toward the kitchen window.

"Crack!"

Just as the people from outside burst in, Old Ou made a fierce leap, his body crashing straight through the glass window as he fled into the night.

The old man and the young man stopped in their tracks at the sight, staring in utter bewilderment.

"There's a thief, *cough, cough*..."

I gasped heavily, coughing violently as I spoke to them.

The two of them snapped out of their daze, cursed fiercely, and brandishing a kitchen cleaver and a wooden stick respectively, they rushed headlong out the window.

Fatty Dong gritted his teeth, struggling laboriously to his feet. Leaning his back against the corner of the wall, he gasped for air and spat out a mouthful of blood.

"Damn it! Little Meng, ever since this Daoist priest started following you, I haven't earned a single penny, but I've taken countless beatings."

Seeing me sitting blankly in place without a word, Fatty Dong’s expression shifted dramatically. He dragged himself over and reached out to check my breathing.

"You brat, you weren't actually choked to death by him, were you?!"

I swallowed hard.

"Fatty, something's wrong."

Fatty Dong replied, "No shit! A demonic possession—how could things possibly be normal... Can you move yet? Let's get back upstairs immediately!"

I shot back at him.

"Do you remember that ghostly hand that dragged you down into the tomb at Yaowang Ridge?"

Fatty Dong froze for a moment.

"Of course I remember! But wasn't that the Ghost-Faced Grandfather? I slaughtered every last one of them!"

I shook my head.

"It wasn't the Ghost-Faced Grandfather! Just now, I saw a strange hand reach out from Old Ou's sleeve—it was identical to the thing inside the ghost lord's tomb!"

Incredulity washed over Fatty Dong's face.

"Did Old Ou choke you into having hallucinations?"

I could say with absolute certainty that this was no hallucination.

When Old Ou had choked me, he had used merely three fingers to lift me over a meter off the ground and pin me firmly against the wall.

From our interactions over the past few days, I had figured out that Old Ou didn't know any martial arts at all; he was simply a top-tier grave robber. Given his age and physical build, how could he possibly hoist a full-grown adult that high using just three fingers?

Either he was possessed by a ghost, just as Fatty Dong had claimed.

Or some other reason was at play.

I had caught a glimpse of something fuzzy and gray clinging to his arm, resembling some sort of soft-bodied creature, and my nostrils had even caught a whiff of a bizarre, rotting corpse stench. I could completely confirm that it was the very same ghostly hand we had encountered inside the tomb.

When the kitchen lights had suddenly blazed on, that creature had seemed intensely frightened and immediately retracted. The strength around my neck had slackened accordingly, and my entire body had slid to the floor.

Back at Yaowang Ridge, aside from the time it dragged Fatty Dong down into the tomb, that ghostly hand had never appeared again.

Old Ou had been tailing us into the tomb all along—could it be that he had brought this thing out with him?

Lost in thought, the two security guards grumbled as they returned, claiming they hadn't found a single trace of anyone and demanding to know what on earth had just happened.

I put on an infuriated expression.

"What on earth happened?! There isn't even a single thermos in your rooms. The two of us were thirsty and came down for some water, only to catch some fellow in the middle of stealing meat. When we simply asked who was there, he attacked us instead!"

Catching sight of the scattered cuts of meat all over the stove, the two security guards wore expressions of deep guilt and showered us with frantic apologies.

Fatty Dong chimed in, "Do you think a simple apology cuts it? Dammit! You can't even secure the place against a common thief, and you let your guests get beaten up. Not only am I going to report this to your boss, but I'm calling the police too!"

Upon hearing this, the two guards were terrified out of their wits. They frantically offered cigarettes and dug out all the cash from their pockets, begging us repeatedly not to tell their boss, lest they get fired.

Fatty Dong pocketed the money and magnanimously decided to forgive them.

The cramping sensation in our limbs had finally dissipated by then, so we hurried back upstairs. Once inside our room, not daring to turn off the lights, we dragged all the tables and chairs against the door, clutched daggers in our hands, and dozed fitfully until dawn.

Early the next morning.

As everyone gathered for breakfast before setting off, I noticed Old Ou acting completely nonchalant, as if nothing at all had happened the previous night.

However, whenever he caught sight of Fatty Dong during the day, he still appeared somewhat fearful. He avoided sitting at the table to eat, instead squatting not far away to slurp down his wontons.

I observed one particular detail.

Old Ou's back was slightly arched—not the natural hunch of a humpback, but rather as if something were clinging flatly to his spine.

Furthermore, both the collar and cuffs of his clothes were buttoned up tightly, as though he were deliberately concealing something.

The mere thought of him devouring raw meat the night before, coupled with the possibility of a corpse-rotting ghostly hand clinging to his back, churned my stomach. I grabbed a nearby trash can and dry-heaved a few times.

Xiao Yao’s delicate brows furrowed.

"Brother, what's wrong with you?"

Seeing this, Xu Qingguo bit her lower lip against the straw of her soy milk cup, arched an eyebrow, and teased,

"Pregnant? Whose is it? Master Dong's?"

Fatty Dong wore an expression of speechlessness.

"Sister-in-law, are you perhaps deeply dissatisfied with us sharing a room?"

"Why don't you hurry up and get your damned godfather to give his blessing, so tonight the two of you can sleep together and play poker crackling all night long?"

Xu Qingguo's face flushed crimson instantly.

"Dong Chuan! You've crossed the line with that joke!"

Sitting nearby, Jiang Sheng'er wore a displeased expression. He glanced at us in silence, kept his mouth shut, and took a sip of his morning tea.

Ignoring them entirely, I pretended to have lost my appetite and announced I was going to buy a different snack. I walked straight into the breakfast shop, asked the boss for a small bottle of high-proof alcohol typically used for stewing small dry pots, tucked it inside my jacket as I walked out, and purposely saandered over to smoke right beside Old Ou.

Eyeing Old Ou, who was engrossed in his wontons, I cursed *fuck your mother* in my heart, raised the bottle, and poured the alcohol straight down over his head.

I flicked my lighter.

"Whoosh!"

His entire set of clothes burst into flames!