Chapter 18: Escaping the Zhang Residence

After Li Si withdrew from Madam Zhang’s memories, he returned to Little Bamboo Courtyard and rummaged through the wardrobe. Unexpectedly, he really did find a suitable set of clothes.

These clothes had been there for some time. They were probably spare clothes left behind after someone who had come here to eliminate ghosts died here.

Fortunately, there were clothes to change into here. Otherwise, with his weak body, he would easily catch a chill.

In this world, catching a chill, combined with this world’s medical standards, could very likely cost him his life.

After changing clothes, Li Si did not plan to stay long in the Zhang Residence. Previously, he had thought there was only one ghost that had died recently, but it turned out there was actually an even fiercer one.

Moreover, Squire Zhang was also someone whose appearance differed from his heart. Earlier, he had said his wife had been unable to think things through, but it turned out he had killed his wife himself.

No wonder his former wife had turned into a fierce ghost and made the Zhang Residence restless. He deserved it. Why had that ghost not killed him?

“Go up there.” Li Si ordered the Decapitated Ghost, pointing at the roof. The Decapitated Ghost looked at him and shook its head.

Li Si was immediately speechless. This Decapitated Ghost could pass through walls, yet could not climb onto a roof. Then he stepped back a few paces, looked at the wall several metres high, and immediately knew that he definitely could not climb over it.

“Then I will go through the front gate.” Thinking this, Li Si directly walked out of Little Bamboo Courtyard and headed toward the main gate.

As he walked along the road, although Li Si had the Protective Talisman and the Decapitated Ghost protecting him, his heart still felt somewhat uneasy. After all, the Decapitated Ghost was only a low-level ghost creature.

The Protective Talisman could only protect him from the harm of low-level ghost creatures and mid-level ghost creatures. It could not block the attacks of high-level ghost creatures.

Furthermore, this Protective Talisman’s reaction was somewhat slow, and that Decapitated Ghost was not very clever.

If not for that, he would not have fallen into the well earlier. Fortunately, that ghost creature had only pushed him and had not stabbed him with a knife.

He was not strong in this world. He thought it was still better to catch ghosts in places where people had just died and develop cautiously, rather than directly clash with ghost creatures.

After all, he only had one life. This was not a game. If he died, he would truly die. Moreover, his soul might even be eaten by a ghost creature, never to be reborn.

Whoosh. A gust of wind came, and at the same time, a burst of clatter, clatter sounds entered Li Si’s ears. His tense nerves were stirred, and he turned to look toward the sound, only to see that it was the sound of the wind blowing a window.

Because the window of this room had not been properly closed, it was being blown left and right by the wind, hitting the doorframe.

Li Si breathed out, but then felt something was not quite right. He seemed to have seen something just now. He walked close to the window and looked inside, only to see more than ten people lying on a large shared bed inside. Li Si had seen these people before. They were precisely the servants of the Zhang Residence.

“So they went to sleep so early. No wonder there is no one in the Zhang Residence.” Li Si thought this in his heart, but then immediately felt something was not quite right. He looked inside carefully and saw that there were both men and women on the large shared bed. Moreover, these people were all wearing clothes and were not covered with quilts. This was clearly abnormal.

At the same time, he also did not believe that the Zhang Residence could not provide separate courtyards for men and women to live in.

At this moment, Li Si instead was no longer anxious. If these people were strange things, then he would first collect a batch of soul points.

Opening the door, he walked inside and looked at these people, feeling it was very strange. These people clearly looked like living people.

He picked up the Eight Trigrams Mirror and shone it at these people. Looking into the mirror, he found that these people’s appearances did not change. This clearly told him that these people were normal people.

Li Si walked up to one person and used his hand to test this person’s breathing. He also discovered that this person could breathe normally. Then he tested the breathing of the person beside them and found that they could breathe as well. This clearly showed that these people were living people.

But very quickly, Li Si’s face turned slightly pale, and tiny beads of sweat emerged from his forehead. He stretched out both hands and tested these two people’s breathing at the same time. Only then did he discover the strange part.

The heaviness and frequency of these two people’s breathing were completely identical.

Li Si touched one of them, and with a movement of his will, a piece of information appeared in his mind just as he expected.

“You have come into contact with a low-level half-ghost creature, Human Stiff. This ghost creature is bound to other ghost creatures, and its level is too low, so a contract cannot be signed.”

This really was a ghost creature? Li Si could not help doubting it in his heart. If these people were ghost creatures, why could the Eight Trigrams Mirror not show their death appearances?

Li Si suddenly remembered a story from his previous life. It was about a person who had died, but did not know it himself. Only when someone said to him, You are already dead, did he suddenly awaken and remember that he had already died. Afterward, his body rotted like a dried corpse that had been dead for a long time.

These Human Stiffs might be in that kind of situation. No wonder contracts could not be signed with them, because these people were half-dead and half-alive, and could still be considered half-human.

Then it was not strange that the Eight Trigrams Mirror could not reveal their death appearances, because these people could not yet be considered truly dead.

Li Si breathed out and walked out of the room. He had to leave the Zhang Residence quickly, because he felt that the Zhang Residence was becoming increasingly strange.

He felt as if the entire residence were wrapped in a spiderweb, tightening more and more until it left him unable to breathe.

He did not plan to kill these people, because in a certain sense, these people could truly be considered alive. Asking him to kill a living person was something he could not bring himself to do. Perhaps he would kill people in the future, but definitely not now.

Li Si quickly headed toward the Zhang Residence’s main gate. The entire way was silent, and not a single person could be seen. At this moment, the night made the Zhang Residence appear somewhat strange and gloomy.

He very quickly reached the Zhang Residence’s main gate. Earlier, he had discovered that the gate here was blocked with a wooden bar. It was not like modern society, where there was also a lock inside.

Li Si quickly walked to the gate and somewhat laboriously lifted the wooden bar down.

As for why he had to lift it himself, it was because he was afraid the Decapitated Ghost would not know how much force to use and would wake the strange things inside the residence. At the same time, he was also afraid that when the Decapitated Ghost was holding the wooden bar, some strange thing would suddenly attack him, and the Decapitated Ghost might not react in time.

“Worthy Nephew Li, where are you going?” Suddenly, a voice came from behind him, startling Li Si so badly that the wooden bar he was holding nearly fell.

Li Si’s body stiffened somewhat as he placed the wooden bar on the ground. Turning around, he saw Squire Zhang standing below the steps with two strong servants, smiling at him.

His heart lifted somewhat. His right hand discreetly took out the Eight Trigrams Mirror and shone it at Squire Zhang, while his eyes also glanced at the Eight Trigrams Mirror from the corner of his vision. He immediately breathed a sigh of relief. This Squire Zhang was not a ghost. At most, he might be a Human Stiff.

However, he also knew in his heart that this Squire Zhang might be even more terrifying than a ghost. After all, some ghosts were at most muddled and confused like Human Stiffs. But this Squire Zhang was someone who liked eating white meat.

Thinking of the way Squire Zhang had eaten heartily at the dining table, Li Si felt a chill in his heart. This fellow could not be planning to kill him and cook him into a dish to eat, could he?

At this thought, killing intent flashed through Li Si’s heart.