Since

 the lobby 

was

 burned down, there was no electricity. At night, we had to use candles to light up the place. 

Li Mazi understood that I was about to summon the spirit. “Why didn’t you blow 

out

 the candles?” 

“

There’s n

o need

 as its 

Yin energy is very 

strong

. It won’t be afraid of the candles.” 

I thought

 about the encounter from this afternoon

 and

 shook my head. 

We hid in a corner of the kitchen

 and stayed 

stil

l, watching 

the deep hole. 

Baldy

 was scared bu

t also 

curious. 

Time ticked by. 

There was no indication 

that the spirit would come out

, so we

 began to 

feel

 impatient. 

I thought t

hat it

 wasn’t interested in bat blood

 and that we would have to do it again

 tomorrow

. But right when I was 

about to ask the people to go home, the candle

s 

in the room suddenly flickered. 

Then

, a strong wind swept up from the deep hole, 

which brought

 with it drops of cold, blood-like liquid. The temperature 

in

 the room dropped sharply. 

I knew it was about to come out. I turned to 

look at

 the mirror in the kitchen

, trying

 to see what it was. Unexpectedly, the wind came 

quickly

 and left 

fast

. 

Everything happened in 

around ten seconds

. T

he surroundings calmed down after that. 

“Little 

B

rother Zhang, did it come out?” Li Mazi

’s voice came

 from the corner

. He was puzzled. 

I shook my head. “I don’t know.” The mirror didn’t show anything. 

Baldy

 suddenly shrieked

 and pointed 

at the hole. “Impossible!” 

I followed 

the direction of his

 finger. The bat blood I had poured 

earlier

 was gone

, leaving only 

a faint

 trace

 on the ground. 

I was surprised

 and took 

a few steps forward to check. The soil inside the hole was frozen altogether! 

“

I

sn’t 

this

 too 

exaggerated

?” Li Mazi followed behind me

 and dropped 

his jaw when he 

saw the scene

. 

Until now, the spirit hadn’t attacked us. However, 

its

 Yin energy was enough to 

destroy

 us. 

Once again,

 it didn’t appear to be an evil spirit. 

Before I 

could learn

what it was

, I 

knew that I shouldn’t

 carelessly attack it. I didn’t want to provoke this spirit. 

“You should buy some offerings. We want to offer 

some cakes, incense, and fruits to

 the spirit in 

this

 hole. 

Since

 we can’t play hard, we

’ll

 have to do it the soft way.” 

Baldy

 bought the items I had asked for

 and

 stacked the offerings into a big pile by the hole. 

I wanted to let the butchers go home

 as t

hey 

wouldn’t be

 useful even if they stayed. However, 

Baldy

 insisted that they stay with us. We could feel safer with more people at the scene. 

I didn’t comment. 

We all 

collected some blankets and gathered in a corne

r

. From there, we could observe the hole. No one dared to sleep. 

After midnight, everybody was tired. Gradually, they started to doze off. My mind began to blur. However, my intuition told me that the spirit would show up after midnight. I had to stay awake until it came. 

In the end, 

my tiredness 

got the best of me. I couldn’t defeat 

it

. I pulled a blanket tightly around 

myself and drifted 

into sleep. 

I didn’t know how long I had slept, 

but

 I was awakened by someone’s footsteps. At first, I thought someone was going to the toilet. Ho

wever, t

he sound didn’t stop

 and kept coming from all around us

. 

I couldn’t sleep anymore

 and 

subconsciously cursed, “What the heck are you doing? Don’t you want to let people sleep?” 

After 

screaming

, I w

as wide awake

. I turned to check the people on my left and right. They were all sleeping. No one was walking. I 

immediately understood that it

 was the spirit! 

Li Mazi and the others 

woke up

. “What’s going on?” 

“Did you hear the footsteps?” I asked.

They all shook their heads. 

Were my nerves so sensitive that I had 

a

 hallucination? 

I walked

to the mirror to see if there were 

footprints

 on the ashes. If the footsteps were real, there should be some traces. 

However, when I came to the mirror, I found that all the ashes were blown away

 and had now piled up

 at the foot of the wall. 

“What’s going on?” Li Mazi was scared. Li Mazi was different from 

Baldy

 and the other butchers. He just needed to look at me to know what I 

was thinking.

While talking, he gently touched the mirror. As soon as his fingers touched the 

surface,

 the huge mirror shattered! 

The 

glass

had broken into 

countless thumb-sized pieces

, scattering 

on the ground. 

Baldy

 and the others heard the noise, so they came to see. At first glance, the

ir faces

 paled in fright. 

“Guys, you should all leave

.

” 

I looked at the glass shards for a long time before I pulled myself together. I helplessly waved and dismissed the 

others

. I now knew I had 

underestimated the problem

. My actions could 

have been

 under the spirit’s control the whole time.

Perhaps, to the spirit, I wasn’t different from a clown. 

Baldy

 also recognized the seriousness of the situation. He didn’t ask the butchers to stay anymore. 

Soon, all the butchers left

. O

nly a bearded man remained. He looked at the glass shards on the ground then at me. His eyes sparkled as if he had something he wanted to tell me. 

“Gao Erhu, if you need to say something, spit it out. Don’t 

act

 like a sissy!” urged 

Baldy

. 

Gao Erhu took a deep breath. “A few days ago, the mirror in my house also shattered like this.” 

“What?” My pupils shr

u

nk

 as I shifted my gaze to him. 

“

A few

 days ago, strange things started to happen in my house. Every night, at around midnight, my wife and I 

would be 

awakened 

by an

 inexplicable coldness. We always felt t

hat 

someone

 was

 gazing at us.” Gao Erhu remembered. 

Baldy

 wanted to say something, but I shot him a glance

 and signaled at 

him to not 

interrupt

 Gao Erhu

’s story

.

“Later on, 

while

 my wife was taking a shower, she touched the mirror of the washstand. The mirror cracked and shattered. At first, I thought the mirror was old so it broke by itself. But now, it seems my house 

is also haunted

!” Gao Erhu 

was sweating

. He had to wipe his forehead after 

he finished talking

. 

I thought the spirit that had haunted Gao Erhu’s house could be somehow related to the spirit that had wreaked havoc in 

this

 hotel. Anyway, since I had no clues, I decided to go to Gao Erhu’s house to see if I could help him. 

Baldy

 was anxious after I said that. “Mr. Zhang, you can’t just leave me like this!” 

He thought that I wanted to take this excuse to dodge his case. I smiled

 and patted 

his shoulder. “Don’t worry! If I

’ve

 accepted this case, I will take care of it to the end.”

He heaved a sigh of relief

 and left 

with us. 

Th

at night

, the three of us followed Gao Erhu to his house. Although his house was in the countryside, it wasn’t far from 

the

 hotel. Due to the unbalance of the economy, his house was just a cottage. That

 was 

why he had tried his best to sell pork in hopes of 

moving 

to the city later. 

When we entered Gao Erhu’s house, I saw a massive cauldron in the yard. 

“It’s used to boil asphalt. We use asphalt to pluck the pig

s’

 hair

s.

” 

As it was around two or three o’clock in the morning, the moonlight was bright and the sky was clear. 

A cold

 wind blew through the air

 and rattled 

the iron hooks that were used to hold the meat. The noises they made 

weren’t

 pleasant to the ears at all. 

Li Mazi gulpe

d and whispered

, “Erhu, it feels really cold and dark in your place. Aren’t you scared of living here?” 

“How could I not be scared?” Gao Erhu looked even more panicked than Li Mazi. 

“Sh

h

!” 

Baldy

 suddenly signaled us to stop talking. Then, he moved to me

 and 

carefully 

said

, “Mr. Zhang, I feel that the thing that has messed up my hotel is here!” 

“How 

do

 you know that?” 

Baldy

 wouldn’t lie to me. If he said 

that

, he must have found something. 

“

It’s m

y intuition!” 

Baldy

 gritted his teeth. “I

 have 

stayed in the office 

on the

 sixth floor of the hotel since we started decorat

ing

 the rooms. 

In

 the beginning, everything was normal. 

But

 a few days 

before

 the grand opening,

the entire floor felt so cold every night. I thought I was just exhausted

, so

 I bought a lot of ginseng to eat. However, I couldn’t resist the coldness. 

That’s why I think that

 the spirit I

’ve

 encountered and the one Gao Erhu has encountered are the same!

 W

hen I walked into this yard, I immediately 

felt

 that cold aura. It’s the same 

as

 the coldness in my hotel.” 

After talking, 

Baldy

 rubbed his head. “I didn’t do anything bad. Why does it pester me?” 

However, to me, it wasn’t some random event. 

T

he spirit didn

’t decide 

to pester Gao Erhu and 

Baldy

 randomly. 

I carefully assessed 

the

 house. Immediately, I spotted something wrong with the room on the right of the house. 

I closed my eyes and read the 

s

acred 

t

ext of Daoism

. I tried 

to calm down to 

better pinpoint

 the 

location

. Indeed, that place 

exuded

strong

 Yin energy. 

The problem started there. I opened my eyes

 and asked 

Gao Erhu

,

 “After the mirror in your house shattered, did 

anything

 else happen?” 

He searched th

rough 

his memory then shook his head. 

“

You didn’t even feel

 the coldness at midnight?” I found it unbelievable. The 

strong

 Yin energy was streaming unceasingly 

from

that

 room, and his house was still calm. It wasn’t logical. 

Gao Erhu 

sounded unhappy.

 “

No

? Do you hope that something happens to my family?” 

“Hey, do you 

want our

 help or not?” Li Mazi fumed. He pulled me

 and started to leave

. 

I then recognized that 

my question wasn’t worded properly

. I 

calmed

 Li Mazi then told the others about my doubts. 

Gao Erhu paled

 and stammered,

 “

That’s

 the toilet in my house! Master, you have to help me! Otherwise, I can’t live here anymore!”

“Don’t be scared. We should take a look then.” 

I asked Gao Erhu to open the door. Li Mazi grabbed me

 and

 worriedly 

asked

, “Little 

B

rother Zhang, are we going in there without any

 tools

?” 

When Li Mazi asked me, I suddenly remembered the time we had dealt with the weapons list. We were almost killed because we were careless. 

“

You have a point. G

o with 

Baldy

 to the car to fetch my Sirius Whip. You can also 

p

ick other items

 that you think might be useful,

” I 

said to

 Li Mazi and 

Baldy

. 

I listened to Li Mazi’s

 suggestion

 just to be safe. Li Mazi nodded

 and walked with Baldy

 out of the yard. 

The distance was just dozens of meters, so I didn’t wait for him. After Erhu had opened the door for us, I followed him into the house. 

He turned on the lights and asked me to have a seat on the sofa. Then, he went to his bedroom to wake up his wife so 

that

 she could greet us, too. 

I smiled. I didn’t expect that this burly, rough-looking man 

to have

 manners.

However, not long after he 

was

 gone, he rushed out with a panic-stricken face

. Tears filled

 his eyes

. 

“Master, please save my wife

!

 She’s… She’s dying

!

” 

I dropped the cup of tea

 and dashed 

to his bedroom. His wife was 

on

 the bed, sleeping. There was a thick layer of frost on her face, 

which gave

 her the 

appearance

 of a frozen corpse

you would see in 

a

 morgue

.