FEG | Chapter 14

Chapter 14 Physical Impact

“Quick, quick, quick!” the person in charge shouted through the loudspeaker toward the outside, “Prepare the flashlights and walkie-talkies, everyone who can breathe, come up the mountain with me...”

At the foot of the mountain, Shijing New Village was brightly lit. The outside staff from the program crew were running back and forth carrying things, while some of the villagers from Shijing Village leaned at their doorways to watch the commotion.

“Supervisor, there’s a problem...” A man wearing a program crew vest ran up to the person in charge and said softly, “We don’t have enough people...”

“Bullshit! There are fifty or sixty of us, how could we possibly not have enough!”

“Yes... fifty or sixty people, but there are a lot of women on our team, and they’re all unwilling to go...” the man said with a troubled look, “Not to mention them, even the men are scared. A few interns said flat out they’d rather quit than go up the mountain.”

“...Fuck!” The person in charge gritted his teeth. “If it really doesn’t work, then we’ll wait until daybreak...”

“Boss! Something terrible has happened! Come look!”

The person in charge ran over to the livestream screen, and it was pitch-black.

“What’s going on!”

The post-production staff also said anxiously, “I don’t know, the candles suddenly went out, and then the camera stopped forming an image...”

“What about the internet?”

“It’s cut off, and we can’t get through to the streamers’ phones anymore...”

They’d lost contact!

Looking at the frightened and uneasy expressions in the room, the person in charge finally said dejectedly, “Call the police!”

And at this moment, in the house on the mountain, Ning Xiaomeng’s hysterical screams were echoing.

Sun Fangchi covered his ears. His eyes were different from ordinary people’s, and with just a little moonlight, he could basically make out everything inside the room. Just now, beside the candle, there had suddenly been a blowing sound from nowhere, and the candle flame went out on cue. The room instantly fell into darkness, and several streamers were frightened out of their wits.

Darkness could magnify the fear in people’s hearts.

Pangye Zuiheng crouched on the ground, curled into a ball, muttering nonstop, “Prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality...”

“Everyone calm down, it’s just the candle going out.” Anisocoria’s voice was trembling, not as calm as he claimed.

“Li, lighter?” Tianshi Li looked like he was about to run out of breath.

“It’s with me...” As he spoke, Anisocoria pressed the lighter. A flame sprang up, illuminating about a meter in front of him. Anisocoria looked toward the nearest face, and with just one glance, his scalp almost exploded, all the roots of his hair standing on end.

That was a strange, expressionless face, a man in his forties, his gaze stiff and full of deathly air.

More than one person saw that face. Tianshi Li convulsively straightened his back and knocked the lighter out of the stunned Anisocoria’s hand.

The room fell back into darkness.

“What happened? Where’s the fire?” the fat man asked, still not understanding what had happened, while groping outward with both hands.

Tianshi Li had already reached his limit. Screaming miserably, he ran out the door and into a place where moonlight could reach.

But Anisocoria only felt every muscle in his body go stiff. No matter how frantically he ordered himself in his heart, “Run! Run!”, his body could not move at all.

A hand landed on his shoulder. “Uh...” Anisocoria exhaled the last breath in his chest, and his whole body collapsed downward like a sack with its mouth untied.

“You’re so young, and you already have Parkinson’s? You can’t even hold a lighter steady?” Sun Fangchi helped support his body.

“You didn’t see...” Anisocoria’s heart suddenly loosened, and only then did he regain control of his body. Remembering that brief face-to-face glimpse just now, cold sweat seemed to spray out from every pore, leaving him icy cold all over.

“What are you looking at? Go wait outside the door first.” Sun Fangchi said unhurriedly, his tone steady.

Anisocoria felt a strange sense of reassurance from that, and obediently ran outside.

Sun Fangchi did the same thing, sending the fat man and Ning Xiaomeng to the door. When he got to Spirit Young Master, she said, “You have a way?”

“What way do I need?” Sun Fangchi said, “I’m a steadfast socialist warrior, immune to all evil.”

Spirit Young Master was speechless, and also went outside to wait.

After clearing the room, Sun Fangchi stood a few steps away, confronting the ghost inside.

“Bro Xi, is this thing easy to deal with?” Sun Fangchi tilted his head and asked, “If it’s a tough one, then we’ll retreat!”

Bu Xiling rolled her eyes at him. “If I really couldn’t beat it, would you still be able to run away?”

The middle-aged ghost’s head began shaking left and right, and a bone-dislocating sound came from its neck. It opened its black-hole-like mouth wide, and a suction force appeared out of nowhere. Sun Fangchi only felt the wind behind him push him toward the middle-aged ghost.

Bu Xiling used the wind to take two running steps, then flew up and kicked the middle-aged ghost in the face.

The suction force stopped instantly.

“Get out of the way!” Bu Xiling warned.

Sun Fangchi slipped over to the wall to watch.

The middle-aged ghost and Bu Xiling were not on the same level as Bu Xiling’s previous opponents. Bu Xiling found it hard to cause any obvious damage to it, but at the same time it was not as agile as Bu Xiling, and for a while neither side could do anything to the other.

Sun Fangchi’s expression grew more and more grave. He had never seen Bu Xiling and an opponent fight to a stalemate. In the past, for Bu Xiling’s safety, he had deliberately chosen “small jobs,” and Bu Xiling had basically crushed them.

“Bro Xi, be careful!”

The middle-aged ghost used the same trick again. Its huge mouth opened once more, taking up the entire face, and from the huge mouth stretched out a baby’s white little hand. A strong wind blew in at the door, and the airflow in the entire room was swallowed whole by the middle-aged ghost’s huge mouth. Sun Fangchi had to press tightly against the wall just to avoid being sucked over.

Bu Xiling did not escape disaster. She tried her hardest to steady herself, but she could not resist the middle-aged ghost’s suction. Her feet dragged two long marks across the floor before she was sucked over to right in front of the middle-aged ghost. The white little hand in the middle-aged ghost’s mouth clamped around Bu Xiling’s neck and lifted her up.

The extended little hand slowly retracted, dragging Bu Xiling’s neck toward the huge mouth. Bu Xiling pressed both hands against the left and right edges of the middle-aged ghost’s mouth, wrestling against it.

“Let her go!” Sun Fangchi grabbed a folding stool and smashed it toward the back of the middle-aged ghost’s head.

In his panic, he had even forgotten that he couldn’t touch ghosts, however,
啪——

The folding stool shattered into several pieces. The middle-aged ghost did not budge, placing swallowing Bu Xiling first.

Seeing that this move failed to stop it, Sun Fangchi cursed under his breath and reached out to grab the wrist of the white little hand. It was icy cold to the touch, and the chill flowed from Sun Fangchi’s hand straight into his heart. Sun Fangchi immediately could not breathe.

The danger did not make Sun Fangchi back down. He grinned viciously and put his other hand on it too.

“Fuck, I told you to let go, are you deaf——”

Sun Fangchi exhaled a breath of cold air, gripped the white little hand with both hands, and leaned back, using his body weight to resist it.

“Run... Xiaofang...” Bu Xiling said with difficulty, moving her hands toward Sun Fangchi’s hands, wanting to help him pry it open, completely giving up on herself.

“Hah——” Sun Fangchi’s right hand suddenly grew hot, the heat driving away the middle-aged ghost’s chill, and the white little hand was forced to let go of Bu Xiling.

Sun Fangchi used his right hand to keep pulling and twisting, winding the little hand around like thread. In the end, he really wound the middle-aged ghost into a ball. Sun Fangchi suddenly had a flash of insight and clenched his fist hard. The huge ball was shaken apart, leaving only a solid white bead in Sun Fangchi’s hand.

“Bro Xi! Bro Xi! Are you okay?” Sun Fangchi had no time to spare for the bead and hurried over to check on Bu Xiling, who had fallen to the floor.

“Mm...” Bu Xiling struggled to get up, then looked unhappily at her chest.

“Bro Xi?” Sun Fangchi followed her gaze. He didn’t know when his right hand had ended up on a patch of softness, and the feeling was impossible to describe. “Bro Xi, I can actually touch you now... that, um, if I said I didn’t do it on purpose, would you believe me?”

“Go die!”

“He... won’t be all right, will he...” Anisocoria guardedly looked around at the surroundings, and did not forget to split his attention to worry about Gui Chi, who was left alone in the house.

Ning Xiaomeng hid behind him, her whole body weak, and kept sobbing. Pangye Zuiheng was muttering under his breath, and one could vaguely hear the content of the core values.

Spirit Young Master leaned against the wall, arms folded. “Do you really think reciting the values will scare off the ghost?”

The fat man’s huge back stiffened.

Anisocoria looked at Spirit Young Master. The moonlight could only make out their outlines.

“Otherwise? Didn’t it work just now?”

“Gui Chi is not as simple as he looks. I can’t see through this person either, what exactly is he relying on...” Spirit Young Master said faintly.

The fat man said, “He’s that powerful? Can he beat the ghost to death?”

Click.

The sound of the mechanism was right beside them. The few of them reflexively looked for the source of the sound. A little flame sprang up at the door, reflecting the faces of the few of them. Besides the four of them, there was one more face.

“Mom——” The fat man flipped backward and crawled to the side with agility completely unlike his body size.

“Whew, you scared me.” Sun Fangchi held up the lighter. “You guys are too sinister, standing at the door and deliberately scaring me!”

Who scared who...

Anisocoria said, “You’re okay?”

“Brother, what grudge do we have that you’re hoping something happens to me?”

“No...” Anisocoria was just about to explain when his gaze touched the other half of Sun Fangchi’s face. “You’re injured?”

Sun Fangchi’s face twitched. Bro Xi had actually shown no mercy at all, too much!

“Mm... I accidentally bumped into something.”

Could bumping into something make a black eye like that?

“Don’t stand here, come in and sit for a while.” Sun Fangchi politely invited them, like a warm host.

“No, no, no... there’s that thing inside, we’re not going in!” The fat man’s head was like it had a motor installed, shaking furiously.

“What thing?” Sun Fangchi played dumb. “Are you planning to stand outside all night? Besides, Baldy is still lying inside, are we all just going to leave him alone?” After the fight, Sun Fangchi only then saw Baldy, unconscious, and had completely forgotten about him before.

Spirit Young Master stared at Sun Fangchi for a long moment. “You actually got rid of it?”

The bewilderment on Sun Fangchi’s face was extremely convincing. “Who?”

Spirit Young Master gave a soft snort, then said, “Let’s go, it’s already safe.”

The few of them followed Spirit Young Master back into the house, trembling as they went. Sun Fangchi found a candle and lit it, and apart from chairs toppled all over the place, there was no abnormality in the room.

Anisocoria quietly let out a breath. That middle-aged man’s face had already become his psychological shadow, and he did not want to see it again.

“We’ll head down the mountain when daybreak comes. There are about four hours left, so let’s take turns sleeping. Someone has to keep watch.” Sun Fangchi pulled a folding table out of the pit and set it up, dripped two drops of candle wax to stand the candle up, then dragged a chair over and sat down, stretching.

Sleep? What was this guy thinking!

“You can sleep?” Anisocoria asked with difficulty.

“You guys don’t plan to sleep?” Sun Fangchi was surprised. “Fine, you keep watch, I’ll sleep first.”

Pangye Zuiheng pulled a chair over and sat beside Sun Fangchi, saying reverently, “Brother, awesome. I, Pangye, am fully convinced today!”

Sun Fangchi said “oh,” tilted his head, and fell asleep.

“So fast!”