“Beep!”
On my phone, the Didi driver sent a message saying the car had arrived at the entrance.
I bit my lip hard and tugged at Zhao Zifeng again, dashing out of the hotel. It was better to escape than to be trapped here...
Outside the hotel, it was deathly quiet. The paper - figure wedding procession had vanished without a trace. Under the yellowish streetlights, a red Buick business car rolled down its window, and the driver was waving at me.
I pulled Zhao Zifeng and rushed towards the car. I opened the door and was about to get in.
Suddenly, the driver's face changed. He roared at Zhao Zifeng behind me, “Get out!”
I was startled and quickly turned around. It wasn't my good friend Zhao Zifeng behind me at all. It was clearly that hanged ghost man. The black noose in his hand was coming straight for my neck.
“Ah!!”
I screamed, let go, and desperately slammed the door shut.
The car jolted and immediately shot onto the road like an arrow. I turned around and looked back. The hanged ghost was floating in mid - air, and the noose was swaying reluctantly...
“Little girl, it's the fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month today. Don't wander around outside at night,” said the driver, a middle - aged man in his forties, wearing a neat suit and white gloves, the standard outfit for a Didi premium car driver.
I was still in shock but managed a weak smile.
The car sped along, passing through one intersection after another. The ashes of the burned paper money were flying everywhere with the wind stirred up by the car.
“Sir, you're going the wrong way!”
I suddenly realized that the car wasn't heading towards the Great Avalokitesvara Temple, my set destination, but towards the outskirts of the city.
“Aren't you going home?”
The driver laughed. His face gradually changed in the rear - view mirror. His skin became paler and his lips redder. He looked more and more like the paper figurine that had appeared on my phone.
My heart started pounding. I desperately slapped the locked car door. “Stop the car! Stop the car!”
It was a class reunion today, and I didn't have the talismans my father had drawn with me. So I had to follow the hand - seal gestures I had secretly learned from a book and formed a Palm Thunder Seal, slamming it hard on the back of the driver's head.
“True Lord of the Five Thunders, command life to move forward, quickly as in the laws of the gods!”
The driver was hit on the back of his head. His body trembled a few times, and then he suddenly let out a strange laugh.
“Don't scare me, young mistress. This old servant is now possessing a living person. If you scare me out of my wits and cause a car accident that hurts you, the young master will punish me!”
A ghost had possessed a living person?!
I didn't have time to think about his strange address. I just quickly flipped through my phone. There was the Shurangama Mantra saved in it. It was said to be able to drive away evil spirits!
“Young mistress, we're here.”
The driver didn't stop me. He just tapped the brakes, parked the car steadily, and then turned to look at me with a smile. “Look, the young master has come to pick you up himself!”
The temperature inside the car suddenly dropped to an icy cold. The locked car door opened silently. A tall and thin shadow bent slightly and lifted me out of the car.
“Namo Sat Tathagata, Sugata Ya, A Luo He Di...”
Just as I was being carried horizontally in the shadow's arms, the Shurangama Mantra on my phone finally rang. Immediately, shrill screams filled the air all around, and small whirlwinds of black paper ash were swirling in the sky.
“Stop being naughty!”
The shadow's voice was cold. Then my hand was grabbed by a big, icy - cold hand, and the phone went silent.
I was greatly shocked. I opened my mouth to continue chanting the mantra, but unexpectedly, a handsome and demonic face leaned over and forcefully blocked my lips.
“Mmm...”
I finally saw his face clearly. It was the evil ghost who had bullied me in the Fan Jing Villa!!
“... A person is a thousand miles away, while a ghost is separated by ten thousand mountains... Evil demons... Retreat!!”
I wanted to use the same trick again. I silently recited the incantation in my heart, pinched a finger seal with one hand, and slapped it hard on his chest. It felt cold to the touch.
His lips and teeth separated from mine slightly. While biting my lower lip, he laughed softly, “How stupid. I was just kidding you... You're my wife who has had the betrothal letter exchanged. How could such petty tricks possibly hurt me?!”
“What?!” A glimmer of light suddenly flashed through my mind, which was almost knocked out by the kiss.
The betrothal letter, which contained my birth date and time. How could a ghost know about it?!
I no longer had the chance to think.
The ghost's lips and tongue were cold and soft. They moved from my lips, along my neck, to the softness on my chest. Everywhere they touched, he seemed to light a throbbing flame.
In that extremely large bedroom, I was thrown onto the long - pile carpet...
I desperately tried to struggle and escape, but was dragged back under him by my ankle again and again.
“Where do you think you can escape to?!”
His cold arms imprisoned me. He nibbled on my earlobe and whispered, “You're my wife. Everything about you belongs to me...”
The intense pain tore at my nerves. Tears and moans were swallowed by him.
My fierce resistance seemed like a harmless, fluffed - up kitten to him. I could only tremble like a withered leaf in the cold wind under his repeated attacks.
I don't know how long I was lost in the passion he deliberately created. Vaguely, I heard the ringing of my phone.
In a daze, I could see him holding me in one arm while answering the phone with the other.
“Xixi, where have you gone? We can't find you anywhere!”
Zhao Zifeng's voice came from the phone, filled with extreme anxiety.
“... Xixi, yes,” he glanced at me, who was almost unconscious. He gave a satisfied nibble on my lips and then said with a soft laugh, “Xixi won't be coming back tonight. Please inform her family for me...”
“Hello!! Hello!! Who are you! Where is Xixi! You...”
Zhao Zifeng was jumping in anxiety on the other end of the phone, but he just sneered and hung up.
...
This night seemed so long...
I don't know how much time had passed. I woke up and fell asleep again, and then woke up once more, feeling drowsy.
I had one dream after another. Sometimes in the dream, he was tirelessly bullying me; sometimes, Zhao Zifeng was anxiously looking for me everywhere... I even dreamed that my father was furious at my aunt and gave her a hard slap...
When I finally woke up, every bone in my body was aching. There were countless red and blue marks on my skin. So this was what they called hickeys?!
For some reason, I remembered Jiang Yingxue's words. It turned out that he had already declared his sovereignty over me.
A ray of morning sun was shining through the gap in the dark - silver curtains.
I struggled to get up from the bed. Suddenly, a cold but strong arm wrapped around my waist. A lazy voice, hoarse from indulgence, said, “Still trying to escape?!”
In an instant, I was filled with horror.
Before I could turn around, I was pressed back into the soft quilt again.
It was now daytime when the roosters had crowed three times and the evil had retreated while the yang energy had risen. He was a ghost. How could he really defy the heavenly rules and not be afraid of the morning light?!
Noticing my distracted attention, he leaned over dissatisfiedly and bit my earlobe. “If you dare to be distracted, I don't mind using my own way to make you focus.”
“Mmm... Who on earth are you?”
I couldn't help but shiver.
“Hehe... I'm Gu Fancheng, your man.” He smiled softly and leaned over again, igniting the fire in my body...