Chapter 63 Calling Back the Soul

Out of sight, out of mind. I didn't dwell on it, ignored the building entirely, and went back to my own apartment.

That night, Chen Yuming and I spent the night on the sofa. During that time, Chen Yuming tried to sneak over to Huang Ying's room, but I stopped him.

Early the next morning, I opened my sleepy eyes, only to drift back into a hazy slumber.

I don't know how much time passed before my eyes suddenly snapped open. This time, all sleepiness was completely gone.

"Damn it, the first class started more than ten minutes ago!"

My voice echoed through the entire room. Chen Yuming also snapped awake instantly, didn't say a word, splashed some cold water on his face, and bolted out the door.

By the time we ran to the school, our names had already been jotted down by the security guard. All we could do now was wait to be publicly named and criticized during the whole-school assembly next week.

I gave a wry smile. Although our names were recorded, at least we got to sleep half an hour longer than the other students.

After school in the afternoon, I went straight to Li Yun's place. Before the day before yesterday, I might have run into her here, but I knew that after the day before yesterday, unless she came looking for me, I wouldn't be able to see her.

I wandered around Li Yun's place, checked the electrical facilities, and then took a look inside her room. Li Yun wasn't there, and the space had simply reverted to an empty apartment.

There was nothing to hope for here. I stayed for only ten minutes or so before leaving.

On my way home, as I passed the building where the little girl had dashed out yesterday, I purposely paid closer attention. Yesterday, I thought I wasn't drunk, but in reality, I was, which made me oversimplify things.

I stood at the doorway of that apartment and looked inside. Today there was someone home—a woman of about thirty, wearing a hemp-gray outfit, was bent over mopping the floor. Her features weren't particularly striking, but she had a distinct grace about her.

She tilted her head, noticed me standing at the door, and I simply stared straight back at her without a trace of hesitation, fixing my gaze entirely on the room.

The woman glanced at me, then looked away.

After a moment, she turned her head to look at me again, leaned her mop against the wall, and walked over.

"Is there something you need?"

"Where is your daughter?" I came to my senses and asked.

"She and her father went out to play. May I ask what this is about?" the woman asked politely. Judging by her attire, speech, and manners, she was clearly a well-educated person.

"I have a matter to discuss with her. Do you think I could..." I pointed at the sofa and then at myself, signaling whether I could go in and wait.

The woman was momentarily stunned, then nodded and said, "Alright, come in and wait!" After entering, I sat on the sofa and looked around.

The entire apartment was about ninety square meters, with three bedrooms distributed on either side of the living room, along with a bathroom and a kitchen.

The apartment was decently decorated, suggesting a comfortable family background.

"Would you like some water?" The woman sat on an adjacent sofa, keeping a polite distance from me the whole time.

It was only then that I realized I was already a young man of eighteen or nineteen. Barging into someone else's place like this and casting my eyes around everywhere—it would be a wonder if she didn't keep her distance.

"N—no, thank you!" I waved my hand and asked at the same time, "How many people are in your family?"

The woman gave me a cautious look before replying, "Three!"

I knew this was rather abrupt, but sitting there in dead silence would only make the atmosphere even more awkward.

After sitting in dreary silence for a long time without the little girl returning, I made a request to look around the various rooms.

This time, the woman hesitated greatly. To dispel her misgivings, I said, "Ha-ha, don't misunderstand. Yesterday outside, I heard your daughter mention seeing a grandfather, but I didn't see anything, so I just wanted to come and take a look!"

Hearing this, the woman led me around the rooms with a half-believing attitude.

Nothing turned out of the ordinary. Was I just overthinking? Or had the little girl seen some grandfather figure on television?

After the tour, I left the woman my phone number, telling her to call me if she noticed anything unusual. Staying any longer would be inexcusable; lingering further would genuinely make people suspect I had malicious intentions.

When I got home, I cooked a bowl of noodles and then cuddled up with my laptop to watch a horror movie. I wondered why I hadn't thought of this when Huang Ying was around—if I had watched a horror movie with Huang Ying, I wondered if it would have scared her.

After finishing the noodles and taking a shower, I sat at my desk to read. I had fallen behind on my studies before, and now I needed to catch up on everything.

When you concentrate earnestly on a task, you find that time doesn't drag on so slowly. I rarely achieved that state of immersion when it came to studying, but this time I actually did. Unawares, I had been reading for several hours, and the only reason I snapped out of that state was because I desperately needed to pee.

I put down my pen, dashed to the bathroom, and emptied the accumulated water of the past few hours.

While in the bathroom, I thought of what the driver who had died in a car accident had done in my house last time. I was truly terrified back then. Although I didn't scream and shout like the woman earlier, I was on the verge of crying out, only holding back because I didn't dare.

After finishing, I shuddered. Generally speaking, a chill like that is an involuntary reflex triggered when something with a very heavy yin energy passes close by. Did I frequently encounter those things in my daily life? I couldn't figure it out, but if a person tried to untangle every fantastical mystery in the world, how exhausting would that be?

Just as I was washing my hands, the cell phone in the bedroom rang.

Calling at this hour—could it be Grandpa?

I quickly dried my hands and bolted into the bedroom. Grandpa rarely called me, so right now, it was very likely Huang Ying calling.

However, when I reached the bedroom and picked up the phone, it was an unfamiliar number.

"Hello, young man, please come quickly and take a look at my daughter!" A woman's weeping voice came through the receiver.

The moment I heard the voice, I knew who it was. Sure enough, something had happened.

"I'll be right there!"

Without even hanging up the phone, I sprinted downstairs.

When I reached the neighboring building, their apartment door was open, and a man in his thirties was waiting at the entrance.

"What's wrong with your daughter?" I asked.

The man glanced at me, looked me up and down, frowned slightly, and said, "Come inside and take a look if you can help!"

Obviously, he didn't trust me and regarded me as some kind of charlatan. At my age, who on earth did this sort of thing?

After entering the apartment, I saw the little girl sitting on the sofa.

Her arms were stretched straight out, her eyes staring fixedly ahead without even blinking. Looking closer, I saw she was still clutching two ten-yuan bills in her hand.

"Little sister?" I patted her shoulder, but she didn't react.

"Just now she wanted to go out to buy something, and when I wouldn't let her, she threw a tantrum and started crying. So I gave her twenty yuan and told her to buy it tomorrow since it was too late today. She agreed, but a moment later she wanted to give the money back to me. When she handed it to me, she ended up like this."

The woman from the afternoon spoke up.

Unable to move, devoid of sensation—months ago in the countryside, I had experienced this very thing. Back then, Grandpa used a method called "calling back the soul" to restore me.

In the countryside, this symptom was called "losing one's soul," which essentially meant one's spirit had been snatched away.

We often experience this in daily life too—during some very brief moments when consciousness suddenly vanishes for a second, that is precisely someone trying to snatch your soul.

There are many methods for calling back a soul, one of which Grandpa had taught me.

"Get me a marker pen!" I said.

The woman quickly complied. I used the marker to draw a large cross on the floor, then moved the little girl to the center of the cross, having her mother and father stand beside her.

"What is her name?"

"Zhu Xiaochen!"

"Alright, later when you hear me call out, just answer 'possessed'!"

Zhu Xiaochen's parents nodded in agreement. As for me, I ran outside the door, looked up at the pitch-black night sky, curled my right hand into a claw, reached toward the sky while chanting incantations under my breath, and then shouted, "Has Zhu Xiaochen returned or not?" At the same time, my right hand made a grasping motion in the empty air.

"Possessed!" As soon as I finished shouting, I heard the response coming from inside the apartment.

After repeating this cycle seven times, I returned indoors, told them to take some rice and toast it over a fire, and then, pinching a handful of that rice, I scattered it over the little girl's head.

A few minutes later, Zhu Xiaochen suddenly burst into tears.

"Daddy, my eyes hurt!"

Her parents hurriedly stepped forward to support Zhu Xiaochen.

"It's alright, it's alright, she's fine now!" Zhu Xiaochen's mother scooped her up onto the sofa and stroked her affectionately.

Zhu Xiaochen's father repeatedly thanked me, and the way he looked at me had completely changed.

I waited aside for a moment until Zhu Xiaochen had calmed down a bit. I walked over to her, squatted down, and asked, "What did you see just now?"

Zhu Xiaochen glanced at me, then instinctively snuggled closer to her mother.

"Grandpa was scolding me just now!"

As soon as Zhu Xiaochen said that, both her father and mother looked bewildered. There wasn't any grandfather here.

"How did he scold you?"

"He told me to be a good girl and not take money from Daddy and Mommy!"