Chapter 260 - 259: Just Deserts

Chapter 260: Chapter 259: Just Deserts

Huo Xingchen struggled to lift his little head. Looking at the strange people, he asked in confusion, "Research what?"

A smile played on Gu Qingyin’s lips. "Me, I suppose."

Huo Xingchen blinked, then exclaimed in sudden realization, "They’ve got a lot of nerve."

"Curiosity killed the cat. When you sit in a high position for too long, you naturally lose your sense of awe." Gu Qingyin shrugged. "It’s about time I helped them remember it."

Huo Xingchen nodded in deep agreement, his large, round eyes filled with eagerness.

Huo Yunjing set him down and patted his head. "Go on and play."

Huo Xingchen turned and ran off.

Just then, a woman in a feathered mask came down from the second floor. She and the others shot Gu Qingyin looks filled with malice.

"Now, where should we begin?" a deliberately low voice asked, laced with irrepressible excitement. It was as if they could already picture the pathetic sight of Gu Qingyin pinned to the floor, her face a mask of terror, powerless to resist.

"Let’s try rooster blood first. I hear it’s great for exorcisms," someone in the crowd suggested excitedly. "I was afraid it would lose its potency if I bled it beforehand, so I brought the whole rooster."

"Is just rooster blood the right way to do it? I heard you’re supposed to mix it with vermillion."

"Pfft, why get bogged down in the details? We’ll just try everything one by one."

"Exactly! Did anyone bring vermillion?"

...

The crowd chattered with great enthusiasm, completely ignoring the wishes of their research subject.

’They’re so brazen. Aren’t they afraid they’ve got the wrong person?’ Gu Qingyin truly didn’t get it. Listening to the increasingly inhumane exorcism methods they were spouting, she felt the people before her were more terrifying than any ghost.

’They have no reverence for human life and aren’t at all afraid of actually summoning a ghost soul. At the end of the day, it’s because they don’t really believe, is it? Otherwise, I’d actually have to admire their courage.’

These people thought tonight was just a novel, elaborate prank, but they had no idea that what they were about to face would become a lifelong nightmare.

Gu Qingyin and Huo Yunjing just stood where they were, watching the crowd dig their own graves.

Eventually, someone brought over a rooster and bled it on the spot, collecting the blood in two jars. They then mixed vermillion into one of them.

Just as the first test was about to begin, the once-boisterous crowd, for some reason, suddenly fell silent.

The dead rooster, the jarring sight of fresh blood, the spreading metallic scent, the masked strangers standing nearby...

It was a rather bizarre scene, and the fear that everyone had suppressed deep down began to timidly surface.

"The smell is so strong. Let’s open the doors and windows to air the place out," someone in the crowd suggested.

The words hung in the air, but for several seconds, no one moved. Even the person mixing the vermillion and rooster blood paused, looking to the others, unsure if he should continue.

Just then, the woman in the feathered mask spoke up, her voice laced with shock and suspicion. "The doors and windows have been open this whole time. When... did they get closed?"

She remembered clearly that the door was still open when Gu Qingyin’s group arrived, and no one had closed it. Even though she hadn’t been paying much attention to the doors and windows since, it was impossible for any of them to have been closed without making a sound.

"Stop joking around," someone said with a laugh, but their voice was clearly trembling. "It’s not funny at all."

Upstairs, the culprit, Huo Xingchen, along with the Little Paperman, flashed an innocent smile at his parents downstairs.

Gu Qingyin couldn’t help but chuckle.

In that moment, the laugh sounded incredibly eerie. Nearly everyone jumped, and all eyes snapped to Gu Qingyin, a flicker of panic visible in their gazes.

"It must be her! She’s doing this!" someone yelled, flying into a rage out of humiliation. "Is it ready or not? Hurry up and splash it on her! And that man, get him too!"

The crowd was immediately jolted back to their senses and voiced their agreement.

Gu Qingyin gave a wry smile. "Some people just have to learn the hard way."

Huo Yunjing’s expression was impassive. The moment the rooster blood was thrown, he snapped his fingers.

The next second, the brightly lit villa was plunged into pitch-black darkness. Terrified screams erupted one after another.

The fear that had just begun to surface now grew into a towering tree, swiftly overwhelming everyone’s minds.

The moment darkness fell, Gu Qingyin opened her Yin Yang Eye. But before she could even move, she saw the Little Paperman hopping down the stairs. It picked a nearby lucky winner, silently crept up behind them, and gave their shoulder a light pat.

The person squatting on the ground visibly stiffened. They didn’t dare to look back, but they didn’t dare *not* to, either. After a few seconds of deadlock, under the Little Paperman’s persistent, rhythmic patting, they finally turned their head with wooden slowness.

In that instant, Gu Qingyin saw the Little Paperman mischievously switch on a flashlight in its hand and shine it up at its own face.

"AHHH—!!"

The terrified scream drowned out all other sounds. Then came a loud THUD. The lucky winner, who had come face-to-face with the Little Paperman, had fainted, the back of their head hitting a nearby flowerpot.

Gu Qingyin winced with a soft hiss. ’Ouch, that’s gotta be a concussion.’

The Little Paperman tilted its head and switched off the flashlight.

Thanks to that sudden flash of light, many people had caught a glimpse of the Little Paperman, and the crowd descended into even greater chaos.

Screaming their heads off about a ghost, they all scrambled for the doors and windows, a single thought dominating their minds: ’Get out of here. I have to get out of here right now!’

In the chaos, many people’s masks were knocked off, including that of the utterly panicked Lin Xiao—the woman in the feathered mask.

Her mask was gone, she’d lost her high heels, and her mermaid-style dress kept her from taking large strides. As a result, she ended up at the very back of the crowd.

She became the Little Paperman’s second lucky winner.

By this point, Gu Qingyin and Huo Yunjing had long since slipped past the crowd and gone upstairs, where they now sat with Huo Xingchen on the steps, watching the show.

Lin Xiao was clearly in a much greater state of panic than the previous person. The moment she was tapped, she shrieked and collapsed to the floor, tears and snot streaming down her face as she wailed and begged for mercy.

Hearing the screams, the people in front panicked even more, pushing desperately toward the door.

The ones who had reached the front first had been congratulating themselves on being fast enough to escape, only to discover that the main door wouldn’t budge.

At first, they thought they were just too terrified to have any strength, but even after mustering all their might, they couldn’t move the door an inch. Only then did it dawn on them: the door was sealed shut!

The people at the front tried to turn back to find another exit, while the people at the back, driven by terror, kept pushing forward. Neither side would give way. The shoving match soon turned hostile.

It’s unclear who threw the first punch, but soon, the group by the door had devolved into a chaotic brawl.

Seeing this, the Little Paperman cautiously took a step back. After all, it was just pasted-together paper—quite fragile. A single punch could put a hole right through it.

But Lin Xiao, who was still sitting on the floor paralyzed by fear, was out of luck.

In a brawl, people who were packed together naturally spread out. But as they backed away in the pitch-black chaos, who would bother to check if someone was behind them?

The first person to step on Lin Xiao tripped, followed by a second, and then a third...

Gu Qingyin sighed. "So this is how stampedes happen."