Chapter 31: The Yin-Yang Shikigami

Qi Yan had no doubt that his neck would soon bear a full circle of bruises. He should have anticipated this; nearly every ghost he’d encountered favored strangulation. When his breath finally returned, the ghostly infant had vanished without a trace. But most peculiar of all—the torn ghost face had disappeared, replaced by a thin sheet of paper.

He crawled over and picked it up. The white paper had been cut into the shape of a small figure, its head tied with a slender red string. At first glance, it appeared utterly ordinary, like a child’s simple paper craft.

“Is this the ghost’s true form? Impossible—a mere sheet of paper?” Qi Yan’s energy was spent; he couldn’t dwell on the matter.

Once Li Ruoke recovered, she snatched the paper figure from him, turning it over and examining it with astonishment and confusion in her brows. After a long moment, she finally spoke, “This… is a shikigami?!”

Qi Yan’s eyes widened instantly. The word raced through his mind—it wasn’t unfamiliar to the younger generation. “Huh? A Japanese ghost?”

Li Ruoke was stunned for a while. At last, she turned to him, raising the paper figure. “Do you know what this means? Tonight’s nightmare was orchestrated! This ghost was controlled; it didn’t appear here by chance… And it belongs to an ancient, mysterious tradition.”

As the two whispered, the living room grew quiet. Du Zhou, at last, emerged grumpily to survey the situation. Yang Han, having fallen hard earlier, was now slightly better but still groaning against the wall.

Suddenly, the paper figure in Li Ruoke’s hand ignited of its own accord, startling her so much she tossed it away. In an instant, it was reduced to drifting ashes.

Qi Yan wanted to ask more, but Li Ruoke gestured for silence, signaling him not to speak further for now.

“Are you all right?” Du Zhou set aside his baseball bat and checked everyone with a flashlight.

“We’re not all right!” Qi Yan and Li Ruoke leaned on each other, struggling upright. Their fierce fight with the possessed Cheng Ziyue had left them battered, only now realizing the extent of their injuries.

Cheng Ziyue was still breathing, but barely. Yang Han, now upright, was moaning about his arm, which appeared broken.

If tonight’s horror tale ended here, only Du Zhou—and Li Ruoke’s little dog Shirley—had escaped unscathed.

“Go check if the doors can be opened, and whose phone still works. See if the signal is back,” Qi Yan reminded them.

Fortunately, with the ghost face destroyed, all anomalies faded. The doors and windows unlocked, the phones regained network, and even the electricity returned.

When the lights came on, the first floor looked as if bandits had ransacked it—there wasn’t even a safe place to stand.

“What now?” Du Zhou, relieved that the vengeful ghost was gone, was at a loss; the nightmare was not truly over, with so many troublesome matters left to handle.

Seven had come to Yang Han’s villa for an overnight gathering, and now two were dead, four injured… Not to mention the shocking deaths of Wang Yudong and Shi Xiaoxue. How could they possibly explain it? Shi Xiaoxue’s flayed skin still hung limp over the stair rail; her bloodied corpse was surely nearby.

“Call the police, and an ambulance! What else can we do? Two people died so tragically—what, do you want to hide it and handle it ourselves?” Qi Yan rubbed his forehead, frustrated.

But Du Zhou was still terrified. He trembled, asking, “How are we supposed to explain this to the police?”

“Tell the truth…”

“The truth?! Who would believe it?”

“Belief is up to the police. But if we dare conceal anything in such a major case, we’ll pay dearly for it.”

Qi Yan knew well enough that, although tonight’s crisis had passed, what followed would be troublesome indeed. They could only agree on their story, recounting the events and their causes honestly. The rest would depend on how the authorities chose to handle such a case.

...

The villa was far from the city, so the criminal investigation team and ambulances arrived only after forty minutes. No matter how shocked they were by the scene, they first loaded all the injured onto the vehicles and headed for the hospital.

The gravest injuries were Cheng Ziyue’s, followed by the others. The villa was soon cordoned off, police tape everywhere. On the third floor, they found Shi Xiaoxue’s skinned body.

The sky had not yet brightened. Red and blue lights flashed outside. Before boarding, Qi Yan glanced at Du Zhou, who was speaking with detectives, and at Yang Han, already stretchered onto the ambulance.

He quietly asked Li Ruoke beside him, “Let me ask you something—Yang Han invited you to this party, right? Then why did you bring me along? Was it his suggestion, or did you ask him if I could come?”

Li Ruoke thought back, recalling, “Hmm? Now that you mention it… When he came to our shop, after a brief chat I told him about you, my new colleague. He was very open, immediately saying I should bring you along. Everything seemed normal then, so I didn’t question it. Actually, I was planning to bring you anyways.”

“Hmm, got it…” Qi Yan nodded, saying nothing more as two officers escorted them to the hospital vehicle.

That night came to an end. What followed would depend on the proper legal procedures—surely a complicated investigation awaited. Aside from Qi Yan and Li Ruoke, those who died and Yang Han’s group were all wealthy, privileged sons and daughters; the police would not be careless.

At the provincial hospital, everyone underwent injury assessments. Yang Han’s left arm was broken; Qi Yan and Li Ruoke were spared bone fractures but suffered numerous internal and external wounds. Cheng Ziyue was deeply comatose and exhausted, taken straight to intensive care.

Next came the police investigation and interviews.

Qi Yan sat on his hospital bed, staring blankly for a long time. Outside the window, dawn was breaking.

He realized the complexity of this affair far exceeded his imagination. He’d thought it was merely a chance calamity—an attack by a vengeful ghost in Yang Han’s villa.

But the conclusion overturned that assumption; too many mysteries remained, ones he could not unravel no matter how he strained his mind.

The face-flaying ghost—an onmyoji shikigami?! Did such things truly exist in the real world?

But tonight’s ghost, if it really was a shikigami, then the puzzle deepened… Qi Yan could not fathom why a ghost from Japan would appear here.

Who was its target? Wang Yudong? Shi Xiaoxue? Was it that simple?

And if it was truly a shikigami, then behind it, someone must have been controlling and driving it… It was no accident.