Chapter 32: The Arrival of the Ghost Fox

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Night fell, and the crowd in the amusement park gradually thinned. The haunted house, which had never attracted many visitors to begin with, now stood almost deserted.

The red lanterns outside had already been lit, and the hanging dummy corpses made the haunted house look even more sinister and terrifying.

After spending the entire day resting in a rocking chair, Chu Tian had finally regained his energy.

“How was business today?” Chu Tian asked Song Shiyun as he drank some water.

Song Shiyun rolled her eyes. “Boss, don’t you know how many people came today? Two hundred and thirty-one yuan and seventy cents in total.”

“How did you end up with such an oddly precise amount?” Chu Tian asked.

“A ticket costs eighty yuan per person. Three people came today. One was scared away, and two wet themselves. After deducting the cost of the bottles of water and tissues we gave them, that’s what we made,” Song Shiyun explained.

She now understood why her boss had kept her, a “life-buying ghost,” around. Without her clever mind to help him make money, this business of his… tsk, tsk. Starving to death would probably be the final outcome.

Wait, that wasn’t quite right. The boss had also made a million yuan from those two people today…

Song Shiyun glanced at Meng Anren and Fan Shishi, who were still inside the haunted house.

The two of them were undeniably a handsome man and a beautiful woman, but for some reason, Song Shiyun could never bring herself to like them.

Perhaps ghosts were more sensitive to the aura of human longevity. The two of them carried the accumulated lifespans of who knew how many people, and that instinctively made Song Shiyun deeply wary of them.

“Will that thing come tonight?” Chen Meng asked as she sat nearby, looking at Chu Tian.

“That depends on how deep the karmic ties between these two and that ghostly creature are.” Chu Tian glanced at Fan Shishi and Meng Anren, who sat quietly to one side.

At his words, the pair could only offer embarrassed smiles, not daring to say a word.

Naturally, they knew all about their feud with that ghost fox. But did they dare admit it?

They were still here because, before coming, they had already made inquiries. The owner of A Haunted House was a renowned cultivator who had recently risen to prominence in Shang City and specialized in dealing with all kinds of supernatural beings. He had even delivered one of Shang City’s Ghost Kings.

With a record like that, there were few people in the entire circle of superpowered individuals in Shang City who could match him.

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The reason the two of them currently looked as meek as quails was that the ghost fox had not yet arrived.

Once the ghost fox came knocking, if Chu Tian could subdue it, then everything would be fine. But if he could not, the two of them would flee the moment Chu Tian held the ghost fox back. They would leave Shang City at once and seek out a more powerful master elsewhere.

As for whether the people in A Haunted House would die if Chu Tian lost to the ghost fox—

Hadn’t they paid for exactly this? If Chu Tian and the others accepted their money but lacked the ability to resolve the matter, then wasn’t it only fair that they pay with their lives?

Chu Tian, however, paid no attention to Meng Anren and Fan Shishi’s thoughts.

As the night deepened, the lights throughout the amusement park gradually went out.

A thin mist began to stir beneath the darkness.

In the pitch-black amusement park, A Haunted House became the only place still illuminated.

The fluorescent lights inside were reasonably bright, while the dim red lanterns outside made the building resemble a lone little boat carrying a red light, floating upon an endless black sea.

Inside the haunted house, Old Li and the other ghosts had all returned to their spirit tablets to enjoy the incense offerings.

Chen Meng and Song Shiyun were playing a game of tossing little sandbags with Chu Menger, who sat atop the counter.

The mist outside began seeping through the cracks beneath the door. Before long, it spread across the floor, covering it in a layer of vaporous fog that drifted just above the ground like dry ice.

“What… what’s happening? Master, is it coming?” At that moment, Meng Anren and Fan Shishi noticed the mist rising above their ankles and asked in terror.

“Yes. It has arrived.” Chu Tian nodded, completely unsurprised.

Seeing how calm he remained, and how Chen Meng, Song Shiyun, and Chu Menger seemed entirely unaffected, the two of them relaxed a little. They even felt embarrassed by their earlier panic.

After all, just look at how composed the master was. He had clearly seen all kinds of things. If he were not confident, how could he remain so calm?

And besides, look at his wife, child, and employee. Did any of them appear frightened?

If they did not know how formidable the master was, and had not grown accustomed to such things, how could they remain so unperturbed?

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Especially that little girl. How old was she? She wasn’t frightened in the slightest by what was happening. Didn’t that prove she had already grown accustomed to such matters by following this master around?

Stay calm. Stay calm.

Meng Anren drew two deep breaths and said, “Master, I’m counting on you. Shishi and I have never encountered anything like this before, so we overreacted. Please forgive us.”

“It’s normal that you haven’t seen it before. I haven’t either.” Chu Tian looked at the mist around his feet. “Although many ghosts produce mist when they emerge, that is merely because their sinister aura lowers the temperature and instantly condenses the moisture in the air into tiny droplets, which then form fog.

“But this time, it isn’t ordinary natural mist. This is… a ghost domain.

“Once a ghost domain is opened, unless the ghost dies, no one can leave it without the ghost’s permission. You two really have the ghost’s full attention. It would rather expend a huge amount of ghostly power to lay out this inescapable net in advance than let you escape.”

“What?” At Chu Tian’s words, Meng Anren and Fan Shishi’s expressions grew even paler.

“Jingle, jingle…”

Just as the pair were about to say something more, the string of wind chimes hanging outside the haunted house began to ring.

Everyone turned toward the entrance, only to see a graceful figure slowly materializing beyond the glass door, gradually changing from indistinct to clear.

As the haunted house’s door was slowly pushed open, Meng Anren and Fan Shishi’s faces turned ashen. They stood behind Chu Tian, eyes wide and filled with terror.

Beside the counter, Song Shiyun, Chen Meng, and Chu Menger also stopped playing and quietly watched the woman who was about to enter.

A bright-red embroidered silk skirt stepped across the threshold.

The woman who entered looked like a refined noble lady who had just emerged from the water towns of Jiangnan.

Her face was as delicate as a hibiscus, her brows slender as willow leaves. She moved with graceful, measured steps, her hair ornaments perfectly still. In one hand, she held an oil-paper umbrella painted with peonies.

After sweeping her gaze across everyone, she finally let it rest upon Chu Tian. She gave him a slight curtsy and a soft greeting, then turned her eyes toward Meng Anren and Fan Shishi.

With a faint smile, she said, “Lady Eleven, Young Master Meng. We haven’t met in several centuries. I’ve come for you.”