Chapter 27 Who Am I 26

Lin Xiangjun stepped on the window frame, slowly moving downward inch by inch.

Fortunately, although Patrick Star wasn't very bright, it certainly had brute strength. Even with Lin Xiangjun's limbs dangling in mid-air, it could ensure the rope descended at a steady speed.

At first, Lin Xiangjun felt some fear and dread, worried that the rope might snap and cause her to fall and be smashed into a meat patty. However, once she confirmed the rope was sturdy and that the two paper figures were strong enough to keep her very safe, that fear quickly dissipated.

She was even able to spare some attention to observe the other rooms.

Zhuo Xing lived below her. The room was very quiet at the moment, and the curtains were drawn, so she didn't know what the situation was inside.

Further down lived Aunt Wang. Her curtains were also drawn, but not tightly, leaving a small gap through which a lump could be seen rising under the quilt.

There was still knocking and talking coming from outside the door, but separated by the closed window, Lin Xiangjun couldn't hear it very clearly. She only saw the lump under the quilt seemingly trembling slightly.

Although Lin Xiangjun moved lightly, stepping on the metal window frame inevitably made some noise. The lump paused for a moment, then began to tremble even more violently.

"Oh heavens, oh heavens! It's bad enough having two deadly Yama Kings outside the door, why is there movement at the window too?"

"The Yama King is at the door and the Impermanence is at the window—do all the big and small ghosts want this old woman's life?"

Aunt Wang was sobbing, trying to think of some other way to ward off evil. Black dog blood? Rooster blood? Where could she get those things in this situation? She could only hide under the quilt and start chanting scriptures.

She didn't know the full set of scriptures, so she just chanted "Amitabha, Namo Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva" over and over again.

Perhaps sincerity brings spiritual response; after chanting in a panic for who knows how many dozen or hundreds of times, she suddenly realized that the noise at the window had really stopped.

Aunt Wang breathed a sigh of relief.

"Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, please bless me. If I can really get out of this instance safely, I will definitely offer incense three times a day. Chicken, duck, goose, pork, beef, mutton—whatever the Bodhisattva wants to eat, I'll buy it. I'll make sure the Bodhisattva lives comfortably."

On the other side, Lin Xiangjun had already reached the first floor.

She had tied many knots, and untying them would take a lot of effort, so she simply didn't bother. She used a sharp knife to slash through them a few times, tossed the waste into her storage space, and then had Wang Min retract the rope.

She was afraid it wouldn't be safe to leave the rope hanging outside, so she figured she would just have Wang Min lower it again when she needed to go back; it wouldn't take much effort anyway.

The residential area was quiet at night, with no one else around. It was not yet ten o'clock, still before the community's mandated curfew from eleven o'clock to seven o'clock the next morning.

Lin Xiangjun thought about it and decided to go to the Garden anyway.

During the day, there was only a teeter-totter in the Garden; perhaps a seesaw would spawn at night?

Along the way, let alone people, there wasn't even a ghost in sight. Everything was quiet, and Lin Xiangjun couldn't help but lighten her footsteps.

To her disappointment, the Garden at night was no different from the daytime: neatly trimmed greenery, worn-out tiled paths, and the rusted teeter-totter at the junction...

She walked around, found no clues, but wasn't disappointed. She found an open space, crouched down, and took two ham sausages out of her pouch.

One was the one Wang Zixuan had given her, the one that had been tampered with. The other was one she had bought from the Forbidden APP, which was clean.

She peeled the wrapper off the tampered ham sausage. Worried about violating the rule against littering, she didn't dare throw it on the ground, so she just held it in her hand, swaying it slowly.

"Meow—"

The first cat meow sounded from the bushes, followed by the bushes shaking, making the rustling sound of leaves and branches rubbing against each other, then a second and third meow.

"Meow—" "Meow—"

The meowing grew more frequent and intense, and the bushes shook more and more violently. The leaves on the outer layer of the bushes fell rustlingly, and suddenly, a bloody, smooth cat paw reached out from the gaps in the branches and leaves.

Then a second, a third...

The cat paws stretched and climbed outward forcefully, as if desperate to crawl out of the collapsed cave. Those cat paws were tangled into a ball, gripping the branches of the bushes, pulling their bodies out with force—

It was a large, bloody, mangled mass.

Their bodies were entangled together, and only a head could barely squeeze out from the gaps in the flesh, revealing round eyes and a mouth wide open, calling out incessantly.

Have you ever seen Four Happiness Meatballs and Lion's Head meatballs?

Stick the Four Happiness Meatballs onto the surface of a Lion's Head meatball one by one, and that's pretty much what it looked like.

Lin Xiangjun only took one look at that thing, and her SAN value plummeted instantly.

That's the worst thing about the weird world; things rely on being weird and just grow however they want, looking so awful that after one glance, you just want to launch a nuclear bomb to blast the Earth.

Furthermore, Lin Xiangjun finally understood why the rules emphasized that there couldn't be insects on the cats. Their fur was all gone, and they were just a bloody, mangled mass; it would be strange if lice could grow in such an environment.

"Meow!"

With a sharp cat meow, hundreds of round cat eyes, glowing in the dark night, all looked at the grilled ham sausage in Lin Xiangjun's hand. Then, hundreds of legs flailed about in a mess, running toward her in a posture that perfectly matched their appearance.

Lin Xiangjun quickly put the tampered ham sausage back into her storage space, then threw the normal ham sausage toward them.

She dared not let them eat this tampered ham sausage. Lin Xiangjun thought calmly, this was a misdirection by the rules.

They died precisely because they ate this tampered ham sausage. If she gave them this ham sausage again, it would inevitably remind them of the torture they suffered before death. Going berserk would be the mildest outcome; she was afraid they would mistake her for the person who tortured them to death.

As the saying goes, "Even as a ghost, I won't let you go." The point is that you are human, and I am a ghost, so I have the upper hand in power. Now, with a creature that has clearly turned into a malicious ghost in front of you, if you don't run away, you're just provoking them. Is your brain full of bubbles, or do you have a death wish?

Lin Xiangjun threw the ham sausage accurately, landing it directly in the mouths of two cats.

When food is in your mouth, how can you not eat it?

The two cats' brains hadn't reacted yet, but their mouths had already instinctively bitten down hard on the ham sausage, and their hands were trying to press down on the sausage to keep it from falling.

Unfortunately, their hands were too far from their heads. They swiped a few times, slapping the neighboring cat's head a few times, but couldn't reach their own mouths. So, they simply gave up and focused on eating the ham sausage.

However, since they were eating the ham sausage, the cats next to them were naturally unhappy.

Everyone was a ghost that had been hungry for years; why should you get to eat while I go hungry? Anyway, everyone's arms and legs were scattered, and not many cat heads had their own paws nearby. There was no reason why you could slap me a few times and I couldn't hit back, right?

The two cat heads were eating happily when suddenly, someone's leg kicked out. Before they could react, most of the ham sausage in their mouths broke off. Except for the part they were holding, the rest ended up in who knows whose mouth.

The cat that suddenly got the ham sausage: "Huh? Pie from the sky?"

It simply stopped running and focused on eating the ham sausage, instinctively swiping with its hands while eating, inevitably hitting a few other cats.

Thus, a chain reaction occurred: you hit me, I hit you, and the whole mass of flesh turned into a chaotic mess.

Lin Xiangjun just watched as they were halfway through their charge when they suddenly started slapping their own cat heads with their own cat paws, looking just like they were practicing free-style fighting against themselves.