54: Miss Hanako shouldn't have done that!

The demolition of the old school building was supposed to be a routine matter, but a series of unexplained accidents occurred—workers falling into mysterious fevers and comas, claims of hearing a child's sobbing from the girls' restroom late at night, and two people "vanishing" without a trace. Realizing the severity of the situation, the person in charge immediately reported it to the police. Unexpectedly, the police also encountered accidents during their investigation, and eventually, the case was quietly handed over to the Special Affairs Department.

The rumored culprit was a ghost haunting the corners of the city—Hanako of the Toilet, full name Hiraki Hanako. It was said that she was brutally murdered in a school's girls' restroom as a child. With deep resentment, she has since occupied all restrooms, turning into a little female ghost hidden in a stall, accompanied by a bloody nursery rhyme.

At this moment, inside the long-abandoned girls' restroom of the old school building, dark purple energy coiled around a possessed girl like tentacles. The energy slithered along her arms and waist, teasing her senses as if it were alive. The girl's face was flushed, her breathing rapid, suppressed gasps escaping her lips. Her eyes were glazed, appearing to be in both pain and indulgence.

Meanwhile, in an empty classroom next door, a screen of Mystic Light spread through the air like a water curtain, reflecting the blush-inducing scene inside the girls' restroom in real-time.

To avoid being blocked as he was at Tōtsuki, Lin Luo had contacted the school official in advance. To his surprise, the location turned out to be the old school building of his own academy—the very place where he had caught Fat Wave. Even more unexpected was that the contact person assigned by the school was Kirisu Mafuyu.

She was only supposed to lead the way, but after learning that the matter involved supernatural phenomena, she ignored his warnings and insisted on following him inside. Thus, Lin Luo could only use a technique to spy on the ghost first... but he hadn't expected—

"By the way, is Young Miss Hanako usually this... erotic?"

At this moment, Mafuyu stood by his side, her hands tightly clutching the hem of her uniform. Her gaze was fixed on the Mystic Light screen, her ears already a deep, blood-red.

"Th-This is just too..." Her voice was extremely low, as if afraid of disturbing something, or perhaps too embarrassed to speak, "Shameless! Lewd! You... you stop looking!"

Before she finished speaking, she suddenly reached out and covered Lin Luo's eyes.

Her palm was warm, trembling slightly, and carried a faint scent of cherry blossoms.

Lin Luo was stunned for a moment, then let out a soft laugh, his voice low and husky. "Mafuyu-sensei, now is not the time to be shy... Hanako's state is very wrong."

He didn't pull her hand away; instead, he tilted his head slightly, his nose almost brushing her palm. "Besides... you're covering my eyes, yet you're watching so intently yourself?"

"W-Who's watching intently!" Mafuyu hurriedly withdrew her hand, but in her haste, her fingertips accidentally brushed against his eyelashes. Both of them froze at the same time.

For a while, the classroom was so quiet that only the faint sound of gasping from the Mystic Light remained.

The air seemed to stagnate, and even the dust hung suspended in mid-air. Mafuyu had just pulled her hand back, but the faint itch from his eyelashes brushing her fingertips remained, like a current of electricity surging to her heart. She didn't dare look up, feeling her cheeks hot enough to fry an egg, even the back of her ears turning a faint red.

Lin Luo didn't tease her further. His gaze returned to the Mystic Light screen, his expression calm, but the fingers under his sleeve curled unconsciously—the warmth of her palm from earlier still lingered on his eyelids, incredibly soft.

"Mafuyu-sensei," he suddenly spoke, his voice very low, almost whispered against her ear, "No matter what happens later, don't leave my side."

She was startled and instinctively looked up, meeting the profile of his face—his jawline was taut and his gaze focused, yet when he noticed her look, the corners of his mouth curved ever so slightly.

That smile was faint, but it was like a pebble thrown into the center of a lake, sending ripples through her heart.

"...Mhm," she responded, her voice so soft it was nearly drowned out by her own heartbeat.

Lin Luo said no more, simply moving half a step closer to her without a word. The distance between them was so close they could feel each other's breath, their sleeves occasionally brushing, creating a faint trace of static electricity.

Just then, Lin Luo's brow suddenly furrowed.

"Eh? Something's wrong... someone has entered," he said in a low, solemn voice. "Didn't they say this area was cordoned off?"

The Mystic Light screen rippled like water, the perspective quietly switching to outside the girls' restroom.

A tall figure was walking slowly toward them—dressed as a monk, his Kasaya half-open, with a string of massive Buddhist Beads hanging around his neck, each as large as a fist. He was burly with a steady gait, but the aura around him was extremely strange: on one side was the spiritual light of the Buddhist gate that purified evil, while the other was mixed with unspeakable murky desires and evil thoughts, as if holiness and depravity coexisted within his body.

"Very well, you wretched evil spirit, let me show you what I'm made of!" He stood at the entrance of the girls' restroom, his voice booming like a bell.

"You're in there, aren't you! Come out!"

The stall door slowly opened with a "creak."

"Who is it?" Hanako's voice was youthful yet cold.

"I see, so it really is you? Hanako of the Toilet!"

"You know me? So what? It doesn't matter!" Hanako sneered.

"Looking at your current state, have you been possessed by an evil spirit?" The monk narrowed his eyes, his gaze roaming over her. "Even your appearance, which symbolizes a pure young girl, seems to be tormented by an evil power... except for your clothes, you're already an adult. But—"

"Kill, kill..." Hanako muttered repeatedly, resentment surging in her eyes.

"Quite to my taste," the monk grinned, revealing a hint of wickedness. "I'll purify you right away."

"Kill him!" Hanako roared, her resentment condensing into an arrow that shot straight for the other's heart.

"Don't underestimate me!" The monk's bandage-wrapped arm swung out violently, shattering the resentment arrow with his bare hand and knocking Hanako back several steps.

Hanako was clearly enraged, the purple energy around her surging: "An attack like that won't kill me! Now, it's my turn—"

However, in the next second, even Lin Luo's pupils constricted.

The scene before them suddenly became bizarre and sacrilegious. With a distorted smile on his face, the monk suddenly tore open his Kasaya without warning, exposing his lower body—even more unsettling was a murky, distorted spiritual light weirdly coiling around his naked body, presenting a hideous and blasphemous posture.

This sudden, unsightly scene caused Lin Luo's pupils to shrink. Almost instinctively and swiftly, he raised his hand, his broad palm firmly covering the eyes of Mafuyu beside him, pulling her slightly behind him.

"Don't look," his voice was low and calm, carrying an unquestionable tone.

Earlier, it was Mafuyu who instinctively covered his eyes to stop him from looking at Hanako's overly "passionate" ravings; now, it was he who took the initiative to shield her vision, lest this filthy scene defile her eyes and cause her to develop sties.

Mafuyu was stunned by this sudden shielding, her long eyelashes gently brushing against Lin Luo's palm like small brushes, sending a faint itch through him. But she didn't struggle, only asking in a low voice: "...What happened?"

From the way Lin Luo's body instantly tensed and his brief command, she keenly sensed that something extremely improper must have appeared ahead.

"Nothing worth seeing, just some... filthy tricks." Lin Luo's gaze was sharp as a blade, locked onto the strangely behaving monk, his eyes filled with disgust and wariness.

For the other party to use spiritual light on such an unsightly part of the body and use it as a means of provocation or attack completely exceeded the bottom line of an ordinary Evil Cultivator; it was an utter desecration of the word "cultivation."

"What can you do with something like that?" For the first time, Hanako's voice wavered.

"Heaven bestowed this power upon me, so I'll let you experience it well," the monk sneered.

The Mystic Light screen immediately dispersed; what followed was content unsuitable for minors. They were close to the restroom, and the commotion there soon reached them.

The sounds were intense, yet laced with resentment, but as the monk released his power, the resentment actually dissipated quite a bit. Lin Luo was astonished. "This guy is actually using this method to exorcise evil; he's an Evil Monk."

The Mystic Light screen before them suddenly distorted and vanished, as the ensuing scene was already unbearable to look at. Lin Luo and Mafuyu were pressed against the outer wall of the public restroom, and the intense commotion from the stall reached them without any obstruction.

The sound carried a primitive intensity, yet it was strangely mixed with deep resentment, as if an unconventional struggle was taking place. However, with a low roar from the monk that sounded almost like a release, everything returned to peace. What surprised Lin Luo even more was that the cold resentment that had been permeating the monk's surroundings and relentlessly entangling him had actually dissipated by more than half, as if it had truly been "dispersed" by this unbelievable method.

"This guy... is he really 'exorcising evil' in this way?" Lin Luo lowered his voice, his tone filled with an unbelievable sense of absurdity. "What is this? Using lewd acts to resolve resentful energy? This isn't a proper monk at all; he's a total Evil Monk!"

Recalling the blasphemous scene he had just seen, with the murky spiritual light coiling around the man's body, and seeing that the resentment had indeed dissipated, a chill ran through his heart. This kind of method was unheard of and was a complete subversion of the Righteous Path of cultivation, following an entirely Evil Path.

Although Mafuyu's eyes were covered, her hearing remained. The sounds from the stall and Lin Luo's suppressed words made her instantly realize what was happening inside and what a bizarre path the monk's so-called "exorcism" was taking. Her cheeks flushed slightly, whether from shame or anger, and her body felt somewhat stiff.

"Are we... still going to stay here?" she asked softly, her tone carrying obvious embarrassment and discomfort. Continuing to stay here and listen to such things was truly a form of torture.

Lin Luo made a prompt decision, gently putting his arm around her shoulder and leading her quickly and silently away from this den of trouble. It wasn't until they reached a sufficiently distant corner of the corridor, ensuring they could neither hear nor see the filth there, that he released the hand covering Mafuyu's eyes.

Mafuyu blinked, adjusting to the light, her face still carrying a lingering blush as she looked at Lin Luo with a complex expression: "That monk... can he really disperse resentment like that?"

"It's just a crooked path!" Lin Luo's tone was firm, filled with deep disdain. "Perhaps he can temporarily use some evil method I'm not familiar with to transfer or vent part of the resentment through this extreme way, but it is by no means the Righteous Path. The root of the resentment hasn't been removed, and his actions might even breed new Karmic Obstruction because they are so filthy. In the long run, he will surely suffer a backlash, and his methods are so base that they are intolerable to heaven."