202: Chapter 202 One Two Three, Wooden Man

The outskirts of Tokyo.

Qin Ming brought Sadako and teleported to a desolate clearing.

Sadako wrapped her coat tightly around her and looked around cautiously.

"Is that ghost... here?"

"No."

Sadako paused for a moment. "Then what are we doing here?"

Qin Ming shrugged as if it were obvious. "She'll come out if we just call her name."

Sadako's mouth formed a small 'O' shape, and she couldn't close it for a long while.

Actively provoking an evil spirit would be considered suicide for any normal person, but for Qin Ming... it seemed quite normal.

Qin Ming cleared his throat, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted toward the open ruins.

"Shirai!"

"Shirai!"

"Shirai!"

Important things must be said three times.

After the echo dissipated, the clearing fell back into a deathly silence.

Sadako pulled her neck in and looked left and right, warily scanning every dark corner.

There was nothing—no dark shadows, no strange noises.

"Shirai?" Sadako whispered the name, turning back to look at Qin Ming. "This name... doesn't seem to—"

"Behind you." Qin Ming motioned with his chin toward the area behind her.

Sadako froze.

She didn't want to look back; she really didn't want to look back.

But her neck felt as if it were being pulled by some force, turning slowly against her will.

What met her eyes was a face less than thirty centimeters away.

The skin was a bloodless, deathly white, like an unpainted wax figure. There were no eyebrows, no bridge to the nose; the features were only hollow, recessed outlines, as if the Creator had given up halfway through.

And those 'eyes'—two pitch-black voids surrounded by a ring of eerie dark red. There were no pupils, no whites; there was nothing inside, only a void that made one's scalp tingle.

Long black hair, parted down the middle, hung from her forehead. A strand of hair brushed against her pale cheek, like a stiff doll mask, yet she 'stared' straight at Sadako.

A very faint metallic clinking sound drifted through the air.

Ding-ling.

A bell.

"Aaaaaah!!"

"Qin Ming! Qin Ming! Qin Ming!"

Qin Ming squatted down, grabbed Sadako's wrist, and yanked her up from the ground. His voice was full of frustration at her weakness. "You're the big boss among ghosts! What are you afraid of?!"

"B-but she's so scary!" Sadako hid behind Qin Ming, only showing half her head, her voice trembling.

Qin Ming glanced back at the figure standing motionless, then at Sadako shivering behind him, and couldn't help but sigh.

Who would believe that an S-rank was scared out of her wits by a ghost that was barely an A+ rank.

"Alright, calm down for a second." Qin Ming patted Sadako on the shoulder. "She won't move right now."

"Why?"

"Because I called her name first, so I'm her first target." Qin Ming pointed to his eyes, then to Shirai. "As long as I keep staring at her, she can't get closer. That's her rule."

Sadako poked her head out from behind Qin Ming and looked cautiously at Shirai.

Sure enough, the white figure remained in the same posture as when she first appeared, completely motionless.

Ding-ling. Ding-ling.

Sadako shuddered.

"Perfect." Qin Ming let go of Sadako and took two steps to the side. "She's a sitting duck right now. Come and try out your psychokinesis."

"Eh? Now?"

"Otherwise when? Wait until she charges at you to practice?"

Sadako swallowed hard and stepped out from behind Qin Ming, facing the motionless white figure a dozen meters away.

She took a deep breath, extended her hands, and tried to concentrate.

Psychokinesis.

That mental power derived from resentment—she could feel it somewhere inside her body. But every time she tried to summon it, it was like trying to catch an eel with her bare hands; it was so slippery she couldn't get a grip on it at all.

"Ugh..."

Sadako squeezed her eyes shut, fine beads of sweat appearing on her forehead.

The gravel on the ground trembled slightly. Then—nothing happened.

"I can't do it, I can't concentrate..." Sadako lowered her hands in frustration.

Qin Ming watched her with his arms crossed. "Your problem is that you're trying too hard. Psychokinesis isn't developed through meditation; its driving core is emotion. Think about how you explode every time. What's the situation, the scene, the emotion?"

Sadako thought about it and shook her head. "I don't remember those times... it feels like my consciousness just goes blurry all of a sudden."

Qin Ming held up a finger. "The stronger the resentment, the stronger the psychokinesis. But you can't rely on losing control to fight every time. You have to learn to actively summon that power while you're conscious."

"How do I summon it?"

"Try getting angry."

Sadako blinked. "Angry?"

"Yes. The essence of psychokinesis is mental strength, and the source of your mental strength comes from resentment. What is resentment? It's hate, it's anger, it's the darkest things in your heart that you don't want to touch."

Sadako stood there, facing the motionless white figure a dozen meters away, not knowing how to begin for a moment.

"Think about what happened to you when you were a child." Qin Ming's voice lowered, though he kept his gaze fixed on Shirai. "And your mother."

Mother.

Those two words were like a blunt knife, slowly carving into Sadako's chest.

She thought of her father.

No, that man didn't deserve to be called a father.

Heihachiro Ikuma.

An assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Tokyo, a well-dressed academic scumbag.

Sadako's memory fragments were like shattered glass, cutting through her consciousness piece by piece.

When her mother first went to Tokyo for treatment, her headaches were already so severe she couldn't live a normal life. Ikuma was the doctor in charge of her case. He quickly discovered that her symptoms weren't a common mental illness—she could tell what words were written inside a sealed box and foresee trivial events about to happen.

To a scholar researching supernatural phenomena and Clairvoyance, she was practically a living specimen fallen from the sky.

He began to actively approach her mother.

He repeatedly conducted Clairvoyance experiments and precognition tests, locking her mother in the lab to record data over and over. He blocked information from the outside world, monopolized the research results, and treated her mother as his exclusive tool for promotions and funding.

Sadako didn't know what her mother was thinking at the time. Perhaps it was loneliness, or perhaps her eyes were clouded by superficial care amidst her pain.

In 1947, her mother gave birth to her.

Ikuma was already married. The child could only take her mother's surname.

And then? In 1950, for the sake of fame and fortune, Ikuma dragged her mother onto television, held press conferences, and performed public demonstrations of her Psychic Powers. The flashbulbs and microphones were like a swarm of bloodthirsty flies, while her mother stood on stage, pale, thin, and hollow-eyed—she was merely a specimen on display.

Public sentiment shifted from curiosity to doubt, from doubt to ridicule, and from ridicule to abuse.