I Return From Hell

Chapter 12: Chapter 10: Single Ghost

Chu Quan.

When Li Xiaopeng got up, no longer wanting to play, Zhang Chi suggested they go to sleep instead of pulling an all-nighter.

The others all agreed.

Chu Quan had no choice but to give up on the all-nighter as well. After everyone else had left, he volunteered to turn off the lights.

The room plunged into darkness.

His eyes couldn’t adjust right away, and he couldn’t see a thing. Relying on memory, he took two steps forward before he didn’t dare to go any further, choosing to stand still.

After a few seconds, his eyes gradually adjusted. With the help of the hazy moonlight, he could vaguely make out his surroundings.

Chu Quan was about to go upstairs when he walked past a picture frame and noticed it had been knocked over at some point. Not thinking much of it, he casually flipped it back up.

In the photo, he and Nie Xiaoyu were as handsome and beautiful as ever.

A perfect match, one might say.

Unfortunately...

But at that moment, the image of another lovely figure surfaced in Chu Quan’s mind.

Xia Yu!

Her perfect figure, her pretty face, her unique aura, her cold personality, and her stubborn temper—every single thing about her captivated him.

He found her irresistible.

He thought about her day and night, his mind completely possessed.

Even though she had rejected him many times.

Even when he was being intimate with Nie Xiaoyu, he would take out his phone and secretly open a secure folder, which contained photos of Xia Yu.

Nude photos, or photos of her in extremely revealing outfits.

This caused him to finish quickly every time.

However...

Only he knew that the woman beneath him was not Xia Yu.

The photos in the secure folder were ones he had secretly taken of Xia Yu, or ones he had downloaded from her social media and then run through an AI ”undressing” app.

In other words, they were all fake.

He had been deceiving himself all along.

’Xia Yu, I will have you.’

Chu Quan took a deep breath, an inexplicable heat rising through his body. He was about to go upstairs to vent his frustrations on Nie Xiaoyu, but as he turned, he saw a red figure that seemed to have appeared in the photo.

’I don’t remember any passersby wearing red in the original photo, do I?’

He looked back at the photo.

He saw that Nie Xiaoyu’s place had been taken by a figure in a red wedding dress and a red bridal veil.

”Holy shit!”

Chu Quan was startled.

The heat in his body vanished completely.

Then...

He snapped his eyes open.

Chu Quan was lying on his side in bed, Nie Xiaoyu sleeping next to him.

”Whew.”

He realized he was covered in a cold sweat, but he couldn’t be bothered by that. He let out a heavy sigh of relief.

A series of memories flashed through his mind: When Li Xiaopeng got up, no longer wanting to play, Zhang Chi suggested they go to sleep instead of pulling an all-nighter.

The others all agreed.

He had no choice but to give up on the all-nighter as well. He told Huo Shuya, who was sleeping on the first floor, to remember to turn off the lights, and then went back to the second-floor master bedroom with Nie Xiaoyu.

’So it was just a nightmare.’

’What a weird dream.’

Chu Quan rolled over, facing the other side to go back to sleep.

But the moment he closed his eyes, he snapped them open again, because lying before him was the soundly sleeping Nie Xiaoyu.

”!!!”

In an instant, his scalp went numb, and a chill shot through him as if he’d been plunged into an ice cave.

’Who is the real Nie Xiaoyu?’

He remembered now. The one in front of him was the real one; Nie Xiaoyu had been sleeping in this spot before he fell asleep. So who was the ”Nie Xiaoyu” behind him?

Then, he sensed the ”Nie Xiaoyu” behind him move. It turned its head with a stiff motion, looking at him.

He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he even felt the ”Nie Xiaoyu” behind him reaching out, its hand closing around his neck!

Fear exploded in his heart. Nearly scared into a heart attack, Chu Quan unleashed a surprising burst of energy, leaping from the bed and bolting for the door without looking back, shouting, ”Ghost!”

”There’s a ghost! Help! Help me!”

BAM.

Suddenly, he felt his body being kicked hard, sending him flying.

The intense pain instantly yanked his consciousness from the dark second-floor master bedroom back to the first-floor living room.

In a daze, Chu Quan saw Xia Yu standing in front of him. ’It’s fake again!’

’A dream within a dream within a dream!’

SLAP.

He slapped himself across the face with all his might, so hard that it left a five-fingered, blood-red handprint.

”Hiss...”

The force of the blow was so great his head snapped to the side and he collapsed to the ground, the searing pain nearly causing him to pass out.

But...

The scene before him didn’t change!

Chu Quan’s eyes widened in terror. He scrambled backward wildly on all fours, ignoring the sharp pain in the small of his back where he’d been kicked. ”Ghost! You’re a ghost!”

”Please, I’m begging you, let me go! Waaah...”

He was so scared he started crying.

He sobbed hysterically.

”You’re all ghosts.”

Seeing Nie Xiaoyu and the others staring at him, he grew even more terrified. ”Don’t kill me! I’ll agree to all your demands.”

”Money?”

”Or a house?”

”My family has everything!”

’No Mutants?’

Xia Yu breathed a secret sigh of relief. This group had pretty good physical constitutions; none of them had transformed yet. As long as they didn’t die, they wouldn’t become Mutants.

This lessened her burden considerably.

Now, she only had to focus all her energy on facing the threat from the Ghost Clan.

”Brother Quan.”

Nie Xiaoyu was the first to speak, saying cautiously, ”We’re all human. Living people.”

Li Xiaopeng also spoke up, though his voice trembled, clearly still reeling from the shock. ”You were just dreaming. You were sleepwalking and about to run into a pillar. If it weren’t for Xia Yu, you’d be dead by now.”

Chu Quan was still skeptical.

”If you don’t believe me, take a look at Zhang Chi.”

”He was killed in an illu... in a dream.”

As he spoke, Li Xiaopeng, still holding onto Yu Xiaoxiao who was clinging to him and refused to get down, shifted his body to let Chu Quan see Zhang Chi’s corpse.

Chu Quan saw Zhang Chi’s body and the pool of blood surrounding it, his eyes widening in disbelief.

’Someone really died?’

”See? I wasn’t lying!”

Li Xiaopeng’s gaze returned to Chu Quan. Having regained some of his composure, he glanced at Xia Yu and said, ”We should call the police. The things happening here are too weird.”

The others also turned their gazes to Xia Yu, who had remained calm throughout the ordeal.

They were subconsciously looking to her for leadership.

”Ah!”

Just then, Chu Quan let out a sudden scream.

It made everyone jump in fright.

’What the hell are you screaming for?’

’Don’t you know you can scare someone to death like that?’

Everyone was extremely annoyed, but because Chu Quan usually held a high degree of authority among them, no one cursed him out loud.

Chu Quan pointed at Zhang Chi’s body, his eyes growing wider and wider. His finger trembled, but he couldn’t get the words out. ”He... He...”

The group looked over, their faces turning pale as they all fell back in unison.

’Zhang Chi... is alive?’

’A ghost!’

”AHHH!”

Nie Xiaoyu, Yu Xiaoxiao, and Li Xiaopeng all screamed. Li Xiaopeng even screamed his voice hoarse.

Zhang Chi suddenly smiled, a strange and horrifying grin.

WHOOSH.

Huo Shuya took the lead, sprinting to escape the villa, with the others close behind him.

Just as they reached the entrance, the main door slammed shut on its own.

Their hearts sank into the abyss.

Despair was written all over their faces.