Peerless Bodyguard of a Stunning Beauty

Just as Zhao Rong and his assistant were marveling at the stark contrast between the scene from last night and this morning, a piercing scream from Lili echoed through the hallway. ”There’s a ghost! Help me, help me!”

Hearing someone cry for help, Zhao Rong and his assistant rushed out. Lili had run a lap around the hallway before charging directly for Zhao Rong’s room.

The safest place is Brother Zhao Rong’s room, in his arms.

However, when Lili burst into Zhao Rong’s room, she found it completely empty. Involuntarily, she worried aloud, ”No way. Could Brother Zhao Rong have been scared away by this haunted villa too?”

So, Lili ran out of Zhao Rong’s room again. As she re-entered the hallway, she happened to see Zhao Rong and his assistant rushing out of the assistant’s room. Furthermore, the assistant, trailing behind Zhao Rong, was still pulling up his pants as he ran. Lili froze, stunned by the scene before her. She stared at Zhao Rong and said, ”Brother Zhao Rong, don’t tell me you spent last night in the same room as your assistant, and that something... unspeakable happened between you two?” As she finished speaking, Lili noticed that the assistant’s fly was still down.

Zhao Rong was taken aback and quickly explained, ”Miss Lili, please don’t misunderstand! Even if my tastes were that... exotic, I would never lay a hand on my assistant.”

The assistant also tried to clear his name. ”Miss Lili, please don’t get the wrong idea! Brother Zhao Rong just came to my room this morning to catch a ghost for me.”

Hearing that the assistant’s room also had a ghost, Lili immediately pointed to her own door. ”My room has a ghost too! It’s an old man who serves tea.”

At this, Zhao Rong immediately drew the Peach Wood Sword from his waist and charged toward Lili’s room. ”Evil spirit! Where do you think you’re going?”

Seeing the sword in Zhao Rong’s hand, the assistant asked enviously, ”Zhao Rong, where did you get a Peach Wood Sword?”

”Yesterday, in the basement of the Ghost Hunting Academy, we ran into the Sanyi Ghost-Hunting Instructor and the Quanzhen Ghost-Hunting Instructor, didn’t we?” Zhao Rong replied as he dashed into Lili’s room. ”I swiped it off them.”

The assistant looked at Zhao Rong with admiration. ”Brother Zhao Rong, I thought you were just a god of war, but now I see you’re a master thief too.”

Zhao Rong gave a helpless sigh. ”I had no choice but to steal the Quanzhen Ghost-Hunting Instructor’s sword. What if we ran into a ghost during the night? What other weapon would I have to protect everyone?”

With that, he rushed into Lili’s room. Inside, an old man was standing there. He was of advanced age and completely bald. Holding a cup of tea, he turned to face Zhao Rong, Lili, and the assistant. ”Masters, welcome to the Dismembered Ghost Villa...” he said, and then abruptly vanished.

Seeing the old man disappear, Zhao Rong sucked in a sharp breath. ”Damn it. No wonder not a single student from the Ghost Hunting Academy is willing to live in this villa. This place is really crawling with ferocious ghosts.”

This was also why the Ghost Hunting Academy had built its classrooms and most of its facilities in the basement. It was to protect the academy itself. There were simply too many fierce and vengeful spirits in Wang Family Village. Building the academy above ground would leave it vulnerable to infiltration by all sorts of ghosts. Building it underground, however, kept it safe, as ghosts dared not enter. This was because the basement represented the entrance to the eighteen layers of hell. Ghosts were terrified of entering hell, of being judged, and of facing punishments like climbing mountains of knives and descending into seas of fire.

”The moment I opened my eyes this morning, I saw that old man standing in my bedroom,” Lili said. ”It scared me to death.”

Hearing Lili’s story, Zhao Rong said urgently, ”This is bad. We need to go rescue Yu Lan and Xuelian!”

Zhao Rong took the lead, rushing toward the two women’s rooms.

As he ran, Zhao Rong figured that the reason everyone saw a ghost upon waking was that these rooms were already occupied by spirits. Our arrival must have disturbed their rest, which is why they started causing trouble first thing in the morning.

Yu Lan’s room was the closest. Zhao Rong kicked the door open and charged in to find her standing on the windowsill, preparing to jump. Seeing her about to commit suicide, Zhao Rong acted without a moment’s hesitation. He used his Special Abilities, Instant Teleportation, to snatch Yu Lan from the windowsill and place her gently on the bed. Once she was safe, he urgently told his assistant to find some garlic.

When the assistant handed it to him, Zhao Rong quickly began chewing on a clove. ”This is bad,” he mumbled, ”Beauty Yu Lan must be possessed by a ghost...”

”Then what do we do?” Lili asked anxiously.

Zhao Rong finished chewing the garlic, spat the paste into his palm, and rubbed it onto the philtrum beneath Yu Lan’s nose. A moment later, a wisp of white smoke drifted out of Yu Lan’s body, and she awoke. Once conscious, Yu Lan pointed to a corner of the room. ”It was that ghost doll. She possessed me.”

Following her finger, Zhao Rong saw a little girl with no eyes standing forlornly in the corner, as if waiting for something. Brandishing his Peach Wood Sword, Zhao Rong rushed toward her. But just as he was about to strike the ghost down, he found himself unable to do it.

He looked at the little ghost girl and said, ”Little one, you should go and be reincarnated. Don’t choose to continue harming people.”

”This villa is my home,” the girl replied forlornly. ”Where else can I go to be reincarnated?”

Hearing her speak, Zhao Rong immediately asked the question burning in his mind. ”Ghost doll, can you tell me why there are so many ghosts in Wang Family Village?”

The assistant, standing nearby, chimed in, ”Yes, why is Wang Family Village the most severely haunted place in all of Xijing City?”

”Wang Family Village used to be a peaceful and beautiful place,” the ghost doll explained. ”But one day, out of nowhere, there was a huge flood. A mudslide rushed down the mountain and buried our entire village. And just like that, all of us died.”

Hearing that an entire village had perished, Zhao Rong said with great sorrow, ”That’s truly tragic. If only you could have left before the mudslide, you all might have been saved.”

”But who could have predicted that an ordinary rainstorm would cause a mudslide?” the ghost doll said, looking around for her mother.

Listening to the girl, Lili added, ”Because everyone in your village died so suddenly and unjustly, when you all became ghosts, none of you wanted to be reincarnated. Instead, you all stayed here in the village, continuing to live as villagers, is that right?”

The ghost doll nodded. ”Auntie, I want to find my mommy. Please, take me to my mommy.”

Hearing the little girl’s plea, Zhao Rong immediately began to lead her out. ”Where is your mom? We’ll take you to her right now.”

The girl pointed at Xuelian’s room. ”This room is my mommy’s. She’s a heavy sleeper and always sleeps in.”

The ghost doll’s words confirmed Zhao Rong’s earlier suspicion. He asked her, ”Right, this villa is your home, isn’t it? Then every room is occupied, right?”

The ghost doll seemed to enjoy talking with Zhao Rong. She happily pointed to the doors. ”The first room is my aunt’s. The second room is my grandma’s. The third room is mine. And the fourth room is my mommy’s.”

Just as the four of them reached the door to Xuelian’s room, it swung open on its own. Inside, a disheveled, vengeful ghost had Xuelian in a chokehold, her long fingernails digging into her neck. ”You students from the Ghost Hunting Academy, give me back my daughter!” the ghost shrieked. ”Or I’ll kill this woman!”

When the ghost doll saw her, she immediately rushed forward. ”Mommy! They are students from the Ghost Hunting Academy, but they’re good ghost catchers. They don’t kill the innocent!”

Listening to the doll, Zhao Rong asked, puzzled, ”Do you mean students from the Ghost Hunting Academy kill every single ghost they find?”

The mother picked up her daughter and released Xuelian. ”The Ghost Hunting Academy used to distinguish between good and bad ghosts,” she explained. ”But ever since the old dean was forced out by the vice-dean, the atmosphere of the entire academy changed. It went from only capturing and killing bad ghosts to the current terrible practice of catching and killing any ghost on sight. My children’s uncles were killed by the Sanyi Ghost-Hunting Instructor and the Quanzhen Ghost-Hunting Instructor from your academy...”

Finishing her story, the female ghost suddenly began to plead. ”I know you must be new students here. I’m begging you, can you take down the new dean? If you do, we ghosts of Wang Family Village might finally have a place to live in peace.”

Against his better judgment, Zhao Rong found himself sympathizing with the ghost before him. But just as he felt pity for the mother and daughter and prepared to help them, he heard the sound of hurried footsteps coming from the first-floor staircase.

Someone must have entered the villa without my permission, Zhao Rong thought. But whether they’re human or ghost, I can’t be sure.

As Zhao Rong wondered, the ghost mother and daughter cried out in terror. ”Oh no! The Ghost Hunting Academy’s annual ghost-cleansing has started!”

The ghost doll clung to her mother, crying sorrowfully. ”Mommy, those bad uncles are here again! I don’t want you to die! I don’t want to die either!”