Author: 颜凉雨 / Yan Liang Yu
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 170: Electric Switch
Just when their hearts had settled a bit from saving, the eerie particles of light that filled the room once again disturbed their calm.
The companions observed cautiously, except for Chi Yingxue, who, without hesitation, reached out to grab a handful.
This startled Qian Ai. “Hey, hey, what are you grabbing at? What if they explode—”
Chi Yingxue frowned at the interruption. “Instead of looking around, it’s better to catch a few and interrogate them.”
Xu Wang looked speechlessly at these two teammates, unsure whether to comment on the “explosion” or the “interrogation”.
“Did you catch any?” Kuang Jinxin was genuinely curious about what was in Chi Yingxue’s clenched fist.
Chi Yingxue opened his hand, and indeed, there were a few light particles.
“You can catch them?!” Kuang Jinxin was surprised and immediately reached out to touch them. But as soon as he did, the particles moved away. He tried to grab them like Chi Yingxue did, and he could catch some, but strangely, there was no sensation in his palm, as if he had grabbed a handful of air.
Qian Ai waved his arms tentatively, and as expected, the particles moved with his motions without any pattern, as if blown away by airflow. He could visually see his arms touching the particles, but there was no tactile sensation.
“What the hell is this?” Qian Ai was puzzled enough to want to scratch his head.
“Dust? Air?” Kuang Jinxin could only think of these.
Qian Ai deadpanned, “Are you sure you can find a heart of those two things you mentioned?”
Xu Wang sighed. Their teammate had hit the nail on the head. If they couldn’t stab the ghost’s heart, then they were the ones getting hurt.
Wu Sheng looked thoughtfully at the particles that were either stationary or slightly drifting.
“Click, click, click…”
A strange sound came from the left wall, as if something was scraping against it.
The five turned to look. It was the wall-mounted TV, vibrating fiercely…
“Be careful!”
Qian Ai, having seen enough to know trouble was brewing, immediately lunged to knock down the nearest two companions—Chi Yingxue and Kuang Jinxin.
Wu Sheng, at the same time, grabbed Xu Wang and dove to the ground.
Just as they hit the floor, the TV fell off the wall and smashed towards them.
Having rolled to the sides in time, the TV crashed where they had just been, exploding on impact.
Even a small explosion in a confined living room was powerful, and despite protecting their heads, their bodies were hit by flying debris, burning with pain.
Xu Wang, enduring the pain and amidst the rising dust, activated [(Defense) Invisible Iron Barrel Formation]. Before fully connecting with the defense, he heard a crisp “clang”.
He slightly raised his head in the dusty room, scanning around, and saw a cross-blade, like from a blender, fall next to Wu Sheng.
Just as he noticed it, the blade suddenly spun up again, rushing towards Wu Sheng.
Wu Sheng saw it too but remained motionless, as if fully trusting Xu Wang’s defense, focusing intently on the blade surrounded by a unique concentration of light particles, lost in thought.
Xu Wang concentrated hard, not daring to relax his defense for a moment.
The blade again hit the invisible but densely packed iron barrels and dropped to the ground.
Xu Wang’s heart jumped to his throat, and his forehead was covered in cold sweat.
Qian Ai, Chi Yingxue, and Kuang Jinxin also noticed the blade, but before they could think further, another kitchen knife flew out from the kitchen, “enthusiastically” heading straight for them.
“Damn—” Even with Xu Wang’s defense, Qian Ai’s scalp tingled, and he immediately activated his own [(Defense) Iron Slab].
The knife hadn’t yet hit the invisible iron barrels before striking the suddenly appearing iron slab, flying off to embed itself in the wall.
For the next half hour, the companions faced wave after wave of attacks, breaking and replacing defenses as needed. They managed to defend against an assortment of household items aimed at them, requiring both mental and physical effort, especially under such sustained and intense conditions.
Though they successfully defended themselves, they were essentially trapped within their defenses, unable to reach the ghost, while the ghost had free reign over them.
“This can’t go on.” Qian Ai panted anxiously. “If we run out of stationery, we’ll really be out of options.”
Kuang Jinxin looked at the items scattered around the defensive circle and suddenly said, “Captain, Sheng Ge, did you notice that when these items were thrown at us, the light particles around them were more concentrated than elsewhere?”
Xu Wang frowned. “Those light particles are the ghost, and the items are thrown by the ghost, so it’s normal for there to be more light particles around them. The problem now is…”
“How to force the ghost into a visible form?” Wu Sheng interjected gravely.
Qian Ai, looking at the surrounding light particles, was baffled. “Isn’t it already out? They’re everywhere; just look.”
Chi Yingxue glanced at him lightly. “We need to force it into a form with a visible heart.”
“……” Qian Ai swore he saw disdain in his teammate’s eyes and retorted. “Xiao Xue, I’ve noticed you talk more now, and you’re not as cute as before…”
Chi Yingxue: “……”
Kuang Jinxin, seeing Chi Yingxue’s indescribable frustration, felt a mix of sympathy and amusement.
Xu Wang chuckled. In a sense, Qian Ai, who had opened his heart to accept Xiao Xue, was slowly finding the “Nemesis Xue Road”.
Distracted for just a moment by the team chat, Xu Wang suddenly felt an invisible hand choking him, unable to breathe in an instant!
With a smile frozen on his face, Xu Wang couldn’t call out, desperately trying to grab at his neck, scratching deep marks into his skin.
“Xu Wang!” Wu Sheng noticed the anomaly, and his expression changed dramatically.
Half an hour of battle had put Wu Sheng into a sort of combat inertia; he hadn’t expected the ghost to change its attack method now!
Xu Wang, trying to gasp for air, couldn’t manage a single breath. His hands, again reaching for his neck, were firmly grasped by Wu Sheng.
Kuang Jinxin, Qian Ai, and Chi Yingxue could now see a band of light particles tightly wound around his neck like a ribbon.
While their defenses could block objects, they couldn’t stop the tiny light particles. They had assumed the particles needed to drive objects to attack, but clearly, the particles themselves could be harmful.
When Xu Wang tried to remove the “light particle ribbons”, the particles began to move erratically, following only the “light bands” without lessening their entangling force, making it impossible to handle them.
“Help me hold him down. Don’t let him hurt himself!” Wu Sheng entrusted Xu Wang to his three companions and quickly got up, without even activating anymore defense stationery, and dashed out of the defense circle, heading straight to the kitchen!
Most of the recent attacks originated from the kitchen. He had been pondering that the source of the ghost, or some key, was in the kitchen, even speculating on the form of the ghost’s existence. But before he could confirm his theory, Xu Wang was attacked.
As Wu Sheng disappeared into the kitchen, a commotion arose, and within two seconds, the noise stopped, and the roomful of light particles vanished instantly.
They appeared quietly and disappeared without a trace.
The entire house returned to darkness, devoid of light particles or small colored lights, plunging into complete darkness.
At the same time, Xu Wang felt a release around his neck. He immediately took deep breaths, greedily inhaling the oxygen of survival after the ordeal.
Wu Sheng ran back to the living room first, finding Xu Wang accurately in the dark and asking eagerly, “How are you?”
“I’m fine…” Xu Wang started to speak, only to realize that his voice was hoarse.
Wu Sheng finally relaxed, his mind at ease.
After a while, he remembered to fetch a flashlight. Only when the light illuminated the living room did he say, “It’s electric charge.”
Qian Ai stared blankly at the advisor in the flashlight’s beam. “Huh?”
Xu Wang tried to digest the information, albeit with difficulty. “You mean… the ghost?”
“Yes,” Wu Sheng said. “I’ve been wondering what these light particles are. Now I finally understand. They resemble the free electric charges that naturally exist in the air. We can’t see or feel these charges normally, but when they gather together in an orderly manner, their power is immeasurable…”
Xu Wang: “You mean the ghost possesses these free electric charges?”
Wu Sheng shook his head. “No, it is the electric charges themselves.”
Kuang Jinxin: “But Sheng Ge, didn’t you say these charges naturally exist in the air?”
Wu Sheng: “The naturally existing charges are still there, but they never manifest under [Nowhere to Hide]. Whatever we can see with the illusory stationery is the ghost.”
Hearing this, Xu Wang roughly understood. If the naturally existing charges are the first layer, then the charges the ghost decomposed into are the second layer. The “roomful of light particles” they saw, the particles attacking them, and those entwining his neck all belong to this second layer, which is the ghost.
“So, Sheng Ge, what did you do in the kitchen?” Kuang Jinxin knew that the sudden disappearance of the light particles was definitely related to their advisor.
Wu Sheng didn’t beat around the bush and simply said, “I turned off the power.”
Kuang Jinxin: “……”
Xu Wang: “……”
Chi Yingxue: “……”
Qian Ai: “Just like that… so straightforward?”
Wu Sheng, using the flashlight beam, checked Xu Wang’s neck for any serious issues before continuing, “Ever since we entered this house, I found it strange that it had electricity and lights could be turned on despite being unoccupied for so long. It didn’t fit the atmosphere of a haunted house. Only when I started suspecting the light particles were electric charges did I connect the two…”
“Since the ghost’s attack mechanism has some scientific basis, whether it’s truly scientific or not, its existence must also conform to basic scientific logic. It can’t exist out of thin air and attack indefinitely; it must have…”
“An energy source!” Kuang Jinxin, the closest to a university classroom, was very receptive to this kind of deductive explanation.
“Yes.” Wu Sheng nodded in satisfaction. “So the house must have electricity because electricity itself is the basis for the ghost’s existence. It can be a current, it can be a charge, it can gather, it can disperse—as long as there is electricity, it can exist.”
Qian Ai was baffled by the entire explanation but understood the conclusion, immediately worrying for the ghost. “So if we turned off the power, wouldn’t it just disappear?”
“No.” Wu Sheng pondered for a moment before adding, “It shouldn’t.”
Qian Ai: “Can you be a bit more responsible towards the ghost…”
The ghost was temporarily subdued, unable to attack for the time being. Exhausted from the ordeal, the group decided to use the “halftime break” to search the ceiling for the badge.
Before the search, Wu Sheng sent Kuang Jinxin to guard the kitchen’s power switch in case the second ghost possessed some unforeseen power to stealthily turn it back on, catching them off guard with a sudden resurgence.
Upon receiving the order, Kuang Jinxin immediately headed for the kitchen. Chi Yingxue, reminding that one should not act alone, decided to join, turning the solo mission into a duo.
Wu Sheng thought about it and agreed that it was safer for two, so he didn’t object.
However, as Xu Wang watched the duo head to the power switch, he smelled a faint scent of blood and discovered a long cut on Wu Sheng’s arm upon looking down.
He recalled the noise from the kitchen during Wu Sheng’s trip and realized that the brief moment of turning off the power was also a fierce battle.
Aware of Xu Wang’s gaze, Wu Sheng quickly shook his arm. “It’s nothing.”
“Waiting until it’s something would be too late,” Xu Wang said. “Don’t you have a first aid kit? Hurry up and bandage it.”
“It’s too time-consuming,” Wu Sheng said. “Xiao Xue was severely burned and didn’t make a sound. This is just a minor injury for me.”
“He did that to make Xiao Kuang remember his favor for a while longer.” Xu Wang didn’t understand at first but then realized it was about Chi Yingxue protecting Kuang Jinxin, hoping for full appreciation. “What? You also want me to feel sorry for you?”
Wu Sheng was stunned, then laughed. “Does it hurt?”
Xu Wang clenched his teeth. “Hurts like hell.”
While Advisor Wu was satisfied to have the captain bandage him, Qian Ai was buzzing with thoughts—
Was he just fed dog food?
Was Xiao Xue’s natural recovery not just about healthy habits?
Why did Xiao Xue want Xiao Kuang to remember his favor?
Has Xiao Xue been acting differently lately?
Is Xiao Xue interested in live streaming?
The last live stream was a success; should he invite him again to attract more followers?
They should try Jiangxi cuisine next; what’s delicious in Jiangxi…
Until they began searching the ceiling, Qian Ai’s mind was filled with nothing but food.
……
In the kitchen, in front of the electrical switch.
Wu Sheng had asked Kuang Jinxin to stand guard, and Kuang Jinxin did just that, standing motionless in front of the switch, blinking as little as possible, and focusing intently as if his gaze could ignite the switch.
Chi Yingxue stood with him for fifteen minutes, enduring fifteen minutes of silence.
Chi Yingxue enjoyed the quiet company of Kuang Jinxin, but he wished they could talk. From the previous level to this one, they had hardly spoken. In the previous level, he contributed half a bottle of mint water, and in this one, he offered his whole back, yet neither act garnered what he truly desired.
But what did he really want? Even he couldn’t articulate it.
Initially, he thought he just wanted Kuang Jinxin to smile at him. When he caught the first ghost and Kuang Jinxin did smile, Chi Yingxue felt it wasn’t enough. He was happy for a moment, but then he felt empty again.
As Chi Yingxue observed Kuang Jinxin’s profile, he began to feel frustrated, unsure whether it was with himself or Kuang Jinxin.
Despite this, he remembered his brother’s advice. “If you make him feel comfortable too, then he will be yours.” How to make Kuang Jinxin comfortable was unclear to Chi Yingxue, but speaking unpleasantly certainly wasn’t the way.
With this realization, when Chi Yingxue finally spoke, he chose a more agreeable topic. “The way you snatched that NPC’s cloak earlier was quite impressive.”
Kuang Jinxin, startled by the sudden voice of his quiet teammate and the content of his remark, looked at Chi Yingxue with a new measure of appraisal.
The moonlight streaming through the kitchen window made everything clear and bright.
Feeling awkward under Kuang Jinxin’s scrutiny, Chi Yingxue’s initially warming tone cooled to the typical Chi family temperature. “What are you looking at?”
Kuang Jinxin honestly replied, “I’m wondering if you’re sincerely praising me.”
This unexpected answer made Chi Yingxue frown slightly. “Since when have you started to be wary of others?”
Kuang Jinxin lowered his eyes, momentarily speechless.
Chi Yingxue then remembered he had previously called Kuang Jinxin “insincere”. He had forgotten about it almost immediately, so when he complimented again, he felt no discontinuity.
“Last time…” Chi Yingxue began to explain but found himself at a loss for words.
Such post-event explanations were unfamiliar to him.
Kuang Jinxin continued, “You were right last time.”
Chi Yingxue was stunned.
Without looking at him, Kuang Jinxin turned back to the switch as if he was staring at it seriously, but his gaze was drifting, and his voice became low. “I’ve thought about it seriously. Everyone has their own personality and habits, their own life and way of living. I really have no right to use what I think is right to advise or judge others…”
“I’m sorry for saying you were lonely last time.” Kuang Jinxin’s final words came out softly, almost inaudibly.
But Chi Yingxue heard them clearly.
Because he heard them, he felt even more suffocated—uncomfortably so.
He had been angry last time, and when angry, he couldn’t stand to see others content. But he hadn’t expected Kuang Jinxin to be aware of all this.
He hadn’t expected an apology from Kuang Jinxin, either.
Kuang Jinxin seemed to understand every shift in his mood, yet Chi Yingxue had no clue what Kuang Jinxin was thinking, which unsettled him.
He had never before felt such an urge to cling to someone, but the harder he tried, the worse it seemed to get.
The nonsensical advice from Chi Zhuolin was confusing; he didn’t want to guess anymore.
“Xiao Sijin,” Chi Yingxue said softly under the tranquil moonlight.
This familiar and intimate tone made Kuang Jinxin unconsciously turn to look at him. “Huh?”
Chi Yingxue looked at him steadily. “How can I make you comfortable?”
Kuang Jinxin: “…What?”
Chi Yingxue: “How do you want others to treat you so that you feel comfortable?”
Kuang Jinxin, puzzled by this unusual question, took a while to consider before giving a thoughtful answer. “Be honest, I suppose. Say what’s on your mind…”
“That’s it?” Chi Yingxue had braced himself for something complex, but the answer was unexpectedly… simple.
Kuang Jinxin, amused by his reaction, nodded firmly. “That’s it.” After a pause, he quietly observed Chi Yingxue, “Actually, you have this quality.”
“Me?” Chi Yingxue squinted skeptically, clearly not as confident in his character as in his appearance.
Kuang Jinxin explained, “Yes, when you’re happy, it shows, and when you’re not, it shows. You don’t bother lying to achieve something…”
“But I never tell the whole truth,” Chi Yingxue interrupted, shrugging. “I only say the truths that people don’t want to hear. The ones that would make them happy, I keep to myself.”
Kuang Jinxin was puzzled. “Why?”
Chi Yingxue said with pride, “I like to see people get angry.”
Kuang Jinxin couldn’t help but laugh. “What a hobby…”
“But I want to see you happy.” Chi Yingxue’s voice softened, as gentle as the moonlight.
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