Mysterious Resurgence: Starting with the Strange Bus

Chapter 99 Ghosts in Consciousness

"Crack!"

When the rusty doorknob bent to 180 degrees, the lock was successfully opened. Now, all Li Hui had to do was push it in, and the door to the room would open.

finally.

With a creaking sound, Li Hui successfully pushed open the door to the bedroom on the second floor of the old house, revealing the scene inside.

The room was pitch black, without any light. Standing at the door of this bedroom felt like standing at the entrance to hell.

The hazy dust drifted in, and although it couldn't affect the objects in the room, it did allow Li Hui to 'see' the layout of the room.

The room's decor resembled that of the Republican era, with old-fashioned tiles, a dilapidated chandelier that had long been out of order, and various pieces of slightly faded furniture...

The entire room was filled with a dark and gloomy atmosphere, which made people feel very uncomfortable.

At the far end of the room, against the wall, stood a completely black sandalwood bed, which seemed to have been empty for a long time, its surface covered in dust.

Besides.

Inside the room was a wooden table, two chairs, and something that looked like a wardrobe, but everything was covered in dust.

In addition, there was a very special-looking item in the room, which immediately caught Li Hui's eye.

That was a dressing table!

Like other furniture, the dressing table in the bedroom is also made of wood and painted with dark red paint, but most of the paint has peeled off, making it look extremely old and mottled.

However, one thing was different: all the other items in the bedroom were covered in dust, but the dressing table was exceptionally clean, without a speck of dust, which was why it immediately caught Li Hui's eye.

"It seems this bedroom was previously occupied by a woman." As he pondered this, Li Hui walked to the dressing table.

The dressing table was filled with many makeup aids, such as wooden combs and bronze mirrors, as well as some open boxes containing cosmetics.

Of course, those weren't modern cosmetics, but rather items used for makeup in the old society, dating back to the Republic of China era, where they were called 'rouge and face powder'.

But the weird thing is.

Not only was there not a speck of dust on the dressing table in front of Li Hui, but even the rouge and powder on the dressing table, which had obviously been there for a long time, were still brand new, as if they had just been bought and had not experienced the test of time.

This is clearly an abnormal situation.

You know, even the paint on the dressing table itself, and even the other furniture in the room, had mostly peeled off. How could some cosmetics have been preserved for so long without spoiling, and even faintly emit a special rouge scent?

“A supernatural item?” Li Hui’s expression shifted slightly. At that moment, he suddenly thought of the ghost tamer codenamed ‘Ghost Makeup’ in the original work.

The ghost tamer named 'Ah Hong' had a makeup box, a supernatural item containing pigments that could create ghost makeup and grant the user six layers of supernatural power over the person being painted.

Having read the original novel, Li Hui knew very well that Ah Hong's ghost makeup items most likely originated from Zhang Youhong, one of the Seven Elders of the Republic of China.

Zhang Youhong's wooden figures can be painted to resemble other people, and then possess 60% of the supernatural power of the replicated person. After becoming an anomaly, the wooden figures no longer need paint, but before becoming an anomaly, the wooden figures need paint to be painted to resemble other people.

of course.

This is just the most likely possibility; there are other possibilities as well.

For example, the paint in Ah Hong's old makeup box is actually the source of the ghost paintings, because the dye in the dye vats used to paint the portraits can also give the reflected figures 60% of the original's supernatural abilities...

Thinking.

Li Hui picked up a box of light red rouge from the dressing table and examined it.

Strangely, he didn't sense any supernatural power in the rouge; it was as if he were holding just an ordinary box of rouge.

After examining the items for a moment and finding nothing unusual, Li Hui put down the rouge box in his hand and then picked up another item on the dressing table.

It was a relatively well-preserved wooden comb, dark red all over. I didn't know if it was painted with this color or if the comb was made of dark red wood.

The moment Li Hui held the wooden comb, he felt an extremely cold sensation, as if he were holding not a comb, but a block of ice.

To Li Hui's surprise, after examining the comb closely, he found no supernatural traces on it, as if it were just an ordinary item.

Not only that.

Li Hui checked the dressing table and all the other makeup aids on it, but still couldn't detect any traces of supernatural power on them.

In other words, under his scrutiny, everything in front of him was normal and did not possess any supernatural power.

However, this result was obviously not satisfactory to Li Hui. After all, in such a place, the dressing table, which was obviously strange to anyone with eyes, had no supernatural remnants. This in itself was an extremely abnormal phenomenon!
"It must be because of this old house that it can not only shield the ghost realm from detection and not be exposed in the ghost realm, but also affect the perception of people who enter the old house."

Li Hui had this suspicion in his mind.

He wasn't sure if there was anything wrong with the other furniture in the bedroom, but judging from the current situation, Li Hui absolutely didn't believe that there was nothing wrong with the dressing table in front of him.

Li Hui felt that the dressing table was very likely a supernatural object, and that the other items on the dressing table were also abnormal.

"I wonder if the machete can be used to trace the origin of these things."

While thinking.

A rusty, old-looking woodcutter's knife appeared strangely in front of Li Hui.

Then Li Hui reached out and grabbed the wood-chopping knife in front of him, and with his other hand he gripped the rouge box again, trying to trigger the medium through this contact.

As long as the rouge box bears traces left by its previous owner, the medium of the woodcutter's knife can be successfully triggered.

Almost the instant Li Hui grasped the rouge box, the medium for the wood-chopping knife was successfully triggered, and the scene before Li Hui's eyes suddenly changed.

In the media footage of the machete, the room is still the same room, but the scene inside has become completely different.

The dust on the wooden bed, wooden table, and wooden stool in the room had all disappeared, and the peeling dark red paint had been restored. All the furniture and items looked brand new, including the dressing table in front of Li Hui!

At the same time, a figure was reflected in the bronze mirror on the dressing table.

It was a woman, probably in her thirties, wearing a white dress, sitting in front of a dressing table, constantly combing her hair with a dark red wooden comb.

Seeing this, Li Hui's eyes flickered slightly as he began to scrutinize the middle-aged woman sitting next to him who was constantly combing her hair.

Because of the angle, Li Hui could only see the woman's profile.

Even so, Li Hui instantly recognized the middle-aged woman as the vengeful ghost who had taken the bus with him to this haunted place and then disappeared into his ghostly realm after getting off the bus.

The only difference was that the ghost on the bus was extremely blurry, like a reflection of a person, while the middle-aged woman in front of him was very real and did not have that illusory feeling.

"This is... what this bedroom used to look like?" Li Hui glanced at the completely new room and the furniture and items inside, and couldn't help but wonder to himself.

It wasn't just the furniture in the room that was transformed; the old, cracked tiles on the ceiling and walls, the broken chandelier, and everything else in the bedroom all looked brand new.

There are only two possibilities for this situation: either this is the true appearance of the room, or this is what the bedroom used to look like.

The old machete has a unique ability: it contains more than one vengeful spirit. In addition to having the ability to dismember others by triggering a medium, it also has the ability to trace back to the past, allowing it to understand what happened in a certain area during a certain period of time in the past through the machete.

Li Hui felt that the scene before him was likely something that had happened in this room at some point in the past, and that the image was being recreated in front of him through the medium of the woodcutter's knife.

"This middle-aged woman was probably a ghost-controller during the Republic of China era, and she may even have been the owner of this old house."

Based on the scene before him, Li Hui quickly began to deduce in his mind.

He believes that even if the middle-aged woman is not the owner of the house, she has a great connection with the old house. Just like Zhang Dong and his teammates, there are traces of his teammates' lives or items in the old house where Zhang Dong is located.

"If my guess is correct, then the ethereal ghost on the bus earlier should be the supernatural puzzle piece controlled by the middle-aged woman. Like most powerful ghost controllers in the Republic of China, she probably dismembered the supernatural entity she controlled before she died."

But then a new problem arose.

If that vengeful ghost is only part of the supernatural puzzle, then wouldn't that mean the middle-aged woman's body is very likely still somewhere in this old house?

But just as this thought popped into Li Hui's head, the scene before him changed again.

The brand-new furniture once again turned into an old, worn-out piece with peeling paint, and other items in the room also became dilapidated, just like what Li Hui had seen when he first opened the door. It was as if everything in the room had undergone the baptism of a long time in an instant.

But the middle-aged woman did not disappear; she remained sitting beside Li Hui, only her hand that was combing her hair stopped, and her neck was turned ninety degrees, her empty, lifeless eyes staring straight at Li Hui.

This is an extremely eerie scene.

The figure in the machete medium is actually looking at Li Hui in reality through the machete medium.

"Ok?"

Seeing this, Li Hui did not hesitate at all. He swung his old woodcutter's knife down and slashed at the middle-aged woman beside him.

But the ending was unexpected.

The curse of the woodcutter's knife was not successfully triggered. The woman's body was not dismembered by the woodcutter's knife, and Li Hui himself did not suffer any backlash from the curse.

Not only that.

Li Hui's behavior seemed to have triggered some unknown supernatural rule, causing him to be attacked by a vengeful ghost.

A slightly ethereal figure appeared directly in Li Hui's consciousness. It was the vengeful ghost who had gotten off the bus. The supernatural power of the bus that Li Hui was driving had failed to prevent the ghost from attacking him.

Under the influence of the vengeful ghost, Li Hui's consciousness was pulled into a supernatural space. The entire space was rendered in black and white, making it appear somewhat illusory and unreal.

The entire supernatural space contained only Li Hui's consciousness and the vengeful ghost resembling a middle-aged woman. At this moment, the vengeful ghost moved with stiff steps, rapidly approaching Li Hui's location.

And on the other side.

Yang Xiao and his group's search of the old house was also hindered, especially the ghosts who opened the tightly closed bedroom doors on both sides of the first-floor hall, all of whom encountered supernatural phenomena.

For example, Yang Xiao himself.

He was traveling with a ghost named Xiao Chengtai, and the moment he pushed open the door to the bedroom on the far left of the hall, he discovered the strange objects inside.

Inside the room was a red coffin!
The bright red paint, resembling blood, gave off an extremely eerie feeling. Even more bizarrely, the coffin lid had fallen to the side, and there was no corpse inside the coffin.

If that's all there is to it, it's still alright. No one has ever used a coffin before, so there's no explanation. But from Yang Xiao's perspective, it's clear that there are many scratch marks inside the coffin, marks that look like they were made by human fingernails.

"Did the thing in the coffin escape? If so, where is it?" Yang Xiao's expression shifted slightly as he looked around.

The interior of the room was not large; besides the bright red coffin, there was only a dark wooden cabinet inside.

The cabinet was about the height of a person. I don't know what it was used to store, but something that could be placed in the same room as a coffin like this must be quite something.

With this in mind, Yang Xiao and Xiao Chengtai stepped into the room without showing much hesitation.

In their view, even if there were ghosts in the house, it was nothing to fear, as the two of them were capable of handling most emergencies.

What was unexpected was...

As soon as Yang Xiao and his companion stepped into the room, the door behind them slammed shut, plunging the room into complete darkness.

Tap, tap, tap...

At the same time, footsteps sounded in the darkness.

The sound was dull and stiff, unlike the footsteps of a living person; it sounded more like the walking of a corpse.

(End of this chapter)