Chapter 178: Confronting the Ghost

Looking at the panicked front desk girl, Lu Xin slowly started walking towards her.

He was completely relaxed by this point.

But the front desk girl’s face clearly showed panic. She clutched the fruit knife tightly, gesturing with it at her own neck, her voice sharp and frantic, “Are you crazy? Do you really not care if she lives? You… don’t come any closer…”

Lu Xin didn’t even pause his advance, his calm eyes fixed on her. He spoke as if thinking aloud, his tone somewhat slow, “Of course I care if she lives. Our leader said that in this world, every normal person is worth protecting with our utmost effort. But thinking about it carefully, I don’t think you necessarily dare to hurt her…”

“Right now, you have nowhere else to run…”

“And analyzing your ability, if you enter a target’s body, that target becomes ‘you’. So if that target dies, what effect does it have on you? Judging by your reaction earlier, it seems like right after harming a target, you immediately transfer into another person. Does this mean you can’t live inside a dead body?”

“So, if you can’t transfer, what happens if you harm her?”

…

As he spoke, he seemed to figure out more and more, his mood improving. He smiled at the front desk girl, “Of course, even if you could, it wouldn’t matter. Because if you hurt her, it’s definitely a capital offense. And someone like you, who thinks of yourself as a god, naturally values your own life more than others. So, how could you bear to die with her?”

“So…”

While speaking, he had walked right up to the front desk, looking directly into her eyes, “Are you going to do it, or surrender directly?”

“You…”

Lu Xin’s composure drove the front desk girl, or rather, the Ghost inside her, even crazier.

The essence of this madness was a bone-deep fear.

Leaning against the wall in the distance, Li Mengmeng, who had just cautiously opened her eyes, saw a familiar expression on the front desk girl’s face.

It was probably the expression she herself had worn when she was about to be driven mad.

And now, it was back on the Ghost’s face.

“You forced me! You forced me! I’ll fight you…”

“How could someone like me… how could I possibly be pushed to this point by you?”

“You have no idea the consequences of making me angry…”

…

The front desk girl’s expression became increasingly distorted, like a beast trapped in a cage. Every step Lu Xin took deepened her pressure. Finally, her eyes turned bloodshot, as if staking everything. She suddenly let out a shrill scream. At the same time, her pupils rolled up completely, her bloodshot eyes turning stark white…

Simultaneously, the lights in the lobby, which had just stabilized, flickered erratically. The crackling sound of fluorescent bulbs filled the air.

*Pop* *Pop*…

Several lamps couldn’t handle the voltage surge and exploded, showering sparks and fragments.

A few wisps of chilling air seemed to suddenly swirl through the lobby, giving people a creepy, tingling sensation.

But in Lu Xin’s vision, he saw a huge figure suddenly emerge from above the front desk girl’s head. It was easily two or three meters tall, vaguely humanoid, with pitch-black skin. Most striking was the face on this figure—distorted and arrogant, its eyes incredibly deep, filled with indescribable hatred, fixed squarely on Lu Xin.

“You forced me, so I’ll take you down with me…”

The figure roared in anger. Not only Lu Xin, but even the others in the lobby faintly heard those words.

But for them, it was more like an auditory hallucination.

*Swish!*

Lu Xin didn’t even try to dodge. The figure moved incredibly fast. The moment it appeared, due to its large size and long arms, it instantly overlapped with Lu Xin’s body. In that instant, Lu Xin vaguely felt his thoughts changing, as if emotions, memories, and perceptions that weren’t his own were wildly proliferating in his mind.

Amidst these countless fragments, he even saw a somewhat frustrated person, someone always envious of others’ lives, who, after gaining an ability, began constantly entering other people’s bodies, using them to experience life…

…He saw a beautiful woman, so he entered her husband’s body and spent a pleasant night with her.

Before leaving, he used the husband’s body to hang himself in the bathroom.

Then he entered their daughter’s body, sinisterly watching the woman he could never attain cry her heart out.

…He saw a wealthy man, so he entered his body, enjoying the life of lavish spending and ordering subordinates around. Then, upon leaving, he assaulted the intelligent female secretary and burned all the documents to ashes.

As he watched the man, completely unaware of what had happened, jump despairingly from the rooftop, he laughed gleefully from within the secretary’s body.

…

Initially, he tried using others’ bodies to gain some benefits for his original self, like sending some money or getting a promotion.

But gradually, he grew tired of it, feeling it was too slow, and he was dissatisfied with his original body’s appearance.

Furthermore, he discovered he could live quite well as a mental entity, so he abandoned his physical body.

He began living freely and willfully in the city as a “Ghost.”

…

…

*Swish!*

Lu Xin opened his eyes.

The Ghost seemed to be trying hard to influence him, then enter his body.

It partially succeeded, giving Lu Xin that sensation, but it passed in just an instant.

Similar things had happened before. The death curse Qin Ran placed on him was meant to turn Lu Xin into another Qin Ran, but in reality, it only affected Lu Xin partially before Mom found it and snipped it away with scissors. Judging by the intensity, this Ghost wasn’t even as strong as Qin Ran; after all, Qin Ran at least made a face grow under Lu Xin’s skin…

This Ghost merely allowed Lu Xin to ‘see’ him.

“So you haven’t just broken the law…”

Lu Xin looked up at the Ghost, feeling somewhat disgusted.

He had seen the Ghost’s memories, so naturally, he knew what it had done.

Out of repulsion, even his tone changed slightly.

“You…”

A terrified expression appeared on the Ghost’s face. It wanted desperately to enter Lu Xin’s body but couldn’t.

This threw it into extreme panic, and it suddenly opened its huge mouth to bite down.

This was an ability it discovered after becoming a mental entity. It seemed it could bite others?

However, this ability wasn’t very useful, so it hadn’t researched it much…

Of course, a black shadow, a two-to-three-meter-tall man floating in mid-air, suddenly stretching its mouth wide open to its ears, revealing jagged fangs and biting down viciously at someone… it did look somewhat terrifying…

But at that moment, Lu Xin had already jumped.

He jumped straight up from a standing position, bending his knees slightly, leaping over two meters high.

As he jumped, he stretched out his hand.

He had expected Sister to come and grab his hand, allowing him to borrow her power. But unexpectedly, Sister was just crouching beside Li Mengmeng, tilting her head curiously, watching him as if enjoying a show. As he jumped up, heading straight for the Ghost’s descending maw, Lu Xin had no choice but to slap out instinctively.

*Pa…*

It was a very strange sensation.

Lu Xin’s hand swung through the Ghost’s face. It passed right through, his palm feeling a tingling numbness, like an invisible electric current passing through. He couldn’t physically hit it, but after his hand swung past, the Ghost’s face rapidly caved in.

It seemed what hit it wasn’t Lu Xin’s hand, but Lu Xin’s *intention* to hit it.

*Pfft…*

He was slapped straight to the ground by Lu Xin, his huge body trembling. Lu Xin landed smoothly from the air. Since Sister hadn’t helped him, controlling his body wasn’t as agile as before. He didn’t dare try any fancy flips, lest he land headfirst. So, he simply maintained his posture and stomped down hard.

*Tch!*

Lu Xin’s downward stomp, or rather, the intention behind it, made the Ghost scream madly.

The stomp landed on the middle, lower part of its body as it lay on the ground.

Where it was stomped, its body began to twist and crumble inch by inch.

Like a hole being burned through a paper cutout by a cigarette butt.

A large chunk of its body simply vanished. It trembled violently in pain, howling as it retreated back into the little girl’s body.

Immediately after, the howling came from the front desk girl.

She clutched frantically below her lower abdomen, tears and cold sweat instantly pouring out.

Lu Xin walked straight up to the front desk girl and knocked on the counter.

Then, meeting the girl’s terrified gaze, his face expressionless, he lowered his voice, “Just stay put obediently. Honestly, I didn’t want to hold back this time, but you’re just too weak. You didn’t even give me a chance not to hold back. I really don’t know why you have the delusion that you’re a god… Now, before they arrive, quickly do one more thing for me…”

The front desk girl looked at him as if staring at a devil.

But Lu Xin was very serious, “I didn’t come here to check in. It was just to lure you out to handle business…”

“So, the room fee I paid earlier, you have to refund it to me…”

…

?

The front desk girl, or rather, the Ghost, was about to go crazy but didn’t dare disobey.

Trembling, she raised a hand, took out a wad of cash from the drawer, and shakily offered it to Lu Xin.

Lu Xin paused for a moment, then pulled out two bills from the wad, “Thanks.”