Chapter 134: Nian Ling

　　Pan Linkai pushed open the window.

　　Outside, the night was thick and heavy.

　　The sky was very dark.

　　The neon lights of the city seemed particularly distant.

　　Pan LinKai didn't care about anything else; he just wanted to escape.

　　Thump, thump, thump.

　　The knocking on the door continued.

　　"LinKai, are you okay? Say something."

　　Lu Fei's clear and anxious voice made Pan LinKai momentarily dazed, but he shook his head and quickly regained his senses.

　　"I won't fall for your tricks again!"

　　He let out a cold laugh and grabbed the windowsill.

　　Right at that moment.

　　The door slammed open.

　　Two figures quickly rushed into the house.

　　"Over there!"

　　"Lin Kai, don't do anything foolish!"

　　With Lu Fei's loud shout, a tall figure lunged forward and pulled Pan Lin Kai back from the window where he had half of his body leaning out.

　　"Don't do this to me, don't…,"

　　Pan Lin Kai was extremely terrified, struggling with every inch of his body.

　　Fortunately, Hu Zi was strong enough; otherwise, he really couldn't have held him down.

　　"Lin Kai, come to your senses!"

　　Lu Fei channeled his magical power into his hand and slapped Pan Lin Kai's face twice with a smack.

　　Pan Lin Kai's body trembled heavily, his face red as he shrank back and looked at Lu Fei nervously.

　　"You, are you really Lu Fei?"

　　"Does your face hurt?" Lu Fei asked.

　　"It hurts."

　　"Then that's right."

　　"?"

　　Pan Lin Kai was momentarily stunned, then looked at Lu Fei and Hu Zi, suddenly his eyes welled up with tears.

　　"Lu Fei, you finally came!"

　　Hu Zi then let go of him, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and said, "Brother, you are even harder to subdue than a pig at New Year!"

　　"I thought you were ghosts…" Pan Lin Kai, somewhat embarrassed, stood up still in shock and said, "Lu Fei, when you hung up the phone, I thought you didn't want to save me… I couldn't get through to you no matter how many times I tried, and then later…."

　　"I didn't hang up, I thought you did. I tried calling you again but couldn't get through, so I was lucky to ask the class representative for your address," Lu Fei said, slightly frowning.

　　"How could the call have been cut off, unless it was..." Pan Linzhai shivered, his eyes filled with fear again, "Later when I called you and got through, it wasn't you who picked up. It was a ghost pretending to be your voice, trying to trick me into opening the door. I almost believed it..."

　　"Pretending to be my voice?" Lu Fei pondered, "Where is your phone?"

　　"I threw it out of fear; it should be in the living room."

　　"Let's go take a look."

　　Lu Fei turned around and walked to the living room, where he quickly found the phone with a smashed screen on the ground.

　　He picked it up and examined it carefully, seemingly discovering something, his expression turning very strange.

　　Pan Linzhai followed behind him, trembling with fear.

　　"Lu Fei, how can I make Haitao let me off? Maybe we should just destroy that phone. At worst, I'll buy a new one for Uncle and Auntie."

　　"This isn't Haitao's phone." Lu Fei took out the blood-stained phone and placed it next to Pan Linzhai's smashed-screen phone for comparison, "This phone has been with me the whole time, and there's nothing unusual about it. The messages and calls didn't come from this phone."

　　Pan Lin Kai was at a loss: "What's going on?"

　　"Because the problem is with your phone." Lu Fei held up Pan Lin Kai's phone with a cracked screen, on which there were faint wisps of black negative energy, though Pan Lin Kai couldn't see them.

　　"Mine?"

　　Pan Lin Kai widened his eyes in shock.

　　"What's wrong with my phone? Isn't the message from Hai Tao?"

　　Holding both phones, Lu Fei thought for a moment and said, "Let me put it this way, Hai Tao's phone originally had something dirty, but later, that dirty thing infected your phone."

　　"What?"

　　Pan Lin Kai felt his brain completely shut down. He recognized every word Lu Fei said, but when they were put together, he couldn't understand them.

　　"You can think of it as there being a ghost hiding in your phone, constantly scaring you through calls and messages, gradually breaking down your psychological defenses, and pushing you to the point of suicide," Lu Fei explained.

　　"A ghost, hiding in my phone?"

　　Pan Lin Kai immediately moved away from his phone, his eyes filled with fear.

　　"How could my phone be stained by a ghost?"

　　"Because you went to Hai Tao's house," said Lu Fei.

　　"But you guys went too, why is it just targeting me?" Pan Lin Kai asked with a bitter expression.

　　"Think about it, when Aunt Guo took out Hai Tao's phone, weren't we the only two there?"

　　"Yes…" Pan Lin Kai nodded, looking at Lu Fei, a look of misfortune on his face, "That's right, you are a cultivator, the ghost definitely wouldn't dare to come after you."

　　"That's not the reason. It's probably because the ghost was attracted by you."

　　"What?" Pan Lin Kai's mind went blank again.

　　"This is likely a very special kind of evil entity. Unlike other evil entities that have a fixed physical form, this one is a grudge born from longing, called a Nian Ling. It can attach itself to many objects. The more someone thinks about it, the more it follows them." Lu Fei mused, a look of surprise and joy on his face.

　　"It's like the law of attraction; the more you fear something, the more it comes to you. The more you think about Hai Tao, the more naturally he will come to you."

　　"What is all this!" Pan Linkai finally understood, feeling like he could cry but had no tears.

　　It turned out that this filthy thing was clinging to him because he couldn't let go of Haitao's death.

　　"Actually, Aunt Guo is the same as you; she was also affected by the spirit. That's why she received a call from Haitao and became disoriented. As long as we resolve the negative energy on the phone, everything will be fine," Lu Fei added.

　　Once such an evil object is revealed, there's nothing to be afraid of.

　　"Lu Fei, then please hit my phone with a stick too!" Pan Linkai pleaded.

　　"Of course, but we need to follow the rules of my Sinisterium Pawnshop," Lu Fei smiled slightly, taking out a pawn ticket, "If you want me to help you with the trouble of this evil object, you need to pawn it to me. Your phone has no value, so it can only be a live pawn."

　　"No problem at all!"

　　Pan Linkai immediately wrote the pawn ticket and signed it according to Lu Fei's request.

　　Live pawn, one day, service fee five thousand.

　　This was the maximum amount he could afford, as his monthly salary was only five thousand.

　　Lu Fei didn't care; he wasn't in it for the money anyway.

　　He took out the thunderstruck jujube wood stick, infused it with his magical power, and gently tapped the cracked screen of the phone.

　　The yin energy dissipated.

　　"All right, it's fixed now."

　　Lu Fei returned the phone to Pan Lin Kai and wrote two copies of the receipt.

　　In this way, another evil object was added to his collection.

　　After leaving Pan Lin Kai's house, Lu Fei was in a very good mood.

　　It seemed that there were also benefits to getting involved in others' affairs; sometimes, unexpected blessings arise from unintended actions.

　　He now had a total of eight evil objects, making progress towards his goal of one hundred.

　　Later, he returned Guo Hai Tao's phone to his mother.

　　Guo's mother has regained consciousness, and her mood has improved somewhat, but the loss of their son in old age has still dealt a huge blow to the two elderly people, likely leaving them to live in grief for the rest of their lives.

　　The problem with the phone has been resolved, but it remains a mystery why Guo Haitao would commit suicide in the haunted school building.

　　Lu Fei thought about it and decided to take a trip to the school while he had some free time. Who knows, maybe he would encounter another evil spirit?

　　But at this moment, an unexpected customer arrived.

　　This person was wearing a white robe and carrying a peachwood long sword on his back.

　　"Is young Master Lu around? I have a big deal for him!"