Chapter 61 Li Han

“Are we really doing the right thing? Shouldn’t you think it over more carefully?” Chu Ning couldn’t help but advise, glancing hesitantly at Tanya, whose demeanor had grown dark and twisted after her recent shock.

Tanya cocked her head at him, a sinister aura emanating from her. Her voice suddenly leaped several pitches higher, “What did you just say?” She violently snatched up a stick she’d found and swung it at the car door’s window with all her might, muttering chilling words under her breath: “Die, all of you, just die!”

Chu Ning kept a wary distance from Tanya, not wanting to be splattered with blood. He couldn’t help but shiver. “Calm down, calm down, don’t be rash! You can’t let these negative emotions consume you. Think about your family, your friends, your own future—this isn’t worth it!”

As Chu Ning tried to reason with her, Tanya’s expression only grew darker. The misery of her own life weighed on her—she had become a ghost, and yet even in death, peace eluded her. People still wouldn’t leave her alone, disturbing the quiet existence she craved. It was simply unforgivable.

It wasn’t until Chu Ning offered her a compelling reason, one she couldn’t refuse, that she was finally persuaded to let the matter rest, sparing Li Han for now.

“Can you drive?” Chu Ning demanded. “Let me be clear, I can’t. If you can, do whatever you want—I won’t interfere!” Truthfully, he was never one to repay murder with kindness. If Li Han didn’t still have some value to him, he would’ve long since rid the world of such a menace. The way Li Han drove—mistaking such a beautiful woman for a ghost—how drunk and reckless could one be?

Tanya shook her head awkwardly, the hand holding the stick frozen in mid-air. She glared fiercely at Li Han, then finally lowered the stick and set it aside.

Perhaps the accumulation of pain, death, assassination, and gunpowder had finally overwhelmed her, and Tanya’s emotions erupted in that moment.

She glanced guiltily at the dented car door, fidgeting with her fingers behind her back, eyes wandering into the night sky.

Chu Ning turned away, managing a brief smile and a shrug before striding over to the car door. He crouched and fiddled with the lock for a while. With his back to Tanya, he called softly, “Come over here—the door’s open. You should sit inside for a bit; the wind out here is rather unsettling.”

With gentlemanly grace, he held the door for Tanya, who entered the taxi in silence and sat quietly in the backseat to wait.

She leaned against the door, taking in the interior: the standard fittings of an ordinary taxi, a black skull dangling from the rearview mirror, and most conspicuously, the absence of a driver identification card on the left.

Li Han slumped against the steering wheel, his body askew, and his groggy state sparked worry about when he might come to. Chu Ning checked Li Han’s pupils; there was no sign of dilation, which meant he was still alive.

He slapped Li Han’s face hard, but even that failed to rouse him. Chu Ning abandoned the idea of pinching his philtrum—blood was smeared everywhere, and he really couldn’t bring himself to touch it. The slap had already been the cleanest spot he could find.

Watching this, Tanya felt a genuine sense of satisfaction, grateful to Chu Ning for venting her anger on her behalf. Her first attempt at “murder for profit” hadn’t ended too terribly, and she regained a bit of dignity.

In truth, this was her first time trying to use her supernatural abilities to meddle in the human world—deliberately interfering with and influencing reality.

Tanya was more than a little tense, but fortunately, they were in an area with few people, so the impact of her actions was lessened by the lack of interference, sparing her from the discomfort of battling meaningless noise.

Targeting a single, isolated individual was much easier. Tanya now truly understood why, in the movies, ghosts always preyed on loners—picking the easy targets was an unchanging rule.

Trying to interfere with the senses of multiple people at once was a formidable task. The mere cacophony of perceptions could drive an ordinary ghost mad—startling people was a technical and dangerous occupation.

When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Of course, ghosts and other intangible beings have one way of frightening people—by meddling with their senses. Monsters and other corporeal creatures have another way; they don’t need to bend reality, since their very physical presence is already a terror.

After a long time, Li Han finally opened his eyes, bleary and slow. The muscles on the left side of his face twitched involuntarily. He propped himself up on the steering wheel and wiped the blood from beneath his nose with the back of his hand.

“Ugh, what happened to me?” Li Han groaned in pain, stretching his body stiffly.

“Ahem, just now you nearly crashed into the guardrail. We were worried you might be hurt, so we stayed with you until you woke up—it was the only way we could feel at ease.”

Chu Ning, now seated in the front passenger seat, assumed the role of Li Han’s caretaker. He tapped lightly on the seat and turned to look at Li Han with feigned concern, asking after his well-being.

“Ugh, my head is killing me. Can you explain why the windshield is shattered?” Li Han asked, clutching his head and pointing at the cracked glass.

He glanced down at the spot where he kept his cash, discreetly fumbling through it. None was missing. Clearly, robbery wasn’t the motive; there wasn’t much money in the car anyway—just a wad of small bills for making change. Though the stack seemed thick, the total amount was modest.

Just then, the taxi’s radio crackled to life. “Hello, hello, Li Han, are you there? Please respond if you hear me! Please respond!” The signal was poor, and the voice on the other end came through in fits and starts.

In the stillness of the night, the voice from the radio was especially clear. Everyone in the car fell silent for a moment. At last, Li Han’s eyes scanned the other two. In the rearview mirror, he caught a glimpse of the woman staring out the window—if he remembered right, she was the one who’d hailed him earlier.

And there’d been no sign of Chu Ning at the time. Li Han grabbed the radio from the dash, acutely aware that both passengers were watching him closely, if discreetly.

He pressed the reply button; the red indicator glowed in the dimness. “Li Han here, sorry! The signal’s not great out here—I didn’t catch your message just now, over,” he said, forcing the words out.

After speaking, Li Han slumped back in his seat, as if all his strength had left him, keeping the two calm figures in his peripheral vision.

He realized, with some dread, that he was in trouble. Unless he’d remembered wrong, just before he lost consciousness, he’d been jerking the steering wheel so violently he must have hit something.

And the two people in his car didn’t look like normal passengers at all. If this were simply a robbery, he could accept it—at least then his life might be safe. But the cash in the car hadn’t been touched, not even a bit, and that made him even more uneasy.

He certainly didn’t think they were after anything improper—he understood his own appeal all too well, and with their looks, it was far more likely he’d be the one taking advantage.