Taboo Mage - Chapter 212 - Cold Water Shock

“Hey! What are you doing?!”

In the haze, I seemed to hear Lin Huan’s surprised and angry shout. Then, it felt like someone grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the bathroom.

Throughout the whole process, my mind was foggy. It wasn’t until I was sitting on the living room sofa wrapped in a towel that I started to come to my senses.

“Are you awake now? Can we talk about what actually happened?”

Zhou Qifang crossed his arms, sitting across from me, and asked in a low voice. As he spoke, he took my phone out of my pocket and tossed it onto the coffee table.

I wrapped the towel tighter around me and shivered from the cold. “Just now… I received a call. It was Xu Benzhang’s mother…”

“Are you sure?” Zhou Qifang’s eyes widened in shock.

I nodded. “I’ll never forget that voice in my life. Just thinking about it makes me feel sick; that voice was so damn disgusting!”

Zhou Qifang nodded slightly, then picked up my phone. After searching for a while, he found the missed call in my contacts. He glanced at me and pressed the call button.

“Damn it!” I cursed, wrapping myself even tighter in the towel. After looking around, I got up and squeezed onto the sofa with Lin Huan.

For the first time, I felt like a grown man who had seen all sorts of frightening things was about to pee his pants just because of an old lady’s voice.

The phone rang for a long time before connecting. As soon as it did, Zhou Qifang lowered his voice and asked, “Hello?”

“Hello, who is this?”

The voice was on speaker, and I tightly closed my eyes, bracing myself for the disgusting voice to disturb me again. Unexpectedly, what came through the phone was a sweet woman’s voice.

I was taken aback, looking at Zhou Qifang with confusion and doubt.

Zhou Qifang lowered his gaze, making it hard to see his expression. “This is Xu Benzhang, is my mother asleep?”

“Oh, it’s Mr. Xu! The Old Lady just fell asleep; she’s resting well tonight.”

“Is that so? I have a favor to ask you.” Zhou Qifang smiled and continued.

“Please, what is it?”

“My mother doesn’t sleep well, especially with a phone nearby while she’s sleeping. And in her current condition, she doesn’t need a phone anyway. How about you keep the phone for me and I’ll take it back when I come over tomorrow?”

Zhou Qifang spoke his lies without batting an eyelash. The little nurse, shocked, agreed readily to his request.

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Qifang’s smile vanished in an instant, disappearing faster than the face-changing techniques of a Sichuan opera performer.

“Looks like that Old Lady Xu has set her sights on you… No, I shouldn’t call her that; it should be that dead dog,” Zhou Qifang said solemnly.

I shuddered and nodded.

Initially, I had been too frightened to think straight, but now, recalling the events, I realized that the Old Lady had been possessed by that dead dog. The reason she called me in the middle of the night to scare me was simply because she didn’t want me to get involved in this matter.

In other words, that dead dog actually didn’t dare to do anything to me. I mean, I’m not afraid of the dead; why would I be scared of a dead dog?

However, from Zhou Qifang’s earlier probing, I could confirm that the creepy phone call that frightened me indeed came from the possessed Old Lady Xu.

Thinking of this, I couldn’t help but feel anger rise within me. That dead dog had no reason to scare me in the middle of the night when I hadn’t even provoked it!

“Alright, nothing else is going to happen tonight. Let’s go to bed,” Zhou Qifang said, tossing his phone onto the coffee table. He stretched lazily and then got up to head upstairs.

I quickly stood up and followed him, saying, “No way! What if that dead dog comes back to bother me again?”

“What do you want to do then?” Zhou Qifang turned around, speaking in a low voice, a flicker of amusement crossing his eyes.

I raised my eyebrow. “Tonight, I want to sleep with you!”

To my surprise, Zhou Qifang didn’t object. He nodded and walked straight into his room.

I was taken aback. He didn’t yell at me, which felt oddly unfamiliar. But then I thought, this is my home! He, Zhou Qifang, eats my food and stays in my house; how dare he refuse my request!

Zhou Qifang’s bed was quite large, but I wasn’t used to sleeping next to a man. So I pulled Lin Huan and rummaged through the storage room to find a folding bed, which I then set up in Zhou Qifang’s room.

Maybe that dead dog really had no conditions under which to bother me again, or perhaps it knew that a master of Buddha amulets from Bangkok was sleeping nearby. That night, I ended up sleeping exceptionally soundly.

When I opened my eyes the next day, Zhou Qifang was already gone from the room.

I hurriedly got up to wash and tidy myself, then went downstairs. Sure enough, Zhou Qifang and Lin Huan were downstairs watching TV. I glanced at the screen and saw it was a popular drama recently airing.

The show revolved around Emperor Qianlong¹ marrying a harem full of wives, which resulted in a chaotic and tumultuous palace life. The plot was cliché and didn’t have much to offer in terms of excitement; the only redeeming factor was that a few of the actresses were somewhat attractive.

I wasn’t surprised Lin Huan enjoyed this kind of drama, but I was taken aback to see Zhou Qifang sitting on the sofa, engrossed in it along with him.

I rolled my eyes, headed to the kitchen to get some water, and silently mocked these two men with such poor taste.

Suddenly, the phone I had tossed onto the coffee table last night rang again. I instinctively flinched, and with a full cup of water in my hands, I accidentally spilled some, causing pain to shoot through my hand and a blister to form instantly.

But at that moment, I couldn’t care less; my gaze was fixed on them.

“What’s going on? Is it that dead dog?” Lin Huan exclaimed, leaning over the coffee table with wide eyes, clearly curious.

I set the cup down on the table, enduring the sting in my hand, and glanced at the number flashing on the screen.

Yes, it was indeed the same number from last night…

I found myself staring at the phone on the table, considering answering it, but the memory of that eerie and disgusting voice from last night made me retract my hand instinctively.

Zhou Qifang looked at the phone, then at me, and without hesitation, reached out to answer the call.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Hello, this is Xu Benzhang. Why did you tell the nurse to collect my mother’s phone last night?”

The voice on the other end belonged to Xu Benzhang. It seemed he had gone to the sanatorium today, and the nurse from yesterday had just informed him about the situation.

Footnote:

1. Qianlong(乾隆):The sixth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, who reigned from 1735 to 1796. He is known for his long and prosperous reign, significant cultural contributions, and territorial expansion of China.