Chapter 6: A Neighbor Smashes the Door, Attempting to Steal Spirit Money

The sinister mother quietly appeared behind Tianqiong Xia, licking her bloodless lips. She had become addicted to devouring humans.

"Found—"

Before she could finish, the person in front suddenly shouted loudly, "Shut up!"

Tianqiong Xia’s sharp command startled everyone outside the door, leaving them dumbfounded. Even the sinister mother trembled slightly.

“Don’t speak. Listen to me first,” Tianqiong Xia quickly turned around.

He couldn’t allow the sinister mother to speak openly; if the death rule was fulfilled, it would mean certain death.

The sinister mother stared at him in surprise, a hint of curiosity gleaming in her eyes. “What do you want to say?”

“I found your child, but it ran away afterward. I have something it dropped. See if it belongs to you.” Tianqiong Xia reached into his pocket with his right hand and pulled out a silver coin the size of a thumb, holding it out in his palm.

The sinister mother’s eyes lit up, and she almost blurted out that it was hers, but stopped herself.

When dealing with humans, the eerie cannot lie or seize things by force, lest they break the rules of the spectral realm.

Yet, she deeply desired that silver coin.

“What do you mean by this?”

“If I give you the coin, will you let me keep your child even if I find it?”

The sinister mother shook her head. “The rules don’t allow it.”

Tianqiong Xia’s anxiety deepened; this plan wouldn’t work.

After a moment’s hesitation, he asked, “Could you please not come looking for me for now? Ask me last, in the end?”

“Heh heh! Deal!” The sinister mother chuckled twice, her smile captivating. “Devious human, I warn you: in the end, I will still drain you dry.”

As she spoke, she lifted her pale, slender hand and took the silver coin.

Outside, everyone’s eyes widened.

So this was how one could extend their life!

This boy was definitely hiding something from them!

The sinister mother’s figure suddenly vanished, only to reappear before a terrified woman outside the door.

“Have you found my child?”

The woman stammered in fear, “I... I’ll give you... gold, just don’t come after me.”

She hurriedly tore off the gold necklace from her neck and handed it to the sinister mother.

But the sinister mother didn’t even look at it. “I only accept underworld coins!”

“Underworld coins?”

Everyone present, except Tianqiong Xia, was stunned, thinking, “Of course it’s a ghost; otherwise, why would it want only underworld coins?”

“I... I’ll burn... ah!”

Before the woman could finish speaking, the sinister mother attached herself to her, instantly draining her into a desiccated corpse. Then she glanced back at Tianqiong Xia before disappearing once more.

By now, the crowd seemed accustomed to this and did not flee.

After a brief silence, a burly man suddenly asked Tianqiong Xia, “Was the coin you gave it an underworld coin?”

“That’s right,” Tianqiong Xia nodded.

“How do you have underworld coins? Where did you get them? Do you have more?”

“Picked it up by the roadside, just that one.”

Tianqiong Xia wasn’t about to tell the truth.

The burly man didn’t believe him, nor did the others.

“You can’t do that! Take out the underworld coins and share them with everyone!”

“Yeah, you can’t just watch us die! What’s the difference between that and murder?”

The crowd grew increasingly agitated, as if Tianqiong Xia owed them a debt.

The burly man’s eyes darkened as he strode toward Tianqiong Xia. “Don’t argue with him. Let’s search his place.”

“Right, let’s all go look.”

Among the dozen or so people, only two or three remained indifferent; the rest, stirred by the burly man’s words, surged toward Tianqiong Xia’s room.

After the sinister mother left, Tianqiong Xia had already prepared.

Suddenly, he raised his leg and kicked fiercely, hitting the burly man at the front and sending him stumbling back several steps before swiftly closing the door.

“Bang bang bang!”

“Damn it, open the door!”

“He wants to kill us; we can’t let him get away with it.”

“Break the door! There must be more underworld coins inside!”

The crowd hammered on the door relentlessly, accompanied by curses and slanders.

“Maybe the female ghost was summoned by him. Otherwise, how come only he knows the situation?”

“Maybe that child is his and the ghost’s!”

The people were unarmed and frustrated by their futile attempts to break the door, their resentment growing.

So insults and curses continued without pause.

Tianqiong Xia ignored them. If he didn’t need them to buy time, he wouldn’t have even acknowledged their presence.

The most pressing matter now was to find the eerie infant.

Otherwise, death was inevitable.

How unlucky he was—reborn with memories of a past life, hoping for a good start.

Yet, from the beginning, he encountered the “Sinister Mother Seeking Infant” death rule, an unsolved eerie law.

Was fate trying to erase this reborn soul?

After pondering long, Tianqiong Xia turned off the lights and stood quietly in the living room, deep in thought.

No matter how bizarre a death rule was, there had to be a glimmer of hope.

In other words, no death rule was truly inescapable.

Many eerie beings had confirmed this.

Some death rules remained unsolved simply because no one had found that hidden glimmer.

“Time is running out!” The urgency in Tianqiong Xia’s heart grew heavier.

There were only about fifteen or sixteen survivors left in the building, meaning he had just over a hundred and fifty minutes left.

If he didn’t catch the eerie infant before then, he too would die.

“Clink!”

Suddenly, a noise came from the kitchen, as if a glass had been knocked over.

Tianqiong Xia hurriedly switched on the light and rushed to the kitchen.

There, the eerie infant sat by the gas stove with its back to him.

He took a step forward to grab it, but the infant turned and smiled at him—a smile both adorable and enchanting.

In the next instant, the figure vanished.

“As expected, it’s impossible to catch it!”

Tianqiong Xia was both angry and frustrated.

How could humans possibly capture an eerie being capable of instant teleportation?

What was that glimmer of hope, then?

He picked up the overturned glass, set it upright, and placed it back by the stove, suddenly realizing something was missing.

“Where’s my braised pork?”

The leftover braised pork delivered by the eerie courier had not been finished and was originally beside the stove, but now it was gone.

“Did the eerie infant steal it?”

A sudden thought struck Tianqiong Xia: “Maybe I can lure it with food?”

In the hallway.

The crowd, exhausted from pounding the door and shouting curses, gradually dispersed after the sinister mother appeared again and killed one more person.

Since the door wouldn’t open, continuing was a waste of time. Better to go look for the eerie infant and hold onto some hope.

Everyone left, with the burly man bringing up the rear, most unwilling to give up.

He thought about going home to fetch a kitchen knife, determined to break the door no matter what. He believed capturing the person inside was their only chance to survive.

Suddenly, someone called out to him.

“Hey, buddy, I’m a professional locksmith. I can pick the lock.”

He turned to see a thin, frail young man with a sickly complexion.

Furious, he snapped, “Then why didn’t you do it earlier?”

“Shh, keep your voice down.”

The frail youth glanced toward the stairs and saw no one nearby, then whispered, “Think about it—if we open the door and find underworld coins inside, and everyone gets one, each could demand the ghost to seek them last. How could that be possible?”

The burly man paused, then quickly caught on.

The female ghost killed one person every ten minutes; if everyone demanded to be the last to be found, it would be a contradiction.

Someone had to die first for there to be order.

The burly man’s eyes gleamed as he made a decision.

“Let’s team up. You pick the lock. I’ll subdue him. We split the underworld coins between us—no one else gets any.”

“Alright, buddy. Sounds good.”

The frail youth smiled; that was why he had approached the burly man. Alone, his weak body couldn’t even handle a woman.

“Time’s tight. Let’s open the door quickly,” urged the burly man.

“I need to go home and get my tools. You should grab something too, in case he resists fiercely.”

“Fine, I’ll get a kitchen knife.”

The two whispered their plan around the stairwell corner, thinking no one overheard.

But they didn’t know the door of another resident on the seventh floor was slightly ajar.

Jiang Yu pressed her ear to the crack, listening intently as she heard their entire conversation clearly.