Getting in There Together

Looking down from the hillside, one could see that the entire Liu family's archway was abandoned. The former village had been reduced to only a few broken houses and wooden fences. The old houses would make protesting noises whenever the wind blew.

There were many villages with the name "Liu" around Yuhang Town, such as Greater Liu Village, Little Liu Village, Upper Liu Village, Lower Liu Village, and the Liu Settlement.

If one asked around further, one would find that there was almost no one with the surname 'Liu' in the entire town. Even if there were, they must have moved in only in recent years.

There had been once a Liu family, the largest clan in Yuhang Town with a long history. Some of the family members were officials in Chaoge.

However, such a large family in the countryside somehow got involved in a major case of a rebellion seventy to eighty years ago.

Those who lived at the Liu family archway were direct family members of the Lius. Hence, everyone here had been executed. Those Lius in the surrounding villages were exiled to the northern border.

The clan was exterminated overnight.

Perhaps the event was so cruel that some elderly people were trembling all over when the memories came to mind. It showed how much psychological trauma they had gone through during their teenage years.

From that day on, the small building where the owner of the Liu family lived had turned into a ghastly haunted house.

It was said that no one could survive a night inside this haunted building. An official from the Imperial Administration Bureau had come to investigate. However, the official was left with a pale face after spending a night there. He had ordered that no one should go near to that place.

No one in their sane mind would want to come to such a place since there were no residents here, and everyone knew that this place was haunted. Therefore, the magistrate office had only issued a directive but sent no one to guard the place.

No one would have thought that, in a few decades, there would be two rich kids challenging each other to stay in this place out of rivalry.

After the short face-to-face encounter, Zhao Liangchen felt hurt in his Daoist heart. So he turned around and tried to get a grip on himself.

Zhao Liangcai tugged at his sleeves. "Bro, what do you make of the cultivation base of the pretty boy that Wang Longqi has brought?"

"Huh?" Zhao Liangchen looked up and came to his senses.

'Yeah, I just need to be stronger than him as a cultivator!'

With the thought in mind, he turned around and came up to the two again. He did not bother to look at Wang Longqi. Instead, his entire attention was on Li Chu. "I am Zhao Liangchen from Feilai Sect. Where are you from?"

Li Chu thought this person was strange, but he remained polite. "Li Chu from Deyun Monastery, Ten Li Slope."

Zhao Liangcai snickered.

He turned to look at Zhao Liangchen. "It is a rundown Daoist monastery, where only two Daoists—one old and one young—stay. So this guy here must be that young Daoist."

Confidence came back on his face. "I have observed him. There is no perturbation of vital breath in him."

"I knew it; he is a scammer." Zhao Liangcai fisted his left palm with his right fist, looking delighted.

"Okay, I will test his ability."

Zhao Liangchen sneered and was about to turn around. When he said this, he meant to teach Li Chu a lesson and expose the young Daoist priest as a scammer.

Was there anything more pleasurable than hitting a pretty boy? No. There was nothing else in this world.

"Hey, Bro, hold on a second." Zhao Liangcai stopped him.

"What's up?" Zhao Liangchen looked at him sideways.

"If you expose him now, Wang Longqi would be frightened and back out." Zhao Liangcai smirked. "Let him enter the haunted house with this scammer. We will wait until tonight to fix them."

"Sure." Zhao Liangchen nodded.

Li Chu stood there and felt strange as the two turned around and whispered at each other.

"That two guys look weird," he said to Wang Longqi.

Wang Longqi tapped his index finger on the head. "Those from the Zhao family always have something wrong here."

After a while, Zhao Liangcai turned around again. "Wang Longqi, let's stop the crap. Let's go in there before it gets dark. And as agreed, we will choose a room each to spend the night in. He who runs away first loses."

"You are to give up competing with me for girls after tonight." Wang Longqi snorted.

"Are all girls yours? Sicko."

"I don't care about the others, but between Miss Gongsun and I, half the battle has been won."

"Since when? I didn't know that."

"I have agreed, and this is half the battle. I just need to wait for her nod, and then the other half will be done."

"If it wasn't for fear of letting you get the edge, I would have peed on your face to wake you up."

...

Just as the two bickered and were about to get down the hillside, someone shouted from on the top of the hill. "Stop!"

They followed the voice and saw a tall figure standing there.

She wore a blue and white long dress with a small fringed shirt over the front. She had picturesque eyebrows and snowy skin. Standing in the breeze with her clothes fluttering, she looked out of this world. 

Li Chu had met her before. She was none other than Gongsun Rou.

"Miss Gongsun, I didn't expect to see you here." Wang Longqi broke into a smile.

"Oh, Miss Gongsun, are you here looking for me? Oh, what are you doing here, little sister?" Zhao Liangcai let out a passionate yet ugly smile.

A little girl, in her fifteen or sixteen, was standing behind Gongsun Rou. Her hair was tied into a young girl's bun. She was dressed in a flowing emerald skirt, looking witty and cute. No one had noticed her at first because she seemed less mature than Gongsun Rou.

She skipped up in front of everyone ahead of Gongsun Rou, then smiled. "My brother, elder cousin, I told Sister about you two. She seems furious."

"Aren't you making trouble here?" Zhao Liangcai's expression drastically changed.

Gongsun Rou was coming towards them. She looked not too happy. Her brows knitted together with a hint of anger in her eyes, just like the younger girl said. But a beauty was still a beauty. She still looked very pleasing to the eyes while she was angry.

As she walked, her eyes darted between Wang Longqi and Zhao Liangcai, as if she had something to say. But someone quickly caught her attention.

Her expression froze for a second.

Gongsun Rou blinked a couple of times as if she was in surprise. "Young Daoist Li?"

The anger brewing inside her rapidly vanished, like ice and snow melting under the clear sky and sun. she could not hold back her excitement.

Li Chu nodded at her. "Miss Gongsun."

Wang Longqi's heart skipped a beat.

This scene was all too familiar. The ghost bride abandoned him for someone else in the same setting earlier. He could not help but kick himself for having the same thing happening to him again.

"Li Chu, Miss Gongsun, you guys know each other?" His smile stiffened.

"Sort of."

"Young Daoist Li saved my life before."

The two said in unison.

Gongsun Rou glanced at Li Chu with a hurtful expression.

Li Chu was nonchalant.

Zhao Liangcai was not dumb; he could sense something amiss in the air. 'Why did Miss Gongsun ignore everyone else as soon as she saw this young Daoist?'

"Miss Gongsun, is there anything that you are here to see me?"

He emphasized the word 'me.'

Gongsun Rou came out of her thoughts and then glared at the two of them again. "I heard Xiao Miao say you two are challenging each other to stay overnight in the haunted house because of me."

"Err…" Wang Longqi hesitated and pointed at Zhao Liangcai. "He was the one who suggested it."

"He was the one who provoked me first!" said Zhao Liangcai hurriedly.

The girl in the front hissed, and they instantly kept their mouths shut, bowing their heads like two puppies that had just been reprimanded.

Gongsun Rou had wanted to scold them at first.

Her father had just taken office as the magistrate of Yuhang, and they came here to create trouble. If something happened to these two young masters of the two largest families in town, it would cause big trouble for her father.

Not only that, they had claimed that they threw down the gauntlet with each other because of her. If something terrible were to happen, people might blame her instead.

It's fine if the rumors of the haunted house of the Liu family were false. But if they were true, then she could not imagine the consequences.

At first, she came here to stop them.

But as she looked at Li Chu in front of her, her heart fluttered.

"Since you said that you made the bet because of me, well, I will go in there with you all," said Gongsun Rou.

'Huh?'