"Eat, eat eat! That's all you know!" Zhao Liangchen frowned and snorted.
Hearing the unfriendly tone, the child ghosts immediately stood up from the smoke.
"Roll call! One!" A young girl's voice rang out.
"Two!" "Three!" "Four!" "Three!"
"Hmm?"
When the mist completely dissipated, what appeared before Zhao Liangcai were five little kids.
The leading one was a little girl in a big red cotton-padded jacket, with two pig-tail braids pointing skywards. Although her face was pale, she looked fleshy and not terrifying at all.
She was even cute.
Behind her were four young boys, all wearing black jackets with a small braid behind their heads. The oldest among them was only five or six years old, while the youngest looked about three. All of them were chubby.
Five kids, six braids.
The little girl turned around and looked at the youngest boy. "How many times have I told you after four is five! Five!"
The youngest boy bit his lips, seemingly a little scared but yet did not dare to refute.
He looked wronged.
The boy in the middle came out to persuade. "Lil' Five only knows how to count to three, Sister. Can't you just let him stand in the third spot?"
The little girl said loudly. "He's Lil' Five, how can he stand in third place?"
"I'm okay with that." The boy who was third on the roll call whispered.
"Then, can he line up in front of you for dinner from now on?" The little girl refused to give in.
When Lil' Three heard that, he shook his head and stopped making any sound.
Between brothers, it was okay to make way, but not when it came to food.
"Ahem." Zhao Liangchen coughed lightly.
The little girl immediately turned around. The five ghost children looked at him with their big round eyes, like a group of chicks waiting to be fed.
"Now I want you lot to do something for me. Once it is done, you lot will have something to eat once you're back." Zhao Liangchen said.
"No problem!" The five little ghosts said in unison.
Zhao Liangchen gave Zhao Liangcai a wink. "You order them."
"Alright." Zhao Liangcai nodded, but he dared not move forward. As he stood in front of his cousin, he said, "There are two things I want you lot to do."
Originally, his plan was to use Zhao Liangchen's hand to scare Wang Longqi away and win the bet. But now that Gongsun Rou was here, he suddenly had a bold idea in his mind.
"There are people in two rooms on the second floor below. The one of the left has two men in them. Go and scare them, and make sure you chase them away. Remember, you must be vicious with them!"
The few kids revealed two shiny fangs as they heard that to show their ferocity.
"After that, you'll go to the room on the right. There are two girls there. Don't be so fierce this time, just scare them a little. I will be waiting outside. As soon as they scream I will immediately rush in."
He then smiled slyly. "At that moment, you'll pretend to be very afraid of me, and run away after being chased away by me, allowing me to rescue them. Understand?"
"Understood, the hero saving the beauty, right?" The little girl gave him a knowing look.
"Heh, off you go then."
After receiving their orders, the five child ghosts lined up in a row as they floated out of the room without their feet touching the floor. When they reached the wall, they did not even open the door as they went straight through it.
Zhao Liangcai swallowed his saliva, but when he thought of Wang Longqi and Li Chu being scared to death by them later, a smile could not help but appear on his ugly face.
Immediately, the two also went downstairs and hid in the corner of the second floor. They were waiting for Gongsun Rou and Zhao Xiaomiao to scream and Zhao Liangcai to rush out and rescue them. And with a casual huff later, Zhao Liangchen would then use his ability to recall the child ghosts.
A flawless plan.
Zhao Liangcai pursued Gongsun Rou, not only because the veritable beauty had tempted him, but also because the Zhao elders instructed him.
In this day and age, no matter how rich one was, they were still lesser compared to two types of persons: officials and cultivators. The former has political power; the latter had spiritual power.
And in the concept the Zhao Elders had told him, with Zhao Liangchen, the Zhao Clan would have the protection from a cultivator for the next century. And if Zhao Liangcai could take Gongsun Rou as a wife, then the clan would have a pillar in the officialdom.
With these two major support pillars, the clan's rise was just around the corner.
The Wang Clan would soon not even be worthy to be a sandalbearer for the Zhao Clan.
"Wipe your saliva away." Zhao Liangchen's disgusted voice interrupted Zhao Liangcai's lustful thoughts.
...
"The first time I met Miss Gongsun was the banquet the day before, she was in fluttering white robes, looking like a fairy who had descended upon mortal realms."
"From that moment, I decided that I must marry her in this lifetime. To this day, I have been so deeply in love with her for a whole... two days."
"Only when I met her did I learn what affection was, what... love was."
"..."
Li Chu frowned as he looked at Wang Longqi pacing the ground like a tomcat in heat, thinking that this would be a difficult night.
Perhaps it would be better if a ghost was to show up, so it would at least shut him up for a while.
The girl Wang Longqi and Zhao Liangcai were vying for turned out to be Gongsun Rou, making him think it was quite the coincidence.
But when he thought of it, he was not surprised.
After all, Wang Longqi had seen all of the ladies in Yuhang Town, and it was impossible for someone to surprise him appearing all of a sudden.
Perhaps only Gongsun Rou, who hailed from Chaoge City, would have such a charm.
But Li Chu did not know why this had anything to do with him...
He and Gongsun Rou had only met by chance, and one could say that they had no relationship at all. After all, she did not donate any offerings to Deyun Monastery before.
But since entering the room, Wang Longqi had been chattering about by his ears, telling him how deep his feelings for Gongsun Rou were, as if he was hinting at something.
'Or you want Gongsun Rou next door to hear that?'
'Then you should be saying that by the wall.'
Just as Li Chu began to consider if he should knock the noisy Wang Longqi out, a knock suddenly rang outside the door.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Hmm? Could it be that Miss Gongsun is coming to look for me?" Wang Longqi hurriedly went to open the door.
But after opening the door, there was no one outside.
"Weird." He murmured as he closed the door and turned back.
But before he even got a few steps in, the knocking on the door rang out again.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Who goes there!" Wang Longqi yelled, but no one answered. He went to open the door again and found no one outside.
"Hiss---" He took a deep breath.
Wang Longqi turned around, but this time, he had slowed his pace down significantly.
Knock, knock
Just as the knock on the door rang out again, he quickly turned back and immediately opened the door. "Got you now! Huh?"
Even if he had moved so fast this time, he still did not see the person knocking on the door.
Wang Longqi felt his hair standing a little as he closed the door and said to Li Chu, "Could it really be something unclean?"
Li Chu looked on silently towards the corner of a wall.
There were flowing Yin Qi there.
"Hehehe." "Hahahaha" "Wehehe" "..."
Suddenly, the laughter of children rang out in the room, and it was not only one, as if there was a group of children playing in the room.
Wang Longqi almost fell. It looked like someone had tripped his leg.
"Ahhh---!!" Wang Longqi let out an awkward yelp as he scrambled to Li Chu's side. He said tremblingly, "What the hell! Li Chu, did you see it?"
Li Chu said calmly, "Oh, don't be afraid, it's just ghosts."
"Huh?"
Wang Longqi vaguely sensed that something was not right, but Li Chu suddenly got up and walked to the center of the room before Wang Longqi could figure it out.
Immediately after, there was a groan, as someone wanted to trip Li Chu but instead screamed in pain.
The next moment, he saw in horror that four or five spooky little ghosts suddenly appeared in the center of the originally empty room!
They all looked like little children, but their faces were ashen pale as they appeared out of thin air!
"Bite him!" A little girl's voice commanded.
A figure wearing a red cotton-padded jacket rushed to Li Chu's shoulder first. As she revealed her fangs, she bit down hard!
And then...
CRACK!
Immediately afterwards, another four figured charged over without hesitation. All of them grabbed onto Li Chu's arms and thighs as they opened their mouths and bit down hard!
With an extremely vicious look on their faces.
And then...
Five consecutive cracks rang out.