Jin Jiuchi's three views were already refreshed by the sight of blood parasite coming out of the corpse officer's mouth, and hence he did not feel too surprised anymore when he saw anything bizarre…
…or so he thought.
He had learned early on that his senses were better than average. His eyes could perfectly see in the dark, his nose could track down scents and his ears could hear sounds from meters away if he focused on it. Thus, it was not difficult for him to hear the weird sounds coming from the lower floor – right below them. First, it was the rustle of papers – many, many papers – that resounded one on top of the other. Then a faint beat of gong and trumpets rang out, its melody was cheerful and upbeat.
'Like they are celebrating something,' he realized.
"The marriage?" He wondered out loud, perplexed. "The ghost marriage is—"
"Sssh!" Nian hushed him without taking their gaze off the window. "Be quiet!"
Jin Jiuchi raised a brow, amused. The more someone told him not to do something, the more he wanted to do it out of the spirit of rebellion. Well, in this case, he merely wanted to make Nian angry because their eyes looked the most beautiful this way…
"Oh?" He grinned, taunting. "What will happen if I don't? Hmm?"
Nian snapped their head to him, eyes narrowing dangerously. Jin Jiuchi met their gaze head-on with a careless smile curling on the corner of his lips, unfazed by the simmering killing intent from the jade doll's small body. Outside, the lively music was getting closer and closer, presumably making their way up the stairs after a round in the second floor.
In the next second, Nian pounced on him like a small cheetah.
Jin Jiuchi's back slammed against the window with a dull thud as the jade doll latched on him, legs wrapped around his middle with their right hand raised high. In that split second, Jin Jiuchi seemed to catch the glint of needles between Nian's fair fingers before his instinct kicked in and he grabbed hold of their wrist. When Nian moved their left hand, Jin Jiuchi caught it too.
"Ah ah," he tutted with soft laughter lacing in his voice. "Choosing violence in an instant, huh? Tsk, why are you so bad-tempered, Nian'er?" When he moved his gaze to check if it was really needles he was seeing, all he saw was the jade doll's adorable little fist that had been prepared to give him a punch.
Nian's eyes widened briefly as though they did not expect that Jin Jiuchi could react so quickly and stopped their attack in the nick of time.
Now, the two of them were in a deadlock. Nian could not move because both of their hands were in Jin Jiuchi's grip, and their legs were pinned between the window and Jin Jiuchi's back. Instead of moving away and letting go of the jade doll, Jin Jiuchi absolutely refused to move and made himself comfortable against the window, his silver eyes overflowing with smiles as he waited for Nian's next reaction.
Outside, the lively yet eerie music finally reached the third floor, quickly approaching their door.
Jin Jiuchi met the jade doll's stare, grinned and opened his mouth to say something.
However, it was as if Nian could predict what Jin Jiuchi was going to do. Before Jin Jiuchi could even let out a sound from his throat, Nian yanked their hand away from his grip with tremendous strength and clamped his mouth with it. The warning in their eyes couldn't be clearer. Taking advantage of their current situation, Nian leaned forward and brushed a bit of the curtain away, peeking out of the window over Jin Jiuchi's head.
Whatever they saw there instantly caused their body to go rigid.
Curious, Jin Jiuchi tilted his body slightly to follow Nian's line of sight, his hand that was not holding onto Nian's wrist moved to wrap around the child's body to prevent them from falling, and when he finally registered what was going on outside, his eyes flew wide in surprise.
He finally knew where the noisy crinkle of papers came from. It was the people – to be exact, the paper dolls that were making those sounds. There were a dozen of them outside, twisting and twirling into some kind of celebration dance. Old and young, men and women. All of them were dressed in brightly colored clothes with huge smiles and squinted eyes painted on their paper faces. The children were throwing paper money to the air while the adults were holding onto paper gongs and trumpets.
To witness such a bizarre crowd of paper dolls in the pitch-black corridor of a rundown apartment building, if it was any other person than Jin Jiuchi – or the gutsy jade doll – perhaps they would have screamed on top of their lungs or immediately fainted.
On the other hand, all Jin Jiuchi did was to suck in a breath and he regretted it almost immediately when a nauseating smell rushed to his nose through the very faint crack of the window.
Jin Jiuchi's eyes watered right away, his throat spasmed and he almost retched if not for Nian's hand that was still clasping his mouth tightly. There was a thick scent of ash – he was certain that it was not incense ash or cigarettes – mixed with the horrible stench of rotten meat, something burnt and an overpowering odor of death. Never before had he smelled anything as revolting!
He immediately tried to move as far away from the source of the scent, but Nian clearly begged to differ. They used their whole weight to pin Jin Jiuchi on the window. Jin Jiuchi had no idea whether he was imagining it, but the jade doll seemed to get increasingly heavier by each second it almost felt as if he was carrying a fully grown adult with one hand. Goodness, how could Nian'er be so heavy?! He almost could not breathe!
Involuntarily, Jin Jiuchi let out a muffled sound of protest from his throat. "Mmph–!!"
And then, as if someone had pressed a pause button, the ghostly music abruptly halted and a dozen of paper dolls stopped in their tracks. Slowly, they turned their heads and looked at the window with their ink-drawn eyes and wide eerie smiles.