"Slap! Slap! Slap!" Just as Kun Ge had barely jumped up, Ge Dongxu suddenly reached out and grabbed his neck, and started beating his head with the book in his hand.
"Say 'father' one more time, I dare you?" The smile on Ge Dongxu's face had disappeared without a trace, replaced by icy coldness.
Kun Ge felt the chilling hardness at his neck and the throbbing pain in his head. Looking at Ge Dongxu's icy expression, he shivered internally and suddenly realized that this young man in front of him was no pushover! To avoid suffering right now, he thought it best to act more obediently.
"I won't say it again, I won't say it again!" Seeing Ge Dongxu raise the book to hit his head again, Kun Ge hastened to cry out.
"If you had been like this earlier, you wouldn't have been beaten. You really do deserve a thrashing," Ge Dongxu finally let go of him and sat back down in the chair, muttering.
Kun Ge was gnashing his teeth with hatred inside, but at this moment, he didn't dare to be arrogant and talk back.
"Right, just now you mentioned that this matter wouldn't just end here, right? And that I should kowtow to you, become your lackey, right?" Ge Dongxu spoke again after sitting down.
Kun Ge and Yue Ting exchanged glances, then said in unison, "No, no, it was just a joke. It's only a piece of clothing, right? Let's just forget about it, forget about it."
A wise man knows better than to fight when the odds are against him; it's better to deceive this young Ghost Head for now!
"Too bad you've already spilled the beans, do you think I'd believe you now? But if I don't believe you and let you go just like that, what should I do if you come back for revenge later?" Ge Dongxu stroked his chin, looking troubled as he observed them with bright, intelligent eyes.
Kun Ge and Yue Ting, seeing Ge Dongxu's troubled look and his eyes surveying them, wished they could slap themselves hard.
This was certainly self-defeating. If they had simply agreed to drop the matter and leave earlier instead of trying to be tough and stubborn, now they wouldn't be facing the problem of the young Ghost Head not willing to let them go, unpredictable in his next moves.
"It seems I'll have to go through some trouble after all!" After contemplating with his chin in hand for a while, Ge Dongxu finally stood up with a look of distress, took out two pieces of yellow talisman paper from a drawer, mixed some cinnabar powder, then took a writing brush, dipped it in the cinnabar, and handed it to Kun Ge, "Here, Kun Ge, do me a favor and write down your birth date and name."
"My birth date?" Kun Ge looked at Ge Dongxu full of confusion.
"Yes, the year, month, day, and Chinese Hour you were born. Just write this down along with your name, and then you can leave," Ge Dongxu said.
"Really?" Kun Ge exclaimed with a look of surprise. He had thought he would have to endure some torment by Ge Dongxu, at the very least a beating, and did not expect it to be so easy.
"Of course, it's true," Ge Dongxu nodded, a faint sneer flashing in the depths of his eyes.
Without any suspicion, Kun Ge picked up the brush and awkwardly wrote his birth date and name on the yellow talisman paper. After he finished, without waiting for Ge Dongxu's instructions, he dipped the brush in the cinnabar himself and passed it to Yue Ting.
Yue Ting hesitated for a moment when she took the brush, but in the end, she dutifully wrote down her own birth date.
After all, it was just a birth date and name; she didn't think that Ge Dongxu, a rural youth, could do anything significant with it.
"So, can we leave now?" After finishing writing, Yue Ting put down the brush, and as she watched Ge Dongxu cut two yellow pieces of paper into the shape of a person, she couldn't explain why, but an eerie feeling crept over her. Her voice trembled as she asked.
After asking the question, realizing her own voice was shaking, Yue Ting felt she was being overly sensitive. In this day and age, all this talk about talismans, curses, and paper effigies was stuff from TV shows and movies, just tricks to fool people. How could she, a young person, believe in such things? She had really been bewitched!
"Wait a second," Ge Dongxu said with a smile. He snipped a little lock of hair from the heads of Yue Ting and Brother Kun with scissors, and then waved his hand, "You may go now."
Yue Ting and Brother Kun promptly picked up their feet to leave, not expecting that at this moment, Ge Dongxu's mouth was curled into a cold smirk. The hair he'd cut was now sticking to the paper figures, much like the meridians of a person.
Then, Ge Dongxu flicked the "armpit" of the paper effigy lightly.
"Ah!"
"Thud!"
The two of them had just reached the door and were about to pull the handle when they suddenly felt a pain in their armpits, lost their balance, and ended up kneeling on the ground.
At first, they felt nothing amiss, merely puzzled why their armpits had suddenly felt a sharp pain, like a needle prick. But when they realized their companion had also dropped to his knees, a shiver went through their hearts, and they blurted out, "Did your armpit suddenly hurt too?"
The words came out nearly at the same time, almost identical. Both of their faces instantly turned pale, drops of cold sweat rolled down their foreheads, and their eyes involuntarily showed a look of terror.
"You little bastard, how dare you use such trickery on us!" After the initial shock, Brother Kun spun around, glaring furiously at Ge Dongxu, who was casually sitting in a chair with his legs crossed, smiling and holding two paper figures. The figures bore their names and birth details scrawled in red.
Previously, they hadn't been bothered by it, but now, seeing the crooked red letters made them feel particularly offended, and there was even a sinister vibe emanating from them.
"I had no choice. We're just an ordinary family. If I didn't take precautions and you called the cops the moment you left my house, wouldn't we be at your mercy? And you'd better be a bit more polite. You're the ones who started the trouble, so you can't blame me for dealing with you now," Ge Dongxu said with a helpless expression, pinching the arm of the paper figure lightly as he spoke.
"Ah! It hurts! It hurts!" Brother Kun immediately screamed in pain.
Seeing Brother Kun scream like that, Ge Dongxu felt annoyed by his previous arrogance and the way he had pushed his father, but ultimately, he was a good-hearted young man. Seeing Brother Kun in pain, he let go.
"What, what do you want from us?" This time, having personally witnessed and experienced the bizarre events, Brother Kun was truly scared. He looked at Ge Dongxu as though he were some evil ghost, stammering with a pale face, while Yue Ting, by his side, had already turned pale, her thick makeup unable to hide her pallor.
"Don't worry, I'm only taking precautions for the future and don't wish any harm on you. As long as you don't cause trouble for my family afterwards, I won't do anything to you. But if you decide to make trouble for us later, then you can't blame me for not being polite," Ge Dongxu assured them with a sincere look on his face.
Seeing Ge Dongxu's earnest expression, this time tears fell from the eyes of Yue Ting and Brother Kun.
Over a dress, for the sake of young people's bragging rights, now their lives were in the hands of Ge Dongxu. And why had they been so compliant? Why hadn't they thought to write something false for him?
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