Chapter 142: The Narrative in the Graffiti

Ah, I forgot.

Her home has already become a Pure Land.

A string of beads worn on her wrist would naturally become a Dharma artifact, even if it was just a cheap twenty-yuan item.

Moreover, the old lady didn’t seem to distinguish between Dharma artifacts and common items; no matter how devout she was or how much merit protected her, she was still an ordinary person who couldn’t see spiritual light.

So, the old lady likely still thought this string of beads didn’t match my small jade Buddha and was even considering whether to provide a different gift.

I simply accepted the beads from her hand.

“Thank you. This string of beads is wonderful; I will cherish it.”

As I stepped out of the old lady’s room, I had made another profit.

This time, I had traded a handicraft worth a few hundred for a Dharma artifact worth at least tens of thousands.

Was this also a windfall?

To be honest, the Pi Xiu’s way of plundering wealth aura was starting to feel a bit terrifying to me.

It had only been modified for a day, yet various unexpected fortunes were rolling in continuously.

While no one complains about having too much money, especially a child from a poor family like I was not long ago, I

felt a sense of dread toward so much sudden wealth.

Most importantly, these windfalls came with risks.

I needed to find a way to give away part of the wealth aura soon.

Thinking this, I took the elevator to the first floor and then entered the stairwell.

I wanted to take a serious look at what those graffiti were actually depicting.

There were some ghost-warding talismans drawn in the hallway.

According to Mo Qingyan, these were for suppressing evil; they could also be seen in front of that old man’s cold storage door.

However, many of the talismans in this hallway had been covered by graffiti and were now deformed.

I wondered if other residents had discovered Fei’er’s midnight sleepwalking in the past and thought she might be possessed.

Perhaps they had drawn these talismans in an attempt to exorcise the spirit, only for them to be ineffective and eventually covered by Fei’er’s graffiti.

The child’s drawings were somewhat abstract, but still understandable.

Initially, there seemed to be four people: two adults, one medium-height person, and a child.

The smallest one was drawn with two braids, likely a girl.

Then, the medium-height person—perhaps an older child—and the little girl seemed to have a very good relationship.

They played house together and played hide-and-seek in a park.

In the next drawing, the two children seemed to be in a bright red field of flowers where they saw a person lying down.

That person was drawn in pieces, with limbs and head separated.
Seeing this scene made my skin crawl.

I instinctively thought of that rose field.
Could the person lying in pieces among the flowers in the drawing be the corpse that had been discovered?

The following scene showed the older child standing in front of an adult.
The adult’s hand seemed to be resting on the child’s shoulder.

But I quickly overturned my previous guess because in the next drawing, that child was lying down, being stuffed into a wall by the adult.

Only half of the little girl’s face was drawn to the side, spying on everything.
‘He’s dead!?’

The previous drawing actually depicted the child being strangled by the adult!

Why? Was he killed to keep him silent because he discovered the corpse?

But who exactly was that adult?

Why wasn’t the little girl killed to keep her silent?

Immediately following that was another drawing.

That adult was killed by two other adults.

In this drawing, I seemed to see two dead adults.

Large patches of red were drawn on the two of them, as if they were covered in blood.

Were these two adults the two parents from the original group of four?

Did they kill the murderer to avenge their child?

Since these graffiti were all simple line drawings and the characters were all stick figures—some with proportions

that changed constantly, like the child—the plot could only be guessed.

Aside from the little girl’s two braids, no one else had any identifying features.

Then, an even more incredible drawing appeared.

Two adults were hacking at each other with knives, both covered in bright red paint.

Could they have had a disagreement and fought to the death?

After a few more graffiti of unknown meaning that I couldn’t understand at all, a mass of red was sprawled on the ground.

The little girl stood above it holding a blood-red knife, looking a bit like a victory pose after defeating a boss in a game.

If it were just an image like this, I might find it somewhat cute or want to laugh.

But that patch of red gave me a very bad feeling.

Who exactly was killing whom, and what role did the little girl play in all of this?

However, the next few drawings weren’t as eerie or disturbing upon reflection.
First, in a room with an open door, the little girl was chatting with a “big girl.”

The reason I could tell it was an older girl was that Fei’er had used a pencil to draw several long lines, presumably representing long hair.

Then there was a drawing of the little girl sitting with a short-haired woman drinking tea.

The adult was even bringing out candy for the little girl.

These few looked like ordinary children’s drawings.
“Big sister, what are you looking at?”

Suddenly, a sweet child’s voice rang out from behind me, giving me a massive fright.

I whirled around to see Fei’er looking at me with a smile.
At that moment, my heart nearly stopped.

I remembered her expressionless face during her nightly sleepwalking and thought of those eerie graffiti.
The cute little girl before me gave me a sense of terror I had never felt before.

Even the Pen Immortals who died by hanging or falling hadn’t made me feel this terrified.

Several scenes flashed through my mind rapidly—like her pulling out a knife to stab me, or suddenly bleeding from her seven orifices and turning into a zombie to bite me.

Or perhaps she was already a ghost.

The Iron-wire Dragon Gu and the Golden Bee Gu had already closed in from upstairs and downstairs.
I had already given them orders, ready to strike first.

If anything was wrong with Fei’er, the two Gu insects would take her down directly.

But Fei’er just skipped over to my side, looked at the graffiti on the wall, and said with a laugh: “This is drawn so poorly! And who’s been scribbling here? So uncivilized!”

I admit I was already drenched in sweat by the time she reached my side, but what she said left me even more dumbfounded.

Fei’er actually said she didn’t know who drew these.

Was she playing dumb?

“Weren’t… weren’t these drawn by you?” I asked, bracing myself.

The Iron-wire Dragon Gu had already returned to my body from her blind spot, ready to be shot out at any moment.
But Fei’er shook her head.

“Who would scribble here? And it’s drawn so ugly.”
Her expression of disgust and her tone were both very sincere.

For a split second, I almost believed it truly wasn’t Fei’er who drew them.

If I hadn’t seen her drawing in the stairwell with my own eyes, I would have been fooled by her now.
Or perhaps I wasn’t being fooled; Fei’er simply had no memory of her nightly sleepwalking.

She completely didn’t remember that she was the one who drew these.