Chapter 23: A Memory Glitch (Part Two)

Unaware that he had been mistaken for a scoundrel, Chao Xu nodded warily. "Alright, I'm leaving. Don't follow me."

Ci Mo nodded obediently, his eyes pure and harmless, wearing an expression that seemed incapable of deceit.

Relieved, Chao Xu feared Ci Mo might change his mind, so he dashed away, planning to climb over the wall once the butler left to avoid being questioned.

After Chao Xu left, the harmless look on Ci Mo's face fell away, replaced by an expression of utter indifference. Even those eyes, always bright blue when looking at Chao Xu, became lifeless and hollow, enough to make anyone shiver.

Ci Mo walked to the window and watched as Chao Xu's figure dwindled into a black dot. Only after it vanished completely did he move. He opened the window and, without hesitation, leaped straight down from the second floor!

A gust of wind swept through, the curtains billowed, and the vast room felt even emptier.

Meanwhile, Chao Xu stood outside with Mao Tuan, waiting for a ride.

Mao Tuan rubbed the back of his head, suddenly uneasy.

"For some reason, I keep feeling like someone is watching me."

"Impossible," Chao Xu said, slouching against a tree. "We’ve been together the whole time. If someone was watching you, how could I not notice?"

"That’s true. Maybe I’m just imagining things."

Convinced, Mao Tuan dismissed that bone-chilling stare as a figment of his imagination and perched patiently on Chao Xu’s shoulder, waiting for a car.

At this hour, catching a ride wasn’t hard. Before long, a driver spotted someone waiting by the roadside, pulled over, and rolled down the window. "Young lady, are you waiting for a ride?"

Chao Xu, her face mostly hidden in the shadow of her baseball cap, twitched her ears at the sound and looked up. "Yes, I want to go to Z High. Can you take me there?"

She hadn’t finished speaking before the driver’s face changed dramatically. He blurted out a curse, "Damn! It’s you again!"

This was the same driver who had previously given Chao Xu a ride back to the Chao family. After that episode, he’d been left traumatized and hadn’t recovered from the psychological scars she’d left.

He’d finally managed to get back to work today, and as luck would have it, the very first passenger he encountered was this troublemaker.

His lips twitched helplessly, and he looked as though he was on the verge of tears. He couldn’t help but wonder if he was somehow bound by fate to this young lady.

Chao Xu glanced at the driver and realized it was the same man who had once offered her a free ride home.

She hesitated, biting her nail. "Are you here to ask me for the fare?"

The driver trembled even harder.

Ask this young lady for money? What if she handed him a stack of ghost money? He’d probably die on the spot.

Swallowing nervously, the driver said, "Of course not. Didn’t you say you wanted to go to Z High? I’ll take you there."

"Really? Thank you, you’re such a good person."

With genuine praise, Chao Xu climbed into the passenger seat, lounging lazily and carelessly.

The driver kept his eyes fixed firmly on the road, not daring to glance at Chao Xu beside him the entire way.

When they arrived, he finally stopped, exhaled in relief, and asked, "We’re here. Are you getting out?"

"Mm," she replied, her voice tinged with a peculiar cadence that made the already-nervous driver involuntarily steal a look at her.

The girl’s skin was porcelain white, her features so exquisitely carved she seemed like a doll shaped by a master craftsman. Her upturned, almond-shaped eyes were as dark and unfathomable as a bottomless pool, sending a chill down one’s spine with a single glance.

Yet at the same time, there was something eerily alluring about her—people feared her, but couldn’t help but want to look again.

By the time the driver shook off the spell-like sensation, Chao Xu had vanished without a trace. Only a bright red object remained on the passenger seat.

Curiosity got the better of him, and he picked it up for a closer look.

This design—wasn’t it from the Bank of the Underworld?

Damn! It really was ghost money!