Qin Xiangyi’s clothing factory was located in the countryside. Tang Hao arrived there in less than twenty minutes.
The sky was already dark by then.
An ambulance was parked in front of the factory. Several emergency paramedics were carrying a stretcher and bringing it into the vehicle. After that, it sped away with wailing sirens.
Qin Xiangyi and a crowd of factory workers were standing at the entrance.
Tang Hao slowed down and parked his car in front of the gate.
“What happened?” Tang Hao asked after he got out of his car.
Qin Xiangyi walked over quickly. Her brows were tightly locked and she looked worried.
“That’s the third casualty since afternoon. He was crushed by a product shelf that suddenly toppled. Another worker was injured the same way earlier, while the other was injured by some machinery that suddenly went out of control.”
Tang Hao furrowed his brows when he heard that.
Each one of those incidents was an accident, but three in one afternoon was too much of a coincidence.
“I’ve heard the workers say that there’s some unnatural movement in the workshops. It’s like as though… it’s haunted!” Qin Xiangyi’s face turned slightly pale when she said that.
She had heard Tang Hao talk about his encounters with ghosts before. Now that she was about to encounter one, she was a little afraid.
The crowd of workers at the entrance talked among themselves. They were uneasy about the accidents.
“Nothing like that happened before?” Tang Hao said.
“No. Everything was fine until this afternoon,” Qin Xiangyi said.
Tang Hao thought for a while and said, “Let me go and take a look!”
Then, he walked into the factory.
The workers were surprised when they saw that.
They recognized the boy. He regularly fetched their boss to work and was rumored to be their boss’s boyfriend.
The workers regularly gossiped with each other. The factory employed a majority of female workers and they regularly talked about their boss behind her back.
“Why is he going in? What if something happens to him?”
“If there’s a supernatural incident, shouldn’t we hire a monk or a Taoist master to exorcise the ghost?”
They talked softly among themselves.
“I’m coming along too!” Qin Xiangyi quickly caught up to him.
Tang Hao hesitated for a while but eventually nodded.
The workers were getting anxious.
“Oh, Boss, you shouldn’t go! What if there’s really something supernatural in there? That’ll be dangerous!”
“That’s right, you shouldn’t go!”
The workers crowded around her and tried to convince her to stay away.
Qin Xiangyi smiled. “Don’t worry. What’s the worst that could happen? Furthermore, he will protect me if something happens.”
The workers became even more anxious when they heard that.
Their boss had been intelligent and capable, but they thought that she made the wrong decision this time. Ghosts were no joking matter, and if they encountered one inside, the kid might not even be able to save himself, much less their boss.
Their gaze toward Tang Hao turned hostile.
‘Why is the kid butting in? There’s nothing to see inside. What if Boss gets injured because of him?’
Seeing that they could not convince their boss, some of the male workers shouted, “We’ll go along too! If there’s more of us, the ghost might be scared.”
“That’s right! We’re coming along too!”
The group of male workers looked eager.
“Well…” Qin Xiangyi hesitated. She turned to look at Tang Hao.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tang Hao said nonchalantly.
“Let’s go together then!” Qin Xiangyi said.
The workers gathered at one spot. In total, there were about forty people in the group who went to the building on the east side of the factory.
The building occupied a large area and was divided into multiple sections. Some of them processed manmade fabric, and there were also sewing workshops. Some of the sections were filled with mannequins.
It was fine when there was light. However, it looked rather spooky once night fell.
The group of people walked toward the area where the accidents happened.
The area was completely quiet.
Tang Hao remained calm, but the male workers who followed behind him were looking at the surroundings cautiously.
They arrived at the workshop.
Tang Hao opened his third eye and looked all over the place. However, he made no discoveries.
He turned to Qin Xiangyi and shook his head.
Suddenly, they heard a crash in the room next door.
In a completely silent environment, the crash was as loud as a thunderclap. The workers were shocked and trembled with fear.
“It must be a ghost!”
“The ghost is next door!”
The workers’ faces turned paler than ever. Some of the less courageous ones were already trembling.
Tang Hao exited the workshop and went next door.
The room next door was a storeroom for miscellaneous items. It stored many broken mannequins. The sight of their hollow, white faces with broken bodies was rather disturbing.
Crack! Crack!
Suddenly, they heard a mysterious sound. In the pile of broken mannequins, one of them started to move. It slowly lifted its twisted head.
Then, the head turned to look at them.
“A ghost!”
The male workers were scared out of their wits when they saw that. Some of them fell sitting on the floor and crawled away while screaming for their parents.
The other workers stood on the spot, but their legs were shaking violently.
“B- B- Boss! Quick… Quick, let’s run away!” Their voices were trembling too.
Qin Xiangyi’s face turned pale when she saw that, but she resolutely stood behind Tang Hao.
The broken mannequin stood up and walked toward them in jerking steps.
“Run away, dammit!”
A few more people could not take it anymore and run out as fast as they could.
The mannequin cackled when it saw so many people running away. Then, it turned to look at Tang Hao with its tilted head.
‘Why isn’t this guy afraid?
‘He looks too damn calm.’
It wanted to scare him. It lifted its arm, then shambled toward Tang Hao.
The kid was not fazed at all. He even had an expression of condescension on his face.
The mannequin seemed to be angry. It quickened its pace.
Tang Hao grinned. He stepped forward, then delivered a slap at the mannequin’s face.
Smack! The head was detached from the body and landed on the ground with a thud.
“Show yourself, ghost!” Tang Hao roared sternly. He reached out, grabbed toward the mannequin, and pulled out a wisp of smoke. It coalesced into something the shape of a human.
It was indeed a ghost.
The ghost was extremely frightened. It struggled with all its might to escape Tang Hao’s grasp.
It was no match for Tang Hao’s power though, so it remained firmly on the spot.
On the top of a hill not far away from the factory, someone in a black suit and a felt hat was sitting cross-legged. His body suddenly trembled and he opened his eyes.
His face was wracked with shock.
“Dammit, there’s a powerful opponent inside!”
He quickly got up to his feet, packed his belongings into a black suitcase, then prepared to run away.
Back in the factory, Tang Hao carefully sensed his surroundings. His expression suddenly turned cold and his eyes flashed with killing intent.
Then, he tightened his grasp. The ghost exploded into bits of energy.
“Someone is behind this. Wait here!” Tang Hao roared. He removed the string of blood jade beads from his wrist and handed it to Qin Xiangyi.
Then, he leaped out of the window, ran out of the factory, and toward that hill.
