Feng Tian licked his lips, speaking very cautiously, "Tonight will probably require you to step up again."

"Uh..." Kuang Feifan's eyes widened. In his view, Feng Tian ranked on the same level as a demon, but after glancing at He Xu and Julie huddled pale-faced on the sofa, he sighed and asked, "What do you need me to do?"

Feng Tian didn't immediately tell him the specifics, first pulling out the bottle containing the prayer beads from his bag and handing the beads to Kuang Feifan.

Finally getting his prayer beads back, Kuang Feifan quickly took them, only then noticing that even after soaking for such a long time in the water, not a single bead seemed damp.

He re-clasped the beads onto his wrist, but Feng Tian didn't rush to instruct him; instead, he turned to busy himself with other tasks.

He first used the red cord, interwoven with golden threads, to encircle the long sofa where He Xu and Julie were sitting, then scattered a circle of incense ash just outside the red cord boundary, leaving only one gap. He instructed the pair, "If either of you needs to get up from that sofa, you must only use this opening. Understand?"

They stared back, utterly bewildered, only managing to nod.

Having arranged the positions of He Xu and Julie, Feng Tian began decanting the water from the bottle into two small spray bottles, handing one to Kuang Feifan and asking, "You know how to use this, right?"

Kuang Feifan’s lips curved up in a semblance of a smile as he took the bottle and tucked it into his pocket.

Feng Tian swept his gaze around the room once, then stated, "No matter what entity shows up this time, we are handling it right here in the living room. We are not going anywhere else."

Saying this, he beckoned Kuang Feifan over, and together they removed every mirror from every room in the house, placing them face down on the floor.

Kuang Feifan asked him, confused, "What does this have to do with mirrors?"

"Ghosts summoned through mirrors are generally called 'Mirror Immortals,' naturally using mirrors as their medium. I suspect the other deceased students may have had mirrors near them when they died, and the spirit they provoked used the mirror to harm them," Feng Tian analyzed.

Soon, all the mirrors in the house were taken down, except for the one in the training room.

"We don't need to move the mirror in the training room. If we invite it here, we will naturally need it to send it away," Feng Tian said, pausing at the doorway and peering inside.

"Send... away..." Kuang Feifan frowned. He felt that dealing with the malevolent spirit that had already killed three students by merely sending it away seemed overly lenient.

Feng Tian noticed his thoughts and smiled faintly, "You think I'm being too perfunctory?"

Kuang Feifan shrugged slightly, "Yesterday you set up so many things, and today you only have a few arrangements. It seems like you plan to just dismiss it and be done."

Feng Tian sighed, slightly helpless, "First, the haunted house setup yesterday clearly involved more than one or two entities, so the preparations had to be comprehensive. For the current situation, information is lacking, so I can't arrange too much. Also, different types of spirits require different countermeasures—it's a matter of 'one thing suppresses another.' Otherwise, I wouldn't have prepared the black dog's blood."

He paused, then continued, "As for what I meant by sending it away, it certainly won't be the simple chasing it off that you are imagining. You’ll know the specifics when the time comes, but..."

He deliberately drew out the word. Kuang Feifan nodded with deep resignation, "I understand, I understand. When you add a 'but,' I know I’m either the bait or the medium."

Feng Tian chuckled, giving him an affirmative nod.

After the group finished the takeout dinner, it was past nine o'clock. Feng Tian switched on every light in the house, instantly illuminating the entire villa. The preparations were not yet complete; He Xu and Julie remained dutifully on the sofa, staring blankly ahead at the active television screen, their minds seemingly elsewhere.

Feng Tian had no time to attend to them; he pulled Kuang Feifan along to continue working in the hall. They closed the doors to every room in the villa, securing the thresholds with red cord and incense ash, including the staircase landing and the interior of the main entrance.

Copper bells were then tied to the large floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room. Only now did Kuang Feifan begin to grasp that these few methods seemed to be Feng Tian's standard toolkit for ghost-catching.

However, once these arrangements were done, Feng Tian’s gaze fell upon Kuang Feifan.

"Crap..." Kuang Feifan muttered with slight annoyance.

Feng Tian pulled over an office chair with wheels and placed it in the empty center of the living room, patting the backrest. "Come on, have a seat."

Kuang Feifan took a deep breath and walked over to sit down.

Unexpectedly, Feng Tian rummaged through his bag and produced a pair of black cloth gloves, handing them over.

"What's this for?" Kuang Feifan asked, bewildered.

"Wear these. You must know your prayer beads are too potent; they need to be shielded," Feng Tian said, shaking the gloves slightly.

Kuang Feifan took them, grimaced, and asked, "What exactly do you want me to do?"

Feng Tian managed an awkward smile. "I want the ghost to attack you directly, and then I'll intervene..."

"I..." Kuang Feifan couldn't even utter a curse; the job sounded significantly more hazardous.

Feng Tian quickly reassured him, "Don't worry, it won't truly manage to harm you. When the time comes, you just remove the gloves, and most ghosts won't be able to genuinely touch you..."

Kuang Feifan’s face lengthened. "Explain it clearly," he told Feng Tian.

Because He Xu and the other were still in the living room, they had kept their voices down, but Kuang Feifan was feeling disgruntled, so his voice rose slightly. The two on the sofa were startled by the sudden volume and looked over nervously.

Feng Tian dropped the corner of his mouth, shot Kuang Feifan a look, and reluctantly lowered his voice. "Actually, I suspect the ghost they summoned likely possessed them through a mirror, and then it intends to kill them one by one. So, I need you to attract it to you once it emerges. Do you understand now?"

Kuang Feifan knitted his brows, contemplating for a long moment before spitting out two words: "Let's do it."

Feng Tian let out a massive breath of relief and quickly sprinkled a circle of grave soil mixed with incense ash around the chair Kuang Feifan was sitting on, leaving an opening on one side.

Then, he turned to He Xu and Julie. "Unless one of you needs the restroom or something, don't get up again."

Saying this, he filled the gap in the circle of ash around their sofa with more incense ash, completely sealing off their seating area.

Having completed all this, he placed a substitute doll on the floor behind Kuang Feifan’s chair, then circled the area around the chair with red cord, leaving a single gap. He told Kuang Feifan, "If you see or feel something approaching you, or lunging at you, you can take off the gloves then."

Suddenly, he seemed to remember something else, quickly tying two copper bells to the armrests of the chair. He smiled sweetly at Kuang Feifan, "It would be best if you kept your hands off the armrests, okay?"

Kuang Feifan rolled his eyes in exasperation but dutifully placed his hands on his thighs, sitting ramrod straight. At this point, his posture was even more textbook-perfect than when a teacher demanded it in school.

Checking his watch, it pointed to half-past ten. Feng Tian hurried back to the training room and tied copper bells to both ends of the ballet barre in front of the large mirror.

"If you hear the bells ring, close your eyes," he instructed He Xu and Julie.

Kuang Feifan tilted his head toward Feng Tian, signaling him to come closer, and whispered, "What exactly do you need them for here?"

"Of course, we need them. Firstly, for their residual energy. Secondly, this is the only place that guarantees their safety. Most importantly, it's to teach them a severe lesson," Feng Tian’s expression was solemn, and his tone extremely serious.

Kuang Feifan nodded and said no more.

Feng Tian checked the setup, satisfied that most preparations were done. He then took out a few peach branches wrapped with red thread and placed them on the coffee table, covering them with a black cloth. "Just in case," he said to Kuang Feifan.

Kuang Feifan shook his head. "Why do I feel like you have so many trinkets, yet they all seem a bit shabby? Why not bring out a peach-wood sword or something?"

Feng Tian scratched his head sheepishly. "I used to have a peach-wood sword, but I gave it away, and I haven't had time to make another."

"Where will you be staying?" Kuang Feifan asked him.

Feng Tian pointed to a closet in the corner of the living room. It was called a closet, but they had all seen inside earlier; it was spacious enough to fit a bed.

He opened the closet door, dipped a brush into black dog's blood, made a mark on the inside of the door, placed a chair within, brought in two bottles of mineral water, and then walked in and closed the door.

The room suddenly fell silent, save for the dialogue of characters emanating from the television.

Kuang Feifan felt grateful for his training; at least his physique was sturdy enough that sitting perfectly upright wouldn't immediately cause his back to ache or his legs to cramp.

He glanced frequently at the clock on the wall, finally asking somewhat boredly, "When will it arrive?"

"Don't worry, we've been busy. The ghost shouldn't be able to approach yet. It should be close to showing up before midnight now," Feng Tian’s muffled voice came from inside the closet.

As if to confirm his words, less than a minute after he finished speaking, a faint sound of copper bells could be heard. Almost simultaneously, all the lights in the house began to flicker incessantly, as if the voltage was unstable.

Likewise, the program playing on the living room TV lost its signal at that instant, the screen dissolving into static snow.

He Xu and Julie shrieked in terror at the sudden turn of events.

"Calm down! Close your eyes!" Kuang Feifan yelled at them, raising his voice.

However, a casual shout wouldn't instantly quiet them, especially with the constant ringing of the copper bells. Initially, the sounds came from the training room, but soon the bells on the living room windows began to chime as well.

Faint, intangible currents of air began to swirl and dart around the hall. He Xu and Julie had already clung to each other, thankfully no longer screaming, but burying their faces in each other's shoulders, the sound of Julie’s low sobbing audible.

Kuang Feifan took a deep breath, striving to steady his nerves, waiting for something to lunge at him.

But just then, he distinctly heard Feng Tian utter a quiet gasp from inside the closet: "Damn it, I overlooked something..."