STD CH8

Chapter 8: Deng Xuanhan

After eating, Lu Wenxi generally didn’t sit or lie down right away. Instead, he stood by the dining room doorway, leaned against the wall, pulled out his phone, and opened Weibo to search for news about Deng Xuanhan.

Even now, it still weighed on his mind. If what the girl ghost said was true, why had Deng Xuanhan come looking for him?

If Deng Xuanhan had committed suicide harboring deep hatred, was there some hidden story behind this whole spectacle?

“Have you been keeping up with the Deng Xuanhan situation? How is it developing right now?” he asked Yin Hanwei, his fingers never stopping as he scrolled through posts using the skills he had honed over the past few days. Entertainment industry news had a habit of mutating every few hours; after all, it was a circle obsessed with stirring up drama to grab eyeballs.

Having been cursed at for so long, he could read virtually any news with breezy detachment, scanning ten lines at a glance, instantly skipping past nasty comments, and absorbing only the information he wanted. Admittedly, it wasn’t exactly an admirable skill to brag about, yet in this split second, he felt a small measure of gratitude for it.

Thick-skinned—never going to commit suicide.

Too bad he didn’t have long left to live anyway.

“What else could happen? It’s turned into a massive flame war,” Yin Hanwei answered casually, his tone lazy.

“Who’s fighting whom?”

Seeing that Lu Wenxi was genuinely curious, Yin Hanwei set his own phone down on the table and spoke seriously: “The official statement from Deng Xuanhan’s agency says she suffered from long-term depression, had been actively undergoing treatment, and still ended up taking her own life, leaving them deeply saddened and full of guilt. However, a lot of people speculate she actually committed suicide over love, because her ex-boyfriend—Wei Haodong—just posted on Weibo a few days ago announcing a new relationship.”

At the same time, Lu Wenxi tapped open a photo of Wei Haodong, zoomed in to examine the man’s face, and barely managed to recall who this person was.

Next, he clicked into a long Weibo post with massive comment and repost counts, reading through it while telling Yin Hanwei, “Keep going.”

“Deng Xuanhan and her ex-boyfriend had a twelve-year age gap—a full zodiac cycle apart. They never went public with their relationship, though paparazzi caught them together often enough that everyone knew they were a couple. From start to finish, neither of them ever officially admitted it—that’s the crux of the issue. Because of that, nobody knew when they actually got together or when they broke up. Just a few days ago, Wei Haodong posted on Weibo announcing his new girlfriend. Tsk, his popularity really isn’t up to par—he barely stayed on the front page for a hot minute before getting knocked down by the trending posts cursing you out.”

At that point, Yin Hanwei abruptly clamped his mouth shut and glanced up at Lu Wenxi. Seeing no sign of anger on Lu Wenxi’s face, he cleared his throat softly.

“Yeah, getting cursed at always pulls in huge crowds for me. Hitting the trending list effortlessly is completely normal. Go on,” Lu Wenxi replied.

“That’s pretty much the gist of it. Barely a few days after Wei Haodong went public with his new relationship, Deng Xuanhan killed herself. His ex-girlfriend stayed by his side for years without ever getting an official title, yet he announced his brand-new girlfriend the moment they started dating—that double standard doesn’t sit right with anyone. Tons of netizens flooded Wei Haodong’s Weibo calling him a scumbag. Even PR teams are useless here; the situation is completely beyond salvaging. Wei Haodong’s current girlfriend’s Weibo isn’t peaceful either—it’s an absolute bloodbath over there.”

Hearing this, Lu Wenxi shook his head. “Anyone who can survive in the entertainment industry this long—and even win Best Actress—must have weathered plenty of massive storms. Something this trivial wouldn’t push her over the edge like that. A mature woman committing suicide purely over an ex-boyfriend just doesn’t add up. There has to be something else going on.”

“Maybe to ordinary people, it’s just a breakup—just an ex moving on with a new girlfriend, no big deal. But for someone suffering from depression, it probably isn’t that easy to accept.”

Lu Wenxi didn’t understand clinical depression, so he couldn’t really argue the point. His thumb paused on the screen as his thoughts drifted slightly.

Could the breakup have been particularly ugly, triggering Deng Xuanhan and worsening her depression? He made a mental note to look up information about depression later.

“Did she… I mean Deng Xuanhan, ever deal with the unspoken rules?” he asked casually in passing.

Hearing that question, Yin Hanwei couldn’t help snorting with laughter. “Who doesn’t know she was practically a public bus?”

Actually, hearing that nickname made Lu Wenxi feel uncomfortable for a brief second. He pressed his lips together in silence before asking, “She often…”

“Back in her era, climbing to the top was way harder than it is today. She rose to fame through gravure videos—you know what gravure videos are, right? A cute young girl wearing a bikini walking along the beach, rubbing on sunscreen, and then later in the video, taking off her top to bare her body. Even though Deng Xuanhan changed her name after getting famous—oh right, before debuting her name was Deng Juan; once her popularity took off later, she changed it to Deng Xuanhan and spent a fortune scrubbing all those humiliating videos off the internet—copies still circulate on file-sharing sites. You can never truly erase a dark past.”

Truthfully, Yin Hanwei couldn’t entirely be blamed for the mockery in his voice.

Celebrities who traded their bodies to climb the ladder were far from rare in the industry, yet under traditional societal views, people still looked down on those methods as beneath contempt. The moment you stripped off your clothes, you forfeited your dignity; having used any means necessary to chase fame, you couldn’t blame others for slandering you afterward.

There were people like Deng Xuanhan, who abandoned everything to climb upward.

And then there were people like Xu Chen, who would rather continue living in hardship for the sake of their dignity.

Everyone made their own choices—who was right and who was wrong, nobody could cleanly judge. Whatever bitterness or sweetness lay within was known only to the person living it.

Deng Xuanhan probably hadn’t lived a happy life, had she?

One could tell just from the fact that she suffered from depression.

Yin Hanwei kept talking: “So for an actress like that, nobody cared whether she had dignity or not. Unspoken rules and all that… practically a daily routine. What’s worth mentioning, though, is that before Wei Haodong got together with Deng Xuanhan, he was a complete nobody. Deng Xuanhan more or less pulled him up into the spotlight. That’s why the top comment under Wei Haodong’s posts right now is asking if his conscience doesn’t ache.”

Lu Wenxi let out a soft “Mm,” then scrolled to the latest headline: “Wei Haodong hospitalized due to overwhelming grief?”

“To outsiders, Wei Haodong is just laying low to let the heat pass.”

“To outsiders? What about inside the circle?”

“Word leaked from his film crew that Wei Haodong seemed possessed by an evil spirit. In the middle of the night, he started screaming and yelling about seeing a ghost, pissed his pants in terror, and passed out cold. His assistants tried desperately to cover it up, but they couldn’t stop crew members from snapping secret photos. Here, I got these from a private assistants’ group chat.”

Hearing this, Lu Wenxi’s hand froze. He felt like he was on the verge of connecting some dots, yet nothing quite clicked into place. Instinctively, he guessed: had Deng Xuanhan gone after Wei Haodong to take revenge? Could it really be that Deng Xuanhan didn’t simply break down and commit suicide over Wei Haodong’s new girlfriend?

Just then, his phone chimed with a notification. Glancing down, he saw Yin Hanwei had sent over an image.

Tapping it open, he saw a photo of Wei Haodong passed out after wetting his pants in fright—a pair of beige trousers sporting a glaringly obvious dark wet patch, his face pathetic with tears streaking from the corners of his eyes, sprawled out on the floor looking utterly comical. Where was a shred of his usual dashing, domineering CEO charisma?

Staring at the photo, Lu Wenxi couldn’t help raising an eyebrow, thinking… Now THAT is a normal reaction to seeing a ghost, isn’t it?

Had he himself been way too calm?

However, he wouldn’t stay calm for much longer—and very nearly got scared out of his wits.

At noon, Lin Xiao arrived and called Yin Hanwei to come downstairs and let him in, since Lin Xiao didn’t have an elevator keycard or spare keys. Lin Xiao had deliberately timed his arrival for noon so he could bring lunch along.

Lu Wenxi was still sprawled across the sofa, scrolling through Weibo posts about Deng Xuanhan—he had spent the entire morning reading them.

Before long, Yin Hanwei and Lin Xiao walked back in, chatting away about Xu Chen as they entered.

Slumped on the sofa like a quadriplegic, Lu Wenxi tossed his phone aside and yelled straight out, “I’m starving!”

“I brought delicious food!” Lin Xiao immediately lifted the takeout bags to show them off.

Lu Wenxi glanced toward the entryway. The instant his eyes landed there, he was so terrified he rolled straight off the sofa and crashed onto the floor. Even after hitting the solid floorboards, his body instinctively scrambled backward. Only after seeing Yin Hanwei and Lin Xiao’s bewildered expressions did he manage to regain a sliver of composure.

He was terrified because, to his eyes, three people had just walked through the front door.

That was right—no blurry black shadow this time, but three distinct figures, except one of them was infinitely more horrifying.

The woman possessed exquisite features and a lovely figure, her waist-length hair cascading over her shoulders—though visibly soaking wet, clinging in damp, clumped strands. She wore a gorgeous evening gown, a deep midnight-blue floor-length dress dotted with sparkling sequins like a starry night sky, breathtaking and luxurious. The tailored gown hugged her pale body, though dark, near-black patches stained parts of the fabric, and fresh blood streaked across her arms and one side of her face.

Sandwiched right between the two men walking in was Deng Xuanhan.

Lu Wenxi could see her with crystal clarity—nothing like the vague, shadowy blur from last night.

Yin Hanwei clearly couldn’t see Deng Xuanhan; otherwise, there was no way the guy could look this nonchalant. Startled solely by Lu Wenxi’s bizarre behavior, Yin Hanwei asked in alarm, “Holy crap, Boss, what happened?!”

Lin Xiao, meanwhile, asked in confusion, “Is the food I brought bad?”

It took Lu Wenxi a long moment to find his voice. Feigning calmness, he swallowed hard and answered, “Nothing. You guys barging in like that just gave me a fright.”

“You didn’t hear us unlocking the door?” Yin Hanwei asked.

“Why do you talk so much nonsense?”

Lu Wenxi pushed himself up off the floor, realizing his legs were trembling.

Seeing a vague black shadow and seeing a full-blown, lifelike ghost were two completely different experiences. The sheer visual shock triggered a fresh wave of terror inside him. Sinking weakly back onto the sofa, he glanced toward the entryway again, only to find Deng Xuanhan was no longer standing there.

“You can see me, can’t you?” Deng Xuanhan’s voice suddenly echoed from diagonally behind Lu Wenxi—so close it practically brushed against his ear. As she spoke, a wave of icy air washed over him, making his stomach churn uncomfortably.

“F*ck!” Lu Wenxi’s heart gave a violent lurch. He sprang straight to his feet. Knowing Deng Xuanhan was hovering right behind him, he didn’t answer her, instead turning his gaze toward Yin Hanwei and Lin Xiao.

After a split-second hesitation, he announced, “You guys go ahead and eat first. I’m going to look in the mirror.” Saying so, he strode straight toward the bedroom.

“Boss, weren’t you starving?” Lin Xiao couldn’t help asking, suddenly noticing Lu Wenxi’s complexion looked rather pale and wanting to check on him.

“When saving humanity, what the hell does eating matter?!” With that, he marched straight into the bedroom and shut the door behind him.

Then, he turned around to face Deng Xuanhan.

From outside the door, Lin Xiao’s puzzled voice drifted in: “Looking in the mirror can save the world?”

“After all, beauty is justice!” Yin Hanwei answered confidently.

Lu Wenxi was now one hundred percent certain that Xu Chen and the girl ghost hadn’t teamed up to scam him—there was no way they could ever hire Deng Xuanhan as an actor.

At the same time, he realized that the dark shadow he had spotted out in the hallway last night must have been Deng Xuanhan. Seeing the shadow in the corridor and ducking back inside had confirmed to her that he could see her.

Unlike the girl ghost, Deng Xuanhan was clearly on a completely different level—at the very least, she could teleport instantaneously.

Since Deng Xuanhan was the very first lifelike ghost he had ever seen, he had no idea whether a spirit with one foot already inside the realm of evil spirits differed from ordinary ghosts.

He had retreated into the bedroom because he knew evil spirits attacked living humans. He didn’t want Yin Hanwei and Lin Xiao dragged into danger; if someone had to die, let it be him alone—after all, he was already shrouded in an aura of death.

Shutting the bedroom door would at least keep Deng Xuanhan contained for a short while. If he could hold out until Xu Chen returned, even better.

Being called “Boss” wasn’t for nothing—when people called you that, you had to protect them when push came to shove.

“Why do you keep following me?” Having heard her speak moments ago, he knew he could communicate directly with spirits now, so he asked outright, deliberately keeping his voice low so the two outside wouldn’t overhear.

Deng Xuanhan’s eyes were unfocused and hazy, her expression dazed like someone suffering from dementia in the mortal world. She stared blankly at Lu Wenxi, as though being asked a question had caused her to abruptly forget why she was haunting him, forcing her to rack her brain for a long moment.

“How about I give you an autograph and you leave, deal?” Lu Wenxi could only take a wild guess that Deng Xuanhan was his fan.

At that moment, Deng Xuanhan seemed to finally snap back to her senses. Abruptly, she broke down and cried out, “I’m filled with so much hatred… help me…”

Last night, Lu Wenxi had conversed with the girl ghost almost effortlessly, whereas communicating with Deng Xuanhan felt distinctly strenuous. He immediately remembered both Xu Chen and the girl ghost mentioning that Deng Xuanhan carried excessive resentment, which had pushed her straight to the brink of becoming an evil spirit the moment she died.

Once turned into an evil spirit, their minds became muddled and irrational—just like the spirit that had nearly attacked Lu Wenxi last night, which hadn’t seemed very bright.

Yet Deng Xuanhan’s lingering obsession was extraordinarily strong, allowing her to still speak a few coherent fragments with Lu Wenxi, even if her reactions were sluggish.

In a daze, Lu Wenxi sensed that Deng Xuanhan was fighting an internal battle. She herself didn’t seem to want to become an evil spirit, yet she couldn’t control the overwhelming hatred burning inside her.

She was subconsciously reaching out for help.

When a person suffers grievous harm, they instinctively turn to someone they trust for help.

And if they cannot find someone they trust in the heat of the moment, they turn to someone familiar. Lu Wenxi had been Deng Xuanhan’s second-best option.

After becoming a spirit, Deng Xuanhan still retained faint human instincts. Without a phone or any means of communication, and unable to stray too far, the very first person who came to mind was Lu Wenxi, who lived in the exact same residential complex.

That explained why she had sought him out.

“Do you hate Wei Haodong?” Lu Wenxi asked tentatively.

To his shock, the mere mention of that name caused Deng Xuanhan’s expression to twist into pure ferocity in a split second. Like a wild beast snapping into madness, she let out a furious roar, lunged straight at Lu Wenxi, clamped her hands around his throat, and lifted him clean off his feet.

Deng Xuanhan could physically touch him—and her skin was freezing cold.

Under attack, Lu Wenxi’s head slammed hard against the wall, making his vision go black and his breathing turn ragged. Refusing to stop struggling, he fumbled in his trouser pocket, pulled out one of the talismans, swung his arm forcefully, and slapped it straight onto Deng Xuanhan’s arm.

Deng Xuanhan immediately released her grip, stumbling backward with a piercing wail. She yanked her arm back in agonizing pain, her entire ghostly face contorting.

It seemed having these talismans slapped onto them really was excruciating for spirits.

“Help me…” The sharp pain jolted a sliver of sanity back into Deng Xuanhan. Tears streamed down her face—no, crimson blood welled from her eyes as she wept and pleaded, “Please help me…”

Lu Wenxi felt utterly helpless, yet one thing was crystal clear: if he didn’t help her, Deng Xuanhan would undoubtedly keep haunting him relentlessly. Unlucky bastards like him, shrouded in an aura of death and capable of seeing ghosts, were probably few and far between.

Put another way, people who drew quite this much hatred weren’t exactly common either.

“What do you want me to do? Stop crying first, it’s scary as hell,” Lu Wenxi asked.

As if slipping back into madness once more, Deng Xuanhan’s voice turned into a raspy, guttural shriek, her words slurred and fragmented: “Paper… crawl… crawl-tear… paper… crawl-tear… fog clears… six… six… nine…”

Mid-sentence, Deng Xuanhan practically tore at her own hair, let out a piercing scream, and abruptly spun around.

After getting up this morning, Lu Wenxi had cracked open the bedroom window to smoke a cigarette and hadn’t closed it since. Suddenly sprinting forward, Deng Xuanhan leaped straight out through the open window.

Seeing that, Lu Wenxi’s heart gave a violent jolt—this was the twenty-second floor! Wouldn’t she fall to her death?!

Then he remembered: Deng Xuanhan was already dead. Would a ghost even get hurt falling from that height?

Standing frozen in the room for a long moment, he finally pieced together his conclusion: Deng Xuanhan didn’t want to become an evil spirit, which was why she had come begging him for help. She wanted him to help dissolve her resentment so that once her hatred vanished, she wouldn’t have to suffer like this anymore. Unfortunately, she was already half-demonized and losing control of herself; unable to speak clearly, she had tried to leave him clues instead.

More than that, she hadn’t wanted to hurt him. To stop herself from harming him, she had actually thrown herself out the window.

Lu Wenxi was not the type of person who liked meddling in other people’s business.

Or rather, he was fundamentally quite detached—whether strangers lived or died meant nothing to him. When he first heard the news of Deng Xuanhan’s death, he had merely felt a fleeting sense of pity, coupled with a trace of relief that her suicide would take the heat off his own scandals.

Yet the sight of Deng Xuanhan weeping blood, and the way she had tormented herself just to avoid hurting him, left his chest churning for a long time without settling.

He had been deeply shaken…

Almost instinctively, he rushed over to the desk, grabbed a notebook and pen, and hastily jotted down the string of words he could remember.

Studying the notes for a moment, he analyzed them: by “paper,” Deng Xuanhan must have meant a suicide note she had left behind. As for the rest, they sounded like numbers. Unsure which syllables had simply been repeated due to Deng Xuanhan’s agonizing struggle, he wrote down every single digit he caught.

Paper, 848453669.

After writing it down, he stared at that line of text and felt a sudden wave of despair wash over him.

Despair that he really was going to die.

And even greater despair that, on the brink of death, he still had to play the good Samaritan and help a ghost during the final stretch of his life.

__

Author’s notes:

Lu Wenxi: Didn’t believe it before, and now… Papa Xu, love me and don’t leave!