“Dad—no, that ghost ran away?”
Yang Jian warily looked around, but no longer saw any trace of that faceless man. In the entire room, only he and the white-clothed female ghost Teacher Wang had summoned remained.
Teacher Wang’s white-clothed female ghost stood silently in the center of the room, her black hair hanging loose, her head lowered. A minute later, seeing that nothing else had happened in the room, the female ghost turned to face Yang Jian and stretched out both hands.
Yang Jian saw that the female ghost was holding a blood-red scrap of newspaper in each hand, one large and one small. The larger one was nearly the size of an adult man’s palm, while the smaller was only the size of an infant’s fist.
The female ghost’s body began turning to ash from her feet upward, until she vanished completely, while the two blood-red scraps of newspaper drifted down to the floor.
Yang Jian understood what the female ghost meant. He first made the ghost eye appear on the back of his hand, then stepped forward and picked up the blood-red newspaper scraps. After that, he immediately ran out the door.
Although that newspaper ghost seemed to have been scared off, there was no guarantee it would not come back in a while. It would be better not to return here for the time being.
When Wang Liang drove to the vicinity of Yang Jian’s home, he saw Yang Jian standing in front of a public restroom at the intersection, waving at him.
Wang Liang turned the steering wheel and pulled the car over to stop.
“Teacher Wang, my dad turned into a ghost. No, that wasn’t my dad. A ghost disguised itself as my dad and affected my memory and cognition.”
“Mm. I saw it through my supernatural power. Don’t go back for a while, in case that ghost turns back.”
“Okay.”
Yang Jian took out two blood-red scraps of newspaper from his pocket, one large and one small, and handed them to Wang Liang.
“Teacher Wang, these are what that female ghost of yours tore off.”
Wang Liang accepted the two blood-red newspaper scraps and sighed inwardly. They were too small.
At this size, even if the two pieces were joined together, they would not be able to fully cover an adult’s face.
At most, they could cover half a cheek. But would covering only half a cheek be of any use?
The ghost newspaper relied on completely adhering to the face and fully removing the face of a person—even that of a malicious ghost.
Afterward, once the memories one wanted to alter were written on the newspaper, other supernatural power would be used to stick the face back on, thereby achieving the goal of modifying memories.
If it could only cover part of the face, the effect would likely be greatly reduced, or even useless.
Moreover, Wang Liang lacked the supernatural power to paste the torn-off face back on. He did not know whether directly stitching the face together would work.
As for eerie points, remotely controlling the derivative Sadako to come into contact with the malicious ghost just now had not brought Wang Liang any eerie points at all.
From the current situation, if he wanted to increase his eerie points, he still had to come into close-range contact with the malicious ghost’s true body in order to complete the record.
It also had to be a malicious ghost in an independent state. Malicious ghosts controlled by ghost controllers could not provide any eerie points.
Supernatural items did not seem to work either. Yang Jian carried the human-skin paper on him. It was a dangerous supernatural item with its own thoughts, but when Wang Liang had approached Yang Jian on the pedestrian street earlier, he had not gained any eerie points.
The two fragments of ghost newspaper in his hand also provided no eerie points at this moment.
Furthermore, these were probably not true fragments of the ghost newspaper’s main body, but derivative fragments formed after being tainted by the supernatural.
After Wang Liang accepted the ghost newspaper fragments, although he could sense the cold, sinister aura on them, it was not strong.
In addition, in the original plot, Yang Jian had used ghost newspaper fragments by sticking them over his ghost eye to suppress the ghost eye’s revival.
But the fragment stuck over the ghost eye gradually faded and was torn apart, ultimately becoming wastepaper. All of this showed that such torn-off scraps were not the main body of the supernatural item known as the ghost newspaper.
Such derivatives might be unable to change faces and alter memories even if they were large enough, but that would have to wait until there was an opportunity to test it in the future.
After further clarifying the differences in how eerie record points were recorded, Wang Liang raised his head and happened to see Yang Jian’s expression as though he wanted to say something but hesitated.
So Wang Liang thought for a moment, then handed the smaller blood-red newspaper scrap to Yang Jian.
“You also used supernatural power and took part in the confrontation. I’ll give you this piece. Work hard to stay alive. Don’t disappoint me.”
Yang Jian hesitated for a moment, but in the end still accepted it, because this thing was far too helpful to him.
Before Wang Liang arrived, when he had been testing his abilities outside, he had been astonished to discover that this newspaper fragment could actually suppress his ghost eye, restraining the degree of revival of the ghost eye within his body and allowing him to use his abilities more easily and for longer.
After asking the human-skin paper he had obtained from Fang Jing and learning that if he did not find a way, he would no longer live past three months, Yang Jian naturally yearned for something that could suppress the ghost eye’s revival.
“I actually didn’t do much just now, but this thing really is very useful to me, so I’ll accept it. Teacher Wang, if you need help with anything in the future, you can contact me.
“I need to earn some money for my mom while I’m still alive, but after that, as long as I’m not dead by then, I’ll go help.”
Faced with Yang Jian’s sincere answer, Wang Liang nodded and agreed.
Yang Jian at this stage had far more human feeling than he would in the future. A favor formed at this time was naturally more valuable as well.
After bidding farewell to Yang Jian, Wang Liang returned to his home in the residential complex.
He placed the coffin nail he carried with him on the table. With no desire to sleep, Wang Liang opened his laptop and logged into the special website sent to him on the satellite phone.
The website introduced a great deal of information related to malicious ghosts. He already understood some of it, but now he came to confirm it again. After all, he was truly in the world of Mysterious Revival now.
This website divided the danger posed by ghosts into several levels:
C-rank: Restricted. Its movements are usually fixed within a certain area. The degree of harm is fewer than one hundred people, and it does not possess transmissibility.
B-rank: Dangerous. It already possesses the ability to wander. The degree of harm is fewer than ten thousand people, and it possesses a certain degree of spread.
A-rank: Calamity. If left alone, after a certain amount of time it can kill the population of an entire city. It possesses considerable spread.
S-rank: Destruction. It possesses the ability to wipe out the populations of several cities. If not restrained, it can even destroy an entire country.
For example, the knocking ghost Wang Liang had confronted at No. 7 High School had been determined by Zhao Jianguo to have an A-rank danger level. It possessed considerable spread, had a ghost domain, and would seek out everyone who had heard that knocking audio clip.
However, this website also specifically noted that this kind of danger level was not completely equivalent to a malicious ghost’s horror level.
Horror levels were also divided from C-rank to S-rank.
Some malicious ghosts might have only a C-rank danger level and not possess much harmful spread.
Yet they could be extremely terrifying. Even top-tier ghost controllers might make a mistake when facing them, unable to fight back, and could only seal them off.
The most typical example was the King of Erasers, Zhang Tiandi—though at this time, Zhang Dong should not have died yet.
In short, the meaning both within and between the lines of those notes was: malicious ghosts with a high danger level cannot be weak, and those with a low danger level are not necessarily weak either. They must be handled with caution. Beware of capsizing. If you capsize, do not blame us. We take no responsibility.
Following immediately after this information was a global ranking of malicious ghosts by horror level.
Malicious Ghost Ranking, Number One:
Codename: Ghost Call.
Characteristics: As long as the phone rings, death is certain. Whether you answer or not, whether you can hear it or not, and whether the phone is intact or not, none of these can affect the outcome of death. It kills indiscriminately on a global scale, possesses no physical characteristics, and is similar to a causality-law strike. At present, there is no solution. Fortunately, each call only kills one person. Its danger is temporarily defined as B-rank.
Note: A foreign president has already died from the Ghost Call.
Malicious Ghost Ranking, Number Two:
Codename: Nightmare.
Characteristics: Causes people to die in their sleep. At present, its movement patterns are unknown, its spread is unknown, and it possesses no physical characteristics. It kills indiscriminately on a global scale and has once recorded killing three hundred and fifty-one people at once. Its current danger is defined as A-rank.
Note: Not sleeping can avoid the Nightmare.
Malicious Ghost Ranking, Number Three:
Codename: Ghost Devours People.
Characteristics: .