“Not here either.”
Wang Liang patted the dust from his hands and prepared to head out.
But when his foot stepped onto a tile where the wardrobe had just been moved aside, the muffled sound it made against the floor stopped him in his tracks.
From the outside, the tile on this patch of floor looked no different from the surrounding tiles. It fit seamlessly with the rest, which was why Wang Liang had not noticed anything unusual before.
But the sound beneath his foot told him that underneath it was hollow!
Wang Liang infused Sadako’s supernatural power into his leg, releasing an icy chill and gaining a monstrous strength beyond ordinary understanding. Then he stomped hard on that tile.
With a crash, the tile under his foot shattered and caved in, revealing a passage leading underground.
“Damned bastards. Why does every one of them like digging tunnels?”
The passage was not deep. It reached the bottom after only a little over two meters, and there was space below, connected to a small basement.
“What kind of family was this? All this random nonsense. This counts as illegal construction, you know.”
The stench around him made Wang Liang want to end this tormenting supernatural incident as quickly as possible. Grumbling in annoyance, he took a one-inch photo from his pocket and tossed it onto the ground outside. Then he turned on his phone’s flashlight and jumped directly into the passage.
Underground was a space of several dozen square meters. The surrounding walls were built from earthen bricks. Against the walls were piles of old clothes, books, and other miscellaneous items, along with a few wooden tables and chairs, on which some small objects had also been placed.
Besides the passage above Wang Liang’s head, several beams of light shone in from the ceiling ahead.
Most likely, during the demolition work, the house had been shaken apart, cracking the brick-and-earth wall that sealed off the space above, so this underground area was no longer completely isolated from the outside world.
And the sound of the wind chime earlier had come from ahead.
Wang Liang came to a wooden table at the front. On the table was a wooden frame, and hanging from it was a rust-covered bell.
There were also broken bricks and scattered dirt on the table. Looking up, he saw that the ceiling was no longer intact. Several finger-width cracks had appeared, and through the half-covered earth, he could barely make out part of the excavator’s body in front of the half-demolished house outside.
Light shone in from outside, and the occasional breeze could pass through as well.
Wang Liang picked up the wind chime hanging from the wooden frame. Its style was old-fashioned, and it bore rust stains that could not be wiped away.
Ding-a-ling—
Merely the slight shake caused by him taking the wind chime down from the wooden frame made the bell in his hand give off an ethereal, crisp ring.
Holding it in his hand, Wang Liang’s expression immediately turned solemn, because this was no ordinary wind chime.
As a ghost controller, he had already sensed something special when he approached this rusty bell.
After touching it with his own hand, he could feel the abnormal chill coming from the rusted wind chime even more clearly.
This was a supernatural object, and not one formed from supernatural residue or a curse.
It was likely a supernatural object forged from the body of a malevolent ghost itself!
However, for some reason, supernatural objects, even those made from malevolent ghosts, did not provide Eerie Value through the system.
His second round of Eerie Value had briefly increased by 2% earlier when he was attacked by the Wishing Ghost.
Now, after touching this rusted wind chime, the number had not changed. It was still 2%.
“So this is the source? No. Although it is a supernatural object and the surrounding stench is thick, the stench isn’t coming from this.”
Thud.
Just then, the sound of a heavy object falling to the ground rang out behind him. Wang Liang tightened his grip on the wind chime and abruptly turned to look.
He saw a man in filthy, tattered clothes, so thin he was all skin and bones, his entire body giving off an unbearably dense stench, fall from the passage Wang Liang had just descended through. He landed sprawled on the ground, his limbs bent at unnatural angles.
When Wang Liang turned to look, the stinking man was bracing himself against the floor in an extremely awkward, rigid manner, swaying as he stood up. His gaze turned toward Wang Liang.
The moment he noticed those ashen-gray eyes, devoid of any emotion, Wang Liang knew that the stinking man before him was not alive.
A living person could not have eyes like that. This was the malevolent ghost that had appeared in Xiaolan Village, the source of this supernatural incident.
But why had it come looking for him now? Had he triggered this ghost’s killing pattern? Why hadn’t it appeared earlier? Or perhaps—
Wang Liang lowered his head and glanced at the rusted wind chime in his hand, then raised his eyes to look at the stinking malevolent ghost.
Ding-a-ling.
Wang Liang’s gaze remained fixed ahead, but the hand at his side shook the rust-covered wind chime.
Though its exterior was covered in rust, the sound it produced carried an eerie ethereal quality that made one’s hair stand on end.
And the instant the bell rang, the stinking malevolent ghost opposite him swayed. Its entire body immediately emitted an even thicker stench, spreading through the basement.
This stench was not merely unbearable to smell; as it surged toward him, it even made it difficult to keep his eyes open.
The wooden tables and chairs near the stinking malevolent ghost turned withered and yellow at a visible speed. Wood shavings continuously fell from them, and then they could no longer support themselves and collapsed to the ground.
“As expected, its effect is to attract malevolent ghosts. Similar to a white ghost candle.”
As the stench surged over, Wang Liang’s skin instantly turned waxy yellow. Dry skin and dead flakes began appearing all over it. And this was while the stinking malevolent ghost had not fully approached him yet.
If it took another step closer, perhaps his flesh and blood would wither, rot, and die.
“I’ll imprison you.”
After understanding the situation, Wang Liang narrowed his eyes. A bone-deep chill radiated from his body, clashing head-on with the stinking malevolent ghost, causing the surrounding temperature to drop considerably.
Drip.
A drop of thick black liquid fell from the ceiling of the basement, landing on the ground in front of the stinking malevolent ghost with a sizzling sound, as though it were corroding the floor.
It was a kind of black blood, viscous and carrying a bloody smell. But in this foul-smelling environment, the scent of a single drop of blood was not particularly noticeable.
Soon, however, another drop of black blood fell, landing on the stinking malevolent ghost’s shoulder.
Its filthy, tattered clothes were corroded through. The black drop of blood touched its stiff flesh and gave off a sizzling sound.
Then, as if a chain reaction had begun, drop after drop of black blood fell from the ceiling, like a small black rain falling inside the basement.
Sizzle—
The stench was diluted by the bloody smell of the black blood.
The stinking malevolent ghost moved its feet and staggered toward Wang Liang.
But its body was continuously struck by the black blood dripping from the ceiling, producing a string of corrosive sizzling sounds, and the steps under its feet grew slower and slower.
By the time the stinking malevolent ghost reached a spot two meters in front of Wang Liang, the black blood dripping from the basement ceiling had already gathered into a large puddle beneath its feet.
The stinking malevolent ghost’s feet sank into the viscous black ghost blood as though they had been glued in place, while black ghost blood kept sliding and flowing down its body.
At last, the malevolent ghost stopped moving and stood motionless where it was. The stench on its body had basically dissipated by then.
Suppression successful.