The thirty-sixth floor was nearly a hundred meters up.
Yet in just one or two short seconds, Lin Qian could almost see the ground.
The wind howled past.
Lin Qian’s eyes were wide open as he watched the ground rapidly closing in.
“Fuck, don’t tell me I’m going to smash to death.”
He had been completely overwhelmed by fear and hadn’t even realized he lived on the thirty-sixth floor.
Only the moment he jumped did he suddenly remember.
At that moment, Lin Qian’s heart was hanging by a thread.
Every hair on his body stood on end. That feeling of weightlessness was simply indescribable.
Suspended in midair, Lin Qian did not notice that the surroundings had turned dark.
Nor did he notice that inside his room, that strange and terrifying opera ghost, which had originally only appeared at the Caesar Hotel, was now eerily vanishing.
The next instant.
The darkness abruptly shattered.
Lin Qian stumbled and fell to the ground.
He stared blankly around him, not knowing what had happened.
All he knew was that at the very moment his head was about to hit the ground, the ground had suddenly disappeared.
And then he had arrived here.
“What the hell is going on?”
At this moment, Lin Qian was sitting on the ground, his body extremely weak. He could not even carefully sense what changes had occurred within himself.
Lin Qian stared blankly at his surroundings. This was a small town, a very old and worn-down town.
He looked down beneath his feet, and his pupils suddenly contracted.
This… this was a fucking opera stage!
All of a sudden, Lin Qian sensed a surprised gaze.
He raised his head and immediately froze.
An old woman with graying hair, and a young man with a childish look still on his face—one above, one below—stared at each other, wide-eyed.
Both of them were somewhat bewildered.
“You’re that young man who bought my mask.”
“You’re that old granny who sold me the mask!”
The two spoke at the same time, then seemed to realize something and fell silent together.
Lin Qian slowly stood up and looked down at the old woman from above.
His eyes flickered slightly as he quickly sensed the condition inside his body.
“I recalled the mask, so why is it you who appeared here?” the old woman suddenly said.
Hearing this, Lin Qian instantly reacted and understood why he had appeared here.
So it was because this old woman was recalling the mask.
Lin Qian did not answer the old woman’s question. He looked around. “Is this Taiping Ancient Town?”
Hearing that, the old woman frowned, but after thinking for a moment, she still nodded.
“Yes.”
Right now, she still wanted to ask this little fellow what exactly was going on with that mask of hers.
Why was it that when she used the medium to recall the mask, what came instead was a living person?
“So, you know what’s going on with that mask, don’t you?”
Lin Qian stared straight at the old woman.
“Do you know? That thing is a ghost! My parents are dead. I was nearly killed by that mask too. If I hadn’t jumped off the building…”
At this point, Lin Qian abruptly fell silent.
The old woman narrowed her eyes slightly.
Jumped off a building?
Could it be that this boy had accidentally touched the medium by some twist of fate?
The old woman carefully looked Lin Qian over and confirmed that there was no ghost on him.
He was merely an ordinary person.
The old woman exhaled. It seemed she really had made a mistake.
At this moment, Lin Qian’s body was trembling, his expression filled with pain and despair.
He stared at the old woman, waiting for her answer.
The old woman looked at this pitiful child and fell somewhat silent.
In essence, this matter was her fault. She had deliberately made him buy that mask.
As for why.
Naturally, it was to increase the mask’s level of terror.
If she wanted to suppress those ominous garments at home, a ghost that was too weak simply would not do.
“Child, you are very pitiful, and I am very sorry, but…”
“I’m sorry. I cannot let you leave this place alive.”
Even if he was only an ordinary person, she could not let him go.
When cutting weeds, one had to remove the roots, lest unforeseen changes arise.
Hearing this, Lin Qian’s heart skipped a beat. This old undying thing actually wanted to silence him, just as he had guessed!
Sure enough, in the eyes of ghost controllers, ordinary people could not even be considered human!
A chill ran through Lin Qian’s heart. He had just escaped from the hands of a ghost, and now he had to face an attack from a ghost controller?
What kind of joke was this!
“Enough. Let him go. He’s just an ordinary person.”
A sinister coldness had already begun emanating from the old woman’s body, but at that moment, Lin Qian suddenly felt his vision blur. By the time he reacted, he was already outside Taiping Ancient Town.
“Gravedigger, you…”
In front of the opera stage, the old woman frowned as she looked at an old man holding an iron shovel, her eyes filled with hostility.
“Know when to stop,” the old man said after looking at the old woman in silence for a while.
The old woman snorted coldly. “In this entire ancient town, only you have such a merciful heart. Look at He Liansheng and the others—who is like you?”
Hearing this, the old man shook his head. “He is only an ordinary person. If he had controlled a malevolent ghost, I absolutely would not have let him leave.”
“Besides, he has already come into contact with the supernatural. Sooner or later, a ghost will come for him in the near future.”
“Rather than argue with me here about this, you would be better off thinking about how to find that ghost you lost.”
“That ghost’s level of terror is not low.”
After the old man finished speaking, he glanced at the opera stage, and fear appeared in his eyes.
That mask had been found inside this opera stage.
Everyone in the entire town was extremely wary of this opera stage.
Although it was only an opera stage, it was also a ghost!
Hearing this, the old woman stared coldly at the old man. “If, in the future, because of your momentary mistake today, a great disaster befalls our Taiping Ancient Town, believe me, before I die, I will definitely dig out your heart and see just how kind it truly is!”
The old man remained silent. He withdrew his gaze from the opera stage and raised his head to look toward the entrance of the town.
At this moment, outside the town, Lin Qian was sprinting for his life according to his memory.
His face was dark.
Just wait. Just wait. What happened today was not over.
After more than ten minutes of desperate running, he saw the road. At the same time, a taxi came speeding over.
Without the slightest hesitation, Lin Qian rushed straight out and stopped the taxi.
With a screech, white smoke rose from the tires and the ground.
Immediately afterward, the window opened, and the driver glared furiously at Lin Qian, opening his mouth to say something.
But then he saw Lin Qian directly pull open the front passenger door and sit inside.
“Master, I’m sorry. It’s an emergency. There’s no time to explain. Dayuan City Airport. I’ll pay you extra!”
The driver looked at Lin Qian’s anxious expression, and the string of curses that had been about to burst from his mouth was swallowed back down.
He did not hesitate and launched the car forward.
Whose family didn’t have urgent matters from time to time?
The taxi sped off in a cloud of dust, heading straight for Dayuan City Airport.
Under the night sky, on the road, an old man and a faceless person stared directly at the taxi as it disappeared into the distance.
“That boy is very smart.”
He Liansheng spoke indifferently.
“Let him go?”
Two words eerily appeared on the faceless person’s head.
He Liansheng glanced at them, then thought for a moment and shook his head. “No.”
“It’s very difficult to survive that mask, but this boy just so happened to survive.”
“Judging by the timeline, the mask had already been in his hands for more than seven days.”
“But once that mask is obtained, the malevolent ghost will revive in two days at most.”
“Seven days. How did this boy survive?”
“Moreover, he followed the medium and appeared on the opera stage. That is very abnormal.”
“He appeared on the opera stage, yet he actually didn’t trigger the stage’s killing pattern.”
He Liansheng’s eyes flickered. “The opera stage will attack anyone who stands on it, whether human or ghost. Yet he was actually fine.”
The faceless person listened to this, thought for a moment, and nodded. Another line of text appeared.
“There is something strange. He cannot be left alive.”
He Liansheng smiled. “He cannot be left alive.”