"It's better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish... If I keep living under your protection, I'll never be able to take this step. Only by facing a fierce ghost alone, truly experiencing life and death, can I genuinely understand the nature of the supernatural..."
"Thank you, Captain..."
Zhang Han raised his palm again. This time, without any hesitation, he grabbed at the skin of his own face, and then—
"Rip—!!!"
With a sudden burst of force, he tore his entire face clean off, exposing the crimson muscle tissue beneath.
He let out a muffled grunt, his body trembling uncontrollably. This kind of excruciating pain, unbearable for any ordinary person, Zhang Han endured through sheer will.
His entire face was a mangled mess of flesh and blood. Blood dripped from his chin onto the grass. Zhang Han was now soaked in red from head to toe—at a distance, he looked like nothing more than a blood-soaked figure.
No expression could be seen on that face of interwoven flesh anymore. Only two eyeballs, exposed to the open air, remained, covered in bloodshot veins.
"It hurts..."
Half-kneeling on the ground, his chest heaving as he gasped for air, even breathing now sent waves of stinging pain through him.
But the eerie laughter in his mind no longer affected him. He could no longer make any expressions—all he needed to do now was focus on controlling the male corpse behind him to contend with the ghost face.
"It's working. The Weeping Face still hasn't attacked me, which means Zhao Lei's consciousness really is still in there."
"All I need to do now is keep the Smiling Face locked in a supernatural clash with me, and wait for Zhao Lei to fully suppress the Weeping Face. Then I can save him..."
The moon in the sky was slowly veiled by drifting clouds, and the surroundings grew darker still. If anyone passed by here, they would hear a woman's laughter drifting out from the grass without cease.
Though it sounded faint, barely there, it lingered in the ears like maggots clinging to bone, as if a ghost were lying on your shoulder, snickering...
In the air, a faint stench of corpses gradually became acrid. Zhang Han's mangled face showed no expression at all.
To be safe, he even tore away the muscle tissue on his face along with the skin. He didn't understand human anatomy, so he simply hollowed out his entire face, revealing patches of ghastly white bone.
Zhang Han now looked utterly horrifying. His face no longer bore any trace of human shape.
On that mangled visage, bits of flesh that hadn't been completely torn away hung from the bone, still dripping blood. Only the two eyeballs exposed to the air retained the faintest hint of emotion.
On his back was a skinned man draped over his shoulders, countless sinister tattoos extending out from the man's body, piercing into that half of an eerie smiling face opposite him.
Like a malicious ghost that had just crawled out of some corpse.
"This will do. With this ghost at my back, I won't die for now... I just need to hold out until Zhao Lei fully suppresses the Weeping Face, or until Wang Shanshan and the others arrive."
Time passed minute by minute. Not even the sound of insects remained in the surroundings. Only a burst of eerie laughter echoed faintly along this deserted road.
But then, the unexpected happened.
No—rather, this was simply how the supernatural always was. Just when you believed you were safe, something unforeseen would occur, catching you off guard and claiming your life.
The gaze of his eyeballs fell upon the tattoos. The tattoos, which had been perfectly still, now began to tremble ever so slightly.
"You've got to be kidding me... Even the supernatural itself can be shaken?"
Tong Qian's Smiling Face was truly too dangerous. With the intervention of the Newspaper's supernatural power, it could even affect the medium through which a ghost extended itself.
Along with the trembling of the tattoos, the world of absolute silence in Zhang Han's perception once again rang with eerie laughter.
"This sound is counter-invading me through the tattoos... It's very proactive... almost like someone is controlling it... But Tong Qian couldn't possibly do this. The only explanation that makes sense is that Tong Qian's memories have been invaded by the Newspaper—it's the Newspaper manipulating the Ghost Face to attack me."
At this moment, the faint voice echoing in Zhang Han's mind began to subtly overlap with the laughter in reality. As the two sounds of laughter interwove and overlapped, something incredibly eerie occurred.
"Crack... crack..."
The bones of Zhang Han's face emitted a teeth-grating grinding sound, then slowly began to deform, to twist.
The dense bones were stretched and warped, forming strip after strip, then gradually bending. In the end, they slowly shaped themselves into a horrifying smile made of bone—a sight that made one's scalp tingle with dread.
"Absurd... This is absolutely absurd."
Desperation filled Zhang Han's heart. He had only just glimpsed a thread of hope, only to be greeted by an even more terrifying death.
"So this is what a consciousness-type attack is? Even though it's just an incomplete puzzle, it's still far too absurd. The laughter in my consciousness has actually overlapped with the one in reality."
Zhang Han wanted to reach out and snap the bones, but the moment his fingers slipped between them, the deformed bones crushed them. Under the influence of the laughter, those severed fingers fused with the flesh and blood of his face, composing an even more horrifying smiling face.
Looking at his five mutilated, broken fingers, Zhang Han laughed this time from the bottom of his heart—though it was a bitter laugh, a self-mocking laugh at his own failure to ever truly fathom the fierce ghosts.
But because the muscle tissue and bones of his face were completely deformed, all he could produce was a series of mournful "mmm... mmm..." moans.
"I've done everything I can. Feng Quan has gone to find Wang Shanshan—it shouldn't take too long. They should be on their way now. I just need to maintain the status quo. I can't let Zhao Lei die here too..."
"Once I die and the fierce ghost within me revives, it can contend with this ghost and form a stalemate. As long as Wang Shanshan arrives, this matter can be resolved. The contingency the Captain left behind couldn't possibly fail to handle even Tong Qian."
His eyeballs, long exposed to the air, were abnormally red and swollen from the irritation, but Zhang Han still shifted his gaze to the sky, toward the incomplete moon within the clouds.
Ever since the Out-of-Control Incident, Zhang Han had followed at Yang Jian's side. He had learned a great deal from Yang Jian, but at the same time, his vigilance toward fierce ghosts had somewhat slackened.
Yang Jian's original intention was for Zhang Han to lead the squad in handling lower-level supernatural incidents as training—after all, they couldn't live under Yang Jian's protection forever.
But when facing the supernatural, no one could predict the future. Yang Jian had no choice. He had to deal with supernatural incidents of a far more terrifying level. In the past, when the sky fell, the taller ones held it up—and now Yang Jian was one of those tall ones. He had no choice but to leave Zhang Han and the others to guard Dachang City.
The members of the squad had even less of a choice. The supernatural incidents, growing more frequent by the day, forced them to respond. Even if Zhang Han had refused headquarters' call for aid today, he would inevitably face even more dangerous incidents in the future.
"Ugh—"
A large mouthful of black blood suddenly surged up from his throat. Zhang Han could no longer hold on, collapsing weakly against Zhao Lei's body in front of him. Those red, swollen eyeballs began to lose focus, gradually growing dim and unfocused.
"Zhao Lei, your consciousness is still there, isn't it... That newspaper is connected to you. You should be able to hear my thoughts."
"In a moment, I will actively revive. The fierce ghost I control can briefly and forcibly piece together ghost puzzles of different characteristics."
"The moment I revive, the supernatural power I possess will be maximized. I will forcibly piece the two faces and the newspaper together, and help you suppress it."
Blood spurted out like fountains from the gaps between the bones of his face. Zhang Han could no longer feel his body's existence, but the last wisp of his consciousness still clung on desperately.
"You only need to use my tattoos to forcibly suppress Tong Qian's consciousness, which has already been controlled by the newspaper. Zhao Lei! You must take control of this body and assist the Captain in resolving the supernatural incident."
The dim moon still hung in the sky. The thick stench of corpses in the air was nauseating. A breeze blew past, carrying a burst of resentful laughter.
"Captain... I have failed in my duty."
Beneath the interwoven flesh and blood, the dense bones had completely formed into a horrifying smiling face. Zhang Han knelt there against Zhao Lei's chest, motionless at last.
Red. Scarlet red.
First, the moon hanging in the sky abruptly brightened, a dazzling red light instantly illuminating the earth.
This brilliant red could be felt across the entirety of Asia. Everyone looked up at the red moon in the sky.
Too fast for dynamic vision to capture—the view blurred for an instant.
Then, it was there: a sinister red line, shooting down from outer space, piercing through the atmosphere in the blink of an eye, hurtling madly toward Dachang City.