Run!
At this moment, there was only one thought in both their minds: they should never have touched that notebook.
Zhang Qing reacted the fastest. The corpse was some distance away from him, and the wheelchair beneath him immediately carried him off into the distance.
Alarm flashed across Liu Baimu’s face, and he immediately roared at Zhang Qing, “Zhang Qing! Come back! We should join forces and deal with this corpse together. Once we get out, I’ll tell you the secret of this old mansion!”
Zhang Qing did not even look back. The wheels of his wheelchair were practically smoking, and he fled faster than a dog, even showing signs of speeding up.
“Do you really take me for a dumbass? Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking. After we get out, who knows when you might get me killed. You shouldn’t have touched that notebook. This ghost is obviously here for you.”
Behind him, Liu Baimu still wanted to say something, but his body suddenly went rigid. The words reached his lips, yet he could no longer speak. He had actually lost all control over his body.
There was silence behind him. Zhang Qing did not care about anything else and charged several hundred meters away in one breath.
But this narrow passage seemed a little too long. Even now, he still could not see the end.
Just then, Zhang Qing saw a familiar figure appear up ahead and narrowed his eyes slightly to look.
Zhang Qing’s expression changed. That person was actually Liu Baimu!
Only, the Liu Baimu at this moment looked as if he might collapse at any second. His movements were extremely stiff, as though an invisible thread were controlling him.
Zhang Qing did not hesitate and immediately turned around.
“Damn it... why did it find me? I didn’t touch that notebook. There’s no way I triggered the killing pattern!”
“Of course...” A man’s voice suddenly sounded beside Zhang Qing’s ear.
“Because what you found wasn’t a ghost.”
The next moment, Zhang Qing only felt that he could not move at all. Like a marionette, his body actually began moving slowly toward Liu Baimu on its own.
Out of the corner of his eye, Zhang Qing looked toward that man and was astonished to discover that he had the appearance of the corpse from before.
The middle-aged man spread his arms and stretched lazily. In that instant, the bones throughout his body crackled and popped, as though he had not moved in a very long time.
He let out a long breath and muttered to himself,
“I’m finally free. Wang Lu, you really are ruthless. You locked me up just like that, without leaving even the slightest room for sentiment.”
The surrounding environment gradually faded away, and the corridor reappeared beneath their feet. The man looked toward the moonlight shining in.
“It seems some extraordinary person used supernatural means to take away that grandfather clock. If not for the notebook, perhaps even I wouldn’t have been able to remember the clock’s existence.”
Liu Baimu stood rigidly in place. He was not dead; it was just that he could not move now. The ghost inside his body seemed to have been manipulated by someone, and he was simply unable to use it.
His eyes were filled with disbelief. This was actually a living person, and a ghost controller at that. He had stayed inside the Wang family’s old mansion for so long, yet he had never discovered this man’s existence at all.
The middle-aged man turned to look at the two of them. “I have some questions to ask you, but I don’t want to go through too much trouble. For now, the two of you can become my ghosts.”
The man looked at them and asked many questions. With their malevolent ghosts under his control, the two of them could be said to answer everything they knew.
During the conversation, the two unlucky fellows learned the name of the man before them: Chen Qiaoyang.
A ghost controller from the previous era, one who had been trapped by the Wang couple in the dungeon of the old mansion for decades, only escaping today because the mansion had been invaded.
As Chen Qiaoyang spoke, he kept staring at the front gate of the Wang family’s old mansion, as if waiting for something to appear.
“According to what you’ve said, the Wang family is now in its third generation. Back then, I thought that after waking up, I would witness a far more distant future. But now it seems that not as much time has passed as I imagined.”
By now, Liu Baimu no longer had the panic from before. This ghost controller from the previous era did not seem to be the kind of bloodthirsty, vicious person. Even though his supernatural methods were exceptionally terrifying, he still maintained a clear consciousness.
“I don’t know whether to call you unlucky or lucky. Judging from your conditions, you two aren’t far from the revival of your malevolent ghosts. You were probably planning to use the grandfather clock to restart your own states. But you didn’t expect the clock to be gone now. You are indeed free, but you are also facing the risk of revival.”
After hearing this, joy appeared on Liu Baimu’s face. He immediately said, “Could it be that you have a method to delay revival? There are still many ghost controllers like us here. If you can tell me, I can take you to find them. This is no small force.”
“Oh? Many ghost controllers?” A trace of barely perceptible delight flashed through Chen Qiaoyang’s eyes.
“That’s right!” Liu Baimu nodded heavily several times.
“Although there’s something wrong with my memory, I guarantee there are at least twenty.”
The corners of Chen Qiaoyang’s mouth curled into a meaningful smile. He said, “There is indeed a method. I’m just afraid you won’t be able to accept it.”
Beside him, Zhang Qing immediately picked up the thread and hurriedly spoke.
“As long as we can survive, that’s enough! Only by staying alive do we have the right to talk about anything else!”
“What you say isn’t wrong. However, before that, I still have one matter to take care of.”
As Chen Qiaoyang spoke, he walked toward the gate of the Wang family’s old mansion. At some unknown point, a gray-white figure had appeared there, flickering in and out of sight, as though it did not exist in reality.
It was a lifeless man, gray-white from head to toe, like a corpse inside a posthumous portrait. He stood stiffly before the mansion gate, utterly motionless.
As Chen Qiaoyang approached, the man’s head slowly turned. His dull, lifeless gaze stared blankly at the three of them.
“Wang Lu, oh Wang Lu. When you were alive, you kept getting in my way. I never expected that in the end, you would still fall into my hands.”
With his hands clasped behind his back, Chen Qiaoyang approached cautiously. It was clear that he was somewhat wary.
Yet behind him, several sets of footsteps followed in a strange manner. Those footprints were large and small, appearing on the ground in rhythm with Chen Qiaoyang’s steps.
Facing the Wang family’s second generation, Chen Qiaoyang did not plan to hold back. When Wang Lu and his wife were alive, he had been extremely wary of them. Even though Wang Lu was now dead and his wife was not here, Chen Qiaoyang still prepared to go all out.
The reason he had been able to survive the joint efforts of the Wang family’s second generation was that he had been cautious enough.
Chen Qiaoyang had already stopped. At this moment, four terrifying figures could be faintly seen surrounding him.
The four corpses were all different in form. From the look of them, they should be four entirely different malevolent ghosts.
But what was even stranger was that these four malevolent ghosts were holding hands with one another, surrounding Chen Qiaoyang within, like four walls protecting him at the center.
Yet if one looked closely, one would discover that the four ghosts seemed more like they were imprisoning Chen Qiaoyang inside. He was trapped, but at the same time, this was also a form of protection.
However, these corpses only appeared for an instant before quickly hiding themselves again. The ghosts seemed to exist within an even deeper layer of a ghost domain.
“Wang Lu, back then, your methods weren’t fast enough, nor were they ruthless enough. Since you failed to kill me then, don’t blame me now for using you to kill your son.”
He lightly squeezed his wrist, and viscous, blackened blood immediately gushed out, giving off a rotten stench.
The blood dripping onto the ground actually began to wriggle at this moment, twisting crookedly into several blurry large characters.
The next moment, Chen Qiaoyang felt the area around him go empty. The four malevolent ghosts had already begun to move, launching an attack toward Wang Lu’s corpse.