“Liu San, get out and pass the intel on!”
On both sides, cold, scorching dark-green flames burned, carving out a narrow path for Liu San through this world of raging wind.
Li Jun’s entire body had already been charred black. A rigid, vividly colored sheet of facial skin hung eerily and distinctly over half of his skull.
“Li Jun… hold on. You have to survive.”
Liu San looked deeply at Li Jun, then turned and left.
Suddenly, a pitch-black gale, mingled with cold rainwater and countless severed limbs, swept toward Liu San. With only an instant of contact, Li Jun’s ghost domain was torn apart by the wind, cutting off Liu San’s retreat.
Liu San turned his head, his expression dark as he looked toward several figures not far away.
“Reform Society—I’ll remember you. A pack of self-righteous old fossils from a bygone era…”
‘Abandon part of my memories. Discard this paper effigy.’
Faced with the strange and unknown gale before him, Liu San had no choice but to abandon this paper effigy, even though its importance was second only to his main body.
Liu San thrust his hand violently into his chest.
“Not every piece of trash gets stronger just because it lives longer. Since you want so badly to keep me here, then I’ll give myself to you.”
As soon as Liu San finished speaking, his body began to unfold rapidly, turning into sheets of yellow paper that drifted toward the indistinct figures within the gale.
“Retreat. Something’s wrong with this man. There’s something strange about those yellow papers—they can still keep their direction and come at us even in this wind.”
“Such a young major general… I really don’t want to kill you. Sigh…”
Several figures slowly vanished into the gale, leaving only Li Jun’s charred body behind.
In front of a massive screen at Headquarters.
Wang Xiaoming stared at the large screen on the wall. In the satellite image, a hurricane shaped like a skull was slowly taking form.
“Professor Wang, Liu San just sent back word confirming that it’s a supernatural incident. This hurricane is suspected to have been produced by a collision between Ghost Lake and some unknown supernatural force that has yet to be recorded.”
Wang Xiaoming looked at the screen, his hands tapping across the keyboard as he recorded something.
“Have Fang Shiming come over. Send him all the case files and data on this incident as well. He’s about to die. Tell him that if he assists in resolving this incident, I’ll help him solve the problem of his fierce ghost’s revival.”
The third underground level of the Friends Circle Building.
“After that incident, my condition has been terrible… I may not even last a week.”
Fang Shiming frowned as he looked at the report before him. His outward injuries had already recovered by now, but the problem of the fierce ghost reviving inside his body had still not been resolved. The Friends Circle’s researchers were unable to provide an effective solution.
“The bus, or that graveyard. I don’t have many choices left…”
Looking at the report in front of him, Fang Shiming weighed the pros and cons of several supernatural locations.
“President Fang, a call from Headquarters.”
Outside the door, a woman in business attire knocked and entered, holding a specially made phone.
Fang Shiming was taken aback for a moment, then immediately reacted. The Friends Circle had also been continuously monitoring that hurricane.
“Coming to me at a time like this—Wang Xiaoming really knows how to make his calculations. That hurricane can even blow apart Li Jun’s ghost domain. He’s looking for me because my affinity is close to that wind.”
After the last time the three S-class fierce ghosts in Dajing City went out of control, Fang Shiming’s current condition was terrible. If he did not find a solution as soon as possible, even continuing to slumber as he had before would not allow him to hold on for long.
“Damn Headquarters. Sending this kind of information at a time like this is obviously telling us to go die. President Fang, why don’t we just go all the way—while Headquarters is badly weakened, we can storm in and take Wang Xiaoming by force!”
Jiang Shangbai stood outside the door, his face dark as he looked at the information in his hand.
Although he had not directly participated in the out-of-control incident, he had been dealing with the fierce ghosts imprisoned by Headquarters around the outskirts of Dajing City the entire time. His current condition was not much better either.
Fang Shiming did not blame Jiang Shangbai for losing his composure. Instead, he said calmly,
“Jiang Shangbai, remember this: do not be angry. Anger will only make you lose your reason. And do not hate lightly, because hatred will make you lose your judgment.”
He stood up and looked down at Dajing City outside the floor-to-ceiling window.
“In supernatural incidents, any unexpected situation can occur. Maintaining a clear mind is the key to survival.”
In his gloved hand, Fang Shiming held an old pair of scissors covered in bits of cut hair.
After thinking for a moment, he said,
“Jiang Shangbai, you shouldn’t be here. Go assist Headquarters in dealing with the fierce ghosts in Dajing City that have yet to be imprisoned. When the lips are gone, the teeth grow cold. If Headquarters completely falls, the Friends Circle will be next.”
“Li Yao, tell Headquarters that I’ve already received the message. But the agreement between Wang Xiaoming and me has already been fulfilled. That’s all. I’ll be leaving for a while.”
Inside Headquarters.
“What does the Friends Circle mean by this? They refused?”
Cao Yanhua stood in the very center of the hall, looking at the satellite image on the screen.
Wang Xiaoming looked expressionlessly at the information on the computer before him, no one knowing what he was thinking.
“With Fang Shiming’s personality, there was a high probability he wouldn’t agree. He’s different from Yang Jian. Before he even became a ghost controller, he had already established the predecessor company of the Friends Circle.”
“But the information I sent to the Friends Circle included data on this hurricane. He should have already arrived there by now. If he wants to resolve the problem of his own fierce ghost’s revival, he needs to explore deeper levels of the supernatural. He’s a smart man. Although this incident is dangerous, for him, it is also an opportunity.”
“Contact Yang Jian. Liu San assisted him inside the tattoo parlor. He won’t refuse.”
A helicopter circled in the sky. Fang Shiming looked at the raging winds and pitch-black clouds in the distance that blotted out the sky.
Even from several thousand meters away, Fang Shiming could still sense the changes in the surrounding environment.
“Still, Wang Xiaoming’s information did remind me. This terrifying hurricane has an extremely high affinity with the fierce ghost inside my body. If a ghost controller wants to survive, it absolutely isn’t by avoiding supernatural incidents, nor by charging forward brainlessly.”
The people inside the helicopter could also smell a faint stench of corpses. It was as though countless fragments of bodies were mixed within that sky-obscuring hurricane.
“Land here. Any farther forward, and it won’t be something you can come into contact with.”
The unbridled gale howled past. The pale, heavy condensation at the edge of the hurricane had already completely isolated the city inside the hurricane from the outside world.
Fang Shiming stood on the rooftop of a tall building, observing the city within the hurricane.
The bone-piercing cold wind was mixed with damp, icy rainwater. A powerful stench of corpses permeated the air.
Countless severed limbs whirled madly through the air. From time to time, one or two incomplete corpses would be carried by the gale and streak rapidly across the sky, then slam into the wall of some high-rise with a bang before being scattered apart again by the violent rain.
“It isn’t a ghost domain, but it possesses some of the characteristics of one. Communication devices are completely unusable. There are still many ordinary people hiding in this city.
“Through certain special methods, these people can also enter and leave freely, but after coming in, their vision and sense of direction will be obstructed. If they don’t get out in time, they’ll only die here…”
Fang Shiming silently analyzed the situation before him.
“The killing pattern is still unclear. I’ve been standing here for at least five minutes, so at the very least, it isn’t contact-type. But with an area on this scale, there should be a source. Is it similar to the Ghost Coffin of the Ghost Messenger?”
He pinched the rainwater on his fingertips.
“Judging from the data sent by Headquarters, this hurricane possesses part of Ghost Lake’s supernatural power. Truly troublesome… The frequency at which supernatural incidents appear is becoming higher and higher, and their horror level is rising along with it. The old methods of controlling fierce ghosts are already outdated. New opportunities must be sought within desperate situations.”
P.S. There is a time gap between the out-of-control incident and the current plot. In between, there was a tattoo parlor incident. After the out-of-control incident, Yang Jian faced the supernatural revival and found the tattoo parlor through the human-skin paper, but for certain reasons I didn’t write it. I’m currently preparing the setup and fixing bugs so that it can connect with the later plot. The story of the tattoo parlor will also be gradually filled in later.