Zhao Lei looked at the glaring smear of scarlet on Yang Jian’s forehead and said,
“Yang Jian… I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to harm others just so I can survive either. But as you said, I really know too little about malevolent ghosts. I trust your judgment. If Tong Qian truly can’t be saved, then kill her…”
After hearing this, Yang Jian nodded. It seemed Zhao Lei had not been foolish enough to trade his own life for someone who might not even be saved.
He lowered his head and gave the black hound an order.
“Bite that woman to death.”
The instant his words fell, the black hound lunged forward—but not in reality. Instead, it pounced into that space of consciousness filled with dense fog.
A giant dog with fur as black as ink tore through the fog without warning and appeared out of thin air.
Immediately after came a second, a third—countless black hounds identical in form surged out from every corner of the dense fog. In the blink of an eye, they filled the entire space, pair after pair of scarlet eyes locking onto the stiff figure in the center.
“Woof—woof woof woof!!”
Deafening barks echoed as overwhelming afterimages pounced toward Tong Qian.
At this moment, Tong Qian’s face had completely lost the color of a living person. She stood woodenly in place, watching helplessly as that dark mass of hounds charged at her.
Tearing. Gnawing.
A terrifying supernatural power was being forcibly suppressed by an even more violent, even more absolute method.
Tong Qian was dead. Perhaps she could still be saved, but Yang Jian had no choice. Facing the supernatural had always been like this. He could not be certain what unpredictable changes might occur between Tong Qian and that half sheet of newspaper. He could only abandon one person and bring back Zhao Lei, whose chances of survival were higher.
Along with the abrupt appearance of a wisp of black flame, that newspaper reappeared on Zhao Lei’s head. Then his face slowly emerged from beneath the newspaper, gradually becoming clear, filled with shock and disbelief.
When he had faced this ghost himself, he had nearly lost even his life, and even his own body had been taken from him. Yet Yang Jian had used less than a minute to completely suppress the malevolent ghost.
Zhao Lei was in very good condition now. The newspaper ghost, already incomplete to begin with, could only be considered a small piece of the puzzle. But when it faced a malevolent ghost as highly complete as the Ghost Dream, it was almost overwhelmingly suppressed.
“It’s time to go back.”
A cold voice rang out, but unlike before, it was not utterly lifeless. Yang Jian had already returned to his original state. The massive, ferocious black shadow shrank back beneath his feet, the icy lake water poured back into his body, and the rampaging vicious hounds and that wisp of ominous black flame vanished at the same time.
The matter had not been completely resolved. Yang Jian still had to go finish things up.
“That state you were in just now?”
Zhao Lei still had some lingering fear. That enormous black shadow from a moment ago had made him feel as if he were facing an extremely terrifying malevolent ghost.
Because of the existence of the Ghost Dream, Yang Jian’s consciousness could use the Ghost Lake as a medium and exist within the black flame. In that state, he was almost equivalent to a malevolent ghost. No one could kill him, because ghosts could not be killed…
“Just a new attempt.”
Yang Jian did not explain further. A razor-sharp scarlet radiance tore through the sky and shot straight toward Guanjiang Residential Complex.
Guanjiang Residential Complex. This place had originally been a sales office, but after Yang Jian took over, it had been remodeled into a standalone little villa.
At this moment, in the deepest part of the villa’s third floor, inside the innermost room, there was not even a door leading inside. It was so dark one could not see their own hand before their face.
In the very center of the room stood an old-fashioned full-length mirror about the height of a person. Its surface was tightly covered by a heavy black cloth.
A clear outline of a palm suddenly bulged against the surface of the black cloth. After struggling violently a few times, the black cloth slipped down, revealing the entire smooth mirror surface.
What was reflected in the mirror, however, was not the scene of the room. It was a woman who looked exactly like Tong Qian. Her face was full of terror, and both hands were desperately reaching forward, as if she wanted to crawl out from inside the mirror.
But behind her, one greenish, pale, rotten hand after another stretched out from every direction within the mirror, grabbing this Tong Qian’s body and feet, constantly dragging her back into the mirror.
Her consciousness blurred, caught in violent chaos.
Fragments of memory suddenly flashed back. What had happened before she woke appeared in her mind.
“Zhang Han, why does this mirror look so sinister? Are you sure there won’t be any danger after I look into it?”
Huang Ziya was standing in front of the mirror, striking all sorts of poses.
Zhang Han stood to the side with his arms crossed, expressionless. “Just look when I tell you to look. This was the captain’s instruction.”
Huang Ziya looked at herself in the mirror. It felt a little strange. She kept feeling that something was abnormal, and the more she looked, the more wrong it seemed. “Oh, why do I feel like the me in the mirror is different from usual?”
“You talk too much nonsense.”
“Then shouldn’t I ask clearly? What if I get reflected to death?”
Huang Ziya put her hands on her hips and pouted unhappily, then touched her face and body again.
“I think my waist should be adjusted a little more. My chest too…”
“Huang Ziya, move. It’s my turn.”
Feng Quan moved forward, carrying with him the damp, rotten stench of soil.
Huang Ziya immediately pinched her nose and jumped far away.
“Feng Quan, can you take a bath first? The dirt on you is enough to build a grave mound!”
Feng Quan could not be bothered with her. He only habitually patted the dust from his body. “Go tell that to the ghost in me.”
He stood in front of the mirror for a moment, then said, “Tong Qian, it’s your turn.”
“Oh, okay.”
Tong Qian walked up and looked at herself in the mirror. Those deathly still, empty eyes seemed to be staring at her, fixed straight on her… making her scalp crawl.
Then her consciousness came to an abrupt halt, as if someone had taken a knife and hacked viciously into her head, severing it all at once. When she woke again, she was already inside this mirror.
Countless cold arms were pulling at her body, dragging her bit by bit into the mirror. At this moment, she gritted her teeth and struggled desperately, her fingernails scraping against the icy mirror frame with an ear-piercing shriek.
But it was completely useless. She tried to use those two ghost faces, only to discover in shock that she could not sense the supernatural at all. It seemed she had returned to being an ordinary person.
Deep despair appeared in her eyes. Strength was rapidly draining from her body, and her body was being irreversibly pulled backward into the endless darkness behind her.
“Heh.”
With a miserable laugh, Tong Qian seemed ready to give up struggling.
But just then, inside the sealed, dark room, a dense scarlet light lit up without warning.
It was a hand that did not belong to a living person. It suddenly reached out and clamped tightly around the wrist she had stretched out with all her might, then yanked hard.
Immediately, she felt an irresistible force come over her, forcibly dragging her out of the mirror.
Tong Qian’s face was full of shock. She fell heavily onto the floor on her backside, breathing rapidly, her entire body trembling.
Still shaken, she lifted her head and looked at the figure before her.
“Yang Jian? Where is this… Wasn’t I just about to go on a mission?…”
Yang Jian’s emotionless voice rang out from the darkness.
“You died. I saved you again.”