Within the black-green ghost domain.
Somewhere in headquarters.
“That Elder Qin actually managed to intercept the Starving Ghost. But finding that ghost inside this ghost domain will be troublesome, let alone imprisoning it.”
A paper effigy with a sallow, gloomy face walked through a long, narrow corridor, holding a burning white ghost candle in its hand.
“In any case, the task Wang Xiaoming gave me was only to locate the Starving Ghost. As for whether it can be imprisoned, that will depend on Elder Qin...”
Suddenly, at the end of the long corridor, the lights began flickering nonstop.
With a bang, the lightbulbs went out one after another from the distance, extinguishing toward Liu San.
“It’s here so soon?”
All of a sudden, the speed at which the bulbs went out increased sharply. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang! The sound of exploding bulbs crackled madly like firecrackers. Each time a light went out, a figure stood beneath it, following the darkness as it rushed swiftly toward Liu San.
The next second, pitch-black darkness swallowed Liu San whole.
In the conference room, Liu San pointed to an area on the map.
“Found it. It’s in this region. But you need to move quickly. Although the Starving Ghost hasn’t completely devoured the coffin nail yet, it’s almost there. The coffin nail’s restriction on it is growing weaker and weaker. Once it fully adapts to the coffin nail, I won’t be able to help anymore. I can’t confirm whether the Starving Ghost with the coffin nail will gain the same ability after eating my paper effigy. I can’t take that risk. Goodbye.”
Wang Xiaoming watched the paper effigy slowly dissipate. After thinking for a moment, he continued analyzing the intelligence on the computer in front of him.
The scene shifted to somewhere in headquarters.
The black-green viscous substance seemed almost solid. The air was filled with a strong stench of corpses, and bodies lay scattered everywhere. It was cold, bone-chilling, carrying a sinister chill.
Wang Chaling leaned against the wall. His gold-rimmed glasses had fallen to one side. His entire left arm had vanished, and thick black-green fluid was still oozing from the wound. From the looks of it, something had forcibly torn it off.
“Cough, cough, cough!”
Wang Chaling kept vomiting blood.
“The Starving Ghost with the coffin nail is too terrifying... I shouldn’t have come here...”
In the deepest part where the black-green color was thickest, something suddenly began to stir. A cold, sinister aura rushed toward him and instantly swept Wang Chaling into it.
Wang Chaling shouted himself hoarse, “Grandfather, Grandmother, help me block this attack!”
Behind him, the two lifeless black-and-white elderly figures suddenly moved. Their cold, illusory silhouettes flickered, appearing one in front and one behind Wang Chaling, shielding him.
Tap, tap, tap...
A string of footsteps, leather shoes striking the ground, sounded beside Wang Chaling, then stopped behind him.
“It’s approaching me... Did it stop behind me...?”
Although Wang Chaling could not see anything right now, judging from the footsteps, that thing was already less than ten meters away from him.
The footsteps sounded again. Five meters. Three meters. Wang Chaling could already smell the stench of a corpse that had been left to rot for several days, as if he could touch the ghost’s body just by reaching out...
“Should I make a move...? But if I lose Grandfather and Grandmother’s protection, I might be killed by this ghost instantly... Or should I let Mother try one more time...?”
Wang Chaling looked at his severed hand, cold sweat pouring down his face. Before the Starving Ghost, only the first generation of the Wang family could withstand it. This severed arm was the best proof.
One meter away, the footsteps suddenly stopped, as if the ghost were standing right against Wang Chaling’s back.
Should he strike?
He hesitated, thinking.
Yet behind Wang Chaling, there was no Starving Ghost at all. There was only a strange pair of leather shoes stopped there.
The real ghost had been standing in front of Wang Chaling all along, staring fixedly at him.
Just as Wang Chaling prepared to make his move and turn around, a hand emitting the stench of corpses, almost rotted away, suddenly reached in from in front of him and went straight for his throat.
The old man blocking the front made no movement at all, standing stiffly in place as if he had crashed.
Before Wang Chaling could react, the old woman behind him was the first to grab that hand. Before he had time to be shocked, the jaw of a rotting head split open, revealing a mouthful of pitch-black, savage teeth, and bit down toward Wang Chaling’s head.
At the very instant that rotting head was about to bite his skull, Wang Chaling abruptly pulled out a ghost candle and blocked those pitch-black, savage teeth with it.
Wang Chaling wanted to light the ghost candle, but as an ordinary person who had lost an arm, he had already begun to suffer from severe blood loss, and his consciousness was starting to blur. This was all he could do.
“I hope it works... If I can hold on until support arrives, we win...”
But under Wang Chaling’s astonished gaze, the Starving Ghost’s other rotting palm slowly stabbed toward the old woman blocking it. The instant it pierced into her, the old woman’s movements suddenly became abnormally slow. At the same time, the rotting head was rapidly eating the red ghost candle.
Despair spread through Wang Chaling’s heart. In just a brief instant, the two malicious ghosts of the Wang family’s first generation had been restricted.
“Heh... So this is the Starving Ghost after fully mastering the coffin nail? As expected, I’m really not suited for walking this path.” Wang Chaling looked at those pitch-black, savage teeth, his eyes filled with despair.
In that desperate situation, just as Wang Chaling made up his mind to do something, a memory that did not belong to him suddenly surfaced in his mind.
In the memory, it seemed he had been here before, but in that memory, there was no Starving Ghost in this place. He had also been standing here just like today, but there was one difference: in that memory, there was one more person here.
A man named Shen Lin. In the memory, he stood in front of Wang Chaling, standing where the Starving Ghost should have been.
Abruptly, Wang Chaling opened his eyes.
Something strange happened. Wang Chaling saw a man in casual clothes standing before him with a somewhat relaxed air, even smiling as he greeted him.
“That was close. I finally made it in time. If there hadn’t been an instant of balance just now between this Starving Ghost and the two old people behind you, I really wouldn’t have been able to enter this place. Let me introduce myself. My name is Shen Lin, one of headquarters’ predetermined captains.”
Wang Chaling looked at the man before him in disbelief. “Consciousness-type...? You don’t exist in reality? What an unbelievable ability.”
“Everyone has their own different experiences. Compared to my ability, the two old people behind you are the truly terrifying ones.”
Shen Lin waved his hand and looked at the two lifeless black-and-white elders behind Wang Chaling, his eyes filled with wariness.
“But you’re too timid, too hesitant, constantly worrying about this and that. You haven’t brought out their true value at all. From here on, if you keep hesitating like this, I’ll abandon you without the slightest hesitation.”
After saying that, Shen Lin turned his head and looked toward the depths of that black-green haze.
“So fast... It’s here again.”
The moment Shen Lin finished speaking, the viscous black-green substance surged toward them once more, seemingly even more dangerous than last time. Sensing that cold, sinister aura, the hair on both men’s bodies stood on end.
“Wang Chaling, we only have one chance. Next, I’ll block this attack for you. You only need to do what you’re supposed to do. Even if I die, I’ll die before you.”
Shen Lin looked solemnly at the very center of that black-green mass, where a man with a black-green body stood rigidly.
“Captain Shen, I owe you one. Since Captain Shen has decided to stake his life on this, I will certainly hold nothing back either. But the files record that the Starving Ghost is suspected of possessing the ability to restart. Be careful...”
Wang Chaling’s expression hardened. The figure of the Wang family’s second generation had already begun to slowly overlap with him.
“Don’t worry. I’m prepared. Besides, what proper person believes in files? Do you believe in files?”
“I don’t believe them either.”
The two men looked at each other and smiled, saying no more.