“We interrupt with the latest news from this station. At seven o’clock this morning, a severe natural disaster occurred in Danghai City. The city has now entered a sealed-off rescue phase, and all municipalities are doing their utmost to support Danghai City…”
Yang Jian and Zhang Wei had just gotten off the plane and were walking through the vast departure hall. On the giant television screen at Dachang Airport, real-time news was being broadcast.
Danghai City had now entered a state of complete lockdown. In the footage, many rescue units were rushing toward Danghai City, which had already been reduced to ruins.
It seemed headquarters had acted very quickly. The moment the Danghai City incident occurred, they had immediately sealed off the news.
But there was no wall under heaven that did not let the wind through. There were still some people who had gone to Danghai City for tourism, as well as those who had only recently settled there, who had not been affected by the Substitute Ghost’s medium. Some of these people had escaped on their own, while others had been rescued by rescue units.
As these people fled, all sorts of rumors soon began spreading among the public. For example, Yang Jian could hear the people around him discussing it heatedly right now.
“Hey, have you heard? Danghai City’s been occupied by aliens. Almost everyone there is dead!”
“Yeah, didn’t you see even the army went in? Something big is definitely about to happen lately!”
“You’re right. I have to hurry and tell my family to buy dozens of catties of dry rations and store them.”
“You don’t know shit.”
At this moment, Zhang Wei stuck his head out and joined the conversation.
“That was a ghost. A real ghost.”
“A ghost?!” the three of them said in unison.
“That’s right…” Zhang Wei wore a mysterious expression and deliberately put on an unfathomable air.
“My bro here is the top ghostbuster of Dachang City. He just fought his way out from inside. Even I nearly died in there. My advice is, you’d better not get married for a while.”
“A-Wei! Yang Jian! Over here, over here!”
Just then, Jiang Yan’s voice rang out. She stood outside the arrivals gate, waving her arm hard at the two of them.
“Let’s go, A-Wei.”
Yang Jian was carrying a long body bag. Inside it was the iron shovel that Zhang Wei had taken from the cemetery.
This shovel seemed capable of knocking some fierce ghosts with not-too-high terror levels into a brief shutdown. After dealing with that female corpse, Yang Jian had taken the shovel as well.
“Coming, Brother Leg!” Zhang Wei quickly followed. “I was just educating people, so no one else gets tricked by A-Zhen. Jesus always said, saving one life is better than building a seven-story pagoda.”
Yang Jian replied, “That was the Buddha…”
The three watched Yang Jian and Zhang Wei walk off into the distance and whispered among themselves:
“Damn, he can really brag. What he said was even more ridiculous than us.”
“He’s obviously a scammer from the streets. Maybe he’ll come back later to sell us some consecrated prayer beads.”
“Not necessarily…” one of them said in a low voice.
“Didn’t you notice? That man with a slit on his forehead looked very wrong. I study medicine. His physical condition was no different from a corpse’s. Maybe what that guy said was true…”
“Seriously? Then I really should go buy some consecrated prayer beads to wear.”
“Would I lie to you?”
Just as the three were discussing which temple would be better to visit, a bald man in a trench coat happened to walk past them.
However, this bald man looked very strange. He wore a heavy trench coat that almost wrapped around his entire body, as if he were trying to conceal something.
As the bald man walked, he made clanging sounds, as though many shards of glass were hidden inside his heavy coat.
Through the inner lining that was occasionally exposed beneath the coat, one could vaguely see that there seemed to be many broken mirror fragments inside. As he walked, they swayed and reflected streaks of ghastly white light.
The bald man was holding a heavy, specially made satellite phone. “Danghai City has fallen. The plane I was on was forced to land in Dachang City. Arrange another flight to DQ City for me.”
“Understood,” a sweet female voice came from the other end of the line.
After a burst of keyboard tapping, the sweet female voice continued, “Dachang Airport has already been contacted. A private plane is ready. It will depart in ten minutes. Someone will come to bring you onto the plane immediately.”
“Good.”
The bald man walked forward while talking on the phone.
When the three people heard this bald man speak so arrogantly, as if he could casually mobilize even a private plane, and then saw the valuable string of prayer beads hanging around his neck, they immediately surrounded him. Rubbing their hands, they asked ingratiatingly:
“May we ask, eminent monk, whether you sell consecrated prayer beads here?”
“Eminent monk? Prayer beads?”
The bald man looked at the prayer beads he was wearing and immediately understood the three people’s purpose. He did not mind, taking the beads from his neck and handing them to the three.
“If you like them, take them. This is the first time I’ve heard someone call me an eminent monk.”
“Thank you, eminent monk! Thank you, eminent monk! Your Dharma is truly boundless, saving all sentient beings!”
The three immediately took the prayer beads and kept bowing to the bald man.
The bald man did not stop and continued walking forward.
The female voice on the other end of the phone asked, “Do you like people calling you an eminent monk?”
The bald man touched his shiny, gleaming head and said, “Not really. It was just my dream back when I was in school. But now it’s already become an extravagant hope. Consider it a bit of nostalgia for my younger self.”
The two chatted intermittently. At this moment, two staff members wearing sunglasses walked over.
“Hello, may I ask if you are Mr. Lin Bei?”
The bald man took out a black person-in-charge ID and waved it. “That’s me. Let’s go.”
Inside Guanjiang Residential Complex.
“Brother Leg, I can’t take it anymore. My addiction’s acting up. I have to go play a couple rounds.”
Zhang Wei dashed upstairs in a flash and burrowed into his exclusive luxury esports office. Then they heard him shouting something about launching, and before long, the fierce sounds of gunfire came from inside.
Jiang Yan brought Yang Jian a glass of cola. “Yang Jian, are you all right? We all saw the news and were very worried about you.”
Yang Jian gulped down some cola and said, “Don’t worry. I’m not dying for the time being.”
Jiang Yan walked over.
“If there’s something on your mind, don’t shoulder it alone. Maybe we can’t help you much, but at least we can be qualified listeners. Saying it out loud might make you feel a lot better.”
Yang Jian nodded noncommittally and said, “Thanks, Jiang Yan. But there are many things that aren’t something I can choose. And when it comes to the supernatural, sometimes even speaking about it can get people killed.”
Jiang Yan parted her lips slightly, but when the words reached her mouth, she fell silent. After experiencing so many things, she had grown as well. She understood that, as an ordinary person, she could not help Yang Jian much. When facing the supernatural, she could even be called a burden.
In the end, Jiang Yan swallowed the words in her heart and instead said, “I just wanted to make you feel a little better. There are still many things at the company that need managing. I’ll head back to the company first.”
Since she could not help Yang Jian much in supernatural matters, Jiang Yan could only pour her energy into Yang Jian’s company. This was the only place where she could help him. Sometimes, she envied Wang Shanshan. At the very least, Wang Shanshan still had many common topics with Yang Jian.
Yang Jian drank his cola and went out the door, arriving at the empty lot deepest inside the residential complex. Yang Jian had renovated that old, ancient residence. Now, a modern-style temple building stood here.