The girl before them had a cute face and looked to be about sixteen or seventeen. Her skin could not be considered fair. What was abnormal, however, was that she was wearing a raincoat on a perfectly sunny day.
“What’s wrong, Cousin? Why are you looking at me like that? Is there a ghost behind me?”
As she spoke, the girl turned to glance behind her.
Wang Shanshan asked, “Who is she?”
“My cousin.” Yang Jian was still staring at the girl. He had not seen this younger cousin of his for more than a year.
The girl jogged over and greeted Wang Shanshan warmly.
“Hello, big sister! My name is Liang Yuan. You can also call me Xiao Yuan. I’m Yang Jian’s little cousin. You must be my cousin’s girlfriend!”
Wang Shanshan smiled in response. “Hello, I’m Wang Shanshan. I suppose I can barely be considered Yang Jian’s girlfriend.”
Xiao Yuan slipped between the two of them, took Yang Jian and Wang Shanshan by the hand, and started walking toward Meishan Village.
“Cousin, big sister is almost dead. Why are you still bringing her home?”
Xiao Yuan’s words were shocking. Yang Jian’s pupils contracted slightly when he heard them. This cousin of his, whom he had not seen for a year, was behaving far too strangely.
Yang Jian even suspected now that she might have encountered some supernatural incident.
Yang Jian asked tentatively, “Why do you say that? Wang Shanshan’s current condition is very stable.”
“It’s just a feeling. Oh right, I suddenly remembered that there seems to be something I need to give you.”
Xiao Yuan abruptly changed the subject, her words completely disjointed.
Yang Jian looked at Xiao Yuan and followed along with what she had said. “What is it? You can give it to me now.”
Xiao Yuan shook her head, as if rummaging through her mind for something. “Aiya, I can’t remember what it was.”
Then she suddenly let go of their hands and ran ahead, turning back to say to the two of them:
“I suddenly remembered I have something urgent to do. Goodbye, Cousin! Goodbye, Cousin’s girlfriend!”
With that, she darted into a small alley and vanished from sight.
Wang Shanshan looked at the alley Xiao Yuan had run into and said, “Yang Jian, why does this cousin of yours give me such a strange feeling? Does she have some kind of illness? Should we take her back to Dachang City and have her checked at the hospital?”
Yang Jian shook his head.
“There’s a problem.” Yang Jian did not continue.
But the fact that Xiao Yuan could see Wang Shanshan’s condition was enough to prove that she was connected to the supernatural.
Yang Jian took out his satellite phone. “Liu Xiaoyu, did you hear that?”
As long as the satellite phone of a headquarters person-in-charge was switched on, the operator could monitor that person’s situation around the clock.
Liu Xiaoyu’s voice soon came from the other end of the line. “It’s already been archived and sent to the investigation team. It will probably take some time.”
“Mm. Contact me as soon as there’s any news.”
“By the way, is there any result from the investigation I asked you to conduct last time on that man from the hurricane incident?”
After Yang Jian had returned from the hurricane, he had been investigating the origins of the man who had saved him. But because the corpse had been disfigured beyond recognition, there had still been no information until now.
And the reason he had asked the Ghost Cupboard to tell him that person’s origins was simply because he wanted to know exactly what kind of supernatural power could allow a ghost controller to invade the present from the future.
“Facial recognition still needs a little time, but it should be soon. There should be results in the next few days.”
“Mm. Hanging up.”
After Yang Jian finished speaking, he hung up the phone and led Wang Shanshan toward his family’s old house.
Before long, a two-story concrete house appeared before them. It had been built by Yang Jian’s father before his death and could be considered somewhat old.
“Mom, I’m back.”
Yang Jian pushed open the door and led Wang Shanshan inside.
There was no one in the house, but the rooms were very clean. Zhang Fen had kept the place extremely tidy.
Seeing that Zhang Fen was not inside, Yang Jian went straight up to the second floor and headed directly for the room where his father’s memorial portrait was kept. The purpose of his return to his hometown this time was to investigate his father, who had been dead for many years.
A photo frame sat on a wooden table. The man in the black-and-white photograph bore a seventy- to eighty-percent resemblance to Yang Jian, except he seemed to look somewhat strangely out of place.
Wang Shanshan walked forward quietly and bowed three times to the memorial portrait.
Yang Jian stood where he was. He was observing the surroundings of the portrait, trying to find anything abnormal. Previously, through his conversation with Old Qin, Yang Jian had suspected that his father might also have been a ghost controller.
His father was suspected to have some connection with the Newspaper Ghost, and the beginning of the loss of control incident in Dajing City had been when the Newspaper Ghost altered Zhao Jianguo’s memories.
Unfortunately, there was nothing abnormal here. At the same time, Yang Jian felt very much at ease. This meant that his father had no connection to the supernatural.
But when facing the supernatural, Yang Jian had always been extremely cautious. An existence on Old Qin’s level would not mention something completely unrelated to him for no reason. Since he had told him, there had to be a reason. Perhaps he needed to look for clues in the places his father had often gone while he was alive.
Just then, Yang Jian’s phone began to vibrate.
“That fast? Has Liu Xiaoyu’s work efficiency become that high?”
Yang Jian took out the satellite phone, thinking that the investigation into his cousin had produced results.
Liu Xiaoyu heard him loud and clear. With a hint of displeasure, she said, “What do you mean, my work efficiency has become that high? Wasn’t it high before?”
“Don’t waste words.”
“It’s not about your cousin. There are results from the investigation into that man from the hurricane incident. His name was Li Yang, twenty-two years old, from DQ City. While traveling overseas, he was swept into the Ghost Painting incident and has been missing ever since. At that time, he was still an ordinary person.”
“Li Yang... Ghost Painting?”
A strange look flashed across Yang Jian’s face.
Judging by normal logic, if an ordinary person entered the Ghost Painting, they would certainly die without any chance of survival. However, that man named Li Yang was a ghost controller, which meant that he had once encountered a ghost inside the Ghost Painting and had successfully controlled it.
But Yang Jian absolutely did not believe that Li Yang could have walked out of the Ghost Painting so easily. Even though the supernatural intensity Li Yang had displayed inside the hurricane had indeed been exaggerated, when facing the Ghost Painting, that level of power was not enough to escape easily.
There were far too many mysteries involved. To Yang Jian, this matter was even more important than his father’s. A ghost controller capable of crossing over from the future into the present represented many things...
Yang Jian said in a deep voice, “Continue.”
“Li Yang came from a single-parent family. His mother is currently in DQ City. However, because of Li Yang’s disappearance, his mother was too old to accept it all at once and fell seriously ill. She is now receiving treatment in a hospital in DQ City. Headquarters has already dispatched the best doctors in DQ City to go there.”
“That’s all. The rest is just some of his experiences from when he was studying.”
Yang Jian was silent for a short while, then decided to head to DQ City immediately. Yang Jian’s personality had always been like this: repay grudges with vengeance, and repay kindness with kindness.
Whether it was understanding who Li Yang was or helping his mother, both were now Yang Jian’s highest priority.
“Send me Li Yang’s photo, and book me a plane ticket to DQ City. I’m going over immediately.”
“It’s already been sent to your phone.”