At that thought, Yang Jian continued, “And then?”
“Then I received a mission from headquarters, asking me to come to DQ City. They said there was a suspected supernatural incident here and told me to investigate it. But halfway here, I ran into what happened in Dahai City, and the plane was forced to land. It got delayed all the way until now.”
Yang Jian nodded. It seemed the fall of Dahai City had affected many places. Whether it was Dajing City or the ghost controllers from other areas, they had all been dragged into it.
Headquarters was already seriously short on manpower now, to the point that they had temporarily dispatched Lin Bei to investigate the anomaly in DQ City.
“What about you, Yang Jian?” Lin Bei suddenly asked. “Did you come to DQ City because of a mission from headquarters too?”
Yang Jian shook his head and said, “I came here because of some private matters.”
Lin Bei said with some regret, “Is that so? That’s really a pity. Acting together with you would raise the survival rate by a lot.”
Among those in charge, unless their relationship was especially good, they generally would not take the initiative to help each other. After all, when facing the supernatural, no one had complete confidence. One mistake, and anyone could capsize in the gutter.
Then Lin Bei said, “I’ve been hearing people talk about your deeds lately. Looks like I’ll soon have to address you as Captain Yang.”
Expressionless, Yang Jian replied, “An empty title. Just a higher-level wage slave.”
The two walked out of the stairwell. Lin Bei reached out to catch a snowflake, and his expression changed slightly.
“This snow… there’s a problem with it. The supernatural sense is very weak, but the reaction of the ghost inside me is strange. It’s a little like suppression, but it doesn’t entirely match the signs of being suppressed…”
Yang Jian said, “I suggest you leave DQ City as soon as possible. Just from visual observation, the range of the snow has almost covered the entire city. You won’t be of much use here by yourself.”
Yang Jian gave his advice. When a ghost’s area of influence reached the scale of an entire city, the effect of a single ghost controller was negligible. This was something he knew from experience.
Lin Bei nodded in agreement with Yang Jian’s words. Yang Jian’s analysis was very accurate. When the range of the supernatural coverage was too vast, even if a ghost controller had a ghost domain, finding the source ghost would only leave them running themselves ragged.
“Oh, right,” Yang Jian added.
“In the future, don’t knock on my door casually. My nerves are very sensitive. I might accidentally chop someone to death.”
Seeing that Yang Jian did not look like he was joking, Lin Bei immediately said, “All right…”
Just then, Yang Jian’s satellite phone rang.
Wang Shanshan’s slightly urgent voice came from inside. “Yang Jian, hurry back. Xiaoyuan is killing people everywhere. I can’t stop her!”
“Killing people?”
Yang Jian was somewhat surprised. Although his younger female cousin had acted a little abnormal before, she should not have reached the point of casually killing people.
“Don’t panic. Speak slowly. What happened?”
Wang Shanshan continued, “After you left, Auntie and I stayed in the village chatting with the old people there. Just now, when we got back home, a scream suddenly came from the village entrance. I saw Xiaoyuan stab a dagger into a child’s chest with my own eyes…”
“Understood. I’m coming back right now.”
Yang Jian continued, “Liu Xiaoyu, send someone over immediately. Stop my cousin first and wait until I get back.”
Liu Xiaoyu’s voice immediately came through the phone. She had been listening to the situation on Yang Jian’s side the whole time.
“The staff are already on their way.”
A trace of gravity flashed through Yang Jian’s eyes. It seemed this cousin of his was even stranger than he had imagined.
Killing people at random for no reason at all was very similar to a ghost controller nearing revival, but Xiaoyuan’s state did not look like that of someone who had controlled a fierce ghost at all.
After hanging up, Yang Jian said to Lin Bei, “I still have something to do. I’ll be leaving first.”
With that, Yang Jian was just about to turn and leave.
Suddenly, without any warning, Yang Jian’s vision blurred. His eyelids felt so heavy they seemed as if they would close at any moment, and a surge of drowsiness came over him.
It felt as though something extremely heavy was pressing down on his eyelids, forcing him to close his eyes.
Without the slightest hesitation, a sheet of crimson instantly surged outward, enveloping the entire area.
Seeing Yang Jian’s signature ghost domain, Lin Bei’s expression changed in shock. He immediately took a piece of glass from inside his overcoat and went on guard.
“Yang Jian?! What happened? Are you being attacked by a fierce ghost?!”
Yang Jian did not speak. Amid the dense red light, he stood silently in place. The drowsiness was growing more and more intense, and his eyelids heavier and heavier, as if he would fall asleep in the very next second.
“Child, what’s wrong with you?”
Liu Jing’s voice came from behind him. Yang Jian was startled and abruptly turned around. The surrounding environment was now a hospital ward. Liu Jing was lying on the hospital bed, a trace of tears still hanging at the corners of her eyes.
A dream?! Consciousness?! An illusion?! Did Lin Bei attack me?!
In an instant, several possibilities sprang up in Yang Jian’s mind.
“Child, what’s wrong with you?”
Liu Jing repeated the same words again.
Yang Jian did not respond. Instead, he observed the surrounding environment, but there was nothing abnormal about the room. It was the very hospital ward Yang Jian had visited before.
Suddenly, without her knees bending at all, Liu Jing rose straight up. At some unknown point, an old straw rope had already been looped around her neck. Then the rope jerked upward fiercely, hanging Liu Jing from the ceiling of the ward.
The hazy night made it impossible to see Liu Jing’s face clearly. Only two pupils reflecting a sinister light stared fixedly at Yang Jian. Even though her neck had already been stretched long from being hanged, her mouth was still repeating over and over:
“Child, what’s wrong with you…”
Yang Jian stared at the Liu Jing before him and suddenly felt something called emotion. He once again experienced joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, as though he had returned to his school days.
With a single stride, he rushed forward, about to raise his ghost hand and slap this damned thing hard.
But Yang Jian was stunned as he shook his sleeve. It was empty. His left hand had actually disappeared. No, it was not that it had disappeared, but rather that he simply did not have a left hand at all.
Not only the ghost hand, even the Ghost Eye, Ghost Shadow, and Ghost Lake had all vanished as well. What shocked Yang Jian even more was that he had actually adapted completely to this state of having no left hand. His body did not feel anything wrong at all, as if he had been born this way.
Without any hesitation, Yang Jian abruptly turned around, opened the door, and rushed out of the ward.
“Cousin? You’re here!”
The scene changed abruptly. Yang Jian looked at the sight before him in surprise.
On a country road, Xiaoyuan was wearing a raincoat and holding a dagger, frantically stabbing a corpse in front of her.
As she stabbed, she smiled at Yang Jian. The scene was extremely eerie.
Yang Jian stared at Xiaoyuan. By now, he had gradually calmed down. The emotions that had reappeared just now had made him a little agitated for a moment.
But Yang Jian reacted very quickly. After seeing Xiaoyuan, he immediately began rapidly analyzing the supernatural attack he had encountered.
The attack he had suffered, the vanished supernatural powers, the scene that had changed so abruptly, and Xiaoyuan before him.
And now, everything happening here was beyond his control. He could only passively follow the development of events. This feeling was as if he were dreaming.
It reminded him of the file on a fierce ghost he had once seen: Nightmare.