Xiao Yuan glanced back at the female corpse, aimed at its head, and threw the dagger in her hand with all her might.
"Thud!"
That female corpse was actually knocked flying backward by Xiao Yuan's dagger and fell into the turbulent lake water.
Yang Jian grabbed Xiao Yuan and continued charging forward along the increasingly slippery path. The corpses falling like raindrops on both sides had already begun crashing down toward the road.
A continuous stream of muffled sounds rang out behind the two of them. Even with just the corner of his eye, Yang Jian could see countless female corpses surfacing from the river, as if forcibly dragged up from the riverbed.
"Cousin, loosen your grip a bit."
Xiao Yuan pulled her hand free from Yang Jian's grasp, somehow produced another small knife from nowhere, and hacked madly at a female corpse that had already drawn near the two of them.
Yang Jian looked at this little cousin before him—hacking wildly while giggling, simply ferocious beyond belief. Nothing like himself, who could only be suppressed in the presence of the Ghost Lake.
Xiao Yuan appeared to be hacking randomly, but in reality, every blade precisely struck the female corpse's heart, neck, and chest. These movements seemed forged through countless refinements, exceptionally precise.
Xiao Yuan suddenly turned her head toward Yang Jian and said:
"Cousin, run a bit faster. I've never seen these corpses before; there are a bit too many of them."
Yang Jian quickened his pace, but Xiao Yuan's words made him realize a problem:
All the anomalies that had appeared in this nightmare up to now were related to him. Whether it was the attack of the Ghost Rope or the current Ghost Lake.
This dream seemed capable of reading a person's life experiences, causing everything Yang Jian had once experienced to manifest within this nightmare.
This made Yang Jian think of another supernatural item in his possession.
That blood-stained old newspaper.
That newspaper could alter other people's memories. If combined with this fierce ghost that could pull people into dreams, could it modify a person's memory without them noticing?
Perhaps his cousin's abnormality was the result of one of his father's experiments with the supernatural...
At some unknown point, the road beneath their feet had become muddy; running even splashed up water.
The path seemed to be narrowing. No—it wasn't that the path was changing, but that the river water on both sides was actually rising! Slowly pressing down toward the two of them.
The female corpses standing on the lake surface were drawing closer and closer. At this rate, they would soon completely submerge the two of them.
Right then, Xiao Yuan rummaged inside her clothes and actually pulled out a handgun.
Yang Jian, running beside her, was stunned. This cousin of his could actually get her hands on a firearm? One had to know that the current gun control policies were extremely strict; ordinary people didn't even have channels to get such information.
This gun had an overall streamlined appearance, its material seemingly made of some kind of transparent glass. Yang Jian didn't have deep knowledge of firearms; from its appearance, it should be one of those crude homemade guns circulating among civilians.
Xiao Yuan raised her hand and pulled the trigger at the nearest female corpse.
"Bang!"
A massive gunshot rang out. One female corpse was sent flying completely backward, knocking down a large swath of corpses along with it.
But this was only a drop in the bucket. More female corpses were surrounding the two of them.
Yang Jian realized that these female corpses didn't possess the supernatural nature of the real Ghost Lake; they only had its outward appearance.
Yang Jian looked at Xiao Yuan. "There are too many. Xiao Yuan, got any more knives? Get me one too."
"Here." Xiao Yuan pulled out two more sharp knives from her bag, keeping one for herself and handing the other to Yang Jian.
Yang Jian was somewhat dumbfounded. Just how many things was this cousin carrying on her?
But since physical means proved effective, a flicker of excitement flashed through Yang Jian's eyes. He currently possessed normal human emotions.
And when it came to fighting, he had never lost.
With Yang Jian joining in, the female corpses on the left and right were momentarily unable to approach. For a brief moment, a hollow zone of safety actually formed around them.
Although the two cousins' coordination was ferocious, this nightmare world seemed dead set on not stopping until it killed them. The corpses falling from the sky actually began gradually crashing down directly toward the two of them.
Yang Jian dodged sideways to avoid a female corpse crashing down at him.
"Is this ghost playing dirty because it can't win?"
The number of falling corpses grew denser and denser. If before it had been a light rain, then now it was a torrential downpour.
The entire sky was a dark, dense mass of corpses. One hadn't even fallen before the next one dragged it down to smash into the ground together.
"Crack..." Amidst this chaos, the sound of shattering glass came from beneath their feet. Yang Jian startled and looked down.
At some point, the path had transformed into an enormous mirror. But bizarrely, the mirror surface only reflected the figures of Yang Jian and Xiao Yuan.
"A mirror?"
Yang Jian suddenly thought of Miao Xiaoshan's cousin. He had once been trapped inside a mirror by a fierce ghost related to mirrors. His guess had been correct after all—all the anomalous manifestations in this dream world were connected to his own experiences.
As the two ran, the cracks grew denser and denser, rapidly spreading like a spiderweb. It seemed they would completely shatter in the next second.
"Xiao Yuan! Hold onto me!"
Yang Jian only had time to roar that one sentence.
"Crack!"
A crisp sound rang out. The mirror surface beneath their feet immediately collapsed and shattered. Before the two could react, a sudden sense of weightlessness struck, and they plunged into the depths.
Wind howled past their ears. The two were falling fast, but after nearly ten seconds of free fall, Yang Jian still couldn't see the bottom.
If they kept falling like this, the two of them would definitely be smashed to death!
Suddenly, a burst of dazzling white light flashed. Only then did Yang Jian astonishedly discover that the two had fallen into an exceptionally empty space with indistinguishable boundaries.
In every direction, there were mirrors.
Countless enormous mirrors connected to one another, constructing the walls of this space. Every mirror reflected pale white light, dazzling Yang Jian until he was dizzy and disoriented.
"What is this?"
In midair, Yang Jian turned his head with difficulty and instantly froze.
At the very center of this light and shadow sat a Buddha statue so massive it was beyond description.
This Buddha statue blotted out the sky and covered the sun, ridiculously huge. After falling for so long, the two had actually still not passed beyond its head.
The Buddha statue's entire body seemed to be carved from dark-yellow stone, yet under the white light's illumination, it gave off a deathly, lifeless gleam. It looked more like the skin of a corpse, exceptionally eerie.
From Yang Jian's perspective, the Buddha statue's face clearly had nothing obstructing it, yet it was hazy and indistinct.
Through the extremely blurred view, Yang Jian only felt that this Buddha statue seemed to be smiling yet not smiling, with benevolent brows and kind eyes, yet also eyes glaring furiously wide open.
Three completely different expressions actually appeared before Yang Jian's eyes at the same time. A strong sense of wrongness and dizziness assaulted him through his vision. This bizarre visual dissonance made Yang Jian feel a wave of nausea.
"A Buddha statue?"
A trace of doubt flashed through Yang Jian's mind. In his memory, he had never experienced any supernatural events related to a Buddha statue.
Could his own memories have been altered by that newspaper? Just like that time at home when he had called the Newspaper Ghost "Dad"...
Just as Yang Jian was pondering.
"Ouch! That hurts!"
Xiao Yuan and Yang Jian plopped down onto a bench. Xiao Yuan immediately bounced up, rubbing her backside while hopping about.