Dajing City
The entire sky was a murky, ashen gray, and countless gray condensations drifted slowly down from above.
The whole city was gradually being covered by the Ghost Painting’s ghost domain. Dajing City was now in utter chaos. Viewed from the sky, thick smoke rose from many places, fires blazed everywhere, people’s cries rang out one after another, and vehicles charged recklessly along the roads before ending up scattered haphazardly across the streets. In some places, even gunshots could be heard.
“The fierce ghosts imprisoned by Headquarters have all gone out of control. Dajing City is now overrun by a hundred ghosts. Any action by an ordinary person might trigger some ghost’s killing pattern…”
Chen Yi looked at the apocalyptic scene before him, his brows tightly furrowed. This was already the third group of ordinary people he had rescued.
Sensing the restlessness of the fierce ghost inside his body, unease gnawed at his heart. If these ghosts had not all been recorded and filed by Headquarters, he would have died here long ago.
Just as Chen Yi was staring at the distant sky, deep in thought, an eerie bus slowly drove past beside him.
“Hm? What is this? A supernatural creation…”
Headquarters.
“Professor Wang, some information just came back from inside the Ghost Painting, but the communication only lasted less than twenty seconds before it was cut off.”
Liu Xiaoyu rushed in hurriedly, holding a document.
Wang Xiaoming looked at the intelligence before him, and for once, his brows knitted together.
“It can be inferred that there is a sixty percent… no, eighty percent chance that the Ghost Painting already possesses a small portion of the Starving Ghost’s abilities. It may even be that the Ghost Messenger also possesses partial mediums of both.”
“Elder Qin is driving that bus here. The captains don’t have much time left. In supernatural incidents, changes often occur in an instant, and an instant is enough to kill everyone. We have to find a way to get this intelligence out…”
Suddenly, a grayness quietly enveloped the entire conference room.
“Wait, this gray…”
Wang Xiaoming looked at the environment that had abruptly changed around him.
“This is the Ghost Painting’s ghost domain. Communications should have been restored. Transmit the intelligence immediately!”
An unknown space.
Stifling and oppressive. The entire sky seemed to have been painted with a thick layer of deathly black. Countless straw ropes hung in midair out of nowhere, and hazy gray light passed through them, shining down on Yang Jian and the other two. Before the three of them stood a gloomy village.
“Ghost Rope… Huanggang Village. We’re very close now. Go in.”
Inside Huanggang Village, a faint stench of corpses permeated the air, as if some corpse nearby were hiding in the darkness and spying on the three of them.
The three stopped inside a main hall. A pitch-black coffin was placed in the center of the hall, and in front of the coffin stood a posthumous portrait. In the portrait was a woman in red whose appearance could not be seen clearly, but her pair of pale, eerie hands was especially eye-catching.
“Ghost Painting?”
At that moment, the sound of footsteps suddenly came from outside the hall, as if someone had walked over from the empty village. The footsteps were dull and orderly, exceptionally distinct in this deathly silent village.
“Just like back then in Huanggang Village.” Yang Jian looked solemnly toward the main door.
The footsteps drew closer and closer. A moment later, a figure walked out of the darkness.
It was a man who looked exactly like Wei Jing, taking stiff, wooden steps. No—it should be said that this was the Ghost Messenger in Wei Jing’s form.
Yang Jian was thinking.
“Do we act… or do we do what we did before in Huanggang Village and wait for this ghost to enter the coffin?”
Before Yang Jian could make a move, a hazy gray color suddenly spread out from the portrait in front of the coffin, instantly enveloping the Ghost Messenger. The Ghost Messenger’s body slowly faded within that grayness, then vanished. Afterward, the grayness abruptly contracted and sank back into the portrait.
Before Yang Jian and the other two could react, a series of dull footsteps once again came from outside the hall. A figure appeared at the entrance once more.
Tong Qian’s three faces looked at the Ghost Messenger that had appeared again.
“Yang Jian, do we make a move? The Ghost Painting and the Ghost Messenger don’t seem able to do anything to each other.”
“No. This is the Ghost Messenger’s restart. Abort the operation. The collision between the Ghost Painting and the Ghost Messenger has formed some kind of balance. Any intervention by supernatural power now could cause unknown changes. We can’t take that risk. Find the exit. The situation here is no longer something the three of us can resolve.”
Yang Jian rapidly analyzed the situation before him. Beside him, Li Leping’s eyes had already closed slightly, as if he might fall asleep at any moment.
Just as Yang Jian and the other two were about to withdraw from the hall, a hazy gray color mixed with a bluish-black aura suddenly attacked.
Inside a certain passage.
The chests of two lifeless old people had been pierced through by the Starving Ghost’s rotten, blackened hands. Under the suppression of the coffin nail inside the Starving Ghost’s body, the old people’s movements were abnormally slow, as if they were in a film played in slow motion.
Suddenly, beneath the rotten head, a mouthful of pitch-black, hideous teeth split open in the lower jaw and bit fiercely toward one old person’s head. A small chunk was bitten straight out of the old person’s cold, sinister head.
Shen Lin’s pupils constricted.
“It’s almost completely adapted to the coffin nail. We have to imprison it immediately.”
But before Shen Lin could take his next action, the Starving Ghost suddenly turned its head and bit toward Shen Lin from a distance.
Shen Lin discovered in horror that more than half of his entire shoulder had vanished in an instant. His whole body flickered in and out, as if it were about to disappear.
“It can’t be suppressed anymore. Consciousness-type supernatural power doesn’t even need contact? Wang Chaling! If you don’t hurry up and act, all our efforts will be wasted!”
Wang Chaling was holding a burial shroud and slowly approaching the Starving Ghost. Every step he took was incomparably difficult. If the second generation of the Wang family had not been blocking the way in front of him, he would long since have been swallowed by this bluish-black ghost domain.
Relying on Shen Lin and the first generation of the Wang family, they had barely restricted the Starving Ghost’s movements. But as the Starving Ghost was now fully adapting to the coffin nail, the situation before them was undergoing a drastic change…
Wang Chaling was extremely anxious. Looking at Shen Lin’s figure, which was about to dissipate, he seemed to make some kind of decision.
The figure of the Wang family’s second generation slowly sank into his body. Wang Chaling’s face began to turn deathly pale, and corpse spots rapidly covered his body as it started to rot, making him look like a corpse that had been dead for a long time.
In the next second, Wang Chaling appeared in front of the Starving Ghost. He raised the burial shroud and was about to pull it over the Starving Ghost’s head.
“It should end now.”
Just as the burial shroud was about to touch the Starving Ghost’s rotten head, an abrupt change occurred where the two of them stood.
The surrounding environment seemed to be covered by something in a layer of gray. The two of them felt the ghosts within their bodies being suppressed for an instant, and in the next second, they were dragged together with the Starving Ghost into a hazy gray oil-painting world.
In the instant that the two lost focus, the Starving Ghost’s bluish-black ghost domain spread out violently, but its speed grew slower and slower, as if it were being suppressed by something.
Within the gray world, the Starving Ghost seemed to have formed a temporary balance with the Ghost Painting. The bluish-black ghost domain remained within a ten-meter radius around the Starving Ghost and could not extend any farther.
The hazy gray condensations in the sky also stopped eerily in midair. The entire world seemed to have had the pause button pressed.
Wang Chaling was not someone who liked to gamble, because he had always firmly believed that as long as he did not gamble, he would not lose. But just now, facing the Starving Ghost at the line between life and death, he had no choice but to briefly control the fierce ghost of the Wang family’s second generation.
“One step too late. Did we fail?” Wang Chaling observed the abruptly changed surroundings.
Shen Lin, who had already recovered, raised his head and looked at this hazy gray world. “The Ghost Painting? It seems to have achieved a kind of supernatural balance, but it probably won’t last too long.”
Wang Chaling’s entire body had already begun to rot. The flesh inside was slowly turning black and white, giving off waves of corpse stench.
“I didn’t expect that in the end, I’d still walk down this path.” Wang Chaling laughed self-mockingly.
Suddenly, the satellite phone in Wang Chaling’s pocket let out a long beep. There was only one message on it: “The Ghost Painting is suspected to possess partial abilities of the Starving Ghost and the Ghost Messenger. Everyone, be careful.”
“Information from Headquarters. Looks like we’re not the only two who’ve been pulled into this strange painted world.”
“Your condition is very bad. Right now, the supernatural collision between the Ghost Painting and the Starving Ghost has formed a temporary balance. Stay away from here and seek support.” Shen Lin looked at the motionless Starving Ghost, his expression solemn.
He did not dare use any supernatural power now. At this moment, even the slightest supernatural intervention could cause the situation to change in an instant.
“You’re right. I can still tell the difference between having courage and throwing my life away. Let’s go.” Wang Chaling turned around stiffly and left this place with Shen Lin.
Darkness, oppression. Yang Jian could not see anything. The ghost eye seemed to have been suppressed and was tightly shut.
Yang Jian felt his body slowly sinking, continuously melting.
“I hope this thing is useful.” Feeling the paper banner in his ghost hand, Yang Jian swung it forcefully into the darkness before him. A streak of gray burst out from the darkness, and his entire field of vision instantly opened up.
All at once, Yang Jian discovered that he, Li Leping, and Tong Qian were plummeting rapidly from the sky toward the ground.
There was no time to think. Yang Jian wanted to unfold his ghost domain, but the ghost eye on his forehead remained completely still and gave no response.
“Li Leping! If you don’t wake up, we’re going to fall to our deaths!”
Looking at Li Leping, who had already sunk into sleep, Yang Jian raised his ghost hand and slapped Li Leping in midair. The slap struck so hard that the black haze in Li Leping’s head exploded apart. Tong Qian’s three faces were dumbstruck at the sight, and she suspected that if that slap had landed on her face, it would have slapped the ghost face straight into supernatural revival.
They fell. The wind howled past their ears. The ground drew closer and closer…
Suddenly, a cloud of gray-black smoke enveloped Yang Jian and Tong Qian.
On the ground, the three stood up.
Yang Jian looked at the hazy gray sky mixed with bluish-black haze, his expression complicated. Tong Qian held the satellite phone and read the message inside. Li Leping rubbed his right cheek as if pondering something.
“Was I attacked… As expected of the Ghost Messenger. It forced me to forget that attack…”
Tong Qian looked at Li Leping rubbing his face and wanted to say something, but just as the words reached her lips, Yang Jian glared them back.
“Hm? Is something wrong?” Li Leping looked at Yang Jian and Tong Qian with a deadpan face.
“No.” Yang Jian immediately said.
“Let’s go. According to the information from Headquarters, there should be other persons in charge inside the Ghost Painting. Find them and resolve this incident.” Yang Jian turned and walked off without looking back.
“Oh. Back in Huanggang Village, was I attacked by the Ghost Messenger?”
“No.”
“Oh.”