“Something’s wrong.”
A voice rose together with the sound of the piano. The owner of that voice seemed not to exist in reality, merely using the piano’s music as a medium to speak.
The pair of pale-faced twin dolls looked at Wang Chaling’s corpse on the ground. Their mouths did not move, yet they both emitted an eerie tone at the same time:
“That was too easy. It can’t be this easy...”
Just then, on the human-skin canvas before the Painter, the captains’ corpses suddenly faded. A waxy yellow began to appear upon the pallid human skin. The Painter abruptly realized something and immediately shouted to the others:
“Careful! There’s something strange about the corpses!”
But before the Painter could finish speaking,
the Butcher’s figure suddenly froze.
The head of Yang Jian in his hand abruptly transformed into sheet after sheet of yellow paper, peeling away rapidly. Then, along the Butcher’s arm, the paper swiftly covered his body. In almost an instant, his bloated body was wrapped in dense layers of yellow paper.
“Thud!” A muffled sound rang out.
The Butcher’s huge, fat body fell straight to the ground, turning into a paper effigy that could not break free.
“Damn it, we’ve been tricked. When exactly did...”
“Retreat. Bring the Butcher back. He isn’t dead yet.”
The scene shifted to the other side of this great fire.
“We’re here.”
Li Jun stopped.
The others halted with him and looked into the distance.
An enormous rocket was embedded diagonally in the scorched earth, like an inverted tombstone.
The rocket’s outer shell was completely ruined. Large sheets of alloy plating had been twisted and warped by the searing heat. The white exterior that had once belonged to a spacecraft had long since peeled away, revealing the charred framework within.
And at the nose of the rocket, a patch of deathly blackness burned wildly, giving off waves of cold, corpse-like stench. A terrifying face could vaguely be seen emerging within it.
The skin of that face was withered and peeling, its eye sockets sunken deep, like a dried corpse that had been dead for a very long time.
“A rocket?”
Liu San looked at the massive wreckage before him, and a trace of disbelief actually flashed across his stiff face.
Li Jun nodded and walked to the central area of the wreckage. There was still one intact creation preserved here.
It was a black, spherical cabin large enough to hold about ten people. Li Jun pried open the hatch with force and led everyone inside.
As if noticing the captains’ confusion, Li Jun said, “This was the rocket used in the foreign lunar landing program back then. This is the safety capsule, built to withstand the high temperatures of reentry into the atmosphere.”
Liu San asked in puzzlement, “The lunar landing program?”
Everyone present knew about it. Back then, it had caused a huge stir, and even now, many people still remained skeptical about the moon landing.
Li Jun nodded and said, “That’s right. When supernatural incidents first appeared, foreign countries tried many methods to contain evil ghosts. The lunar landing program was one of them. Some overseas research teams believed that since ghosts couldn’t be killed, they should simply be exiled into space, far away from humanity.”
Everyone stood inside the sphere. Its internal structure was in excellent condition and had not been damaged by the crash. Some facilities could even still be used.
Li Jun seemed very familiar with the equipment inside and began rummaging around. As he searched, he said, “But people at the time did not fully understand the characteristics of evil ghosts, which led to this ghost going out of control. This rocket never returned. It seems the people from the Reform Society handled things fairly reliably. While drawing down that great fire outside, they also brought back the rocket’s wreckage.”
After searching for a while, Li Jun discovered a heavy alloy safe in the corner. Green flames immediately covered it. Through his ghost domain, Li Jun took out a small black box from inside.
“That era was a time of war. Even some ghost controllers participated in the fighting. No one dealt with this evil ghost at all, and it remained out of control on the moon the entire time. However, this ghost was very special. It did not actively return to Earth to attack humans, so its killing pattern has never been determined.”
Shen Lin looked at the black box in Li Jun’s hand. It seemed to be some kind of device for recording and storing information. He said, “This method is far too dangerous.”
“If all imprisoned evil ghosts were exiled into outer space, with no one to supervise them, no one would know what kind of reactions might occur between the ghosts. In the end, perhaps a ghost far beyond the scope of our understanding would be nurtured.”
“That’s right.” Li Jun nodded. “Professor Wang thought the same.”
“Including this lunar landing program, foreign countries exiled a total of three evil ghosts into outer space.”
“Three?”
Li Jun walked over to the control console and seemed to be connecting the power. He continued, “After the lunar landing program, foreign countries sent two more probes into outer space in succession. One of them is already close to leaving the solar system. All we know is that an eye was stored on it.”
“An eye?” Yang Jian asked instinctively.
“Yes. An eyeball with an unknown terror level, but with an extremely brutal killing pattern. As long as it was seen, no matter how far away the viewer was, the eyeball would immediately appear before that person and kill them.”
Li Jun pressed a button, and the lights inside the safety capsule immediately came on. Unexpectedly, even after so many years, the power system here could still generate electricity.
Walking toward an old, bulky monitor in the center, Li Jun crouched down and tried to turn on the antique machine.
“After the first probe flew out of the solar system, it sent back one final message: that eyeball had disappeared, vanished into thin air. But none of the personnel involved in the plan died. Foreign countries always suspected that the eyeball had been observed by some hostile nation and returned to Earth. As the war intensified, no one had the energy to investigate the matter any further, and in the end it was left unresolved.”
At this moment, Liu San asked, “You said just now that there were three exile plans in total. What about the last one?”
The bulky computer screen in front of Li Jun gradually lit up. He had actually managed to start this antique.
He continued, “The ghost exiled in the third plan was very special. At the time, people’s understanding of evil ghosts was still in its early stages, which led to only part of that ghost’s puzzle being sent into space, while the other part remained sealed within the island nation.”
Yang Jian and the others listened silently. This information was not even recorded in headquarters’ files, or perhaps even the captains had no authority to access it. This was a history completely different from what they had once understood, and it could even be called extraordinarily bizarre.
Li Jun connected something shaped like a media player to the bulky computer, then placed the black box inside it.
“During one war, someone deliberately triggered that ghost’s killing pattern in the island nation, causing the portion of the evil ghost’s puzzle in outer space to return to Earth. The instant the puzzle pieces completed each other, the ghost went out of control, resulting in the deaths of at least around two hundred thousand people in the island nation...”
Snowflake-like static lit up on the bulky monitor. It looked as though it could still function. Seeing this, Li Jun stopped speaking and watched the gradually clearing image on the screen together with everyone else.
A voice filled with the feeling of a bygone era came through.
“That’s one small step for me, but one giant leap for mankind.”