However, just as Zhang Han was about to withdraw—
The shrill laughter that had been circling beside everyone’s ears suddenly swelled, as though someone were pressing a loudspeaker against their eardrums and screaming madly, both crying and laughing.
Everyone immediately turned to look. It was Tong Qian, standing there with her head lowered, her expression impossible to see.
But those two eerie faces, hanging clearly on either side of her head, were letting out those horrifying sounds of laughter and weeping.
And at her feet, a corpse whose face was covered by half a sheet of yellowed old newspaper lay there silently.
“Tong Qian! Don’t do anything stupid!”
Zhang Han immediately shouted to stop her. With one glance, he had guessed what Tong Qian intended to do, but after already losing one teammate, he absolutely would not allow anyone else to die.
“I know.”
Tong Qian’s voice was very calm now, as if she had prepared herself for a decision she should have made long ago.
“The person Yang Jian wanted to save was never me...”
She raised her head and looked at Zhang Han.
“You all think I’m a burden, don’t you? A saint complex, a hopeless do-gooder...”
“I know. I know. I’m exactly that kind of person, but I—”
Her gaze slowly swept over everyone, a complicated emotion flashing through her eyes. Suddenly, she roared, as if releasing all the emotions she had suppressed until now.
“But I just hope that, in this world of despair, I can save those who are in despair!”
Then her voice seemed to deflate, and she murmured softly:
“Even if I can only emit the faintest sliver of light, that would be enough...”
Perhaps it was the revolving lantern of memories before death, but Tong Qian’s thoughts drifted back to a conversation she once had with Yang Jian.
“So, this body of mine originally belonged to your classmate?”
Tong Qian stood in the room holding a stack of records, her gaze complicated.
“That’s right.”
A scarlet eyeball slowly turned. Yang Jian was reading a book: Research and Exploration of Malevolent Ghosts.
“The one I intended to save was Zhao Lei. Unfortunately, his face couldn’t be found.”
Yang Jian raised his head and glanced at Tong Qian, his tone still flat.
“Your existence was merely an attempt I made with a malevolent ghost, so you shouldn’t hold too many expectations of me.”
After hearing this, Tong Qian froze for a moment and stood there in silence.
Yang Jian paid her no further attention and continued quietly reading the book before him.
After a long while, Tong Qian spoke.
“That’s right... Why would you choose to save me...”
Tong Qian looked at the record report in her hands, a report she had already read more than a dozen times. Whether in sensitivity toward malevolent ghosts, courage, or even boldness in exploring the supernatural, she was far inferior to the man named Zhao Lei in the records.
“If Zhao Lei’s face were found now, would you choose to kill me and save him?”
Yang Jian did not even lift his eyelids as he answered very straightforwardly, “No.”
“Why?! Clearly—”
“Your existence has already become a fact. I won’t casually kill someone for the sake of a dead man. Not to mention that his face is nowhere to be found now; even if it were found, I would only choose some other method to save him.”
Tong Qian opened her mouth, but did not know what else she could say. Yang Jian had always been like this. He would never deprive someone of their right to live just because another person was more beneficial to him.
To Yang Jian, whether someone lived or died, he had never cared. Instead, he handed the right to choose over to them.
Tong Qian stood there just like that, thinking for a very long time. In the room, there was only the sound of Yang Jian turning the pages of his book.
In the end, she took the records and left in silence.
Tong Qian crouched down and reached out, gently peeling the newspaper off the corpse’s face.
The laughter and crying throughout the entire space abruptly intensified, actually shaking the surrounding objects until they began trembling along with it.
Without the slightest hesitation, she covered her own face with the newspaper.
“Wait!”
Zhang Han’s eyes looked as if they would split apart. His voice was nearly hoarse as he reached out, wanting to stop Tong Qian, but his movements were restricted by the frantically reverberating sound. He stood rigidly in place, unable to move.
Just as the newspaper was about to completely cover her face, Tong Qian’s voice rang out once more. Her eyes could still faintly be seen, as if she were speaking to Zhang Han, and yet also as if she were speaking for another person to hear.
“Rescue Xiong Wenwen. Live on. You must live on...”
Then her voice came to an abrupt halt.
In an instant, all the laughter and crying suddenly ceased.
The entire world fell into a brief silence. At that moment, even the air seemed to have frozen.
Then, a man’s face—blurred and twisted—slowly emerged from the newspaper.
Strange. Terrifying.
The instant the sound stopped, Zhang Han rushed in front of Tong Qian. His hands clamped tightly onto the newspaper as he tore at it with all his strength.
“It won’t come off?!”
This incomplete newspaper seemed to have taken root in Tong Qian’s face. It clung stubbornly to her skin, actually beginning to gradually merge with it.
“Help!”
Zhang Han suddenly turned his head and looked at Liu San and Cao Yang.
Liu San, however, was staring intently at those three strange faces.
“Don’t waste your effort. Can’t you tell she’s killing herself? You’d be better off thinking about how to make that newspaper regain consciousness.”
Liu San’s judgment was extremely sharp. The moment another face appeared on the newspaper, he had confirmed that the consciousness of another living person still existed within it.
After speaking, Liu San abruptly reached out and thrust his hand into the robot’s chest cavity.
Inside the hollow machinery, beneath the place originally covered by the quilt, a pool of sinister and eerie yellow-brown corpse water had gathered without dispersing, flowing among the mechanical components.
Liu San grabbed hard and directly tore the corpse water out along with the mechanical parts.
Looking at the murky corpse water in his hand, Liu San frowned slightly. This thing had actually given him, for a brief instant, the illusion of facing Ghost Lake.
“Hope it works...”
Just then, the faint bluish-purple around them suddenly surged. It became viscous, as if it had been splashed outward, rapidly covering the surroundings. The entire world was dyed in a layer of bluish-purple.
Dull. Oppressive. The cold, rotten stench of corpses in the air was spreading rapidly.
Inside that photograph, the outline of the corpse holding Xiong Wenwen quickly became blurred and transparent.
The supernatural was falling out of balance...
A thin, bleak white fog spread. On the ground, grave soil was slowly burying the unconscious Huang Ziya. Black hair tangled with scraps of flesh was drilling into her body through her ears, nose, and mouth.
Feng Quan was crouched with difficulty at the side, his condition already at its limit as well.
Just that instant of attack earlier had caused both of their conditions to deteriorate sharply.
Liu San looked around and said,
“You need to hurry. I don’t care either way, but you people are going to die here.”
Cao Yang had already appeared beside Zhang Han with the corpse water in hand.
“What do we do?”
Liu San spread both hands.
“I don’t know. But Wang Xiaoming soaked that quilt directly in corpse water, so why don’t you just pour it on?”
After hearing this, Zhang Han and Cao Yang both suddenly fixed their eyes on Liu San at the same time, their gazes looking as if they wanted to eat him alive.
“Don’t look at me like that. Anything supernatural is extremely dangerous. These two faces are already nearly perfect. I can only try my best to help. If she ends up dead, don’t blame me.”