Hu Jiu casually observed the pedestrians on the street. There were men and women, young and old, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except that their expressions were somewhat numb and lifeless. There was an indescribable stiffness to their movements and conversations with one another.
He couldn't tell whether anything was wrong with them, because ordinary workers were much the same, if not a little more resentful and miserable.
Just then, Hu Jiu suddenly saw a woman in slender high heels twist her ankle and fall. Her body pitched forward uncontrollably, and her head struck the ground. With a sharp crack, her neck broke.
Dying from a fall on level ground—now that was bad luck.
What surprised Hu Jiu even more was that the woman with the broken neck calmly stood up, brushed the dust off her clothes, and continued walking as if nothing had happened. The other pedestrians nearby also acted as though nothing had occurred.
"...Did you see that?" Hu Jiu asked tentatively.
"What?" Sun Miao turned his head, apparently unaware of the horrifying scene that had just unfolded.
Neither Wang Xianhui nor Ye Songlan spoke. Hu Jiu couldn't help looking at the woman. She seemed to notice his gaze and turned her neck a hundred and eighty degrees, fixing her eyes on him.
A figure suddenly darted out from around a street corner, running wildly with arms and legs flailing, roaring, "I saw it! I saw it! Hahahaha..."
A speeding car sent him flying. He rolled several times across the ground and should have been thoroughly dead.
Yet a moment later, the blood-soaked corpse stood up, none the worse for wear, and kept shouting, "Fake! It's all fake! The person in charge is fake! Su Jinghang deceived everyone! I can't tell them apart! I can't tell them apart! I really can't tell them apart!"
"You saw that this time, right?" Hu Jiu asked again. The anomaly had happened right under their noses. Were they still going to pretend they hadn't seen or heard it?
Sun Miao looked bewildered. "Saw what?"
He followed Hu Jiu's gaze to the crazed pedestrian, then spoke as if he had suddenly understood.
"Mr. Hu, are you talking about that madman? There's too much pressure in society these days. Some people can't handle it, so it's only natural for them to lose their minds and shout things no one else can understand. The person in charge protects this city, yet this man dares to slander him. Mental illness is no excuse for escaping punishment under the law. Someone should have him arrested at once!"
Sun Miao was indignant. He seemed to hold the person in charge in very high regard.
Wang Xianhui and Ye Songlan still said nothing.
"You didn't see him get hit and killed by a car just now? He's covered in blood." Hu Jiu hardly knew where to begin.
"Was he? The car only grazed him. It was just a minor injury." Sun Miao was perfectly serious. Hu Jiu couldn't tell whether he truly hadn't seen it or was simply an excellent actor.
"Mr. Hu, there's no need to make a fuss. As long as Su Jinghang, the person in charge of Yuzhou City, is still here, any trouble will be easily resolved."
Yuzhou City's new person in charge was named Su Jinghang. Hu Jiu silently committed the name to memory.
Sun Miao notified the law enforcement officers, who soon arrived and took the raving madman away.
The group set off again and arrived at a hotel. Sun Miao courteously arranged a room for Hu Jiu, and they agreed to have dinner together that evening.
Hu Jiu checked the room, then took out his Satellite Phone. There was no signal. So far, Yuzhou City seemed to be shrouded in a layer of fog. Hu Jiu's thoughts wandered as he left the hotel and headed straight for the local public security department.
He stopped an officer and showed his credentials, then got straight to the point. "I heard there's a suspected supernatural incident in Yuzhou City, and some out-of-town tourists have mysteriously disappeared?"
The officer flatly denied it. "Don't talk nonsense. Nothing of the sort has happened!"
"Headquarters already knows about it. You'd better not hide anything and cooperate fully with my investigation. Otherwise, if the situation becomes irreparable, neither you nor your colleagues can bear the consequences." Hu Jiu's tone carried an unmistakable threat.
The officer remained expressionless, insisting that the city was harmonious and peaceful and that nothing strange had happened.
Footsteps sounded behind him. Hu Jiu turned to see Ye Songlan. Her face was gloomy. "There's no use asking the officers. They won't answer your questions."
Hu Jiu seized the opening. "Oh? Do you know what happened here, then?"
Ye Songlan brushed aside the bangs on her forehead. "I'm not very sure myself."
"Are you a Ghost Tamer?" Hu Jiu suddenly asked.
Ye Songlan froze for a moment, then nodded. "Headquarters sent you to investigate the supernatural incident. If you want information, come with me."
Hu Jiu obediently followed her. The two came to the central square, where the cultural festival would soon be held. People came and went, yet for some reason the place felt rather lifeless.
"Are you here to investigate too?" Hu Jiu asked softly.
"No. I'm a Ghost Tamer from Yuzhou City." Ye Songlan strode ahead, apparently knowing the surrounding streets like the back of her hand.
"Yue Renchun, the former person in charge of Yuzhou City, is a good friend of mine. I assisted him here and was effectively his deputy. Headquarters accepted the arrangement too. After Yue Renchun disappeared, I contacted Headquarters and tried to become the new person in charge, but Headquarters parachuted in a Ghost Tamer named Su Jinghang to be my superior instead," she said as she walked.
"Although I wasn't very happy, I couldn't defy Headquarters' orders. But there's something seriously wrong with Su Jinghang himself. His condition isn't right, and he's fond of cultivating a personality cult. He often shows off in public, deliberately displaying a ghost's power in crowded places. Thanks to him, quite a few citizens know that ghosts and Ghost Tamers exist, and they practically treat him as a savior! Fortunately, Headquarters keeps a fairly tight grip on the internet, so the news hasn't spread." Ye Songlan was full of resentment.
"Not long ago, a supernatural incident broke out in Yuzhou City. A cloud of pink mist that could throw human consciousness into chaos hung down and drifted around. Su Jinghang immediately began containment efforts and soon announced that the Fierce Ghost had been confined. But with the cultural festival so close, I don't know whether the Fierce Ghost was really confined, and I have even less idea why Su Jinghang attaches so much importance to this festival."
"Two days ago, a tourist disappeared. A missing person case normally wouldn't be a major matter, but the strange thing is that this missing person painted a picture on a wall with blood."
The two crossed the central square and came to a secluded little house. A teapot sat on the table, and a black cloth covered the wall. Ye Songlan placed a hand on the cloth, apparently hesitating over whether to pull it away.
"I suspect Su Jinghang is brewing some kind of conspiracy. He's withheld information from Headquarters. Something terrible has happened in this city!"
Hu Jiu looked at the wall and said, "I'm afraid Headquarters has already noticed something. That's why they sent someone to investigate. By the way, when we were on the road just now, you really didn't see it? The person who was hit by a car but still managed to stand up..."
Ye Songlan frowned and slowly shook her head. "What exactly did you see?"
Hu Jiu's heart suddenly skipped half a beat. "Nothing. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me," he said vaguely.
Ye Songlan didn't press the matter. She pulled away the black cloth covering the wall, and a strange painting appeared before Hu Jiu's eyes.
The lines left by the dried blood were chaotic, without a trace of beauty. The bottom of the picture resembled a quagmire of flesh and blood, with twisted figures flailing deep within it. Countless blood-vessel-like branches spread upward from below, dotted here and there with tiny blossoms of blood.
Hu Jiu raised an eyebrow. He couldn't understand what the painting was meant to convey.
Ye Songlan looked slightly away. "The missing person's name is Bai Mao. There may already be something wrong with his mind. Perhaps he was affected by the supernatural."
Hu Jiu nodded. "So what's your goal?"
"There's something strange about this city. I keep feeling that something isn't right, and I want to find out why. You're an investigator sent by Headquarters, so our goals are aligned for now," Ye Songlan said with a nod.
"That's true." Hu Jiu wore a perfectly measured smile. "What do you need me to do? Do you have more information?"
"With your status, you can openly step in and investigate. Based on the information I've gathered, you can check out these places Bai Mao visited before he disappeared." Ye Songlan sounded as though she were giving an order, then added an explanation. "Su Jinghang has placed restrictions on me, so it's inconvenient for me to move around."
After saying that, Ye Songlan looked absentminded for a moment, then left without another word.
A helper who comes to me of her own accord isn't worth trusting, Hu Jiu murmured to himself.
After leaving the central square, Hu Jiu came to a nearby restaurant. Earlier, he had seen several people gathered there, whispering among themselves. Their gazes were scrutinizing and suspicious, and they looked over everyone who passed by.
Hu Jiu found a seat beside them, ordered some food, and took the opportunity to listen in on their conversation.
"Ahem, ahem..." The occasional coughs were grating, and they weren't all coming from the same person. Almost everyone coughed from time to time, as if they had caught an infectious disease.
Hu Jiu looked around and noticed that everyone eating seemed to cough as though they were choking. The few people at the neighboring table who had ordered food but hadn't touched it, however, seemed perfectly normal.
They watched Hu Jiu pick up his chopsticks, looking as though they wanted to speak but holding back. Only when he picked up a mouthful of food and brought it to his lips could they no longer resist lowering their voices and saying, "Don't eat it!"
"What's wrong?" Hu Jiu asked.
"The food... might not be quite right." The group stammered, unable to explain why.
"Did they put gutter oil in it?" Hu Jiu asked quietly.
"No, no." Their eyes darted about.
Hu Jiu looked thoughtful. "Do you know about the person who disappeared earlier and painted a picture in blood?"
"You know about that?" one of them exclaimed, then instinctively clamped his mouth shut.
"Do you have inside information? I'm here to investigate. If you can provide useful leads, I'll pay you a substantial informant's fee." Hu Jiu moved over to their table and spoke with a smile.
"..." The group exchanged glances. Since there was money to be made, there was no need to hesitate. It wasn't a secret to begin with, anyway.
"The missing person's name is Bai Mao. A lot of people know something happened to him. Actually, he isn't the only one who's disappeared. There's something wrong with this city, but someone warned us not to talk about it," one of them said carefully.
"Who warned you?" Hu Jiu pressed.
"A Ghost Tamer!" As the words fell, a shadow passed over their faces.
Hu Jiu lowered his eyes. "You all know Ghost Tamers exist?"
"That guy surnamed Su comes out to show off every few days. Who doesn't know him?" Their voices carried both disdain and apprehension.
Hu Jiu tapped his fingers lightly on the table. "Things aren't normal here. It might be dangerous. Why don't you leave?"
"That's right. Why don't we leave?" They hesitated for a moment, then came to a sudden realization and hurriedly stood up. But they sat back down again and slammed their heads against the table with loud bangs. Blood spattered from the blows, yet they still didn't stop.
The other people in the restaurant acted as though they had seen and heard nothing, letting the group hurt themselves. Hu Jiu casually held one of them down. Seeing that he couldn't communicate at all, Hu Jiu picked up his chopsticks and stuffed the food on the table into his mouth.
First, he would test whether there was anything wrong with the food here.
With Hu Jiu's help, the Lucky One he had selected polished off all the food on the plate.
"Cough, cough, cough..." He doubled over, coughing violently as though he wanted to vomit up his internal organs. Specks of bright red seeped from the corners of his mouth, mixed with a little dark filth.
It took quite a while for his coughing to ease, and the filth at the corners of his mouth actually flowed back inside!
Hu Jiu stared at him, then suddenly punched him hard in the stomach twice!
Retch—
The blows made him vomit.
A blackish-brown mass of sludge streaked with blood gushed from his mouth.
Hu Jiu covered his nose and hurriedly backed away. Seeing the lump of sludge slowly wriggle, he leaned in for a closer examination. It seemed to contain a lump of flesh, but on closer inspection it looked like a woody growth on a tree trunk. It was swollen and bulging, as though something were gestating inside.
"There really is something wrong with the food. Is it only this restaurant's food, or is there something wrong with the food throughout the city?"
"Is it contamination caused by the supernatural? Is the person in charge of Yuzhou City deliberately turning a blind eye to the anomalies, or is he the mastermind himself?" Hu Jiu pondered as he walked out of the restaurant. "I'm a big villain who stirs up trouble in my own city. Could Su Jinghang be a fellow practitioner?"
At that thought, Hu Jiu narrowed his eyes. As a villain, he wished everyone else in the world were a good person. He didn't need anyone competing with him for the villain's ecological niche. One parasite in Headquarters was enough!
Hu Jiu wandered along the streets of Yuzhou City, stopping here and there. Occasionally, some warmhearted citizens volunteered themselves to help him verify the safety of the ingredients.
Every sample in his spot check had a problem.
After nightfall, Hu Jiu stood Sun Miao up and slowly made his way toward Su Jinghang's residence.
At some unknown point, a thin mist had risen in the air. Only a few stars dotted the dark night sky, and the moon was hidden deep within the clouds. The streets were brightly lit and bustling with people. There were plenty of roadside vendors, and faint, mournful music echoed in Hu Jiu's ears, though he couldn't find its source.
Hu Jiu walked among them, brushing past pedestrians. All the joy belonged to other people. But he noticed that numbness lurked in the eyes of those smiling passersby, as though they were merely playing along with a performance.
Su Jinghang's home was a mansion. When Hu Jiu arrived, he saw Ye Songlan outside.
She was dressed the same as she had been during the day. As soon as she saw Hu Jiu, she demanded, "What are you doing here?"
"Visiting Su Jinghang," Hu Jiu said as though it were only natural. "He's the person in charge of Yuzhou City, and I'm the investigator sent by Headquarters. One way or another, I have to meet him."
"It's dangerous here, especially at night," Ye Songlan warned.
The dim yellow streetlights illuminated the ground. The plants beside the greenbelt were lush, and all was silent.
It was too quiet.
"Don't wander around," Ye Songlan added, gesturing for Hu Jiu to follow her.
Hu Jiu saw that the farther in they went, the denser the plants became, like wildly growing weeds.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
Ye Songlan didn't answer. The two walked on in silence, and something strange happened. Su Jinghang's residence was clearly close at hand, but after they had walked for quite a while, the distance seemed unchanged, as though they had been walking in place.
A ghost wall?
A rustling came from behind them. Hu Jiu turned and saw a flash of pink vanish in an instant beneath the night sky. The darkness around them grew deeper, and he could faintly hear unintelligible murmurs by his ears. Amid the noisy confusion was a trace of sorrow, like the whispers of invisible people,
sending a chill down his spine.
The murmurs lasted a few seconds. When they disappeared, Hu Jiu hurriedly turned back. All he could see was the road beneath his feet. Darkness surrounded him, so deep that he couldn't see his own hand before his face.
"Ye Songlan?" Hu Jiu called softly, but there was no response. He looked around and could still roughly make out the directions.
Ignoring Ye Songlan's disappearance, he continued forward. The buildings within sight seemed to be spattered with patches of mud, though he didn't know how it had splashed onto them.
Hu Jiu walked for quite a while through the boundless darkness and silence, but he still didn't reach the end. He crouched down and made a fairly conspicuous circular mark on the ground.
After that, he observed his surroundings carefully with every step. About three minutes later, he stopped. He had spotted the mark he had just made, and there was another symbol beside the circle.
Someone found my mark. There's someone else on this road. Is it Ye Songlan, or something else? Hu Jiu pondered, then turned and walked in the opposite direction.
As soon as he turned, he caught sight of a figure not far away. It was a young man in a plaid shirt, with very short hair and a deathly pale face. He walked with mechanical steps.
"Hello?" Hu Jiu greeted him politely.
The man said nothing. He walked along the road like a puppet and soon disappeared into the darkness.
Hu Jiu walked in the opposite direction for a few minutes and, sure enough, soon saw the circular mark again. This road seemed to be a Möbius strip with no way out.
Did I wander into a Ghost Domain? Hu Jiu thought for a while. Since neither going forward nor going back worked, could he get off the road by going left or right?
He tentatively stepped to the left. As soon as he did, he dimly saw that the paving stones were covered in shocking scratch marks, seemingly gouged out by human fingers.
He could imagine that someone might once have been lost on this road, going around and around until they were exhausted and driven out of their mind, then falling to the ground and clawing at it in defiance...
The darkness around him grew thicker and thicker. Hu Jiu promptly cut off his imaginings and continued in that direction. Suddenly, he stepped on a hard, protruding object. It had a brittle texture.
He looked down and saw a shattered mask.
"A White Mask?" Hu Jiu recognized it as a supernatural item developed by Headquarters. It had already been used.
"Who dropped it here?" Hu Jiu wondered as he looked around. A figure was rapidly approaching him along the dark road.
It was Ye Songlan. She looked a little disheveled.
"How did you disappear while we were walking?" Hu Jiu asked calmly.
"There's a ghost!" Ye Songlan's expression was grim. "This used to be Yue Renchun's territory. After Su Jinghang took it over, this ghost road, which was supposed to guard the house and grounds, underwent an unknown change. The old way of getting through no longer works."
"I see." Hu Jiu looked thoughtful. "I saw a stranger on the road just now. He didn't respond when I called out to him. I don't know whether he was alive or dead."
"Maybe he wandered in here by accident." Ye Songlan seemed lost in recollection. "Yue Renchun is an exceptionally capable Ghost Tamer. He has confined many Fierce Ghosts. The last time he went out on a classified mission, he merely disappeared; his death hasn't even been confirmed. Yet Headquarters couldn't wait to send someone to replace him and take over his property. Their greed is downright ugly."
Hu Jiu raised an eyebrow. It seemed Ye Songlan deeply resented Headquarters, though if she really was a good friend of Yue Renchun's, that was a normal reaction.
"Yue Renchun is remarkable. He protects Yuzhou City while bearing pressure ordinary people can hardly imagine. Back then, I was caught up in a supernatural incident, and he rescued me himself. Later, I became a Ghost Tamer. I don't seek fame or fortune; I only want to become someone like him!" When she spoke of Yue Renchun, Ye Songlan's eyes were full of admiration.
Hu Jiu calmly listened to her awkwardly shower him with praise. To be honest, he felt that Yue Renchun's handsome face accounted for at least half of Ye Songlan's reverence for him.
"So what do you want to do now?" Hu Jiu asked.
"There are many Fierce Ghosts in Yue Renchun's home that haven't been handed over. I wanted to guard them for him, but Su Jinghang was too impatient, conceited, and arrogant. I suspect that after he occupied this place, he accidentally triggered a trap Yue Renchun had set in advance and released a terrifying Fierce Ghost. That's why everything in this city is so strange." Ye Songlan sighed. "Sun Miao is a lackey who manages Su Jinghang's businesses. Those two are in league with each other, and neither is any good!"
With Ye Songlan leading the way, they finally escaped the looping road, though Hu Jiu didn't know what method she had used. The darkness gradually dispersed, and the mansion's front gate lay ahead.
Hu Jiu followed Ye Songlan and asked, "Are we just going to walk in openly like this?"
Ye Songlan nodded. "Don't worry. I know this place better."
They pushed the door open. The mansion was silent and empty, but something seemed to be lurking in the shadows in the corners, and Hu Jiu inexplicably felt as though he were being watched.
"It doesn't look like anyone takes care of this place at all." Hu Jiu pointed at the stains covering the floor. They seemed to be dried muddy water, and they gave off an unpleasant smell.
Ye Songlan was just about to say something when she suddenly looked absentminded, as though she had remembered something. She searched everywhere with practiced familiarity.
She came back empty-handed.
Ye Songlan's face darkened. It was one thing for the ghosts and supernatural items Yue Renchun had collected that had been left in plain sight to be gone, but how were the ones hidden in secret places gone too? No one knew the layout of the mansion better than she did. Su Jinghang was a newcomer; there was no way he could have found Yue Renchun's hiding places in such a short time!
Watching the somewhat furious Ye Songlan, Hu Jiu curled his lips slightly. The way she was acting was a little out of character!
After searching for a long time without finding any useful clues, the two ultimately had no choice but to leave.
It was already late at night. Normally, most people, including the officers, should have finished work and gone home to rest. But when Hu Jiu passed the local public security office, he saw a shocking sight.
Uniformed officers stood in neat rows outside the police station, their eyes closed and their bodies motionless. They were solemn and dignified, utterly lifeless.
They were all dead.
It was unknown when they had died. A thin layer of dust covered their bodies, so they should have been dead for some time, yet there were no signs of decomposition.
Hu Jiu was puzzled. "The officers are all dead, so who was patrolling the city earlier?"
Ye Songlan looked absentminded. "What nonsense are you talking about?"
"You can't see them?" Hu Jiu was shocked.
"Oh no!"
A torrent of mud suddenly poured from the corpse's mouth and nose, accompanied by a faint pink mist. One glance at it was enough to give him an inexplicable sense of danger.
It was strange enough that the dead had not decomposed. As far as Hu Jiu's scant knowledge of biology went, a person's immune system collapsed after death, allowing microorganisms to multiply rapidly. In an environment like Yuzhou City, where the temperature and humidity were both favorable, the corpses should have long since become unrecognizable.
Yet the corpses before him were completely intact, with no signs of decay. They did not even smell of death.
The only explanation Hu Jiu could think of was that the supernatural was at work.
The mud and spreading pink mist moved without wind, expanding toward Hu Jiu and Ye Songlan.
Hu Jiu immediately ran. Ye Songlan did not know why, but she did not think Hu Jiu was acting without reason, so she ran with him.
Beneath the night sky, the mist swirled, rising and falling as if breathing, like a ferocious beast. Ye Songlan seemed oblivious to it, coughing only a few times. She was no fool, though; even if she could not see it, she could sense that something was wrong.
The pink mist was not damp. Instead, it had a distinctly gritty texture, like sand and dust. As Ye Songlan breathed, she felt foreign matter enter her throat and lungs, causing a prickling itch and a burning sensation. The tiny particles blocked her alveoli and fused with the fluids in her body, forming muddy obstructions.
Ye Songlan's chest felt tight, and she coughed several more times. Her eyes turned so red from the strain that they looked ready to bleed. She glanced at Hu Jiu beside her. He was perfectly fine, except that many wide strips of white cloth had suddenly descended from midair and wrapped him up like a mummy, leaving only his eyes exposed. His gaze was grave.
"Cough, cough, cough..." Ye Songlan wanted to ask something, but she could not stop coughing. The force of it seemed enough to tear her windpipe apart.
Once he was out of the mist, Hu Jiu turned to look. Ye Songlan was already on the ground, curled into a ball, her back muscles twitching uncontrollably. Mud flowed from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
"What on earth is going on?" Hu Jiu used the White Sash's supernatural power to ward off the mist around him, recalling the bizarre scenes he had witnessed since arriving in the city. The police officers were all dead, and the judicial and administrative institutions might already have been paralyzed. Normally, the city should have descended into chaos long ago.
No, perhaps all of Yuzhou City had already fallen. The citizens on the streets who seemed so out of place and the ever-spreading mist both spoke of an unimaginable transformation that had overtaken the city.
What kind of terrifying power could affect an entire city?
While Hu Jiu's imagination ran wild with speculation, Ye Songlan's coughing turned into vomiting. She struggled to her feet, bent over, and spat out a foul-smelling mass of filth.
It was the size of a palm and wriggled incessantly. It was not an internal organ, but one of the woody tumors Hu Jiu had seen before. Immediately afterward, Ye Songlan vomited up a second and a third...
They were sticky, slimy, and utterly revolting.
Hu Jiu watched in horror as the white-haired girl before him vomited up an amount of mud comparable to her own weight. Only after a long while did she settle down.
When Ye Songlan looked up again, she saw Hu Jiu suddenly take several steps back and assume a disgusted, wary posture. She asked impatiently, "Why are you backing away?"
"Are you all right?" Hu Jiu asked in a low voice, staring at her with some wariness.
Ye Songlan glared at him. "You're the one who's not all right! Why did you wrap yourself up like a zongzi?"
Hu Jiu waved a hand. "This is the ghost I control. What happened to you just now?"
"Don't worry. Maybe I ate something bad," Ye Songlan explained seriously.
She calls that eating something bad? Hu Jiu glanced at the mud still wriggling on the ground, his expression like that of the old man on the subway squinting at a phone.
"By the way, what was that about just now? Why did you suddenly run?" Ye Songlan pressed.
Hu Jiu said slowly, "From what I can see, there are anomalies everywhere in this city, but you can't see any of them. I suspect there's something wrong with your perception."
Cold sweat immediately broke out on Ye Songlan's forehead. She thought for a few seconds. "Is it possible that your perception is the one with a problem, and everything looks abnormal to you?"
Impossible. Absolutely impossible! Hu Jiu firmly believed he could not be affected.
Ye Songlan asked, "First, tell me what you saw."
"Wriggling mud, spreading mist, a lot of dead police officers, and a passerby who was hit and badly injured but still got up as if nothing had happened..." Hu Jiu answered succinctly.
The way Ye Songlan looked at him grew increasingly odd. "According to you, there's something wrong with the whole city. That would make it at least an A-rank supernatural incident. How is that possible?"
Hu Jiu put away the White Sash. "Maybe I really was contaminated by something supernatural and saw things wrong."
Ye Songlan thought so too, and offered Hu Jiu a few words of comfort.
"We didn't learn much tonight. Let's head back first. You should be able to meet Su Jinghang at the cultural festival tomorrow. You can sound him out."
Hu Jiu nodded, and the two retraced their steps.
When they returned to the hotel, Hu Jiu's eyes widened slightly. He glanced at Ye Songlan, but her expression did not change.
Hu Jiu turned his gaze toward the hotel reception desk. Standing there was a humanoid figure constructed and stitched together from countless masses of mud, with human flesh and dirty clothes covering the outside. Between its muddy seams, a pair of cloudy, bloodshot eyes looked at him.
Hu Jiu looked away, avoiding those eyes.
"Sir, how may I help you?" the monster asked respectfully. Its voice was shrill and piercing, unlike anything a human could produce, and unbearable to hear.
Crucially, it did not seem to know it was a monster. It still perceived itself as human and lived like one. Other people did not seem able to see anything abnormal about it either, treating it as nothing more than a hotel receptionist.
Hu Jiu ignored the mud monster. He was considering a question: if the monster did not know it was a monster, could everyone in this city...
With that doubt in mind, Hu Jiu headed upstairs. Ye Songlan walked shoulder to shoulder with him, and, afraid he might misunderstand, explained, "I'm staying in the room next to yours."
As they rounded the stairwell corner, Sun Miao and Wang Xianhui came toward them.
"Mr. Hu, you and Miss Ye..." Sun Miao made no mention of having been stood up after they had arranged to have dinner together that evening. His words carried a hint of suggestiveness.
"We ran into each other by chance," Ye Songlan said calmly.
In Hu Jiu's view, a festering wound stretched across Wang Xianhui's neck, deep enough to expose bone, with rotting flesh and blood mixed with mud. Sun Miao looked relatively normal on the surface, except that countless maggots seemed to be crawling slowly beneath the skin of his face, inspiring disgust at the sight.
Sun Miao seemed to be trying to sound something out. Oblivious to the situation, he stopped Hu Jiu and Ye Songlan to exchange pleasantries. His tone was strange, echoing through the silent corridor like the call of an evil god. The lights dimmed slightly in response, as though some abnormal force had bound the light. The boundary between the illuminated area and the darkness gradually blurred, as if it might be swallowed at any moment.
Hu Jiu gave a few perfunctory replies and sent Sun Miao on his way.
Wang Xianhui followed close behind Sun Miao. The wound on her neck continued to worsen, and fine cracks appeared in the skin of her face, with flesh, blood, and mud beneath them.
Back in his room, Hu Jiu flopped onto the bed and thought over everything he had encountered that day.
Wang Xianhui had only stayed in this city for a few days, yet she had already turned into that ghastly sight. As for the local residents, he feared they had long since... become beyond saving!
Headquarters had sent Hu Jiu alone to investigate. They had somewhat underestimated the situation here.