This was a scene the human mind could never have imagined.
It was abstract, bizarre, inexplicable, yet steeped in terror, especially as those footsteps closed in behind the Stone Pillar.
Directly opposite him, Hou Guisheng could see a headless version of himself, holding the ghost-detecting candle without moving. They faced each other.
The ghosts were already closing in.
The heads densely embedded in the third Stone Pillar all belonged to Ruru at various ages across different timelines. He was mixed in among them, an impostor hiding in the crowd.
Above, below, to his left, to his right, beside him... heads that were not his pressed in from every direction.
There were far too many human-head mushrooms here, so many that Hou Guisheng began to feel short of breath, even though his head was inside the wall and he should not have needed to breathe at all.
That bizarre sensation persisted until a figure quietly appeared beside him.
More precisely, beside the headless version of himself directly opposite him.
The moment Hou Guisheng saw the figure, a sense of Just as I thought rose in his "heart."
The newcomer was thin and short, her hands shriveled, little more than skin over bone. She looked chronically malnourished.
The school uniform she wore, washed until it had faded, did not quite fit and hung loosely on her. In this sealed space without a breath of wind, its hem kept fluttering.
It really was Ruru...
The Ruru who had arrived was in exactly the same state as Hou Guisheng. She too had no head, because hers was also embedded in the wall. She was a headless monster that would not die.
This was only the beginning.
Then came a second headless Ruru, a third, a fourth... pushing and jostling, crowding together. Dozens of figures