Ghost

After Priest Orlando left, Ning Xiuyuan carried his lantern and began patrolling the church.

Francis Church was enormous, and its grandeur lay in its towering height!

The main tower was estimated to be over a hundred meters tall, like a sharp sword thrusting straight into the heavens. Standing within it made a person seem as insignificant as an ant, all the more emphasizing the greatness of the gods!

At night, forty-nine candles could barely illuminate the lower level. Looking up, the stained-glass windows that had been so awe-inspiring by day were now completely swallowed by darkness.

Ning Xiuyuan had once heard the priests discussing a proposal to install the newly emerging electric lights.

However, the proposal had been rejected by the higher-ups.

Before, Ning Xiuyuan had thought it was merely the higher-ups being conservative. Now that he had come into contact with supernatural powers, he felt the matter was probably not so simple.

Still, no matter what, he needed to increase his own value as quickly as possible.

What if the higher-ups were persuaded? Wouldn't he, the Lamp Keeper, lose his job?

With that thought in mind, Ning Xiuyuan finished patrolling the church and prepared to return to the stable dormitory.

Come to think of it, back on Earth, if he knew someone had just died where he lived, he would not have dared walk back there in the middle of the night even with ten thousand times the courage.

But after experiencing so many bizarre things, the fact that someone had died there no longer stirred the slightest ripple in him.

Compared with the stable where someone had died, the church's oppressive emptiness made him even more uncomfortable.

Pushing open the church doors and looking at the pitch-black street, Ning Xiuyuan's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

I'm not going to walk into darkness again, am I?

Ning Xiuyuan stood before the door, hesitating for a long while. Like a child afraid of the dark, he finally tightened his grip on the lantern handle, gritted his teeth, and stepped out.

If it was a blessing, it was not a disaster. If it was a disaster, he could not avoid it.

The journey was safe.

Ning Xiuyuan entered the stable without incident.

Only two rooms in the groom's quarters still had dim candlelight, which made Ning Xiuyuan feel a little wistful.

He glanced at the stable, then turned and returned to the dormitory on the second floor.

He entered his room, locked the door, and set down the lantern.

Ning Xiuyuan sat on the hard cot, staring blankly at the lantern.

He was hesitating over whether to consume the supernatural characteristic left behind by the bird-beaked monster.

From what Bishop Byron and Priest Orlando had told him, the more supernatural characteristics one consumed, the greater the risk of losing control.

Yet after consuming the Disease Remover, aside from seeing and hearing the former owner's final moments at the beginning, he had experienced no further illusions, much less the screams Orlando had mentioned.

Even when the Horse-Head Tiger attacked him and nearly killed him, he had shown no signs of losing control. What was going on?

Could it be that the spiritual imprint on his supernatural characteristic was not very strong?

Or was he simply exceptionally gifted?

But Lynn had consumed only one Beast Listener. Despite having already integrated quite a bit of it, he had still lost control for unknown reasons and turned into a mutated beast.

Would he really be fine if he consumed a second one right after taking the first?

"Phew..."

After a long time, Ning Xiuyuan let out a breath.

He decided to refrain from consuming it for now.

His life experience on Earth told him that he was not some chosen child of fortune. Just because he showed no signs of losing control now did not mean he never would.

His life was his own. It was better to be cautious.

Having made up his mind, Ning Xiuyuan lay down and carefully sensed the Heart of the Beast that Lynn had gifted him through the horse.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak!"

Several rats crawled out of the corner. Boldly following the cracks in the wall, they climbed onto the hard cot, ran to his hand, and lightly touched the back of it with their whiskers.

Not long afterward, they left one by one.

"Is the limit six?"

Ning Xiuyuan closed his eyes, yet he saw six extremely abstract images. Each was an irregular rectangle, narrow in the middle and broad on both sides.

—Ning Xiuyuan had actually taken control of the rats and entered their field of vision.

A rat's vision was incredibly broad, reaching 270 degrees and even allowing it to see behind itself. But rats were color-blind and severely nearsighted.

It seemed of little use, but he could enhance it with his own vision by expending spirituality.

"So this is the Heart of the Beast?"

Ning Xiuyuan was astonished. The Heart of the Beast allowed him to summon nearby animals, communicate with them simply, and control their actions to a limited extent.

The ability was not particularly bizarre, but it was undoubtedly highly practical for probing danger and clearing the fog of the unknown!

Now interested, Ning Xiuyuan controlled the rats to explore every corner of the groom's quarters.

For the first time, he discovered how interconnected the Rat Tunnels were. They ran underground, through walls, inside wardrobes—everywhere.

Among them, the Rat Tunnels around Lynn's dormitory were the densest.

There was no need to guess. Lynn must have controlled rats to dig those passageways in his spare time.

Thinking of Lynn, Ning Xiuyuan's heart stirred. He decided to use the rats to search Lynn's residence and see whether he could find anything.

Although Lynn's room had already been searched by the church, a search from a rat's perspective might reveal something unexpected.

The thought had barely formed.

"Pfft!"

One rat was suddenly attacked. It seemed to fall into an icy abyss as bone-deep cold spread through its body. Its heart convulsed, its muscles stiffened with cold, and the agony of impending death surged wildly through Ning Xiuyuan's soul via the Heart of the Beast, nearly making him cry out in pain.

But the images sent by the other rats forced him to hold back the cry.

Inside Lynn's bedroom, a ghost had appeared!

Yes, a ghost.

A ghost whose body was translucent, its lower half shrouded in mist.

The ghost coldly looked toward the exit of the Rat Tunnel in the ceiling. Its gaze flashed like lightning before suddenly sweeping over the other rats.

"Pfft! Pfft!"

One rat after another suffered mysterious attacks. Ning Xiuyuan only had time to sever his connection to one before the immense pain left cold sweat beading on his forehead.

Of the six rats, four were in Lynn's room. Only one escaped death because it had hidden in the shadows beneath the bed.

Of the attacked rats, two had been on the ceiling, while one was in a corner by the wall.

"A ghost? Is this the ghost Orlando mentioned?"

Ning Xiuyuan's heart shook violently.

Why would a ghost appear in Lynn's room?

Could Lynn's death truly have been an accident?

And what should I do now?

Pretend I had something to do and leave, or keep feigning sleep?

A string of choices flashed through Ning Xiuyuan's mind. In an instant, he made his decision.

He hurriedly took off his coat and pretended to be asleep. At the same time, he released control over the last rat in Lynn's room, retaining only their shared vision.

Freed from his control, the rat squeaked as it crawled out from beneath the bed, climbed up the table leg, and headed toward Lynn's desk.

At that moment, there were some bread crumbs piled in an ashtray on the desk.

The ghost floating in the air watched the rat coldly for a long time. Only after it had eaten its fill and crawled into the Rat Tunnel did the ghost suddenly attack and kill it.

The scene filled Ning Xiuyuan with a strange feeling.

The earlier rats had been killed without hesitation. Why had the last one been allowed to enter the Rat Tunnel before it was killed?

Was it to hide the corpse and conceal the crime scene?

As he pondered this, Ning Xiuyuan's spiritual intuition began frantically warning him.

In a fleeting glimpse, the rat hidden in his room saw half a translucent eyeball slowly seeping from the ceiling.

If Ning Xiuyuan had not been maintaining the visual enhancement all along, he likely would never have noticed that half-translucent eyeball at all.

At that moment, its pupil was slowly turning as it scanned the room.

"Calm down, hide my presence... No, I can't do that. It's not like I'm an Oscar-winning actor..."

Nervousness drowned Ning Xiuyuan. The harder he tried to act as though nothing was wrong, the more cold sweat poured from his forehead, while his entire body grew unbearably hot.

At that critical moment, Ning Xiuyuan had a flash of inspiration. He reached up to scratch his collar, then lifted the shirt over his belly, looking unbearably overheated as he muttered, "Fucking hot."

He said it in Chinese.

The ghostly eyeball observed him for a long while before finally disappearing.

Yet Ning Xiuyuan did not dare move recklessly. Even if he had never eaten pork, he had seen pigs run; sudden return attacks were far too common in films and comics.

So he patiently maintained the appearance of deep sleep until the latter half of the night, when he suddenly woke with a jolt.

"Nervously," he leaned against the window and checked the sky. Muttering a few complaints, he got dressed, picked up his lantern, and headed for the church.

PS: In the earlier text, "priest" has been changed to "father," as the latter is slightly more gender-neutral.