"Rumble--!"
Thunder shook the air as Jiang Qiao's fists shot out like a rain of arrows, pounding toward Gui Jizhen.
At the same time.
A burst of laughter suddenly came from the darkness behind Gui Jizhen.
"Hee hee hee--"
The voice was shrill and childish, like a child's laughter, yet carried an indescribable eeriness.
One voice became two, two became a chorus, and in the blink of an eye, the entire street was filled with that laughter.
Gui Jizhen remained standing where he was, but the air within three zhang of him began to twist.
Rings of gray ripples spread out from beneath his feet, as if something were seeping through from another world.
Wherever the ripples passed, the ground began to rot. The bluestone road blackened, cracked, and crumbled as swiftly as rotten wood left for a thousand years, exposing the equally decayed soil beneath.
The withered grass by the roadside instantly turned to ash, while even the moss in the corners of the walls became black pus.
Then.
One.
Two.
Ten.
A hundred.
Countless figures emerged from the gray ripples.
They had no eyes, only eye sockets.
Hardened black blood scabs clung to the edges of the empty sockets, as if they had dried up countless years ago. Their faces bore the same frozen, eerie smiles, as though carved from stone.
"Hee hee hee--"
The laughter came from their mouths, stretched into O shapes.
Creepy.
Gloomy.
Strange.
The laughter overlapped.
Shrill and piercing, like a baby's wail, yet also like a woman's muffled sobs. But when one listened closely, it sounded like neither—just pure, eerie laughter.
Jiang Qiao furrowed his brow slightly. He sensed something wrong.
The laughter drilled into his ears. It neither hurt nor tickled, yet an inexplicable bitterness welled up in his heart.
It felt