First Encounter with a Paper Effigy in Reality

Before he knew it, midnight had arrived.

The night was deep and dark.

Looking out the window, only a few distant streetlights gave off tiny points of light, like fireflies in the darkness.

Jiang Qiao did not witness the "lively" scene he had imagined.

The corridor outside remained silent.

The guests the old woman had said had reserved rooms never appeared either.

"If the malevolent ghosts won't come looking for me, then I'll go looking for them."

Holding his selfie stick, Jiang Qiao opened the door and walked out.

The light from the room shone on Jiang Qiao, casting a long shadow across the corridor.

He first went to the room where someone had peeked out through the door earlier.

"Open up. Your delivery's here."

There was no sound from inside.

Bang!

A tremendous crash shook the entire inn.

Jiang Qiao kicked the door open.

The room's layout was not much different from the one next door, but there was no one inside now.

It seemed that the owners of those pairs of eyes had already left.

"Something's wrong!"

Although Jiang Qiao saw no malevolent ghosts through his gray vision, he noticed an extra wardrobe beside the bed.

Under normal vision, there was nothing there.

Jiang Qiao cautiously approached, lightning flickering in his hand.

Click.

With a soft sound, he pulled open the wardrobe door.

"Fuck!"

At the sight inside the wardrobe, Jiang Qiao's pupils contracted, and goosebumps rose all over his body.

The wardrobe was packed with dozens of eyeballs!

Some were shriveled, some were bright, and some still had blood-dripping veins attached, as if they had just been plucked out.

Several mummified corpses were placed beside the eyeballs.

As Jiang Qiao opened the wardrobe, the eyeballs seemed to be startled and began bouncing in unison.

"Bounce my ass!"

Overwhelmed by his trypophobia, Jiang Qiao sent a bolt of lightning straight at them.

Sizzle!

In an instant, all the eyeballs turned to ash.

These eyeballs were too weak and did not bring Jiang Qiao much benefit.

"What a pity. The real me still can't accept using malevolent ghosts as food."

"Otherwise, turning these eyeballs into a dish and eating them would give me a much better absorption rate."

Feeling that the talent within him had barely stirred, Jiang Qiao shook his head and returned to the corridor, knocking on the door opposite.

Still, no one answered.

He kicked the door in again and went inside to investigate.

After entering the room, Jiang Qiao discovered that the layout on this side had changed.

The Double Happiness character that had originally been pasted on the window was gone, replaced by a white mourning character.

An old man with a rigid body lay on the bed.

He seemed to have been dead for quite some time.

An oil lamp stood before the old man's feet, but the flame on its wick had already gone out.

Jiang Qiao went over to inspect him and found that the old man was merely an ordinary corpse, with no ghostly aura on him.

"This corpse is definitely a ghost. It just hasn't awakened yet."

Jiang Qiao guessed inwardly.

He thought of the Human Head Lanterns. During the day, they were ordinary lanterns, and even regular people could tear them apart.

But at night, they would turn into terrifying malevolent ghosts!

Even if you tore apart every lantern during the day, new lanterns would drift down from upstream at night and become possessed by malevolent ghosts.

"This corpse was probably just a vessel."

Jiang Qiao circled the bed but found no clues. In the end, his attention settled on the oil lamp.

In funeral customs, an oil lamp would be lit beside the deceased's body. It was called an Everburning Lamp.

Legend had it that this lamp could guide the dead person's soul and illuminate the Yellow Springs Road.

"Let's try lighting it." Jiang Qiao took out a lighter.

Click.

With a soft sound, a pea-sized ghostly green flame appeared on the wick.

A faint stench of decay began to spread through the room.

Jiang Qiao covered his nose and stepped back a few paces, only to unexpectedly bump into a weightless body.

"Who's there?!"

The sudden change startled Jiang Qiao. He spun around and threw a punch.

Boom!

With a thunderous crash, the figure behind him was sent flying, smashing into the hallway. Strands of electricity still darted wildly across its body.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

Just as Jiang Qiao was about to go out and see what it was, movement came from behind him.

The corpse that had been lying on the bed began to move. Its mouth opened and closed, producing the sound of teeth clacking together.

A chilly Ghost Qi began to coil around it.

"Looks like that Vicious Ghost was residing in the lamp oil. Lighting the oil lamp released it."

Jiang Qiao did not move, merely watching with cold eyes.

Very soon, the old man's corpse sprang upright in a single motion and stood up.

Those cloudy, lifeless eyes turned toward Jiang Qiao, and a Horrifying smile appeared on its stiff face.

"Hehe. Fuck your mother."

Jiang Qiao charged forward.

Though he had not solidified the talent of "Sliding Master," didn't anyone with legs know how to slide tackle?

With the boost from Invincible Body, he directly tripped the old man to the ground.

If this scene had happened out on the street, he probably wouldn't get away without paying three or five hundred thousand.

But at that moment, Jiang Qiao pinned the old man's neck with one hand and smashed his other fist down.

The old man desperately tried to struggle back to his feet.

But Jiang Qiao gave him no chance at all, unleashing heavy punches!

He found that this old ghost was actually fairly strong. In terms of levels, it was probably close to the peak of Rank One.

Jiang Qiao did not use Lightning Thunder Fist, instead relying on basic attacks.

He found that basic attacks made it easier to extract Ghost Qi.

After Lightning Thunder Fist blew apart a Vicious Ghost, a large amount of Ghost Qi would be cleansed away by the lightning.

One punch.

Two punches.

Three punches.

After more than a dozen punches, the old man gradually quieted down and turned back into a corpse—a mangled corpse, at that.

Letting go of the old man, who no longer moved, Jiang Qiao went back into the hallway.

The Vicious Ghost he had sent flying was still lying on the floor.

"This is...?"

Jiang Qiao froze when he saw the Vicious Ghost.

It was actually a Paper Effigy!

Jiang Qiao had a particularly deep impression of paper effigies.

These ghostly things could be said to have been the greatest obstacles in his first few simulations. From ordinary paper effigies and paper spirit hearses to Floral Jacket Paper Figures and paper-effigy animals, every one of them had been more troublesome than the last.

Moreover, he had never truly encountered the Paper Figure Maker behind these paper effigies.

Whenever he erased traces of a paper effigy, a distorted human face would usually appear. Jiang Qiao had always suspected that it belonged to the Paper Figure Maker, but he had no proof.

"The Paper Figure Maker also existed before Supernatural Revival."

Jiang Qiao found a mark on the Paper Person.

He had seen this mark many times in the simulation. There was no way he could mistake it.

"Why would a Paper Person appear in this hotel?"

"Could it be related to the corpse on the bed?"

"Paper Persons really are burial objects."

Jiang Qiao pondered for a moment but found no answer. So he simply put the Paper Person into the Ghost Skin Pocket.

Then, he continued knocking on the other doors.

However, the rooms that followed were all empty. He found no trace of any Vicious Ghosts.

Not only were there no Vicious Ghosts, he could not even sense any Ghost Qi.

It was as if they were nothing more than ordinary rooms.

"Didn't that Old Woman say every room had been booked? Where are the ghosts who booked them? What a load of ghostly bullshit."

Jiang Qiao stepped out of the last room, feeling rather speechless.

He had originally thought that since the eyeball, the old man, and the Paper Person had all appeared, the other rooms should have been hiding plenty of nasty things too.

Instead, he was thoroughly disappointed.

But then again, he had caused such a huge commotion on the second floor, yet the Old Woman downstairs had never come up to check what was happening.

It seemed that Jiang Qiao was the only person in the entire hotel.

"Let's check the third floor."