Fear Spreads

Yu Jing and Yu Xiaoxiao did not stay in the lobby for long. They climbed the somewhat dilapidated wooden stairs to the third floor of the inn.

"Creak, creak!" Every step pressed down with their weight, making the floorboards emit an unpleasant sound.

The candlelight could not completely dispel the darkness here. On top of that, the scent of sandalwood mixed with decay permeating the air kept Yu Jing tense.

On the deserted corridor of the third floor, faint candlelight spilled from beneath every tightly shut guest-room door. The farther Yu Jing ventured into the silent corridor, the more he felt that something was watching him from behind.

Yu Jing and Yu Xiaoxiao reached the end of the corridor without looking back. On their left was the room bearing the number '310.'

"Creak!"

When they opened the old wooden door, a thirty-square-meter double room came into view.

It was much better than they had imagined. The room had a private bathroom and two relatively tidy beds. Two burning candles stood on the bedside table, while the surrounding walls were covered in patterned wallpaper. Overall, it looked fairly clean, and the smell of decay inside had been greatly reduced.

"There was something dangerous in the corridor just now. I couldn't sense a physical body, but it was extremely dangerous." Yu Xiaoxiao sat on the edge of the bed, her brows tightly furrowed.

"Mm." Yu Jing did his best to calm himself.

Yu Jing pressed his right palm against the wall. A large amount of green plant matter flowed from his palm through the gaps between the wooden boards and spread into the walls, until the plants completely enveloped the room where the two of them were staying.

If anything from outside tried to invade, Yu Jing would immediately know through the plants in his arm.

His relatively skilled use of the green plants in his arm came from the extremely secretive training he had carried out during his two-month summer vacation—even practicing for ten hours a day for several days in a row.

The director of the District 19 Research Institute, the famed Special Commissioner Liang, was the person Yu Jing believed he needed to guard against most. Therefore, he had to take the initiative in certain matters.

For example, his current proficiency with Plant Ability was completely different from what he had described to Special Commissioner Liang on the plane. Yu Jing disliked the feeling of being manipulated by others, even if Special Commissioner Liang possessed an extremely powerful background and strength.

Over the course of two months, Yu Jing had spent at least six hours every day adapting to the plants in his right arm. The place where he practiced was also a secluded area known only to him.

"The ability in your right hand is really interesting. It doesn't seem like ordinary plants at all! Hehe, I won't tell anyone." Yu Xiaoxiao had watched everything he did and revealed an especially adorable smile.

"Mm."

After Yu Jing finished setting everything up, the room at least had an additional layer of protection. Some of the fear in his heart was also dispelled.

Because of the heavy rain, the two of them had spent nearly half an hour in the mountain forest, and their clothes were completely soaked.

It was still summer in September. Yu Xiaoxiao wore a short-sleeved sports outfit, and under the candlelight, her translucent clothes revealed the tightly wrapped bandages around her chest.

After arranging the green plants around the room, Yu Jing turned around, and his gaze naturally fell on Yu Xiaoxiao's body. His face immediately reddened. He lowered the brim of his hat and shifted his eyes away from her.

"If you hadn't carried cash on you, we might have already fallen into a crisis downstairs. Although the old man at the counter was made of flesh and blood, he gave off an aura that no living person should have. Yu Jing, did you bring cash because you had anticipated this?"

"Sort of."

Yu Jing had indeed considered carrying cash beforehand, but he had not thought things through to this extent. Of course, he had also prepared extra clothes because of the weather outside, but the strict inspection at the teleportation point had made that impossible.

"The power's back!" a voice suddenly came from downstairs.

Yu Jing touched the switch on the wall, and the bright lights completely dispelled the darkness in the room.

But the sense of security brought by the lights made Yu Jing frown tightly. He quickly opened the door and poked his head outside. The corridor on the third floor of the Deep Mountain Inn was also illuminated by yellow passageway lights. The darkness had been dispelled, and the fear had been greatly reduced.

"That shouldn't be right. Could it be..." Yu Jing thought of an even worse possibility and closed the door behind him.

"Do you have any ideas?"

Yu Jing habitually turned his head to answer Yu Xiaoxiao's question.

"...Ahem. Judging from the current situation, the thing hiding in the inn doesn't intend to kill us directly. It seems to want to slowly play with us. This definitely isn't something a low-level intelligent life-form would do. Our opponent thinks the same way we do—it isn't a brainless Dangerous Object."

"I suspect it wants to slowly torture our minds before slowly killing us."

Yu Jing knew very well that the thing in the inn was completely incomparable to the dull-witted Butcher in the research institute.

"A ghost with the same personality as my mother? I'm really looking forward to killing the ghost hiding here with my own hands."

A cold killing intent flashed through Yu Xiaoxiao's eyes. It vanished in an instant, but Yu Jing still saw it. At the same time, he understood why almost none of the hundreds of newcomers were willing to approach Yu Xiaoxiao.

"Since the power's back, go take a hot shower. I'll find a way to remove the moisture from your clothes."

"Mm."

Yu Xiaoxiao entered the bathroom and soon handed her clothes out. While using the plants in his right arm to absorb the moisture from the clothes carrying Yu Xiaoxiao's scent, Yu Jing analyzed and pondered the entire incident, starting from when they first took the taxi.

"Taxi, heavy rain, mountains, inn, old man, smell... Everything is connected."

"Pop, pop, pop!"

Suddenly, a strange sound entered Yu Jing's ears and swiftly cut off his train of thought.

Following the eerie sound, Yu Jing turned his gaze toward the room's window, and a terrifying sight entered his eyes.

The window had originally looked out into complete darkness. Now, a pale woman's face and four unnaturally elongated, inhuman hands were pressed tightly against the glass.

The woman's pupils were completely dilated and pitch-black. Her mouth had been stretched open in an exaggerated O-shape, and that hollow mouth, with no visible end, emitted the strange, empty sound.

A primitive fear rose within him. Terrified, Yu Jing staggered one step backward, a great deal of sweat pouring from both temples as fear began to spread through his body.