The Coffin

The force of Liu Haoyu pushing against the coffin lid, combined with the pulling force of the Ghost Hand, caused him to be dragged straight into the coffin before he could react.

As soon as Liu Haoyu entered the coffin, the lid immediately closed.

Qin Liu naturally saw Liu Haoyu being sucked into the coffin.

The little ghost hurried over. Her head passed through the coffin lid as she looked at Liu Haoyu inside and said,

"Be more careful... Can you still get out?"

But perhaps because their faces were too close, the shy Qin Liu quickly pulled back again.

Regarding Qin Liu's words and his predicament inside the coffin, Liu Haoyu did not react much.

He had merely been startled unexpectedly. That was a normal physiological response.

But it was only a scare.

"Small potatoes. I've run into this a few times already."

As a professional exorcist, Liu Haoyu had naturally encountered plenty of dangerous situations.

Being trapped inside a coffin was therefore nothing special.

Liu Haoyu checked that all his equipment was still with him, then began considering how to open the coffin and get out.

Although he had a Fire Axe in his hand, this coffin was very small—it was the kind meant for a child—so there was barely any room to swing it. He had no way to force it open with the Fire Axe.

Furthermore, when he had been pulled inside, Liu Haoyu's flashlight had fallen outside, so he could not see the situation inside the coffin clearly.

He could only feel around him roughly.

Was this coffin empty?

There should have been someone's bones inside, but there were none.

To escape the coffin, Liu Haoyu prepared to take out something more powerful. However, just as he was about to act,

he discovered that the rotten-wood and putrid smell inside the coffin... had vanished.

Yes, it was just like suddenly opening a window in a stuffy, airless car. The smell had simply disappeared.

But Liu Haoyu knew that situations like this were usually a prelude to a change.

In other words, something bad was very likely to happen next.

There was not much oxygen inside the coffin, but even so, Liu Haoyu took out a candle.

The faint firelight illuminated the entire inside of the coffin.

Only then did Liu Haoyu see that the lid above his head was covered in scratches and bloodstains.

There were only two possible explanations for such marks appearing inside a coffin.

One was that a zombie had started causing trouble.

The other... was that someone had been suffocated to death alive inside the coffin.

After carefully examining the tiny scratches, Liu Haoyu quickly determined that it was the latter.

The scratches covered not only the coffin lid but also all four sides of the coffin.

The densely packed scratches and stains left by clotted blood were chilling enough just to look at.

Liu Haoyu quickly connected this to the graffiti on the outer wall and the words of the old man with the lantern. His heart sank, and his expression darkened.

If he had guessed correctly, this family's daughter had been suffocated to death inside this coffin.

And this had not been accidental. It had been a deliberate act of cruelty.

Thinking of this, Liu Haoyu's understanding of the words "utterly deranged" was refreshed once again.

As Liu Haoyu pondered, the girl's cries echoed around his ears.

Perhaps because she had been ill, the girl's voice was extremely hoarse and faint.

Driven by her instinct to survive, she did not stop even when she was short of breath, even when she was gravely ill, and even after all her fingernails had been worn away and the skin on her fingers had split open.

Because of the pain, the girl's cries grew even more miserable.

But... no one came to save her.

As time passed, the girl's movements grew slower and slower. Her throat eventually went completely hoarse, and no matter how she tried, she could no longer make a sound.

At last, deprived of oxygen, the girl's face turned purple. Her body convulsed uncontrollably, and she finally became a corpse in despair.

After she died, she lay on her side, her unwilling and bewildered gaze fixed straight at Liu Haoyu...

It was as if she were trying to obtain an answer from him.

The scene was incredibly real, as though it had happened right in front of Liu Haoyu. It was horrifying, and it made his scalp prickle.

Precisely because it was so real, Liu Haoyu's heart became unbearably heavy.

Just then, Liu Haoyu's hand suddenly seemed to be embraced by something.

It was a child's hand. It clutched Liu Haoyu tightly and refused to let go. As it held him, it sobbed,

"Let me out... Let me out... Sob... Mommy... Big brother..."

The girl's sobbing rang right beside Liu Haoyu's ears, accompanied by the sensation of something embracing his arm.

Although he could not see anything, there was no doubt...

A ghost was holding him.

By now, Liu Haoyu's eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he finally saw the situation inside the coffin.

A nearly transparent shadow was lying beside him.

It was the shadow of a child, but when Liu Haoyu saw her face, he discovered... she had no features at all!

Moreover, the shadow's skin was the color of a corpse.

She appeared beside Liu Haoyu and began gradually solidifying into a physical form.

The blurry shadow grew clearer and clearer, slowly taking on the appearance of the dead girl Liu Haoyu had just seen.

The featureless face became increasingly real. A pair of bloodshot eyes stared straight at Liu Haoyu.

The human and the ghost were pressed tightly against each other.

"Big brother... save me..."

Liu Haoyu knew that the big brother she was calling for was not him, but he still calmly said,

"Let go first."

"Big brother..."

The gloomy resentment made the hair on Liu Haoyu's body stand on end. He was just about to take out the Thunder Shock Talisman when he heard a muffled voice from outside.

"Is this really just a small problem?"

Qin Liu was calling for him.

The Fierce Ghost outside the coffin was a little frightened. After all, Liu Haoyu was trapped inside the coffin, leaving her as the only ghost in this pitch-black place.

If the coffin had not been so small, Qin Liu would have gone straight inside and squeezed in beside Liu Haoyu long ago.

Inside the coffin, Liu Haoyu looked at the increasingly lifelike corpse of the girl before him. His gaze was completely calm as he said,

"Let go first. I'll take you outside."

"Big brother... stay with me... together... Let's go to hell together..."

The girl's voice carried a trace of anticipation, but intense killing intent and suffocating resentment surged toward him. The featureless face forcibly split open, forming a mouth.

She intended to take Liu Haoyu's life!

But Liu Haoyu was not going to sit around and wait for death.

"Thunder Shock Talisman!"

The talisman blasted into the ghostly shadow, and an ear-piercing scream instantly echoed inside the coffin.

A single strike nearly made the ghostly shadow scatter into nothingness. Liu Haoyu took advantage of the opportunity to brace both feet against the coffin lid. His body curled into a ball, and after shouting, he straightened his legs with all his strength.

"Ha!!"

The originally heavy coffin lid was kicked flying by Liu Haoyu.

Seeing that the coffin lid had been kicked open, Liu Haoyu sprang to his feet with a kip-up and said,

"Going to hell? Take your beast of a father with you first."