Finding the Secret Passage

Uncle Zhang's unseeing eyes were hidden inside Master Li's mouth—no, it was Uncle Zhang's head that was hidden inside Master Li's mouth!

The moment Yu Xing saw those eyes, he felt dizzy. Those eyes seemed to hold endless resentment and hatred. In a daze, Master Li had already escaped from Yu Xing's blade. In just a few seconds, his skin turned a dark gray. He took out another candle and tried to light it.

"Stop him." Yu Xing regained his senses much faster than Master Li had expected. As soon as he finished speaking, Carlos pulled out his knife and plunged it into the flesh of Master Li's hand.

Although it was unlikely to cause any real harm to the ghost-like person, the candle successfully fell, rolled on the ground, and disappeared into the flower field, causing the bone vines to erupt as if they had found a target, instantly crushing the candle to dust.

"Why bother? I'm your Master Li too." Master Li gave a sinister smile, as if he knew his actions were futile. "Why won't you even let me light a small candle? We entered the tomb together and have been companions for so long."

He turned to Carlos and Lin: "You've known me for over half a year, and you really won't let me light a single candle?"

When he said this, Master Li acted like a perfectly normal person, and apart from his unusual appearance, it was easy to think that "Master Li was still the same Master Li."

Of the three, Lin, who was the most easily persuaded, turned even colder. "Ghosts and humans are different. If you light a candle, you can indeed continue to exist in this time as a ghost, but we may not be able to survive."

"How could that be? I had no ill intentions. Even though I'm dead, I still want you all to get out safely." Master Li frowned, revealing a hint of abandoned sorrow. "Just because I'm dead? Don't worry, you're all dead too. No one can escape."

Carlos grinned wickedly. "Come on, old ghost. The people who died were from another timeline. What does it have to do with us?"

Yu Xing laughed too, as if he had heard a joke that amused him, "Master Li, you'd better not try to fool us youngsters. If you didn't have bad intentions... how did Uncle Zhang's head end up in your mouth? Don't tell me that his resentful look is because he willingly let you eat him."

In this timeline, Uncle Zhang's head has been half corroded away in the ground, but in Master Li's words, Uncle Zhang's eyes are intact, clearly indicating that he came from another timeline together with the ghost Master Li.

Who knows what Master Li did?

"Hahaha... hahahaha..." Master Li laughed maniacally, "Old Zhang has been my friend for so many years, I can't live without him, I can't live without him! If I die, there will be no one left to talk to!"

"So you're going to kill Uncle Zhang to keep you company?" Carlos clicked his tongue twice. "Truly bizarre logic."

"What's wrong with Ghost Logic? Did Ghost Logic offend him?" Yi Qing floated behind Carlos, a hint of malice in his deep blue eyes. He closed his fan and brought the tip of the fan close to Carlos's chin, as if he wanted to lift Carlos's chin.

Yu Xing said coldly, "Don't move."

Yi Qing paused, glancing at Yu Xing with strong disapproval.

Yu Xing's phoenix eyes slanted upwards at the corners, sharp and cold when he wasn't smiling. Coupled with his complete lack of fear of Yi Qing, he actually managed to dilute Yi Qing's imposing aura.

Two seconds later, Yi Qing smiled and gave him a polite bow, "It was my oversight that almost caused you trouble."

Yu Xing knew that Sheqing Ghost's gentle and refined appearance was a complete disguise. Deep down, this guy was a thug who would kill for fun when he was unhappy. Especially now that his strength was unrestricted, if he wanted to stop Yi Qing from doing some bad things, he would have to keep an eye on him at all times.

Carlos had no idea that he had just been threatened by a Sheqing Ghost that could not possibly appear in the tomb. Yi Qing controlled his aura very well, just to scare Yu Xing, and he didn't let his aura leak out at all towards Carlos.

So Carlos only heard the word "Don't move," and thinking Yu Xing to do something, he froze, asking, "What's wrong?"

"... It's nothing." Yu Xing smiled again, "Master Li is just waiting for you to get closer to him, but you can't get any closer. Look at his hands."

Carlos looked closely and saw that Master Li's left hand was in his pocket, and a strange shape was vaguely protruding from the pocket. He didn't know what it was, but it certainly wasn't anything good.

Master Li didn't know when San had noticed this, and with a dark expression, he moved his arm, a malicious smile creeping onto his lips.

"It's Master Li's favorite treasure, corpse powder," Lin Jingjing prompted, silently stepping back a little.

As people who had gone down into tombs with Master Li many times, Carlos and Lin knew what corpse powder was. It was a sinister substance made by grinding the eyeballs of corpses in the tomb into powder and mixing it with cinnabar and flour. It was said to have a restraining effect on ghosts, but it was extremely harmful to people. If you got into contact with it, you would inevitably get a fever and fall seriously ill.

"The fox's tail has been revealed; he still wants to resort to underhanded tactics." Carlos, realizing that Master Li intended to attack them, didn't waste any more words. A paper figure silently appeared in his hand. This paper figure looked a little different from the paper figures used for scouting; it was more like a disaster-preventing paper figure, except that its features were even stranger than those of the disaster-preventing paper figure.

The two eyes were drawn into two dark, round holes with a marker. What was originally a child's simple sketch suddenly came to life, as if there were really two empty holes.

The paper figure stared at Master Li with a strange face. Master Li chuckled twice and threw a handful of corpse powder into the air!

This was what Master Li did the instant he was exposed, almost simultaneously with Carlos taking out the paper doll; no one had time to stop him.

But while they couldn't stop it, they could still protect themselves. Lin suddenly took a step forward, pulled out a bright yellow oil-paper umbrella from somewhere, and opened it to shield himself and Carlos.

The corpse powder landed on the oiled paper umbrella, and it seemed to evaporate under high temperature, emitting wisps of white smoke, but the umbrella remained intact.

Master Li's face contorted in pain as he struggled to light the candle; his skin had turned black. "What is this thing? I've never seen you use it before!"

Yi Qing seemed to dislike the umbrella as well, and floated back to Yu Xing's side. Yu Xing glanced at the bright yellow umbrella and found that the rows of black characters printed on it were actually Buddhist scriptures.

Lin said, "This is a family heirloom, the Buddha Seal Umbrella, specifically designed to subdue evil spirits like you."

Yu Xing's eyes flashed, and she thought to herself, "Interesting."

The paper figure in Carlos's hand had been staring at Master Li for a long time. After the corpse powder failed to work, it tilted its head.

The paper wasn't sturdy; the moment it tilted, it tore with a ripping sound, and half of its neck snapped off, gushing blood from within.

At the same time, Master Li felt an itch on his neck, and his bones made a crisp cracking sound.

His gaze drifted to the side. Master Li touched his hand and, amidst the blood-soaked mess, realized that his neck, along with Carlos's paper effigy, had been severed in two.

"He's afraid of not having candles, and his body is also a physical entity." Yu Xing's knife didn't waste a moment, severing the last layer of skin connecting Master Li's neck and head. "Physical attacks are effective."

Glug glug...

Master Li's head rolled to the ground, his eyes filled with disbelief. He seemed to never have imagined, even in death, that these three young men had hidden more and more tricks up their sleeves, and that they weren't even afraid of ghosts.

The fall to the ground wasn't the end of it. Suddenly, Master Li let out a scream as his face split open from the middle, his mouth shattered, and Uncle Zhang's head was forced out.

Uncle Zhang's eyes were wide open. After gaining his freedom, he glanced at the three young men almost imperceptibly, perhaps expressing his gratitude with his eyes, before rolling away.

The head left behind by Master Li could no longer be called a head; it was just a layer of skin, without brain matter or skull, as if, from the beginning, Master Li's head had just been a layer of skin covering Uncle Zhang's skull.

It has been completely destroyed, it can't even be called a ghost anymore, it can only make a gurgling sound like air leaking from its throat on the ground.

"It's a bit scary," Carlos commented, frowning. "What did they experience on that timeline?"

"... Could we ever die such a horrible death?" Lin looked at Master Li's face with disgust, showing no sign of the deep camaraderie he shared with Master Li. "If I were to encounter this, I would destroy my Ghostification self immediately."

"What is your mission?" Yu Xing asked.

Carlos asked, puzzled, "You're asking me? Don't you already know?"

"I wasn't asking you." Yu Xing for Carlos to move aside slightly. "Lin, what is your mission?"

Lin's face showed a surprised expression.

The moment their eyes met, Lin relaxed slightly. "I see. I noticed something was off about you two earlier. Your strength didn't seem to match the level expected in this world. So you're also Experience Masters."

"?" Yu Xing but remained outwardly calm. "Yes, I didn't expect you to be an experience tester. Your portrayal of the person in this world is really convincing."

What is an experience tester?

It's another real world that the system mentioned in Persona Mask!

Yu Xing had met the experience tester Ning Feng before and had seen several missions issued by the "Anomaly Investigation Team." However, she did not expect that in this tomb palace simulation, not only could the participants join at any time, but the experience testers were also present as normal.

No wonder the system doesn't directly announce how many participants will be involved in the simulation; it's probably to prevent the majority of participants from noticing anything unusual once the experience testers arrive.

Thinking of this, Yu Xing to consider himself an "experiencer". He guessed that the experiencer system and the deduction system should not be too different. As long as Lin didn't ask too many questions, he could get a lot of experiencer information for free.

"It's not that I resemble him," Lin denied, dismissing the acting aspect. "I only arrived after I went down into the tomb. Before that, I had no control over the body's movements."

Carlos also recovered from his brief shock and could understand what Lin had said.

Before they enter the simulation, the character they possess will also act according to the world's progress, appearing no different from when they control it themselves.

No wonder Lin Xia's attitude towards Unica changed so obviously after the tomb raiding. It wasn't because he became more perceptive after the feng shui calculations, as he claimed, but because his NPC mindset had shifted to that of an outsider, thus making him aware of the extra Unica in his memories.

"But we clearly didn't recognize each other before." Lin frowned. "Where did I give myself away?"

Many questions arose in his mind. For example, he had gone through so many Yugi with Carlos, and they should have been teammates as experience testers, but they had never shared missions.

In fact, many times he didn't even realize that Carlos's missions were the same as or conflicted with his own, and he never even went through the mission settlement process with Carlos.

This is why he always regarded Carlos as the key NPC in this world and never had any other thoughts.

That's strange; it doesn't make sense.

Lin Sheng became somewhat wary, awaiting Yu Xing's answer.

"The things you use." Yu Xing didn't keep her in suspense, shaking her head. "Buddha Seal Umbrella, a family heirloom? You have to believe in something when you look at feng shui, but you can't believe in both Buddhism and Daoism, right? The things you used before were all Daoist. What, does your feng shui lineage like to mix and match?"

"... I was careless. I thought no one would notice this." Lin lowered his eyelids. "The Buddha Seal Umbrella is a sacrificial offering; I did bring it from the outside world. You're very perceptive."

"You flatter me." Yu Xing realized that Lin didn't seem to have the concept of a deducer in his mind, so... not everyone in the experience group knew that deducers existed.

This gives him a greater chance of causing trouble.

Carlos listened in for a while and learned quite a bit from the experience.

He had seen the Anomaly Research Team's missions before, but he had never encountered the legendary experiencers from another world. He never expected to meet one in person today, and one he knew well with whom he had collaborated several times.

Stimulation, stimulation.

"Did you come alone?" he asked casually.

Lin glanced at Carlos: "Yeah, isn't this world only for solo missions?"

Carlos sensed that the kid was testing him and objected, "Who said that? San and I are on a team mission. You probably just happened to be there."

"So I'm just unlucky. I always come in alone." Lin shook his head, unable to get any results from his probing. "Let's not talk about that now. Maybe the Ghost Tongues will start mimicking our speech soon. Can you hear their commotion?"

The Ghost Tongue Flower is swaying, and thousands of flowers seem to be awakening one after another. One can imagine how terrifying the scene will be when they all awaken.

"Let's find an agency to leave first."

Although they unexpectedly uncovered the "tester" teammate, the three of them still have an urgent goal: to leave. There's no time left for them to get to know each other better.

"This thing that Ghost Master Li found just now..." Carlos remembered why they had ended up together, "Could it be a secret passage?"

"Yes," Yu Xing answered confidently.

"He probably intended to keep his human form by lighting candles, allowing him to hide among us for a while longer," Lin blinked. "In this situation, finding a genuine secret passage wouldn't harm him; on the contrary, it would lower our guard, making us trust him more, whatever he intended to do with us."

After the consciousness of "Experience Tester" Lin entered the body of this character, Lin became more talkative and was not as aloof and indifferent as he had seemed at first.

"Shall we go down?" Carlos looked at the tomb passage that Master Li had just found, a premonition forming in his heart.

Once inside the tomb passage, they will encounter unprecedented danger.