I didn't know how I'd been dragged into the dream, but I knew where I was now and whose body I was inhabiting.
I moved and stood in front of Li Moqian.
To my surprise, I didn't see Li Moqian's ghost. Instead, I saw her skeleton.
Before me was a skeleton dressed in filthy, bloodstained clothes, with a loop of leather rope hanging beside it. She leaned against the wall, her head tilted to one side, empty eyes staring ahead.
I looked back. There was a door in that direction.
The windows around me were boarded up, and the door was shut tight.
There were some bloodstains on the ground, but those were the only traces.
There was nothing else here.
I couldn't hear a thing.
No wind, no birdsong, and no human voices.
I turned to look at Li Moqian's skeleton again.
A faint aura of yin emanated from it. I could still hear Li Moqian's helpless cries for help in my mind.
I suddenly realized that Li Moqian hadn't completely become a ghost. What remained here was only her weak soul. She wasn't conscious, either. She was simply crying for help over and over out of instinct.
"Li Moqian," I called, repeating her name in my mind.
There was no response.
"Help me..." Li Moqian's voice played on repeat, like a recording stuck on loop.
I sighed helplessly and reached out to gently touch Li Moqian's skull.
My hand passed through her bones without making contact.
Staying here wasn't going to help.
I passed through the boarded-up window and went outside, only to discover that Li Moqian was on the second floor.
The unfinished building had two floors, with a few single-story houses behind it. All the buildings were abandoned, just bare concrete shells. There were no construction