My heartbeat shifted slightly.
I thought of a theory I'd had earlier.
Lina had killed the Toy Ghost King and taken its place. It was possible that she, too, could be replaced.
The ghost before us seemed to have an attachment to family—or perhaps it wasn't quite an attachment, just a longing for the happy, harmonious family he'd once had. After that family fell apart, he'd taken his own life in despair and become a ghost. Now, he'd witnessed the collapse of another happy family. And this time, it had happened at someone's hands: someone had murdered the entire family.
This ghost would be an anomaly in Lina's alternate space.
What would happen?
I considered the possibility, feeling a little anticipation, but then someone touched my shoulder. I heard someone calling me and came back to myself, realizing I'd already snapped out of that state.
Guo Yujie and the others were looking at me.
The big dog was looking at me, too.
It wasn't the young man's dog. It belonged to the family who had moved in afterward.
I took a deep breath and immediately told Wu Ling and the others what I'd seen.
We'd already encountered the young man's ghost. Now that I told them I'd seen a vision of the past, they assumed I'd entered a dream.
"Now that we know what happened, this should be easier to deal with," Wu Ling said.
Guo Yujie retorted, "We know what happened? We're still missing something, aren't we? How did they... end up like this? And this house—it hasn't been renovated."
"That was the ghost's doing," Wu Ling answered with certainty. "But there's something wrong with his ability, so this space has become distorted."
Han Yun nodded in agreement.
"That ghost was probably targeting Lina, but he couldn't control his