The moment Jiang Cheng's hand touched the girl, her body stiffened. After all, she had probably never imagined a ghost would touch her. The next second, her mouth fell open, and she looked on the verge of tears. "Kind sir, I... I may have come from the pear garden, and I know my station is low, but I sell my art, not my body. Please forgive me, I simply cannot comply."
What was she even talking about? Jiang Cheng frowned slightly. A ring of charred ghosts sat densely packed around them. He had no other thoughts at all. He gave the girl a gentle push, signaling for her to hurry along.
He had no idea whether she understood. In any case, she kept walking, still repeating those same words under her breath, only more quietly now, like a mosquito buzzing.
Jiang Cheng glanced at the opera onstage, paying particular attention to the performers' shadows. Thankfully, they were all there. Nothing had changed.
Perhaps because they were holding back, the fight onstage looked like little more than playacting. Yet there was an indescribably eerie quality to it, as if the performers were all puppets on strings, their movements unnaturally stiff.
"Thank you for your support, thank you for your patronage, thank you for... Ah!"
The girl let out a short cry. Jiang Cheng immediately turned his head, just in time to see a charred arm withdraw from her body. In the gong, the last sachet burned to ash.
Yet she still had half a circuit left to complete.
In Jiang Cheng's experience, the second half of the journey was always the most dangerous.
There was almost no chance the girl could get away safely on her own.
But the chain reaction triggered by that brief cry went far beyond this. One