A Frightened Bird

After the Ghost left, Ning Zhe did not rush toward the circuit breaker. Instead, he approached the corpse the Ghost had just possessed, crouched down, and gave it a brief inspection.

The body itself had no initial peculiarities; aside from minor abrasions on the skin from falling onto the lawn, there were no other external injuries. The muscles in its face were stiff and frozen, locking the terrified, distorted expression from the moment of death onto its features.

If he didn't know that both Taiyi and Zhaoyou had already been killed by him, Ning Zhe might have even thought this person was from He Family Village. After all, the state of his death was far too similar to Gu Yunqing's—one could say they were identical.

--But did this mean there was nothing suspicious about him?

Of course not.

Ning Zhe pulled a charging bank from his pocket and turned on the light attached to it.

--His charging bank was a model that came with a small light; besides charging electronic devices, it could also be used as an emergency flashlight.

The bright, focused beam shone onto the corpse before Ning Zhe, illuminating the terrified look on its face with absolute clarity. However, Ning Zhe was not looking at the corpse itself, but at the lawn behind it.

A corpse killed by this Ghost was indeed different from a normal human body. There was something strange about it—a peculiarity that was neither obvious nor well-hidden; it was not hard to discover if one was looking for it.

But in the chaotic and tense atmosphere from before, it was clear that no one had the energy to calmly examine a dead person.

Now, having experienced that thrilling scene and having a vague sense of direction in his mind, Ning Zhe easily discovered some clues from the corpse.

"This corpse has no shadow." Ning Zhe tilted the charging bank slightly to change the angle of the light, but the silhouette of the corpse still did not appear on the lawn in front of him.

The light from the lamp passed through the dead body on the ground without any obstruction, as if passing through a pane of glass.

No, even completely transparent, colorless glass would have some refraction or scattering, but this corpse had nothing at all. The light passed through the solid human body without any obstruction or attenuation, as if there was nothing in front of him.

"The person killed by the Ghost has lost their shadow." Ning Zhe turned off the flashlight, stuffed the charging bank back into his pocket, and stood up: "Alright, let's sort out the information we have now."

1. The Ghost does not have normal vision; it cannot see people, only the shadows left behind when people are illuminated by light.

2. A person killed by the Ghost has no shadow.

3. The Ghost does not appear alone; it often chooses to possess the corpse it has killed to move around.

4. The Ghost fears light; when too close to a light source, the corpse it possesses becomes cautious and sluggish in its movements.

Just like how it didn't immediately kill Feng Yushu in the hallway, and didn't immediately kill Ning Zhe under the street lamp, the Ghost's movements were sluggish when it was too close to a light source.

As Ning Zhe was pondering, he heard a faint rustling sound, and the corpse lying on the lawn suddenly began to move.

The Ghost had returned.

Although Ning Zhe had been very careful when using the charging bank for light, he still couldn't avoid his body casting a faint shadow outline under the scattered light of the lamp.

Even if his inspection process was simple and fast, and he had turned off the light decisively, the fact that a shadow had existed meant it had existed—even for a second. The Ghost was a rule, and rules only care about existence, not the degree of it.

Ning Zhe took a step back and watched silently as the corpse before him stood up straight, like a city gate being pulled up by ropes.

At this very moment, the Ghost was right in front of him, but it couldn't find him because the light was off.

"An interesting Ghost, indeed..." Ning Zhe frowned slightly.

Unlike Zhaoyou, this Ghost had a very strong "first-strike" nature. Without any information, it was easy to be instantly killed without any room to react. But once there was intelligence, and a direction for evasion and thought, breaking or subduing it was not a difficult task.

It could even be called easy.

"If the facts are truly as I guessed, and this Ghost was really artificially placed here because of 'Zhaoyou'..." Ning Zhe's expression turned strange: "Then this person really underestimated me."

Even without Baizhi's hint, Ning Zhe could have used the rules of Taiyi to force others to act as a Substitute Death, relying on stacking lives to force the rules out. Many people in the Manor had died, but there were always survivors.

Unless the person who put this Ghost into the Manor didn't know about the existence of Taiyi.

"He knew about Zhaoyou, but didn't know about Taiyi?" Vaguely, Ning Zhe felt as if he had grasped something very important.

Rustle...

A faint friction sound came from the Lonicera bushes not far away. Ning Zhe instinctively turned his gaze toward the source of the sound, followed immediately by a dull gunshot muffled by a silencer.

Whoosh—

The human body has its limits. Even the best athlete cannot dodge a bullet at such close range; even if the nervous system can keep up, the body cannot.

But the rules can keep up.

The speed at which Taiyi's rules took effect was far, far faster than the speed at which Ning Zhe's body could move.

At the very instant the gunshot rang out, the Parasol in Ning Zhe's hand fell to the ground with a thud. The youngster holding the umbrella vanished into thin air before the eyes of Old Li, who was holding the gun, transforming into a small Magpie that landed on the lawn.

The moment its bird claws touched the ground, the Magpie turned back into Ning Zhe. His legs kicked off the lawn, and he shot forward like an arrow released from a bow. Before Old Li could re-acquire his target with the gun, Ning Zhe's fist had already slammed into his abdomen.

"Ugh!"

The heavy blow to his abdomen brought excruciating pain, yet Old Li couldn't even let out a scream. While Ning Zhe was striking his abdomen with his right hand, a knee simultaneously shattered the wrist holding the gun, and his Left Hand seized Old Li's throat before he could scream, pinning him to the ground.

It was like a leopard pouncing on an antelope, its sharp canines locking onto the herbivore's trachea.

Ning Zhe straddled Old Li, expressionlessly gripping his throat, and his right hand quickly reached toward his face, decisively plunging his fingers into the eye sockets.

With two squelching sounds, Ning Zhe gouged out Old Li's two eyeballs with his bare hands. The detached eyeballs hung by the optic nerves on either side of his cheeks like yo-yos in a child's hand, while tears and blood dripped down.

After doing this, Ning Zhe finally released Old Li's throat, picked up the riot pistol from the ground, and skillfully assumed a shooting stance: "Who are you, and why did you shoot at me?"

However, the severely wounded Old Li could not immediately answer his question. The middle-aged Security Captain curled up on the ground, groaning and rolling in agony.

Whoosh—

A Rubber Bullet embedded itself into Old Li's calf, followed by a heart-wrenching scream.

"I'll ask one more time: who are you, why did you attack me, and do you have any accomplices?" Ning Zhe asked in a low voice.