There's a Ghost

"Even a mighty Desolate Dust Lifeform has to conserve computing power?" Wu Hen had meant to tease them.

But he noticed Ming Yi beside him looking tense, her naturally hanging hand trembling slightly.

Ming Yi and One-Eyed Sister were both visual Awakened.

What they saw was completely different from what Wu Hen and the others saw.

They could clearly see hundreds of millions of White Bone Yin Ants. Using "0" and "1," the basic code of human computers, they were carrying out an extraordinarily precise "cross" construction process... building the walls, tiled roofs, beams and pillars, eaves, and interior furnishings!

Most terrifying of all, quite a few skeletons were among the "worshippers."

The moment those skeletons stepped into Yin Province, they turned into White Bone Yin Ants and instantly joined the army of "living ant code" building the city!

Locusts devoured people.

People became bones.

Bones became Yin Ants.

Ants built Yin Province!!

No one knew how vast Yin Province was, but Ming Yi and One-Eyed Sister, with their awakened vision, could already imagine that it had been built from billions of corpses. And what kind of being in the Desolate Dust could create such a magnificent masterpiece? It had transcended the primitive savagery of most Desolate Dust Lifeforms, possessing an "art" all its own!

"Let's keep moving..." Captain Cai took a deep breath and said, steeling himself.

Everyone set off, but they couldn't help glancing back at Little Stutterer.

Little Stutterer cupped the Spirit Candle in her hands. Its flame swayed strangely, as if it might go out at any moment.

"Switch to another group." Captain Qin spoke up when he saw the Spirit Crown beginning to dim.

They had already used up quite a few Spirit Crowns along the way.

They'd gone through the time of eight Spirit Candles, and now had only seven left.

A single person's Spirit Crown could probably last only half an hour...

Honestly, a place this gloomy and terrifying could keep them tormented for a century without that seeming strange. Yet their group had only three and a half hours left!

"You're a traveling merchant caravan, right? If you're tired, come rest at our inn and have some tea. There are twenty of you, so it won't cost much Yuan You. Come sit for a while?" Suddenly, one of the controlled people came over, greeting them as warmly as an inn attendant.

Captain Qin shot Cai Jinlin a strange look.

Wasn't this the same living person who'd been walking ahead of them earlier?

Cai Jinlin was just as bewildered and had no idea what was going on.

The two captains immediately surveyed their surroundings. As the ghastly pale scene grew more vivid and three-dimensional, they saw that it depicted a bustling ancient town. There were not only old roads, buildings, shops, and pavilions, but also countless busy people!

These people were the lost groups who'd been worshipping earlier. They'd clearly had their minds taken from them, but after entering Yin Province through the Mausoleum Gate, each had acquired an identity and a purpose, and somehow "come to life" as locals!

"No, no. We've got other things to do." Captain Qin forced a smile, politely declining even as a chill ran through him.

"Oh, then I won't keep you from going to your deaths..." The controlled inn attendant's smile never changed, but his words sent a shiver down their spines!

Under normal circumstances, if Qin Sheng ran into an attendant who spoke so rudely, he'd at least break three of the man's legs.

But this was Yin Province. He figured it was best not to provoke even a controlled local.

The attendant's eyes swept over the Mausoleum Gate, where people came and went. He seemed to have spotted another group of Awakened and was about to go drum up business.

"Hey, waiter, hold on." Wu Hen called out to the controlled attendant.

"Weren't you in a hurry to die, honored guests?" The attendant looked puzzled.

"You said our group had twenty people. Are you blind? There are clearly twenty-one of us," Wu Hen said.

"Heh heh heh heh~~" The attendant let out a shrill laugh like an opera singer. His already eerie gaze swept over Wu Hen's group, and he said with a singsong lilt, "That's what you think... If you won't have tea, then hurry up and die. Don't get in the way of my business!"

With that, the attendant dropped his fake politeness and shot Wu Hen a sinister glance before hurrying toward another group of Awakened.

Two armed men led that group, one tall and one short. They looked like brothers.

As the attendant rushed toward them in that strange manner, the younger brother raised his Origin Mech Gun without hesitation and shot the attendant in the head!

"Bang!!"

The attendant's head burst open. Everything above his nose was gone, exposing blood vessels and bone...

"If you don't want my business, there's no need to get violent!" Though he had only half a head left, the attendant still opened his mouth to speak. The remaining half slowly curled into a smile.

The scene was so shocking that everyone in the other group backed away!

Suddenly, all the locals on the street turned toward them in unison. Strange light shone from their pupils as they stared at the armed group with greed and fury!

Like a pack of starving demons spotting living people, wave after wave of controlled Yin Citizens charged the group. They opened their mouths and began tearing into them!

"Bang bang bang bang!! Bang bang bang bang!!!!"

Bullets flew everywhere. Everyone in the group drew their guns and fired at the Yin Citizens in self-defense.

But even after being shot full of holes, the Yin Citizens remained vigorous. Starving, they rushed up to their victims and knocked them down. One tore off an arm, another yanked off a leg, and the famine-stricken locals devoured the living people like starving refugees!

Blood covered the ground. A crowd of Yin Citizens still crouched there, licking up the spilled blood and leaving no scraps of flesh behind.

The scene was only a few hundred meters from Wu Hen's group. Everyone in their hastily assembled team watched in horror, trembling all over!

They were Awakened, after all. Though their overall strength was no match for Night Gloom, they should still have been able to put up some resistance against the countless Yin Citizens...

Within minutes, they had become a pile of bones.

Those bones soon broke down into White Bone Yin Ants, which naturally merged into Yin Province, becoming the white bone sign hanging outside the inn.

After witnessing that, even those who hadn't opened their spirit sense understood: every brick, tile, and stone in Yin Province had been laid with the bones of living people!

That meant if they died here, they too would become part of Yin Province.

"Don't attack the Yin Citizens." Captain Cai took out a notebook and quickly wrote that down.

"Captain, places like this usually have Yuan You." The burly man with black hair tied back spoke up.

"True, but we have to survive long enough to get it." Cai Jinlin replied.

"Excuse me, but I can't stop thinking about what that inn attendant said just now," Wu Hen said.

Wu Hen wanted to spot something suspicious and quietly slip to the back of the group, but the Otherworld Law claimed lives indiscriminately. If you just hid without gathering valuable information about the laws, you were unlikely to survive!

"He just miscounted. What's there to worry about?" White Peacock Man said impatiently.

"Little brother, what do you think?" Cai Jinlin hadn't dismissed the point.

"Look at the inn attendant. He could clearly tell which people were controlled and which of us were Awakened who'd retained our awareness... Could someone in our group have been controlled when they entered Yin Province and turned into a Yin Citizen?" Wu Hen explained his reasoning.

Both groups froze. Their gazes darted over everyone's faces!

That was right. Why assume that no one in their group could be controlled?

What if there were an even stronger form of contamination that could penetrate the Spirit Crown's protection???

Besides, they were all travelers in the Desolate Dust. Whether ordinary people or Awakened, anyone could be contaminated by the Otherworld.

And this was Yin Province, a city of even more terrifying Evil Degree. People with weak wills, those gripped by fear, or those burdened by hatred... could easily be contaminated and controlled!

"Wu Hen has a point. Someone in our group might have been contaminated or controlled." Qin Sheng nodded in emphatic agreement.

"We call them 'ghosts,'" Cai Jinlin said.

Wu Hen had been through life-and-death situations before.

He clearly remembered how he and Aunt had escaped Evil Soil. Scar-faced Uncle had suddenly gone berserk, acting just like a Water Ghost and trying to drag everyone off the boat to drown!

If there was a ghost in the group, it would have only one goal.

"I suggest we split up into groups of three right now, with each person keeping an eye on the other two. Otherwise, if the ghost in our group attacks the Yin Citizens here, we'll all end up on the menu!" Wu Hen said.

At his words, all twenty-one members of the group tensed up!!

At first, they hadn't understood. But after looking back at the group that had been reduced to nothing—not even a drop of blood left—they suddenly got it!

"You mean the person who fired just now might have been the ghost in their group!" Ming Yi reacted quickly and immediately understood what Wu Hen meant.

Wu Hen nodded.

That was right. The person who'd fired had been too reckless, reckless in a way that made no sense.

Anyone traveling through the Desolate Dust should know to keep their distance from anything strange and uncanny, no matter how strong they were. How could they draw a gun and blow someone's head off over a few words?

Unless that person was the ghost in the group.

Their goal had been to wipe out the entire team!!

Then who was the ghost among their twenty-one people?

"C-Captain... the c-candle... the Spirit Candle's going out!" Little Stutterer cried in terror.

Captain Cai turned around and saw that the Spirit Candle they'd just lit was going out at an alarming speed.

They'd only just rotated another group in to release their Spirit Crowns and protect everyone!

Once the Spirit Crowns disappeared, they'd be devoured by the Otherworld Locusts and Otherworld Yin Ants!

There really was a ghost!

A ghost wanted to wipe them all out!

Recommended: the new book by the great urban-fiction author Lao Shi.