Escape

Seven in the evening, at the dining table.

Grandmother looked around at the family gathered by the table and announced in a rather good mood:

"Yuanzi, your uncle will be back tomorrow afternoon. Yuan Jun, remember to drive over and pick him up. Yu'er, come home early after work."

Yu'er was her younger aunt's nickname.

Zhang Yuanqing and Jiang Yu'er each gnawed on a chicken drumstick, while Chen Yuanjun drank chicken soup. All three looked perfectly calm.

Seeing this, Grandmother slapped her chopsticks down and glared. "Did you hear what I said?"

"Oh."

"Mm."

"Got it."

Grandmother: "..."

His uncle and aunt-in-law had been traveling abroad for almost two months. His uncle was an idle, carefree wastrel, and his aunt-in-law never lifted a finger around the house. Their presence made no difference at all.

So he was coming back. It wasn't exactly a cause for celebration. Grandmother was probably the only one happy about it.

Gnawing on her drumstick, Jiang Yu'er said, "Why couldn't that disgrace to the family stay away for a few more months? The house has been so much more peaceful without them."

Chen Yuanjun glanced at his younger aunt. "Don't say that. The disgrace to the family is still my dad."

Zhang Yuanqing glanced at his cousin. "Don't say that. The disgrace to the family is still my uncle."

Seeing Grandmother fly into a rage and rise to tear into her unfilial descendants, Jiang Yu'er hurried to placate her, then brought up a topic she knew her mother would find interesting:

"Mom, our hospital is haunted."

Haunted? Zhang Yuanqing perked up his ears at once.

Just as expected, Grandmother forgot about her son and hurriedly asked:

"Oh dear, how did it get haunted all of a sudden? Come on, tell me."

"It's Big Sister Zhou from my department. She was on the night shift when she heard a child giggling in the office. She went in to check, and the laughter stopped. Then she went to the bathroom and saw a baby clinging to her shoulder in the mirror. It nearly scared her to death."

His aunt continued with conviction, "It wasn't just Big Sister Zhou. The other colleagues on night shifts said they sometimes heard a child giggling in the middle of the night, too. Everyone says it must be the spirit of some aborted child, unwilling to move on and wandering around the hospital."

Grandmother listened with great interest and commented, "How eerie. I think that's probably what happened, too. When you're on the night shift, have Yuanzi go with you. Anything else? Anything else?"

"Oh, there's more!"

Grandmother hadn't passed her love of gossip on to his mother. His aunt had inherited all of it. As Zhang Yuanqing listened to the mother and daughter chatter away, his interest gradually faded.

As a Night Wanderer, he could tell at once that this was nothing but a rumor, not something real.

First of all, spirits couldn't make sounds. They had no physical bodies, let alone vocal cords—unless their power directly affected someone's mind.

But with a baby's willpower and mental strength, it was impossible for a spirit to remain after death.

Finally, ordinary people couldn't see spirits with the naked eye. Those who were close to death or had strong yin energy might interact with them, so such rare cases were plausible.

But for so many people to hear a baby laughing? That was nonsense.

"Aunt, be careful. Don't bring any dead babies home from the hospital," Zhang Yuanqing said eerily.

Jiang Yu'er, who had been talking excitedly, froze, her oval face stiffening. "Mom, he's scaring me again!"

Grandmother gave her grandson a token flick on the head.

After dinner, Zhang Yuanqing quietly slipped out of the house and took a taxi to the nearest top-tier hospital.

He planned to put the dead to rest at the hospital and gain experience.

The Night Wanderer skill Spirit Devour was currently the best way to level up. He had no idea when the next Spirit Realm instance would open, so it was important to improve his strength before entering one.

Even at the same level, there was a world of difference between 99% and 1% experience.

Hospitals were great places for Night Wanderers to gain experience. Birth, aging, sickness, and death all happened in hospitals. Crematoriums were good, too, but all of Songhai's were out in the suburbs, with few in the city.

Sitting in the car, Zhang Yuanqing suddenly remembered what Guan Ya had said earlier.

"Why are Night Wanderers from Taiyi Sect so wary of devouring spirits? Is it some professional rule, because they think it harms their karma? Or is there another reason?"

Thinking this, he took out his phone, logged into the official Spirit Realm Walker forum, and searched for related information.

The search results showed: No relevant entries found.

In the suburbs, night began to fall.

In a cheap rental apartment in an industrial park, Ou Xiangrong carried a large bowl of freshly cooked instant noodles into the filthy, cluttered living room. The table was covered with beer cans.

He casually swept the cans and other junk onto the floor with a clatter, clearing a spot for the bowl. Then he took a can of beer from the fridge.

He ate heartily and drank heartily.

The noodles were scalding hot, fresh from the pot, but they couldn't burn his tough mouth cells.

Ou Xiangrong's sparse eyebrows framed a face that shifted between ferocity, indifference, and disgust. He looked like a psychiatric patient on the verge of an episode.

Suddenly, his ear twitched. He lowered his chopsticks, and his expression turned savage.

Ou Xiangrong slowly stood up, drew the Willow Blade from the sheath tucked behind his waist, and soundlessly crept toward the door.

"Bang!"

Just as he reached the entryway, the door was kicked open. A burst of blazing light flared, and a ball of fire hurtled toward him.

Hot wind rushed at his face. Ou Xiangrong stopped short, swung his right arm, and slashed the fireball with a gleaming blade. With a boom, brilliant tongues of flame filled the room.

In the sudden blaze, a figure wreathed in fire darted into the apartment, knees flexing as he shot toward Ou Xiangrong like a rocket.

Ou Xiangrong was even more vicious. He shifted to one side and drove his shoulder forward with all his strength.

"Thud!"

The figure flew backward and crashed into the hallway wall, making it shudder violently.

With burns covering his right hand and shoulder, Ou Xiangrong endured the pain and turned toward the window. He didn't dare take the stairs. The stairwell in the old apartment building was cramped; if he got surrounded there, he'd be dead.

Amid the shattering glass, Ou Xiangrong leaped out from the third floor.

"Bang! Bang!"

Just after crashing through the window, Ou Xiangrong heard two gunshots. He knocked away the bullet aimed at his head with the Willow Blade, but couldn't stop the one aimed at his chest.

The bullet's powerful momentum pierced his skin before his tough muscles caught it.

Following the sound of the shots, he saw a tall, mixed-race beauty standing in the shadows by the landscaped strip. She wore an office skirt and white blouse, her hair streaming in the wind, her beauty cold and stunning.

She held a silver pistol in each hand. Two holsters were strapped to her long legs, which were clad in black stockings.

Bang, bang, bang. The mixed-race beauty fired calmly and accurately, seemingly able to predict the path of his fall.

After taking several bullets, Ou Xiangrong finally hit the ground. He abruptly turned toward the woman, two twisted, blood-red runes appearing in his pupils.

The woman's expression went blank. She turned her gun toward herself and aimed at her own forehead.

"Bang!"

Flames spurted from the muzzle, but the bullet didn't smash through her smooth forehead. A pair of rough hands stopped it.

A worker wearing a miner's helmet had appeared beside her at some point. His dark face was grave as he said:

"A Bewitching Demon?"

"A level-three Bewitching Gu Demon."

A man carrying a cane emerged from the darkness. He wore a black suit with a black vest and white shirt, his slicked-back hair neatly combed.

"Have the men set up a perimeter outside the residential complex. Don't come any closer."

Another voice rang out. A man in a black leather jacket emerged from the stairwell, lean and strong, with a sharp, imposing bearing.

Holding his blade, Ou Xiangrong looked around with a dark expression.

"Rumble, rumble, rumble."

Just then, a motorcycle roared in the distance. Its dazzling headlight pierced the darkness as it sped toward them. The woman riding it wore a white racing suit and leaned low over the bike. Carrying a three-foot-long black blade, she led the charge.

The gunfire rang out again, cutting off Ou Xiangrong's escape. The flaming figure leaped down from the window to attack from the side.

Tang Guoqiang, wearing the miner's helmet, pressed both hands to the ground. The concrete cracked, and a pair of hands made of earth seized Ou Xiangrong's feet.

Ou Xiangrong calmly swung the Willow Blade, knocking away bullets fired from tricky angles. The bullet heads struck the blade, sending up dazzling sparks.

Then the muscles in his legs swelled. He shattered the earthen hands, rolled forward, and narrowly avoided the flaming figure who had pounced down from the third floor.

Thud, thud, thud. He rolled to his feet and sprinted forward, charging straight at the woman on the motorcycle.

In the night, the two passed each other. The sharp Willow Blade sliced through the woman's chest, but he felt no resistance from striking anything solid. The instant the blade hit her, her body turned to water.

Her own blade swept across Ou Xiangrong's chest and abdomen.

His chest split open, and great streams of blood gushed out.

He ignored his wounds completely and kept running toward the residential complex's exit.

At that moment, a beautiful woman in a qipao leaped out of a second-floor window. Her pale bare feet ran along the wall as easily as if it were level ground.

She sprang forward and landed in front of Ou Xiangrong. With a sharp cry, she spun around, her qipao flaring as her strong, athletic leg whipped through the air and slammed into him.

He flew away like a cannonball, smashed through the wall of the apartment building, and slowly slumped to the ground.

"You dare kill an official Spirit Realm Walker in my jurisdiction? You've got some nerve."

At that moment, Li Dongze, who had watched the whole thing unfold, slowly approached, leaning on his cane. His expression was stern, and he remained as composed as a mastermind behind the scenes as he said coolly:

"Now I'll personally send you on your way."

A tremendous sigh echoed all around them. Ou Xiangrong slowly stood up, his eyes blood-red and filled with madness and violence. A powerful, evil force awoke inside him.

His voice hoarse, he said, "You're all going to die."

Li Dongze silently took two steps back. "Brothers, that was a joke. I'm absolutely not the type to hog all the credit."

Zhang Yuanqing, who hadn't found anything in the taxi, returned to the forum's homepage and instinctively refreshed the page.

Then he saw a post pinned at the top in red.

#Wanted! Level-Three Bewitching Demon Ou Xiangrong#

The post hadn't been there a few minutes ago.

Zhang Yuanqing opened it:

"Ou Xiangrong, level-three Bewitching Demon. On April 18, he killed Zhao Yingjun, a Scout of the White Tiger Corps of the Five Elements Alliance. At 19:05 on the evening of April 19, he escaped after being surrounded by the Spirit Realm team in Kangyang District.

"This man possesses some kind of terrifying, evil power. He is not an ordinary Bewitching Demon. The Spirit Realm team in Kangyang District has seriously wounded him, and his whereabouts are currently unknown. Spirit Realm Walker teams in all districts, take note. Ou Xiangrong is on the verge of losing control. If you find him, kill him immediately.

"Five thousand yuan reward for information. Ten thousand yuan reward for killing him."

The post had been up for less than three minutes, and it already had over a hundred comments.

They were all criticizing the Spirit Realm team in Kangyang District for incompetence and for letting a half-mad Bewitching Demon escape.

"Are you kidding me? Someone this dangerous could lose control at any moment. Does the Kangyang District team do nothing all day?"

"If he loses control and kills people before the Spirit Realm puts out a wanted notice, there'll be a river of blood by the time we get there. The Spirit Realm Walkers across the country will laugh at us, saying we can't control the situation and that we take fat paychecks without doing our jobs."

"We're screwed."

Ou Xiangrong had escaped? Squad Leader and the others had identified their target and launched the arrest so quickly?

For a moment, Zhang Yuanqing didn't know whether to praise Squad Leader and the others' efficiency or criticize their botched job for letting this ticking time bomb get away.

"Since they've already fought him, some of Ou Xiangrong's blood, or even tissue, must have been left at the scene. I should be able to track him down with the Red Dancing Shoes."

Zhang Yuanqing immediately thought of his rule-based item.