Douluo Continent.
Dragon Duke Meng Shu trembled with rage as he watched that expression appear on his late wife's face.
His nails dug deep into his palms, blood dripping between his fingers.
"It didn't just kill my wife. It even used her head to make such a humiliating expression. Damn it!"
Meng Shu's eyes turned bloodshot. The fury rising from the depths of his soul nearly robbed him of reason.
On the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's grounds, Yu Yuanzhen watched that eerie smile, his unease growing stronger.
He was about to raise his hand and request permission to send a Sky Screen hint, but the Second Elder beside him firmly held him back.
"Clan Leader, don't act rashly!" The Second Elder's expression was grave. "We still don't know how Chao Tianxiang died, and we haven't figured out that ghostly figure's killing rules. Tian Heng is still on the fifth floor. We only get one chance to send a hint. We have to use it where it counts!"
Yu Yuanzhen took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the agitation in his heart, his gaze locked on the Sky Screen's split-screen feed.
At that moment, inside a storage room on the mall's fifth floor.
Meng Yiran huddled beside a cold iron cabinet, the Snake-Head Dagger trembling slightly in her hand.
The air here was so thick it felt suffocating. She could feel the soul power in her body sinking into a mire, every attempt to circulate it painfully difficult.
"Grandma, where are you?" she mouthed silently.
Just then, an authoritative, urgent voice suddenly thundered in her ears. It was her grandfather, Dragon Duke Meng Shu!
"Yiran! Listen! Your grandma is gone!"
"That ghost is on the third floor. It's wearing your grandma's head now!"
"Remember, whatever you do, don't trust the grandma you see!"
"I haven't fully figured out its rules yet, but whenever it gets close to someone, it takes them apart like snapping branches! Stay hidden!"
Meng Yiran froze as though struck by lightning.
Grandma... was dead?
Five minutes ago, they had been watching the Sky Screen together.
Yet now her grandfather was telling her that her grandma had become a monster?
"No! This is an illusion! It's the ghost using Mental Interference on me!"
Meng Yiran gritted her teeth, a stubborn, obsessive defiance flashing in her eyes.
She recalled the earlier Sky Screen broadcast, when Ning Rongrong had been influenced by the Ghost Newspaper and mistaken the faceless ghost for Ning Fengzhi.
"That has to be it! Grandpa is fake. How could Grandpa possibly send a message into my mind?"
"If the voice is fake, the ghost must be somewhere around me right now. It's trying to kill me!"
That instinct for self-preservation under extreme stress led her to make a fatal misjudgment in the face of a vast information gap.
Meng Yiran flung open the storage room door and ran like mad toward the other end of the corridor.
The instant she rushed out, an ink-black domain silently blanketed the entire corridor.
A chill swept across Meng Yiran's back.
An inexplicable tingling ache spread through her joints, as though a pair of invisible hands were gesturing in the air, working out how to dismantle her body.
On Douluo Continent, Dragon Duke Meng Shu spat out a mouthful of blood in his distress at the sight.
"You foolish girl! Yiran, you foolish girl!"
He hated himself for getting so emotional that he had failed to explain that the Sky Screen's hint was real.
The scene also made Bibi Dong's gaze turn slightly cold in Spirit City, and she gave a derisive laugh.
"Thank you for the warning!"
Outside the mall, two figures abruptly appeared within a red glow.
Yang Jian frowned at Rich Benevolence Mall, shrouded in black haze before him. The Ghost Eye on his forehead swiveled uneasily.
"Why is there a ghost domain?" Yang Jian sounded doubtful. "Didn't Lin Cheng say this ghost wasn't strong?"
His third-layer ghost domain activated instantly, its scarlet light tearing through the black curtain ahead.
With Ning Rongrong in tow, Yang Jian vanished in a flash and teleported straight into the First-Floor Lobby.
His expression changed the moment he landed.
He released his ghost domain to try to pinpoint the source, but when the scarlet light touched the pitch-black supernatural fluctuations, the collision he had expected never came. Instead, an extremely strange attack dismantled it.
The black ghost domain seemed alive, actively evading his probing and even misleading his senses.
"This isn't an unconscious spread of supernatural power." Yang Jian's voice was frighteningly low.
"This deliberate dismantling is more like a Ghost Handler controlling a ghost domain to conceal themselves."
But as he surveyed his surroundings, the ghost domain projected by his Ghost Eye penetrated wall after wall.
There were no Ghost Handlers anywhere in Rich Benevolence Mall, only a handful of living people who weren't Ghost Handlers?!
An unbelievable thought surfaced in his mind.
A flash of horror crossed Yang Jian's eyes. "This ghost can think like a human?"
"You've got to be kidding!"
Ghosts were terrifying enough on their own. If human intelligence and cunning were added to the mix, this incident's rating would shoot from Class C to Class A, perhaps even qualifying as Class S!
Ning Rongrong hid behind Yang Jian. Seeing the unprecedented severity of his expression, she hardly dared breathe.
Yang Jian immediately pressed his earpiece. "Lin Cheng, I've discovered something unusual at Rich Benevolence Mall in Dachang City! This ghost appears to possess conscious thought!"
There was dead silence on the other end.
"Lin Cheng? Lin Cheng!"
Ten seconds passed without a response.
Yang Jian's heart sank. He immediately switched channels to contact the Paranormal Forum's logistics coordinator.
"Liu Xiaoyu, search the Headquarters database for every record of ghosts with human thought. Hurry!"
On the twelfth floor of the Paranormal Forum Tower in Dachang City.
Liu Xiaoyu was sprawled unceremoniously on a sofa, holding a steaming bowl of braised beef noodles.
"Ahh, Boss Lin's place really is comfortable." Liu Xiaoyu happily slurped up a mouthful of noodles.
"No need to spend every day soothing mentally unstable Ghost Handlers like I did at Headquarters. This is paradise."
Suddenly, Yang Jian's low, urgent voice came through her earpiece.
"What?! A ghost that thinks like a human?"
Liu Xiaoyu's hand jerked in shock, splashing noodle broth all over her clothes.
Without stopping to wipe it off, she scrambled toward the computer desk.
Her fingers became a blur over the keyboard as code raced across the screen.
As a top-tier operator, she used the high-level access Lin Cheng had given her to force her way directly into Headquarters' core database.
A few seconds later, her face went deathly pale.
"Yang Jian, listen to me!" Liu Xiaoyu said into the microphone.
"Even the Headquarters Archives have very few records of this. The only information available is on Ghost Drivers!"
"While a Ghost Handler is taking control of a ghost, their consciousness is completely devoured and taken over by it."
"This is no longer just a ghost. It's a source of terror wearing human skin and possessing human intelligence!"
"Pull out immediately. Your safety comes first! I'll contact Boss Lin right away!"
Yang Jian replied coldly, "I already tried. He didn't answer. Go check what's happened."
Liu Xiaoyu froze.
Was there actually someone in Dachang City who could make Lin Cheng go off the grid?
She rushed out of the office and was about to press the elevator button when the entire building suddenly shuddered.
A faint blue glow spread over the whole building like rippling water.
A faint salty, fishy smell abruptly filled the air. Every electronic device failed at once, screens flickering with eerie static.
Liu Xiaoyu stood frozen. She knew this feeling all too well.
This was Lin Cheng's ghost domain!
In the president's office on the tower's twentieth floor.
Five minutes earlier, Lin Cheng had been leisurely watching the Sky Screen's live broadcast.
He hadn't expected the Sky Screen to select more people so soon, and he was quite familiar with all five people chosen this time!
As he sat enjoying the show, his gaze suddenly sharpened.
He casually waved a hand to close the broadcast feed. An amused smile curled his lips instead as he looked at the empty seat across his desk.
At some point, an old man had sat down there.
The old man wore a black Zhongshan suit. He was thin, his face covered in wrinkles, and his cloudy eyes held the calm detachment of someone who had seen through life and death.
He merely sat there quietly, yet seemed to hold all the surrounding air in check.
"What brings you here, Old Qin?"
Lin Cheng leaned back in his chair, lightly tapping his fingers against the desk.
"Dachang City hasn't exactly been peaceful lately. Aren't you afraid those old bones of yours will give out on the way after traveling so far?"
Old Qin smiled too, his hoarse laugh sounding like two pieces of dry wood rubbing together.
"Young Friend Lin, these old bones are tired from the journey. Aren't you going to brew me a cup of tea to moisten my throat?"
Old Qin slowly raised his eyelids, meeting Lin Cheng's gaze with his cloudy eyes.
"If I die of thirst and that thing inside me awakens, Dachang City really will be beyond saving."
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