Inside the Golden House, the deathly still air seemed to have frozen solid.
The shabby wooden cabinet stood silently in the center, giving off a nauseating stench of mold and a bottomless chill.
"Any wish..."
Hu Liena stared fixedly at the Ghost Cabinet. Her beautiful eyes, once filled with fear, now blazed with ambition.
She was not the only one. Yu Tianheng and Meng Yiran were breathing faster, too.
On the Douluo Continent, becoming stronger required decades of grueling cultivation and countless brushes with death.
And now, a shortcut lay right before them!
Hu Liena bit her red lip, forced down her pounding heartbeat, and was just about to step forward.
"Stop."
Yang Jian's voice, devoid of any warmth, pierced Hu Liena's fantasies.
His deathly pale Ghost Hand hung casually at his side, while the Ghost Eye on his forehead swept coldly over the three of them.
"I made myself very clear. Only someone who has completed a mission issued by the Forum is qualified to use it."
A mocking sneer curled Yang Jian's lips.
"None of you three is worthy of making a deal with the Ghost Cabinet yet. If you want to die, I don't mind granting that wish right now."
Hu Liena froze with one foot still raised. Her face alternated between ashen and flushed, but she did not dare utter a word.
She had no doubt that if she took another step, Yang Jian would snap her neck without hesitation.
Yang Jian turned his head, his gaze settling on Ning Rongrong.
"You completed the Rich Benevolence Mall mission. You have permission to use it once. Whether you do is up to you."
The jealous gazes of Hu Liena, Yu Tianheng, and Meng Yiran instantly converged on Ning Rongrong.
Ning Rongrong ignored their murderous looks.
She instinctively touched her slightly swollen abdomen.
Lurking there was the paranormal power that had invaded her body after the Ghost Baby bit her at Seventh Middle School in Dachang City.
She took a deep breath and said, "Let me think about it."
Then she walked outside the golden doors alone, turned her back to the others, and quietly took out the Sheepskin Paper.
Dark red words written in blood were writhing rapidly across its yellowed surface.
[My name is Ning Rongrong. I have earned the right to use the Ghost Cabinet.] [I know I will die in three days, so I must make a wish to the Ghost Cabinet and obtain the power to save my life.] [I cannot simply wish to stay alive, because the Ghost Cabinet will exploit a loophole and turn me into a mindless Ghost Slave. That would still count as being alive.] [I wish for the Ghost Cabinet to give me a ghost in a dormant state that can take an otherwise fatal attack for me, and make it reach a balance with the paranormal power inside my body so that I can control it perfectly.]
Reading the precise answer supplied by the Sheepskin Paper, Ning Rongrong's heart clenched.
Control a real ghost?!
Absorb one of those terrifying monsters into my own body?!
But she had no choice. This was the only way she could survive.
Ning Rongrong approached the Ghost Cabinet, picked up the paper and pen prepared beside it, copied the wish from the Sheepskin Paper word for word, and slipped it through the pitch-black gap in the door.
The entire Golden House fell deathly silent.
One second, two seconds...
Creak.
The grating scrape of wood rang out, setting their teeth on edge. The Ghost Cabinet's tightly shut door slowly swung open a crack.
An overpowering stench of blood and rotting corpses struck her.
Ning Rongrong leaned forward to look. Resting silently on the cabinet's shelf was a dead person's skin, dripping black blood!
The human skin had no facial features. Dark purple lividity covered it, and it radiated a chill that made the soul tremble.
Yet it remained completely motionless, betraying an eerie dormant state.
"A dormant Ghost Skin?" A flicker of surprise crossed Yang Jian's eyes.
The Ghost Cabinet had actually provided a dormant ghost!
Once someone put on this skin, the Ghost Skin would take the damage in their place whenever they suffered an otherwise fatal attack!
Ning Rongrong gritted her teeth, reached out with a trembling hand, and grasped the deathly pale human skin.
The instant she touched it, something horrifying happened!
The human skin seemed to come alive. It turned into a pool of bone-chilling, viscous liquid, raced up Ning Rongrong's arm, and burrowed straight into her skin!
"Ah!" Ning Rongrong let out a muffled cry of pain.
She could clearly feel the Ghost Skin forcibly fusing with her flesh.
Her once fair, luminous skin visibly lost its color, turning as pale as a corpse. A few faint patches of lividity even began to show through!
At the same time, the paranormal fluctuations in her abdomen suddenly surged wildly.
They collided violently with the newly introduced Ghost Skin inside her body!
But under the forceful intervention of the Ghost Cabinet's rules, the two terrifying paranormal powers ultimately restrained one another, reaching an eerie balance within her.
Ning Rongrong had officially taken control of her first ghost!
Yet at the very moment she gained control of the Ghost Skin, she froze.
It was not for any other reason. She had suddenly noticed something very strange.
I'm far too calm.
Facing this Ghost Cabinet with its terrifying aura, facing the eerie changes that had just occurred inside her body.
She felt not the slightest trace of fear, panic, or joy.
What's wrong with me? Ning Rongrong questioned herself.
She was the pampered little princess of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect. Normally, pain like that would have left her badly shaken.
Yet she seemed to have been unusually calm when facing the Headless Ghost Shadow earlier, too.
Whenever her mind tried to produce fear or weakness-emotions belonging to the living-she felt nothing at all!
Ning Rongrong lowered her head and looked at her deathly pale hands, devoid of warmth.
Just then, another spine-chilling scraping sound came from behind the Ghost Cabinet's door.
A slip of paper covered in fresh blood slowly drifted out through the gap and landed at Ning Rongrong's feet.
It was the Ghost Cabinet's demand.
Ning Rongrong bent down and picked up the bloodstained paper.
When her gaze swept over the bloody words, her pretty face showed none of the despair Hu Liena had expected.
Instead, her eyes were as calm as a pool of stagnant water.
Seeing this, Hu Liena felt a surge of gleeful satisfaction at her misfortune and sneered.
"What? Is the price so high that you're scared senseless? I knew it. Power you get without lifting a finger always comes at a terrible cost!"
Ning Rongrong ignored Hu Liena's mockery.
She slowly turned around. Her gaze passed over Yang Jian and settled on Hu Liena, Yu Tianheng, and Meng Yiran.
The spoiled petulance and weakness that once filled her eyes were gone.
In their place were a chilling calculation and an indifference that treated human life as worthless.
Ning Rongrong's stare made Hu Liena's skin crawl, and an overwhelming sense of unease suddenly rose within her.
"Y-you... why are you looking at me?" Hu Liena instinctively took half a step back.
Ning Rongrong said nothing. She merely unfolded the blood-soaked slip of paper in her hand.
The view on the Sky Screen instantly zoomed in, displaying the twisted line of bloody writing with perfect clarity before everyone on the continent:
[Within the next twenty-four hours, put a living person who possesses soul power into the Ghost Cabinet while they are still alive.]
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