As they spoke, Lin Hai raised his phone. By its light, he finally made out the face hidden beneath the hood: skin as pale as paper, bloodshot eyes, heavy dark circles...
Though it looked eerie, it was definitely a human face, and the light cast a shadow behind him...
Lin Hai quietly breathed a sigh of relief. He has a shadow, so he probably isn't a ghost...
"Who are you two? Why are you here?"
Mu You frowned at the two men before him.
An hour earlier, he had gotten out of a taxi in a neighborhood a kilometer away. After switching to the Night Watchman's Skin, he had found this lumber mill.
The mill covered a sizable area. Carrying the Pumpkin Lantern, Mu You had searched its perimeter and finally found a trail of footprints that seemed to belong to the otherworldly creature. He had followed them all the way here.
What he hadn't expected was that someone would beat him here-and with a camera on his shoulder, apparently filming something.
Mu You didn't know who these two were, but he certainly didn't want to be filmed, so he had immediately drawn his bow and fired an arrow at them. Of course, his target hadn't been either man, but the camera lens.
"Huh, are you here to investigate Spirits too?" Lin Hai looked Mu You up and down. Once he confirmed that the man was alive, he grew much bolder.
Then, recalling how the man had seemingly teleported in the distance, he began getting ideas again. He hurried over to Mu You and asked shamelessly, "Hey, man, how did you pull off that move just now? Was it a magic trick? Could you teach me? I'll pay for it. How about it?"
Mu You gave him a puzzled look. "Investigate Spirits? What Spirits?"
"You don't know? Something supernatural happened in this building a few days ago. Ghostly flames were coming out of the walls, and someone even got a photo. Look." He took out the photo from earlier and showed it to him.
Mu You took the photo and glanced at it, his brow furrowing as well.
Someone had taken a paranormal photo here, and the footprints he was tracking had disappeared nearby... It seemed this was no coincidence. That creature was very likely hiding upstairs in this building!
"You two need to leave right now. There's something wrong with this place. Don't linger around here." Mu You tucked the photo into his pocket and gave the two men a stern look.
He was about to capture that creature, and he didn't want an audience.
"Something wrong? You mean... there's really a ghost here?" Instead, Lin Hai's eyes lit up at his words, and he stared intently at Mu You.
"I can't say whether it's a ghost, but it's definitely something dangerous. I followed it all the way here..." Mu You gave the young man a strange look. Most people would have been scared out of their wits at the mention of ghosts or monsters. Why did this guy seem excited instead?
"So you're a Taoist priest from Mount Mao, sir? You've come down from the mountain to catch ghosts?" Lin Hai looked at Mu You with fervent eyes, his tone now respectful.
Mu You frowned. "Never mind who I am. If you don't want to die, leave immediately!"
As he spoke, he clenched both fists, making his knuckles crack.
His enhanced physique far surpassed that of an ordinary person. Combined with his current height of nearly two meters, it made him quite intimidating.
Seeing Mu You poised to get physical, both men immediately lost some of their nerve.
The young cameraman swallowed. "Young Master Lin, let's leave the ghost hunting to a professional. We should get out of here. This place gives me the creeps..."
Lin Hai was actually a little frightened now too. But after streaming for so long, this was his first encounter with a genuine master. He couldn't bear to leave just like that.
His eyes darted around, and he suddenly remembered something. "Well, Master, I'd like to leave, but we've still got someone upstairs..."
"Someone's already gone upstairs?" Mu You frowned. These people really were asking to get themselves killed.
"Aah!"
Just then, as though to confirm Lin Hai's words, a scream suddenly came from upstairs. Then a streak of white light flashed across the third-floor stairs and vanished in an instant.
Both Lin Hai and the young cameraman jumped. Lin Hai's expression changed. "Oh no, that was Xiao Liu! Something's happened to him!"
And Mu You?
The moment the scream rang out, he had already charged toward the building.
The stairwell entrance on the ground floor was blocked by piles of planks and concrete, making it difficult to get through. But Mu You had no intention of using the stairs anyway.
He sprinted to the corner of the building and ran a few steps up a three- or four-meter-long log propped diagonally against the wall. Once he reached the height of the second floor, he kicked off hard and leaped toward its outer ledge, caught the corridor railing with one hand, and vaulted lightly over it.
He had joined a parkour club in college and learned a few moves. Together with his newly enhanced physical abilities, that had allowed him to pull off this difficult climb.
But to the two ordinary men below, it looked like something else entirely.
"Holy shit!"
Lin Hai shouted excitedly, "Guys, did you see that? Lightness kung fu! That was definitely lightness kung fu... Fuck! Why did my stream disconnect?"
Lin Hai had been thrilled that he had finally filmed a legendary master. He was definitely going to go viral this time! But when he looked down at his phone, the stream's screen was pitch-black. It had already been disconnected for some time.
"What's going on?" Lin Hai hurriedly turned to the cameraman.
The young cameraman was equally baffled. He raised the camera to inspect it, only then discovering that, at some point, a hole had been shot straight through its lens...
Mu You jumped into the second-floor corridor. There was no one around; the scream had come from above.
He hurried up the stairs to the third floor.
Sure enough, a young man lay motionless at the third-floor stairwell entrance, his mouth slack and eyes rolled back.
Mu You went over and checked his breathing.
The man was still alive, and there were no visible wounds on him. He had probably just fainted from fright.
Come to think of it, that thing didn't keep attacking after scaring him unconscious. It ran away instead. That suggests this creature isn't particularly aggressive...
Mu You left the stairwell and headed into the third-floor corridor, intending to continue tracking the creature.
But the moment he rounded the corner, a huge dark shape suddenly sprang from the windowsill of the first room on his left.
By the light shining over from the distant amusement park, Mu You saw it clearly. What emerged from that window was a monster with a blue-green face and vicious fangs!
The monster stood two or three meters tall, with purplish-blue skin and a hulking body. Barbs covered its fishlike scales, and fangs jutted from its hideous maw. With bulging eyes and chisel-like teeth, it looked ready to devour anyone in its path!
"What the hell?"
The instant he saw the monster, Mu You's mind filled with questions. The footprints I followed were only the size of bottle caps. That meant the creature was small, about the size of an ordinary cat or dog. How could it possibly be this enormous monster? This defies science!
Besides, just how twisted are those otherworldly wizards' tastes if they keep something this ugly as a household pet?
These thoughts flashed through his mind as Mu You instinctively leaped backward. But he quickly struck the corridor railing. Beyond it was a nearly ten-meter drop from the third floor. He had nowhere left to retreat.
Meanwhile, the monster charged at him, its sweeping claws cutting off his escape to either side. It opened its bloody maw and lunged down over his head, biting Mu You's head clean off...
Before you continue