Beneath the Old Locust Tree, Xu Yi and Zhong Xueran struggled to climb up through the raging wind and rain.
Zhong Xueran was doing all right. Although her face was changing into the Female Ghost's, she had lost none of her strength. After Xu Yi gave her a push from below, she quickly climbed into the tree.
Xu Yi, on the other hand, had already lost much of the flesh from his limbs. He could no longer muster even half the strength he had possessed before.
He tried hugging the trunk and hauling himself up, but neither his hands nor his feet could support his body's weight.
What was more, the torrential rain had left the trunk wet and slippery. Although Zhong Xueran, who had climbed up first, leaned down and did her best to pull him up, it was no use.
Just then, a horrifying transformation began in the ground beneath the Old Locust Tree's canopy!
Amid the dense rain and flashing lightning, all of Fu City seemed to have suddenly become somewhere else. What made Zhong Xueran's expression change drastically as she stood in the tree was... the withered, scrawny arms reaching out of the soil!
Even a cursory glance revealed dozens of arms!
And every arm was dry and skeletal, like a zombie's.
Zhong Xueran shuddered in the tree, while Xu Yi felt his scalp crawl below.
So many... were these all ghosts?
How could there be so many ghosts?
Shouldn't there only be Shen Hong's family at most?
The worst possibility Xu Yi had imagined was that all three of them-Shen Hong, her father Shen Yi, and her husband Liu Junyan-had become ghosts.
But now, there were clearly far more than three!
*Still... this Old Locust Tree had indeed only become famous recently. In other words,