Target Changed

"I think you both already understand the general situation. Wang Shanshan's condition will only get worse. As an outsider, my advice is that the two of you should still... have one." Yang Jian spoke.

The car stopped in a bustling part of the city.

They got out and sat on some nearby chairs, discussing what had happened earlier.

"How can you say that?" Wang Haiyan said angrily. "Isn't there still a way to remove that mark?"

"There isn't much difference between the two. Remove the mark, replace it with another one—the final result will be the same." Yang Jian said, "My words may be unpleasant, but they're the truth. What do you think, Uncle Wang?"

Wang Bin frowned as he smoked. As the head of the household, he was utterly at a loss right now, deeply troubled and covered in worry.

He understood what Yang Jian meant.

If the mark was not removed, the Ghost Infant would keep following Shanshan. If it was removed, another mark had to be placed on her. The final outcome could not be changed; it could only buy her a little time.

"Dad, Mom, it's fine. I'm beyond saving anyway. Let me face that Ghost Infant alone. You can't be dragged down because of me," Wang Shanshan said through tears.

Once she understood that this was the outcome, she was no longer quite as afraid.

Wang Haiyan, as her mother, was heartbroken. Tears streamed down her face as mother and daughter embraced and wept before the passing pedestrians.

"No, absolutely not. How can I watch my own daughter be tortured to death by that thing?" Wang Bin tossed away his cigarette and stood up, seeming to have made up his mind. "Student, if I agree to let Shanshan receive another mark, do you have a way?"

"There is a way, but the result won't be any better. It will only delay her death," Yang Jian said. "What was that idiom again? Drinking poison to quench thirst. That's roughly what it means."

"If the mark isn't removed, Shanshan probably won't survive more than three days, right?" Wang Bin asked.

"No, she won't even last one day," Yang Jian said. "Wang Shanshan wasn't attacked before because the mark on her hand had not disappeared, so the Ghost Infant never attacked her. But now that mark is gone, the Ghost Infant will probably come looking for her again within an hour. It may even be sooner."

"What if the mark is removed?" Wang Bin asked.

"Live and die together with a Ghost Tamer. By my estimate, she should have a few months left to live. It would be a little better, but the outcome would still be the same. And I can't be sure whether there will be other side effects."

"Even if it's poison, we have to swallow it now. We can't give up even if there's only the slightest chance," Wang Bin said through gritted teeth. "Student, I want to ask you for this favor. I'll pay. Name your price."

Yang Jian looked at Wang Shanshan and her mother, Wang Haiyan, crying in each other's arms and said, "This isn't a supernatural incident, nor am I fighting a vicious ghost. There's no risk. Since Uncle Wang was so straightforward before, I'll do this one for free. But if anything happens to Wang Shanshan afterward, any changes... I can't guarantee anything."

"Thank you. That's enough. I'll take responsibility for all the consequences. Even if something really happens to Shanshan later, I won't blame you," Wang Bin said, taking a deep breath.

That decisiveness and courage really did give him the air of a successful man. He was not as fussy, hesitant, and calculating as Wang Haiyan.

"Then let's begin now. I'm afraid the Ghost Infant may already be on its way here," Yang Jian said.

"Shanshan, come here," Wang Bin said.

Wang Shanshan raised her head. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, and her face was streaked with tears as she looked at Wang Bin, then Yang Jian.

"Wang Shanshan, if you've made your decision, hold out your hand to me," Yang Jian said.

"Go on. We'll deal with the future later. First, get past this immediate crisis," Wang Bin said, still wearing a worried expression. He did not know whether today's decision would harm his daughter or save her.

"Yang Jian, thank you." Wang Shanshan bit her lip and held out her hand.

She still wanted to live. She did not want to die, especially not at the hands of something so terrifying.

"We're classmates, after all. Besides, I already took the money." Yang Jian grabbed her wrist, just as he had at school.

"Remove the bandage around your neck. I need to see the mark."

Without saying a word, Wang Haiyan carefully untied the bandage.

The skin on the girl's delicate neck had split open, crimson with wounds and smeared with medicine. Yet right in the middle of the wound, two dark bluish-black handprints were clearly visible.

Yang Jian's gaze shifted slightly. Recalling what he had done before, he gripped Wang Shanshan's hand. His palm split open, and an eye emerged.

The eye emitted a faint red glow. The red light seeped through his fingers and began invading Wang Shanshan's wrist.

It was the same spot as last time.

As the red light entered her, Yang Jian saw the dark bluish-black handprints on her neck gradually fade, their color actively receding.

"It... it's working." Wang Bin widened his eyes, witnessing this miraculous scene with his own eyes.

Of course it was working.

Yang Jian could sense the presence of the Ghost Eye inside Wang Shanshan's body. It was as though an eye had transferred into her body, though that was not quite accurate. More precisely, a portion of the vicious ghost's power had remained within Wang Shanshan.

After a short while.

The two dark bluish-black handprints on Wang Shanshan's neck completely disappeared.

Seeing this.

Yang Jian finally released her hand.

He saw that a distinct Ghost Eye mark had appeared on Wang Shanshan's wrist. Like a tattoo of a red eye, it was especially conspicuous, faintly radiating a pale red glow.

"It's gone. It's really gone. Those handprints disappeared."

"Shanshan, how do you feel now? Are you all right?"

Wang Bin and his wife grew somewhat excited.

Wang Shanshan felt herself out and said, "Nothing seems wrong. I feel good, though it's also a little strange. I can't describe it, but in any case, it's much better than before." As she spoke, she gave the eye beside her another deep look.

That gaze was very different from usual, though it was hard to say exactly how.

"That's wonderful." Wang Haiyan hugged her excitedly.

Yang Jian also sensed the changes in his body.

There were no major changes. It was like he had fired one off; his body felt somewhat weak.

"Only someone who can control a Ghost Domain is qualified to possess Ghost Slaves. I wonder how a living Ghost Slave differs from a vicious ghost's Ghost Slave. Wang Shanshan definitely won't be like an ordinary person, but the changes can only be observed later," Yang Jian thought to himself.

And just as he removed that mark.

On a street not far from there, a small child covered in bluish-black skin ran across the ground at a bizarre speed, rapidly heading toward Wang Shanshan.

"Did you just see a strange child run past over there?" someone on the street asked in surprise after witnessing the scene.

"What child? You must be seeing things," his companion said.

But before the Ghost Infant had gone very far, it suddenly stopped.

The mark had disappeared, and it had lost a clear target.

Without a preferred target, it would randomly choose pedestrians on this street and begin killing indiscriminately.

"Damn, what did I bump into?"

At that moment, a young man passing by accidentally collided with the Ghost Infant while looking at his phone, nearly falling over.

But when he turned around, there was nothing there.

However, when he turned back and continued walking through the shopping district, he froze.

A naked child with bluish-black skin stood before him with its head tilted, its eyes fixed on him with a strange expression.

The young man gave the Ghost Infant an odd look. He felt that there was something wrong with the child. Maybe it was a homeless kid, perhaps mentally unstable as well. He did not want to provoke such a child, so he walked around it and continued on.

But he had not gone far.

The Ghost Infant moved.

It turned around. Instead of continuing toward Wang Shanshan, it followed that young man.

The horror continued. It had merely changed targets.

Regarding the issue of changing the book's title.

It was only because the editor thought the previous title did not sound good, so he changed it for me. It had nothing to do with censorship.

And when I chose the title before, Hell on Earth was not my first choice either. It was only because the original title had already been taken.

The title does not affect the reading experience. Thank you all for your support.