Mistaken Path

"The source is that ghost painting in the fifth-floor dormitory. Once we contain it, this mission will be complete. The process is simple. The only thing to worry about is the dangers we might encounter along the way. Currently, the ghostly Ghost Domain of the painting has affected two floors, and there's a possibility it could expand further, so you'd better act quickly."

As Yang Jian walked down the dimly lit corridor, he spoke to Wang Quan behind him.

"There might be students lingering on the fourth floor. I think we can stay here for a while and check if anyone is there," Wang Quan suggested after a moment's hesitation.

"There's no need for that. The way back downstairs is blocked. Even if we find a few students who are still stranded, what good will it do? We can't take them out anyway. If there are any left, let them stay here. They weren't killed by the ghosts before, so the chances of them being killed now are slim."

Yang Jian said it directly.

Those who were meant to die have already died; those who haven't died are simply not the target of the ghosts and won't die anytime soon. This is a very simple principle.

Wang Quan nodded immediately, and then followed Yang Jian directly to the fifth floor.

The most urgent task is to resolve that problematic painting.

Yang Jian didn't rush to the fifth floor immediately. Instead, he lingered in the corridor on the fourth floor for a few seconds, looking around in hopes of making some special discovery. After all, Sun Yujia had jumped out of a window in a dormitory room on the fourth floor, which meant that the ghost might have been on the fourth floor.

However, the dimly lit and quiet corridor was completely empty. Some of the dormitory doors on both sides were open, while others were closed, but all of them were eerily quiet.

It seems there's nothing going on.

"That shouldn't be the case," Yang Jian thought with a hint of doubt.

Based on his judgment, there was definitely something going on on the fourth floor, which is why he had previously considered whether to come up to the fourth floor from the stairwell on the third floor.

However, although the fourth floor showed no signs of being invaded by the Ghost Domain, it behaved just like a normal floor, with nothing amiss.

So, why did Sun Yujia jump out of the window just now?

Is it just fear?

Or was it the seemingly bottomless staircase on the third floor that forced Sun Yujia to make this choice?

Unfortunately, the woman was already terrified, and with time running out, she couldn't get any information. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been making such wild guesses.

"What's wrong? Is something amiss?" Wang Quan asked in a low voice when he saw that Yang Jian hadn't moved.

"I didn't see any ghosts, which is why I feel something's off," Yang Jian.

Wang Quan was somewhat startled. What kind of talk was this?

Isn't it a good thing that we didn't see any ghosts? At least we're safe for now. But somehow, this situation feels even worse.

He wasn't Ghost Tamer, so of course he didn't know that in paranormal events, being able to pinpoint the ghost's location could increase the chances of survival several times over; most people just die inexplicably.

"Let's go check the fifth floor."

Yang Jian didn't want to waste time searching each dormitory room one by one. He might find something, but that would only delay things further, since there were quite a few dorm rooms on one floor.

Once he was absolutely certain, he didn't hesitate to step onto the stairs leading to the fifth floor.

It was still dimly lit, and the motion-activated lights in the hallway were still on, but the light was so dim that you could barely see the road ahead.

However, the good thing about this time is that the stairs are normal and there are no abnormalities.

However, when Yang Jian left the fourth floor, he did not notice that the dormitory building, which originally had ten rooms on each floor, had eleven rooms on the fourth floor. The door to the extra room appeared on the wall between two rooms, and that section of the wall seemed to have been stretched out to be exactly the same as the other rooms.

If you don't look closely, you can't tell the difference at all.

However, the students living here could tell the difference because the door to the extra dormitory room was different from the other dormitory doors. The extra dormitory door was made of wood, with dark red paint and some old carved patterns. Upon closer inspection, it looked just like a picture frame.

The extra dormitory room door was open, and the inside was dark and seemingly empty.

No, there is a window.

The view outside that window was completely different from the views from the other dormitory windows. It was a gloomy, gray world, with something that looked like ashes falling from the sky. These ashes seemed endless and would never stop falling.

This is a bizarre world.

However, the view from the windows of other dorm rooms is of a brightly lit, bustling metropolis.

The two appear to be different.

"It's really a bit strange without the Ghost Eye's vision." Yang Jian subconsciously touched his forehead. Without the Ghost Eye's vision, he was now walking much more cautiously than before.

Because of the dim lighting, he also became partially blind.

One wrong step could lead you to a place you don't even know you've entered.

If the Ghost Eye could still be open now, at least we wouldn't be so cowardly, and we could act more boldly. We also had the ability and time to search the fourth floor.

Everything went smoothly.

Yang Jian did not encounter any ghosts, nor was he attacked by any ghosts. He led Wang Quan and two other people to the fifth floor.

Since the floors are all built the same way, there isn't much difference between this place and the fourth floor. However, he had been here before, so he knew which dormitory room Guihua lived in.

Without hesitation, taking advantage of the current safety, Yang Jian acted swiftly and headed straight for Miao Xiaoshan's dormitory.

As long as the ghost painting on the bed is put into a special bag to isolate its influence, the Ghost Domain here will disappear, and the mission will be over.

But when Yang Jian arrived at the door of the dormitory he remembered, his expression darkened.

The door to Miao Xiaoshan's dormitory still bore the footprints he had left when he kicked it open, and he remembered that the door was dented when he left.

But now the dent on the door is gone.

Without hesitation, I pushed open the dormitory door.

Yang Jian's guess came true. The layout of the dormitory room and the things on the bed were all unfamiliar to him. It was even more impossible to find the ghost painting here, because this was an unfamiliar dormitory room.

In other words, he went to the wrong dormitory.

"Are we lost?" Wang Quan reacted quickly; he could tell from the subtle expression on Yang Jian that they had come to the wrong place.

"We underestimated the Ghost Painting. We thought that while its impact was still small, and with our quick action, we could contain it without any risk. Now it seems that this thing completely changed the environment here as soon as it started affecting the floors. But there's nothing we can do about it."

"No one can compete with this ghost Ghost Domain. Even the Ghost Messenger were taken away by the ghost painting, so it's normal that we got lost."

His expression remained calm, and he was not shaken by this minor setback.

Even though the ghost drawing is classified as S-class paranormal event.

"So what do we do now? Finding the Ghost Painting in the Ghost Domain must be extremely difficult. I've looked into this, and we might not find the Ghost Painting, but instead encounter a real ghost," Wang Quan said solemnly.

The two attendants behind him also looked somewhat uneasy, and some even seemed prepared to die there.

After all, they were just ordinary people; seeing a ghost would almost certainly mean death.

"What's the rush? As I said before, the ghost painting's Ghost Domain hasn't completely affected reality yet. As long as that's the case, things will be much easier. Besides, since the ghost painting is just a painting, it shouldn't be able to move around everywhere. It's just hiding using the Ghost Domain. If we look carefully, we can still find it."

Yang Jian said calmly.

"But we're already lost. We can't even pinpoint the location of our previous dorm room," Wang Quan said.

Yang Jian didn't speak. Some things were hard to explain to Wang Quan, who was just an ordinary person. He simply looked up at the room number hanging on the dormitory door, then reached out and took it down.

The number plate hanging on the dormitory door changed immediately after his ghostly hand grabbed it.

It looked like it had shed a layer of color; the license plate that originally said 503 had become 603.

Upon seeing this, he frowned.

"603? This is the sixth floor, not the fifth floor. How is this possible? I clearly confirmed it just now." Wang Quan's eyes widened immediately.

"Sun Yujia didn't jump from the fourth floor, she jumped from the fifth floor, which was the floor we were just on," Yang Jian said.

"But the third floor wasn't affected. Going up one floor is the fourth floor; there's no way the calculation was wrong. Even in the Ghost Domain, this couldn't have happened," Wang Quan said. "After all, you confirmed it."

"We didn't miscalculate the floor, but that doesn't mean we didn't go the wrong way. If I'm not mistaken, the fifth floor and the fourth floor overlap," Yang Jian. "The fourth floor we just saw was both the real fourth floor and the fifth floor within the Ghost Domain."

"I've used this trick before, switching between reality and the Ghost Domain without you even realizing whether you're on the fourth or fifth floor. I can stack up five floors without them interfering with each other."

By activating the five layers of the Ghost Domain, Yang Jian also possesses the ability to distort reality. It is entirely possible to stack five layers together without affecting each other.

Wang Quan was speechless.

This bizarre situation is enough to shatter one's worldview; it is simply incomprehensible to people with normal thinking patterns. Only someone like Yang Jian can understand it instantly and know the reason behind it.