The Released Curse

"Hey, hey, Yang Jian, say something! What were you trying to say? Hey!"

Inside Headquarters, Cao Yanhua, who was on a call, noticed that Yang Jian suddenly stopped talking. He had stopped mid-sentence, and the call had not been disconnected, nor was the signal affected in any way.

"Yang Jian, are you still there? Hello?"

Cao Yanhua called out several times, but Yang Jian's voice never came from the other end of the phone.

He frowned, instinctively thinking that Yang Jian had deliberately let go of the phone, not wanting to continue the conversation, since the explanation he had just received was not satisfactory to him.

"Liu Xiaoyu, keep in touch with Yang Jian. No matter what, keep him calm and make sure he doesn't cause any trouble tonight. I'll continue negotiating with the people in my WeChat Moments to earn his trust this time. I'll definitely give him a satisfactory answer by tomorrow morning." Cao Yanhua hung up the phone and instructed Liu Xiaoyu in the call center.

"Okay, I'll try my best to persuade Yang Jian." Liu Xiaoyu nodded to indicate that she understood.

"Honestly, they're all such a headache." Cao Yanhua had a terrible headache. He had a lot of things to do and couldn't possibly focus all his energy on dealing with Yang Jian alone.

However, this matter cannot be ignored. Although Yang Jian is just one person, the trouble he has caused is quite significant.

After Cao Yanhua left, Liu Xiaoyu had no choice but to continue working overtime to contact Yang Jian and try to keep him on his Yang Jian.

What they didn't know was that Yang Jian didn't suddenly fall silent during the call; rather, he had been attacked by some unknown supernatural force and was no longer able to continue the call.

On a street near the Ping An Hotel.

A very strange scene unfolded here: the entire street, along with the nearby buildings, vehicles, and pedestrians, was shrouded in a thick red light. This red light seemed to have become the entirety of the street, changing the colors of everything, and even obscuring the sky.

"What's going on? What happened?" Someone looked around in surprise, clearly taken aback by the sudden change.

"Am I seeing things? Why is everything here turning red? Is some kind of special astronomical phenomenon happening?" Some people looked up at the sky, trying to confirm their guesses.

"Something's not right about this road."

However, the drivers on the road were inexplicably panicked because they found that no matter how they drove forward, they could not leave the street. The road was still the same road, the speed was still the same speed, but the surrounding scenery had not changed at all.

This is an incomprehensible and bizarre phenomenon.

The people on the street began to panic slightly.

But all of that was irrelevant to Yang Jian now. His current state was terrifying. He was lying face down on the sidewalk, a gruesome gash on his neck, blood gushing out and staining the surrounding ground red in just a few moments.

His head, however, rolled slightly to the side and was not connected to his neck.

This scene terrified the surrounding pedestrians, who fled as if their lives depended on it; not one dared to approach.

Although Yang Jian's head had rolled to the side of his own corpse, he was still conscious and his mind was still relatively clear. His eyes were slightly open, revealing a look of disbelief and astonishment.

But how long can a person retain consciousness after their brain is removed from their body?

Three seconds? Five seconds? Or ten seconds?

However, regardless of the circumstances, this period of residual consciousness is quite short, because with significant blood loss and oxygen deprivation, a person will lose consciousness very quickly.

Yang Jian was no exception.

He is indeed Ghost Tamer, but not all Ghost Tamer can survive without their heads.

Feng Quan is acceptable.

Because Feng Quan's entire body had been eroded by the strange Grave Soil, his body was full of mud, and there was no trace of flesh and blood left.

Wang Xiaoming's younger brother, Wang Xiaoqiang, is also an example, because his body is that of a ghost. He is merely a broken shell parasitizing a ghost, having long since transcended the realm of the living.

But Yang Jian is different, because his body is still mostly within the realm of the living and hasn't been corrupted too much by the vengeful ghost.

This is both an advantage and a disadvantage.

The body of a living person represents health and the mental stability of the Ghost Tamer, but it also represents fragility and extreme vulnerability to death.

However, Yang Jian overcame the shortcomings of a living human body because he controlled a headless ghost shadow. In dangerous situations, the headless ghost shadow could attach to his body, allowing him to retain some ghostly characteristics while maintaining the health of a living person.

However, the headless ghost has its flaws.

Because it lacks a head, Yang Jian's head was not covered by the headless ghost shadow, which resulted in a fatal weakness in his body.

Once Yang Jian's head is severed, he will truly die, just like an ordinary person.

Yang Jian no longer had time to ponder why the sudden attack had targeted his neck, nor why this bizarre attack could ignore the four layers of Ghost Domain and even prevent the headless ghost from piecing itself back together.

"I have to find a way to survive." He had only one thought in his mind: to survive.

There was nothing else for him to think about, because there was no time left.

He didn't know how long his consciousness could remain in this head that had left his body. He only knew that once he closed his eyes, all his efforts and experiences from No. 7 Middle School until now would be in vain.

Yang Jian didn't want to die; like any ordinary person, he had a strong will to live.

If he had suicidal thoughts, he would have died back in Dachang City.

Light the ghost candle to isolate yourself from all supernatural phenomena, and then use this time to try and piece the head back together using the headless ghost figure?

Should we quickly use a scapegoat to block all the deadly attacks at this crucial moment?

Or perhaps do nothing at all, placing all your hopes on that strange music box that you've placed on yourself but never used?

Three options—these were the best solutions Yang Jian could think of when he was at his most lucid.

These three methods may not all be effective. Perhaps even the ghost candle cannot withstand such a terrible attack, perhaps the scapegoat can only delay the time of death, or perhaps the music box obtained from Headquarters is not as powerful as imagined.

Which one should I choose?

This idea echoed in Yang Jian's mind.

He had to make a choice in the shortest possible time.

At this moment, he felt his eyelids growing heavier and heavier, everything before his eyes gradually darkening, and his thoughts seemingly sinking into darkness. He was about to die, with only a few seconds of consciousness remaining at most. In this final moment, he could only do one thing.

And at this moment.

Inside the offices of Ping An Building.

Fang Shiming's scissors landed on a very ordinary photograph again. This photograph was exactly the same as the one that had been cut up before; it was a photocopy, and the content of the photograph was unchanged. It also showed Yang Jian's full-body photo.

As for the badly cut photos, he didn't continue using them because they were incomplete and couldn't trigger the murderous pattern of the Ghost Scissors.

Therefore, a photo can only be used once.

But for him, making dozens or even hundreds of copies of the same photo is no problem at all.

This time, however, Fang Shiming aimed his scissors at Yang Jian's head in the photo.

It only takes one stroke to cut Yang Jian's head in two.

If he wasn't dead by now, Fang Shiming glanced around.

In the dark office, the stench grew stronger. Several mutilated human figures stood beside him, almost touching his body. On the desk in front of him, not a single intact piece of clothing could be seen; it was soaked in blood and covered with various mutilated limbs.

There were pale, human heads with their eyes closed, facing this way; there were also split legs standing there eerily; and there were broken fingers that seemed to be twitching slightly.

The real ghosts are hidden within these broken and incomplete things.

Once Fang Shiming touches a real ghost, he will suffer a terrible curse from the Ghost Scissors.

Fang Shiming didn't know what the consequences would be, but it definitely wouldn't be a good thing.

Therefore, using the Ghost Scissors twice in a short period of time is his limit. If combined with the Ghost Candle, he can resist the surrounding eeriness for a period of time, and then he can increase the chance to use the Ghost Scissors goes out.

However, Fang Shiming did not have the ghost candle at the moment, so after the second time, he would stop using the Ghost Scissors regardless of the outcome.

But he believed that these two incidents were enough to kill Yang Jian completely, leaving him no chance of survival.

Even if he didn't die, his vengeful spirit will rise again.

The outcome was predetermined.

Fang Shiming's withered hand twitched slightly, and the photograph immediately underwent the same change as before. The vibrant colors faded instantly, making the photograph look old. This was the curse of the Ghost Scissors. Then, Yang Jian's figure in the photograph began to blur, and a layer of red paint stained the photograph.

The curse reflects the condition of some of the people in the photos; the blurriness of the photos and the indistinctness of the figures suggest that the person is using some kind of demonic power to fight against it.

Unfortunately, this kind of ghost's abilities were still quite lacking.

The people in the photo did not disappear, and the sudden appearance of the red dye did not completely blur the photo.

Fang Shiming's scissors cut a slit in the photo without any hindrance or interference. Although the slit continued to spread, it soon reached the area on Yang Jian's forehead in the photo.

He cut horizontally, so the slit could completely tear Yang Jian's head apart from about an eyebrow up.

If a Ghost Tamer can survive after losing their head, then if their brain is split open, they should be certain to die.

Fang Shiming's movements were slightly slower than before, and his withered hands trembled slightly, because he had seen that the pale, dead head on the table had opened its eyes.

A cold wind seemed to blow up behind my neck, as if someone was breathing down my back.

Tap tap!

In the darkness of the not-so-large office, clear footsteps could be heard, and the footsteps seemed to be heading this way.

It seemed that a ghost had sensed Fang Shiming's presence and began to approach him.

Bearing the curse of the Ghost Scissors, they attract unpredictable and vengeful spirits.

Even so, Fang Shiming was determined to kill Yang Jian.

But in those brief ten seconds, on the street covered by the Ghost Domain, Yang Jian, now a corpse, made his choice while his mind was still sharpening.

The headless corpse's arm twitched at that moment, and the red ghost candle in its hand slipped from its grasp and fell to the ground.

This action indicates that Yang Jian has given up on lighting the ghost candle.

Then, his arm twisted half a circle in an illogical way, reached into a pocket of his shirt, and took out a golden box.

The golden box was opened, revealing a wooden music box with peeling, mottled red paint, as if it had been decades.

He didn't choose to gamble his life on the substitute doll, but rather on this music box with a terrible curse.

However, now, Yang Jian's eyes were gradually closing, and the ghostly shadow under his head was still connected to the corpse, which allowed him to still control the ghostly shadow to move his body briefly and make some small movements that he could do at the moment.

"Open it, open it." His consciousness was fading.

His eyes, unwilling to close, were fixed on the movements of his body. He was determined to open the music box at the last moment and release the curse that could grant immortality.

At the same time, a crack appeared on Yang Jian's forehead.

The kind of chilling attacks we've seen before have returned.

There was no escaping it, no way to stop it; even the superposition of four layers of Ghost Domain couldn't prevent it.

Click

Yang Jian's corpse's hand grasped the music box, and with a slight movement, finally opened one corner of the music box.

However, at the same time, the crack on Yang Jian's forehead worsened again.

The situation is exactly the same as before.

His head was completely severed in two during this bizarre attack.

But then, Yang Jian vaguely heard a clear, melodious bell ringing in his ear.

The Music Box Curse has been lifted.