Lake and Wind (III)

"Fang Shiming is heading over to join us. My paper figure encountered a ghost, a very unusual one... My paper figure died without sending back any information."

Yang Jian and Liu San walked along a street. The rending gale carried icy rain, and a heavy stench of corpses filled the air.

"Find the source. There's no need to get tangled up with an unknown ghost."

Yang Jian considered their next move.

My Ghost Domain can't extend too far... Otherwise, this wind can scatter even my Ghost Domain.

If someone is controlling this, I'll kill them the moment we meet. With the billhook and the Ghost Tattoo, I can dismember a ghost in an instant.

The Ghost Lake... My only option is to restrict its range and imprison it. A pity the Dead Man's Banner was lost in the tattoo parlor. Otherwise, I'd have more options...

"Yang Jian, something's wrong. There's someone standing over there."

Liu San suddenly stopped.

"No... That's not right... I keep catching glimpses of a ghost."

Liu San's sallow face was grave as he stared at an open, empty street ahead.

Yang Jian followed Liu San's gaze. There was nothing there, none of the ghost Liu San had described.

"Where is it? Point it out."

Liu San raised a hand and pointed to where the ghost stood within his field of vision.

A cold, pitch-black, headless shadow rapidly spread across the street. It completely covered the spot Liu San had indicated, but Yang Jian could sense no supernatural presence.

"Can't find it?"

Yang Jian thought for a moment.

"Could it exist in a deeper layer of the Ghost Domain, like the Ghost Hand...?"

He acted again. This time, intense red light enveloped the street. Yet even within the fifth-layer Ghost Domain, the street remained empty.

"Are you sure it's there?"

Under the interference of the eerie hurricane, Yang Jian's Ghost Domain rippled slightly.

"The hurricane's source is gradually expanding. It can already interfere with my Ghost Domain at this distance. We need to move faster..."

Liu San nodded.

"It invaded through my paper figure as a medium, but neither you nor Fang Shiming was attacked. It isn't an area-based attack..."

"Wait! It's getting closer to me! Every time I shift my gaze, it moves a little closer."

In the corner of Liu San's eye, a deathly pale figure stood motionless in the distance.

But every time he shifted his gaze, the deathly pale figure moved a little closer to him. Now Liu San stared fixedly at the road ahead, not daring to look around.

Yang Jian's Ghost Hand held an old billhook, and his expression hardened. He did not want to waste time here. He intended to cut through the tangled mess with a swift blade and dismember the ghost outright.

The next second, the world suffused with red light abruptly froze. Yang Jian appeared in the area Liu San had indicated, and the pitch-black Ghost Shadow instantly covered the entire road.

The same thing happened again. Within this frozen Ghost Domain, Yang Jian still could not sense any supernatural presence.

"Still can't see it..."

"Impossible. Based on headquarters' intelligence, the ghosts within the hurricane were released from the Ghost Lake when it was scattered by the wind..."

"If this ghost could be submerged in the Ghost Lake... that at least means the Ghost Lake can suppress it."

Yang Jian rapidly thought through and analyzed the ghost attacking Liu San.

"Even if my own Ghost Domain can't invade the Ghost Lake right now, I should still be able to find a ghost the Ghost Lake can suppress..."

His scarlet Ghost Eye stared fixedly at the road.

"Unless the ghost isn't actually here at all. Could something be wrong with Liu San...?"

Yang Jian turned to look at Liu San, then looked at the stretch of road his finger indicated.

"Seeing it... Every shift in his gaze comes with a change in the ghost's position. Wait, Liu San said he could see it the whole time..."

"That's impossible. Apart from this gale, I haven't sensed any Ghost Domain at all. Could it be...?"

Yang Jian thought of a startling possibility, but time was running short. He could no longer verify whether it was correct.

He had to take a gamble. He whipped his head around and shouted at Liu San.

"Gouge out your eyes! The ghost has been inside your eyes all along!"

Liu San's expression changed. Instantly understanding Yang Jian's meaning, he raised his hands and stabbed toward his own eyes.

But the next second, a stiff, eerie corpse abruptly appeared before Liu San.

Its body, covered in rotting livor mortis, gave off waves of corpse stench. Its dark, hollow eye sockets stared fixedly at Liu San.

Suddenly, the corpse spread its rotting arms and clasped Liu San tightly.

But from Yang Jian's perspective, Liu San suddenly froze on the spot, his hands raised motionlessly in midair. His entire body seemed to have been fixed in place by some eerie supernatural power.

"Something's gone wrong..."

Yang Jian had seen the old corpse inside Liu San during the tattoo parlor incident. Even now, Yang Jian was deeply wary of it. There was no way it would be utterly incapable of resisting.

Scarlet light flashed, and Yang Jian appeared before Liu San. His Ghost Hand plunged toward Liu San's eye sockets and gouged out two bloody eyeballs.

Liu San instantly felt his whole body lighten and immediately regained his ability to move.

"A terrifying supernatural power... An attack that doesn't exist in reality..."

Liu San crouched on the ground, profoundly shaken.

Just now, the old corpse inside him had been completely unable to touch the ghost before him, yet that ghost had been able to attack him.

Had Yang Jian not gouged out his eyes, he might really have met his downfall here today...

"These eyes... aren't yours."

Yang Jian held a pair of eyeballs in his Ghost Hand.

The eyeballs were utterly black, with a deathly white patch at each pupil slowly spreading outward, as though they had just been gouged from a corpse that had been dead for a long time.

From somewhere, Liu San produced two eyeballs made of wax-yellow paper and stuffed them into his eye sockets. He moved them a little, and the eyeballs rotated mechanically in their sockets.

"When were they switched? I didn't notice a thing. An attack that doesn't exist in reality, and isn't consciousness-based either. Does it only exist within one's field of vision...?"

Yang Jian looked at the slowly whitening eyeballs in his hand and said,

"Its killing rule is simple, but hard to discover. Just seeing it gets your eyes replaced. Even I would have a hard time escaping if I couldn't discover this ghost's killing rule."

Liu San slowly stood up, seemingly recovered.

"Supernatural incidents are often this unreasonable. No matter how many ghosts you control, you can still capsize in a gutter when you encounter certain anomalies."

"Let's go. Time to act. We've wasted too much time here."

Yang Jian looked at the increasingly dark clouds overhead, as though they were brewing an even more terrifying storm.

At the center of the hurricane.

Corpses that blotted out the sky formed a gigantic tornado reaching into the heavens. Icy lake water flowed slowly among countless incomplete corpses.

A gaunt old man with a face full of wrinkles held a rotting ball of flesh. Corpse fluid poured endlessly out of it.

"We couldn't stop him. That man named Yang Jian is too perceptive. He worked out that pair of eyeballs' killing rule almost instantly."

"We can't act recklessly in our current state... That Elder Qin has been watching the future all along..."