Lake and Wind (IV)

"I failed on my end too. That Fang Shiming from the Circle of Friends is far too cautious in everything he does... It seems this era has also nurtured a group of remarkable people."

"Every era has its own protagonists. I told you long ago that we must never underestimate any captain from headquarters. Conceit is often the beginning of failure."

A short, stout old man carried a hideous-looking corpse on his back. Watching the rotting ball of flesh ooze wave after wave of corpse fluid, he continued.

"Using this corpse on my back to compress part of the ghost at the hurricane's source into this is already the limit. Since we can't stop them, we'll have to act. The future Elder Qin sees now is incomplete. We still have a chance."

An old woman stood beside him, studying a strange skull suspended above the hollow area.

"This skull is all that remains of the hurricane's source, and we can't suppress it. We can only leave it here and use part of Ghost Lake to make their supernatural powers cancel each other out."

Behind them stood a tall, thin young man with vacant eyes and an expressionless face.

"We can't use the corpse too many times. We must finish the plan as soon as possible, while we can still barely control part of the hurricane. This approach is too dangerous. If both supernatural forces go out of control, even we might meet our end here."

The old man holding the ball of flesh looked at the hideous corpse. After a moment's thought, he spoke.

"Let them in here. Use this corpse once to trap them, but don't kill them. This era still needs these youngsters."

The old woman looked at the corpse and said coldly, "What if we can't stop them? We can use this corpse at most three more times while keeping it under control. Once it goes out of control, we'll all die here."

The young man's vacant eyes suddenly filled with murderous intent. "Then kill them!" he snarled. "What, are you scared?"

"I think you're the one who's truly gone senile! You should know that if we'd met them at the same stage of our lives, we'd have been the ones to die. You've seen the heaven's chosen of our era too. When facing the supernatural, people like that can always find a breakthrough. I advise against confronting them head-on."

The old man holding the ball of flesh stepped between them.

"Now isn't the time for infighting. We've finally waited long enough for this opportunity, and we cannot allow any mistakes. Let them in. Combine all the remaining uses of that corpse into one. Even if we can't stop them, we must leave them unable to act."

Ten minutes earlier, at the same time Yang Jian and Liu San came under attack.

...In my condition, I can't approach the center of the hurricane alone. This place is too dangerous to linger in. If I still can't find Yang Jian, I should go back and look for another way.

Within the world filled with raging winds, Fang Shiming was walking down a low slope. Perhaps because of the terrain, the wind was much slower here.

Already in very poor condition, Fang Shiming had naturally chosen this path.

Suddenly.

"Sand...?"

A patch of blackish-yellow silt abruptly appeared beneath Fang Shiming's feet. Its unpleasant, icy touch felt like minced flesh freshly gouged from a corpse as it slowly squirmed around his feet.

Fang Shiming tried to lift his feet, only to discover that he could exert no strength through his legs. The chilling quicksand was engulfing his ankles, slowly drawing him into it.

Looking up, he could vaguely make out a pitch-black, bizarre corpse lying motionless in the center of the quicksand. The strange blackish-yellow quicksand was flowing out of that very corpse.

"I can't use the ghosts inside me. Suppression...?"

The old scissors plunged into the quicksand and made a light snip with a click.

A bright-red gash was cut into the flowing blackish-yellow silt, only to be gradually covered by the slow-flowing silt and heal shut.

"The scissors have no effect..."

Fang Shiming frowned deeply, watching the slowly healing gash as he thought of a way to escape.

Just then.

"It's silt from the bottom of Ghost Lake," a voice came from the side.

Fang Shiming looked toward the voice. A woman wearing the clothes of a headquarters person in charge stood in the shadows a short distance away, watching him.

"You're from headquarters?"

Fang Shiming stared at the woman ahead.

The woman nodded, took a person-in-charge ID out of her clothes, and waved it.

"Fang Shiming, leader of the Circle of Friends. I've read your file."

As she spoke, He Yin'er slowly emerged from the shadows.

"You're lucky. The lake water in the silt was blown away, leaving only this quicksand. Otherwise, you'd probably be dead here by now."

Fang Shiming said nothing. He simply stared coldly at He Yin'er, waiting for her to speak. He was a clever man. Any person in charge who showed herself at a time like this must have come to help.

Standing on a raised platform, He Yin'er looked at the pitch-black, eerie corpse in the center of the quicksand and continued.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm in very poor condition right now and can't do much to help. I can only tell you what I know."

"This quicksand seems to have the ability to suppress and bind malevolent ghosts. At the bottom of the lake, it worked together with Ghost Lake to suppress some ghosts with very high terror levels. But this strange wind blew it apart. I didn't expect you to run into it."

In her current condition, He Yin'er did not dare recklessly touch this strange quicksand. She could only provide the information she knew.

Fang Shiming watched the gradually sinking corpse, thinking.

"Wait! That's impossible. Ghosts don't think. When malevolent ghosts suppress each other, it can only lead to a deadlock, a balance, or one side being suppressed. Even ghosts on the level of Ghost Painting and Ghost Messenger are no exception."

Fang Shiming recalled the supernatural clash between Ghost Messenger and Ghost Painting in Dajing City. Neither could do anything to the other, creating a brief balance.

Wang Xiaoming had made use of precisely this characteristic of clashing supernatural forces to arrange for Li Jun's team to enter Ghost Painting. Otherwise, he would never have dared do so.

Fang Shiming continued.

"If a third ghost intervened at that point, it would only break that balance, unless the terror level of the ghost being suppressed was already beyond all reason. But..."

"That theory is absolutely impossible when applied to Ghost Lake, because Ghost Lake's very existence is a supernatural phenomenon far beyond the norm. And the fact that they could be sunk to the bottom is enough to prove that the terror levels of the ghosts down there absolutely cannot exceed Ghost Lake's..."

The chilling quicksand had already swallowed his thighs.

Fang Shiming did not panic. Instead, he continued his calm analysis.

"I'm certain this quicksand is merely a ghost that was sunk to the bottom of the lake. Going by that deduction..."

"Perhaps the ghosts inside me haven't been suppressed, yet I can't use them. I'm still missing one crucial piece of information..."

"If I can touch that corpse, perhaps I can obtain that crucial information..."

He Yin'er watched Fang Shiming, filled with astonishment. With just a brief exchange and some observation, the man before her had already analyzed the supernatural nature of this patch of silt.

Terrifyingly keen intuition...

Someone like this shouldn't die here.

He Yin'er watched Fang Shiming slowly sink, silently weighing things in her mind...