Lake and Wind (VII)

The fierce wind whipped Li Yang's coat into a snapping frenzy. His cold, numb face betrayed no expression, and his eyes, devoid of any emotion, stared fixedly at the Reform Society members.

A murderous chill filled the air. He merely stood there, clearly doing nothing, yet the Reform Society members felt immense pressure.

None of them dared move at that moment. Even after living so long, they had never seen a ghost handler who remained lucid despite his ghosts having already revived.

Everyone present watched the suddenly appearing man with grave expressions. He simply stood silently at the center of the hurricane, making no other movements.

An ordinary ghost handler in this state would have long since died from ghost revival, yet the man before them clearly still retained his conscious mind.

A hoarse, muffled voice rang out.

"You two go help the captain. I'll block the attacks that follow."

Yang Jian and the other two all glanced at Li Yang. None of them knew this stranger who had suddenly appeared, but his condition clearly marked him as a ghost handler who had lived for many years.

Before Yang Jian could reply, their memories seemed to be undergoing erosion and alteration by some unknown supernatural force.

"Yang Jian! Something's wrong. There's a problem with my memories." Liu San stood to one side, supporting Li Jun, whose fate was already unknown, as densely packed paper figures slowly surrounded them both.

In the three men's memories, when that old corpse opened its eyes and the area-wide reset began, everyone had seen another old corpse with a hideous face slowly emerge beside Yang Jian, its horrifying, deathly still eyes fixed intently on him.

The old corpse's form grew increasingly distinct, as though it was about to solidify into a physical body.

"The same type as Shen Lin...?"

Fang Shiming glanced at Liu San's densely packed paper figures. "Liu San, block those people with him."

A pair of old scissors pointed toward the spot where the corpse had appeared beside Yang Jian in their memories, yet Fang Shiming could sense nothing unusual.

"I can't make contact. A shame Shen Lin isn't here. Inside the Ghost Painting, he and another person used memories to suppress the Hungry Ghost..."

Suddenly, an old corpse appeared beside Yang Jian. He reacted extremely quickly; his attention had been on this side all along, and he slashed at it without even turning his head.

Something bizarre happened.

In his memories, before Yang Jian raised his blade, a ghastly pale hand reached out from somewhere and lunged for his neck.

Before Fang Shiming could even react, the old corpse had already seized Yang Jian by the throat.

Yang Jian's body was rapidly shriveling.

A cold corpse dropped down, pressing onto the old corpse's shoulders, while black-and-yellow wind blew slowly around them.

The old corpse's movements immediately became incredibly slow, but it still gripped Yang Jian's throat tightly. The restraint was failing...

Yang Jian showed no panic whatsoever. He calmly watched the young corpse before him, analyzing, observing.

A layer of rich red light around his body nearly solidified. Yang Jian's gaze turned cold, and the Ghost Hand abruptly reached for the corpse. The bizarre phenomenon happened again.

In his memories, before Yang Jian could seize the old corpse, another old corpse abruptly appeared beside him, blocking the Ghost Hand first.

"An interesting state."

The scarlet Ghost Eye on Yang Jian's forehead shone with scarlet light. He had been observing everything happening before him.

"Whenever I'm about to act, you react first. You use memories to make people misjudge your ability, but in reality, you're invading and altering the past a few seconds ago."

As he spoke, Yang Jian exchanged a look with Fang Shiming. Both were intelligent men; a single second of eye contact confirmed their next move.

The Ghost Shadow behind him abruptly rose upright and spread over the second corpse.

The same bizarre event happened again in their memories, but this time, a fierce yellow-and-black wind blew up at the spot where the third old corpse appeared, a step ahead of it.

Fang Shiming stood in the fierce wind holding a pair of scissors. A cold corpse dropped straight down, pressing firmly onto the third old corpse's shoulders.

Looking at the immobilized corpse before him, Fang Shiming said, "If the way we currently use ghosts' power is called handling ghosts, then I think your current state could be called ghosts handling humans. A method of handling the supernatural worth trying."

The scissors plunged into the old corpse's head. At the same time, the pitch-black Ghost Shadow swiftly enveloped it.

The four Reform Society members watched the old corpse attacking Yang Jian slowly dissipate. They were about to act, but hesitated again when they looked at Li Yang and that eerie door.

A saying had long circulated among the older generation of supernatural circles.

"Better to suffer a ghost's bite than an object's touch."

The object in that saying referred to supernatural items. Objects tainted by the supernatural were invariably dangerous in the extreme.

The short, stout old man looked at the skull floating in midair behind him and said, "Most of Wang Qun's supernatural power is being used to suppress the hurricane's source ghost. This corpse alone can't kill that man called Yang Jian..."

Seeing the four opposite him begin to act, Li Yang immediately stepped forward.

"Time to send you on your way."

His numb, ashen face showed no emotion as he slowly placed his hand on the old wooden door beside him.

Some terrifying medium was triggered. Four wooden doors suddenly rose behind the Reform Society members.

"Supernatural stacking?" The young man's expression changed.

"Stop him!"

But before the four could act, the four wooden doors opened simultaneously with a bang, triggering a certain-death supernatural effect the instant they opened.

Their bodies rapidly rotted. In just one exchange, all four Reform Society members died instantly.

But their corpses did not fall. Instead, they stood stiffly before the four doors.

Suddenly, the eyes of one corpse swiveled toward Li Yang and stared fixedly at him. A cold voice rang out.

"An unfulfilled ambition. What a regret. Though our beliefs differ, the paths we walk all aim to resolve the problem of ghosts' existence."

The other three corpses also slowly raised their rotting heads and stared straight at Li Yang.

"Things have come to this. The plan has failed. We no longer have the heart to argue over right and wrong."

The old woman's corpse slowly raised its rotting, incomplete arm. The cold palm suspended in midair beckoned slightly toward Li Yang.

Li Yang immediately felt his consciousness blur. The ghost within him carried his body a sudden step forward.

The attack did not stop. The old woman's hand slowly rose once more.

The next second, a streak of scarlet flashed past, and an enormous eyeball hung above everyone's heads.

With the eyeball's appearance, the beckoning corpse stopped moving.

Area-wide suppression. The hideous tattoo on the Ghost Hand projected a manifested Ghost Eye, combining the Ghost Hand's suppressive power with the Ghost Domain to restrict the ghosts' movements within this space.

Yang Jian aimed at the old woman, raised his billhook, and slashed down. The seemingly haphazard slash struck at the old woman's corpse through the medium triggered by the enormous scarlet eyeball overhead.

Instantly, the corpse split violently in two from the crown of its head downward. At the same time, the enormous eyeball in the air also split in half and vanished.

A tall, thin corpse appeared before Li Yang, looking at him with a pained expression.

Li Yang stared at the male corpse before him, reached out, and tore hard at his chest. A large quantity of blood immediately poured from his body, tracing the outline of a door across his chest.

The next moment, an immense suction surged from behind the door, pulling at the tall, thin, rotting corpse before him.

At the same time, a slowly blowing fierce wind and densely packed paper figures rushed toward the remaining two corpses.

Under their interference, this already extremely unstable space began to tremble faintly.

Rumble...

Waves of humming rang out. Gusts of wind mixed with icy lake water abruptly swept through the previously hollow center of the hurricane.

The expression of the old man's corpse holding the ball of flesh changed. He turned to look at the skull floating in midair behind him.

"It's out of control. A supernatural clash of this intensity has already affected the balance between the hurricane and the Ghost Lake. Go!"

With that, he pointed the ball of flesh in his hand at the other three Reform Society members, and their figures immediately vanished.

But before Yang Jian and the other two could react-

The next second, the hurricane suddenly accelerated out of control, and a funnel-shaped cyclone slammed down from the clouds.

Caught completely off guard, everyone was swept high into the air along with the shattered ground beneath their feet.

Inside the wildly spinning tornado, a paper figure on the verge of falling apart spiraled rapidly with the wind.

Through the torn paper figure, a boy who looked only fifteen or sixteen could just be seen. His entire body was covered in furrow-like creases, making him look like crumpled paper.

The only two paper figures left beside him struggled to shield him between them. But even as he was about to be blown apart, the boy's hand still clutched Li Jun's charred body tightly.

A streak of scarlet stretched long and thin spiraled upward along the enormous tornado that reached straight into the sky.

This was Yang Jian's Ghost Domain, but the moment it extended beyond his body, the fierce wind scattered it, leaving it trailing behind him like a mysterious, eerie red thread.

Yang Jian's face remained calm, but the scarlet Ghost Eye spinning madly on his forehead revealed intense unease.

All he could see was fiercely rushing wind and icy lake water. The Ghost Shadow behind him had long since been blown to pieces.

Cracks had already begun spreading across the Ghost Hand. His own supernatural power was being dismembered.

Whenever a crack appeared in the Ghost Hand, the hideous tattoo surged out from within his body and sank into the Ghost Hand along the fissure, barely maintaining its integrity.

Suddenly, a woman's ghastly pale hand reached out through the fierce wind and rested gently on Yang Jian's shoulder.

An icy sensation instantly flooded his entire body...