Out of Control (V)

Yang Jian and the other two walked through this unfamiliar Huanggang Village. After they rounded a corner, a coffin abruptly blocked the middle of the road.

"Empty..." His Ghost Hand pressed against the coffin, sensing no supernatural presence whatsoever. This was just an ordinary coffin.

"Keep moving."

Li Leping stood nearby, seemingly not in very good condition. Wisps of black haze slowly seeped out of his body.

They had only walked a short distance when two more coffins abruptly appeared ahead. Yang Jian's Ghost Eye stared at the two empty coffins, but there was still nothing unusual.

But the next moment, when Yang Jian looked away from the coffins to examine their surroundings, another coffin appeared out of thin air beside the two.

"Yang Jian, there are two coffins over there too..."

Yang Jian followed the gaze of Tong Qian's crying face. Two old black coffins sat quietly on the empty road.

"Something's wrong." Yang Jian narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked at the coffins before him.

"Does their number increase whenever we look away...? They aren't the source ghost, just a medium. There's no point wasting time here. Keep moving."

When the three rounded another corner.

What greeted them was a gray-black sky, with rotting black coffins laid out across black earth. A piece of the lid was missing from every coffin.

They stretched on without end, as far as the eye could see.

Startled, Yang Jian whipped around. Yet Huanggang Village had vanished behind them, leaving only black coffins neatly arranged on the black earth.

The abrupt change of scene gave them the feeling of being inside the Ghost Painting's Ghost Domain.

"You've got to be kidding... Even if they aren't the source ghost, this many could bury us through sheer numbers."

Yang Jian's Ghost Eye twitched uneasily, as though under some kind of suppression. This was already his third time facing the Ghost Messenger, and every mutation it underwent brought despair.

"We need to find a way to locate the source ghost. Li Leping, right...? Under these circumstances, I don't care what condition you're in. We don't have a choice anymore."

As he spoke, Yang Jian took a paper banner from behind his back. It was so tattered that it looked as though a gust of wind would tear it apart. There were many hideous dead heads on the paper banner, and as Yang Jian shook it, they seemed to move, letting out waves of mournful wails.

"Time to act, Tong Qian. Your two faces can be put to the greatest use here. In a moment, I'll need you to suppress these ghost coffins. I'll work with you. Whatever's inside the coffins, we can't let it out."

Holding the Dead Man's Banner with a grave expression, Yang Jian looked at the densely packed coffins before him and continued.

"Li Leping, Tong Qian and I will do everything we can to help you suppress these ghost coffins. You need to find their source as quickly as possible."

Li Leping nodded. This environment made his condition very unstable, but at the same time, the ghost inside him showed faint signs of being suppressed.

"Understood. Next, I'll gradually lose consciousness, and the ghost will take over my body. I'll stay as far away from you two as I can. When I find the Ghost Messenger, I'll give you a signal. Take this. It can awaken my consciousness."

Li Leping took a double-sided drum from inside his clothes. It was about the size of a palm, and its drumheads seemed to be made of human skin. Its body was bright red, as though blood might drip from it at any moment.

"Hmm? Is this the human skin from the Human Skin Lantern? Li Jun took control of the ghost fire inside it. I didn't expect Wang Xiaoming to turn the skin into this."

Yang Jian recognized the human skin. He had seen it at an underground base somewhere at headquarters. Unfortunately, before Yang Jian had time to choose, the Hungry Ghost had gone out of control.

"Then I'll get started..."

With that, waves of gray-black haze rose from Li Leping's body like thick smoke pouring from a chimney, carrying the smell of corpses burning in a crematorium.

In just an instant, the thick smoke spread over countless black coffins. A charred corpse could vaguely be seen within it, its body drained of moisture, like smoke-dried human flesh.

Miserable, chilling cries and eerie laughter echoed through this unknown space filled with ghost coffins. Yang Jian held the paper banner, and every time he waved it, the skulls inside traveled along the banner to attack his body. But every attack was blocked by the Ghost Hand.

After Li Leping began to act, a figure rose from every ghost coffin, standing there stiffly and mechanically. Darkness enveloped their bodies, making their features impossible to distinguish.

"My Ghost Domain won't last much longer here... It feels like facing the Ghost Painting. Is this because of the Ghost Painting...?"

Yang Jian watched as the blackness on the uppermost part of the Ghost Hand slowly faded. Even after incorporating that fake coffin nail, he was close to being unable to bear the price of waving this paper banner.

The paper banner seemed to possess a suppression ability with an extremely high terror level. In conjunction with Tong Qian's crying and laughter, every wave of the banner made the figures in the ghost coffins lie back a little farther.

"We can't keep this up for long. We have to do something."

He unfolded the Human Skin Paper, but it remained blank. It seemed even it could not predict what consequences the collision of three S-class ghosts would bring. This was already Yang Jian's second time opening the Human Skin Paper, but ever since they entered this place, it had fallen into some kind of dormancy.

"Useless thing."

Suddenly, the dense fog filled with the stench of burning rapidly contracted.

"Did he find it?"

Yang Jian immediately took out the Human Skin Drum and flicked it hard with his Ghost Hand.

The Human Skin Drum made no sound. Its center caved straight in where Yang Jian had flicked it, but he could sense some medium rapidly expanding from the drum, spreading in every direction.

Li Leping emerged from the thick smoke, his entire body giving off the scorched stench of burning corpses.

"I failed. I went to at least three Huanggang Villages. This place is boundless, like countless Huanggang Villages stacked together. It gives me the feeling that I'll never reach the end."

Li Leping held the Human Skin Drum and looked at the dent in it.

"There's one more chance..."

"Boundless, with multiple Huanggang Villages...?"

Yang Jian thought rapidly.

"Impossible. The Ghost Messenger's Ghost Domain couldn't possibly be this large. The situation now reminds me of the Ghost Painting recorded in headquarters' files. Wang Xiaoming lured the Ghost Painting here earlier. Did the Ghost Painting invade the Ghost Messenger, or did the Ghost Messenger acquire some of the Ghost Painting's abilities...?"

It was as though Yang Jian had been born with this talent, this way of thinking that was acutely sensitive to the supernatural.

In peaceful times, he might have lived his entire life in obscurity, but in this era of rampant ghosts, this talent was the key to survival. Yang Jian and Wang Xiaoming were both this kind of person.

"The source ghost isn't here, or we would have been attacked long ago. Li Leping, search again. This time... we're going inside the ghost coffins!"

With that, Yang Jian pointed the paper banner at a ghost coffin, and his Ghost Hand grabbed the person inside and threw them out.

Then the three jumped straight inside, leaving only the endless black coffins beneath the gray-black sky.

If anyone had looked down from the sky at that moment, they would have discovered that every coffin resembled a picture frame, its interior so dark that nothing could be seen, giving off a cold, sinister presence...