Out of Control (7)

A young man wearing a cloak with a sword hanging at his waist walked at the front. Behind him was a man with half his body charred, yet still holding a cigarette between his lips. Beside the man was a pale-skinned woman wearing blood-red makeup, a young man who kept his head lowered as he played games on an old-fashioned phone, and a skeletal man with bloodshot eyes bringing up the rear.

"Su Fan, can that crappy game of yours actually hold up? Come to Dahai City after we deal with the Ghost Painting. I'll give you a computer with absolutely top-tier specs!"

Ye Zhen walked at the front, looking this way and that, as though this had always been his method of searching for ghosts.

The entire Ghost Painting world had stopped functioning a little while ago. There was not even the slightest breeze in the gray, hazy world.

"Go left. Something fell over there." Su Fan never even looked at the road, keeping his eyes fixed on the old-fashioned phone in his hands.

"They seem to be headquarters' field officers." A Hong watched the green dots blinking intermittently on her satellite phone.

They had barely taken a few steps when the distant ground, along with the densely packed high-rises on either side, suddenly began folding slowly toward Ye Zhen and the others like a sheet of paper under some unknown supernatural force.

An oppressive atmosphere reverberated through the gray, hazy world. The entire Ghost Painting world folded into a sealed rectangular box, trapping them inside like a coffin.

"The Ghost Painting has changed. Looking at this shape, it's hard not to suspect the Ghost Messenger had something to do with it."

Shen Lin and Wang Chaling walked side by side through this eerie gray-white world.

"Hmm? What's that?"

Wang Chaling looked overhead. Three black dots suddenly appeared in the sky. From his perspective, the dots seemed to be rising at tremendous speed. Then a cloud of black smoke suddenly appeared, enveloping the three dots and bringing them safely down onto the distant ground above his head.

Shen Lin looked at the satellite phone in his hand.

"The positioning system isn't much use in this terrain anymore. We need another way to contact the others. Let's go. That's too far away. Inside the Ghost Painting, even a ghost domain can't cross that distance."

"Communications are being disrupted. I can only just pick up intermittent location signals."

Tong Qian was trying to contact the others with a satellite phone.

"My Ghost Eye is restricted here. Li Leping, can your ghost domain cross this distance here?"

"No. The ghosts inside me are being suppressed here too, but that's good news for me..."

Li Leping had regained complete consciousness, though five black finger marks were faintly visible on his right cheek.

"Follow those two things. Move in the same direction."

With that, Yang Jian and the other two began moving in the same direction as the two black dots far overhead, which were almost too distant to make out.

A pitch-black coffin hung in the very center of the Ghost Painting world.

"That's the Ghost Coffin. In less than two minutes, another change has occurred inside the Ghost Painting."

Fang Shiming held a pair of scissors, his bloodshot eyes fixed intently on the Ghost Coffin in the air.

The satellite phone in Li Jun's hand suddenly gave a long beep, and Wang Xiaoming's voice came through.

"Li Jun, whatever you hear next, do not respond. Listen carefully to me..."

"Li Jun! Can you hear me? Come save us! Headquarters has fallen!"

"A Hong's makeup case has been contaminated with a medium from the Hungry Ghost, but the scissors in Fang Shiming's hand can sever the faint connection to the Hungry Ghost inside the makeup case..."

"Li Jun! Why aren't you speaking? Aren't you a soldier? Soldiers obey orders without question! Answer me immediately if you hear me!"

"After that, have A Hong paint a door inside the Ghost Painting. The door handle you have should still work. Although you can't get out, moving within the Ghost Painting should be possible..."

"Hehehe... Li Jun! You're all going to die in there!"

"Beep, beep, beep..." The call suddenly disconnected.

"What's going on? Did Wang Xiaoming get scared out of his mind?" Ye Zhen had listened from the side, utterly baffled.

Fang Shiming looked at the scissors in his hand, pondering Wang Xiaoming's call.

"He used some supernatural item to contact us through the Ghost Painting's ghost domain. If you'd answered just now, you would have been attacked by a ghost immediately."

Headquarters.

Wang Xiaoming sat before an old-fashioned hand-cranked telephone. Behind it was a thin cord resembling a human intestine, its other end connected to the mouth of a woman who was already dead.

Tears welled in Liu Xiaoyu's eyes. A call lasting less than twenty seconds had cost three staff members their lives. Liu Xiaoyu did not even know their names.

They had all volunteered for this communications assignment. Liu Xiaoyu remembered the light in their eyes two minutes earlier. It had not been fear of death or the supernatural. It had been... courage!

There had been no fear of death, no fear of the supernatural, as though the supernatural threat of certain death was beneath their notice. Without hesitation, they had picked up the telephone cord and inserted it into their mouths.

Liu Xiaoyu silently wiped away her tears, picked up her headset, and began helping the field officers deal with the ghosts running out of control in Dajing.

Only this time, the fear that had once filled her eyes was gone, replaced by an emotion called courage.

"Fang Shiming..." Li Jun had just been about to say something when Fang Shiming cut him off with a wave.

"There's no need to say anything. I, Fang Shiming, am not a fool who can't grasp the situation. With things as they are, I'll give it everything I have too."

Fang Shiming pointed the scissors at the makeup case in A Hong's hand.

"A Hong, open it."

"Thank you." A Hong took out the gold-wrapped makeup case and opened it. A mirror was set into the upper half of the case, while several small compartments below held pigments of different colors.

Fang Shiming took off his gloves and lightly touched the makeup case with the old scissors wrapped in black hair.

Their surroundings immediately darkened, but the effect seemed to be suppressed within the Ghost Painting world. The surroundings flickered between light and darkness. The sound of dripping water abruptly rang out beside his ears, and Fang Shiming smelled a rotten stench mingled with a strong reek of blood.

Without hesitation, Fang Shiming snipped at a certain part of the makeup case from a distance. It seemed as though nothing had happened. Only Ye Zhen frowned at the scissors without saying a word.

"Done. The rest is up to you."

Hearing that, A Hong immediately took the makeup case and began applying pigment to a wall beside the road, working carefully as though avoiding some supernatural force.

Yang Jian looked at the red door that had abruptly appeared beside him, and his pitch-black Ghost Shadow instantly spread toward it.

"Li Leping! Do it!"

"Yang Jian! Stop!" Before the Ghost Shadow could approach, green fire flashed inside the doorway, and Li Jun, half his body already charred, emerged from behind the door.

Several men and women with unusual appearances walked out from behind it.

Ye Zhen stood with his hands behind his back, a bamboo hat partly shading his brows, and looked at Yang Jian with a face full of emotion.

"So you're Ghost Eye Yang Jian? Interesting..."

"Do we know each other?" Yang Jian looked at the strangely dressed young man with his odd mannerisms.

Did headquarters' field officers like cosplay too?

After a brief exchange, everyone had become acquainted.

Fang Shiming seemed very interested in Tong Qian's three faces and deliberately walked beside Tong Qian to study the two ghost faces.

Tong Qian looked at Fang Shiming somewhat awkwardly.

"You keep staring at me like that... is there something you want?"

"I'm merely curious about your way of controlling ghosts. Come visit the Circle of Friends sometime. I think we could become friends."

After saying that, Fang Shiming stopped looking at Tong Qian, merely frowning as he pondered something.

"An anomaly? Another path? If I'd met this person sooner, perhaps there could have been a better solution for my plan..."

Ye Zhen seemed very interested in Li Leping. He kept walking beside him, constantly rambling about incomprehensible things like "sparring" and "invincible."

Li Leping seemed to have grown annoyed with Ye Zhen's pestering. He closed his eyes as though he had fallen asleep and followed stiffly behind Li Jun.

"Li Jun, it's time."

Yang Jian looked at the two black dots far overhead. They seemed to have noticed the situation here as well and had stopped moving.

A wooden door handle, coated in red paint, gave off an eerie air.

Li Jun placed the handle on the door A Hong had painted and pushed gently.

Behind the door stood a man with a severed arm and a rotting body. Beside him was a young man in casual clothes whose figure did not look quite real.

"Wang Chaling?" Li Jun called his name with some hesitation.

"It's me. You're too late..." Not a trace of emotion could be seen on Wang Chaling's deathly pale face.

"Reinforcements from headquarters? Hello, everyone. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Shen Lin." Shen Lin greeted Yang Jian and the others with a smile.

Li Leping walked toward Wang Chaling.

"What happened to your arm? And your current condition seems..."

Li Leping and Wang Chaling had met a few times at headquarters. Unlike his previous refined, gentle image, Wang Chaling now resembled a corpse.

"Shen Lin, Zhou Zheng, and I were attacked by the Hungry Ghost just now. We managed to survive the scare without serious danger, but now..."

"Wait!!!"

Wang Chaling's words made Yang Jian's eyelids twitch violently.

"Wang Chaling! What Zhou Zheng? Zhou Zheng already died during the Ghost Infant Incident! The Hungry Ghost was released when his ghost revived!"

Before Yang Jian had even finished speaking, the Ghost Shadow spread toward Shen Lin and Wang Chaling, but it seemed unable to lock onto Shen Lin's body. Shen Lin stood where he was, his brows tightly furrowed.

"I'm not a ghost... The Hungry Ghost ate part of my body just now... Could it be... Everyone, watch out!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a memory that did not belong to them surfaced in everyone's minds. Within that memory, a blue-black figure stood eerily behind them.

The next second, the figure suddenly split its jaws wide, revealing a hideous mouthful of pitch-black teeth, and lunged at Tong Qian, who was closest...