The Supermarket Where Fierce Ghosts Roamed / The Terrifying Tall, Thin Figure

Author: Wu E Xiaobao

Synopsis:

In an age of the five defilements, hell was empty, fierce ghosts had awakened, and the mortal world had become a living hell.

"My name is Jiang Li. Not only did I transmigrate into the world of Mysterious Revival, but I also landed in Dachang City just as the Hunger Ghost Incident broke out."

This was a world of despair, where everything seemed full of malice.

Right from the start, the Hunger Ghost forced Jiang Li into a shuttered supermarket, leaving him no choice but to confront fierce ghosts head-on. Fortunately, he had brought a Supernatural Treasure Chest with him when he transmigrated.

[Give it fierce ghosts, and it will return supernatural objects to you.]

With the supernatural items that appeared in the chest,

Jiang Li survived the danger and gained control of the dormant Person-Hiding Ghost. With that as his foundation, he established himself in Dachang City, where the Hunger Ghost ran rampant, and survived.

Faced with an endless horde of fierce ghosts, Jiang Li smiled calmly.

"Anyone who sees me three times will die at my touch."

"Even if fierce ghosts can't be killed, I'll contain them one by one and cast them into hell, so that none of those regrets will ever happen again!"

Chapter 1: The supermarket where fierce ghosts roamed

Night, Dachang City.

In a corner on the first floor of a chain supermarket.

Jiang Li clamped a hand over his mouth, not daring to breathe too loudly.

It wasn't just because of the faint, intermittent stench of decay around him, but also the sticky sound of footsteps.

In the pitch-dark supermarket, where the lights were out and he couldn't see his hand in front of his face, "things" were wandering ceaselessly around him.

Worse still, there was more than one such "thing."

Two sets of footsteps, different in rhythm but equally terrifying, sounded around him at once, filling him with despair.

They were... ghosts.

Listening to the oppressive footsteps around him, Jiang Li couldn't help feeling some regret.

How did I end up here?

When Jiang Li had first transmigrated here, he hadn't understood the situation at all. He'd been holding a small wooden chest that had come from who knew where.

By then, the strange, blue-black haze had already enveloped all of Dachang City.

The streets had grown dim, and eerie, terrifying blue-black figures had appeared one after another, replacing the already sparse pedestrians.

No one knew how they had appeared.

By the time people realized what was happening, they had already occupied the entire city.

Amid the panic, Jiang Li had fled into this supermarket with the little wooden chest in his arms.

He had thought it would be a safe place.

But this place seemed to have already fallen too, with endless, unsettling darkness all around.

There were no human screams, only those suffocating footsteps wandering nearby.

Amid the chaos, Jiang Li had learned that the place he was in was called Dachang City, and everything had immediately clicked.

This place name, this ordeal.

He had obviously transmigrated into the world of Mysterious Revival, right when the Hunger Ghost Incident was in full swing.

In his current situation, perhaps only those three truths could save him.

"Discern a ghost's patterns."

"Ghosts can't be killed."

"Only ghosts can deal with ghosts."

Jiang Li mulled over those three sentences again and again, his mind racing as he planned his next move.

Ghosts couldn't be killed, and he wasn't a ghost controller now, so there was no way he could confront a ghost head-on.

That left him with only one option: start with the ghosts' killing patterns.

The ghosts wandering around him should all have been derivative ghosts of the Hunger Ghost at various stages. Their killing patterns could be summed up roughly as follows:

Kill those they touched, kill those they saw, and kill those they heard.

Jiang Li looked around.

There was no light left anywhere in the supermarket, so the chance of a ghost seeing him was small enough to ignore.

As long as he moved carefully, made no sound, and didn't touch them, he could secure a sliver of hope for survival.

Earlier, Jiang Li had noticed that there seemed to be living people on the supermarket's second floor, and more than one of them.

It might be a safe place.

If he could get around the ghosts nearby and make it to the second floor, his chances of survival would be much greater.

After steadying his breathing, Jiang Li slowly stood up with the chest in his arms and felt his way along the shelves, heading step by step toward the escalators to the second floor.

Snacks, socks, and other assorted items lay scattered all along the way, and the sticky sensation beneath his feet made him even more uncomfortable.

But Jiang Li neither wanted nor dared to look too closely into what the liquid on the floor was.

He was like a taut string; the slightest unexpected disturbance would completely shatter the fragile balance.

As Jiang Li inched forward, the situation around him kept changing.

Strange, foul-smelling figures passed by him one after another, then wandered away aimlessly.

Only Jiang Li stopped and started along the way, looking around from time to time, as though he were the real intruder in the supermarket.

Fortunately, he had faced danger but suffered no harm so far, and had encountered no attacks along the way.

After a long trek, Jiang Li finally made it out of the snack section.

In the darkness, the two stopped escalators stood several dozen meters away.

Now he only needed to pass through the fresh food section a short distance ahead to reach the supermarket's second floor.

Jiang Li was just about to move again when another figure approached from beside him, forcing him to stop.

The figure walked with an awkward gait, like someone with a crippled leg, and made a strange cracking sound with every step.

But Jiang Li knew that anyone who could walk around here so freely and recklessly, and dared to make such obvious noise, was definitely not human.

Even if it looked very weak right now, he couldn't afford to be careless in the slightest.

So Jiang Li held the chest, kept his breathing still, and silently waited for the figure to walk away on its own.

But for some reason, the figure walked more and more slowly, seeming weak, as though it would fall to the floor with its next step.

The next moment, the figure really did begin to sway, looking about to fall.

Jiang Li froze, his whole body instantly going rigid.

If that thing really fell to the floor, the noise would definitely draw every other ghostly thing nearby.

Then he would have no chance of survival at all.

Almost instinctively, Jiang Li snatched up a packet of biscuits beside him and hurled it away.

Smack.

The biscuits didn't make much noise when they landed, but they succeeded in drawing the swaying figure's attention. It immediately steadied itself and limped toward them.

Seeing this, Jiang Li let out a soft breath.

It seemed he had gambled correctly. As long as the person making the noise wasn't discovered by the fierce ghosts, their killing patterns wouldn't be triggered.

Only then did Jiang Li understand why the figure had been walking so awkwardly.

Part of its lower leg was missing.

What on earth could have done that to this ghostly thing?

Or are there other unknown ghosts here?

If that were true, his chances of surviving had just grown much slimmer.

Jiang Li shook his head and decided not to dwell on it. He went straight toward the fresh food section, moving swiftly with the chest in his arms.

The freezers in the fresh food section gave off an indescribable stench, as though the power had been out for a long time. Even the ghosts seemed to dislike the smell; there wasn't a single figure around apart from him.

But to his great dismay, countless figures were wandering near the escalators, overlapping one another as they paced in a dense mass at the bottom.

With such a terrifying number of them, no matter how he dodged or tried to go around, there was probably no hope of getting through.

Then Jiang Li suddenly remembered the little chest in his arms.

He had been holding it ever since he transmigrated, but he hadn't had a chance to open it before.

What exactly is inside?

Things had already come to this. If he didn't open it and take a look now, he might not get another chance.

As the chest slowly opened, a pale severed hand appeared before his eyes.

At the same time, a slip of paper fluttered down from a crack in the chest.

[Fierce Ghost's Severed Hand: It will seize fierce ghosts within reach and suppress them according to their level of terror. Each time it is used, one of the severed hand's fingers will curl. When all five fingers have curled, it will awaken.]

Jiang Li raised an eyebrow, realizing that there really was more to this chest than met the eye.

After he picked up the cold severed hand, a line of small black characters engraved inside the chest appeared before his eyes:

"Give it fierce ghosts, and it will return supernatural objects to you."

Chapter 2: The terrifying tall, thin figure

Can I keep obtaining supernatural items by putting fierce ghosts into the chest?

Although it doesn't say so outright, there's probably a price or a hidden risk. Still, having something is better than nothing.

Jiang Li pondered for a moment, then put the severed hand back in the chest.

There were far too many figures wandering by the escalators; he couldn't use the severed hand just yet.

He needed to think of a way to draw them away from the escalators.

Click.

Suddenly, the freezer he was leaning against made a faint sound.

Jiang Li instinctively looked back, and the sight that met his eyes immediately made his brow twitch.

A corpse lay in the freezer behind him.