The Mysterious Revival: Starting by Controlling the Person-Hiding Ghost

Looking around the shabby, cluttered rental apartment, he sighed silently.

It seemed Yang Jian's place was such a mess that he found it off-putting.

As for why he had come to Yang Jian's home, it seemed that Yang Jian had cracked a joke while they were chatting at school yesterday, and Zhang Wei had suggested they "step aside" for a word.

So he and Zhang Han had followed Yang Jian home to step aside for a word. Yet Zhang Wei, who had started it all, hadn't come, which was certainly strange.

Besides...

Jiang Li scratched his head, feeling puzzled.

Was he really so vulgar that he would come all the way to someone's home over something so trivial?

There was also Zhang Han, a classmate he had almost no recollection of. He only knew subconsciously that Zhang Han was his classmate and deskmate.

But...

Jiang Li turned and glanced at Zhang Han, even more confused.

Was this guy with a face full of stubble really a high school student?

Why did he look so much like a thug? And his clothes were covered in bloodstains across the back. Had he really just come to visit a classmate after school?

Although a flood of doubts rose in Jiang Li's mind, he felt a voice deep inside him constantly influencing him, telling him everything was normal.

The influence was so strong that Jiang Li even had the urge to ask Yang Jian to share a video with him.

"Strange, the light won't turn on."

By now, Yang Jian had tried the switch several times, but the living room remained dark.

"Maybe the electricity bill hasn't been paid. We'll have to make do for now. I'll pay it tomorrow."

"You must all be thirsty. I'll get you some water."

With that, Yang Jian walked over to the television, took three bottles of Ice Dew water from the cardboard box underneath it, and handed them out.

The man holding the newspaper still hadn't spoken. He remained seated on the sofa in the same posture as before, though at some point he had shifted over beside them.

Jiang Li reached for a bottle, but his hand bumped into someone else's in midair.

He looked up instinctively and froze.

Who is this?

The person opposite him also seemed to be his classmate, but no matter how he racked his brains, he couldn't match the face to a name.

Fang Jing, Zhao Lei, or Qian Wanhao?

At that thought, Jiang Li suddenly remembered something and blurted out:

"Qian Wanhao, your grandpa's calling you."

As soon as the words left his mouth, a jarring sense of wrongness surged up.

Zhang Han might not have understood those words, but the other three present couldn't have remembered them more clearly.

Especially Yang Jian and Zhao Lei, who had lived through that incident.

"Qian Wanhao's grandpa..." Yang Jian frowned, looking pained and lost. "What did his grandpa do again? I seem to be very afraid of him."

"Don't know him. Who's Qian Wanhao?" Zhang Han asked bluntly.

"I'm Zhao Lei. Qian Wanhao is our classmate. He was supposed to come here too, but his grandpa called him home for dinner, so it's just us here now."

Zhao Lei answered stiffly.

At that moment, his expression was as vacant as a puppet on strings.

Chapter 27: The Strange Zhao Lei

"I see. What do we do next, then?"

Zhang Han accepted Zhao Lei's explanation as a matter of course, opened his water, and drank in great gulps.

As he drank, he suddenly began coughing violently and spat out a mouthful of blood.

"What's going on? You're coughing up blood, Zhang Han. Have you been doing it too much lately and got too much internal heat?"

Yang Jian's eyelids twitched. He turned, pulled a few tissues from the table, and handed them to Zhang Han to wipe away the blood.

Saliva and blood splattered everywhere, and a little even landed on the man's newspaper.

Even so, the man showed no intention of looking up, keeping his head buried in the newspaper the whole time.

"Sorry, uncle, I got your newspaper dirty," Zhang Han said, noticing the wet spots on the paper after wiping his mouth. "It's all right, I'll wipe it off for you."

The man on the sofa still didn't respond, as though leaving everything up to Zhang Han.

Zhang Han didn't stand on ceremony. He clutched two tissues and reached straight for the newspaper.

But just as his hand was about to lift the newspaper, Jiang Li stopped him.

"He's reading just fine, and you insist on disturbing him. That's really rude. Can't you see uncle isn't even paying attention to you?"

"Uh, you're right. My mistake." Zhang Han scratched his head and replied quietly.

Jiang Li swallowed and said nothing more, only glancing at the man with lingering fear.

When a corner of the newspaper had lifted just now, he had inadvertently glimpsed the man's face.

It was almost identical to the face of the classmate Yang Jian had just called Zhao Lei.

The only difference was that the man had only half a face.

The other half was a layer of flesh without any facial features.

It was scarlet, bizarre, and horrifying.

It sent a chill down his spine...

"Dad, if there's nothing else, I'll take my classmates to my room. Remember to take care of your eyes."

With that, Yang Jian was about to lead Jiang Li and the others back to his room.

But suddenly, the rental apartment's front door opened by itself for no apparent reason, making a loud crashing sound.

At the same time, the sound of something being dragged came from outside, gradually approaching the doorway.

The sound immediately drew everyone's attention, and they all looked toward the darkness at the entrance.

Some unseen danger seemed to be lurking in the darkness outside.

Faintly, Jiang Li felt a strange connection to whatever was at the door, but he couldn't say exactly what it was.

At that moment, the middle-aged man on the sofa also reacted. Still holding the newspaper, he slowly rose and walked toward the door, one step at a time.

"My dad says it might be dangerous outside. He wants us to stay in my room."

Yang Jian's expression changed, and he immediately led everyone into the room to hide.

Just before Jiang Li entered the room, he suddenly felt as though someone behind him was watching him. The gaze was eerie, giving him an indescribably strange feeling.

But when Jiang Li glanced back, he saw that the man with the newspaper had his back to him and seemingly couldn't have been looking at him.

Unless he could turn his head all the way around, but that was impossible.

At least, a normal human was unlikely to be able to do it.

After hiding in Yang Jian's room, everyone fell silent, seemingly sensing the strangeness around them.

Jiang Li looked around for a while, then focused on the bed in the middle of the room.

It was an entirely ordinary bed, with a neatly folded, sky-blue quilt on it.

Except...

Jiang Li lightly ran his hand over the quilt, and it immediately came away covered in dust.

Still skeptical, he walked over to Yang Jian's desk and touched it. Once again, his hand was covered in dust.

Seeing this, Jiang Li couldn't help frowning.

Is this really the room Yang Jian has been living in? Why is there so much dust everywhere?

As Jiang Li was wondering and about to ask Yang Jian what was going on, he suddenly noticed Zhao Lei looking at him.

Zhao Lei stared silently at Jiang Li and Zhang Han, his face dark and his eyes full of venom and cold malice.

"This was between Yang Jian and me. Why did you two outsiders have to get involved?"

"What are you talking about? Aren't we classmates? How could we be outsiders?" Zhang Han asked in confusion, taking a few steps toward Zhao Lei as though hoping for an explanation.

"Shut up."

Zhao Lei seemed provoked. His expression turned vicious, and he even seized Zhang Han by the collar.

"You weren't one of the people who survived that night, and you were never my classmate."

"Only Yang Jian and Zhang Wei can be called my classmates. Everyone else..."

"What about everyone else?" Yang Jian asked with a frown. "Now that you mention it, I seem to remember something vaguely... an old man who looked like a corpse..."

"Wait."

Yang Jian jerked his head up and muttered in disbelief:

"The Knocking Ghost? Everyone died, and only the seven of us were left..."

"How is that possible? If that's true, why do I feel like I just came home from school?"

It was as though countless fragments of jumbled memories had flooded his mind, leaving Yang Jian struggling to accept them.

But he had clearly grown suspicious of everything around him.

"Damn it, you all deserve to die."

"Only Yang Jian and I belong here."

Zhao Lei abruptly released Zhang Han and strode toward the closed bedroom door, looking like a madman.

"You think you can throw a fit and just walk away? Not a chance."

Jiang Li snorted coldly, slammed into Zhao Lei from behind, and pinned him firmly beneath him.

Zhao Lei struggled frantically, but was only pinned down harder.

"Yang Jian, you've noticed something's wrong too, haven't you? This home doesn't seem very friendly to us." Jiang Li held Zhao Lei down and looked back, speaking in a low voice.

"It is a little strange, but you're all my classmates, and the one outside is still my father. However you look at it, you're my family and friends. I..."

Yang Jian gritted his teeth, his expression somewhat strange.

"Maybe you don't know this, but my father was always away working when I was little. I didn't spend much time with him. Now he's finally come back to take care of me. How could I harbor even the slightest doubt about him?"

"So that's how it is? I really didn't expect you to have a past like that, Yang Jian. But what's this?"

As he spoke, Zhang Han walked over to the bedside table and picked up a photo album. On it was a black-and-white photograph of a middle-aged man.

"Your dad barely took care of you when you were little, so you put a black-and-white photo of him on your bedside table? Isn't that a little... you know?" Zhang Han said, scratching his head awkwardly.

"..."

Yang Jian took the black-and-white photograph and fell into deep thought.