Mysterious Revival: Starting by Controlling the Person-Hiding Ghost

Wang Xiaoming calmly adjusted his glasses and spoke.

"..."

Cao Yanhua braced both hands on the conference table, feeling his blood pressure shoot up.

"Deputy Minister Cao, have some water and calm down." Seeing that something was wrong, Zhao Jianguo hurriedly helped Cao Yanhua aside and handed him a cup of hot water. "Professor Wang must have his reasons for saying that, so don't worry about it."

As if to prove Zhao Jianguo right,

Wang Xiaoming rapped his fingers heavily on the table and gave Li Jun a long look. Li Jun immediately understood and removed his sunglasses.

There were no eyeballs in the sockets beneath them, only two balls of eerie green ghost fire flickering constantly.

"As the saying goes, weakness is the original sin. Unless you can prove your worth here, that wooden box doesn't belong to you as far as I'm concerned."

Wang Xiaoming spoke.

"So offering you a deal already counts as me doing my utmost to look after your interests. Otherwise, I could simply send people to ambush and kill you after the meeting, then search your residence for the wooden box."

Hearing this, Yang Jian raised an eyebrow and spoke to Wang Xiaoming with a look of displeasure.

"Hey, hey, he's living at my place right now. You're going to send people to my home to kill someone and then search my house?"

Wang Xiaoming ignored Yang Jian and pointed at Li Jun beside him.

"I don't particularly want to make too much of a fuss right now either, so let's settle on a compromise."

"This is Li Jun, the bodyguard currently responsible for protecting me. He's also a candidate for the Captain Plan. Once I finish speaking, he'll attack you with everything he has for two minutes, without endangering your life."

"If you beat him, I won't go after the box anymore. But if he subdues you, please hand the box over. You'll still be able to set conditions then, but the Captain Plan will have nothing to do with you."

The instant his words fell, Jiang Li and Li Jun vanished from the conference room.

The others frowned and remained silent.

Wang Xiaoming slowly closed his eyes, seemingly resting them.

After a moment's silence, Cao Yanhua gave Zhao Jianguo a look. Zhao Jianguo nodded, walked over to Wang Xiaoming, and bent down.

"Professor Wang, you didn't tell us beforehand about what just happened. Wasn't that a little too impulsive?"

"I'll bear responsibility for the choice I made. Just wait one minute without worrying," Wang Xiaoming said. "A seemingly impulsive choice like this is also necessary. I need to try a few things before I can decide what to do next. It's hard to explain it all to you."

With that, Wang Xiaoming paid Zhao Jianguo no further attention.

Yang Jian reclined in his seat, gazing silently at the tabletop.

Inside his closed palms, two scarlet eyes had opened at some point, peering at what was happening in a Ghost Domain overlapping with reality somewhere.

If Jiang Li appeared to be at risk of losing, he would use his own Ghost Domain without hesitation to help Jiang Li win.

An unglamorous victory was still a victory.

Only the victor could make demands.

Inside the eerie green Ghost Domain,

Jiang Li stood expressionlessly in place. Flickering flames covered the ground beneath him, restlessly spreading toward his body.

The circular shadow beneath his feet began to twist and warp. Even the Person-Hiding Ghost, who had been invisible on his shoulder for a long time, was revealed by the firelight.

Li Jun's figure appeared before him, so illusory that he didn't seem real.

"I didn't expect you to have controlled two ghosts. I did underestimate you before, but you still have no way of leaving my Ghost Domain. Here, everything is under my control. Even the me you see before you is merely a manifestation of the Ghost Domain."

"If you give up now, you'll suffer less damage. My ghost fire is extremely deadly to ghost controllers."

Hearing this, Jiang Li sighed and murmured under his breath.

"It's because people like you are here that I had to cut off this piece of my finger."

"Being burned by ghost fire really is unbearably painful, but I can still hold out for a mere ten seconds..."

Although Li Jun couldn't understand what Jiang Li was saying, he felt a faint sense of unease.

That unease didn't fade. Instead, it grew increasingly distinct with every passing second.

He began to sense that something was wrong.

They were clearly inside his own Ghost Domain, so why was that shadow on the ground not only unaffected by the ghost fire, but growing larger and larger?

The next moment,

A swollen arm, its surface soaked with cold water, appeared out of thin air in the Ghost Domain. Gradually, an entire bloated, pale corpse emerged.

Sensing a faint, cold dampness,

Jiang Li stepped back and narrowed his eyes as he examined the terrifying corpse.

It really was a drowned ghost.

Its entire swollen body had a translucent quality, as though it were coated in a layer of wax.

If he poked it with a finger, it would probably burst at once.

The drowned ghost faced upward and slowly parted its severely blackened lips.

Hrr...

Foamy water streaked with blood and sediment gushed out, instantly extinguishing the ghost fire on the surrounding ground and causing the entire Ghost Domain to teeter on the brink of collapse.

"You used some means to bring in a vicious ghost? Even so, I'll deal with it."

Li Jun snorted and lit a cigarette.

His real figure immediately appeared in the Ghost Domain, and he walked toward the drowned ghost.

He had taken only one step when the cigarette in his mouth went out.

At the same time, an irresistible sensation of suffocation surged through him, as though he were drowning.

In less than a few seconds, Li Jun could no longer hold on. He fell to his knees and, with a retch, vomited a great quantity of icy river water.

But he didn't die.

The attack had targeted the entire Ghost Domain, not him alone.

Chapter 46: The Meeting Ends

In less than half a minute, the two figures appeared in the conference room again.

Jiang Li sat back in his seat and waited for Wang Xiaoming's response.

Li Jun staggered back to Wang Xiaoming's side and said quietly,

"Sorry, Professor Wang. I lost."

He was covered in water, and there was quite a bit of mud on his face, leaving him looking thoroughly disheveled.

"What happened?"

Wang Xiaoming asked.

"The only supernatural things he should have on him right now are the Person-Hiding Ghost and a Ghost Hand that grabs people from a shadow. Those can't threaten you when you have a Ghost Domain. As I saw it, there wasn't much chance of you losing."

Li Jun glanced warily at Jiang Li and said in a low voice, his expression grim,

"He used some method to bring a very fierce vicious ghost into my Ghost Domain. Although it didn't appear for long, its level of terror was clearly beyond what I could handle. I couldn't deal with it."

Li Jun hadn't spoken loudly, but the people in charge present still heard him. They couldn't help expressing dissatisfaction and arguing over his ultimate defeat.

"What's the point of fighting him? He must have brought that vicious ghost out with a supernatural item. If he casually pulls out several supernatural items, even if all of us attack together, we might not be absolutely certain of taking Jiang Li down."

The person in charge named Zhong Shan spoke from below, his tone betraying obvious dissatisfaction.

Another person in charge, named Lin Long, couldn't help speaking up as well.

"Zhong Shan has a point. This contest was meaningless from the start. No matter how strong Li Jun is, he can't be stronger than numerous supernatural items connected to vicious ghosts. I suggest Professor Wang take back his decision and have Jiang Li hand over that supernatural wooden box of his own accord right now."

Before anyone else could respond, a thick stench of decay rapidly spread from Lin Long, as though a completely rotten corpse were dwelling inside him.

His meaning couldn't have been clearer.

With so many people in charge present, they should join forces to forcibly take Jiang Li down and seize the wooden box he possessed.

Jiang Li turned his head slightly. The expression on his face barely changed, but his tone became murderous, radiating a strong sense of danger.

"Another one looking for death."

"I started preparing the moment I entered this conference room. Every single one of you here has now triggered my vicious ghost's killing rules. If we really start fighting, there might not be many people left alive in this room."

"To be conservative, half a minute is enough to kill every person in charge like you who's controlled only one ghost."

"You..."

Lin Long shot to his feet, only to fall back into his seat.

A cold hand had appeared beneath him at some point and was gripping his foot tightly.

The people in charge in the conference room stirred uneasily once more, and the atmosphere became charged with tension.

Cao Yanhua, who had only just recovered his senses, saw this and nearly fainted with anger again, his eyes rolling back. He began pounding the table.

"Rebellion! The lot of you are rebelling!"

"This is a meeting to review the Hunger Ghost incident, not a place for you to fight to the death! Everyone, sit down!"

After a brief silence, the people in charge who had stood up returned to their seats.

Jiang Li sat back down as well, the hostility in his eyes showing no sign of fading.

But then Wang Xiaoming spoke again, as though dropping a depth charge into the conference room.

"Yang Jian, suppose we keep pressuring Jiang Li to hand over the wooden box. Whose side would you help?"

Thud.

Cao Yanhua fell headfirst into the seat behind him. Zhao Jianguo then carried him out of the conference room for emergency treatment.

With Cao Yanhua gone, the atmosphere in the conference room grew even more oppressive. Everyone waited for Yang Jian's answer.

Yang Jian, however, seemed not to care at all. He casually propped his feet on the conference table.

"That's a pointless question. He has something good on him, and you reach out to grab it. If I had something too, would you bring people to ransack my home?"

"Leaving everything else aside, how could I possibly turn on one of my own for the sake of your selfish desires? While he and I were risking our lives dealing with the Hunger Ghost, who knows what corner you were in, papering over the cracks."

Hearing this, Wang Xiaoming merely nodded lightly and spoke to Jiang Li.

"Li Jun lost to you just now, so I should honor our agreement. You can leave with Yang Jian now. No one will stop you. Afterward, I'll keep the people in charge here in line and strictly forbid them from revealing the wooden box's existence. I can do that, so you can rest assured."

"But perhaps we can talk some more about the wooden box after the meeting."

Hearing this, Lin Long immediately became anxious.

"Professor Wang, how can you do that? We can't just let them go."

Wang Xiaoming gave him a look as though he were an idiot, then said,

"You're not qualified to question me. Unless you go into Li Jun's Ghost Domain for a few minutes yourself, don't say another word."

"..."

Lin Long gritted his teeth viciously, but ultimately said nothing more.