Mysterious Revival: Starting by Controlling the Person-Hiding Ghost

But to think that would be enough to settle the matter was far too optimistic.

At some point, Jiang Li had vanished. He was nowhere to be seen in any corner of the conference room, as though he had disappeared into thin air.

One of the people in charge in the conference room suddenly cried out and rolled up his sleeve.

"Damn it, what is this?"

The people beside him immediately looked at his arm and spotted a pitch-black handprint that seemed to be spreading.

An experienced person in charge pointed at the man's arm and said gravely:

"This could be a ghost slave mark from some kind of ghost, or a curse that means certain death. This is bad."

"That's terrifying. Don't tell me I have one too?!"

Hearing this, the others rolled up their sleeves and were horrified to find that nearly everyone had a similar handprint.

Just then, a low voice sounded behind Wang Xiaoming, its tone icy.

"That's right. It's a curse that means certain death, and every one of you has it."

"Blocking a man's path to fortune is like taking his life, and what you, Wang Xiaoming, want to snatch is a supernatural item I use to keep myself alive. I didn't originally want to tear off all pretenses here, but the way you've gone about this is too ugly."

"Li Jun is out of the fight now. There's no one left who can protect you, is there?"

Seeing the hand clamped around Wang Xiaoming's throat, everyone in charge present was startled and nearly rose to their feet the next instant.

The weakened Li Jun saw this and forced himself to get up and continue the fight.

But Wang Xiaoming's gaze darkened, and he barked:

"All of you, stand down. No one is to act without permission."

Hearing this, the people in charge who had been preparing to act, led by Lin Long, stopped at once. But they remained standing where they were, watching the situation with hostile intent.

Wang Xiaoming then turned his head slightly and said in a low voice:

"Haven't I already promised to stop coveting your box? Why are you acting up now?"

"What do you think?" Jiang Li said, his hand around Wang Xiaoming's neck. "If you hadn't sent Li Jun after me, I might still be sitting here talking things over with you."

"Now we've come to blows and I've suffered a loss, yet you think you can send me away by saying you'll stop coveting it. Don't you think that's funny, doctor with low emotional intelligence?"

"What do you want?" Wang Xiaoming asked with difficulty.

He could already feel himself suffocating. If this continued, Jiang Li wouldn't need any supernatural ability to kill him; he could simply strangle him here.

Jiang Li snorted coldly and murmured:

"There's still a fierce ghost stored in Li Jun's Ghost Domain. He can no longer pose a threat to me. In other words, none of the people in charge here can stop me now."

"Since you like measuring others by their value, I'll make a deal with you."

"Your life, or the lives of every person in charge here. Which do you choose?"

Wang Xiaoming stared at Yang Jian below for a moment. Seeing that he seemed to have no intention of intervening, he forced a few words out of his throat.

"Kill me."

Hearing that, Jiang Li abruptly tightened his grip:

"Very well. You asked for this yourself. I'll grant your wish right now."

It happened almost instantly.

Wang Xiaoming's face rapidly turned deathly gray, and a deathly stillness that belonged only to a corpse gradually emanated from him.

But before he died completely, Jiang Li twisted his wrist again.

Crack.

Wang Xiaoming's head twisted a hundred and eighty degrees. His whole body immediately went limp, and he stopped moving altogether.

"Professor Wang is dead?"

It had all happened so suddenly that the people in charge below the platform had yet to react.

Even Li Jun stood rooted to the spot, stunned, without making another move for a long time.

But Jiang Li had vanished again, leaving only Wang Xiaoming's body slumped on the floor, still warm.

"Killing one is killing, and killing a crowd is killing too."

The next moment, three people in charge slumped in their seats one after another. A deathly gray spread rapidly across their faces, and in the blink of an eye, the life went out of them.

Looking again, their eyes were still open, but they were already corpses.

The others slapped the table and stood up, but they still couldn't pinpoint Jiang Li's current location. They could only watch the people beside them fall one after another without warning.

Some of the bodies had not even gone cold before the fierce ghosts within them began to revive and stir, making the corpses twist and writhe.

Yang Jian narrowed his eyes slightly, as though considering something.

Xiong Wenwen, the only child present, had long since hidden under the table in fright.

The remaining people in charge began to see enemies in every blade of grass and tree, some even suddenly attacking the people beside them. The scene spiraled completely out of control, with blood flowing like a river.

In moments, several more people in charge fell for good, including Cao Yang, a future captain.

Just as Jiang Li was about to continue, the conference room before him suddenly blurred, and an old man leaning on a cane gradually walked toward him from the indistinct scene ahead.

The path between them seemed hundreds of kilometers long, incredibly distant, yet it also felt close at hand, as though it were only the length of a narrow alley.

In any case, the old man was indeed drawing closer, a terrifying aura radiating from him. He commanded respect without showing anger.

Jiang Li threw aside the corpse in his hand, turned to look at the old man, and said in a low voice:

"Elder Qin from headquarters. Are you here to eliminate me?"

"You old things really are meddlesome. You've got one foot in the grave, yet you still come out to interfere with the fates of your juniors."

Elder Qin raised his aged eyes slightly and, only after a long while, said:

"Those people you just killed shouldn't have died here now."

"So what? I've already killed them. Was I supposed to wait for them to come after me afterward?" Jiang Li said, controlling the black shadow on the floor and sending it steadily toward Elder Qin.

Jiang Li knew full well that this was an utterly terrifying old man. He had absolutely no chance of winning against him.

But even if he couldn't do anything to him, he would still get the stink on him and spray blood in his face before he died.

Elder Qin, however, showed no further reaction. He merely tapped his cane lightly, bringing the black shadow on the floor to a complete halt, then slowly said:

"One thing you said earlier was right. Blocking a man's path to fortune is like taking his life. They went too far, but this isn't entirely beyond making amends."

"What do you mean?"

"That wooden box in your hands has far more uses than it does now. You'll learn that in the future. What I can do to make it up to you is let it become what it should be ahead of time."

Elder Qin pointed his cane at the wooden box in Jiang Li's arms from a distance and said slowly, "Trading this stroke of fortune for those people's lives is well worth it for you. Once you reach my level, you'll realize that everything is no more than passing clouds and smoke. Rather than kill more people, it would be better to leave a few more alive for this era."

"I've already killed them. How are you going to make up for that?"

By this point, Jiang Li understood.

A restart.

This was no difficult feat for Elder Qin. Even from a great distance, he could still accomplish it.

"The world is vast, and time is long. You should continue on your way with that wooden box."

Elder Qin's slightly raspy voice echoed.

The blood-soaked conference room before Jiang Li gradually came into focus, only to blur again.

Jiang Li opened his eyes and found himself back in the conference room.

Everyone else was sitting safely in their seats, looking on as if watching a show, having completely forgotten the experience of being killed.

Only Wang Xiaoming suddenly clutched his neck and coughed violently, like a man who had nearly drowned.

It seemed he still retained the memory of being killed.

This time, Wang Xiaoming didn't have Li Jun spar with Jiang Li again. He merely announced without further comment that he would stop coveting the wooden box, while also promising to keep information about it confidential.

With that, the meeting ended.

Chapter 47: An Unexpected Encounter with a Messenger

"So, after the way Wang Xiaoming and the others treated you, what are your thoughts now?"

On the drive back, Yang Jian couldn't help asking.

Jiang Li, sitting in the front passenger seat, said indifferently:

"Actually, I don't have much to say about it."

"At the very least, I won't be joining headquarters anymore."

"Even though Wang Xiaoming said he would keep the wooden box's existence secret for me, I don't think he can necessarily manage that completely. It's a problem either way."

Yang Jian nodded, then said:

"You didn't do anything wrong. If I'd been in your place today, I'm afraid I would've been even more aggressive than you. If something like this happens again, you can tell me. As long as I'm not in trouble myself, I'll stand up for you."

Hearing this, Jiang Li fell silent for a long time before finally letting out a laugh:

"No wonder Zhang Wei calls you Brother Leg. I didn't quite understand before, but now I do. You really are a reliable guy. Anyone else in my place would want to cling to your thigh."

"That's how it was with Zhang Wei and me in high school," Yang Jian said. "I handled the fighting, and he paid the medical bills afterward. All that reliability was honed bit by bit. After all, a child without a father has to take charge early."

As the two were talking, a phone suddenly rang.

It was Jiang Li's phone.

"Jiang Li, it's Wang Shan."

"President He of the Friend Circle asked me to pass along an invitation. He hopes you'll visit Dayi City for a few days, and he'll assess you there."

"If you're willing, I'll arrange a flight to Dayi City for you now. You could leave as early as tomorrow."

"Sure," Jiang Li said. "Go ahead and make the arrangements. I'll wait to hear from you."

Hearing this, Yang Jian, who was driving, couldn't help glancing back and asking in mild surprise:

"You're leaving so soon? Won't you stay a little longer? Zhang Wei was telling me just yesterday that he wanted to take you along for an outdoor livestream."

"There'll be opportunities later. I'm leaving this time to take care of some needs of my own. Of course, I might also take care of some trouble you could run into in the future."

They didn't talk for long before returning to the Guanjiang Residential Complex.

The following afternoon, Jiang Li boarded a flight to Dayi City.

The plane wasn't full, and there were quite a few empty seats.

Dressed in casual clothes, Jiang Li sat alone on one side, silently swiping at a little game on his phone screen.

Just then, a shapely woman in a qipao walked down the aisle and sat in a seat diagonally ahead and to Jiang Li's right.

Her appearance and bearing were indeed outstanding: skin as pale as a dead person's, a full figure that wasn't bulky, and heavy, alluringly beautiful makeup on her face.