Many Gates Garden
The main entrance of Many Gates Garden
Hu Mang stood across the street with his hands on his hips, slightly out of breath.
To catch up with the Old Third, he ran at the speed of a flying sword on two legs.
The Old Third's flying sword was 100% secretly modified; it flies incredibly fast!
Despite his best efforts, he still couldn't catch up with the Old Third. Fortunately, when he reached the end of the street, he vaguely saw the Old Third enter the modern residential area.
And he finally remembered why the name "Dachang" sounded familiar.
Dachang City, isn't this Old Third's hometown?
According to the Old Third himself, this is a small northern city, not worth mentioning.
But the Old Third never mentioned that this is a ghost town!
So the Old Third was born here? Was he also a ghost?
"I thought my half-demon bloodline was terrifying enough, but I never expected you, Old Third, to be a living ghost. Our Dorm 404 really produces some geniuses."
Hu Mang muttered to himself, walked directly across the street, and looked at the residential area opposite the gate.
From the outside, it looks no different from other residential buildings in the ghost town—several high-rise residential buildings of more than twenty stories, dark gray exterior paint, neatly arranged windows, and manicured green belts and a few fitness equipment pieces downstairs, and even a small children's slide.
But if you look at it a few more times, that "normal" appearance will begin to crumble.
First, there are the windows. Every window looks the same in shape and size, but when you count to a certain floor, you will find that one of the windows has an extra, almost imperceptible crack compared to the others. When you look at it from a different angle, that window looks normal again, but a handprint appears out of nowhere on the glass of another window next to it.
What's even more terrifying is that the darkness behind all the windows is exceptionally deep—a textured darkness that seems to devour light, as if each window connects to a different Underworld.
Secondly, there's the arrangement of the buildings. Even though there are only five buildings, no matter which angle you count from, you can only count four.
When you count from left to right, the third building will inexplicably disappear from your sight, as if it never existed.
When you count from right to left, the one that disappeared becomes the second building.
Only when you stand at the main entrance and look straight ahead can you barely see the outlines of the five buildings—but that "barely" feeling is very uncomfortable, as if your eyes are deceiving you, or as if the buildings are deceiving your eyes.
The gate to the residential complex is an old-fashioned iron gate with a plaque that reads "Many Gates Garden". However, the last stroke of the character "Yuan" is very long, as if someone's hand trembled when writing it, or as if it was deliberately stretched out. The long stroke seems to be to block the things inside the gate from coming out.
Hu Mang's expression gradually turned serious.
When he was brought here, he discovered that the Yin Qi and yang energies in the city were in a delicate balance, which is why the ghosts here don't eat people.
But under the "Yin Eye," this community had no yang energy at all; the Yin Qi transformed into rolling dark clouds, covering the sky above the community.
Under the shadow of the dark clouds, every building looked bluish-gray, and the various community facilities appeared dilapidated and old.
This reminded Hu Mang of the places in the Demon-Subduing City where demons were forbidden.
It's not one that's been sitting idle for years, but one that was only recently built and is currently at its peak.
Just as Hu Mang was about to go inside, the door to the security booth opened automatically without any wind. The old security guard sat inside, his eyes closed, his hands folded on the table, like a lifeless sculpture.
He was wearing a shampoo-white dark blue security uniform, with frayed edges on the epaulettes and the buttons fastened meticulously, but the uniform looked loose on him, as if his body had shrunk to a skeleton.
The lips are dry and shriveled, and their color is an abnormal bluish-gray.
As soon as Hu Mang took a step, the security guard slowly turned his head.
The movements were so slow that you could hear a faint cracking sound from his cervical spine, like a dry twig breaking.
His head was turned at an unnatural angle.
A cold wind suddenly arose.
In an instant, the streetlights along the entire street began to flash wildly.
The white light turned into a black light, or rather, a dim light!
Then, his tightly closed, sunken eyes slowly opened.
Those eyes had no pupils, no whites, only two bottomless pools of darkness; from those pools of darkness emerged countless distorted faces—men and women, old and young, some weeping, some screaming, some silently opening their mouths wide, as if accusing something.
Those faces surged, struggled, and tore at each other in those two masses of darkness, then sank into the deeper darkness, to be replaced by new faces.
Eyes like prison?
The Hu Mang's Yin Eye went out instantly, as if a fire had been doused with ice water, and no matter how hard he tried to rouse them, he could not reopen them.
"Grass!"
The Hu Mang's scalp tingled instantly.
He never expected that his Old Third would deliver takeout to such a haunted neighborhood, and that the security guards in this neighborhood would be so fierce!
He felt a terrifying suction emanating from the other person's eyes, as if an invisible hand had already reached into his chest cavity, grasped his soul, and was pulling it out little by little.
A gagging sensation rose in my throat.
He could even see the air around him begin to distort, and wisps of grayish-white mist spilled from his mouth and nose, being slowly inhaled by those eyes.
The body's yang energy visibly disappears.
If he can't withstand that level of suction, he'll most likely become one of those faces.
A flash of light appeared in Hu Mang's palm, and the Shattering Thunder Great Spear was summoned. With a twist of his tiger's mouth, the spear shaft suddenly plunged into the ground, the spear tip embedding itself in the bluish-gray floor tiles, emitting a muffled piercing sound.
All thirty-six lightning patterns on the gun body lit up at the same moment. The silvery-white lightning danced and leaped across the gun body like living things, crackling and exploding. Rolling lightning and dark clouds overflowed from the gun body, forming a lightning barrier around him, blocking the suction force from the Ghost Eye. The lightning and the dark aura of the Ghost Eye collided violently in the air, making a sizzling sound, like a red-hot iron falling into cold water.
At the same time, a bright light shone from between his eyebrows, activating his "Heavenly Eye." A clear and sharp Divine Sense power surged from between his eyebrows, like an invisible sword, piercing straight into the core of those Ghost Eye and withstanding the pressure of the opponent's higher-level "Ghost Eye."
Protected by lightning and with his Heavenly Eye clearing the way, Hu Mang finally managed to gain a foothold amidst the overwhelming aura of the security guard.
However, just when Hu Mang thought that he was going to take the place of Old Third, the deliveryman, and have to outwit the security guard across the street, and might even be beaten to a pulp, the security guard's dark eyes fell on Hu Mang's Heavenly Eye, which was covered by the "Demon-Subduing Divine Runes," and he actually showed a hint of contemplation.
Then, the Ghost Eye was turned off.
The old man has become your old man again.
Hu Mang was stunned. Had he passed the test?
Hu Mang tentatively stepped across the gate of the residential area and found that the old man was indeed not moving.
Why...?
Heavenly Eye? His identity as a former Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier?
Hu Mang took two more tentative steps, when suddenly his shoulders felt a heavy weight, and a bone-chilling cold sensation instantly spread throughout his limbs and soul.
Hu Mang turned his head stiffly and, sure enough, saw the security guard's old hand on his shoulder.
He realized he had underestimated the old man.
If that security guard went all out, he might be able to kill me instantly!
The old man stared at me for a moment with two hollow holes in his face, then suddenly pulled out a dirty security guard uniform just like the old man's.
"..."
Hu Mang suddenly thought of something: the identity of a Heavenly Soldier in the Heavenly Court seems to be similar to that of a security guard.
For example, those two old guys guarding the Southern Heavenly Gate.
The unlucky ones who were among the first to be eliminated during the havoc in Heaven.
In the Heavenly Court version, there were those two miscellaneous monster soldiers.
"So it turns out we're colleagues, sir. Actually, I work for the unit next door," Hu Mang said without hesitation, quickly putting on his security guard uniform while trying to get on his good side.
"If I'd known it was you guarding the gate, I would have brought two packs of cigarettes with me. My bad, my bad."
After putting on the dirty security guard uniform, the security guard, as expected, stopped moving again.
Hu Mang finally breathed a sigh of relief and was about to go find Old Third when he felt a weight on his shoulder again.
Oh no! The old man's here for a cigarette!
"Brothers, this is our third time exploring this most dangerous residential area in Dachang. Newcomers may not know, but this is the only five-star residential area in Dachang, and also the most dangerous place in our city. But even in such a dangerous place, your third brother has already been in and out seven times!"
The screen was filled with complaints again.
"You've only been there three times, how could you say you went in and out seven times?"
"Come on, streamer. I watched the whole thing the first time you came here. You were practically begging that security guard to come down to your knees."
"Seriously, all I know about are five-star hotels, what the heck is a five-star residential complex?"
According to the streamer, this Many Gates Garden is home to five thousand-year-old ghosts, hence its status as a five-star residential area.
"Really? A thousand-year-old ghost? A ghost from the Yu Dynasty?"
"No, since our Heavenly Gate entered the era of modern cultivation, one year here is equivalent to a hundred years of practice in the past. If you calculate it that way, isn't this thousand-year-old ghost of yours just a little ghost?"
The streamer was bragging, the screen was buzzing with chatter and irrelevant comments, the main point being that the streamer and the fans each chatted separately without interfering with each other.
Finally, one rich guy couldn't stand it anymore and posted several C's.
"Don't listen to the streamer's nonsense. The first time the streamer came to this neighborhood, he was so scared by the old man at the gate that he peed his pants and ran away as fast as he could."
"The second time, I somehow found a dog hole to crawl through, and ended up delivering food to a ghost bride's house. I saw her hanged new husband, and I was so scared that I ran away, making the delivery late. But even so, I was still haunted by her."
"Now, I don't know where they got the guts to barge in again."