Chapter 172: House Of Evil Ghosts
Lu Jinzhao knew her teammates would soon catch up, but this time, their arrival speed was a bit slower than she had expected.
And when Lu Jinzhao stood at the second floor restroom door waiting for a while and saw only the figures of two teammates, she understood that the ghost had “learned” again.
Just like how after they had fallen for the shadow puppet trick once, they would counterattack the second time or even proactively, now, seeing her escape from the restroom, it realized she could continue doing so.
So this time, only two ghosts had come.
The remaining one was probably guarding the third floor.
This was absolutely considered intelligence among the “ghosts.”
“It’s just a pity that a ghost is always just a ghost.”
The entire apartment had plenty of windows; she didn’t necessarily have to exit through the restroom’s window, nor did she have to enter through the restroom’s window. She could even climb directly from here to outside the 302 window!
Squatting in wait had fundamentally no meaning.
She had chosen the restroom not because it was the only place with a window, but simply based on the rule 【Prohibit running in the corridor】 to select a place more suitable for pulling.
If they wanted to catch her faster, they just needed to continuously force her to stay outside the window longer until she could no longer leave the apartment.
“It’s smarter than the previous ghosts, but still carries a flavor of having no brain.”
The best method was actually for one ghost to drive her, while the other two—one guarding outside the 302 door, and one guarding outside the 302 window.
Block off her path to change rooms, and sooner or later she would be caught up, forced to fight desperately.
Time was very important.
And now, when these two teammates had no choice but to “walk” their way to her, Lu Jinzhao had already climbed through the window to the first floor.
Climbing back indoors from the wall surface once again, Lu Jinzhao’s forehead broke out in dense cold sweat, her already bloodless complexion became even paler; looking closely, the blood vessels at her temples seemed to be pulsating slowly under immense pressure.
Lu Jinzhao clenched her fist, confirming that her body had suffered a temporarily irreversible blow from another “outing”; her power seemed a bit weaker, her fist softer than before, and her brain felt like that of an ordinary person after staying up all day—not sleeping, somewhat dazed.
And this fatigue and pressure couldn’t be transferred to the shadow puppet; she had to bear it herself, but fortunately, she could still continue.
In the empty public restroom, Lu Jinzhao stood in front of the broken window, deeply breathing the wind blowing in from outside the apartment.
In the platform, even the wind in the air seemed to carry a special smell.
Smelling closely, it was like the lingering ash smell after incense and candles and paper money had been completely burned; every Mid-Yuan Festival in childhood, the whole town, no matter where, was filled with this smell.
It wasn’t unpleasant; at least, it was much better than the smell inside the apartment.
The footsteps of the two teammates in the stairwell were gradually approaching; Lu Jinzhao walked to the restroom door, calmly looking at these two ghosts. Inside the apartment, they had reverted to that human appearance, showing no sign of how they had just hung at the window like a deflated balloon swaying in the wind.
They clearly knew Lu Jinzhao had witnessed that scene, but now, back in human form, seeing Lu Jinzhao, they even called her name with a face full of “surprise.”
“Little Lu.”
“Don’t run anymore, Little Lu, you can’t escape.”
One of them looked at Lu Jinzhao approaching her with “surprise” while saying such words.
In this scene, if it were Lu Jinzhao who had just entered the platform, she would probably be too panicked to speak, but now, she just calmly looked at the ghost still some distance away and asked:
“What are you things?”
“Are you just a sheet of skin?”
The ghosts didn’t answer her; it wasn’t like they didn’t want to, but more like they couldn’t comprehend what she was saying at all.
Clearly, before being exposed, they could communicate normally with her, but once reverting to ghost form, it was as if they had lost even that skill.
“Is it impossible to maintain both existing at the same time?”
The ghost’s power and human wisdom.
The two teammates approached step by step, accompanied by the greed and malice in their eyes no different from other evil ghosts; Lu Jinzhao could confirm they had completely lost consciousness.
She sighed, somewhat regretful that she couldn’t learn more from the ghosts’ mouths, then turned without hesitation and ran toward the window.
For what to do next, Lu Jinzhao had no precise plan; facing the ghosts, she couldn’t fully predict their next move. For now, she could only head to the first floor and see.
When she flipped out the window again, the intangible heavy pressure immediately fell on her shoulders.
It was as if two invisible ghosts were stepping on her shoulders.
Lu Jinzhao heard her bones creaking; her neck felt like it was on a roller coaster, pressed down crazily by something, and even the fingers gripping the wall cracks were like being run over by a wheel.
She really wanted to let go; even though her fingers appeared normal from the outside, only with bulging knuckles and veins from the effort, Lu Jinzhao clearly felt something crushing them, trying to grind her bones to pieces.
“Little Lu.”
She heard the call from the window again.
“Little Lu… don’t run.”
Accompanying the calling voice were the teammate’s head and an arm stretching out the window, then slapping against the wall surface with a smack.
But this time, the extended arm no longer just clung powerlessly to the wall surface, but began wriggling toward Lu Jinzhao’s direction.
Like a stretched human skin rubber band, covered in human skin textures yet grotesquely distorted from overextension; this sheet of human skin kept trying to get closer to Lu Jinzhao.
Lu Jinzhao could even see its hollow fingers, with only a layer of skin.
There were still nails on them, but without flesh and blood support, the wrinkled skin wrapped around the nails, dangling emptily above her head, desperately extending toward her.
She absolutely could not let it touch her.
A chill rose from the bottom of her heart; Lu Jinzhao ignored the pain in her fingers as if they were being crushed and the heavy air on her shoulders; before the human skin could touch her, she decisively let go and plummeted quickly toward the first floor window!
In less than a second, Lu Jinzhao’s body had descended to the window position, so she repeated the trick, using her fingers to grab the protruding window frame on the wall again.
But this time, Lu Jinzhao clearly heard a few sounds like bone fractures or something cracking, followed by intense pain from her fingers and the uncontrollable trembling of several fingers.
Undoubtedly, part of her finger bones had fractured.
This shouldn’t have happened, but… the heavy pressure on her shoulders was still increasing bit by bit; only when Lu Jinzhao quickly flipped back inside the apartment did the pressure, like a thousand-pound burden on her body, suddenly disappear.
