Chapter 127: Danger
The first room contained a desk without a stool, which looked somewhat old, but there was nothing particularly special about it.
The second room had no thing, but a fan suddenly appeared at the doorway, likely the thing that had run out from the room.
The third room and the fourth room were relatively normal, containing a desk lamp and an old book respectively.
The items in each room were all different, with absolutely no common characteristics.
“There are so many guest rooms, there should be plenty of people on this ship, but I’ve walked for so long without hearing any movement, and the rooms don’t look like anyone lives in them.”
In the silent aisle, there were still only Zhang Qian’s footsteps.
The surrounding environment was too quiet; he even felt like he could hear his own thoughts.
“One or two empty rooms would be fine, but all the rooms being empty is a bit eerie.”
All the passengers had suddenly disappeared?
Zhang Qian dismissed this idea; perhaps the passengers had never left, and he had even encountered them many times.
“From the requirements of a guest room, these rooms are clearly unqualified.”
“Although a bed is sufficient for resting, people also need to wash up, relax, and entertain themselves… all these requirements, not a single one of which these rooms satisfy.”
“They don’t even have a toilet or charging outlets prepared; if they really invited passengers to stay in rooms like this, the captain would probably be cursed into depression.”
But this was a ghost ship, so how could the passengers be ordinary humans.
“Maybe these rooms weren’t prepared for humans at all; those strange old items are the real passengers. Things like that naturally have none of the various needs of humans.”
“Although I didn’t go in to observe closely, from that mirror earlier, these things shouldn’t be simple; there’s a high chance they’re related to the supernatural, or even the true forms of fierce ghosts.”
After all, he hadn’t seen what a fierce ghost looked like before and had simply assumed it was something like a ghost.
But now it seemed that only fierce ghosts could warrant such solemn treatment from a ghost ship.
So the entire ship was full of fierce ghosts; no wonder he, a living human, was being ostracized—even the surrounding air felt like it wanted to squeeze him to death.
The existence of fierce ghosts was something he had anticipated early on; it was just this quantity—wasn’t it a bit too much?
Zhang Qian’s gaze grew solemn as he stared into the darkness at the depths of the corridor and furrowed his brows.
He had originally thought fierce ghosts were some rare and uncommon thing; even if dangerous, he just needed to be careful to avoid them.
But the situation was far worse than he had imagined.
“If each room corresponds to one fierce ghost, then there are at least two or three hundred fierce ghosts on this corridor.”
“And this number is far from the limit; at this rate, even doubling it wouldn’t be exaggerated.”
“The problem is, I only have seven bullets…”
This battle was truly harder than he had imagined.
He hoped the fierce ghosts weren’t as terrifying as in the folk tales; otherwise, forget completing the task—whether he could even walk out of the corridor would be a problem.
The good thing was.
Most of the rooms were closed; although Zhang Qian didn’t dare to check if they were locked, the iron doors provided a barrier and at least some psychological comfort.
The fierce ghosts here were also quite lazy, each lying in their rooms doing nothing; after so long, none had come out to bite.
Otherwise, even if Zhang Qian could kill one fierce ghost with a single shot, he would now be drowned in an ocean of fierce ghosts.
Not long after, Zhang Qian’s footsteps suddenly paused.
“The lights seem to be dimming?”
The surrounding brightness seemed to drop by an order of magnitude; the lights changed from unstable old bulbs to paper lanterns on the verge of extinguishing.
The lights in the corridor earlier weren’t bright, but they were enough to clearly see all the details.
But the lights deeper in seemed to have a problem; the light they emitted not only failed to illuminate but even felt somewhat gloomy.
Rather than calling it light, it was more like a layer of light gray gauze draped over the nearby walls and carpet.
Click.
A thick beam of white light shot out, sweeping across the entire corridor.
“I originally wanted to keep a low profile, but compared to the risk of the lights attracting fierce ghosts, I’m more worried about not spotting danger in advance due to poor line of sight.”
Zhang Qian held up a gold brick; the light beam from the brick instantly overwhelmed the dim yellow corridor lights.
After slightly adjusting the mode, the light range expanded again; just holding it at chest level illuminated the entire passage.
Although this strong light had no special effects, he had to admit that with the dim environment receding, Zhang Qian’s mood relaxed considerably.
At least situations where he imagined rust spots as fierce ghosts were now impossible.
“This corridor isn’t ordinary either; even this strong light can’t penetrate it…”
Now, the corridor in Zhang Qian’s eyes was like two worlds.
The part in front of him was filled with light, with every detail exposed—nothing special except for the dilapidation.
But the light didn’t extend far before being devoured by the distant darkness, abruptly vanishing from the corridor.
Nothing could be seen in that darkness—not even the outline of any objects.
If he had to describe it, it was like a black cloth with 100% light absorption, looking like it had drilled a loophole in the world.
Unconvinced, Zhang Qian adjusted the flashlight mode again; the scattered light concentrated like a lightsaber stabbing straight into the darkness.
Unfortunately, it had no effect—exactly the same as before.
“It’s not a matter of intensity; the flashlight fundamentally can’t influence this kind of darkness. It seems that unless there’s a somewhat special light source, even a thousand or ten thousand flashlights would be useless.”
“But a special light source… I think I really have one…”
After fumbling around, Zhang Qian took a crimson candle in his hand.
“I haven’t seen what’s behind the darkness yet; those rooms seem to emerge from the darkness, but what’s after the darkness might not be those rooms.”
Although somewhat absurd, Zhang Qian felt this darkness was perhaps similar to a teleportation gate.
It would spit out aisles and rooms as people advanced, creating a sense of infinite distance.
“This layer of darkness is very likely the thing stopping me from leaving; if the candle can dispel this layer of darkness, maybe it can help me find a new path.”
But could the candle’s flame illuminate that far?
He’d know if he tried.
“Snap.”
The lighter ignited the candle.
Before Zhang Qian could look closely, all the hairs on his body suddenly stood on end, and an intense sense of crisis erupted.
At that moment, the newly lit candle flame underwent a bizarre change; with a pop, it burst open into a dazzling burst of sparks.
