Chapter 152: Plan
Rice must be eaten bite by bite, and the road must be walked step by step.
There were quite a few things needing attention at the moment, and since the Severed Limb Ghost had yet to appear, Zhang Qian could only set aside the matter of the severed arm for now.
“The probability of two ghosts running into each other shouldn’t be that high, I hope I’m not that unlucky…”
Muttering to himself, Zhang Qian turned and walked to the doorway, stepping inside without hesitation.
Compared to the fierce ghost whose shadow he hadn’t even glimpsed, verifying the accuracy of the ghost map was undoubtedly an easier goal to accomplish.
Moreover, exploring whether this lightly colored room was safe or not would make it easier to find a place to hide if danger arose later.
After two steps.
Zhang Qian had already fully entered the interior of the room.
Dim yellow light fell on him, and the temperature around him seemed to rise by a few degrees.
The anticipated attack did not come; it seemed that, just as shown on the ghost map, this was a “safe house”.
He didn’t close the door, as Zhang Qian had no intention of staying long—he was just checking the situation inside the room.
He walked straight to the side of the bed, and his gaze immediately began to move.
None opposite the bed, none on the bed, none on the wall at the head of the bed…
Nothing but worn wallpaper, still just worn wallpaper; nothing particularly unusual could be seen.
“Can’t find it in the obvious places, so where could it be hiding?”
Zhang Qian, seemingly a bit puzzled, wandered around everywhere, checking those less obvious spots.
But he, always facing away from the doorway, didn’t notice that on the carpet in the aisle, half a rotten dead person’s head suddenly emerged from underground.
No eyeball could be seen in the hollow eye sockets, yet the rotten human face turned directly following Zhang Qian’s movements, as if it could sense his position.
Although the Severed Limb Ghost made no sound, this blatant malice clearly revealed its existence—even without looking back, Zhang Qian could guess that something was blocking the doorway.
However, he ignored it and instead pulled out the ghost map to confirm the information on it.
The left side of the center was indeed a light-colored room.
“Could it really be that there’s no fierce ghost here, just some lingering supernatural aura?”
He hadn’t found anything outside; he’d even checked the ceiling, and aside from the pendant light, there was nothing special.
Under the bed was solid, so there was only one place left where something could be hidden.
Walking up to the bed, Zhang Qian reached out and yanked, pulling the moldy bedding off the wooden bed.
Slightly below the pillow, a black pendant lay quietly on the yellowed bedsheet.
Perhaps it couldn’t be called hidden, because if a person lay down, their neck would likely align with the position of the pendant.
So it was very likely that someone wearing the pendant had lain on the bed, the person disappeared, but the pendant remained.
The ink jade-like pendant gleamed with a strange luster under the light—not dazzling, yet highly alluring; even Zhang Qian felt an impulse to go over and hang the pendant around his neck upon seeing it.
“Heh, you think this thing can tempt me?”
Zhang Qian sneered disdainfully, then dangled the pendant in front of his eyes for a closer look.
The rope of the pendant wasn’t ordinary red string, but a metal necklace; judging by the color, it was undoubtedly gold.
It was clear the maker of the necklace feared it breaking; the amount of gold used was substantial, and it felt a bit heavy in Zhang Qian’s hand, like holding a small lead weight.
By comparison, the underground pendant looked a bit small; most of it was gold, with the ink jade-like part only about the size of a fingernail.
Moreover, there were no signs of carving; the entire piece of ink jade still had many edges and corners.
Perhaps the forger had unique taste, but Zhang Qian thought this thing was more like a fragment picked up from somewhere, embedded into the gold by the forger as if it were a treasure.
“Even ghost controllers from the Republic of China Era weren’t wealthy enough; they had to cobble together supernatural items…”
Halfway through his words, Zhang Qian suddenly paused.
On the ghost map, the color of this room was deepening, from a nearly invisible light gray to a smoky gray-white.
And this color change hadn’t stopped; it was rapidly shifting toward dark gray.
It had finally come.
Zhang Qian’s heart tightened, silently counting a number in his mind.
He then whipped around fiercely, aiming a blow at the thing in front of him with the wooden stick.
“Dong—”
A crisp striking sound rang out, but the corner of Zhang Qian’s eye twitched involuntarily.
Although he had indeed smashed the Severed Limb Ghost’s head as expected, he hadn’t anticipated that its main body hadn’t entered at all.
The body wrapped in a mass of severed arms was still crouched at the door, with only this rotten dead person’s head dragging its neck, trying to burrow into the room.
Unable to enter, or no need to enter?
Thoughts raced through his mind, but the Severed Limb Ghost wouldn’t give Zhang Qian time to hesitate.
Unlike those subordinate body-like severed arms, the fierce ghost’s main body merely sank a distance after the blow, and before touching the ground, it showed signs of lifting again.
“Dong!”
Taking advantage of the fierce ghost’s daze, Zhang Qian quickly followed up with another blow; with a ruthless resolve, he pocketed the ghost map and grabbed at the fierce ghost’s neck with his left hand.
Having come this far, thinking of other methods was somewhat unrealistic.
So he’d go all the way down this path.
His faintly glowing palm slapped onto the bloodied, mushy muscle; the feel was strange—clearly the neck was a bony area, yet Zhang Qian felt like he was grabbing a lump of soft, flabby fat.
Slippery on the outside, impossible to grip, and no strength could be applied.
But contact had occurred, and the fierce ghost’s attack launched in an instant.
Zhang Qian, still trying hard, suddenly felt a sharp pain in his palm, then saw inexplicable cracks opening up on the back of his hand.
Though true qi still enveloped his hand, the Severed Limb Ghost had bypassed this defense, directly applying its strength to Zhang Qian.
“Tch, can’t you cooperate a little?”
As soon as Zhang Qian released his hand, the dead person’s head, free from suppression, immediately showed a tendency to lift upward.
At the same time, the black stain that had appeared on the carpet at some point underwent a eerie change.
One by one, broken arms emerged from it, all uniformly pointing their palms toward Zhang Qian’s position.
But Zhang Qian ignored them, gripping the wooden stick with both hands, aiming at the neck swaying in the air, and channeling all his strength into a strike.
“Peng!”
The entire neck was smashed into a “V” shape, even the arm-waving motions paused.
But Zhang Qian wasn’t satisfied—one blow, then another.
He smashed a full five times, until the fierce ghost’s neck developed a crack from the relentless attacks, before stopping.
Without time to catch his breath, before the wound could heal, he reached in, hooked into the rift, and yanked hard.
“Come in, then!”
