Chapter 198: Escape
Actively asking not only won’t get an answer, but will also bring the mannequin’s concealment of information to the surface.
Harmful without benefit, then there’s no reason to do this.
Although the mannequin’s strength is lacking, exploring the ghost ship in the future will definitely require it. Rather than destroying the currently somewhat harmonious cooperative relationship, it’s better for the mannequin to take the initiative to explain clearly itself.
As for severe torture, it probably won’t work on a guy without even a body.
“Alright, let’s leave quickly. These guys will probably break free in a few minutes.” The mannequin urged.
It didn’t know that Zhang Qian had already noticed something wrong, nor did it know that its own head had already rolled a few times in Zhang Qian’s mind.
At this moment, this guy was sitting on Zhang Qian’s shoulder, one hand placed above the one-eyed eye looking into the distance, like a crew member using a telescope to observe the situation on the sea surface.
It’s just that surging waves couldn’t be seen in the music hall; instead, there were several hundred deathly still phantoms, high and low, indeed a bit like undulating seawater.
As time passed, these audience phantoms were no longer just poised to strike; over eighty percent of the audience had stood up, just waiting for the moment the chains unlocked.
Comparing to the weather at sea, the current situation was roughly equivalent to already seeing the black clouds carrying the storm, perhaps experiencing the storm in the next moment.
Zhang Qian casually reassured, “It won’t take much time. I want to confirm one thing.”
Fortunately, that uniform figure wasn’t far, so they hadn’t walked a long distance just now.
After not even a few steps, they returned to right below the stage, beside that youth figure.
With no time to delay, Zhang Qian didn’t hesitate anymore, got straight to the point, and used the wooden stick to poke toward the necklace above the figure’s neck.
“This necklace’s material looks like gold forged too. Even if it’s really connected to other supernatural, just touching it shouldn’t cause any problem.”
Even if it really triggered some anomaly, with these figures’ supernatural strength, they couldn’t stir up any waves in his hands.
Soon.
The front end of the wooden stick lightly pressed against the figure’s skin, then slightly shifted, propping up the necklace.
Immediately after, Zhang Qian controlled the stick to flick it, and the necklace hung on the front end of the wooden stick, leaving the figure’s neck.
As for why it didn’t resist, probably because the force of that stick earlier was a bit strong. The youth was still peacefully lying on the seat, like suddenly stricken with a serious illness and unable to control his body.
“This easy?”
Reaching out to take down the necklace, the icy cool hand feel and special feeling basically confirmed it was gold without doubt.
Fumbling in his pocket, two thumb-thick gold chains appeared in Zhang Qian’s hand.
The two necklaces looked about the same, both equally ostentatiously wealthy; only one didn’t have a pendant, while the other had a pendant, but the base was empty.
“Even the base’s shape and structure are similar; this design is quite casual. Truly making two identical ones would probably have some difficulty, right?”
Although Zhang Qian had already pulled off the ink jade and stuffed it into the gun barrel earlier, he could still recall the pendant’s general appearance from memory.
From memory, this necklace in the music hall, except for lacking that piece of ink jade in the base, was exactly the same as the one in the room.
It could probably be deduced that the previous owner of the ink jade was this youth in front of him.
As for why there were two necklaces…
Reproduction, or mirror image?
No matter the principle, anyway, this mechanism seemed unable to affect the ink jade or rather the fierce ghost.
These figures having no fierce ghosts on them seemed explainable too.
“If we speculate even bolder, there’s an explanation for the source of those fierce ghosts in the rooms.”
“The rooms on both sides of the aisle were originally prepared for ghost controllers, but the ghost controllers were captured here due to the ghost ship’s anomaly. Yet the fierce ghosts they controlled were stripped out, all left inside the rooms, causing the phenomenon of only fierce ghosts in the aisle.”
“Although the number of audience doesn’t match the number of fierce ghosts, a Republic of China Era ghost controller definitely wouldn’t control just one fierce ghost; even conservatively estimating, at least three ghosts per person. Calculating that way, it seems about right?”
As for who has this ability, probably only the most special existence on the ghost ship—the captain.
But thinking this way, splitting ghost controllers’ supernatural doesn’t seem like something one fierce ghost could do.
After all, letting ghost controllers’ fierce ghosts resurgence, the awakened three-in-one fierce ghost would be much stronger than those individually existing fierce ghosts.
But doing it this way now is equivalent to preemptively scattering the fierce ghosts’ puzzle pieces, greatly reducing their terror level.
“At least when splitting the supernatural, the captain was still sane; it’s just that his state at that time probably wasn’t good either, very likely tearing apart all the fierce ghosts on the passengers with his last breath…”
Ghost ship, is it good or bad in the end?
Zhang Qian narrowed his eyes and stood up, walking toward the main entrance.
Now, he only had a superficial understanding of the ghost ship’s existence; guessing more blindly had no meaning.
First leave this music hall and continue searching for clues elsewhere.
Not long after, Zhang Qian and the mannequin together passed through the restless crowd and returned before the main entrance.
“Any other places to watch out for?” Before acting, Zhang Qian confirmed again.
The mannequin shook its head, “Put on the clothes and open the door; the situation outside should be different.”
Hearing this, Zhang Qian said no more, raised his hand and grabbed the two tall wooden doors.
True Qi surged out and slowly infiltrated into the door panel interior.
Not sure if it was an illusion, but Zhang Qian always felt this door panel was much lighter than at the beginning.
Before he could think further, the tightly sealed main entrance slowly opened bit by bit, revealing a white light screen.
Hmm… indeed different from the aisle.
But looking at this situation, it doesn’t seem normal either?
The mannequin looked back at the hall and reminded, “I can’t sense the situation behind the light screen. If you don’t want to go in, you can take off the clothes and reopen the door to return to the aisle; you decide where to go. But best to be quick; we don’t have much time.”
After just that short delay, the number of standing audience had exceeded ninety percent, with only a few scattered figures still obediently sitting in their seats.
Some audience had even turned around, eagerly tugging at the iron chains with clanking sounds, as if already unable to wait to launch an attack at Zhang Qian and them.
One minute, or even less than a minute; these guys could probably completely break free of the restraints.
“Looks like a multiple choice, but actually only one answer given…”
Shaking his head, Zhang Qian stepped into that light screen.
Besides this place, there was no other exit; returning to the aisle was just waiting to die, going in to gamble was the only hope.
