Chapter 257: Source
The thin mist didn’t block much of the view, merely adding a bit of eerie atmosphere to the air.
Yue Linhai gazed up at the colossal thing not far away, feeling no great waves in his heart except for some regret.
In the end, that previous plan had been too naive of him.
He hadn’t expected the captain’s influence over this space to be so deep that even he, the master, couldn’t control it freely.
From the moment he saw the captain, he knew his plan to sneak in secretly had already failed.
Next, if he still wanted Zhang Qian to approach the captain, he could either rely on Zhang Qian’s own efforts to break out from the library, or defeat the captain and force his way into the ghost ship’s interior.
Unfortunately, whether Zhang Qian could succeed was still unknown, and from their previous communication, Zhang Qian was more inclined to search for the captain’s cabin and wouldn’t think the captain had come to the deck, so Yue Linhai held no hope for him.
As for defeating the captain, even if the captain was now stretched thin with clones, Yue Linhai had no confidence in fighting it, otherwise he wouldn’t have needed to call in outside help.
It seemed there was no hope, but actually that wasn’t the case.
After all, he appeared to be one person but was actually two, and no one else knew about this, so the captain naturally had no way of knowing.
“Unfilial son…”
Yue Linhai muttered to himself in his heart, then slowly focused his gaze on the captain, staring it down without fear.
Just stalling for time—perfectly, he also needed a bit of time, so let’s see whose action was faster, his or the captain’s.
……
“Finally here, not easy…”
Zhang Qian’s footsteps slowly stopped as he began examining the bookshelves on both sides.
If there was no mistake, the source of that sound should be right here.
But since there was an “if,” there was bound to be an accident.
After quickly scanning several times, Zhang Qian found nothing.
The books on this bookshelf were colorful and varied, but none gave him that particularly special feeling, as if they had nothing to do with the supernatural, just some old books with rather unusual content.
“Not gonna make me flip through them one by one, right? With so many books, how long would that take?”
Zhang Qian muttered, but didn’t rush to start searching.
The time for the next attack was almost here, and now he was near the source—if there was any movement, he could definitely spot it right away.
At that time, seeing with his own eyes how that administrator appeared would naturally allow him to follow the trail to find the related item.
So why hasn’t that guy Yue Linhai come yet!
With a slight bit of free time, Zhang Qian couldn’t help but complain in his heart about the unpunctual Yue Linhai.
Republic of China Era big shot my ass, totally unreliable, not worth a single hair of Old Luo… he’s here.
A certain eerie feeling suddenly appeared, like suddenly being immersed in a vacuum; the already quiet space was filled with an indescribable deathly silence, even calming Zhang Qian’s mood.
It was as if he had entered sage mode after indulgence—now Zhang Qian actually felt an impulse to just stay quietly like this.
Not wanting to do anything, not needing to do anything, just standing quietly like this was fine…
“Fuck!”
Realizing it, Zhang Qian cursed lowly, then abruptly pulled out the fingers that had unknowingly been stuffed into the bookshelf.
What the hell is this ghostly thing?
Looking at his fingers, which seemed sliced a thousand times by a master chef, now covered in dense layers, Zhang Qian couldn’t help but feel a shiver down his scalp.
Every separated piece of flesh was as thin as paper, even translucent, but eerily, there was no blood from the wounds, nor any pain.
It was as if his fingers were supposed to be like this, and the problem was with Zhang Qian himself.
Looking again at that unremarkable figure, Zhang Qian’s eyes filled with wariness.
This had never happened before—was it because he was near the source, or because he was too close to this fierce ghost?
No time to think deeply; that figure lifted its leg and walked toward Zhang Qian’s position, scaring him into not daring to delay any longer.
A ghost mask formed almost instantly, and an inexplicable attack passed through space, directly affecting the fierce ghost.
Brutal strength instantly turned this corpse’s brain into a puddle of pus, but that was just the surface phenomenon; most importantly, it suppressed the supernatural power in this corpse.
Yes, merely suppression.
For some reason, this figure’s intensity was unusually high, its supernatural power several times stronger than the previous figures encountered.
Just after falling to the ground from Zhang Qian’s attack, the figure twitched its limbs, as if trying to stand up again.
“This ridiculous??”
Deeply shocked, Zhang Qian didn’t forget to grab his guy and go in for the kill; the wooden stick wasn’t great at other times, but for beating a drowning dog, it was exceptionally handy.
Eighty, eighty, eighty…
Under the wooden stick’s pounding, that fierce ghost’s head bounced on the ground like a basketball, its glasses on the nose bridge shattering everywhere.
But Zhang Qian still didn’t dare slack off, only breathing a sigh of relief when the fierce ghost’s struggling gradually weakened.
“Too tough…”
After the intense exertion, even current Zhang Qian was somewhat out of breath.
With his current physique, playing baseball and swinging the bat continuously wouldn’t tire him out.
But the situation just now was clearly different; using the wooden stick required not just strength, but importantly infusing it with true qi—dozens of consecutive strikes were too consuming even for Zhang Qian.
And this was with the ghost mask’s attack as a base; without the ghost mask, just the wooden stick probably couldn’t even break the defense.
Sigh, damage still too low—after all, it was just a supernatural item for imprisoning fierce ghosts, not a real weapon…
Gazing somewhat melancholically at this dark red wooden stick, Zhang Qian’s expression suddenly froze.
The smooth, sturdy surface of the wooden stick had actually cracked in several places—not big, but glaring like flaws in raw jade.
“Hiss… what a huge loss.”
Even though this thing was a free gift from a tenant and cost nothing, Zhang Qian still felt heartbroken.
But now wasn’t the time to tally losses; waving it to confirm it still worked, Zhang Qian, no matter how heartbroken, could only temporarily put away the wooden stick and go search for the source of the attack.
Although the fierce ghost appeared abruptly, as if teleporting out via ghost domain, Zhang Qian still grasped a few clues.
Sidestepping that corpse and walking two more steps forward, he slightly bent down, searching the lower part of the bookshelf.
“Should be this direction…”
