Chapter 122: The Revealed Bug
Two methods?
Lin Qian: “Tell me about it.”
“First, package this dried ghost hand and send it to Zhang Dong. Your trouble will be gone immediately.”
Lin Qian fell silent upon hearing this.
This trouble would definitely be gone, and there would be no more in the future.
Any wish ghost with a bit of brains would know what it means to go after Zhang Dong.
This was indeed a stable method.
Extremely stable.
“What about the second one?”
Lin Qian asked.
The old man seemed to have anticipated Lin Qian’s second question and revealed a smile:
“The second method carries great risk. You have to fight for it.”
“This hand is a trouble for any ghost controller in this era, a huge trouble.”
“Unable to control it, controlling it means death, keeping it will attract ghosts, discarding it is even more troublesome.”
“You can suppress this ghost, which means that under certain circumstances, you can briefly use this ghost.”
“So, my method is for you to keep it, then find a way to make that escaped ghost wish for something not too big.”
“This operation is very difficult, but not impossible.”
The old man narrowed his eyes slightly, his hollow eye sockets half-covered by his eyelids.
“Those two things inside the opera stage…”
Hearing this, Lin Qian instantly revealed a smile. “Let’s discuss it in detail.”
The old man nodded.
Both the old and the young showed smiles that Li Ru couldn’t understand.
Meanwhile, at the top floor of a clock tower in Da Chang City.
Yang Jian, who had just wiped out a mercenary organization, saw this old-fashioned ghost cabinet again.
The bright red paint on the ghost cabinet was like fresh blood that hadn’t solidified yet, as if it could drip down at any moment. Even an ordinary person glancing at it would feel this thing was eerie and extraordinary.
As if knowing Yang Jian was there for a transaction, the cabinet door on top of the ghost cabinet creaked open slowly just five seconds after he stood steady.
Even at dusk when the outside light was still bright, the inside of the ghost cabinet remained pitch black, like an abyss.
It was unimaginable what fate awaited if one entered it.
Yang Jian had curiously observed it closely before, only to see a pair of eyes like those of a dead person, devoid of any vitality, sending chills down the spine.
“I trade a ghost for Zhao Lei’s location, then the ghost cabinet will make a demand. If I can’t fulfill it, the ghost cabinet will likely cause trouble again.”
What he worried about now was not the transaction, but the problems it would trigger afterward.
From the previous attempt with that bowl of egg fried rice, it was clear that the value of the ghost cabinet’s demand should match what you request.
In other words, the ghost cabinet’s upcoming demand would be equivalent to the value of one ghost.
Not too difficult, but not easy either.
“If I can’t find Zhao Lei, I’ll be in huge trouble later. That ghost that altered Zhao Lei’s memory is growing in some corner I don’t know about. Once it thinks it can kill me, it will come for me again. Then I’ll face a major crisis. I have to strike first and deal with that ghost.”
Yang Jian had thought it through clearly before coming.
Trading with the ghost cabinet was unwise, but letting Zhao Lei wander outside was an even greater potential terror.
That ghost had attacked him, seemed to have obtained his memory, and tampered with his memory. This ability sent a chill through his heart.
If attacked by that ghost again and his memory altered once more, Yang Jian felt he might forever become that ghost’s slave.
Something like a ghost slave.
Exactly like Zhao Lei’s fate.
Yang Jian absolutely would not allow this to happen.
He took a slight breath to calm his emotions, then forcibly pried open this golden box.
The gold wasn’t thick; his strength could force it open.
As soon as it opened, a stench of rotting corpse assaulted his face.
Yang Jian saw half a broken corpse, unrecognizable in appearance, bound with many golden threads like a zongzi, wrapped countless times. Besides that, there were several bullet holes on the corpse.
“Gold thread? Bullet holes? So this was a ghost controller?”
His face darkened immediately.
Undoubtedly, this half-broken corpse wasn’t a ghost, but a living ghost controller who had been targeted by this Paul company’s mercenaries, assassinated directly, and locked in the box with the ghost inside that hadn’t revived yet.
“These beasts are simply insane. Do they think this world is too peaceful and needs more terror?”
Though unrelated to him, as a ghost controller himself, Yang Jian’s face turned grim upon seeing this.
Hunting ghost controllers so brazenly and seizing unrevived ghosts was downright anti-human.
Or perhaps, some capitalists and ambitious figures behind Paul, to collect ghosts for some purpose, were resorting to any means?
“In the future, companies like Paul should be eliminated on the spot without investigation. These people are the world’s cancer. Useless at resolving supernatural events, but great at hunting ghost controllers—typical bullies who only pick on the weak.”
But as he felt anger inside, the rotting corpse in the box suddenly twitched restlessly.
The gold threads wrapped around it restrained the corpse, keeping the movement mild, but Yang Jian, holding the box, still felt it.
The ghost controller was dead, but the ghost wouldn’t die.
Though an unrevived ghost, it didn’t mean it posed no harm before revival.
It just had a relatively lower harm level.
“In this state, you can’t rest in peace. Burying you will cause problems sooner or later.” Yang Jian didn’t dare carry this thing in his hand any longer.
He didn’t use his hand but used the ghost shadow to grab this half-broken corpse and stuff it directly into the ghost cabinet.
The corpse had just touched the darkness inside the ghost cabinet when it was immediately seized by something.
“Bang~!”
The broken rotting corpse was instantly pulled into the cabinet, vanishing into the pitch black, as if falling into some abyss. With the corpse’s disappearance, the open wooden door slammed shut.
The condition of one ghost was fulfilled.
In less than ten seconds.
“Clang~!”
A sound like metal falling inside the cabinet rang out. The originally empty lower cabinet door seemed to have gained something.
Soon, the lower cabinet door creaked open on its own.
Yang Jian saw a metal nameplate.
The nameplate had a number: 13
“This is the room number plate of some door.” Yang Jian glanced and could roughly figure it out.
“But giving me just this info to find Zhao Lei is impossible. The ghost cabinet won’t default, will it?”
Then he took out the copper plate and saw crooked writing on the back: Z City Caesar Grand Hotel.
“Just as I thought, after giving it a ghost, it has to give me a satisfactory answer.” Yang Jian now had an exact location from the address on the back.
Z City Caesar Grand Hotel, Room 13.
This should be Zhao Lei’s current location.
“So, with the transaction activated again, what demand will the ghost cabinet make of me?” He frowned, growing worried.
An unassuming paper slip fell in the cabinet, with similarly crooked black handwriting.
“Find within one year.”
The paper had only six words, and on the other side was a color photo, as if freshly printed.
The photo showed a person, more precisely a woman. Her appearance was indescribable—somewhat glamorous, somewhat eerie. Her open eyes were hollow without eyeballs, yet she smiled gently at the camera. But upon closer look, the smile was stiff like a puppet, exuding a deathly pallor, her pale rigid hands placed in front already spotted with corpse patches.
Undoubtedly, this woman was dead, possibly even a ghost.
Moreover, the woman’s attire and the photo’s background made Yang Jian’s face sink. She wore a red qipao, sat on a wooden stool, backgrounded by an old wooden door with two red lanterns partially visible above it. The surroundings were dim, as if shrouded in black mist.
“Isn’t this that bride?” Yang Jian’s heart sank.
Very familiar, couldn’t be more familiar.
Yes, exactly like the place where the bus stopped waiting for the dried corpse bride to board.
Also an old house, also hung with red lanterns.
Though unclear from the ghost car that day, he could still see the outline of the wooden house and the two red lanterns at the doorway.
Such a highly distinctive feature couldn’t be mistaken.
Moreover, he had seen this woman in the photo not long ago.
In the endless graveyard, the trouble he brought—how could he not know?
He had seen with his own eyes the human skin paper turn that dried corpse bride into a fierce ghost resembling a living person.
Little difference, or rather none.
“The ghost cabinet wants me to find it within a year, but I’ve already found it. This demand is very strange—just find it, not bring it or meet it. And couldn’t the ghost cabinet find this dried corpse bride? It could even find Zhao Lei.”
“Unless the woman the ghost cabinet wants isn’t that dried corpse bride, or rather, not the current dried corpse bride.”
Yang Jian instantly thought of many things.
It seems the ghost cabinet also has things it can’t accomplish.
This ghostly thing looking for the dried corpse bride—could it be to complete the puzzle piece?
In the endless graveyard, he had seen this cabinet’s illusion.
Back then, it appeared as a puzzle piece of the dried corpse bride. Though an illusion, it later teamed up with the president to deal with the human skin paper-controlled dried corpse bride.
Looking at the photo in his hand, a sense of unease in his heart was subtly amplifying.
“The more dealings with these ghostly things, the more frightening it gets. I feel like prey, lured step by step into some terrifying trap. The human skin paper is like this, and so is this ghost cabinet.” Yang Jian felt no joy from the successful transaction.
Only an inexplicable chill.
Dealing with ghosts is a terrifying thing.
He feared being schemed against again.
“Should I ask the president?”
Yang Jian wasn’t worried about the ghost cabinet’s one-year demand.
For someone like him who was short-lived, if he could survive a year, such problems would surely be resolved. He wasn’t too afraid of the ghost cabinet’s curse either.
Having faced many terrors, the ghost cabinet was just another one; he didn’t care.
But the terror hidden behind the ghost cabinet made him extremely uneasy.
The endless graveyard incident was still fresh in mind.
Before the supernatural the president faced, he was completely a rookie.
“Put Zhao Lei’s matter aside for now. I need to ask the president about the situation.”
Soon, the call connected.
Yang Jian held nothing back; after all, the ghost cabinet was no secret.
It might have been before, but definitely not now.
“You mean you traded with the ghost cabinet, and it wants you to find the dried corpse bride?”
“More precisely, not the dried corpse bride, but the appearance of the dried corpse bride created by the human skin paper before.” Yang Jian explained.
Lin Qian sat in the traditional Chinese medicine shop, stroking his chin. “Yang Jian, you’re in quite some trouble.”
Yang Jian’s heart sank. “Am I in trouble already?”
Lin Qian didn’t speak, his gaze flickering slightly. Sure enough, Yang Jian’s path was set.
Perhaps he could witness a famous scene.
“There is trouble, but it’s still far from you.”
“No need to worry for now.”
“President, you’re being evasive, and it’s making me panic.” Yang Jian said sincerely.
“Look at what you’re saying.”
Lin Qian: “When did I ever beat around the bush?”
“The ghost cabinet said one year, so at least for 364 days, you’ll be safe.”
“Not just you—even I haven’t completed my transaction with the ghost cabinet.”
“It gave me three months to find what it wants.”
“See, when I ran into trouble before, didn’t that thing step in?”
Lin Qian gave Yang Jian a hint.
Yang Jian was stunned, then reacted. “President, you mean…”
“Figure it out yourself.”
“In short, the more dangerous it gets, the less you need to panic.”
With that, Lin Qian hung up.
Yang Jian stroked his chin. “The president’s point is, the ghost cabinet giving me a year means it thinks I might die after a year?”
Recalling what happened to Lin Qian.
Yang Jian seemed to spot a bug.
“So, before I fulfill the ghost cabinet’s demand…”
Yang Jian found the blind spot.
At this moment, the ghost cabinet in the clock tower suddenly trembled.
A bloody smell permeated, coldness emerging.
In the traditional Chinese medicine shop, Lin Qian put away his mobile phone.
“Yang Jian, that kid who brought you trouble?” the old man asked.
“You could say that.”
Yang Jian was schemed into bringing the human skin paper, though he didn’t know what else it revealed to him.
But it was certain: Yang Jian distrusted the human skin paper and thus brought it out.
“That kid is interesting,” the old man said, but didn’t continue.
Lin Qian naturally knew Yang Jian was interesting.
Now, Yang Jian should be preparing to go to the Caesar Grand Hotel.
Stick to the wall?
Undefeated at headquarters, stick-wall at Caesar Hotel.
Lin Qian stroked his chin, wondering if he’d stick to the wall upon arriving.
