Chapter 16: Summon Ghosts
The hole clawed into her shoulder kept bleeding nonstop, her body growing colder and colder, and Lu Jinzhao couldn’t tell if it was due to blood loss or the ghost drawing ever closer.
Apart from the ghost following behind her, the deceased Lin Shuyue and Cen Duo, and Jiang Yingzhi who didn’t know if she was still alive, the ghosts existing here now were most likely still five in number.
Five ghosts were, no matter what, existences that she, a single ordinary person, could not hope to contend with.
But fortunately, she didn’t need to contend with them; she only needed to escape.
Lu Jinzhao heard the sound of the train door opening, and accompanying that sound was an even more pronounced, exceptionally shrill cat’s cry.
She didn’t dare open her eyes and couldn’t confirm what was happening, but she figured it absolutely wouldn’t be anything good.
Lu Jinzhao still had some lingering doubts in her heart, but she couldn’t afford to worry about that now; she pushed hard with her feet, heedlessly breaking free of those strands of hair, and even when the sharp strands sliced open the skin on her ankle, she simply ran toward the train door with all her might.
But the instant she snapped those entwining strands of hair, the next instant, new hair wrapped around her.
These strands greatly slowed her speed, and after the skin on her ankle was completely sliced open, Lu Jinzhao felt something trying to burrow into her body through the exposed flesh and blood.
She thought of that person wrapped in strands of hair—if she let these strands burrow into her body, she’d probably end up the same way?
But she didn’t have time to worry about that.
Even though she could feel strands already burrowing into the flesh and blood, with spasmodic pain coming from her calf, Lu Jinzhao just gritted her teeth, broke free of the newly binding strands, and ran step by step toward the train door.
Thanks to the massive noise from the train, she could still find the general direction even with her eyes closed.
But the next second, Lu Jinzhao realized she’d collided with something.
Coldness, rigid, utterly motionless.
What was that?
Lu Jinzhao’s breathing stopped; she didn’t dare open her eyes, but even without looking, she knew that whatever she could bump into at a time like this couldn’t possibly be anything normal.
The next moment, an ice-cold hand suddenly clamped around Lu Jinzhao’s neck.
The grip was abnormally strong, and in an instant, Lu Jinzhao could no longer breathe.
The other party showed no mercy, going straight for killing her.
And the instant it clamped onto Lu Jinzhao’s neck, the pain from her leg muscles being shredded by the strands also receded considerably in that instant.
It was a ghost—Lu Jinzhao confirmed it immediately.
And it was a more powerful existence than that hair ghost, so at this moment, Lu Jinzhao was its prey, and the hair stopped its further invasion.
Her breathing had already stopped, yet amid the agony of oxygen deprivation, Lu Jinzhao could still spare a thought to confirm the hierarchical gap between “ghost” and “ghost” due to differences in power.
Something she’d been mulling over since Lin Shuyue’s time received even more definitive confirmation here.
Ghosts truly did contend against one another.
But what use was knowing that?
Right now, she seemed to have reached a desperate situation.
Even with her eyes tightly shut, a line of blood script appeared before her.
[Pay the price, exchange for a way to survive]
It was the parchment.
It seemed the parchment also believed she was trapped in a desperate situation, doomed to die.
Proposing a transaction in this situation—did it think that no matter how great the price, she would accept?
Her brain was gradually losing the ability to think due to lack of oxygen; the suffocation felt exceptionally unbearable—even for Lu Jinzhao, it was intolerable.
Moreover, she could feel that the hand choking her neck had a strength unlike that of any human.
If she didn’t break free soon, she might have her neck snapped alive before even suffocating.
So, the transaction?
—No.
Perhaps in the parchment’s view, she was already trapped in a desperate situation and could only turn to it, but…
Lu Jinzhao didn’t want to transact with it; as long as there was the slightest method, even if that method was extremely dangerous…
She suddenly opened her eyes.
The next second, what entered her line of sight was a familiar face.
The passenger who had drawn the ultimate see a ghost mission was now dressed in a burial shroud, his complexion ashen-purple, already looking every bit the dead man.
“No, this isn’t what I wanted to see.”
The hand on her neck kept tightening; Lu Jinzhao couldn’t turn her head, so she strained her eyeballs to look to the side—she knew that all she needed was a crevice, an opportunity from her line of sight…
A rotten face, completely unrecognizable, with only one eye emitting an eerie green glow, suddenly loomed before her.
It was that ghost that had been following her since the operating table, trying to possess her!
This was it.
She had finally seen this ghost, the one that had always been following her—and it had finally discovered her.
Conditions met; the next moment, the ghost face vanished, but Lu Jinzhao felt waves of coldness through her body, especially her eyes—her world suddenly turned a hazy gray, everywhere the color of incense ash, all things distorted and blurry, as if she were in another world, with only the ghost before her and the train not far away remaining clear.
“…Is this the ghost’s line of sight?”
Lu Jinzhao didn’t have time to think too much, because she clearly sensed her control over her body and brain declining; even this single thought became abnormally sluggish.
It was as if something was vying for control of her brain and body.
Or perhaps that ghost had already successfully invaded her body.
But thanks to this, the hand choking her neck loosened.
It didn’t fully release, which was within Lu Jinzhao’s expectations.
As the ghost summoned by the ultimate see a ghost method, it was probably the strongest inside the platform.
So she used the ghost that had always wanted to possess her to contend against it, but it wouldn’t win immediately—which meant that during the contention, she wouldn’t be possessed right away, nor killed right away.
The clash between the two ghosts would give her a brief chance at survival, but it still wasn’t enough.
The hand that had loosened a bit tightened again after just about five seconds.
“…It seems the ghost trying to possess me really isn’t strong enough.”
Just five seconds, and it had already lost in the clash between ghost and ghost?
But that was also expected.
Lu Jinzhao didn’t hesitate; while she still had control over her body and hadn’t been fully possessed, she raised her hand and forcefully pried open the ghost hand choking her neck.
Sure enough, she could move it!
On her own, it was impossible to budge a ghost—unless another ghost possessed her!
An extremely dangerous approach, practically betting her life, but it wasn’t over yet!
After prying open the burial shroud ghost’s hand, the ghost that had been suppressed in her body immediately counterattacked!
Her brain went blank for a moment; in that instant, she almost couldn’t feel her own “existence.”
However, the strands of hair that had also been suppressed and quietly buried in Lu Jinzhao’s body sprang to life in that instant as well.
Even without the burial shroud ghost’s suppression, she wouldn’t be possessed immediately—after all, her body still harbored plenty of those previously invading strands!
Before they settled the victor, perhaps only a few seconds remained, but this was the time Lu Jinzhao had fought for.
It was her sliver of a way to survive.
