Chapter 165: No Way Back on This Journey (15)
Yan Shixun instinctively reached out, trying to call out to the blood skeleton, but just as he took a step forward, he watched helplessly as the blood skeleton dissolved into the darkness.
At the same time, the sea of blood and the malicious spirits that had previously retreated in fear because of the talismans in Yan Shixun’s hand suddenly surged back, as if receiving some unseen command. They surrounded him once again, blocking his path to where the blood skeleton had been.
Under the golden light, the ghosts shrieked in agony as they turned to ash. The remaining spirits, drawn like fish to bait, opened their mouths wide and devoured their fallen companions in the sea of blood.
With the nourishment from their consumed comrades as bait, the rest quickly discovered a new way to grow stronger.
They pushed the ghosts at the front toward Yan Shixun, letting those ghosts be burned to ashes in the golden light of the talisman, then lunged forward themselves to feast…
More and more spirits were shoved toward him. The ground beneath Yan Shixun became layered with thick, bloody flesh, wave after wave, completely cutting off his chance to pursue the blood skeleton.
Yan Shixun pressed his lips tightly together, his jaw clenched to hold back his fury.
But as he stared at the fork in the road where the blood skeleton had stood, he suddenly realized something.
The path where Lan Ze had stood led to the laboratory building.
It perfectly aligned with his earlier suspicions.
It seemed that Cheng Jing was likely inside the laboratory building, and everything Lan Ze had done had been to meet Cheng Jing.
Yan Shixun couldn’t quite understand Lan Ze’s choice.
He could clearly see that there was no sin weighing on Lan Ze. He could have gone to the underworld for reincarnation—staying in the human world brought him no benefit.
Yet not only did Lan Ze choose to remain, but his obsession was so intense that it drew in the ghostly energy leaking from the underworld and fused it with his own.
…How deep must the pain and unwillingness have been to create such a force?
Yan Shixun paused in a daze for a moment, sighing internally at the friendship between Lan Ze and Cheng Jing.
But he quickly pulled back his visible emotions. His long eyebrows tensed as he activated the talismans in his hand. The golden light flared up, like the golden crow descending upon the human realm.
Even the dim tree-lined avenue was lit up in a radius.
At once, the sea of blood roiled, and the ghosts wailed in agony.
The burning pain overwhelmed even their greed, and they forgot all about competing for their companions’ remains. Like frightened fish, they scattered in all directions, driven by pure survival instinct, scrambling to flee deeper into the sea of blood.
For a moment, the ground beneath Yan Shixun was completely clear. The land looked so clean it was as if nothing had happened at all.
Only the leftover scraps of flesh on his combat boots and the thick scent of blood clinging to the damp soil proved that what had just happened was no illusion.
It was like a shattered fish tank, all the water rushing out elsewhere.
Just then, from the dormitory area behind Yan Shixun, a piercing scream full of terror suddenly rang out.
Yan Shixun looked up and saw that in the darkness, the entire campus ground was bubbling and rolling like molten tar.
Even though the faint light prevented him from seeing far, he could already imagine what was happening.
—Within the blackish-red sea of blood, the spirits were excited and ravenous, scrambling to flee the blood sea and surge into the human world.
Wherever the blood sea passed, ghostly energy spread, silently and swiftly transforming the campus.
In Yan Shixun’s field of view, a dense fog began to rise, blurring the entire space of the school grounds.
The landscaping trees under the dormitory building swayed gently in the gloomy mist, their branches dancing like ghostly shadows.
And slowly, they began to change form.
The bark peeled off, the rough surface crumbling into powder and drifting down through the dense fog, revealing smooth bones underneath.
The ghastly white hue gave off a cold, lifeless glow in the shadows. Vines stretched from the earth, climbing upward along the trees, gradually coiling and engulfing them.
Through the faint light that filtered through, Yan Shixun saw what the forest had become.
Beneath the vines, the bone-white skeletons had fused with the trees, their skulls hanging silently, hollow eye sockets staring wordlessly forward.
Light seeped through the exposed ribs. The flesh had long since rotted away, leaving only these bones, imprisoned in a cage of vines, howling in endless agony, unable to escape.
The resentment and anger from both life and death slowly fermented, accumulating in their souls and clinging to the remains, transforming into thick ghostly energy.
They began to resent—why me? Why can’t I leave?
So, they turned their gaze toward passersby. The vines twisted and slithered beneath the soil, choosing their targets, attempting to drag the living down to experience the same torment.
The entire forest—tree after tree—had become a prison of bones.
In the dense mist, they slowly lifted their heads. The clatter of bones knocking together echoed with a chilling “click-click,” unnervingly clear in the deathly silence of the campus.
Countless hollow eye sockets stared silently at the dormitory building, locking onto the faint light shining from behind the glass.
The jawbone opened and closed with a clattering “clack clack” sound, filled with excitement and malice, eager to drag innocent souls straight into hell.
Inside the dormitory building, no one had noticed the strange happenings outside.
All they could focus on was trying desperately to survive the immediate danger—they had no energy left to worry about anything else.
“Holy shit, holy shit! Get the hell away from me, damn it!!!”
A strong-built guy let out a hysterical scream toward the sky. Overwhelmed by terror, he pushed past his fear, grabbed a nearby metal stool, and swung it forward with all his might. It smashed into the monster trying to break through the dormitory door, hitting it so hard that it staggered back two steps.
His roommate, seeing the opportunity, immediately rushed up and slammed the door shut with a loud “bang!” Not only did he lock it instantly, but he also gritted his teeth and dragged over a nearby metal cabinet to block the door. Only then did he finally breathe a little easier.
“What do we do now, man? That damn thing’s still out there—can’t just stay holed up here forever.”
The roommate looked worried. “Should we call campus security? Maybe get some teachers to check out what the hell’s going on?”
The strong guy was still panting, gripping the metal stool tightly, clearly shaken.
Even after hearing his roommate’s suggestion, his expression remained blank—he didn’t respond.
“Hey? Hey, bro?” The roommate raised a hand and gave him a push.
The guy seemed to snap out of it suddenly and asked in a shaky voice, “Did you…did you feel like that thing just now looked familiar?”
“What the hell are you talking about?? Who the hell would think that freaky-ass monster looks familiar?!”
His roommate gave him a strange look. “Don’t tell me you’re possessed or something? Huh? Which one is it—fox, weasel, snake, or willow spirit?!”
“No, I mean…”
The strong guy remembered a scene he’d witnessed before.
He had just finished playing ball and was passing under the stadium when he suddenly heard gasps and blood-curdling screams from around him. He instinctively looked up—just in time to see a figure fall from above and slam into the ground not far in front of him with a sickening “thud!”
Red and white… a mess of blood and flesh splattered across the ground.
The skull had shattered on impact, the face split clean down the middle.
Amid the pool of gore, the light in that person’s eyes slowly faded, their life slipping away with it. The face quickly turned deathly pale.
That was the first time he had ever stared death in the face.
He used to think he feared nothing—not heaven, not earth—but only at that moment did he realize how naïve he’d been.
Death…was ugly and terrifying.
The person who’d jumped had landed headfirst. The face had been utterly destroyed—so deformed it had surpassed what the human mind could even tolerate.
The image had burned itself into his memory.
So now, as the fear began to ebb, that scene resurfaced vividly in his mind.
After hearing this, his roommate looked stunned. “Holy shit, that guy who jumped? But didn’t he die? How the hell could he be showing up now?”
The two of them stared at each other, and gradually, the realization sank in.
Of course… he could only appear now because he was dead.
This was… a haunting!!!
The roommate shuddered, just about to say “Bro, maybe jumping out ourselves would be easier,” when he suddenly spotted something—blood slowly seeping through the lock on their dorm room door.
Drip.
Drip…
The strong guy went stiff, like a machine jamming, his head turning in slow, jerky motions, horror in his eyes.
But then, a scream from outside rose, then dropped in pitch and volume.
They both turned quickly—just in time to see something flash past their balcony, followed by a distant, echoing scream.
Two seconds later, there was a heavy, dull thud from below.
The two of them exchanged a glance and rushed to the balcony, leaning out to look.
There, sprawled across the asphalt in a twisted X-shape, was a person—limbs bent at unnatural angles, unmoving.
A pool of blood slowly spread beneath them, soaking into the white clothes they wore.
Then, from above, a heart-wrenching cry echoed down the dorm building, shrill and desperate: “BROTHER!!!”
The strong guy sucked in a breath, about to ask if the person had also seen a ghost and been so terrified they’d jumped—when his eyes caught something strange. The ground beneath the body began to ripple. The blackness surged up, and in an instant, it swallowed the fallen person completely.
Gone. Just like that.
Both of them shouted at the same time, “HOLY SHIT!!”
If not for the still-echoing cry of anguish from above, they would’ve thought they’d just hallucinated the whole scene.
Still standing on the balcony, they also saw someone fleeing in terror from the dormitory’s main entrance, the lights in the hall casting a silhouette.
That person looked like they’d seen something utterly horrifying—completely broken, driven by nothing but the instinct to escape.
Just as they were about to run down the steps outside the dorm building, the strong guy recalled the terrifying scene they’d just witnessed.
He couldn’t help but shout out a warning: “Hey—!”
However, just as he began to speak, that person had already stepped onto the ground outside the dormitory building.
The next second, it was as if he had stepped into a swamp—his body suddenly sank, and he was thrown forward.
Then, countless shadows surged up frantically, dragging him down into the ground.
In an instant, darkness churned and swallowed everything.
The person’s screams, flesh, and blood were devoured completely.
A deathly silence spread through the dorm room. Even though both of them were wearing thick clothes, they still felt a bone-chilling cold seep through the fabric and into their bodies, making them shiver uncontrollably.
That was when they realized—this wasn’t just a simple haunting, nor was it just bad luck that they had run into a ghost.
It seemed that the entire dormitory zone had undergone some kind of terrifying transformation.
All around them, danger lurked.
The roommate took two sharp breaths through his teeth and instantly abandoned his earlier suggestion of climbing down the balcony with the muscular guy to avoid the ghost. Without hesitation, he turned around and charged toward the door.
The muscular guy was stunned. “What are you doing?”
“Damn it! Is it possible for a living man to die from holding in his piss? I’d rather go down fighting than just wait around for that thing to kill me!”
With that, the roommate grabbed the long pole of a giant flag they had used during a sports event. Blood rushed to his head, and without caring about the bloody handprints all over the door lock, he yanked the door open.
Before the ghost of the person who had jumped and smashed their head outside could even react, the roommate gathered his breath in his dantian and, with a loud shout, charged forward and thrust the long pole straight at it.
In the next second, the pole pierced through the ghost’s chest and lodged into the wall on the other side of the corridor.
The ghost’s shattered and disfigured face slowly lifted. Its gaze followed the wooden pole embedded in its chest to look directly at the roommate, who was now face-to-face with it.
Roommate: “…………”
Oh, crap.
He forced down the nausea surging in his chest and, keeping a straight face, grabbed the still-stunned muscular guy and bolted out the door.
Their figures flashed past the doorway like the wind.
The ghost stiffly turned its head to look at their retreating backs.
Then it tiptoed, effortlessly lifted itself off the pole, and floated lightly yet swiftly in the direction the two had fled.
The roommate felt an icy presence rapidly closing in behind them, so cold it made his scalp tingle.
The muscular guy was still in shock.
But as they ran down the corridor at full speed, his eyes darted past the dorm rooms around them. Suddenly, he realized that they weren’t the only ones who had run into ghosts—every single dorm room had.
Some rooms had their doors wide open, blood pooling on the floor tiles, but the rooms themselves were empty. No one knew what had happened to the people who had been there.
At the corner of the hallway, the two of them failed to stop in time and came face to face with a shadowy figure lurking in the darkness.
That figure was incomplete and dressed in clothing from decades ago. Its face was pale, rigid, and corpse-like.
Caught off guard by such a face, both of them nearly went into cardiac arrest from the fright.
The roommate froze for a second, then decisively pulled the muscular guy along to speed past the figure, refusing to give the thing behind them a chance to catch up.
“Where are we even running to?”
The muscular guy took in the scene as they rushed by. What hit him hardest was the sight of someone he vaguely recognized running and screaming from the end of the hallway—only to be caught by a ghost and stabbed straight through the heart. Fresh blood sprayed across the pristine white wall. The sickening splurt of the blood was so vivid it filled him with despair.
“This is it for me. I give up.”
His face turned ashen, and he slowed down, completely losing hope. “What’s the point of running? No one’s going to save us. We have nowhere to go.”
“Instead of exhausting ourselves running, why not just find a quiet place to die?”
As he spoke, the muscular guy dejectedly reached for his phone. “Let me play one last game before I die. I still want to hit King rank. If I die before making it, I’ll have no peace.”
The roommate, too, gradually came to a halt.
He turned back blankly to look at the classmate and friend he had known for four years, not knowing how to convince him otherwise.
Yeah… where were they supposed to run?
A wave of helplessness washed over him.
He had never been afraid of hardship. Throughout his high school years, he had gone from almost dying from exhaustion to rising from the bottom ranks to become the top student in the city, eventually being admitted to Binhai University. In his dictionary, the words “give up” and “despair” didn’t exist.
But now, he had no direction.
Even though the road was right under his feet, he didn’t know where to go.
But… now, where was the safe place?
His roommate looked around, seeing that either the dorms were eerily silent or their doors were wide open. The heavy scent of iron and blood hung in the hallway, and screams echoed from both upstairs and downstairs, reverberating through the empty corridors with a sense of fear and panic.
Outside the dorm building, they could still hear screams and cries for help that abruptly stopped, along with the heartbreaking shouts of survivors, urging everyone not to leave the dormitory, as the ground outside wasn’t solid—it was all ghosts, blood everywhere.
Everyone was in chaos.
Panic spread quickly.
It felt like a hunting ground for evil spirits everywhere, and they were nothing but rabbits driven into the field, shivering in fear as they awaited death’s arrival. Their only remaining value was to please the hunters with the fear they experienced before dying.
The roommate turned around and locked eyes with the grotesque ghost chasing them, but he had already lost the will to struggle.
He stood there dejected, listening as the strong guy beside him mumbled about which skins, fragments, and heroes he should’ve bought if he knew he was going to die today…
The next second, just as the ghost was getting closer, the dormitory door suddenly opened. A hand reached out, grabbed their collars, and pulled them inside.
Then there was a loud “bang!” as the door was locked.
The strong guy looked up, blinking, staring blankly ahead.
The roommate and he both stared in confusion, unsure of how they had suddenly ended up in this dorm room.
“Wait, let me ask—are you guys idiots?” The guy beside them rubbed his wrist, gritting his teeth as he asked. “You see a ghost running towards you, and you’re still thinking what? You tired of living?”
The roommate slowly came to his senses, realizing that someone had saved them.
He looked around and saw that the four beds were occupied by people, and even the floor was full of people hugging their knees, sitting dejectedly. It seemed like everyone in the surrounding dorms had gathered in this room.
Roommate: “…?”
Outside, they could hear the ghost’s hissing sounds and banging on the door, but it only made the door tremble without breaking through.
“This is…” The roommate hesitated and asked, “What’s going on here?”
The guy raised his chin, motioning for him to look behind the door.
The roommate followed his gaze and saw a red paper talisman stuck to the door. It was decorated with strange and mysterious patterns, and at that moment, the lines glowed brightly in red, firmly holding the door in place.
The roommate was stunned.
He felt like his worldview, which had just collapsed after almost being killed by the ghost that broke into their dorm, had completely shattered by watching a piece of paper glow.
The strong guy nervously asked, “Is that… a talisman, like the ones Taoists use in the movies? Is it… real?”
The guy chuckled: “There are ghosts outside, and you’re asking if the talisman is real?”
The strong guy felt embarrassed: “My brain’s in a daze, I didn’t react right away.”
The guy quickly explained his situation.
He had been studying in his dorm when he suddenly heard screams from someone jumping off the building, realizing that there were ghosts outside.
He had wondered why those ghosts hadn’t attacked him, then his eyes fell on the talisman stuck to the door.
It turned out that he had helped someone before, and that person had said, “No karma,” and gave him the talisman as a thank-you gift. He didn’t think much of it and thought it looked nice, with an ancient folk art style, so he casually stuck it on the door as decoration.
He never expected it to come in handy today.
Because of the talisman, the ghosts wouldn’t come in, so he had brought everyone from the surrounding dorms into his room to take refuge.
He had also heard the familiar music from a game starting up, realizing someone was outside, so he quickly opened the door and dragged the two of them inside.
Roommate: …So it was the game that saved them?
His gaze silently shifted to the strong guy beside him.
The strong guy quietly looked down at his phone, playing a game.
…So, what was this? “When in despair, hope is born”?
The roommate quickly grasped the key point: “You said someone gave you the talisman? Who? Are they still in the school?”
The roommate felt a sense of unease. He thought that a talisman could only temporarily solve the problem; it was only by finding the person who drew it that he would truly feel at ease.
The boy didn’t hide anything and said straightforwardly, “He’s in our dorm building, a first-year student from the Financial School, named Yan Shixun.”
“I think his family might have some kind of inheritance or something. I gave him the notes I organized when I was a freshman, since I don’t need them anymore. I thought it would be a waste, and I organized them really well. Back then, everyone in the department was fighting to borrow them to make copies.”
The boy continued, “I didn’t expect that the junior, who looks fierce and hard to approach, is actually very polite. He not only thanked me, but also gave me a talisman as a token of appreciation.”
“Yan Shixun.”
The roommate repeated the name in his mind, feeling like he had heard it somewhere before.
But a loud “bang!” suddenly interrupted his thoughts.
Everyone in the dorm room turned to look at the door.
Then they were horrified to see that the yellow talisman was slowly burning along its bright red lines.
It seemed like it had exhausted all its power, turning into a pile of ash.
Before, that fragile talisman had made the door so solid that it couldn’t be broken, but now, the situation was completely different.
The ghosts outside slammed into the door repeatedly, and the metal door was dented with every impact.
Everyone inside the room shivered, huddling together.
“Is our school a shoddy project?” Someone, on the verge of tears, exclaimed, “Is the door made of paper? It’s so fragile!”
Everyone stared at the door, and the sense of security they had found earlier had completely vanished. The tension in the air was unbearable.
The roommate thought for a moment and immediately suggested, “Let’s find Yan Shixun! Since one talisman could have such an effect, the one who drew it should be able to protect us better.”
The boy smiled wryly, “Yan Shixun has a bad temper. If you rush up to him without any reason, he probably won’t even look at you.”
The roommate was about to respond when they suddenly heard a loud exclamation from outside the door.
“My God! Brother Yan, look at that dorm, there’s a ghost smashing the door! It’s terrifying.”
Brother Yan? Yan?
The roommate caught the name but didn’t have time to think it through before he suddenly noticed that— the noise from the door stopped.
It was as if whatever was outside had been distracted and moved away from the door.
The strange silence that followed was even more terrifying.
The people inside the dorm were uneasy and began to overthink.
But soon, a deep, magnetic voice faintly echoed from outside, each word clearly pronounced and ringing like a bell, instantly penetrating everything outside and striking straight into their souls.
“Spirit talisman command, announcing to the nine heavens… slay the demons, bind the evil, saving millions of people!”*
Note: translated charm command.
With a loud shout, everyone felt a chill run down their spine, a cool sensation spreading from the top of their heads, and their trembling spirits settled down.
The previously overwhelming and terrifying aura began to dissipate.
The group held their breath, staring at the door, not knowing what was happening in the quiet hallway.
They didn’t have to wait too long.
A few seconds later, the sound of firm footsteps approached.
Then, they watched as the door lock clicked open with a “click.”
Everyone: “!!!”
They were so frightened that their hair stood on end.
But in the next moment, the door slowly opened, and a tall figure appeared before them.
The person wore a black tank top, outlining his strong muscles, with a white and gold jacket over it, which appeared to be from the Financial Department.
His hair fell messily around his forehead, and his sharp eyes, half-hidden in the shadows, radiated a murderous aura that seemed capable of intimidating even demons and ghosts. The sharp light in his eyes made it almost impossible to meet his gaze.
“Is anyone hurt?” The man’s expression was indifferent, and his voice calm, as if he was already accustomed to such scenes, showing no sign of fear.
The people inside the dorm froze for a moment, and the boy who had saved everyone with the talisman suddenly exclaimed, “Yan Shixun!”
The young Yan Shixun leaned against the doorframe, his gaze shifting coldly toward the speaker, then he raised an eyebrow, recognizing the person.
“It’s you, Yan Shixun!” The boy excitedly said, “Great, we were just talking about going to find you!”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but suddenly these terrifying things appeared, and the ground outside turned strange. We were scared half to death…”
The boy walked towards the door as he spoke.
Then, his gaze instinctively darted out through the gap next to Yan Shixun.
In the hallway, the white tiles were now covered with dark red blood, and pale human bones were scattered around. Chunks of flesh were mixed in with the blood, and eyeballs, devoid of life, lay on the ground, staring up at them.
The scene was horrifying.
The strong smell of blood made the boy lose his voice.
His face contorted in disgust as he frowned, clearly struggling with something. But in the next second, he couldn’t hold it in anymore and let out a “bleh!” as he quickly ran back to find a basin.
As the sound echoed and the sour smell spread in the dorm, the others, though they hadn’t seen the scene outside, looked uneasy, wanting to run but also fearing that there might still be ghosts outside.
Yan Shixun showed no intention of comforting the boy. He cast a glance at the others in the dorm and was about to close the door again.
“Wait, wait!” The roommate gathered his courage and asked, “Can we come with you? It’s too dangerous right now, there are ghosts everywhere.”
With the first person speaking up, the others quickly followed suit.
Yan Shixun frowned in slight annoyance, feeling as though he were facing three hundred chirping sparrows.
“Fine.”
He spoke calmly.
His voice wasn’t loud, yet it instantly brought silence to the dormitory.
Everyone turned their eyes toward Yan Shixun, clinging to this moment of peace, which felt especially precious against the background of the screaming outside.
“A big group of you following me around—what am I, a snake in Snake Game? The more I move, the longer the line?”
Yan Shixun’s tone was flat. “Stay here and don’t move. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
With that, he shut the door decisively, sealing off the sour stench of vomit inside.
He bit into one of his slender fingers with sharp teeth, drawing blood, and quickly used the fresh drop to draw a talisman on the door.
Under his breath, Yan Shixun murmured, “If a person comes, let it be blocked like heavy paper. If a ghost comes, let it be a mountain in the way. No evil shall break through, no force can open it.”
As he finished chanting, the talisman on the door glowed faintly before fading again.
But now the door itself had changed—it had become solid and unyielding.
After completing this, the young Yan Shixun turned his head indifferently, scanning the floor around him.
The vicious ghost that had just been chasing a regular student now lay as nothing more than shredded meat on the ground, no longer able to harm anyone.
Yet the once-white walls were splattered with blood, trickling slowly downward. The silence in the corridor made the scene all the more horrifying.
Zhang Wubing, who had been hiding not far from Yan Shixun but hadn’t dared to get too close, now shuffled over, trembling, and asked hesitantly, “B-Brother Yan? Where do we go now?”
Screams from outside the dorm building continued to echo. Some students had begun organizing themselves, standing guard at each entrance of the dorm, trying to stop others from rushing out in panic.
But they lacked experience. They didn’t realize that when people were terrified out of their minds, they might do anything irrational.
The screams were laced with desperate pleas, and one person was wailing hysterically: “I told you! I told you not to go out! It’s not a road out there—it’s full of ghosts!!”
Terrified, Zhang Wubing peeked out through a nearby glass window, his heart filled with dread and sorrow.
Since he was a baby, he had constantly been haunted by ghosts—he encountered them more often than he ate meals. He had only survived thanks to the meticulous care of his elders and the help of powerful masters hired with his family’s wealth.
Even after entering university, he would’ve died that one afternoon if he hadn’t been lucky enough to share a dorm with Yan Shixun.
But even so, he had never witnessed anything like this.
He always thought seeing ghosts was his personal curse.
He never imagined he’d live to see so many ghosts appear all at once.
It was like the gates of hell had burst open, unleashing every evil spirit into the human world.
Anxious and uneasy, Zhang Wubing reached out, hesitantly tugging on Yan Shixun’s sleeve.
“Brother Yan, it seems like something terrible is happening outside. Should we go check it out?”
Yan Shixun didn’t need Zhang Wubing to tell him. He had been on high alert the whole time.
After jumping down from the balcony, Yan Shixun had a strong suspicion—his future self might have appeared here.
Unless Doraemon really existed in a few years or someone had actually invented a time machine, there was only one explanation: the cosmic balance had collapsed. The order between yin and yang, heaven and earth, had gone completely haywire.
That would be the only way someone from the future could return to the past, even appearing in his dorm room.
Just as Yan Shixun was about to leave the downstairs dorm that no longer held any trace of his future self, he heard screams coming from the dorm upstairs—his own.
Then came Zhang Wubing’s sobbing voice, hanging from the balcony above. His legs were flailing against the railing like he wanted to jump but couldn’t muster the courage.
From Zhang Wubing’s frantic explanation, Yan Shixun learned that a ghost had been trying to break into their dorm, and the wardrobe had suddenly creaked open by itself, revealing a ghostly face inside.
Terrified, the only person Zhang Wubing could think of for help was Yan Shixun downstairs.
When the door was no longer an option, he climbed onto the balcony, intending to copy Yan Shixun and jump down.
But he completely overlooked one detail—his physical ability was nowhere near Yan Shixun’s. All he managed to do was dangle from the edge like a weakling, swaying pitifully in the wind.
After hearing the whole story, Yan Shixun wordlessly walked over, stretched out his arm, and effortlessly lifted Zhang Wubing from midair by grabbing both his legs.
Before Zhang Wubing could even thank him through his tears, Yan Shixun casually tossed him onto the ground.
Zhang Wubing, dazed from the fall: QAQ
Then, after pushing open the door, the young Yan Shixun immediately sensed something was wrong—
The world before his eyes had undergone a dangerous transformation.
Chilling energy seeped from every shadow and corner. Ghosts lurked within. On the walls and ceiling, broken-limbed specters crawled and rustled, and unseen eyes filled with deathly gloom stared at him from neglected blind spots…
Evil spirits closed in from all directions, surrounding the living.
Once, the laws of heaven and earth had harshly punished such entities, imprisoning them in eternal hell, never to reincarnate.
But now, those same evil spirits had broken free, turning their hatred outward. They burst forth from the souls where they had festered, seeking revenge on the living, trying to drag every living person into the same hell that had once trapped them.
With Zhang Wubing in tow, the young Yan Shixun advanced steadily, banishing ghosts and warding off evil. When he ran out of talismans, he bit open his finger and used his own blood in place of cinnabar to draw them on the spot.
The youth’s sharp brows and eyes gleamed fiercely, shining like blades.
Wherever he passed, only torn remnants of evil ghosts remained. The thick ghostly aura dissipated slowly into the air.
Any student still alive along the way, Yan Shixun simply tossed into nearby dorms. One shut door, one drawn talisman, and he moved on expressionlessly.
Zhang Wubing lost count of how many people Yan Shixun had rescued.
But he followed closely beside him, puffing out his chest with pride just to be near him.
—See this glowing golden boss? Absolute badass. That’s my golden goose. My thigh to cling to, hehe.
Zhang Wubing thought gleefully, If I could just stick by Yan Shixun for life, tightly hugging his leg, maybe I wouldn’t have to worry about staying alive anymore.
If I could really make that happen, I’d call Brother Yan my dad for the rest of my life!
The young Yan Shixun paid no attention to Zhang Wubing’s thoughts. He frowned deeply, staring out the window, his sense of dread growing stronger.
He realized that as time passed, the ghostly presence was becoming denser. The spirits, once fragile and easily shattered, were now solid enough to kill.
They couldn’t delay any longer. He had to find a way to stop this from spreading.
“My future self…”
Yan Shixun let out a soft chuckle.
Author’s Note:
The talisman chants were adapted from traditional ghost-repelling spells and the “Purify Heaven and Earth Divine Mantra.”
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