Chapter 287: Ritual Money, Old Capital (14)
The last thing Yan Shixun saw was a sea of ghostly faces filled with hope.
Unlike the dazed and lifeless expressions he had witnessed when first entering the city, the once dull and rigid eyes of the spirits now gleamed with light, brimming with longing—for life, for vengeance.
They struggled to open their mouths, trying to speak to Yan Shixun: You must… you must succeed, and come back to save us!
These restless, vengeful souls, for the first time since their tragic deaths, felt a softness in their hearts. They offered their most sincere blessings, praying that Yan Shixun and his group would have a smooth journey.
To destroy the old Fengdu, and allow them to see the light of day once more.
They had waited for a thousand years. They could not bear to wait even one moment longer.
Meanwhile, Yan Shixun was plummeting rapidly downward. A fierce wind surged upward from below, whipping his coat wildly and sending his hair into a frenzied dance that blurred his vision.
Then, a cool hand reached out and gently clasped his own.
He didn’t need to look. After so much time together, Yan Shixun had grown accustomed to this feeling. He knew exactly who it was.
Before he could even react, a smile had already appeared on his lips, quicker than any thought.
Ye Li…
Yan Shixun mouthed his name softly, savoring the syllables between his teeth. A simple name, but because it was his, it now carried a lingering tenderness.
But in the next instant, Yan Shixun suddenly pushed Ye Li away. Using the momentum, he allowed himself to fall even faster, plummeting straight down past the others. He reached out toward the King of Hell below. After several failed attempts through the violent wind, he finally caught hold of the King’s long robe, billowing like a crane in flight.
A flash of surprise crossed Ye Li’s eyes—he hadn’t expected Yan Shixun to reject him.
But he quickly understood what Yan Shixun intended.
—To use karma to pinpoint Li Chengyun’s location.
The true form of a ghost deity was nearly impossible to perceive.
Even though the King of Hell now existed only as a fragmented soul, his lingering power was still formidable. Ordinary people couldn’t easily glimpse the record of good and evil stored in his spirit.
Ye Li had no interest in examining the King of Hell’s soul. As for the old Fengdu… this city, bereft of the Northern Yin Fengdu Emperor, was barely surviving, living off the echoes of its former might.
Without its protector, even if the city had developed a form of sentience, it dared not pry into the true form of the King of Hell—let alone judge the sins recorded in his soul.
That was why the King of Hell had used the Seal of the Underworld, willingly revealing all the death energy he had accumulated over thousands of years to the old Fengdu.
The only reason the city continued to function after the Northern Yin Fengdu Emperor’s death was because of the lingering divine power tied to its ghostly ruler.
Even if the city had grown sentient, unless it wanted to collapse before its own eyes, it had no choice but to operate under the old rules.
Therefore, by the standards of the old Fengdu, the “sins” within the King of Hell’s soul were enough to send him to any layer of hell.
Yan Shixun had the King release his death energy in order to force the city into letting them descend into the lower levels of hell.
—When a spirit had told Yan Shixun that the entrance to the lower levels wasn’t a real structure, but determined solely by the weight of sin, he had realized the city held hostility toward him.
An invisible entrance meant that if he couldn’t find the true way in, he could search the entire city in vain, forever trapped on its surface, a place frozen in time for a thousand years.
If Yan Shixun hadn’t harbored a desire to save the city’s wicked ghosts—if he had responded like a typical exorcist, recoiling coldly from their grotesque forms—then he would have chosen the wrong path from the very beginning.
And after leaving the ghosts with such a poor impression, it would’ve been nearly impossible to earn their trust later, to learn where Li Chengyun and the ghost official were, or to discover the correct path into the lower hell.
If Yan Shixun hadn’t convinced the ghosts to believe in him—hadn’t made them fear that he might give up under pressure—then they wouldn’t have blurted out the existence of the ghost official so willingly, like beans spilling from a bamboo tube. Without that, Yan Shixun wouldn’t have even known the right questions to ask.
Let alone received any answers.
If he had been a soft-hearted man who showed compassion indiscriminately, he would have simply been bullied by the ghosts for not being ruthless enough.
As for laying all his cards on the table?
Ha. Not a chance.
Fortunately, over the years of dealing with ghosts and monsters, Yan Shixun had come to understand this clearly: even if he showed kindness to evil spirits, he could never fully trust them.
Control must always remain firmly in his own hands.
Otherwise, if the ghosts discovered he was weaker than them—or caught him off guard—then for an exorcist, it would mean certain death.
It was only when Yan Shixun reviewed everything that had happened that he realized just how many traps the old Fengdu had silently laid for him.
If he had made even a single misstep along the way, he would never have made it to the lower hell.
He would’ve remained trapped on the surface, unable to find a way out, forced to watch as Ghost Dao completely replaced the Great Dao—then, day after day, tormented by regret, he would eventually become just like the rest of the evil ghosts.
—Regret was the cruelest, most inescapable hell.
No ghost official or punishment was needed. If regret became reality, it formed a prison with no exit.
If that time ever came, it would already be too late.
But what the old Fengdu hadn’t accounted for was that Yan Shixun was no longer the exorcist it remembered from a thousand years ago.
He stood with head held high, yet knelt to save souls.
As long as Yan Shixun had learned the truth about the “evil ghosts” of old Fengdu, he would never turn away coldly, allowing them to suffer in silence.
And the one who had first led him to search for the truth beneath the monstrous masks of these so-called evil ghosts—was the King of Hell.
Yan Shixun held tightly to the King of Hell’s robe, pulling him closer.
A smile lit his eyes.
If it hadn’t been for the strong wind, Yan Shixun really wanted to sincerely ask the King of Hell—are you sure you’re not the founder of modern navigation?
Although Yan Shixun didn’t actually say it out loud, the King of Hell could clearly read it on his face.
And his expression instantly darkened.
The King of Hell: Don’t think that just because you didn’t say it, I don’t know what you’re thinking. Let me make this perfectly clear—I’m the King of Hell, not a locksmith, and definitely not a GPS!
Yan Shixun gave a silent smile: Oh.
The King of Hell: “…”
Although he felt helpless, the King of Hell didn’t push Yan Shixun away.
He had figured out Yan Shixun’s plan even earlier than Ye Li had.
From the moment Yan Shixun called him over—not to navigate, no, to locate the entrance leading down to hell—the King of Hell understood. Besides using his “sins” to prompt the old Fengdu to make a judgment, Yan Shixun also intended to leverage the karmic bond between himself and Li Chengyun to pinpoint Li Chengyun’s location.
After all, the ghosts only knew that the “Man in White” was in a lower layer of hell, but with one of the nine layers already ruled out, there were still eight layers left unconfirmed.
If the King of Hell just followed the pull of his own sins downward, he could very well end up in the wrong place. Screening each layer one by one would waste too much time.
The Ghost Dao was already spreading beyond the southwest—there simply wasn’t enough time for a slow and cautious search for Li Chengyun.
That’s why having Yan Shixun use karmic ties to locate him was the best method.
When the King of Hell first realized Yan Shixun’s plan, he even found himself admiring it.
But the moment he realized that he had unconsciously described himself using terms like “navigation” and “positioning,” his expression immediately turned grim again.
The King of Hell: This is definitely Yan Shixun’s fault! He’s twisted my thinking without me even realizing it…
Still, even if the King of Hell wanted to correct Yan Shixun, this wasn’t the right moment.
He could only let out a quiet sigh and resign himself to grabbing Yan Shixun’s outstretched hand.
Their powers intertwined—Yan Shixun’s energy was already wrapped in karmic threads, and when it mingled with the King of Hell’s sins, the fusion of the two, done with full intent, was instantly captured by the old Fengdu.
What followed was an even faster descent.
Yan Shixun dragged the King of Hell as they plunged headfirst into the darkness.
Aside from the utter blackness and the metallic tang of blood lingering at the tip of his nose, Yan Shixun couldn’t sense anything else.
Only a few startled cries coming from behind reminded him, in the moments before he lost consciousness, that there were still people he needed to protect—he must not forget.
The rescue team members were already overwhelmed by the cliff-diving sensation, their hearts pounding like mad.
But none of them had expected that the fall would accelerate.
Gripped by a fierce sense of weightlessness, they instinctively cried out, only to get a mouthful of wind. They immediately reached up to cover their mouths.
But the next second, they all fell into complete darkness and lost consciousness.
………
“Senior Brother, what do you think about that kid’s talk of the Yansheng Art?”
In front of the shadow puppet museum, several Taoists had worked together to set up an array. They finally dispelled the illusion that had been cloaking the area, allowing them to enter and search for the missing variety show crew.
One of the Taoists, however, felt uneasy upon seeing two neat rows of tombstone-like steles behind the memorial archway.
Although, as a Taoist, he was used to dealing with ghosts and monsters and didn’t have the same kind of fear toward graves as ordinary people did, the blurry black-and-white photos on the steles still gave him an indescribably eerie feeling.
It reminded him of something that southwest exorcist had mentioned.
Ghosts in the southwest couldn’t be reincarnated, nor could they leave. In the end, they could only be expelled through wooden carvings that had lifelike mouths and eyes.
The Taoist with the eight-character mustache, whom he asked, stopped in his tracks. He didn’t follow the others into the shadow puppet museum but lingered beside the steles.
“You’re worried there are wooden carvings buried beneath these steles, with ghosts still trapped inside?”
Just one glance, and the mustached Taoist knew exactly what his junior was thinking.
His junior sighed. “I’m afraid this isn’t just me being paranoid—it might actually be true. I’m even wondering… what if this is happening in graveyards all across the southwest?”
“After all, people are laid to rest and left undisturbed. The southwest doesn’t have the tradition of digging up bones, and unless something unexpected happens, the coffins are never reopened. If any of those wooden carvings with lifelike features were mixed in, they’d be almost impossible to detect.”
“Besides, isn’t the descendant of that carpenter Zheng living here?”
With concern written all over his face, he asked his senior, “Senior Brother, have you ever seen a coincidence like this?”
In the face of crisis, there were no such things as coincidences.
This game was no longer being played by the living—the ones moving the pieces were the Great Dao and the Ghost Dao. All the seemingly coincidental and incomprehensible events were, in truth, long-laid traps from both sides in their strategic battle.
After all, humans could make a thousand plans, but Heaven needed only one game of chess.
The mustached Taoist was convinced.
He had originally intended to walk over and take a closer look at the stone tablet, but suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he seemed to catch a glimpse of something.
When he instinctively lifted his gaze, he realized what had caught his attention was the forest on the nearby hillside.
Unlike the city, the outskirts turned completely dark as soon as night fell, and nothing could be seen.
The Taoists didn’t want to startle anything, so they had only brought a weak flashlight for minimal illumination. As a result, seeing clearly on the mountain was difficult, even for them. At most, they could only make out a vague silhouette.
Not to mention the overlapping branches and leaves in the forest that further blocked the view and made observation even harder.
The mustached Taoist narrowed his eyes and shone his flashlight into the forest, trying hard to see what was there.
“What’s wrong, Senior Brother? What are you looking at?”
The junior brother, puzzled, also looked up to follow his gaze.
But just a few seconds later, both of them were drenched in cold sweat. In the freezing wilderness of deep winter, their backs were soaked.
—What had caught the mustached Taoist’s attention wasn’t trees at all.
It was, in fact, wooden carvings with lifelike mouths and eyes, sculpted from trees!
What had truly terrified them was the appearance of those wooden carvings.
Unlike the lifelike carvings used by the Southwest exorcists—which were shaped to resemble humans as closely as possible to entice spirits into inhabiting them—what they saw now was entirely different.
Each wooden statue stood at least two to three meters tall, with fierce and grotesque expressions. Some had extra heads or arms, while others barely resembled human forms at all, looking more like beasts instead.
These clawing, menacing statues stood silently on the mountainside, replacing the original trees. Their large, bronze bell-like eyes were fixed unblinking on the shadow puppet museum below, yet they remained hard to notice.
That was precisely why the mustached Taoist had mistaken them for trees at first glance.
As the flashlight beam swept upward from below, the statues looked even more horrific. Their towering shadows stretched onto the mountainside behind them, appearing like ghosts crawling up from the underworld.
“Th-this is…”
The mustached Taoist recalled what the Southwest exorcist had said about the logic behind the living-eyed, living-mouthed wooden statues:
—The closer they resembled the thing they mimicked, the better.
That way, the carving could draw more power and attract the soul of what it imitated.
If that was the case… then what were these huge, beast-like statues trying to attract?
The moment he figured it out, the mustached Taoist immediately bolted toward the shadow puppet museum, yelling before he even arrived, “Ghost officials! There are ghost officials from Fengdu nearby!”
The other Taoists inside had been inspecting the museum’s interior. Hearing his shout, they quickly emerged from the rooms, confused and demanding an explanation.
“The Southwest is a land haunted by spirits. What’s attracted by those statues won’t be any righteous deity. From their shape, the only possibility I can think of is Fengdu, which legends say lies in the Southwest.”
The mustached Taoist said sternly, “Someone deliberately carved those statues to lure the ghost officials of Fengdu.”
The Taoists immediately looked outside. As soon as they saw a beam of light moving up the mountain, their expressions changed drastically.
“Who’s outside? Turn off that flashlight! Don’t cast any shadows!”
One Taoist turned pale at the mention of shadows. Remembering what he’d read earlier in the museum about shadow puppetry in the Southwest mutating into ghost plays, he felt a chill down his spine.
If ghost plays still existed today—and combined with the suspicion about the Fengdu ghost officials…
His heart sank instantly, preparing for the worst.
The junior brother who had stayed outside quickly switched off his flashlight. The other Taoists also extinguished their lights and contacted the cars waiting nearby, instructing them to shut off all their lights as well—determined not to give the unknown entity here any opportunity to create shadows.
In an instant, the entire shadow puppet museum and the surrounding forest were plunged back into complete darkness.
Everyone held their breath, afraid to disturb whatever might be lurking.
Their eyes had not yet adjusted from the brightness to the pitch black. The Taoist stood motionless, waiting quietly for his vision to adapt.
To panic and act rashly now would be a fatal mistake.
But just then, the Taoist suddenly felt a strange warning from his subconscious—something wasn’t right.
It felt like… a pair of eyes were watching him in the dark.
He immediately furrowed his brow, and the hand hidden in his sleeve quietly formed a seal, preparing to counterattack.
Suddenly, he felt a drop of water fall onto the back of his neck, then slide slowly down into his collar along his skin.
The sudden chill made his skin erupt with goosebumps, and a strange itchy numbness crept through his limbs and bones.
He couldn’t suppress the instinctive urge to look behind him, but he forced his gaze downward and mentally chanted an eight-character incantation, snapping his mind back into focus. Then he swiftly turned around, fingers forming a seal and pointing behind him.
But in the Taoist’s view, there was nothing but empty darkness.
He frowned, straining to see clearly, but after a moment, he realized it really might have just been his nerves. Behind him was only the courtyard, silent and submerged in darkness—no dripping water, no ghostly figures in sight.
But just then, another Taoist’s voice came from the side: “Fellow Taoist, behind you… there’s something there.”
Even though the Taoist tried his best to keep his tone calm, the slight tremble in his voice betrayed his true emotions.
What frightened him wasn’t the ghosts—but rather the fact that the others couldn’t see them.
Since he hadn’t been blinded by the flashlight, his vision recovered quickest in the darkness. He was the first to clearly see the shadow-covered shadow puppet museum.
What he saw was this: behind every single Taoist, there stood a silent black figure. The faces weren’t clearly visible, but the shapes were eerily similar to the Taoists themselves.
It was as if… each shadow was the reflection of the Taoist.
Or rather… a lifelike wooden carving modeled precisely after their shadow.
The Taoist’s first instinct was to turn and look behind himself, but he found nothing.
Before he could even breathe a sigh of relief, he saw another Taoist suddenly turn around as well—he must’ve realized something was behind him, too.
But the problem was, the moment the second Taoist turned, the shadow behind him also moved instantly.
It shifted to stand directly behind him again.
It was just like a shadow—one that could never be seen by the person it belonged to, always trailing silently behind.
Only then did the first Taoist realize—belatedly—it wasn’t that there was nothing behind him; it was that he could never see his own back.
He immediately called out to the others and hurriedly shared his discovery with them.
But the mustache Taoist gave a bitter smile.
“Too late…”
Among all the Taoists, only he and his junior brother had seen those ghostly wooden carvings with their own eyes. The others, who had only heard secondhand accounts of how disturbing they were to behold, couldn’t possibly grasp the soul-deep terror that gripped you the moment you locked eyes with one.
It was… the instinct of the soul itself screaming at the living: Run. Or you’ll die!
The cold winter wind blew past, seeping through the mustache Taoist’s sweat-soaked robes, sending a chill straight down his spine.
He held his breath and kept his eyes fixed on the outside of the shadow puppet museum, not daring to let his attention waver.
In the darkness, there was a faint sound.
Thud… thud!
It sounded like a boulder tumbling down a mountain, striking the ground with each impact.
The mustached Taoist struggled to make out, from the varying shades of darkness in his field of vision, what was making the noise outside.
Those enormous wooden carvings—blended into the mountains and forest—had lifted their feet and begun to walk. Step by step, they were making their way down the slope, drawing closer and closer to the museum.
The rescue team still in the vehicles outside didn’t dare make a sound. They did their best to bury their presence in the darkness, terrified of being discovered by the unknown dangers lurking there—and becoming a burden to the Taoists inside.
They crouched low, hiding behind the car seats, using the vehicle to conceal themselves.
After turning off the engines, the temperature inside the cars dropped rapidly. Before long, it became so cold that some could hardly bear it, and they couldn’t help but shift slightly in their seats.
Inside the car, all that remained was the sound of their breathing.
The darkness distorted their sense of time.
No one knew how long had passed before one rescue team member couldn’t help but lift his head, wanting to take a peek out the window to see what was happening outside. Huddling in the corner like this, not knowing anything, was too unsettling.
The window showed nothing but pitch black. The team member had to strain his eyes for a long time before they adjusted to the darkness. Slowly, he began to distinguish shapes and depths, piecing together what was what.
But when he finally made out what was outside, his entire body froze. His muscles tensed to the point of rigidity, hard as stone.
The person next to him noticed something was wrong and whispered, “What is it? What do you see out there?”
But the rescue member’s eyes were wide with fear. Cold sweat streamed down the side of his face. He stared intently out the window, throat clenched so tight he couldn’t utter a single word.
He looked exactly like prey caught in the stare of a predator.
Only after adapting to the darkness did he finally see it—right outside their car window, a figure stood silently, watching them.
No one knew how long that figure had been there. If he hadn’t gotten anxious and decided to check outside, who knows how long it would’ve gone unnoticed?
It might’ve been there since they first turned off the lights—or maybe it had arrived while they were congratulating themselves on their hidden position.
While they thought they were safe, they had no idea that all along, a pair of eyes in the dark had been watching them—an unknown danger separated from them by just a thin sheet of metal.
And they had remained utterly unaware…
Realizing this, the belated awareness hit the team member like a blow to the chest. It felt like his heart had stopped. A chill ran from the top of his head down his spine, spreading through his entire body. Every muscle in him tightened to the point of locking up.
He struggled to find his voice. His dry throat only let out raspy wheezes. Trembling, he raised a finger and pointed toward the car window, trying to warn the others.
When the rest saw his strange behavior, their hearts skipped a beat. They knew something had gone horribly wrong and quickly looked out the window too.
And then they saw it.
Outside the vehicle, shadows twisted and shifted. Silhouettes clawed and sprawled grotesquely, looking like a writhing tangle of giant worms. The sight made their scalps tingle.
…So it turned out—there had been things watching them outside all along.
Their so-called “hidden” retreat was nothing more than a bad joke.
One of the younger team members felt something in his mind snap.
Their psychological defenses completely collapsed. The calm they had tried so hard to maintain vanished without a trace, replaced by a crushing sense of helplessness and a surge of anger.
The team members were filled with both lingering fear and seething rage. They wanted to rush out and grab that thing, to loudly question it—did all their efforts look like a joke to it? What right did it have to treat them this way?
It was like the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The worry and tension that had been building up all day in the team members finally exploded all at once.
One of them suddenly straightened up from the cramped hiding spot he had squeezed himself into, his expression visibly agitated.
The teammates around him noticed his sudden movement and stared at him in shock. The person next to him even reached out in a panic to grab him, mouthing urgent warnings and trying desperately to pull him back down into hiding.
Even though there was clearly something outside the vehicle, it was too dark to see anything clearly. They couldn’t tell whether it was a human or a ghost. Reacting recklessly would be far too risky.
But very quickly, the panic in their eyes turned into shock and terror.
—That team member, for reasons unknown, reached for the physical door lock, trying to forcibly open the door and rush outside.
Fortunately, the person beside him reacted quickly, lunging forward to grab him around the waist and dragged him back with all their strength, pinning him down tightly to keep him from doing something reckless.
The team leader watched as the team member gasped for breath, his eyes bloodshot with fury, and immediately recognized what was happening—he had seen this before.
Fighting with supernatural beings was never simple.
None of them were exorcists, nor had they trained in the Dao. Every time they went on a mission, they were gambling with the chance that they might never return—ordinary humans risking their lives to save others who were in danger.
In the process, they suffered not only physical injuries, but also faced the threat of soul damage, bearing a psychological burden a hundred, a thousand times heavier than the average person.
That was why many young and inexperienced rescue team members broke down and healed over and over again, until they were finally honed into sharp, battle-ready swords.
But under extreme pressure, even the tightest-strung string would snap.
The team leader sighed. Although it pained him, he still signaled to the others to hold down the breaking team member. Then he turned around and cautiously observed the situation outside the vehicle through the window.
His original plan had been to pretend no one was inside the car, to quietly wait until whatever was out there left, and then contact the Taoists to determine the next step.
He understood well that when it came to confronting ghosts, it was the Taoists’ battlefield. If they stepped in recklessly, they would only disrupt the Taoists’ rhythm.
But what he didn’t expect was that just as he carefully raised his head just past the height of the window to get a clearer look, he suddenly saw two flickering red glows in the dark.
It took him a few seconds to process what he was seeing—that red glow had to be the eyes of the thing outside.
…And he had just made eye contact with it.
No.
That thing had been silently watching them through the window all along, observing everything inside the car without making a sound, taking in all their panic and fear.
The thing grinned, its gaping maw curling into a crescent shape.
It was smiling at the team leader.
Mocking their weakness and struggle, like a cat toying with a mouse, taking perverse pleasure in watching them writhe in desperation before death.
The moment he saw it clearly, cold sweat poured down the team leader’s back. Even his heart felt frozen.
And things got worse.
At that exact moment, the door of the car—which should have been securely locked—made a faint clicking sound.
The noise was small, but ominous enough to spark a wave of dread.
Everyone who had been restraining the panicked team member froze as they heard it, instinctively lifting their heads.
Then they saw, right before their eyes, every door of the car slowly being pulled open from the outside.
Darkness swept in with a burst of cold wind, draining away the last of the warmth from the interior.
Everyone froze mid-motion. Faced with this sudden danger, none of them knew how to respond or how to save themselves.
Because what stood outside the doors wasn’t human.
They were wooden carvings—carvings with living mouths and moving eyes.
And not just one. There was a crowd of them, surrounding the vehicle completely.
Those wooden figures looked eerily familiar, their faces nearly indistinguishable from the teammates they worked with every day.
But their blood-red eyes and stiff expressions made it unmistakably clear—they were not normal.
When the rescue team members saw the faces on the wooden statues, it took them several moments to process the horrifying realization:
These statues… were carved to look exactly like themselves and their fellow teammates.
Imagine looking into a mirror and seeing a perfect reflection of yourself—only that reflection moved differently, acted of its own volition. What would you feel?
All the team member knew in that moment was that he felt like he had fallen into an icy abyss. The cold spread all the way to his heart, so intense it seemed like even his heartbeat had stopped.
He even lost track of whether he was the reflection, or the thing in front of him was the monster.
Before they could think of how to respond, the wooden figures raised their hands—pointing straight at them. The sharp fingers carved from wood curled into claws, lunging toward the people inside the vehicle.
Only then did the team members snap back to their senses. They quickly grabbed the nearest hard objects as improvised weapons, refusing to give in so easily. Gritting their teeth, they held the weapons in front of them, ready for a life-or-death struggle against the wooden figures.
The wooden figures, bearing identical faces to the team members, grinned menacingly, mocking the futility of their resistance.
Why struggle? Death is the only outcome anyway. Why not surrender and hand over this identity? At least then, it won’t hurt as much.
Now that the Ghost Dao reigned supreme, these once-proud living beings—who had considered themselves the rulers of all creation—finally got a taste of being hunted and driven into hiding.
As for this identity… it would take their place and put it to good use.
—Under the Ghost Dao.
A team member roared and charged forward, but the moment his weapon touched the wooden figure’s hand, it snapped with a sharp crack. The figure’s sharp, wooden body had been endowed with immense strength by the Ghost Dao, slicing through metal like mud. Anything that tried to block its way was swept aside effortlessly.
Even after shattering the weapon, the wooden figure’s hand didn’t stop. It thrust forward straight toward the team member’s chest.
His eyes slowly widened. Everything in his vision seemed to slow down, making the dagger-like movement of the wooden figure’s hand crystal clear to him.
He could only watch helplessly as the hand drew closer to his chest.
Then, it suddenly pierced through his warm, soft flesh.
“Splurt!”
Blood sprayed across the faces of the others.
Panic flashed in their eyes. They tried to rush over to save him, but at every car door—each forcibly opened—stood a wooden figure with a face identical to theirs.
The wooden figures struck simultaneously, repeating the same brutal actions.
The others could only watch helplessly as the blood scattered in midair, powerless to do anything.
The fallen team member clutched the wound on his chest, trying to speak, but blood gushed from his mouth instead. Then, he collapsed weakly to the ground.
Just then, a dark figure suddenly darted past the car from outside. It crashed into the wooden figure that had been mere inches from the group and tackled it violently to the ground.
“Bang!”
……..
The first thing Yan Shixun heard was the sound of muffled crying echoing in his ears.
Before he even opened his eyes, he could already sense the sounds and smells around him—mixed with a series of loud scraping noises, like something being dragged across the ground.
The sharp, lingering scent of blood filled his nose, making him frown in disgust. His eyelashes trembled violently as he struggled to open his eyes.
His consciousness slowly returned from the darkness, bringing with it an increasing awareness of his surroundings.
He seemed to be lying somewhere damp and gloomy. The cold, hard surface beneath him, combined with the chill that seeped through his thick coat, told him exactly where he was.
—He had finished falling. He had successfully entered the lower levels of hell.
A faint smile curved Yan Shixun’s lips as he finally opened his eyes.
At first, his vision wavered. His eyes, having just emerged from the darkness, were not yet adjusted to the light. Reflex tears blurred his vision, so he had to wait quietly for a moment to let his sight adapt.
Only then did he see clearly where he was.
A mass grave.
A stiff, bluish-black arm hung from a higher ledge nearby, dangling directly in his line of sight. His eyes were less than ten centimeters from its lifeless fingertips.
Whether it was the lifeless, lusterless skin or the maggots slowly crawling over the wounds, everything indicated that the arm’s owner had long been dead.
As far as his eyes could see, there were bodies scattered haphazardly in every direction. The ones buried deepest had already decayed into bare bones. Blood and pus flowed in quiet streams. The corpses on top were relatively fresh—intact, not yet decomposed.
Yan Shixun frowned, suddenly recognizing the face of one of the topmost corpses.
It was the hunched old man who had demanded ticket money from them at the shadow puppet museum during the show.
Back then, the old man had been sly and malicious, trying to trick them with karmic debt, only for Yan Shixun to dismiss him casually.
But now, he had been discarded here, eyes wide open in death, with his eyeballs nearly bulging out of their sockets. He had died with unresolved grievances.
What was going on? Was this really the lower levels of hell?
Yan Shixun moved his limbs slightly, confirming that his body was still functioning normally. Then, he slowly and cautiously shifted himself out of the pile of corpses, making sure not to disturb any of them.
When he finally managed to stand up, swaying as he supported himself on the ground, he saw the true scale of his surroundings.
—Mountains upon mountains of corpses stretched as far as the eye could see.
Standing as the only living person before these mountains of the dead, Yan Shixun appeared small and insignificant.
He quickly realized… he was alone.
The others were nowhere to be found.
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