Chapter 137: Chapter 55: The Forbidden Building
The entire city was under attack by an unknown force.
Ai Ning, recovering slightly from the shock, began to grasp the situation.
She didn’t know who the enemy was, but they were clearly organized. They had seized control of the Spirit Disaster Bureau’s high-level permissions, gathered a large number of Ghost Hunters at headquarters, and broadcast the Rainy Woman video to all of them at once, wiping out several hundred Ghost Hunters in a single blow.
Then, while launching their full-scale assault on Shanghai, they also continued to spread the meme throughout the city, hoping to sow greater chaos and weaken the counter-attack capabilities of any surviving Spirit Disaster Bureau members.
Her own survival in the completely empty headquarters was a total accident.
’A rookie like me, a fish that slipped through the net, poses no threat.’ The "training instructor," upon noticing someone was missing, probably couldn’t even be bothered to check the restroom for her.
Ai Ning stumbled down the street, explosions ringing in her ears. Grisly corpses were strewn everywhere along the roadside. But aside from the Rainy Woman playing on every large screen in the city, she never saw a single so-called "enemy," or even a ghost.
Overhead, black meteors continued to streak toward the distant landmarks of Shanghai. They were like Immortals piercing the sun with brilliant rainbows, but they were too far away. Ai Ning strained to look up, but she couldn’t make out what those "black meteors" were carrying, or whether they were friend or foe.
’I hope it’s the high-ranking Ghost Hunters from Abyssal Echo,’ she thought. ’Riding their Supernatural Artifacts, rushing to the center of Shanghai at top speed.’
She tried to comfort herself with the thought.
Ai Ning struggled onward through the deathly silent streets. It was impossible to hail a cab, all phone calls failed, and the Wi-Fi was spotty at best, constantly stuck on a loading screen.
She tried to check every forum, app, and news report, wanting to see what people were saying about the disaster in Shanghai. But what she found was that the videos and images on every single webpage had been replaced with the clip of the Rainy Woman, holding an umbrella and standing on a muddy path.
By now, everyone in Shanghai had seen the memetic contamination.
The only ones who could survive this large-scale supernatural contamination were the congenitally blind.
At some point, a fine, misty rain began to fall.
The forecast for today had been clear skies.
Ai Ning looked toward the distant Shanghai skyline. A massive black cloud had enveloped the city that never sleeps. The brightly lit city center had fallen; commercial lights, streetlights, and the lights from thousands of homes were all extinguished. In the darkness, there was only the PITTER-PATTER of the rain, with occasional bursts of firelight briefly illuminating a small area.
It was probably because too many Rainy Women had descended on Shanghai at once. Each time a Rainy Woman appeared, a light rain would begin to fall in the surrounding area. With a hundred thousand, a million, of them arriving in Shanghai, the entire city had been swallowed by the rainy phenomenon.
Ai Ning felt a bone-deep despair. In the distance, perhaps her colleagues were still fighting back, but the sound of gunfire was growing more sporadic. The human resistance was being plucked out one by one by some invisible, giant hand, and crushed like ants.
’Is there anything that can be done to turn this around? If there’s a god in this world, even he would despair at this scene,’ she thought.
On the roadside, there was a parked bicycle and a cyclist hanging from a utility pole. Half their neck had been sliced open, the wound then crudely stitched back together with thread before the body was carelessly tossed up there.
It was likely the work of some powerful ghost with a twisted sense of humor.
The dead person’s mountain bike was now, of course, ownerless. Ai Ning didn’t hesitate to get on.
Her most urgent priority was to get to the Abyssal Echo Squad’s garrison. They were the last fully-equipped Ghost Hunter unit defending Shanghai, capable of mounting an effective counter-attack now that headquarters had been wiped out.
It was her last hope.
Ai Ning wasn’t cycling very fast. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tall, eerie woman under a streetlight. The woman held a white umbrella, revealing only her lower red lips, which curved into a slight smile as if to greet her.
’This woman’s appearance... it’s just like the "Rainy Woman" from the meme video.’
’So it’s true. I saw the contaminated video, and now the Rainy Woman has come for me.’
Ai Ning accelerated, cycling in the opposite direction while drawing her handgun, ready to shoot if the thing followed.
Although, she knew deep down that a regular Supernatural Artifact like this wouldn’t be much use against it. Still, it was better than just waiting to die.
When she reached the next intersection, the tall, umbrella-wielding woman had appeared again, waiting for her up ahead. The twisted smile beneath the umbrella could no longer be contained.
Ai Ning slammed on the brakes, abandoned the bike, and dashed into a nearby alley. The woman looked somewhat cumbersome; she decided to use the narrow terrain to try and shake her off.
HUFF. HUFF. HUFF.
Heavy panting sounded from behind her.
Followed by the sound of clutter piled in the alley being knocked over with brute force.
Ai Ning knew the tall woman had charged in after her like a rabid dog. She didn’t dare look back, only ducking her head and plunging deeper into the narrowest part of the alley.
The pervasive drizzle blinded Ai Ning for a moment, but the fear of death quickly overwhelmed the sting of water in her eyes.
HUFF. HUFF.
The panting behind her grew closer. In her peripheral vision, Ai Ning saw the shadow of a large umbrella slowly looming over her, as if someone were trying to shield her from the rain.
’Is the Rainy Woman chasing me just to offer me her umbrella?’
Ai Ning’s heart skipped a beat, but the memory of the dismembered Ghost Hunters back at headquarters stopped her from entertaining any fantasies about the Rainy Woman’s "goodwill." She quickened her pace. The alley exit was just ahead. If she couldn’t lose the woman here, she’d have no chance on the main road.
Gritting her teeth, Ai Ning shoved aside a pile of old junk and burst out of the alley onto the main road.
Across the road stood a dilapidated old building. Its walls were already a mix of ivy, grime, and broken windows, looking long-abandoned and suffused with a sinister aura. Now, its surface was covered in a layer of fuzzy, blood-red carpet fungus that writhed as if alive, making it look even more bizarre.
With no time to think, she dashed under an overhang of the building. At the same time, she spun around to face the alley exit, drew her handgun, and prepared to make a stand against the Rainy Woman.
’Even if I die here,’ Ai Ning thought, ’I want to die clean and dry under this shelter, not covered in mud and rain-soaked sweat.’
The tall woman’s figure slowly emerged from the alley’s exit. Strangely, she just stood silently on the other side of the road, watching Ai Ning, with no intention of giving chase.
’Strange...’
’Is this ghost woman giving up the chase?’
’Is she afraid of the Supernatural Artifact in my hand?’
Ai Ning tentatively stepped out from the edge of the building’s cover, intending to dash across to the other side of the street.
But the moment she did, the tall woman in the alley once again began striding toward her on disproportionately long legs, holding the large umbrella.
Terrified, Ai Ning immediately darted back under the cover of the strange building.
The effect of her retreating into the shadows was immediate. The Rainy Woman across the street stopped in her tracks, her cold gaze staring out from under the umbrella’s canopy.
’This terrifying ghost... seems to be afraid of the building behind me?’
Amid her relief and terror, Ai Ning felt a flicker of curiosity.
’Is this building possessed by something? What’s hidden inside that even an S-Level ghost dares not enter?’
Outside, the rain began to fall harder.
In the blink of an eye, amidst the downpour, the woman’s form had unknowingly "grown" taller, until she was the size of a small building. Having waited for a long time and seeing that Ai Ning was not coming out of the old building, she changed her mind. Lifting her two thick, stumpy legs, which resembled elephantine pillars, she wobbled toward Ai Ning’s position.
Although her advance was extremely slow, it was clear the Rainy Woman was trying to break through the old building’s restrictive influence and enter the shadowed area to capture Ai Ning.
With no other choice, Ai Ning gritted her teeth and plunged deeper into the old building.
’At least that ghost outside doesn’t dare to come inside for now.’
The inside of the building was relatively normal, at least compared to the exterior; there was no flesh-like fungal carpet covering everything.
However, the lights in the corridor were long broken, and the depths were pitch-black. A foul, musty smell permeated the air, so strong it felt like it was boring into her skull, suggesting countless piles of sour, rotting junk.
Gritting her teeth, Ai Ning held her gun in one hand and turned on her phone’s flashlight with the other. Cautiously, she ventured deeper into the old building.
She suspected that the building might have its own problems, perhaps having been attacked by some other ghost. But for now, the Rainy Woman outside was the more immediate threat. The ghost woman had already reached the entrance and was bending down, trying to squeeze her way into the corridor, causing the walls on both sides to groan and shake.
Just as Ai Ning set foot on the old stairs, heading for the second floor, a woman’s mournful song suddenly echoed from above:
Dance, oh, dance past the gallows’ shadow dark,
Blood drops on stone bloom a rose’s thorny mark.
Sing, oh, sing till the confessional’s glass cracks,
The father’s rosary beads entwine your bruised ankle tracks.
We are the seventh generation, cursed and lost,
Waltzing in the morgue, ’til the pendulum breathing has cost.
...
Ai Ning felt her stomach begin to churn again.
She realized that all the rules, requirements, tutorials, and guidelines for dealing with supernatural events that had been drilled into her during training were practically useless in the face of true terror.
Now, Ai Ning had only one thought in her mind: run.
She wanted to escape this building, escape Shanghai, escape to the ends of the earth. She didn’t want to fight these things that were neither human nor ghost; she just wanted to live.
Cold sweat poured down Ai Ning’s forehead. She forced her rational mind to suppress her emotional fear, maintaining a basic level of composure as she patiently searched for the source of the singing.
Just then, something came tumbling down the dark staircase ahead. An irregularly shaped, round object, about the size of a human head, bounced and rolled toward Ai Ning.
As Ai Ning dodged to the side and fired her gun, she aimed her light at the rolling object to see if it was a human head or some other body part.
’What the— It’s just a plastic mannequin head.’
After completely shattering it with her handgun, Ai Ning let out a huge sigh of relief and relaxed slightly.
In that very instant, a ghostly voice spoke from right behind her:
"You shouldn’t have come into this building."
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