Chapter 138: Chapter 56: Fake Headquarters
At some unknown point, the mannequin head that had rolled down from upstairs—the one Ai Ning had already riddled with bullets—slowly stood up, having grown into a complete human mannequin.
As if it were alive, it appeared behind Ai Ning and breathed on the nape of her neck:
"Did you only decide to hide in this building at the last minute because the Rainy Woman outside was blocking your way?
"Such a shame. I wasn’t originally planning to kill you."
The moment Ai Ning sensed the ghost behind her, she instinctively spun around, lashing out with a kick and opening fire again, attempting to suppress her opponent with continuous firepower.
Her shoes were also a Supernatural Artifact—Repulsion Combat Boots. When they struck a supernatural being, they would send the target flying. The more powerful the being, the greater the force of the impact.
Unexpectedly, her kick landed on the human mannequin like a stone sinking into the ocean. She felt no impact at all.
The next moment, Ai Ning felt herself lose all sense of gravity and fly into the air. She could only watch as a headless female corpse stumbled forward a few steps, like a blind person who’d lost their cane, before collapsing against the hallway railing. The silver pistol flew from its hand.
It took Ai Ning a long time to realize that her head had been cleanly removed.
Bizarrely, her consciousness hadn’t dissipated. She wasn’t dead, but with her windpipe severed, she couldn’t make a sound. Like a decorative object, she could only be moved about by the hands that held her.
Her eyes were wide as she stared at the stiffly-standing human mannequin. As just a head, she had no control over her own point of view and could only be positioned at the whim of the hands that held her.
"A low-level Ghost Hunter from East 13th Road, are you? So weak you weren’t even noticed."
"Just kill her, Ghost Cave. She saw us setting up the ’altar,’ so we can’t let her go."
The "human mannequin" spoke in a low, feminine voice, passing judgment on her.
Being called "too weak" filled Ai Ning with both shame and rage. And yet, the ghost was right. It was an ironclad fact she couldn’t possibly refute.
At the same time, this bizarre, talking "human mannequin" prompted Ai Ning to search her memory for files on powerful ghosts, until she finally recalled its likely identity.
An A-level ghost, the Ghost Infant.
This ghost was highly unusual. Its killing method was to point its right index finger at a target—human or ghost, male or female. The victim’s abdomen would then swell grotesquely before ripping open to birth a ghost infant.
While not comparable to a city-destroying S-Level, its killing method was incredibly difficult to counter, and a lone Ghost Hunter was no match for it. Even more peculiar, the Ghost Infant was an intelligent ghost.
The reports from the many Ghost Hunters who had survived encounters with it all clearly stated one thing: the Ghost Infant could understand human language and communicate normally. It possessed its own consciousness, allowing it to think, mock, and make value judgments just like a human, and it derived pleasure from torturing and killing Ghost Hunters.
’Why is the Ghost Infant in this building? So it’s true. The attack on Shanghai tonight isn’t just a simple supernatural outbreak. It’s a highly-organized group operation.’
Ai Ning had no idea why she still wasn’t dead, even though her head had been detached for so long.
From the corner of her eye, she saw that the palms holding her were covered in deep and shallow holes, a truly horrifying sight.
The hands began to turn her head, forcing her vision to rotate 180 degrees. Once her face was turned completely around, she finally got a clear look at the ghost that had plucked her head off like a watermelon and was now cradling it—
It had no face.
It was a charred, withered corpse, its body covered from head to toe in a dense matrix of holes that ran straight through from front to back. This was especially true for its head; where its facial features and brain should have been, there was only a large, empty cavity. It was completely hollow, like some kind of alien creature.
As inappropriate as it was for the moment, a dark joke popped into Ai Ning’s head—’Talk about having an open mind.’
’Okay, that’s not funny at all.’
The being known as "Ghost Cave," despite lacking a mouth, still managed to produce a masculine voice:
"Don’t kill this little cutie just yet. She’s useful to me."
"In a little while, I’ll ’modify’ her and reattach her head to her body."
Ai Ning felt the hands, which were covered in terrifying bullet holes, gently turn her head once more. From within the gaping hole in its skull, an unseen gaze seemed to admire the work of art it held.
The Ghost Infant approached with stiff, twisted steps, wobbling as it came. It sounded curious:
"The Spirit Disaster Bureau’s headquarters has been destroyed. What use is one ordinary Ghost Hunter who managed to escape?"
In the calmest tone imaginable, Ghost Cave said the most horrifying words:
"The Spirit Disaster Bureau has two ’headquarters’ in Shanghai."
"One is the public headquarters, that black building on East 13th Road. Its entire purpose is to be targeted and destroyed during a supernatural outbreak, serving as a decoy."
"The people gathered there are mostly peripheral Ghost Hunters, just the Spirit Disaster Bureau’s rank-and-file. They’re not core members at all. Taking out that headquarters is meaningless; it was always just a sacrificial pawn to provide cover for the real one."
"Their real headquarters is hidden, like a shadow. Only after the public, fake headquarters is destroyed does the Shadow Headquarters activate and begin its operations."
The Ghost Infant sounded intrigued:
"Oh?
"I thought all of the Spirit Disaster Bureau’s top brass had already been replaced by ghosts."
Ghost Cave:
"That’s impossible."
"The only ones replaced were the leaders of the fake headquarters. They were just pawns that humanity had already abandoned."
"Ye Jiu is stationed at the Shadow Headquarters. That bastard’s nose is sharper than a dog’s. The moment a ghost sets foot inside the Shadow Headquarters, he’ll discover it instantly. It’s impossible for any ghost to sneak in."
"Once those executives were replaced by ghosts, they didn’t dare return to the real headquarters. They had lost the scent of the living. To Ye Jiu, the stench of a corpse is far too obvious."
As Ghost Cave spoke, he slowly set down Ai Ning’s head, stashing it away as if it were a collector’s item.
"But this girl is different."
"I’m going to plant a little bomb inside her body, then send her into the Spirit Disaster Bureau’s Shadow Headquarters like a Trojan horse. It’ll be a little surprise for those Ghost Hunters."
The Ghost Infant asked, surprised:
"You think you can fool that dog nose of Ye Jiu’s?"
Ghost Cave:
"I can’t, and I don’t need to."
"Ai Ning will be entering the Shadow Headquarters as a living person, so there won’t be any issues."
"It’s just that before she goes in, all her memories will be modified and replaced with the memories and experiences we want her to have."
"Her birth, experiences, and background will appear completely normal. She is a living person. She’ll be able to pass any inspection, whether by machine or Supernatural Artifact. At a life-or-death moment like this, when they’re desperate for people, they’ll most likely make an exception and let her into the Shadow Headquarters."
"Supernatural Artifacts capable of inspecting memories are extremely rare. No Ghost Hunter will discover the truth."
"This female Ghost Hunter will act like a computer virus, infiltrating the Spirit Disaster Bureau’s long-hidden Shadow Headquarters and utterly destroying everything they’ve worked so hard to build."
The one capable of brainwashing people and altering human memories was, naturally, the [Memory Ghost] from the Jialan Society’s chat group.
Ghost Cave looked at Ai Ning’s head on the floor, took out his phone, and opened the chat group, preparing to @ the one he had in mind.
This move had been planned by the President ever since the Divine Tree. The Spirit Disaster Bureau had placed a "fake headquarters" on East 13th Road as a decoy, and the Jialan Society had pretended to fall for the trap, destroying it.
The real war was only just beginning.
The President had already discussed the specific details with the Memory Ghost.
For some reason, after Ghost Cave typed the Memory Ghost’s name in the chat group, he hesitated, unable to bring himself to hit send.
Perhaps he was remembering the time he got brutally beaten at Jin Hai Mansion.
’Maybe I should just let the President @ him instead?’
Although Ghost Cave would never admit it...
...he was genuinely traumatized from that beating.
...
...
「In a room on the third floor of the Apartment for the Living.」
Gao Tian was in his bedroom, exercising by himself with a set of push-ups. His phone sat on the table, playing the daily news as background noise.
"Around 3:17 PM this afternoon, multiple citizens in areas such as Pudong’s Yajiazui and Jin’an Temple witnessed a black, meteor-like object streaking across the city skyline at high speed. Its abnormal trajectory and unusual form have sparked widespread discussion..."
The two well-dressed anchors on the screen vanished without warning as the display glitched. When the signal returned, the phone’s screen had changed to a different scene: a muddy country lane where rain was steadily falling. In the distance, a woman holding a white umbrella staggered forward, slowly making her way toward the screen.
Noticing something was wrong, Gao Tian stood up. As he walked past the wall, he tried to turn on the overhead light.
He flicked the switch once, then twice, but the dim room remained unchanged.
’The power’s out.’
Gao Tian turned back and saw that every electronic device in the room had failed. The only thing still emitting a faint, white glow was the live feed on his phone.
’The Rainy Woman.’
Seeing the bizarre footage that had suddenly hijacked the stream, he immediately recognized what this was.
’Still, watching the woman with the umbrella slowly approach on the screen, Gao Tian wasn’t the least bit flustered. ’This is the Apartment for the Living. If the Rainy Woman can actually get into this room, then I’ll be seriously impressed. She’s just putting on a show on the screen, trying to scare people.’_
’But for the Rainy Woman’s footage to hijack a live news broadcast... that must mean that outside this apartment, across all of Shanghai, countless phones and TVs have already been taken over.’
’So she’s dropped all pretense. Is she planning to directly infect the entire population of Shanghai, all tens of millions of them?’
’Back at Longshu Temple, didn’t I tell Old Man Sun about this? He promised he’d take care of it as soon as he got back. But now, it looks like the Rainy Woman’s infection hasn’t been contained at all. In fact, it’s getting worse.’
’Did that Old Man Sun even go deal with it or not?’
’Or... did he try, and get taken out himself?’
’A big shot like him can’t be that weak, can he?’
For a moment, Gao Tian couldn’t make sense of the situation outside. He casually picked up his phone, and just as the Rainy Woman reached the foreground, looking as if she were about to burst through the screen, he shut it off.
The screen instantly went black.
He changed his clothes, then pushed open his door and headed downstairs.
Time to see what on earth was happening to the world outside.
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