Chapter 606: Chapter 509: Cultivating Gu (Happy National Day, Daily Update of 10,000 Characters Begins)_4
"Buzz—"
"Third floor."
With bloodshot eyes, Yang Xiao turned the room upside down, but the Drama Robe seemed to be avoiding him deliberately, perhaps validating the old saying, "When disaster strikes, everyone fends for themselves."
"Crack—"
"Crack—"
Yang Xiao heard a series of dull scraping sounds that grew louder as they approached, finally coming to an accurate stop outside his door.
A moment later, his phone buzzed.
"I’m outside your door."
His finger twitched, and the phone dropped to the floor with a "thud." Yang Xiao looked at the door in horror, watching as grey mist desperately squeezed through the gap at the bottom.
That terrifying Fierce Ghost wouldn’t let him go after all; it had emerged from the Nightmare World of the Contemplation Pavilion to claim his life!
The incoming grey mist quickly enveloped the door. The sturdy iron door decayed at a visible rate, riddled with erosion, and through the broken hole in the door, Yang Xiao saw a hunched corpse clad in a worn Purple Gold Taoist Robe.
It was a dried corpse, surrounded by grey mist, its face obscured, and the occasionally visible skin had turned a blackish purple.
Not hesitating any longer, Yang Xiao picked up a chair and charged at the window, breaking the glass with a couple of blows, and then, as the dried corpse entered the room, he leapt from the fourth floor.
"Whoosh—"
"Whoosh—"
In the instant before hitting the ground, Yang Xiao woke up in his bed, sweating coldly as it slid down his neck. Looking around at the familiar surroundings, Yang Xiao realized it was just another dream.
A dream within a dream.
After calming down for a moment, he got off the bed, twisted open a bottle of mineral water, gulped down a few mouthfuls, sat in the chair gasping for air, and gradually calmed his tense nerves.
Suddenly, Yang Xiao seemed to realize something, he sharply looked at the deformed water bottle in his hand. The last time he woke up from a dream, it was the same series of actions; this time he was almost replicating it, the moment of calm, getting off the bed, opening the water bottle, gulping water, sitting in the chair breathing heavily, even...even the degree to which the water bottle was deformed was exactly the same!
A fear like never before exploded in Yang Xiao’s heart. He dropped the water bottle, grabbed his backpack from the couch, and in the moment he turned it inside out, he saw that the zipper on the side was half open, and the Drama Robe was gone.
Stumbling, he ran to yank open the curtains; Yang Xiao collapsed. The streetlights outside the building were dimly lit, but the sky was still dark in the distance.
Another dream...
No, it’s...it’s that he has been trapped in this dream the whole time, never waking up.
To survive, he could only rely on himself. After a brief hesitation, Yang Xiao decided to take a gamble. He left the phone that might attract the ghost in the room, quietly opened the door, and ran out. He kicked every door he passed, trying to attract the attention of what might be some people inside, but the place remained deathly quiet. He was the only one making noise; to be exact, it seemed like he was the only living person left in this world.
His flight was not aimless; Yang Xiao had a clear objective. He wanted to go to the Contemplation Pavilion, the venue for his competition, which was also where all his troubles began.
But as he ran, Yang Xiao felt something was off. A thin fog had started to drift around him at an unknown time. The fog became denser and bitterly cold. The worst part was the familiar eerie sensation hiding in the mist.
That creature was coming...Yang Xiao was certain of it!
He ran desperately towards where he remembered the Contemplation Pavilion to be, but the surrounding fog seemed to consciously move closer to him. After running for what seemed like forever, just as he was about to fall from exhaustion, suddenly, he heard the sound of music playing from afar.
The night, the empty academy, the creepily rising fog—all of it combined with the festive music created a horror movie déjà vu. Yet, upon hearing the music, Yang Xiao almost cried with relief. His body was re-energized, his calf muscles stopped cramping, and he ran like his life depended on it toward the source of the sound.
Meanwhile, the grey fog in the distance seemed torn open by some force. In the next second, a funeral procession with loud music carrying a bright red coffin filed in, and countless pieces of Paper Money fell from the sky like heavy snow.
Before Yang Xiao could even wail, two servants wearing melon caps, red tops and green pants, with faces blushed as if made of paper, picked him up. With a gentle toss, they threw him into the black coffin that followed the bright red coffin. The next second, the coffin lid closed with a "bang," and in the violent shaking, Yang Xiao was carried away.
They walked for god knows how long, and the little ghosts carrying the coffin had no regard for him. Yang Xiao was jostled about so much that he was barely breathing by the time the procession stopped. When the coffin lid was opened, seeing that Yang Xiao could not crawl out, the pallbearers didn’t spare him any discomfort and simply flipped the coffin over, dumping Yang Xiao, who had managed to crawl halfway out, onto the ground.
"I...my god..."
Yang Xiao’s whole body was in pain, and before he could even complain, he saw his own black and white portrait hanging in front of the black coffin.
A red coffin sat quietly not far away, emitting an eerie, sinister vibe.
The area was shrouded in greyish-white fog, and Paper Money floated all over the ground. Yang Xiao felt like he had been to this place before, yet he couldn’t recall it at the moment.
Suddenly, two figures emerged from the fog, one tall and one short. The tall one was a stranger, an elderly man dressed like a butler wearing cloth shoes and a gray jacket. The short one was a little girl dressed up like a paper effigy, with a deathly pale face, thick blush on her cheeks, and most striking were the topknot hair standing atop her head; Yang Xiao knew that there was also a coffin nail piercing through the topknot into the skull.
