Chapter 700: Chapter 544: Killing by Borrowed Knife_2
Before Yang Xiao could come up with a plan, his phone screen lit up again. This time, it was a message from Qu Muzhi warning him to be careful. He said that the burnt ghost had just taken the elevator to the 7th floor and was now descending the stairs.
Everything goes wrong at once. With a "bad" hidden in the shadows already causing enough trouble, the arrival of the burnt ghost complicated the situation even further.
The more critical the moment, the calmer one must be. Yang Xiao took a deep breath, consolidating the information gathered so far. He decided to take the opportunity to kill the rag doll first.
The situation may seem dire, but he had a very important advantage—only he could find his body. As long as the rag doll couldn’t confirm the hiding spot of his body within a minute, it wouldn’t dare make a move on him.
He could use his body as bait, setting a trap to lure and kill his opponent.
Of course, to be safe, he needed to set the battlefield in a faux hiding spot, ensuring that even in failure, the real location of his body wouldn’t be exposed.
He analyzed the strengths and weaknesses between himself and the rag doll. In terms of sight, smell, and hearing, they were almost evenly matched. In terms of weapons, he had a kitchen knife and a short stick, giving him a slight edge. He decided to strike first.
First, he needed to find a good place to ambush. Soon, he found one in a corner on the west side of the room, where several large boxes were piled up. The lighting was poor, making it look like a plausible hiding spot for his body. Most importantly, it was also suitable for his own ambush.
If you’re going to play a role, you have to do it thoroughly. After quickly setting up the scene, the rest of the plan was to go fishing. He intentionally revealed himself in a spot visible to the rag doll. By moving nearby medicine boxes, he drew the rag doll’s attention. Then he went to his chosen ambush point, pretending to be busy. After shifting the boxes and quickly restoring them, he faked concern about being discovered.
As expected, half a minute later, Yang Xiao received a message from the rag doll asking about his progress. Yang Xiao replied that he found nothing.
Moreover, after sending the message, his actions grow increasingly rapid, as if intentionally hiding something.
"There’s nothing here, let’s search in another room." After placing the last box back in position, Yang Xiao took out his phone and immediately replied to the rag doll. He then deliberately made his footsteps louder as he walked away.
But after going only the distance of two shelves, Yang Xiao stopped. With a short stick in his left hand and a kitchen knife in his right, he stealthily returned and stood quietly, not far from the row of boxes, waiting.
The rag doll took the bait. About 10 seconds later, Yang Xiao heard very light footsteps, and then he saw one of the boxes on the top being slowly moved, as if two invisible hands were moving it.
Now!
Yang Xiao charged forward, aiming a chop at the rag doll’s head. But the rag doll reacted quickly. At the same time it heard footsteps behind, its body shifted slightly, avoiding a direct hit to the head. The knife struck its shoulder instead.
With the initial strike failing, Yang Xiao swung his Human Bone Staff, landing a solid hit on the head with a dull thud.
But Yang Xiao was also hit by a wooden box thrown at him. He avoided a blow to the face but was knocked down by the sheer force. By the time he got up, he could only hear the rag doll’s frantic footsteps getting further away. The rag doll, in its panic, collided with a shelf, knocking over a mess of medicine bottles that clattered to the ground.
The plan was sound, but the rag doll’s reflexes and resilience were stronger than Yang Xiao had anticipated. It proved tougher to deal with than expected.
What’s more, he heard no door opening, which meant that even injured, the rag doll had not chosen to flee. It was still lurking in the room, waiting for an opportunity for a counterattack.
"Good brother, some idiot just got sliced by me, did you see it?" Yang Xiao texted the rag doll, while quietly shifting his position.
"I didn’t see it, but let me remind you, brother, you’re going to die a miserable death," replied the rag doll, not backing down.
"Hahaha, trash, walk right into the next trap with your neck outstretched, are you having fun? Don’t rush, I’ll fool you again in a moment," Yang Xiao taunted in his response.
"I * your **!"
Yang Xiao was taken aback. He hadn’t expected the toy phone to be quite so smart, automatically censoring restricted vocabulary. It took much of the fun out of the conversation.
Shortly thereafter, the rag doll sent Yang Xiao many messages, which contained more stars than words. Yang Xiao was too lazy to respond; he had already gleaned what he wanted from the rag doll’s reactions. He had a rough idea of what the rag doll’s Perception was all about.
Previously, the rag doll hadn’t completely deceived him—it really could sense changes around its body because its Perception was interconnected with its body’s sensory experience. In other words, as long as he destroyed the senses of his own body, the rag doll would become blind, deaf, and mute.
Yang Xiao’s prior ambush had left the rag doll extremely skittish, daring not to approach for quite some time. Yang Xiao took this opportunity to quickly return to the true hiding spot for his body. However, when it was time to act, he hesitated; after all, he couldn’t really stab out his own eyes or deafen his ears, since he would need this body later.
After a moment of contemplation, Yang Xiao removed his jacket, covered his eyes with it, stuffed cotton balls from a shelf into his ears and nostrils, and to prevent suffocation, he pried his mouth open and wedged a small empty bottle between his jaws.
It was the first time Yang Xiao had done something like this to his own body, and the sensation was bizarrely fascinating. Observing his own face, frozen white from cold, he couldn’t help but reflect on how handsome he still looked.
The rag doll had greater physical stamina and resilience than himself; going head-to-head wouldn’t be in his favor, so he decided to switch strategies.
After several probes, Yang Xiao confirmed that the rag doll’s sense of smell was significantly impaired, hearing was somewhat affected but not severely, and its vision was unaffected. It seemed that to completely rob it of sight and hearing, he would have to destroy the eyes and ears of his own body, which was unacceptable for Yang Xiao at the moment.
It seemed the rag doll knew this too, so it wasn’t in a rush. After the last lesson, no matter how Yang Xiao tested, it wouldn’t take the bait.
So the standoff between man and rag doll continued.
Seizing the moment, Yang Xiao lurked behind a door, slowly opened it, and slipped out, only to hear footsteps chasing after him almost immediately.
However, the footsteps only followed him to the door and then stopped. Yang Xiao knew what the rag doll was thinking: his body was still in the room, and if he wanted to survive, he would have to go back, so it needed only to wait there like waiting for a rabbit.
After confirming the rag doll’s status and leaving the cold room, Yang Xiao searched down the corridor and soon found what he was looking for near the corner of the stairs; a faint scent of burnt odor reached his nose.
Found it!
The burnt ghost was nearby!
And the moment he smelled the burnt odor signified that he had also been discovered by the burnt ghost, but that was exactly what he wanted.
Ten seconds later, Yang Xiao saw a vague shadow, like a wisp of blue smoke, on the wall next to the stairs, slowly ascending.
The burnt ghost’s ability was deadly in a cramped room, but in a corridor with good visibility and relatively ample space, it posed less of a threat, particularly given the burnt ghost’s speed, which was on par with that of a decrepit old man.
Yang Xiao led the burnt ghost back towards the vicinity of the cold room. At the moment, the cold room’s door was only opened a third of the way, and there were wet spots on the ground behind the door. Without a doubt, all this was part of the rag doll’s design, it was hiding behind the door, ready to strike him the moment he couldn’t resist pushing the door open.
But Yang Xiao had no intention of going in. He slowly walked past the door, continuing to lure the burnt ghost. It wasn’t long before the dark shadow crossed the half-open iron door and suddenly stopped.
"A door!"
In Yang Xiao’s excited gaze, the shadow twisted and turned until, moments later, the iron door was pushed open by some inexplicable force.
The burnt ghost sensed the presence of the rag doll and went inside.
Immediately after, Yang Xiao heard a barrage of thrashing noises coming from behind the door, as if someone had gone mad, swinging a stick or something similar fiercely. However, very quickly, the thwacking turned into screams. Standing not far outside the door, Yang Xiao smelled a strong scent of charring, accompanied by agonized struggles.
The struggle and screams lasted for less than ten seconds before the room returned to silence, until a few seconds later, an unmoving heavy object dropped to the floor.
The shadowy figure, as evanescent as smoke and always on the verge of dissipating, floated out along the wall once more and continued onward. This time, it was Yang Xiao’s turn.
