Chapter 964: Chapter 682: Fake, All Fake
In the dim and cramped stairwell, Beibei’s complexion looked rather unsightly, as the gaps in the stairs were filled with bloodstains, resembling a crime scene, with a pungent smell of blood.
Yang Xiao signaled Beibei to stay a bit away from him, but not too far, and to stand within the area covered by the green light.
These types of old residential buildings all have a uniform layout, with each floor of a unit having two rooms facing each other, and a small common area in between where one can place some small items. At this moment, the cement floor of the common area on the 6th floor was covered with bloodstains, with a body lying there, and blood trickling down through the gaps in the stairs.
It was a woman, wearing the same black uniform as Yang Xiao and Beibei. The door to room 601 was wide open, and the woman lay face down on the floor, her lower body outside the door, and her upper body inside, with a terrifying bloody hole at the back of her head.
"It’s He Tong," Beibei said in a low voice. Although she had anticipated this outcome, the confirmation upon seeing it with her own eyes still inevitably made her feel uncomfortable.
Under the bent left arm of He Tong was a pistol, and looking up, Yang Xiao indeed found a bullet hole in the low ceiling.
Another suicide...
The choice was the same as the previous investigation team member: gun in the mouth, suicide. Even the location chosen for suicide was strikingly consistent, both near the entrance door, which made Yang Xiao ponder deeply about the underlying clues.
Turning over the body that was face down, Beibei pulled out a wet wipe to clean the blood from her face, and Yang Xiao saw a face filled with despair on the young woman.
The deputy leader of the investigation team, who was experienced and knowledgeable, had committed suicide so easily. Beibei couldn’t help but feel a chill down her spine.
Yang Xiao stepped over the body and entered the dim room 601 with the Ghost Lantern in hand. The scene inside took him by surprise: three bodies lay in the living room, and two more in the narrow kitchen, all killed by headshots. The shooter was extremely skilled, killing with a single shot, and there were expended bullet casings on the floor.
"He Tong fired those shots." Beibei had removed and inspected the magazine of He Tong’s pistol, which had been emptied. She had saved the last bullet for herself.
After a count, among the five bodies in the room, four were apparently the family who lived there – two elderly people along with a middle-aged couple. The wife, who lay on the sofa, had similar features to the two elderly people, likely their daughter, and the man in the sweater was the son-in-law of the household.
All four were shot and killed by He Tong, and that’s not all – the young man lying in the kitchen was wearing the uniform of their Patrol Defense Office, one of their own, also killed by He Tong.
No matter how much Beibei thought about it, there was no conclusion to be reached. The only explanation was that the deputy leader, He Tong, had gone mad, or had been bewitched by ghosts and committed this atrocity.
But when Yang Xiao turned over the body of the young team member killed in the kitchen, they were surprised to find that he was wearing a dingy apron around his waist, which they hadn’t noticed from the back due to the blood covering his body.
Combined with the ingredients on the kitchen chopping board, Yang Xiao realized that this young team member seemed to have blended in with the family and was cooking together with them.
But how was that possible?
He Tong and this young team member came to deal with supernatural events; how could they have spent time on such trivial matters? In the corner of the living room, Beibei also found a wearable and strange device, similar yet different to the detector Da Xiong once carried.
No need to ask, this device was a new product from the technical department, used to detect the locations of Resentful Eyes that has gone out of control, still a prototype and not yet officially deployed.
They lifted the shirts of the bodies present and shone the Ghost Lantern on them one by one. Apart from He Tong who died at the entrance, all other bodies had a Ghost Handprint on their backs, including the young team member.
At first glance, it seemed these people were killed by ghosts, and then He Tong came and shot each dead body in the head. However, upon examination, Yang Xiao found that was not the case. Judging from the bullet marks on the walls and furniture, these people were shot while alive.
The problem then arises: if these people were shot while alive, how do you explain the Ghost Handprints on the bodies? Could it be possible that they were still alive after having their hearts seized by ghosts?
But if they were shot after death, it’s even more meaningless. What’s the point of shooting corpses? Besides, the bullet marks at the scene don’t support this theory.
Yang Xiao surveyed the surroundings that resembled a bloody hell, and slowly, an unusual hunch came over him. A bold guess popped into his mind, the only guess that could explain everything in front of him. His breathing quickened, as his gaze fixed firmly on the bodies.
At that moment, Beibei was looking down, fiddling with a white cell phone found on He Tong. The screen lit up upon a simple touch, surprisingly requiring no password or fingerprint to unlock, staying on the messaging screen.
The message was typed out but not yet sent, its jumbled content making the hairs on her back stand on end:
"Fake, don’t believe them, and don’t believe me either, it’s all fake!! The Ghost has erupted!!"
This message directly confirmed Yang Xiao’s speculation: these bodies killed by ghosts could come back to life, and that was why He Tong pulled out her gun and killed everyone!
Because the people with the Ghost Handprints on their backs were no longer human, they were ghosts, ghosts in disguise!
"Damn it..."
Yang Xiao immediately ran downstairs, and Beibei, though in a daze, also realized something and followed suit with her gun drawn. They reached the room on the 4th floor where Qi Cheng was staying. Yang Xiao pressed his ear to the door, all was silent inside, Beibei took out a piece of wire and quickly picked the lock as before.
Yet, the moment the door opened, the scene that unfolded before Yang Xiao and Beibei stunned them: the room was lit, and two children were standing facing the wall. A chubby middle-aged man with a puffy face was furiously wielding a wooden clothes hanger, lashing out at the two children.
Seeing the door suddenly ajar, the abusive middle-aged man paused, then flew into a rage, grabbing the clothes hanger and storming over, "Who are you people, and how did you get the key to my house? Are you that slut’s little lover she sent here?!"
Yang Xiao manipulated the Ghost Lantern in his hands. The next second, a green light spread over, enveloping the man walking towards him, but what made Yang Xiao’s heart tremble happened—the man showed no reaction at all. Under the green light, the man remained human.
The illusion-breaking effect of the Ghost Lantern didn’t work on this man. Yang Xiao increased his spiritual power input, but it was still useless against him.
At this moment, Yang Xiao understood the despair He Tong felt before she took her own life. She couldn’t tell which of the people in front of her were human and which were ghosts. The spectral phenomena that erupted here were very frightening, just as the message He Tong left behind said—the Ghost outbreak had occurred!
"Are you deaf? I’m talking to you!"
Irritated by the green light, the man raised his hand to teach Yang Xiao a lesson, but Yang Xiao knocked him to the ground with a staff—the Human Bone Staff—immediately draining the man’s spirit, causing him to convulse on the ground.
Pulling open the man’s clothing, Yang Xiao shone the Ghost Lantern on him again, only to find the Ghost Handprint on the back of his heart had disappeared.
"Who are you... who are you?" Qi Cheng protected his sister behind him, staring at Yang Xiao and Beibei with a face full of horror.
"You don’t recognize us anymore?" Beibei’s eyes reddened; from Qi Cheng’s unfamiliar gaze, she could see the result.
"If you don’t leave now, I’ll go to the 6th floor to call for people!" Qi Cheng slowly backed away, clearly frightened by the scene.
His expression had no flaws, and even the terrified look in the eyes of the little girl hidden behind him didn’t seem feigned. Yang Xiao suspected that they had no idea they were already dead, which only added to his pain.
And a deep sense of fear.
This ghost’s ability was too terrifying. If such anomalies were to spread quietly, they could easily destroy an entire city.
A great number of ghosts, believing they were still alive, mixing among the living, living calmly like humans, was a thought that bred despair.
It was unknown when they might suddenly bare their fangs, killing the living around them and silently assimilating them into undead like themselves.
"Take off your top!" Yang Xiao looked at the two children in front of him with a heart full of turmoil, his voice low and hoarse.
"What are you going to do?" Anxiety sparked in Qi Cheng as he heard this, stepping in front of his sister, "Come at me if you dare; don’t touch my sister!"
"If you take off your top, I won’t make it difficult for you!" Yang Xiao’s voice was urgent.
Knowing he would have a hard time escaping, Qi Cheng complied. He took off his top, revealing his skinny, bony body. At Yang Xiao’s request, he turned around, and indeed, even the Ghost Lantern couldn’t see anything abnormal on him.
"Turn around!" Yang Xiao raised the Human Bone Staff, pointing at the two children, "Both of you, turn around!"
After the two children did as told, Yang Xiao lightly tapped them with the Human Bone Staff, and they both fainted to the ground instantly.
He needed people for experiments. He pulled out his service pistol, aimed it at the forehead of the middle-aged man lying on his back on the ground, and decisively pulled the trigger.
"Bang!"
The dull sound of the gunshot followed; the man’s forehead burst open from the tremendous impact, and his convulsing body went still in an instant.
At this moment, Yang Xiao flipped over the body with his foot, and under the illumination of the Ghost Lantern, a Ghost Handprint appeared on the back of the heart.
"So, it’s true..."
These ghostly beings only revealed the Ghost Handprint after being killed. Once resurrected, the Ghost Handprint was concealed again, invisible even to the Ghost Lantern.
Yang Xiao didn’t know how long this resurrection cycle lasted, but it definitely required the participation of the living—the living were the nourishment.
Yang Xiao left the room with Beibei, closing the door behind him, then had Beibei open the door again. But this time when the door opened, the room was silent. The man’s corpse lay behind the door, with his brain matter, a sticky mixture of red and white; the other two children lay against the wall, their bodies slightly heaving, evidently still "alive."
After shining the Ghost Lantern once more, the result was the same.
And when the door was closed again, Yang Xiao utilized the power of the Soul-Capturing Mirror to investigate. Through a mirror on the wall inside the room, he looked into the interior, and the "people" inside had not yet resurrected. Yang Xiao relayed what he saw back to Beibei in the real world.
"Nothing’s changed..." Beibei, standing outside the door, furrowed her brows; the eerie events unfolding before her eyes exceeded any paranormal event she had previously dealt with.
Just as Yang Xiao was about to say something, the next second his gaze violently shifted to just behind Beibei, his pupils suddenly contracting.
At the narrow, cramped limit of the Ghost Lantern’s green light on the staircase below, a figure was silently walking upwards, back towards them.
It was an old woman dressed in gaudy floral clothes, tall, with her head hung low and her hair disheveled. Most terrifying of all was her left arm, stiffly raised as if she were a zombie, advancing with a jerky rhythm. The advanced, corpselike hand extending forward was covered in liver spots, its five fingers thin and long.
