Finally, the door was completely closed.
Yu Hong let out a heavy sigh of relief.
“What kind of place is this?!”
He locked the door, stood up straight, but suddenly thought about the little stutterer from earlier.
This place looked increasingly strange. The stutterer seemed like a good person, but how did she survive here?
He took two steps back and sighed deeply.
Suddenly, his back seemed to bump into something.
It felt like a person!!
He looked down and saw a pair of white shoes quietly standing behind him on the ground.
This person… actually came in!? When!?
There was a sudden loud noise.
The wooden door was slammed open, and a short figure rushed in, throwing something grayish-white at him.
At the same time, the stutterer’s voice pierced the silence like a suona, instantly snapping Yu Hong out of his daze.
He felt a grayish-white shadow brush past his cheek, hitting the white figure behind him.
The sound of something hitting cloth filled the air, but with it, Yu Hong felt his body loosen up. He stumbled forward a few steps, almost falling.
His body was weak, and he had already been drained by fear and emotions, which caused him to lose more strength.
After a few steps, his legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground.
Turning over, he saw the stutterer had rushed in, holding a thick wooden stick and smashing it into the white figure.
And what was even stranger was that the white figure seemed to deflate like a balloon. Poof! It quickly exploded into foam-like particles and shattered into rags that disappeared without a trace. ȒΑ₦ŎＢƐṩ
The rags hadn’t even touched the ground before they shattered, fading away, leaving nothing behind.
It was as if everything that had just happened had been a hallucination.
The stutterer was panting heavily, putting down the large wooden stick, her face flushed and veins bulging on her skin. The tiny beads of sweat were clearly visible in the dim light.
“People… dangerous… don’t… go outside!” She turned back to look at Yu Hong, speaking seriously.
Yu Hong subconsciously nodded.
At that moment, he felt a sharp pain in his back, as if his skin had been scraped off.
When he turned over on the ground, he suddenly noticed that there was a small amount of blood where his back had been.
Seeing this, the stutterer quickly rushed over to help him up.
Together, they exerted some force, and the stutterer’s strength immediately became apparent.
She was actually stronger than Yu Hong, a grown man, and by quite a bit!
She lifted him up with ease, turned him around, propped him against the door frame, and took off his shirt.
Then she rummaged through her things, pulling out a jar, and began applying something to his back.
Soon, a rough pain spread across his back.
Yu Hong gritted his teeth, knowing that she was trying to treat his wound.
“What’s this medicine?” he asked.
“My grandfather’s… medicine powder,” the stutterer replied, her words fragmented. “It works… well.”
A long silence passed.
Yu Hong reflected on the white figure from earlier. His mind was filled with questions that he wanted to ask.
After thinking for a while, he finally spoke again.
“What exactly was that white figure?”
“Ghost shadow,” the stutterer answered.
“Is it human?” Yu Hong asked again.
Yu Hong felt like his long-held belief in materialism was about to collapse, especially after the figure had disappeared right before his eyes. The scene had left him with an indescribable sense of falseness and unreality.
He thought for a long time, until the light outside dimmed.
“So, was that white figure a ghost?”
“No,” the stutterer answered. “It’s in… the newspaper.”
She spoke with such effort that she paused, then bent down to pick up a newspaper. Flipping through it, she found a page in the middle and handed it to Yu Hong.
Yu Hong took it, and saw the headline:
“Ghost Shadow Experiment Makes Major Breakthrough”
Below it were the details.
“According to the Human United Research Institute’s public announcement, the essence of the ghost shadow is closely linked to the blood tide. However, after careful analysis, the institute’s published experimental content shows that the ghost shadow itself has no memories. They may appear as human forms but lack any corresponding memories or emotions. They instinctively hunt and kill any living creatures that come close or notice them, mainly targeting their own kind.
In other words, the ghost shadow is more like a new type of hunter with a high level of camouflage. They cannot be killed but can only be driven away. Even if completely shattered, they will soon reappear and possess the ability to penetrate most existing materials. In certain experiments, some institutions even suspect that they may not exist in reality at all but exist within our brains, like a special signal akin to self-delusion.”
After quickly reading the report, Yu Hong felt an icy chill spread throughout his body.
What kind of hellish place is this!? How is it so dangerous!? He just stepped outside! Does he want to die!?
Clutching the newspaper, Yu Hong took a few deep breaths to calm down. He re-read it several times.
Yu Hong sat heavily on the bed, his face pale, watching as the stutterer cleaned up the things she used to treat his wounds.
She then began organizing a bamboo basket filled with various messy, rotten roots and mud.
The air in the room became thick with the smell of decayed mud due to the lack of ventilation.
After sitting for a while, Yu Hong felt dry in his mouth and his body growing warm.
“Do you have water?” he asked weakly.
The stutterer hesitated, then raised her hand, pointing to an inconspicuous black jar in the corner of the room.
The jar was about the size of a human head and had faint, blurry bird and branch patterns on its surface.
Yu Hong stood up, walked over, squatted down, and lifted the lid of the jar.
Inside was a shallow layer of yellowish water that smelled faintly foul.
He was speechless. Just looking at it, he knew the water was undrinkable.
Suddenly, a black, teapot-like metal object was passed over to him from the side.
It was the stutterer.
She shook the teapot.
She mimed a motion as if scooping water from the teapot’s spout.
Yu Hong then noticed that there seemed to be a filter net attached to the spout of the teapot.
He remained silent for a moment, then took the teapot. He found a small scoop by the water jar and carefully scooped out a bit of water.
After a long time, he managed to filter out a small cup of water.
He poured the water into a wooden cup.
A stream of water, slightly foul-smelling but mostly clear, flowed into the cup, filling about a third of it before stopping.
Yu Hong looked at the water. Despite being filtered, it still smelled.
He hesitated. He didn’t want to drink it, but his body was desperately thirsty. He knew that if he didn’t drink, especially with his current sickness and injury, he’d be finished.
Just as he was about to raise the cup to his lips, the stutterer snatched it from his hand and drank it all in one go.
She put the cup back on the edge of the jar with a clink.
“It’s fine!” she said.
Yu Hong paused, then went to scoop more water, filter it again, and finally held the cup in the air.
The cup hovered there.
After repeating this several times, he sighed deeply, gripping the cup tightly, his face growing paler.
Can’t the water be cleaner?
He was worried. If the water didn’t hydrate him properly, he might collapse. The stutterer had drunk it with no problem, but that didn’t mean he would be fine. Sometimes, the difference between people’s constitutions was much greater than expected.
Enhance the water cup?
Suddenly, a faint voice whispered in his ear.
Clink—he put the cup on the wooden table.
Yu Hong’s face changed slightly, and he looked around. But the only one there was the stutterer, standing quietly, looking confused.
Enhance the water cup?
The voice came again, impossible to tell whether it was male or female, emotionless like a mechanical voice.
Yu Hong looked around again, but there was no one in sight.
He focused on the wooden cup on the table.
Soon, a faint number appeared on its surface: 3rd.
There was nothing else.
Yu Hong’s face turned pale, and he blinked several times, unsure if he was seeing things. But after blinking again, he realized the number was still there.
Suddenly, it clicked in his mind. He looked at the back of his right hand, at the black mark.
The mark was the size of an egg, with the black area shimmering like water ripples.
This thing is behind all of it!
Yu Hong instantly understood.
His eyes flickered, his mind racing, standing there with thoughts flashing through his head.
But soon, he remembered the stutterer was still by his side.
He quickly raised his hand and showed her the mark on his hand.
The stutterer shook her head, looking confused. “I… don’t… see… anything.”
Yu Hong lowered his hand, glanced at the cup, and confirmed that the number was still there, feeling some sense of realization.
He turned and walked toward another part of the room.
The room wasn’t big, and the furnishings were sparse.
A wardrobe, a table that doubled as a desk, two bedside cabinets, an old-fashioned mirror, and two stools.
There was a pile of miscellaneous things in the corner, where the small water jar had been placed.
He walked around, then finally stopped in front of the wooden door.
Reaching out, he pressed his hand against the door.
Recalling the events from earlier, a thought started to form in his mind.
Can’t this door be better?
Suddenly, it felt as if a thin thread was passing through the mark on his hand, drilling into the door.
Soon, a black number appeared on the door: 16th.
The faint voice came again, emotionless, like a mechanical sound.
Yu Hong stared at the number, and he began to understand.
The number likely represents the time needed for enhancement. But what will it look like after it’s enhanced?
He withdrew his hand and turned to look at the water cup, only to find that the number on it had disappeared.
‘Moreover, how is this enhancement done? Will it make a lot of noise? Can it continue to be enhanced indefinitely, or are there any limits?’
One question after another emerged in his mind.
“What are you doing?” the little stutterer couldn’t help but ask.
“I just felt dizzy, my brain’s a bit out of sorts,” Yu Hong sighed, not mentioning the numbers or the black mark.
He wasn’t planning to reveal anything to anyone until he figured out the situation.
The priority now was to find something to test the enhancement effect of the black mark.
The wooden door would take too long, and it couldn’t guarantee the noise level.
Yu Hong walked around, quickly fixing his attention on a small, inconspicuous object — the white stone that the little stutterer had smashed earlier.
(End of this chapter)