Free Web NovelNight fell, and darkness dyed the land.
In the city, streaks of foul and ominous energy rose from the dark corners. The urban legend, which had been lurking all day, opened their eyes, peering into the world.
The streets were illuminated by the dim yellow light of the streetlamps. Pedestrians hurried along with indifferent expressions, their gazes only briefly sweeping over others when someone occasionally passed by, revealing a hint of wariness in their eyes.
The entire city exuded an eerie quietness; even vehicles on the road seemed cautious when honking their horns.
Amidst this eerie quietness, a man walked from a distance and stopped at the corner, in front of the window of a fast-food restaurant that was about to close.
"One order of steamed dumplings, one order of plum powder fried chicken cutlet, one cup of pearl milk tea, slightly sweet, no ice, please!"
He looked to be in his early thirties, of average build, with an ordinary face that had no particularly memorable features. He wore a pair of silver metal-rimmed glasses.
Perhaps due to extreme fatigue, his eyes seemed somewhat listless, and coupled with his slightly hunched back, he appeared very dispirited.
His brows held a peculiar aura unique to honest people. This aura was difficult to describe specifically, but upon seeing it, one would immediately feel that this person was easy to get along with, even easy to bully.
However, upon closer inspection, one could detect a trace of madness, suppressed to the extreme and on the verge of collapse, deep within his listless eyes.
He wore a simple grey suit and carried a brown briefcase. He looked like an office worker from nearby, but he shouldn't be a programmer, as his hair was thick and black.
His slightly curly hair was clearly not well-maintained, messy and tangled, like a ball of black flame on his head. "Your meal is ready, seventy-six yuan in total."
"Thank you," the man took the paper bag containing the food, said thank you, took out his phone, looked at the staff behind the window, hesitated for a moment, and asked, "Excuse me, do you support Huabei payment?"
"Yes, I'll scan you."
"Beep!"
The man handed his phone to the staff to scan the code, put his phone away, casually took out a cheap cigarette from his pocket, lit it, took a deep puff, and then picked up the paper bag.
"Ah, this month's salary isn't quite enough again."
Looking at the street under the night sky, the man sighed to himself and slowly walked forward along the street, quickly merging into the crowd of people returning home late and disappearing from sight.
Just like a drop of water merging into a river.
At the end of the bustling street, after turning left and passing through a dimly lit old street, a ruin came into view.
Half-demolished old buildings leaned against each other crookedly, as if huddling against the corpses of death.
The scattered broken red bricks on the ground were their bloodstains, and the twisted and entangled steel bars were the grotesque insect swarms attracted by the smell of blood.
Such ruins appearing in a neighborhood not far from the city's prosperous area was like a patch of skin disease suddenly appearing on smooth skin. Although a bit abrupt, upon closer thought, it was quite reasonable.
In the dark night, people are sick, and the city is also sick.
This was an unfinished demolition site. An accident occurred a few months ago, killing several people, which quickly led to urban legend incidents. Work then stopped and has remained so until now.
The man, carrying the paper bag of food, paused for a moment in front of the isolation net around the construction site, smoked several cigarettes one after another, sighed silently, took out his phone, turned on the flashlight mode, and crawled through a hole in the isolation metal wall.
"Creak, creak..."
Walking through the ruins, stepping on the building debris scattered across the ground, making soft sounds like stepping on broken bones.
Following this, accompanied by crimson blood seeping from the gaps in the building debris on the ground, the sound of footsteps gradually became sticky. But the man didn't care, just as he didn't care about the pale arm draped over his shoulder, didn't care about the blood-soaked figure reflected in the broken standing mirror, and didn't care about the heart-wrenching wails in his ears.
He seemed indifferent to everything in the outside world.
His indifference made the urban legend lurking in the dark corners feel a strong provocation.
Thus, pale hands reached out from the rubble stained with blood under his feet, gripping his ankles tightly, nails digging into his flesh. A chilling wind howled, bringing with it several black shadows. One by one, black and blurry hands angrily gripped his throat, passing through his body, stirring his internal organs.
A few breaths later, the man was covered in distorted and grotesque urban legend. From a distance, he looked like a terrifying aggregation of urban legend.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
The pain of dislocated and shattered internal organs caused the man to break out in a violent cough. Blood mixed with fragments of internal organs gushed from his mouth with the cough, splashing onto his body, soaking his suit, and staining his shirt red.
"Damn it, this shirt was a gift from my ex-girlfriend. I was planning to wear it to her funeral..."
"We're all just working people, why do we have to hurt each other?"
The man muttered with a helpless tone, reached out for a cheap cigarette, and brought it to his lips. "Click! Click!"
The lighter soaked in blood seemed broken. The man tried several times but couldn't light it, so he could only put the lighter away dejectedly and continue forward, finally stopping in front of a wooden door in the center of the construction site.
It was an old, black-painted wooden door, its paint already peeling, attached to a wall that stood alone surrounded by ruins.
The man's gaze lingered on the wooden door for a few seconds.
He walked forward, took out a key, opened the door, and pushed it open to enter.
The moment the door opened, a gentle breeze, carrying a few tiny black particles, surged from behind the door.
Those tiny black particles, like ashes from something that had burned to completion, were carried by the wind and landed all over the man, on the urban legend that looked like grotesque pendants hanging on him. Instantly, black flames ignited.
The black flames seemed to have no temperature, nor did they cast shadows like normal flames. In the flickering flames, a repulsive aura brought decay.
The urban legend clinging to the man, shrouded in the black flames, suddenly fell into an eerie silence, and then, in this silence, turned into ashes.
The man, bathed in black flames, took a step forward.
Thus, the world turned upside down. The space behind the door, shrouded in darkness and starlight, was revealed. Countless black cubes rose from the void, constructing a massive platform.
Beyond the platform, everything became twisted and deformed under the pull of terrifying Spiritual Energy fluctuations. Some bizarre creatures in a semi-transparent state moved within it.
Black channels opened up at the edge of the platform, like the cavities of some terrifying creature, slowly wriggling and connecting to ominous and dark spaces.
This is Eclipse Society Outpost 3 - Limen -
"Click!"
With a soft click of a switch being pressed, the light bulb on the ceiling flickered twice, illuminating the entire room.
It was a small room, about ten square meters, with no windows, like a basement dwelling. Ventilation was poor, and the air was thick and foul.
Piles of books forming small mountains, strange tourist souvenirs, rusty kettles, storage bags filled with dirty clothes, and other items were piled in the corners.
On the east wall of the room, stood a dusty shelf, on which were placed transparent crystal jars. They looked like the glass jars used to hold origami cranes, but the jars contained round balls emitting various faint lights.
At first glance, it looked like a collection belonging to someone who kept exotic pets.
On those round balls were faces, some human, some various urban legend, their expressions either ferocious and angry, or gloomy and terrifying, or perhaps bewildered and lost, or sorrowful and sad.
"Cough, cough!"
Standing in this dirty, messy, and dusty room, the man felt his throat itch and couldn't help but burst into a fit of coughing.
"Does no one ever clean this damn place? What has Phoenix been up to lately?"
The man complained weakly, carrying the paper bag to the shelf on the east side of the room, and began searching carefully. "Hmm—let's see, P, Q, L, got it."
Warm reminder: The Website is about to be revised, which may cause reading progress to be lost. Please save your "book shelf" and "reading record" in time (screenshots are recommended). We apologize for any inconvenience caused!
Picking up a transparent jar containing a pale golden ball, the man walked to the desk in the corner of the room, blew the dust off the desk with a "whoosh," put down his briefcase, opened the paper bag, took out the disposable meal box inside, opened it, and began eating heartily.
After finishing a whole box of crystal shrimp dumplings and drinking half a cup of milk tea, he fumbled around on himself for a while, took out a cigarette pack from his pocket, took out a cheap cigarette, lit it, and while exhaling smoke, looked at the glass jar on the desk and slowly spoke.
"Esteemed Night Watch Guardian candidate, Mr. Yun Shenji Lu Ming, don't you plan to say something?"
As his voice fell, the pale golden ball in the transparent jar flickered with light, turned around, revealing its face. This pale golden ball was none other than Lu Ming, who was left with only a wisp of residual soul and had become a prisoner of the Eclipse Society, or Soul Prisoner Lu Ming for short.
"Say what? Say that the steamed dumplings you ate were filled with dead pig meat? Say that the pearls in your milk tea expired two months ago? Say that your chicken cutlet was fried in gutter oil?"
Perhaps because he was left with only a wisp of residual soul and was free from the constraints of a physical body, his expression was exaggerated when speaking, like a cartoon character escaping from Disney.
The man was silent for a few seconds, picked up the chicken steak and took a bite, and said expressionlessly, "It doesn't matter. For a social animal like me who is about to rot, eating food that is about to go bad, isn't that just right?"
"Then at least take a shower and change your clothes?" Lu Ming said with disgust.
Hearing this, the man looked at his clothes, which had been torn by the urban legend and soaked in blood, and replied weakly, "Sorry, I'll remember to take a shower before I come next time."
After the man finished speaking, he lowered his head and took two bites of the chicken steak, and continued, "I came to see you this time because I wanted to talk to you about Lu Yibei's marriage."
As soon as the three words "Lu Yibei" were spoken, the light golden sphere in the transparent jar instantly seemed to be ignited, emitting a bright white fierce light. Golden threads intertwined vertically ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) and horizontally in the fierce light, outlining forbidden-level solidified Spells in the blink of an eye, colliding with the wall of the jar, and stirring up colorful sparks.
The transparent jar emitted a series of teeth-grinding sounds under the agitation of the sparks, and terrifying cracks spread, as if it could shatter at any moment.
The terrifying Spiritual Energy fluctuation enveloped the entire room. The room shook violently as if an earthquake had occurred. The books piled up into a small mountain scattered all over the floor with a crash, and the transparent jars on the shelves collided with each other, clanging.
The spheres in those transparent jars, no matter what their expressions were before, at this moment all turned into fear, and they turned around one after another, facing the wall.
If this dirty little room was the most terrifying prison of the Eclipse Society, imprisoning the souls that had caused the Eclipse Society endless headaches, then Lu Ming was the lawless prison bully here.
Now, the prison bully and the warden were arguing, and ordinary prisoners didn't even dare to participate with a single glance.
Even a glance could cost them their lives! ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
"Kid, do you want to tear up the contract? Do you really think I can't get out of this broken jar and kill you?"
The man ate the chicken steak unhurriedly and said slowly, "That was the contract signed by the previous Chairman with you, not me..."
As he spoke, he reached out and pressed it on the transparent jar where Lu Ming was. The terrifying Spiritual Energy fluctuation, the dazzling fierce light, and the violent shaking stopped abruptly the moment his finger fell.
The cracks on the jar wall healed at a speed visible to the naked eye and returned to their original state after a few seconds, as if they had never appeared. "Please rest assured, although the contract was signed by the previous generation, it is still valid with me, otherwise I wouldn't have given the witchs egg I salvaged from the Red Sea to the cicada before. That thing is really expensive."
Inside the transparent jar, the soul sphere Lu Ming looked at the man sideways, pondered for a few seconds, and then asked, "Then why did you come here, babbling about what you want to do?"
"Just now, Lu Yibei almost glimpsed the black sun through that guy Zhang Shuo's lingering thoughts." The man finished eating the chicken steak, picked up a tissue to wipe his mouth, and continued, "As expected of one of the factors that destroy the world, the growth rate is truly astonishing."
"Xiao Bei will not destroy the world." Lu Ming corrected in a deep voice.
"Who can say what will happen in the future?" The man scratched his side face and said somewhat awkwardly, "However, the positions are just different. We don't need to argue about this now."
"Instead of arguing about this, you might as well care about whether I hurt him."
"Hmph." Lu Ming snorted coldly and said, "Since you said you would abide by the contract, you naturally won't hurt him."
"Uh..." The man was stunned for a moment and smiled awkwardly, "You pointed it out so ruthlessly! Well, I really didn't hurt him, and I even helped interrupt the ritual. For this, I paid a considerable price!"
Lu Ming pondered for a moment, looked at the man sideways, and said, "Could it be that you came here and said these things, wanting me to thank you?"
As a former high-level member of the Eclipse Society, Zhang Shuo possessed the Black Sun Fire Seed. If no one had helped Lu Yibei interrupt the ritual, he might have been incinerated by the black sun.
From a certain perspective, Lu Ming should indeed thank the man.
"No, no, no, I came to you because when I was helping Lu Yibei interrupt the ritual, I discovered something exciting, so I couldn't wait to come here and share it with you." The man explained.
As he spoke, his eyes, both expectant and timid, were like those of a pure young man being teased about his love affair. "Are you sick? Do you" "have no friends? Why do you want to share with me?" Lu Ming asked in confusion.
"Uh, it's a little embarrassing to say, I really don't have any friends," the man said with a constrained expression.
"Someone like me, whose job is insignificant, whose monthly salary is less than four thousand after thirty, who has no house, no car, no savings, no hobbies, and doesn't like socializing, and you still ask me if I have friends, don't you think it's a bit harsh?"
Lu Ming's round face twitched for a while, and he rolled his eyes and said, "Hiss, you are really..."
If the members of the Eclipse Society knew that their current Chairman was a social animal rotten to the core, and that the identity of the Eclipse Society President was just a part-time job after work, what would they think?
Especially those members of the Elder faction who treated the Chairman as a formidable enemy, Lu Ming thought.
"To be honest, I admire you very much. Using the Red Thread of Destiny to change Lu Yibei's fate trajectory... Tsk tsk, it's simply a genius creation." The man sighed.
"Even if you praise me like this, I won't be friends with you." Lu Ming interrupted, "If you have any nonsense, say it quickly and then scram."
The man, whose thoughts were seen through, twitched his body as if he had been shot, then lowered his head with a pained expression, holding his forehead and remaining silent for a long time.
Seeing this, Lu Ming opened his mouth, "I say..."
"It's okay, Mr. Lu Ming, social animals have strong psychological adjustment abilities, you don't need to care about me." The man waved his hand.
"Which" "eye of yours saw that I cared about you?" Lu Ming said angrily, "I mean, hurry up and get to the point, don't be dawdling there."
The man was silent for a few more seconds, sat up straight, and said seriously, "Okay, Mr. Lu Ming, just like I said just now, I really admire that you could come up with that method."
"However, just now when I was observing Lu Yibei through Zhang Shuo's lingering thoughts, I suddenly realized something. That is, the fiancée will indeed affect his fate trajectory, but it is not necessarily in a good direction. It may also be worse, or even pull him into the abyss in advance, right?"
"So, I thought of a plan..." After a pause, the man seemed to be worried that Lu Ming would not understand his idea, and explained, "It's the kind of plot that often appears in stories, where you meet a bad woman and accidentally ruin your life. You should understand what I mean, right?"
"Uh, if you still don't understand, I can tell you about my personal experience. How should I put it, my story started when I met Wang Hui..."
"Stop! No need! I understand!" Lu Ming interrupted.
He was completely uninterested in learning how an ordinary social animal encountered a beautiful woman's pig butchering scam, lost both money and love in the end, ruined his life, despaired of the world, and fell into depravity.
"Okay." The man shrugged and said dejectedly, "Just guiding a Miss who has a marriage connection with Lu Yibei to have a wonderful encounter with him, it shouldn't be considered a violation of the contract, right?"
Lu Ming looked at the man, and the light on his round body flickered. After a long time, he said in a deep voice,
"No."
"That's good." The man said with a smile, and as he spoke, he raised his hand to look at his watch, his face suddenly changed, and he stood up in a hurry, "Oh no, how did it get so late?"
"Sorry, Mr. Lu Ming, I have to go back first, I have a report to catch up on, otherwise I'll be scolded by my supervisor." "Wait!" Seeing the man turn to leave, Lu Ming suddenly shouted.
"What? Do you have anything else?" The man turned around and said, "Uh, please make it short, I'm really in a hurry." "I'm very curious, why are you so persistent in..."
"Shouldn't this world be destroyed?" Before Lu Ming could finish speaking, the man interrupted him as if he had guessed what he was thinking. "Birth, development, decline, destruction, new life, this is an inevitable law. In my opinion, you and others who are preventing this inevitable law are the bad guys!"
Lu Ming hesitated to speak.
Immediately after, just as he was about to say something to refute the man, the man's phone suddenly rang. "Hello, Supervisor? I'm on my way... Uh, before 9:30? How about before 12:00?"
He answered the phone and spoke submissively to the other end, grabbed the briefcase on the table, and left in a hurry. Lu Ming... How did that supervisor's call get here? Does he know that he is forcing a terrifying "honest person"?
He vaguely felt that one day, that supervisor, accidentally pushing that guy too hard, would bring immeasurable disaster to this world.
