Free Web NovelChapter 107: Chapter 25: The Woman Outside the Apartment
"You may go."
"The next time we meet, Shanghai will be in chaos. A brand-new era will gradually dawn."
Gao Tian stood before the malevolent Buddha, its entire form oozing a blackish-red, bloody filth. The statue’s body was in ruins, with countless gruesome flaps of flesh curling outward and ghastly white bone laid bare, as if it were a monster that had been brutally torn apart and then crudely stitched back together.
After he swore an oath, promising under no circumstances to reveal anything about the Jialan Society or the Rainy Woman, Gao Tian felt as if something had been drawn from his body, though he couldn’t tell if it was just his imagination.
"You still remember the path to leave the Divine Tree, I assume."
"I have other matters to attend to, so I won’t see you out."
Xu Yuan still wore that same forced, empty smile. Perhaps it was a side effect of his Corpse Puppet’s decay.
Beyond the Divine Tree lay not the countless stations of the Inner World, but an altitude of several thousand meters. Without a phantom train or the Supernatural Bus, it would be a nearly impossible feat for anyone—let alone a normal person, even an esper—to traverse such a supernatural domain.
Standing at the Divine Tree’s exit in the biting cold wind, white clouds drifted slowly below his feet. Without a moment’s hesitation, Gao Tian took a step forward and leaped.
This was Xu Yuan’s lair, after all, and delays only breed trouble. ’I can’t waste a single second. I have to get out of here before Xu Yuan changes his mind.’
He had gained more than enough for one day, whether it was lifespan, Supernatural Artifacts, or a glimpse of the bigger picture of this world.
His body began to plummet. The landscape below rushed up to meet him.
Before he could be splattered into a pulp, Gao Tian activated the black card in his hand and teleported away.
Inside the Living Human Apartment, a black hole materialized from thin air, teleporting a human figure into the space above a sofa.
Jiang Yang landed heavily on the couch. He was covered in blood and mud, an expression of utter disbelief still frozen on his face.
Even for a veteran of the apartment who had survived five "green-text" missions, the scenes that had just unfolded at the subway station were still beyond anything he could have anticipated.
While he was waiting for a train on the platform, a fine drizzle had suddenly begun to fall throughout the underground station, and a tall woman holding a white umbrella had emerged slowly from the tunnel.
Some passengers realized something was wrong and tried to leave, only to find they were trapped. Then there were the fools who actually gathered around to take pictures.
Ultimately, however, it made no difference which group you were in.
They were all taken away... to a place that defied description.
The memory made Jiang Yang gasp for breath.
Initially, he had planned on saving his black card by lingering in the station. He’d wanted to see if there was a way out, or perhaps discern the Rainy Woman’s killing pattern.
That was until he saw the children in the panicked crowd who were about to die.
Jiang Yang, who had intended to remain a bystander, couldn’t resist the impulse. He drew his revolver and unloaded a stream of silver bullets at the Rainy Woman, hoping to interrupt her and give the crowd a chance to escape.
He never expected that this one act of kindness would nearly cost him his life.
The Rainy Woman, who had been a hundred meters away at the other end of the platform, instantly abandoned the crowd and, in the next second, glided right in front of him.
The white umbrella lifted slowly, and from beneath its shelter, he saw the Rainy Woman’s face for the very first time.
’That woman... What did she even look like?’
Every time he tried to remember, Jiang Yang’s temples would begin to throb violently, and the blood would pound in his veins as if his vessels were about to burst. It was a terrifying, terrifying face—more horrifying than anything he had ever encountered in any of his green-text missions.
For that one second, Jiang Yang was frozen solid, unable to move so much as a pinky finger.
Even now, back in the Living Human Apartment, his brain had engaged its self-preservation mode, forcibly erasing the memory of the face beneath the umbrella to prevent a total mental collapse from the recollection.
’I’m going to die...’ That was the only thought Jiang Yang had in that moment.
Thankfully, in the final second before the Rainy Woman pressed in on him, he had, through sheer force of will, managed to trigger the black card and return to the Living Human Apartment in the nick of time.
For the first time in his life, he was grateful to have been recruited by the Living Human Apartment.
Lying on the sofa, Jiang Yang regained some of his composure and tried to sort through what had happened.
According to rumors online, the Rainy Woman’s initial killing pattern had been relatively simple: anyone who watched her video would be taken away during a rainfall within about seven days.
At the same time, the cursed victim would become a new source of contagion. Those they came into contact with would in turn see the Rainy Woman, becoming the next link in the memetic chain.
But that was the problem.
It was impossible that everyone in the station had seen the video of her.
At the very least, Jiang Yang was certain he had never watched her video.
And even if he had, the curse should have taken some time to incubate.
But this time, the Rainy Woman’s appearance suggested she intended to take every single waiting passenger and staff member in the station, without discrimination.
’The Rainy Woman’s killing pattern... is it changing?’
Jiang Yang lay flat on the sofa, trying to clear his head.
’Has the Rainy Woman spread so much that, like a virus, she’s starting to mutate?’
’If ghosts can evolve, that’s truly terrifying news.’
’In a city as densely populated as Shanghai, who knows how many people have already watched that video.’
If all their curses activated at once, half the city would be empty. And at this point in its spread, cutting off the source was an almost impossible task.
Were they all just supposed to watch helplessly as the Rainy Woman continued to spread and evolve, until she finally became something truly indescribable?
Realizing this, Jiang Yang knew that he, or even the entire Living Human Apartment, couldn’t possibly handle this supernatural incident alone.
He needed to resort to a greater power—an official organization, for instance.
He walked to the counter in the first-floor lobby and pulled an old phone book from a drawer below.
"Show me the current number for the Spirit Disaster Bureau."
This was a Supernatural Artifact Xia Ta had acquired on a mission. When prompted by its owner, it could display any phone number needed.
Most of the time, the artifact was useless, which was why it had been tossed here so casually. He never thought it would prove to be so incredibly useful.
The Spirit Disaster Bureau didn’t have a fixed number. Now, the latest number was slowly materializing in the phone book.
Jiang Yang took out his cell phone, ready to dial.
He had to make the official organizations aware of this incident. The Rainy Woman was different from other supernatural cases found online, which usually only had one or two victims—a few dozen at the absolute most. A memetic event like this, if it broke out completely, had the potential to wipe out the entire city.
A busy signal came from the other end. ’Looks like the Spirit Disaster Bureau is swamped,’ he thought. ’They must be getting countless calls every second. I’m not even sure if I can get through.’
As Jiang Yang stood there waiting, phone in hand, he heard a sound from outside the apartment’s main door: a steady DRIP... DRIP...
He lifted his head and looked toward the glass doors of the main entrance.
It was raining.
’Huh? When did it start raining so hard?’
Slightly puzzled, Jiang Yang tabbed out of the call screen and opened up the weather app to check the seven-day forecast.
Sunny.
Sunny.
Sunny.
Still sunny.
There wasn’t even a single cloudy day in the forecast, let alone a downpour like this.
’Is this sudden rain caused by a supernatural event?’
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The busy signal from his phone continued to drone on. It intertwined with the patter of the heavy rain outside, weaving an ominous premonition.
Amid a flash of lightning, a tall woman holding a white umbrella appeared. She walked slowly, step by step, across the muddy, rain-slicked flagstones until she stood just outside the glass doors of the Living Human Apartment’s entrance.
Even the downpour couldn’t drown out the sound of her footsteps splashing in the puddles.
Jiang Yang stood in the center of the lobby, watching the Rainy Woman outside. Only a thin sheet of glass separated them in their silent standoff.
This woman had followed him all the way from the subway station, miles away.
She now stood just outside the glass door, seemingly blocked by it, showing no sign of entering.
But she showed no sign of leaving, either.
Framed by the woman’s tall stature and the massive canopy of her umbrella, the entrance to the Living Human Apartment seemed exceptionally fragile.
’This is awful,’ Jiang Yang thought.
’She’s latched onto me.’
The only good news was that the rules of the Living Human Apartment were still in effect. The Rainy Woman was still lingering outside, for the moment showing no intention of coming in.
Ai Ning put on her black uniform. It was her first official day on the job at the Spirit Disaster Bureau.
Shanghai hadn’t been peaceful lately; incidents were popping up constantly. For example, the very Jin Hai Mansion before her had just been destroyed by an unknown power. Its upper dozens of floors were crushed by a terrifying force into something resembling a compressed cracker. Casualties were immense. Firetrucks, ambulances, police cars, and the media had all swarmed the scene, and an emergency rescue operation was underway.
Being a rookie, Ai Ning was assigned to the perimeter. Her only job was to turn away the gawking citizens and the tabloid reporters trying to sneak into Jin Hai Mansion. The damn place could suffer a secondary collapse at any moment, causing even more casualties.
The work was nothing like what she had imagined before joining the Spirit Disaster Bureau.
’All those days of grueling training were wasted,’ she thought. ’A regular security guard could do this job.’
Ai Ning was standing as still as a statue when she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. A small, skinny old man in a faded army coat was squatting on the ground, smoking a large pipe. She had no idea when he had appeared inside the police cordon.
The little old man seemed completely absorbed, tapping the ash from his pipe with one hand while scratching at the ground with his yellowed fingernails with the other. She couldn’t tell what he was digging at.
He looked like an old man from the countryside, fresh into the city.
’Strange.’
Ai Ning suddenly felt something was off.
’How did I not see him walk up?’
’It’s like he just appeared out of thin air.’
If she had seen anyone approach the cordon, Ai Ning would have stopped them immediately.
