Free Web NovelChapter 648: Chapter 522: Diverting the Disaster East_2
The crisis was temporarily resolved, and Yang Xiao slowed his pace, heading upstairs. He planned to return to his own room. Wandering at night in such a lifeless haunted building was definitely a very bad experience.
As he walked slowly, pondering what to do next, even though he intended to lighten his footsteps, the sound inevitably carried in the quiet night.
Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot...
"Da."
"Da."
"Da."
Yang Xiao found the sound of his footsteps irritating, and... it seemed louder than he thought; he was already being very soft.
Suddenly, a sense of foreboding surfaced in his heart. Yang Xiao kept his composure and continued to walk, but when his raised right foot was about to touch the ground, just an inch away, he abruptly stopped without letting his shoe hit the floor.
"Da."
A chill surged up from the sole of his foot to his forehead. Yang Xiao heard a very soft but distinctly clear footstep.
Not daring to look back, he could only glance behind with his peripheral vision. On the wall at the corner heading towards the stairs, a blurry figure like mist was gradually solidifying. The figure’s pose mirrored Yang Xiao’s exactly, also with the right foot on the step.
A ghost... had returned, following right behind him, step for step.
Run!
Yang Xiao bolted; all his plans were thrown into disarray. Now, all he wanted was to shake off this specter. The ghost was too horrifying; it was mimicking a person, following behind him step by step. What was most frightening was he had no idea how long it had been doing so.
If he had realized any later, it would have been too late!
As Yang Xiao began to run, the footsteps behind him also turned erratic. The ghost was in pursuit again, sprinting along the corridor. Yang Xiao rushed into another staircase and dashed desperately downwards, convinced he couldn’t outrun it. He had to... he simply must find a decoy!
Only after the ghost killed someone would it leave.
Room 4029, that was Yang Xiao’s only hope.
He raced to the fourth floor corridor, and as he turned his head, he saw a terrifying sight 15 meters away on the right side of the corridor. There stood a ghostly shadow in beige mourning clothes, extremely thin, with legs twice as long as a normal person’s. The long, silk sleeves nearly touched the ground, fluttering hauntingly with the night breeze. Words completely failed to describe the horror of the scene.
If not for the same mask that Yang Xiao wore on the face of this mourning-clothed ghost shadow, at first glance, it was scarier than a ghost; it was Prisoner number 104.
Upon seeing Yang Xiao, the mourning clothes ghost shadow let out a "hee hee hee," a sinister laugh that seemed to be squeezed from its throat, and then started running towards Yang Xiao with peculiar steps, each step making a "dong" sound.
It was like the sound of a drumstick hitting a drum. Yang Xiao immediately realized that this person wasn’t just tall; he was on stilts.
"Hee hee hee..."
The mourning clothes ghost shadow unfolded its water sleeves, hunching over as if preparing to bend down for a big hug, what must be its method of attack. Yang Xiao also charged at the mourning clothes ghost shadow. Just before they collided, Yang Xiao shifted his position, sliding under the long legs of the ghost shadow, and at the same time, he drew his Human Bone Staff and aimed a strike at the man’s legs.
This set of moves wasn’t a spontaneous decision by Yang Xiao. He had used it many times during training sessions with Coach Zhu Yina. Although it wasn’t cool, it was extremely useful.
The mourning clothes ghost shadow, struck in the groin, buckled at the knees, collapsing to the ground, while Yang Xiao seized this opportunity to rush in front of room 4029. He pushed against the slightly ajar door; it opened, and he slipped inside, turned around, shut the door, and quickly locked it. This series of actions was smooth and fluid, executed in just a few seconds, leaving the mourning clothes ghost shadow, Prisoner number 104, locked outside.
After locking himself in the room, Yang Xiao felt the chill on his body significantly reduced. It seemed that part of the ghost’s attention had shifted, but it wasn’t enough; he was still the ghost’s primary target.
Outside, there was the sound of someone cursing angrily and desperately. Prisoner 104 slammed on the door, "Open up, you bastard, are you crazy, stealing from my home?!"
"Hee hee hee..." Yang Xiao hid behind the door, mimicking the other’s earlier laughter.
"Open the door!" The other person slammed against the door with a menacing threat, "Wait until I break in, I’ll shove a mop handle down your throat!" fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Originally, Yang Xiao wouldn’t have bothered with such verbal confrontations, but he noticed that the chill on his body was slowly fading. Following this trend, it wouldn’t be long before the ghost’s attention was completely drawn away by the guy outside.
On the contrary, if the guy outside left now, the ghost would still not let him go, so he had to stall the man.
Fortunately, the man couldn’t see the ghost, which gave Yang Xiao a lot of room to maneuver.
After several hits, it seemed the man realized that he couldn’t break the door down by brute force, so he started to soften his approach, "Bro inside, I apologize for earlier offenses. Look, how about this: you open the door, and I have some key clues I’ve found. I can share them with you, how about that?"
"Really?" Yang Xiao sounded half-convinced.
"Of course it’s true, to tell you the truth, I’m from the Patrol Defense Office; it was just a misunderstanding before," the man in the mourning clothes said congenially. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
"Then we’re colleagues, I’m also from the Patrol Defense Office," Yang Xiao’s voice revealed his surprise, "But you have to tell me first, what are the clues that you have?"
"It’s not safe out here. Let me in first, and we’ll have a nice chat," the man in mourning clothes tried to persuade him gently.
Yang Xiao could tell the man was grinding his teeth, thinking that once he got in, there’d be no talking – he likely wanted to kill him right then and there.
The guy was strong; if he wasn’t mistaken, that mourning outfit and the stilts he wore were magic artifacts, and the fact that he took a hit from a human bone staff without severe injury spoke volumes about how tough he was. In a one-on-one situation, Yang Xiao might not be a match for him. It was probably better for such a threatening person to be dead.
"Huh?"
Suddenly, Yang Xiao heard a puzzled sound from outside. The man in mourning clothes seemed to have noticed something and abruptly asked, "Why did you come here in the middle of the night?"
"My home is haunted," Yang Xiao answered honestly.
"Where... is the ghost?" The voice outside sounded panicked.
"I don’t know, it was right behind me just a moment ago."
Hearing this, the man became more troubled. He did not know whether Yang Xiao was telling the truth or not; after all, he hadn’t seen any ghost, just Yang Xiao rushing over, "Bro, just open the door, your joke isn’t funny at all."
After stalling for some time, Yang Xiao was certain that the ghost had shifted its target. He agreed to open the door for the man, but on the condition that there would be no retaliation. The man agreed readily and even swore a poisonous oath on his parents and loved ones with such simplicity that it evoked a sense of déjà vu in Yang Xiao.
"Alright, you step back, I’m going to open the door." Yang Xiao stepped back in advance, opened the window to create the illusion of escaping through it, then returned behind the door. He asked the man to step back and prepared the Soul-Capturing Mirror; as soon as he opened the door, he would use its power to enter the Mirror World.
And it turned out he was right. As soon as the door was opened, a sleeve of the mourning clothes whipped like a python and struck hard against the wall behind the door. The wall began to crumble visibly fast, flaking off layer by layer as if it had aged decades in just a few seconds.
The next second, the man in mourning clothes, furious and swearing, barged in and searched all over, cursing Yang Xiao’s family with what sounded like blessings. However, after a long search – the bathroom, the wardrobe, under the bed – he found no sign of Yang Xiao, until finally realizing that the window was open and the cold night breeze was pouring in.
After confirming that Yang Xiao had disappeared, the man angrily went to close and lock the door, then sat down on the bed, stretched his legs, and pulled two sealed letters from under the mattress.
