The three of them took the emergency stairs up to the roof and saw Ding Hai standing at the edge of the rooftop.
His entire upper body was being forced outward over the edge. His hands were tightly gripping something, and his whole body looked as though some invisible force were squeezing his neck and pushing him outward.
His face was twisted with overwhelming terror.
When he saw someone coming up, tears and mucus streaming down his face, he cried out for help.
“Help me! I don’t want to die!”
He seemed to recognize Peng Ye as well. His eyes desperately shifted toward Peng Ye, and he panted out with difficulty,
“Are you from the institute? I’m Ding Hai from the technical team. Help me! A ghost is trying to kill me…”
Peng Ye instinctively took a step forward.
But after seeing something, he stopped.
The anxious and nervous expression on his face gradually turned into fear.
He turned to Xu Muchan, only to see that Xu Muchan and his brother hadn’t moved a single step.
Their expressions could even be described as cold and indifferent, completely different from how hurriedly they had run upstairs just moments ago.
That expression almost confirmed Peng Ye’s suspicion.
He desperately swallowed, then timidly stepped backward and hid behind Xu Muchan.
In a small voice, he said,
“He… he doesn’t have a shadow…”
Under the bright sunlight, all three of them had shadows.
But Ding Hai didn’t.
Xu Muchan nodded and looked at Ding Hai’s neck.
There were large patches of dark purple bruising there.
“He’s already dead.”
Their whispered conversation had not escaped Ding Hai’s notice.
When Ding Hai realized that they had seen through his scheme, his expression became even more sinister.
He pulled his upper body back from beyond the rooftop edge and coldly swept his gaze over the three of them, as though assessing which one would be easiest to attack.
Seeing his expression change in an instant, Peng Ye said angrily,
“We’re colleagues, aren’t we? Sure, it’s unfortunate that you died here, but we came here to save you out of kindness. How can you turn around and repay us by trying to hurt us?”
Ding Hai clearly felt no guilt whatsoever.
He smiled maliciously.
“You’ve all made it here anyway. You’re going to die sooner or later. Why not contribute yourselves and help me out? I don’t want to be trapped in this godforsaken place anymore.”
As he spoke, his face suddenly turned deathly pale.
His entire body lunged toward Peng Ye at an incredibly rapid speed—
Peng Ye cursed and immediately turned and ran.
“Why do you always pick on the weak one?!”
Then he turned around and shouted at Xu Muchan,
“Xu—Xu—Xu Bro, help!”
Before his voice had even faded, Xu Muchan was already behind Ding Hai.
The hair hanging over his shoulders suddenly surged outward like a swarm of snakes, rushing toward Ding Hai and wrapping tightly around him.
Ding Hai tried to struggle, but the strands of hair binding him were clearly even more violent. They wrapped around him layer upon layer until he was transformed into a black cocoon.
The black cocoon contracted again and again, shrinking smaller and smaller.
A moment later, there was nothing left.
The tangled black hair loosened and spread across the ground, crawling around for a moment before returning to Xu Muchan’s feet.
The crimson in Xu Muchan’s eyes faded.
The vertical line between his brows disappeared.
His hair, which had stretched all the way to the ground, seemed to rewind as though the scene were being played backward, returning to its normal length.
Peng Ye stood there with his mouth hanging open, taking a long time to recover.
He felt that Xu Muchan just now had been far more terrifying than Ding Hai.
With such a massive powerful ally by his side, it seemed that his own little life might still be salvageable.
Peng Ye hurried over with an ingratiating smile and gave Xu Muchan a thumbs-up.
“Xu Bro, you were insanely cool just now. Too bad I forgot to record it. Otherwise, I could’ve taken it back and let everyone else admire your heroic figure too.”
The corner of Xu Muchan’s mouth twitched.
He ignored the flattery.
“Let’s go downstairs first.”
As they went downstairs, Xu Muchan looked at his palm.
At the instant Ding Hai died just now, he seemed to have received some kind of acknowledgment and had inexplicably gained insight into some of the hidden rules of this world.
He realized that this world encouraged people to kill one another.
He just didn’t know whether this rule applied only to the ghosts inside or whether living people were included as well.
If that was the case, then those people who had entered the ghost domain before…
Xu Muchan frowned.
“Be especially careful on the way to the old city. Especially around the people who entered the ghost domain before. I suspect they’re all like Ding Hai.”
Peng Ye frantically rubbed the goosebumps that had risen on his arms.
“This place is way too damn sinister.”
The three of them went downstairs and followed the map toward the old city.
When they reached the main road, Peng Ye nervously looked left and right and muttered,
“There isn’t a single car on this road. A car isn’t going to suddenly come shooting out when we cross, right?”
He looked at the nearby crosswalk, then turned to Xu Muchan.
“Let’s use the crosswalk. I don’t know why, but I have a really bad feeling.”
Xu Muchan nodded.
Although there wasn’t a single car on the road, they still waited for the light to turn green before crossing at the crosswalk.
They were almost across when Peng Ye finally relaxed a little.
He turned to Xu Muchan and said,
“Looks like I was just overthinking it. There really isn’t—”
Before he could finish, Xu Muchan suddenly shoved him backward.
Peng Ye landed hard on his butt by the roadside.
He saw a motorcycle that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere roar between him and Xu Muchan.
Then it seemed to slam into an invisible wall and instantly exploded.
The motorcycle parts shattered and scattered all over the road.
Peng Ye’s eyes widened.
He watched helplessly as a bloody, mangled mass emerged from beneath the wreckage of the motorcycle and spread outward like flowing water.
Some of it even began creeping toward the crosswalk.
The sight was seriously testing his nerves.
Even Peng Ye, who usually had a strong stomach, felt nauseated at the sight of the bloody mess.
He turned his head away and dry-heaved several times.
Xu Muchan reached the edge of the road before the green light ended.
“Let’s go. We shouldn’t stay here.”
Peng Ye covered his mouth and stood up.
Although he didn’t understand what Xu Muchan meant, he instinctively followed him.
At that moment, the countdown for the green light behind them ended.
The light turned red, and the roar of cars suddenly sped past.
Peng Ye abruptly turned his head.
The road was completely empty.
There was nothing there except the motorcycle that had inexplicably appeared and crashed, its wreckage still scattered across the middle of the road.
Strangely, the bloody mass in the middle looked as though something had driven over it, leaving obvious tire tracks behind.
Peng Ye turned to Xu Muchan in confusion.
“Was that road…?”
Xu Muchan said, “Your guess should be right. Although there doesn’t appear to be anyone in the ghost domain, some of the rules of the real world still have to be followed.
“Following the rules doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no danger, just like that motorcycle that suddenly came shooting out from the side.
“But if you don’t follow the rules… you’ll definitely die horribly.”
If they hadn’t used the crosswalk just now, or if they had run the red light, it was very possible that more than just one motorcycle would have come rushing at them.
Peng Ye clutched his heart and hurried a few steps to catch up with Xu Muchan.
“I feel like my life is flickering on and off right now.”
Xu Muchan said, “It’s not considered too dangerous for now. As long as we’re as careful as possible, there shouldn’t be any major problems.”
Having learned from what had just happened, Peng Ye stayed alert and didn’t dare let his guard down for even a moment.
Although Shuinan City wasn’t very large, there was still a long distance from the hotel to Chunhua Road in the old city.
Along the way, they encountered several more accidents.
Sometimes a roadside billboard would suddenly fall for no reason.
Other times, a sewer manhole cover ahead of them would suddenly drop away without warning.
And when they passed through an alley in the old city, a clothesline that residents had illegally strung overhead suddenly snapped.
The sharp metal wire whipped loose and narrowly grazed past the three of them.
Peng Ye watched the trajectory of the wire and thought that if he hadn’t dodged quickly enough, the wire would probably have pierced straight through his eye this time.
He sighed wearily. “I really never thought that one day I’d be starring in Final Destination.”
Xu Muchan stopped walking and looked up. “That big tree is gone.”
Peng Ye looked up in confusion, but he hadn’t seen the tree Xu Muchan was talking about in the first place. He could only stare blankly at the deep blue sky overhead. “I never saw the big tree you were talking about. Are you sure it was really there?”
Xu Muchan said, “We’ve been able to vaguely see that tree all along, but after getting closer, the tree disappeared.”
Peng Ye looked around. “The scenery here isn’t any different from the old urban district in reality. There aren’t any big trees in the old urban district either.”
Xu Muchan frowned and muttered to himself, “That’s strange.”
Just then, the dog-head pendant hanging from his bag suddenly moved. Xu Muchan turned to look and saw that the dog head he had squeezed into a ball had unfolded on its own, returning to its original mask shape.
Xu Muchan took off the mask and looked at Wei Xilou in confusion. “What does this mean? It wants me to put it on?”
Wei Xilou took the dog-face mask from his hand and put it on his own face.
Looking out through the mask’s eyeholes, the scene here was completely different from before.
Wei Xilou took off the mask and said, “It wouldn’t dare pull any tricks. A-Chan, see for yourself.”
Only then did Xu Muchan take the mask and put it on.
Through the eyeholes of the dog-face mask, Xu Muchan finally saw the vanished tree again.
No—calling it a giant tree would be more appropriate.
From its features, the giant tree looked very much like a banyan tree, but its actual size was far, far larger than an ordinary banyan. It made perfect sense that Xu Muchan had been able to vaguely see it while standing outside the hotel, because it was taller and more enormous than the skyscrapers in the city center.
Its enormous crown spread across the sky above the old urban district, completely blocking out the sky and sunlight. Beneath the canopy, countless red ribbons hung down, each with a corpse dangling from its end, their deaths grotesque and horrifying.
This was actually a wishing tree.
Except that what hung from this wishing tree were no longer wish plaques, but the people who had made the wishes.
The resentful souls trapped inside the corpses let out shrill, mournful cries.
Xu Muchan moved his gaze away from the hanging corpses and looked again at the surrounding alleys and houses. These alleys and houses still retained some of their original features, but by now they were covered in dark-red bloodstains. In some corners, there were even severed limbs and chunks of flesh.
Xu Muchan took off the mask and looked at the unusually deep-blue sky overhead.
The contrast between wearing and not wearing the mask was simply too great. He narrowed his eyes uncomfortably, then seemed to think of something and suddenly asked, “What time is it?”
They had entered the ghost domain at four in the afternoon. They had spent at least an hour walking here from the hotel.
Yet judging from the sky above them, the sun was still hanging high overhead, showing no sign of setting.
Peng Ye glanced at his phone. “Six-oh-five.”
Xu Muchan’s heart stirred. He put the dog-face mask on again. The world behind the mask was filled with black and red, with the giant tree blotting out the sky overhead. There was neither sky nor sun to be seen.
However, Xu Muchan noticed that the wails coming from the hanging corpses had subtly changed. The cries of suffering and torment had gradually become a strange kind of laughter.
If one looked closely, they would notice that no matter which direction their faces were turned, the corpses’ eyes were secretly slanting toward where the three of them stood. Their lips curled into eerie smiles, as if they were anticipating something…
“We can’t stay outside. Get inside, first!”
Xu Muchan reacted quickly. He grabbed Wei Xilou and picked a nearby building to hide in. Peng Ye quickly realized what was happening and followed them inside.
The old houses here had narrow stairwells. The three of them went up to the second floor one after another, only to discover that every door was locked.
Xu Muchan was considering whether to break down the door when Peng Ye raised his hand. “I’ll do it. I know how to pick locks.”
Peng Ye pulled a small steel pick from his bag, stuck it into the keyhole, fiddled with it a few times, and the door opened. He grinned. “Come on in. This is my specialty.”
Xu Muchan asked, “You guys actually have to learn this?”
Peng Ye scratched his head. “I guess you could call it a skill. Sometimes, when we run into some really strange situations, we inevitably have to take unconventional measures. I can pick combination locks, too.”
After entering, Peng Ye carefully locked the door from the inside again. “I’ll go check the windows.”
Only after locking the windows as well did Peng Ye ask in confusion, “Why did we come inside?”
He stared curiously at the mask in Xu Muchan’s hand. In the end, he didn’t have the nerve to ask to borrow it and put it on himself. He only asked, “Did you two see something just now?”
Xu Muchan nodded. “I saw that tree. There were countless corpses hanging beneath it. Its canopy blocked out the sky and sun, so you couldn’t see the sky at all, nor could you sense the passage of time. I think if we follow the rules of the real world, there might be danger in wandering around outside after nightfall.”
As if to prove his guess, the bright sky that had been shining just moments ago suddenly darkened without warning, as though the sun were a gigantic lamp and someone had simply flipped a switch, causing the world to go from day to night.
Peng Ye still couldn’t see the giant tree, but he did see countless grotesque, terrifying people falling from midair. Like overripe fruit, they smashed onto the ground and became puddles of flesh, then slowly gathered themselves back into human shapes. Long red ribbons dragged behind them as they headed into the crisscrossing alleys.
The sounds of doors opening and closing rang out one after another. Peng Ye looked at Xu Muchan in horror. “Holy shit, they wouldn’t have gone home, would they?”
The moment he finished speaking, the sound of a key unlocking the door came from the entrance.
Peng Ye instantly covered his mouth. Only his terrified eyes moved as he looked at Xu Muchan.
“Hide first.” Xu Muchan pointed toward the large wardrobe in the master bedroom, then pulled Wei Xilou inside with him. Peng Ye was a little too slow and couldn’t squeeze into the same wardrobe with his powerful backer, so he could only hide alone in the wardrobe next door.
The moment he closed the wardrobe door, the front door outside opened.
The upper part of the wardrobe door was made with a lattice design, allowing them to vaguely see what was happening outside through the gaps. Xu Muchan saw a man and a woman walk in.
The woman entered first. Her hair was gray-white, and she looked to be at least fifty or sixty years old. There was a bluish-purple ligature mark around her neck. The man following behind her was younger, probably only in his early twenties, but his condition was much more horrifying. His entire body was split into pieces, and a large part of his head was crushed in, making him look as though he had been smashed to pieces and then forcibly put back together.
They should be mother and son.
The mother and son wandered around the house. The son spoke indistinctly, “Mom, it smells so good in here. What did you cook?”
The mother shook her head and chuckled. “Look around. Something must have gotten in. Find it, and my good boy will have something to eat…”
Saliva dripped from the corners of their mouths as the mother and son began rummaging through the house.
Just as they finished searching the living room and started heading toward the bedroom, Xu Muchan’s pupils uncontrollably turned black and red.
Sensing his tension, Wei Xilou pressed against his back and gently pulled him into his arms, whispering into his ear, “Is A-Chan scared?”
With the broad warmth of his chest against his back, the ferocity in Xu Muchan’s eyes paused for a moment. He honestly shook his head.
Ever since learning that he was no longer alive, Xu Muchan’s fear of these ghosts had greatly diminished.
Wei Xilou clicked his tongue in disappointment. “Then shall we go outside and take a look? All those corpses have gone home. This should be when that tree is at its weakest.”
Xu Muchan said, “Peng Ye is still here. We need to deal with these two inside first.”
With that, he pushed Wei Xilou farther into the wardrobe and walked out himself.
When the mother and son saw Xu Muchan emerge from the wardrobe, even more saliva flowed from their mouths. They lunged at him impatiently.
But Xu Muchan was far more agile than they were. He swiftly dodged and circled around behind the mother, grabbed the red ribbon trailing from her back, wrapped it several times around her neck, then threaded the red ribbon through the ceiling light fixture and directly hung her from it.
The mother, suspended by her neck, made a rattling sound in her throat and could only struggle helplessly.
Seeing this, the son staggered toward Xu Muchan on his pieced-together body. Xu Muchan used the same method, grabbing the red ribbon behind him and wrapping him up tightly like a dumpling before tossing him beneath his mother’s feet.
The red ribbons were fused to their bodies and were surprisingly sturdy, so there was no need to worry about them breaking free.
Peng Ye pushed open the wardrobe door and walked out, giving Xu Muchan a thumbs-up.
When he had seen Xu Muchan emerge from the wardrobe, his heart had nearly jumped into his throat. Yet Xu Muchan had dispatched the terrifying mother and son in just a few moves. Peng Ye even developed the illusion that I could do that too.
Wasn’t it just a matter of grabbing the rope behind them and tying them up like this and that? Peng Ye thought smugly.
Then Xu Muchan said, “I want to take this opportunity to go look at that tree. You and my brother stay here. Use your judgment depending on the situation.”
Peng Ye immediately deflated like a balloon that had been punctured. He timidly asked, “How long are you going to be gone?”
“Hard to say. I’ll come back as quickly as I can. But if something unexpected happens and I don’t come back, and you run into danger here, don’t worry about my brother. Run first.”
Peng Ye glanced at Wei Xilou standing beside him and thought, Your brother obviously looks like he can fight better than me and run faster than me. Even if I wanted to take care of him, I couldn’t.
“I understand. Be careful,” Peng Ye said.
He watched Xu Muchan push open the balcony window and jump directly from the second floor.
Wei Xilou walked to the balcony and, with his back to Peng Ye, said, “Go keep an eye on them. Don’t come bother me.”
His tone was completely matter-of-fact. Peng Ye didn’t dare argue. He actually went back inside and ended up staring at the mother and son, who were staring right back at him.
Xu Muchan landed silently, then quickly ran toward the giant tree.
He had already kept his movements extremely quiet, but some of the ghosts near the street were still startled. They turned their heads and looked in his direction.
Xu Muchan noticed that the clothing worn by these corpses seemed to span a very long period of time. Some of them wore very modern clothes and were clearly from recent times. But others wore long robes, mandarin jackets, and other garments that obviously did not belong to the modern era.
The amount of time this ghost domain had existed was probably far longer than they had imagined.
Xu Muchan had already reached the base of the tree when a familiar, cold, sinister aura approached from behind him.
Xu Muchan said, “Brother, shall we go up and take a look?”
Wei Xilou hummed in response, and Xu Muchan agilely climbed up the tree.
No one knew how many years this tree had been growing. Its cracked bark was dark red, and when touched, it had a strange metallic texture. Fortunately, the corpses that had been hanging from the canopy were all gone at this time, so Xu Muchan encountered no obstacles and smoothly climbed all the way to the largest fork in the branches.
At the center of the fork was actually a huge hole.
The hole was so deep that its bottom could not be seen. Xu Muchan pressed his ear against it and vaguely heard the familiar sound of waves.
“The Black River?”
Xu Muchan turned back uncertainly to look at Wei Xilou. “I didn’t hear wrong, did I? There’s a Black River here too.”
“Go down and take a look.”
This time, the black shadow went ahead, entering the hollow inside the tree trunk first.
Xu Muchan followed behind him. Once inside, he immediately felt that the tree trunk was extraordinarily dark. Logically speaking, after becoming a ghost, his eyesight had become exceptionally good, and darkness should not affect his ability to see. But after entering the tree hollow, all he could see was a profound, pitch-black darkness, as though all the light had been absorbed.
Looking downward, he could only see a tiny glimmer of moving light, like faint reflections shimmering across the surface of water.
Xu Muchan looked up again and discovered that the entrance through which they had entered looked surprisingly similar to the rippling light below. A thought occurred to him, and he frowned.
“Could that below be another exit?”
But there were no other openings in the trunk of this giant tree. Where did that enormous hole below lead?
Xu Muchan climbed down in confusion, but suddenly realized that after entering the tree hollow, his brother had stopped responding to him.
He stopped moving and looked around, tentatively calling out, “Brother, are you there?”
His voice echoed through the narrow tree hollow, but no one answered.
His brother, who had entered the tree hollow ahead of him, had simply disappeared.
Xu Muchan grabbed the Mountain God Tablet and held it between his teeth, trying to summon the deity, but there was still no response.
How could this happen?
Xu Muchan forcibly suppressed his worry and looked at the distant point of light below. He decided to go back up first and figure things out afterward. He stopped going downward and turned around to climb upward instead.
As far as he remembered, he hadn’t climbed very far down after following his brother into the tree hollow. Yet now, when he climbed back, he seemed unable to reach the entrance no matter how long he climbed.
The tree hollow had only two ends. He could either go down or up.
Xu Muchan gritted his teeth and held his breath, silently crawling through the narrow tree hollow for who knew how long. Suddenly, the light at the entrance grew brighter.
He narrowed his eyes, reached out, grabbed the edge of the light, and pulled himself out.
The intense light stabbed at his eyes, and he closed them for a moment.
When he opened them again, he discovered that he was no longer in the old urban district.
He wasn’t even in the giant banyan tree.
Instead, he was sitting astride a very familiar old locust tree.
And the scenery around him was even more familiar.
It was actually the old Wei family residence he had visited before.