Chapter 355 - Chapter 355: Chapter 354 Crisis in the Corridor
Chapter 355: Chapter 354 Crisis in the Corridor
The flashlight’s beam cut through the darkness ahead.
A dim and profound path appeared before them, stretching into the depths of darkness where the light could not reach.
Standing at the entrance of this path felt like standing at the gates of hell itself, a nameless chill had already enveloped the body without notice, especially with the closed doors on either side of the corridor, hinting crises at every turn; afraid that upon walking in, one of those doors might suddenly swing open, unleashing some horrific spectral entity.
Even if every room they passed was safe, there was at least one certainty.
A ghost had just appeared ahead and collided with Lin Luomei’s Ghost Sound.
But from this position, the ghost was currently out of sight.
One thing was certain, though, that thing was still lurking inside.
Under such circumstances, Luo Su Yi, Lin Luomei, and Xiong Wenwen were all extremely tense, fear apparent in their eyes.
Only someone like Yang Jian, who had confined S-level Hungry Ghosts, could remain calm in the face of such supernatural phenomena.
“Move out.”
Yang Jian’s voice was low. He hadn’t opened the Ghost Domain, but he still kept a Ghost Eye on his forehead to watch for any nearby disturbances.
The others didn’t speak. At a time like this, they didn’t dare make a sound, uncertain if their voices would trigger the ghost’s killing pattern and draw its attention to them.
They crossed that corridor line, which seemed almost taboo, stepping onto the soft carpet.
The surrounding silence was terrifyingly palpable, not a single sound to be heard except for their own heavy breathing echoing in their ears.
Yang Jian reached out to touch the wall beside him, then brought his hand to his nose to sniff.
It was clean, without any strange odors.
The cleanliness was terrifying—there wasn’t even a speck of dust. It was as if someone had been tending to it constantly. The lack of odor meant that no one had died in this hallway, or at least there hadn’t been any incidents of blood splattering or bodies being dismembered. Otherwise, there would surely be some residue or smell.
“We’re about to walk past the first room,” Yang Jian’s gaze sharpened, and he moved the flashlight toward the direction of that guest room.
The room door was still.
There were no signs it was about to open.
He kept walking.
“Be careful,” Luo Su Yi swallowed, whispering a warning. He noticed how relaxed Yang Jian seemed in his pace, not tense at all, fearing that Yang Jian might not be cautious enough in leading the group.
Yang Jian paid him no heed and soon reached the first guest room door.
The door bore an old European-style design, seemingly with years behind it. Some of the paint on the door was flaking off. Above the door, a copper room number hung, engraved with a number: 1.
This indicated it was the first guest room.
But the room Yang Jian sought was number 13, so he had to continue further ahead.
Out of curiosity, Yang Jian tried pushing the door to see what was inside, to be better prepared mentally.
However, when he pushed with force, the door didn’t budge.
When he tried again, it still wouldn’t move.
It was as if he wasn’t facing a door, but a wall.
“Can’t push it open? Or does it require some special method?” Yang Jian’s eyes flickered. He felt that he might be able to force the door open with ghostly abilities.
But since his target was not room one, he wouldn’t waste time.
He continued to walk forward.
Quickly, they passed room two, room three, room four…
The style of every room’s door was the same, and they were all impossible to open upon trying.
“Yang Jian, could you not mess around? I’m about to start crying from fear,” Luo Su Yi said as he watched Yang Jian seemingly courting death by trying to open the doors, his legs almost giving out from fright.
He couldn’t believe that in such a situation, Yang Jian would still dare to do such things.
Didn’t he know that the more you do in a paranormal event, the more dangerous it becomes?
The intelligence they had so far did not indicate there was only one ghost in this place. What if one of these rooms housed another ghost? Yang Jian’s actions were akin to digging a grave for them all.
“I wanted to understand this place a bit more. It might be risky, but I believe it’s worthwhile,” Yang Jian said calmly.
His instincts told him that there was a reason Zhao Lei was hiding here.
In other words, the danger Yang Jian was likely to face might not be Zhao Lei, nor the memory-altering ghost, but the place they were currently in.
That was why he wanted to understand it better.
But ordinary exploration yielded little effect, and Yang Jian didn’t gain any useful information.
“We’re going to cross the first intersection ahead,” Lin Luomei reduced the volume on her player to a minimum before cautiously playing it out, “My ghostly voice encountered a ghost at the first intersection before.”
When they reached the ninth room, a small crossroads appeared ahead, with branches stretching into the darkness on both the left and right, the corridors lined by rooms just like the ones they had passed, all tightly shut with no signs of opening.
The room Yang Jian was looking for, number 13, lay just ahead, seemingly only a dozen or so meters away.
But at this intersection, everyone stopped in their tracks.
The flashlight illuminated the dark red carpet below, and everyone could clearly see the scattered shallow black footprints. Some of the prints extended toward room 13 ahead, while others stretched into the dark depths on either side.
“These footprints are fresh,” Xiong Wenwen, though just a child, had also noticed this detail.
Yang Jian squinted and said, “Indeed they are fresh, as if someone just passed by. The prints are so chaotic, it’s impossible to figure out which direction the ghost went. If it happens to block our path while we’re working, that would be bad, since there’s only one way back.”
“However, now’s not the time to think about that. Since we’ve confirmed that the ghost has temporarily left, we need to act quickly.”
Having said this, he quickened his pace, not pausing for a moment, and headed straight for room 13.
Finding Zhao Lei was the first step in solving the problem.
Soon, they passed rooms 10 and 11 one after the other.
In no time at all, they were faced with a door that lacked a room number.
The door’s number appeared to have been deliberately taken by someone, leaving behind only the mark of a nail.
Yang Jian felt in his pocket and pulled out a copper room number, upon which the number 13 was inscribed.
He fitted it onto the door and compared it.
It matched perfectly, as if it was the original.
“What kind of existence is that Ghost Cabinet that it can even take away the room numbers here?” a sense of horror inexplicably rose in Yang Jian’s heart.
Such an ability was beyond comprehension, impossible to understand.
“Is this the place?” Xiong Wenwen, following behind, glanced at the room, “I think we should predict what’s inside first. There’s definitely danger here.”
The suggestion was good.
But Yang Jian still didn’t want to use Xiong Wenwen’s abilities. The child’s abilities could save lives at critical moments and should be conserved if possible.
“If we really encounter that ghost, I can handle it. At worst, I can hold on for a while. The danger hasn’t appeared yet, so it’s not time to use your abilities.”
After rejecting Xiong Wenwen’s suggestion, he attempted to open the door.
He had no intention of using brute force to break it open since he had already concluded that the door could not be opened by strength alone.
Therefore, Yang Jian immediately used the ability of Ghost Shadow.
The shadow at his feet gradually thickened and began to rise in an impossible manner. In just a moment, a headless black Ghost Shadow appeared in front of everyone.
“Yang Jian’s second ghost.”
Everyone felt a chill in their hearts upon seeing this.
Luo Su Yi, in particular, stared intently at the Headless Ghost Shadow, feeling the cold aura emanating from it. That same sensation had once suppressed the ghost inside him, reducing him to helplessness in the face of Yang Jian, ready to be slaughtered at will.
“How on earth does Yang Jian control such a terrifying ghost?” he wondered.
Logically, the higher the Terror Level of a ghost, the more uncontrollable it should be due to the risk of it getting out of hand.
Yet Yang Jian had managed to do just that.
“Get ready, I’m about to open the door,” Yang Jian cautioned seriously before controlling the Ghost Shadow to adhere to the door.
The ability of Ghost Shadow was not only capable of piecing together corpses but other objects as well.
In fact, the Headless Ghost Shadow had once patched together mannequins in a mall.
Yang Jian didn’t need the Ghost Shadow to damage the door, just to open it.
As expected.
The door, which couldn’t be forced open through brute strength, was easily opened by the Ghost Shadow.
“Creak…” the sound of the door opening echoed.
But just at that moment, as Luo Su Yi in the rear scanned his surroundings, his flashlight’s beam accidentally swept across a corner of the crossroads behind them, and he was horrified to feel his hair stand on end.
There it was… a person, a tall and stiff figure.
At this moment, that person was staring blankly ahead with a face devoid of expression; their eyes seemed to be rotting away, continually dripping foul-smelling bodily fluids, and they moved with a heavy gait, resembling a walking corpse.
The flashlight beam fell upon the figure, but it seemed to have no effect whatsoever.
It continued to walk forward, unconcerned with Yang Jian and the others nearby, as if there would be no interaction between them.
“Will it leave?” Luo Su Yi’s palms were sweaty, and his body stiffened from the tension.
Watching the figure walk forward step by step, he hoped it would just leave, but then the worst happened.
As the figure passed the crossroads, it stopped dead in its tracks right in the middle.
Yes.
It stopped, utterly motionless.
“Yang Jian,” Luo Su Yi screamed in terror.