Chapter 18

Yang Jian was frantically thinking of a countermeasure at this moment.

He was very clear in his mind that the knocking sounds heard over the phone earlier would surely attract that old man.

And once that old man appeared, the outcome would be obvious.

The forum, the story, the audio file... the knocking old man, and the phone call.

All these conditions collided in Yang Jian's mind, a mess, and he had grasped a bit of the pattern, but could not deduce more information.

Because this was his first encounter with a ghost, and he had never dealt with such a situation before. To have come this far was already quite good. He wasn't like Fang Jing, who claimed to know everything that would happen in the future.

"Wait, Fang Jing... the future." Yang Jian's expression suddenly changed: "That piece of parchment."

Suddenly, he hurriedly took out the stack of dark brown parchment from his pocket.

"Yang, Yang Jian, look, look over there..." Suddenly, Zhang Wei pointed in the direction of the school, his voice trembling.

Yang Jian looked up and immediately felt a chill run through his body.

A few hundred meters ahead, a darkness as thick as ink gradually spread, swallowing everything in its path. The ground around them began to decay, the trees withered and rotted... the cement became mottled and moldy, the streetlights covered in rust, swaying precariously.

An old man dressed in a black robe, his body covered in corpse spots, his face ashen and his eyes lifeless, walked stiffly towards them.

Step by step, neither fast nor slow.

"Damn it, he's here?" Yang Jian's heart raced.

"Yang Jian, what, what do we do now? Are we going to die?" Zhang Wei was almost in tears. "I don't want to die, I'm still so young, I'm still a virgin. Yang Jian, you have to think of a way out. Fang Jing said you would be amazing in the future, you must have a way, right?"

"Can't we get out of here?"

Wang Shanshan, standing beside him, her hand pale, clutched his arm, her face filled with fear.

Zhao Lei, seeing the approaching darkness, was trembling all over, constantly retreating, trying to escape the school. But when he turned around, he found that there was also a dense darkness approaching from behind.

They were surrounded by darkness, with no place to run.

Yang Jian ignored them at this moment. He opened the parchment in his hand, sweating profusely, trying to find some key information on it.

On the parchment, a line of clear large characters appeared before his eyes: "At 5:00 AM on June 22nd, the ghost realm appeared before us again. Yes, that ghost is back..."

"At 5:30 AM on June 22nd, we all died, not a single one of us survived."

"...I am Yang Jian. By the time you read this, I am already dead."

"You wrote us to death? Bullshit, there must be a way to leave here. When I was caught in the toilet, the old man didn't follow. I want to know why. If you don't tell me now, I'll bury you somewhere, and you'll never see the light of day again."

Yang Jian said through gritted teeth, with a hint of threat.

The parchment in his hand seemed to have heard these words, and the characters on it began to blur, eventually disappearing. Then, a new line of text appeared:

"At 9:00 PM on June 21st, I was caught by a ghost in the toilet. I didn't die because there was a more terrifying ghost in the toilet. It was another ghost realm. I saw some very scary things, but I didn't realize it at the time."

"At 9:30 PM on June 21st, I got lost in the toilet, but the old man came to the door. He was knocking, looking for me, but I didn't hear it. Perhaps because of this, I escaped a certain death."

Yang Jian's heart sank when he read this.

Could it be that the old man was knocking at the door of the toilet when he was lost in it?

Soon, more text appeared on the parchment.

"...After that incident, I speculated that the ghost realm was the key to survival. If I could use the ghost realm, I might have a chance to survive. After all, I am now... a ghost. Zhou Zheng was right; only a ghost can deal with a ghost, and only another ghost realm can escape from a ghost realm."

"At 5:15 AM on June 22nd, the old man appeared. I tried to use the ghost realm, but failed. My power was not enough."

"At 5:30 AM on June 22nd, we all died..."

Yang Jian's pupils constricted when he read this.

Although the outcome was still death at 5:30 AM, he saw a glimmer of hope for survival.

Ghost realm!

Yes, a ghost realm was born where the old man appeared, and now he was also a ghost master.

Why couldn't he use the ghost realm?

If Zhou Zheng were here, he would find Yang Jian's idea very laughable, because not every ghost has a ghost realm. Ghosts with ghost realms are very rare... but also very terrifying.

"I must try. There's no other way." Yang Jian clutched the parchment tightly. "Tell me, how to use the ghost realm."

More text quickly appeared on the parchment.

"Yang Jian, who are you talking to? Look, everything around us is abnormal. What should we do now?"

Zhang Wei was crying in fear, relying on Yang Jian to save them, afraid to hear bad news from him.

"Shut up, I'm thinking of a way. Give me some time." Yang Jian's tone was urgent, his gaze flickering.

The old man was still walking towards them, now less than a hundred meters away.

They were anxious, they were afraid, and he was equally anxious and afraid.

After all, no one wanted to die.

More text appeared on the parchment: "At 5:20 AM on June 22nd, after my first failure, I thought it was because the ghost inside me wasn't fully awakened. If I could open more eyes, it might help."

The number of eyes?

Yang Jian didn't have time to think more. There were only ten minutes left until 5:30 AM, and he didn't want to be written to death by this parchment.

Immediately, the flesh on his arm split open, and five blood-red eyes opened simultaneously.

Each eye emitted a faint red light.

"At 5:22 AM, I decided to increase the number of eyes." The text on the parchment appeared.

"Method, I need the method."

Yang Jian growled at the parchment: "If I die, this thing will be left behind. You didn't want me to throw you away before. If I die, do you think someone else will pick you up?"

The text on the parchment blurred again, and finally, another line appeared: "At 5:24 AM, after my attempts, I swallowed one of the eyes on my arm, successfully increasing the number of eyes. With six eyes, I successfully used my own ghost realm... I am becoming more and more like a ghost."

"At 5:30 AM, I didn't open the ghost realm, and we all died..."

Swallow the eyes?

Yang Jian looked at the five eerie blood-red eyes on his arm and was stunned.

But when he saw the last line, "At 5:30 AM, we all died,"

He knew he had no choice.

At this moment, darkness enveloped them, and the surroundings quickly dimmed. The old man was less than twenty meters away.

"Creak..."

The moment they were enveloped by darkness, the door of the nearby security room slowly opened, and a pale hand reached out.

Outside the railing, a blurry figure slowly approached on the darkened road.

Nearby, a few weak beams of light from cell phones penetrated the darkness, as if classmates who had been separated earlier were approaching step by step.

Yang Jian, Zhang Wei, Zhao Lei, Wang Shanshan, Miao Xiaoshan, Qian Wanhu... everyone was surrounded by ghosts.