Chapter 24

Dull, oppressive, almost suffocating.

It felt like being pinned down by a ghost, where the mind was clear but the body refused to move.

The dim room seemed to have turned into a dark prison, with Yang Jian as the prisoner within, unable to escape or break free, seemingly destined to sink into darkness forever, for all eternity.

Suddenly.

On the pitch-black ceiling, the darkness gradually condensed, forming the shape of an eye.

This eye was large, covering the entire ceiling. Though it was not open, Yang Jian could feel the massive eye watching him, its eerie gaze lingering on him.

“Gurgle~!”

Yang Jian felt a chill on his cheeks, as if something was forcefully stretching the skin. A red eye appeared amidst the flesh, flipping open.

A strange perspective entered his mind.

At the same time, something seemed to be burrowing and moving around in his body, trying to tear the skin apart, causing intense pain, like being tortured, unbearable.

Yet, Yang Jian was conscious, but his body remained immobile.

He could only let the thing in his body move freely, the pain making him want to scream, but his mouth only twitched slightly, unable to open or make any sound.

This situation did not last just a moment.

It lasted for two to three hours.

Yang Jian did not fall asleep throughout, enduring the tearing pain for two to three hours. He didn't know how he managed to endure it, but he felt this period was as long as a lifetime.

Around six in the evening.

The pain in his body quickly disappeared, and he regained his senses.

Almost instantly, he sat up from the bed, drenched in sweat, breathing heavily.

Yang Jian raised his hand, which was trembling instinctively.

“What’s happening to me? My body is out of control, and the feeling just now was as if my entire body was about to split open, as if something was trying to come out from inside. Could it be the influence of that eye?......”

He stared at his trembling hand in silence for a while.

Suddenly, he took out a dark brown piece of paper from his pocket.

“Tell me, what was happening to me earlier.” Yang Jian spoke to the parchment.

Soon, words appeared on the parchment: "Today I woke up in pain. I can feel the malevolent ghost gradually reviving inside me. I used too much of the ghost's power because of school matters, and I don’t have much time left... But I still have to endure the pain of being tormented by the thing inside my body, because... I still want to live."

The malevolent ghost reviving?

Indeed.

Yang Jian fell silent again.

He was walking down the same path as Zhou Zheng, enduring the torment of the malevolent ghost's revival, and then being killed by the ghost inside his body one day.

Is this the price of survival?

“How long do I have left?” Yang Jian continued to ask.

More words appeared on the parchment: "If I don’t find another way soon, I estimate I won’t last more than three months under this torment."

Three months?

This is even faster than dying from cancer. If he had to endure such torment every day, it would indeed be a relief to die, as Zhou Zheng said.

Yang Jian was not panicked, but it was impossible not to be.

He was young, still in school, and his parents at home still needed his care.

What will happen to my parents if I die?

No.

I can't die, at least not now.

Yang Jian suddenly stood up, his gaze fixed on the parchment: “You are a strange thing. I can’t trust your words. You said I would die in school, but that changed, didn’t it? You don’t know the future; you can only predict what is likely to happen based on the current situation.”

“But I can be sure of one thing: you know a lot, a lot.”

“What are you, really?”

The parchment remained still, with no words appearing, as if it chose to remain silent.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t say. I will find out eventually.” Yang Jian said.

Thinking about the malevolent ghost, he suddenly remembered something and picked up Zhou Zheng’s satellite phone, which displayed a message.

It was a website address.

“Zhao Jianguo gave me this URL. Maybe I can find some useful information on that website.” Yang Jian immediately opened his computer and entered the URL.

A special website appeared, completely blank, as if it didn’t exist.

He knew this was just a security measure.

He then picked up Zhou Zheng’s phone and typed in the code printed on it.

Immediately, the webpage refreshed, and the website appeared.

Yang Jian skimmed through it. It was filled with emergency events from around the world, requesting ghost hunters for support, along with the rewards offered by various governments.

Most of the rewards were in the tens of millions of dollars, with a few in the hundreds of millions.

He clicked on one: “A C-level malevolent ghost has appeared in a certain state in the United States, codenamed Ghost Church, with a reward of thirty million dollars to resolve it.”

There was also a video.

In the video, a church was shown, with moss covering the walls, the paint peeling, and it looked very old. At the church entrance, Yang Jian saw a blurry figure standing there. Although he couldn’t see the face, he could feel it was a human, or rather, a human-shaped entity, but it exuded an eerie and unsettling presence.

Suddenly, a fighter jet flew overhead, and a missile struck the church.

The explosion engulfed the church.

Clearly, the U.S. military had chosen a strong and direct military strike.

“Will it work?” Yang Jian watched carefully.

But soon, as the bright light faded, his eyes widened.

The church remained standing, completely undamaged. A missile with such a large blast radius had not even scratched the wall.

Then, in the video, he saw the shadow at the church entrance slowly walk out, approaching the camera.

Sizzle...

The video instantly became blurry, and the image disappeared.

There were many comments below the video:

“F**k, thirty million dollars to solve this thing? The U.S. President can go to hell. Keep your money to buy lollipops for your kids. This thing is only rated C? Are you trying to trick us into being cannon fodder?”

A U.S. netizen commented, with the English followed by Chinese and other language translations, making it easy to understand.

“The video is somewhat concealed, but it can be judged that this is already a ghost that can influence its surroundings. It’s probably not far from forming a ghost domain. The minimum rating should be B, and if they had any conscience, it should be rated A. The American people are indeed living in dire straits. Newbies will likely be tricked to death if they don’t understand this.” A domestic netizen replied.

“Since I’m almost dead anyway, let’s form a team to make some money. Looking for teammates, kawaii~”

“The U.S. video rewards can’t be trusted, not even a single frame.”

Yang Jian read the comments and pondered: “Ghosts have levels? I’ll look it up.”