Chapter 34: Out of Control (13)

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Wei Ling stared at her in disbelief. “You have one?”

Xu Ruolin flinched at the sudden rise in her voice, her body trembling for a moment. Though frightened, she nodded. “Y-yes.”

“Then why didn’t you use it yourself?”

Why had she let herself be frightened into such a state instead?

Xu Ruolin’s voice trembled. “How was I supposed to know it was an illusion? I thought all of you had gone mad!”

“And besides... the price is too high. I don’t want to use it...”

Wei Ling did not know what to say to that.

“So you mean it really works?”

“If another illusion appears, warn me and I’ll use it, all right?”

Xu Ruolin seemed completely terrified. Unable to cling to Lu Jinzhao, she had turned to Wei Ling instead.

Wei Ling naturally had no objection to accepting a supernatural item offered to her. She nodded. “When I tell you to use it, don’t hesitate. Use it immediately. Understand?”

Xu Ruolin nodded.

With this guarantee, Wei Ling felt much more at ease. Even the suffocating oppression in the air had eased considerably.

With Wei Ling as someone to rely on, Xu Ruolin’s mental state also seemed to stabilize. She no longer muttered those meaningless, delirious words.

Silence descended upon the ancestral hall once more.

It was already deep into the night. Outside the hall, darkness stretched everywhere, and the torches they had borrowed from the villagers had burned down completely.

The instant the flames went out, darkness swallowed the ancestral hall.

Only the eternal lamp on the altar offered a faint glimmer, keeping the place from sinking into total darkness.

All around them was silence.

Only now did Wei Ling fully realize just how quiet Quxiang truly was.

It was a dead silence so profound that, apart from their breathing, there was nothing to hear.

In the darkness, several breaths rose and fell one after another.

—Huff.

—Huff.

—Huff...

The one a little to the left and farther away was probably Lu Jinzhao’s breathing. Its rhythm was steady and calm, just like she was.

A little to the right, slightly hurried and occasionally falling out of rhythm, was Xu Ruolin’s.

The extinguishing of the torch had probably made her feel less secure, causing her to panic from time to time.

The one behind them had a long exhalation, while the sound of inhalation was almost nonexistent...

No.

Wei Ling’s entire body stiffened, and cold sweat instantly broke out across her forehead.

The one behind her?

Where could there be anyone behind her?

At that moment, Wei Ling felt her body grow faintly weak—a physical reaction brought on by extreme terror.

Gritting her teeth, she remembered Lu Jinzhao’s warning and abruptly turned to look behind her.

In the dim candlelight, she saw nothing.

No one...

Then where had that breathing come from?

—Huff...

Like the breath of a ghost, a faint exhalation sounded beside Wei Ling’s right ear, identical to the one she had heard behind her moments ago.

Her scalp prickled. She immediately turned back toward the source of the breath.

...There was nothing.

Cold sweat continued to trickle down her forehead. Wei Ling realized that Xu Ruolin had not been lying.

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A ghost had entered to hunt them down.

It seemed she had been the first one targeted.

That ghostly voice appeared behind her again. Wei Ling whipped around, but all she saw were the neatly arranged ancestral tablets and the offering table.

The eternal lamp on the table struggled to maintain its faint light within the hall.

—Huff.

A long, unusually distinct exhalation drifted over.

The next moment, the lamp went out.

The ghost had blown out the only source of light in the room.

Wei Ling was plunged into darkness.

All light and sound vanished. Gradually, she could no longer hear Lu Jinzhao’s or Xu Ruolin’s breathing.

It was as though this world contained only herself and... the ghost lurking in the shadows.

Terror surged through her. In the pitch-black darkness, where she could not even see her own hand, Wei Ling’s reason began to crumble.

“...I’m going to die.” She was utterly certain.

The ghost had set its sights on her. Perhaps she was about to die.

Should she use the supernatural item?

“No... that’s not right!” Wei Ling suddenly came to her senses.

An illusion!

This could be an illusion!

“Xu Ruolin, use your supernatural item now!” she shouted, not knowing whether Xu Ruolin could hear her.

Fortunately, the ghost seemed capable only of creating illusions. It could not block her voice.

The next moment, she heard a snap of the fingers. Immediately afterward, the darkness before her gradually receded, and she saw Xu Ruolin looking at her with concern.

“Are you... all right?”

“You were terrifying just now...”

“But I heard you call me, so I used the supernatural item.”

Wei Ling looked toward the offering table. The eternal lamp was still burning; it had not been extinguished. She let out a sigh of relief. It seemed the illusion was fading.

...No.

Why was the flame of the eternal lamp growing stronger?

The light grew brighter, the flame taller and taller. Before long, it had set the ancestral hall ablaze.

“...What’s happening?” Wei Ling took several steps back, putting distance between herself and the flames, even though she felt no heat radiating from them.

“It’s all right. This happens when the illusion is dissipating.” Xu Ruolin seemed accustomed to it. “After I use my supernatural item, obvious abnormalities appear as a warning that the illusion is fading.”

“But... hasn’t the illusion already disappeared?”

The darkness had receded. Then what was this?

...Was there still an illusion present, and had she failed to notice it?

Ashes drifted down from above the ancestral hall. Amid the falling ash, as thick as snow, the hall gradually warped and changed shape. The materials of the floor and walls shifted, objects dissolved and fused together again. In the end, the entire place returned to its original form.

A cold, dark altar.

The humanoid statue stood before the two of them, watching them.

“...An altar?!”

Xu Ruolin cried out. “How can this be an altar?!”

Wei Ling wanted to ask the same thing.

How could this place be an altar?

She turned her head, then saw a horrifying sight.

Corpses covered the ground.

The companions she had thought had escaped the ancestral hall were all lying there in gruesome death.

“We’ve been tricked!” Xu Ruolin’s voice broke down.

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“This was never an ancestral hall! They’re all dead, and we’re next!”

Wei Ling’s mind rang with a dull roar. She could barely think, yet she struggled desperately to keep herself from collapsing.

“No. We’re still alive. There’s still a chance.”

“Yes.” Xu Ruolin suddenly rallied. “The ghost deceived us with an illusion, making us believe we had reached the ancestral hall. But now that the illusion has been broken, we can go to the real one!”

“Run!”

With that, Xu Ruolin started running.

Wei Ling fell behind her. For some reason, she did not move at once. But in the next second, she sensed something approaching.

A cold hand closed around her wrist.

The ghost.

She had run more slowly and fallen behind Xu Ruolin, so the ghost had chosen to kill her first.

No. She could not die here!

A fierce will to survive erupted within Wei Ling. She violently tore herself free from the ghost’s grasp and ran toward the altar’s entrance.

But she had endured far too many shocks. Her legs were weak beyond belief, and at this crucial moment she stumbled.

Damn it!

Wei Ling’s heart turned cold. She was almost desperate.

Because she could feel the ghost catching up.

It had seized her.

Those icy hands clamped around her throat. A suffocating sensation swept over her, and the scene before her eyes gradually blurred.

—Was she going to die?

As her vision faded, Wei Ling cursed the train relentlessly in her mind. Before death arrived, one final doubt emerged.

Why... was this mission so difficult?

Was this really only a Class C mission?!

“Wake up!”

“Wei Ling!”

A familiar voice suddenly reached her ears. Wei Ling was dazed.

She... wasn’t dead yet?

Her frozen mind began turning again. She opened her eyes, which had already closed, and saw... Lu Jinzhao’s face.

“Were you trying to die by running toward the door?”

A trace of impatience and anxiety had appeared on that usually calm face. Wei Ling stared blankly for a moment, then struggled twice when she felt herself choking.

The hands around her throat loosened.

It was not the ghost. It was Lu Jinzhao.

But... why?

Wei Ling immediately sensed that something was wrong. The surroundings were not right.

Wasn’t this place an altar?

The eternal lamp still flickered faintly on the offering table, and everything around them was so familiar.

Why... was she still in the ancestral hall?

That was right. Lu Jinzhao... it seemed Wei Ling had not heard her speak since earlier.

As for Xu Ruolin...

Wei Ling looked around.

There was no sign of Xu Ruolin anywhere.