Chapter 790 790: 757 come at me

Again?

The sound of grave carving arose; just as everyone had let out a breath of relief, they had to draw it in once more, their nerves tensing again.

Too fast.

There was no chance to catch a breath; a member of the supernatural forum had just died. How long had it been, ten seconds, or perhaps twenty?

At most a minute.

The ghost’s attacks came one after another. Starting with the death of Luo Su Yi, this must be the fourth attack.

Upon hearing this sound, Yang Jian’s face darkened.

According to his plan, they were supposed to finish the task of delivering the letter after the third attack and before the fourth began, but to his surprise, they hadn’t found Grave No. 78. It was as if that grave had vanished and didn’t exist in this area at all; otherwise, how could so many people search and find nothing?

“The fourth person is going to die, who will it be this time?” Sun Rui stood there leaning on his cane, his complexion also very unsightly.

Although it was known that the ghost’s method of attack was to carve a name onto a gravestone, such attacks couldn’t be countered, and not even he was confident of surviving it.

“Haven’t we found Grave No. 78 yet? If we keep dragging this out, we might all be wiped out here. If you want to live, hurry up and search. Expand the range, don’t gather here. You won’t die if you walk a bit further,” Sun Rui urgently whispered, commanding those members of the supernatural forum.

The others, soaked in cold sweat, were naturally searching desperately for Grave No. 78.

But the situation was indeed strange.

Graves numbered seventy to eighty were all present, yet Grave No. 78 alone was missing. Expanding the search was futile because it wasn’t long before someone discovered that the graves in the distance were already numbered in the hundreds.

This meant that if Grave No. 78 existed, it would definitely be in this area, not too far away.

“Not found, it’s not here.”

“I haven’t found it either, there’s simply no such thing as Grave No. 78.”

“I’ve even come across the graves numbered in the hundreds, but just not the one you mentioned.”

This was their second time reporting the situation.

This search was even more meticulous than the first, not overlooking any detail, yet when six or seven people spread out to look, they still couldn’t find that grave.

“Were we really fooled by the Ghost Post Office? That damned place shouldn’t exist. After we get back, we must find a way to tear down that building,” Sun Rui said, his face grim, feeling rather awful.

“No, there is a Grave No. 78, we just looked in the wrong place.”

At that moment, Yang Jian casually tossed aside the arm he was carrying.

The arm that fell on the ground instantly sank down, quickly burying itself underground, disappearing from sight.

“What do you mean?” Sun Rui immediately turned to look at him.

Yang Jian’s eyes shifted as he said, “I’ve been thinking, normally, delivering the letter is just a task for a first-floor messenger. The post office’s goal isn’t to kill people, but to ensure messengers carry out their tasks better. Let’s not talk about the purpose for now; at least a delivery task wouldn’t be designed to be fatal.”

“Otherwise, it would be meaningless.”

“Given the current situation, having to withstand the attacks of evil spirits and find Grave No. 78… Let’s say, we’ve already found it, and estimate the time it takes to dig open a grave and deliver the letter. How many people would die in the process? The ghost is already killing the fourth person.”

“But including the three of us, and the three messengers who didn’t come before, there are only six of us in total.”

“Six people, each risking their lives, it wouldn’t be enough time to complete the task of delivering the letter. Thus, this creates a conflict with the situation at hand.”

Li Yang, who was nearby, thought it over and concluded that this was indeed the case.

Under these circumstances, even if all six people died, it would still be impossible to successfully deliver the letter.

This was a delivery task with certain death.

But Yang Jian’s analysis also made sense; if it were a doomed task, then why bother at all?

Although supernatural incidents are bizarre, they still follow some kind of pattern, not completely without rules. Even when evil spirits kill, it’s done according to certain patterns.

“So, what are you thinking?” Sun Rui asked hesitantly.

Yang Jian said, “It’s simple, we made a mistake. We were looking at the problem from the perspective of a ghost controller, assuming Grave No. 78 was among these old graves. In reality, it’s very possible that it’s exactly as the letter said, located within the original Fushou Garden, the place we just visited.”

“The burial plot reserved by Elder Liu is what we’re looking for, Grave No. 78, and the deceased Elder Liu is the intended recipient of the letter.”

“We were misled by the supernatural events happening here, no, we were misled by the disappearance of Elder Liu’s body, which led us to doubt.”

Sun Rui said, “I understand. For a regular messenger, to successfully deliver a message, they certainly arrange a doable task, and delivering this letter to Liu Lao Tai is within an acceptable level of difficulty. If it were to venture deeper into the Ghost Domain to deliver a message, an ordinary person would undoubtedly die.”

“So, the Grave No. 78 doesn’t exist here at all, which means I need to return to the place we were just at?”

Yang Jian immediately said, “No, the gravesite isn’t important. What’s most important now is finding Liu Lao Tai. She is the true owner of Grave No. 78.”

“But with such a vast cemetery, where can we find the missing body of Liu Lao Tai?” Li Yang asked.

Yang Jian didn’t know the answer to this question either.

His control over the Ghost Domain was compromised here, unable to thoroughly investigate everything about this cemetery, and the disappearance of Liu Lao Tai remained an unsolved mystery.

The disappearance of an old woman’s corpse here already revealed an extraordinary spookiness.

“We’re out of time. Continuing the search will result in more deaths. Yang Jian, we should retreat for now. We have seven days to deliver the letter. There’s no need to rush this moment. We can think it through and come back to deliver the letter,”

Listening to the clinking sound of knocking in the silent cemetery.

Sun Rui felt an immense pressure, a sense of breathlessness and palpitations, desperately wanting to leave this place.

Yang Jian’s expression shifted subtly, but he didn’t argue, as the rationale in Sun Rui’s words was sound.

The way of killing by carving names was too terrifying. Even Ghost Envoys couldn’t withstand it. Staying here was indeed perilous.

However, they were now trapped in a dead end.

Unable to find any leads.

They couldn’t deliver the letter or handle the ghosts here, only wasting time in vain.

“Indeed, we need to withdraw temporarily,” Yang Jian thought for a moment and felt that Sun Rui’s suggestion was correct.

The risk and reward were disproportionate. It wasn’t too late to come back after figuring things out, and there was indeed ample time.

Just at that moment,

The girl named Liu Xinyue, dragging her brother Liu Haw, ran toward them with a pale face and a look of terror, as if fleeing for their lives, and stopped right in front of Yang Jian, Sun Rui, and Li Yang.

“I, I just saw my deceased grandma over there…”

Liu Xinyue, having regained her composure from her fright, did not know what to do next and could only convey what happened just before, hoping to get help.

With those words,

All three men immediately turned their attention to her.

“Your grandma? You mean Liu Lao Tai? Where did you see her?” Yang Jian asked urgently.

“I, I don’t know. I just saw my grandma standing between those two graves, and she saw me… After that, my grandma disappeared again. I was too scared to move just now. Once I could move, I ran to tell you guys immediately. Please don’t blame me.”

Liu Xinyue’s words were a bit incoherent, mixed with fear and entreaty.

She was terrified that the trio would kill her and her brother without a second thought.

“Direction, point it out to me. You said Liu Lao Tai was between two graves. There are so many graves here; how would I know which two?” Yang Jian said.

Liu Xinyue pointed in a direction with her heart pounding.

The direction wasn’t wrong.

But that was the direction from which the clinking sound was coming.

Not far, yet not close.

A jump went through their hearts.

The Liu Lao Tai who had eerily appeared before Liu Xinyue and then vanished was in the same direction as where the ghost was presumed to be.

The thought was downright chilling.

Was the ghost that of the deceased Liu Lao Tai?

This thought surfaced in the minds of the three men.

“So, in the end, we still have to confirm the real identity of that ghost. Following that sound might actually lead us to Liu Lao Tai,” Yang Jian said.

Sun Rui said, “It’s too dangerous. As soon as the fourth knock stops, I suggest we retreat immediately. If we delay and the fifth knocking begins, another person will die. If the draw falls on us by chance, we’re finished. We can’t afford that gamble.”

“What if the knocking here continues after we leave?” Yang Jian said, his gaze intensifying; “Wouldn’t that be cutting off our own lifeline?”

Sun Rui froze for a moment, nearly forgetting this possibility.

“The knocking sound doesn’t last long; by the time you find it, the ghost may appear elsewhere again. I’ve confirmed that the ghost’s appearance is random—sometimes close, sometimes very far. Here, we can only rely on running, and it will be difficult to find it before the ghost completes its killing.”

“Otherwise, we might just end up running in circles here.”

Yang Jian didn’t want to waste time and immediately said, “Gather everyone and get ready to leave. I’ll go look for it. Let’s bet on one more person. If I haven’t found the ghost by the end of the fifth knock, then we’ll immediately retreat. If I find the ghost, I’ll stop it from continuing to kill, and we won’t have to bear the risk of being killed at any moment while staying here.”

“Alright, we’ll do as you say,” Sun Rui nodded in agreement.

He knew Yang Jian was not content, and neither was he, but he was still willing to bet on one more person. What he truly feared was the endless delay, which would be the most fatal.

No sooner had he finished speaking,

than Yang Jian, without a word, dashed out alone, sprinting as fast as he could towards the direction of the knocking sound.

With Ghost Shadow attached to his body, his running speed was a bit inhuman, his bodily functions slightly terrifying. He simply leaped over a grave mound ahead of him without slowing down during the process.

At this moment, he didn’t need to worry.

The bet with the ghost was a race against time. Previously, Yang Jian had been cautious of his surroundings, but now, after some confirmation, he could let go of everything and act without restraint.

“This round of knocking sounds is a bit long. Is it because the person being targeted has a particularly complicated name?” Yang Jian pondered as he rushed over.

This time, the engraving by the ghost took longer than the previous two combined, for reasons unknown.

Perhaps someone had a very complicated character in their name which forced the ghost to spend more time carving it out, providing Yang Jian with an opportunity.

He knew there wasn’t much time for this action, but if he could confirm the situation ahead of time, it would also be of great help for the following actions.

“Won’t it be dangerous for him to go alone?” Li Yang, seeing Yang Jian leave, felt inexplicably worried.

Sun Rui said, “Don’t worry, he’ll definitely be fine. It’s us who should be concerned. He can leave at any time, but we can’t. That’s why he took the initiative to handle this separate task.”

“Ding, ding ding.”

The terrifying knocking sound still echoed in the silent graveyard.

In front of an old grave, a blank tombstone stood erect with a rusty, grave soil-stained Coffin Nail held by a stiff, emaciated, and cold hand, mechanically knocking against the stone tombstone. Where the Coffin Nail struck, a deep trace was left.

The trace was twisted, gradually forming a stroke as if it were writing a character.

The character wasn’t complete yet, but next to it, one character was already carved out. Although its shape was strange, it could still be recognized—the character was… Yang.

What was odd was that this character didn’t have many strokes, yet the speed of its engraving was very slow.

Much slower than that of carving other people’s names.

With each knock, the tombstone was marked with not many traces, as if it was very hard, incapable of forming the character without continuous knocking and carving until the character was gradually perfected.

It was as if some indescribable, eerie entity was protecting the owner of this name.

As the ghost continued to engrave,

at that moment,

in Dahan City, in a hotel near the Ghost Post Office where Yang Jian had briefly stayed,

the hotel had been sealed off by Sun Rui’s order.

One of the rooms had been occupied by Yang Jian for a short time.

In an inconspicuous corner of this room, a twisted humanoid Ghost Porcelain piece sat there.

In the quiet corner, this bizarre porcelain piece was silently and ceaselessly cracking.

It was as if an invisible nail was relentlessly knocking against this piece of porcelain.

The cracks were intensifying, densely covering the entire body of the humanoid porcelain, as if it could completely shatter at any moment, and at the very center of the piece, a few cracks were deeper and more noticeable than the others.

Between these pronounced twists formed a character: Yang.

Next to the character Yang, new cracks were intensifying, spreading unceasingly as if they were going to form another character.

Under such circumstances,

the moment the next character took shape, this peculiar piece of porcelain would completely crumble into a pile of fragments.

Once the Ghost Porcelain shatters,

the layer of protection around Yang Jian would vanish without a trace.

Or perhaps,

the existence of this Ghost Porcelain was the reason why it had been so difficult to form Yang Jian’s name, why the tombstone prepared for him was exceptionally hard, preventing ghosts from inscribing his name easily.

Back in Fushou Garden’s graveyard,

Yang Jian was getting closer and closer to the clinking sound of hammering.

He was running very fast and was about to catch up.

“It hasn’t disappeared yet, exactly whose name is that ghost carving? Are there that many strokes?” Yang Jian felt inexplicably uneasy in his heart.

This situation hinted at something unusual.

Unusual meant that things were starting to go beyond what had been anticipated, which was not a good sign but an omen of imminent danger.

The ghost had changed.

In supernatural events, Yang Jian wasn’t afraid of ghosts that killed in fixed patterns, but he feared unpredictable changes in the middle of their actions, causing familiar patterns to suddenly shift, just like the Ghost Envoy and the Hungry Ghost had before.

Despite the hesitation in his heart, Yang Jian did not slow down. He was determined to find that ghost and confirm his suspicions.

Soon,

he began to feel a surge of excitement.

Because it seemed that due to this special circumstance, Yang Jian could find the ghost before the fourth clinking sound ended.

“Found it.”

Suddenly,

he climbed over a large grave and stood directly on the grave head, looking in the direction of the clinking sound.

His vision was unobstructed.

The ghost was still there, the hammering sound hadn’t stopped.

In an instant, Yang Jian’s pupils contracted as he saw the true source of the hammering sound.

It was a corpse in black funeral clothes, gaunt and chilly, with a face full of wrinkles. Brown, swollen skin tightly clung to its finger joints, and it held a rusted Coffin Nail, repeatedly striking an unmarked tombstone.

This ghost was… Liu Lao Tai?

“How is that possible.” Yang Jian was astounded.

How could an ordinary dead old person suddenly turn into a ghost?

In her hand, she also clutched a red letter, ready to be sent out.

After a short moment of shock, Yang Jian decided to complete the task at hand first. Whether this thing before him was truly Liu Lao Tai or a genuine ghost was irrelevant.

However, at this moment,

the hammering sound stopped.

The fourth person’s name was complete.

“Not good.”

With his ghostly sight, Yang Jian was immediately horrified. From this angle, he could vaguely make out the first character of that name… Yang.

“Bang!”

At the same time, far away in a hotel room in Dahan City, the Ghost Porcelain, due to the cracks reaching their limit, exploded suddenly, turning into pieces scattered across the floor. The eerie power also vanished completely, as if it had been neutralized by some terrible curse in the unseen world.

But it only neutralized a part, unable to counteract it all.

“Was this round of hammering directed at me?”

At that moment, Yang Jian’s hair stood on end, and the grave soil under his feet suddenly became loose.

It was like an abyss ready to devour him.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by novlove.com

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