Outside the old district.
A man who had just activated his Forbidden Ruin sat by a warning sign, glancing back at the half of the old district now frozen like a canvas, then shook his head with resignation. He pulled out his phone from his pocket and began playing a casual puzzle game.
"Buddy, what's gotten into you, sitting out here playing with your phone in the middle of the night? Aren't you worried about catching cold?"
Shortly after, a pedestrian crossed over from the opposite street, and upon seeing this scene, couldn't help but laugh.
The man glanced up at him, then lowered his head to continue tapping his screen. "Nothing to do, bored to death."
The pedestrian chuckled, fished a cigarette from his pocket, and offered it to the man.
The man waved his hand dismissively, his expression becoming serious. "I'm on the clock — no smoking for me."
"Sitting out here on the street playing with your phone counts as work?" The pedestrian laughed.
"Yes."
"Fair enough." The pedestrian shrugged, stood up, and walked towards the street behind the man.
"Where are you going?" the man called out suddenly.
"Home."
"You can't go back. Not right now, anyway."
The pedestrian raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"This street's closed off at the moment. You'll have to wait until it opens back up before you can pass through." The man pointed to the warning sign behind him.
The pedestrian glanced in the direction the man had pointed and spotted the oddly placed warning sign in the middle of the street. He was about to say something when a faint shimmer of light flickered across the three bold words reading 'NO ENTRY AHEAD'.
The pedestrian's eyes went blank in an instant.
A few seconds later, he turned stiffly and retracted his steps, walking back the way he had come, his gaze hollow and confused.
The man seemed entirely unsurprised by this. Just as he was about to resume his puzzle game, a voice suddenly crackled through his earpiece from another man.
"Zhao Kongcheng!!"
The moment that voice pierced through the earpiece, the man jolted upright from the ground, his earlier leisure and drowsiness evaporating instantly, replaced by absolute seriousness.
"Here! Captain, what happened?"
"We have a situation. One of the Ghost Faces has evolved into a Ghost Face King. While we were mopping up the others, it caught us off guard and gravely injured Hongying before escaping through the sewers and breaking out of the Forbidden Ruin's boundary.
"A Ghost Face King?" Zhao Kongcheng's complexion changed, "Which direction did it flee? I'll cut it off!"
"No, Kongcheng. You're not a fighter — you can't take on a Ghost Face King. I'll pursue it myself."
Zhao Kongcheng froze. "Then I…?"
"Two more Ghost Faces slipped into the sewers after the King escaped. The rest of the team is occupied clearing out the remaining Ghost Faces and can't break free. I need you on this."
"Which direction?"
"Southeast."
"Got it."
A sharp gleam ignited in Zhao Kongcheng's eyes. He sprinted to the far end of the street, leaped into a black van, and floored the pedal. The vehicle roared to life and sped away in a cloud of dust.
On the passenger seat beside him lay neatly folded a dark-red cloak, and a straight saber still sheathed in its scabbard.
...
"Alright, I'm heading off this way," Wang Shao said, stopping in his tracks and turning back to the four people behind him.
At that moment, Li Yifei seemed to remember something. "Wang Shao, if I recall correctly, doesn't your family live near the old district?"
"Yeah, why?"
"…Nothing really. Just be careful on your way home."
Wang Shao's mouth twitched slightly, and he rolled his eyes. "If you've got something to say, just say it. Don't leave me hanging — it's unsettling."
Li Yifei hesitated for a moment. "I heard things have been pretty rough in the old district lately. There's a serial killer on the loose."
"A serial killer? Seriously?" Jiang Qian sounded skeptical.
"Absolutely, it's true!" Li Yifei glanced around and lowered his voice. "You guys might not know this, but over the past few days, more than a dozen people have already been killed in the old district."
"A dozen people? Impossible. If something that serious had happened, the news would've reported it by now." Wang Shao shook his head.
"Come on, why wouldn't it be possible? Listen, the whole situation is fishy. Someone up top has been suppressing the news. If my dad didn't work at the police station, I wouldn't even know about it."
"What do you mean, fishy?"
"Well… " Li Yifei paused and lowered his voice further.
"I heard that the victims' faces were completely flayed off. All that's left on their faces is bloody, mangled flesh and bulging eyeballs. The brutality is absolutely horrifying!"
A cool evening breeze swept past just as those words left Li Yifei's mouth. The group felt an icy chill shoot up from the soles of their feet to the top of their heads.
"Li Yifei! Are you crazy, bringing this up at night?" Jiang Qian snapped. She instinctively scanned the silent street around them, her face had gone pale.
They were already in a remote corner of Cangnan City, right next to the old district. Evening study had ended around ten o'clock, and there wasn't a single pedestrian on the street. Combined with Li Yifei's words, the whole atmosphere was frankly bone-chilling.
It wasn't just Jiang Qian. Even Wang Shao and Liu Yuan, despite being men, felt a chill run through them. Wang Shao glanced at the narrow alleyway he was about to take home through, and suddenly felt a twinge of unease.
If Li Yifei's words had merely triggered fear, then what Lin Qiye said next made their hair stand on end.
Lin Qiye paused in thought for a moment, then spoke softly, "Are you sure… that humans did this?"
Jiang Qian trembled, "Qiye, you…!"
Wang Shao and Liu Yuan's mouths twitched involuntarily, and their gazes towards Lin Qiye suddenly turned peculiar.
So it's you — the seemingly innocent Lin Qiye — who's been hiding the most?
Li Yifei stared at Lin Qiye in surprise. "You think so too?"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Jiang Qian had had enough. She reached over and twisted Li Yifei's arm hard, and he let out an immediate cry of pain.
"Don't tell ghost stories in the middle of the night! I still have to get home!"
Li Yifei clutched his arm, wincing, and muttered quietly off to the side, "But this isn't a ghost story…"
Wang Shao shrugged. "I'm not sticking around for this nonsense. I don't believe in any of this supernatural mumbo jumbo anyway. I'm heading out."
Wang Shao's silhouette gradually disappeared into the narrow alley.
Jiang Qian shot another angry look at Li Yifei, walked forward a few steps, then abruptly halted.
She sniffed the air deliberately, her brow furrowing slightly. A trace of confusion appeared in her eyes before turning to the group. "Do you guys smell that? There's a stench."
"A stench?"
"Yeah, like… something rotten. That kind of smell."
"I don't smell anything. Liu Yuan, do you?"
"I don't either… blegh!!"
Before Liu Yuan and Li Yifei could even finish their sentences, their faces suddenly went pale. They quickly clasped their noses and spun around frantically, eyes wide with panic.
Lin Qiye was about to respond when a nauseating stench suddenly invaded his nostrils. The sensation was like dumping a chunk of meat that had been rotting for over two weeks into a septic tank and mixing it with a dozen scrambled rotten eggs — just inhaling it once sent his stomach lurching violently.
It was the most foul odor Lin Qiye had encountered in all his years.
Meanwhile, Jiang Qian, whose sense of smell was the sharpest, dropped to her knees and started vomiting.
"What the hell is that stink?!" Li Yifei cried out, his hand clasped over his nose.
"I'm not sure," Lin Qiye said, his brow furrowing. A moment later, he pointed toward the alley Wang Shao had taken.
"But judging by the direction, that's where the stench is coming from."
The next moment, a piercing scream — agonized and desperate — tore through the quiet night, echoing across the silent sky.