Mysterious Revival

Yang Jian led the Ghost Child out and was ready to leave the dark and eerie house, not wanting to continue confronting an unknown ghost. After all, this ghost could suppress even the Ghost Child, making it incredibly dangerous. One slip, and it was entirely possible for him to fall victim within this small house.

But as he quickly returned to the first floor and prepared to leave the building through the hallway,

the sound of hurried footsteps descending in the pitch-dark, corpse-stench-filled house began echoing as if someone were swiftly chasing after him.

Yang Jian's pace did not stop; instead, he quickened his steps upon hearing the activity behind him.

"If the ghost has followed, it means I have met its killing criteria, and it is about to attack me. My previous guess was correct; the Ghost Child was taken into the cabinet to cleverly maintain a balance that prevented the ghost from coming after me, which is why I was able to reach the second floor unobstructed."

"Now that I've taken the Ghost Child out, there's nothing to suppress that ghost, so it has become active again."

In just an instant, Yang Jian roughly analyzed the situation.

This ghost, with a Terror Level similar to the Ghost Child's, was perhaps even more formidable.

Yang Jian's footsteps hastened, but the corridor in front of him seemed to stretch infinitely. The path back was more perplexing than the one he came by; no matter how far he walked forward, he couldn't see the door, always stuck inside the house.

"The whole house is under the ghost's influence. Anyone entering will get lost here, almost like a different kind of Ghost Domain. And even though my Ghost Eye can see the correct path, my body can't walk out... What the Ghost Eye sees is real, but my body is still trapped in the house influenced by the ghost."

"What I see and what my body feels are not synchronized; this is the first time I've encountered such a situation."

Suddenly, Yang Jian stopped in his tracks.

There was no point in continuing forward unless he used the Ghost Domain of his Ghost Eye to forcibly disconnect from the house's influence. But in doing so, he would also leave Kobe City, then have to break back into Ghost Door Knocker's domain and then find those colleagues waiting outside.

Without that person named Mishima, it would be quite difficult for Yang Jian to find the Ghost Door Knocker in the short term.

Going back and forth, plus searching for people, would take too much time. Yang Jian didn't want to do that, especially since he was still under the curse of the Ghost Cabinet trade, it was best to strike while the iron was hot.

"Then I'll have to withstand the ghost's attack. With the Ghost Hand and the rotting Dead Man's Head in the Ghost Child's hand, I should be able to suppress this ghost. Two against one, my odds are pretty good."

Yang Jian's eyes revealed a hint of cold determination, deciding to face the ghost's onslaught.

No reason not to; after all he's been through to get to this day, was he supposed to slink away at the slightest paranormal event? Couldn't he strike back just once?

The rushed footsteps behind him grew closer, and the stench of rot in the air intensified.

In the invisible darkness ahead, it seemed as if a corpse was rapidly approaching him.

Yang Jian turned around, his Ghost Eye peering into the distance with an eerie look, his cold and darkened palm ready to strike like that of a ghost, while the Ghost Child next to him, clutching a Dead Man's Head and tilting its head, stared in the same direction.

It was reminiscent of a father and son ready for battle.

Seconds ticked by.

About five seconds later, the ghost haunting the house finally revealed its form.

The first thing to catch Yang Jian's Ghost Eye were a pair of legs. He didn't know if they were human legs; he just saw the shape of two human legs wrapped in various dirty, old clothes that seemed to have been stripped from corpses, as most of the clothes were stained with blood.

The upper body was a rotting corpse, chilly and emitting a foul odor, also dressed in several different pieces of clothing: shirts, overcoats, wrapped tightly around the body.

"A ghost dressed in various clothes?"

Yang Jian's heart chilled: "Then, what is the ghost's method of attack..."

He had lost interest in the killing pattern at this point; since he was about to face the ghost's onslaught, he was curious as to how exactly the ghost killed its victims.

The next moment.

Yang Jian felt an anomaly, he noticed an unusually cold presence brushing up against his clothing, not invading his body, but enveloping it. His clothes at this moment seemed as though they were under some sort of curse, becoming extraordinarily strange, as if they had... come to life.

Then, those clothes, eroded by supernatural power, began to tear on their own, as if something was forcibly ripping them apart.

It seemed that not only Yang Jian's clothes were being torn, but also his life.

A terribly intense pain emerged, with no visible wound on his body, yet it felt as if his skin, flesh, and even bones were splitting apart. If this continued, there was no doubt he would be torn to shreds alive. However, with the influence of the Ghost Shadow, the tearing sensation was constrained, unable to proceed further after a certain point.

The extent to which the clothes were torn was also affected.

At that moment.

Yang Jian realized that if his clothes were torn, he would definitely die; his life and his clothes were now linked together.

"Would taking off my clothes help?"

He tried to remove the jacket eroded by the supernatural power, but the process made no difference. The sensation of his clothes and body tearing continued, although countered by the resistance of the Ghost Shadow, the struggle between the forces of the two ghosts was still palpable.

Clearly, to escape the fierce ghost, it wasn't as simple as taking off a jacket. The trick here wouldn't work.

Which meant that once targeted by this ghost, the attack began; it was no longer about the clothes one wore. The only way was to use the power of other ghosts to fend off this assault, or to avoid being targeted by the ghost from the beginning... perhaps the way to avoid attention from the start was to not wear clothes at all?

Without a trigger medium, the ghost's killing pattern is not satisfied, and naturally, there would be no trouble.

Through this little probe, Yang Jian had roughly gathered much information about the ghost, which seemed easy but was actually quite dangerous as he risked being attacked. If it were an ordinary person, they probably would have been torn to pieces by the initial attack, dead right there.

If he couldn't counter next, he would be killed like the others who had entered this room because, although the Ghost Shadow was resisting, it eventually began to falter and be suppressed over time... The sensation of his body tearing was intensifying.

But Yang Jian wouldn't just sit there and wait for death; he had only been cautiously probing the ghost's method of attack.

The next moment.

Yang Jian's Ghost Hand picked up the jacket from the ground, and instantly, the suppression belonging to the Ghost Hand took effect.

The jacket, which had been eroded by the ghost, immediately returned to its original state, and its role as a medium was completely nullified, and with it, the sensation of being torn to shreds dissipated as well.

The ghost's attack was easily neutralized by Yang Jian.

This was the strength of a top-tier ghost controller, not only easily warding off an attack by a ghost but also quickly responding with measures to turn a situation where he was passively attacked into one where he gained the upper hand.

"Take action."

Yang Jian commanded the Ghost Child.

Immediately.

The rotting Dead Man's Head held by the Ghost Child promptly turned, its pair of ashen white dead eyes eerily focusing on the opposite side of the dark corridor.

The longer the Dead Man's Head stared, the more apparent the suppression became.

Yang Jian immediately saw the corpse clad in rags stiffening in place, its clothes starting to fall off piece by piece, while at the same time, the darkness in the hallway rapidly dissipated. At this point, he could even feel the light from the entrance door shining in, no longer pitch black as before.

"Huh, is the door back to normal?"

At that instant, Nagase, who had been desperately pushing against the door to the point of nearly being crushed to death, suddenly felt the peculiar force on the door vanish, and a sense of relief washed over him.

The middle-aged man named Sakai, who was also helping at the moment, pulled the door open with a force that sent him staggering, nearly falling to the ground, as the oppressive force of the ghost inside the room had been suppressed.

"Mister Sakai, are you alright?" Mishima called out anxiously, standing not far away.

"Heh, it looks like we've been saved."

Nagase sat on the ground, somewhat drained, and saw Yang Jian appear in the hallway that had regained some light, along with the figure of the Ghost Child.

"I, I felt that if this continued, I would definitely have to use the ghost's power. Luckily, it stopped, otherwise..." the middle-aged man named Sakai said with immense relief.

He was just an ordinary ghost manipulator, and if he had continued to consume his energy against the ghost here, he surely would have been the one to die.

A person who had subdued a ghost only had a few brief chances to make mistakes in a supernatural event and had no capital to fight against a fierce ghost because if the confrontation continued and the fierce ghost revived, the person would surely die.

Quickly.

Yang Jian saw that the corpse wearing various shredded clothes, after being subdued by the rotting Dead Man's Head, began to make a strange movement. The ghost, as if alive, slowly sat down on the ground and then lay back.

In the end, it was as still as a dead person, motionless.

"The suppression was successful."

Yang Jian glanced at the rotten head in the Ghost Child's hand.

Indeed, that object did not disappoint him. The ghost that couldn't be driven away even by the fifth layer of the Ghost Domain was certainly terrifying. It was a pity, however, that this ghost was incomplete, with only a head remaining. If it managed to find the rest of its pieces and reassemble itself, it's hard to imagine how fierce it would become.

"It's just that, under these circumstances, I don't have the conditions to detain this ghost, nor do I want to waste manpower and resources on it, so I can only give up..."

Although Yang Jian felt it was a pity, he did not take the ghost and stuff it into a body bag to take away.

First, keeping it close posed the risk of it getting out of control, and second, his main target was the Door Knocking Ghost, not this entity.

"Follow me and leave this place."

Yang Jian quickly led the Ghost Child to retreat.

The house, unaffected by supernatural powers for a short time, returned to normal. After a few steps, they had already crossed the threshold and successfully evacuated.

But just as Yang Jian and the Ghost Child left, the suppression became ineffective.

The ghost regained its ability to move.

The corpse lying in the hallway suddenly sat up again, and as the tattered clothes fell off, the corpse's original attire was revealed.

It was a black, filthy suit, one of the Exorcism Club's uniforms.

This meant that the person was a deceased Exorcism Club member who, after death, revived as a fierce ghost and caused this supernatural event.

"Bang!"

The next moment, darkness engulfed the house again, and the open front door was closed by a tremendous force.

The ghost continued to wander in the house.

However, since there were no victims that met the ghost's target for killing, no further deaths occurred.

"You didn't run away? That's quite commendable." Yang Jian, who had emerged, praised Nagase and the middle-aged man named Sakai.

Nagase, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, said with a smile, "After all, it was something entrusted to us by a senior. How could I dare to disobey?"

"Then keep it up. I hope you maintain such courage and boldness. As for the ghosts in this house, I have no interest in dealing with them. Let it stay here. I need to find the source of this incident, so let's move on," said Yang Jian.

"Okay, okay."

Nagase and the middle-aged man named Sakai responded.

But as they left, Nagase couldn't help but look back at the dreadful house shrouded in shadows, thinking to himself, "How long have we been in there? Has the paranormal event inside already been resolved? It's overwhelmingly powerful. If it hadn't been for the intervention of the target, that ghost would definitely have been captured, wouldn't it? After all, it had reached that stage, just short of the final wrap-up work."

At this thought, he felt an immense sense of pity.

For Nagase believed that if he, Sakai, and Mishima had been the ones to handle the ghost in the house, they probably would have been wiped out without being able to deal with it.

Upon reaching the street, Keiko suddenly hurried over, her face shifting from anxious and frightened to joyously relieved; "Mister Yang, seeing you safe and sound is such a relief. The situation just now must have been very dangerous, right?"

Yang Jian didn't speak, his expression remained calm as if the recent event was just an appetizer at a banquet, barely worth mentioning. He shifted his gaze to a woman in her thirties hiding not far away.

"Come here."

Keiko immediately reacted, "Miss Mishima, Mister Yang is asking you to come over."

"Yes, yes," Mishima said, although frightened, she was filled with dread towards Yang Jian, and she walked over.

Yang Jian said, "Keep leading the way to the next place where you sense a ghost. I hope your sensing is more accurate this time. Don't waste everyone's time. Otherwise, if we continue searching like this, many people will die here. You want to live and leave this place too, right?"

"I, I understand, I will work very hard to lead the way for Mister Yang. Please don't abandon us," Mishima hurriedly replied.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Yang Jian said.

Mishima, despite her fear, closed her eyes slightly, sensing the terror of the place.

Soon, Mishima continued pointing ahead, "Over there... in that direction..."

"Let's move out."

Yang Jian didn't delay and immediately took big strides towards the direction Mishima pointed to. Although she couldn't discern what kind of ghost it was in the sensing area, this ability to detect danger was still quite useful, especially in the context of a large-scale paranormal event. It necessitated someone like her to pinpoint the location of the ghosts.

"Mister Yang, please wait for Keiko."

Keiko quickly trotted after him. As a normal person, she dared not fall behind. Only by closely following Yang Jian could she hope to survive safely.

"Not even a minute's rest, huh? But following someone like him, maybe we really can resolve this easily," Nagase mused and chuckled lightly, also following along with Sakai.

Although they hadn't encountered the Door Knocking Ghost this time, Yang Jian's ease in entering and leaving the haunted houses, and his calm and composed exit, was indeed very attractive.

At the very least, Yang Jian's authority among these people was now established.

The most apparent sign was that Mishima, who had been too scared to move forward, was now quickening her pace, closely following behind.

However, as they progressed, Yang Jian also noticeably sensed an unusual change in the surroundings.

The nearby buildings seemed to have aged suddenly, becoming old and mottled, completely different from the pristine, clean houses they had seen before. It was as if they had entered an old district of the city, where traces of the years lingered everywhere.

"These changes in the houses are because of the Door Knocking Ghost's influence, meaning that the ghost had been here before, had knocked on these doors... and it might even be lurking nearby," Yang Jian observed, looking at the doors of the houses.

The doors were not open, because the Ghost Door Knocker didn't need you to open the door to kill you.

One would die upon hearing the knocking sound.