Chapter 1020 - 986: A New Layer
Chapter 1020 - 986: A New Layer
"So, did this action fail this time?"
In the topmost office of Shangtong Tower, Tong Qian was on duty today. He saw Yang Jian, Feng Quan, and others return and understood the outcome of this matter.
"Not a failure, just postponed."
Yang Jian stood by the bar in the office, poured a glass of cola, and took a sip.
"Entering that Ghost Domain rashly, if we fail, we might get trapped inside, or even die inside. I have other things to do, can't delay for too long."
"Xiao Yang, that's not right. You seemed pretty laid-back a couple of days ago," Xiong Wenwen, playing on his phone, suddenly looked up and said.
Yang Jian couldn't be bothered to explain.
How long has it been since he came back from the delivery task?
It's only been a three-day break, and during these three days, he did quite a lot. Although it seemed leisurely, it was all business-related.
"The area where the ghost is located is temporarily sealed off. We'll handle it next time, it shouldn't be a problem. Although we didn't resolve this supernatural incident this time, we gained a lot of useful information and had no casualties, so it can hardly be called a failure."
Feng Quan, being experienced, understood that handling supernatural incidents cannot be rushed.
A single unsuccessful attempt doesn't matter, as long as nothing is lost, it's a gain.
This time we found the ghost's killing pattern; next time, action will be more effective.
"When will the next action be? Can I participate?" Tong Qian was quite proactive.
He was very keen on handling supernatural events, similar to Feng Quan, because they felt that such events were a tremendous threat to the city and must be nipped in the bud as early as possible.
"No time has been set yet. We'll talk about it when I return next time. I'm going out today. Matters in Dachang City will still be entrusted to you as before," Yang Jian said.
"I have already discussed with Feng Quan to regularly light the white Ghost Candle to attract the ghost to one spot, so it doesn't wander elsewhere. Although it's a bit tiring, the risk is very low, and you can easily handle this job."
"Alright then, we'll take action next time." Tong Qian nodded.
At this moment.
Zhang Liqin walked into the office and came to Yang Jian's side softly saying, "President Yang, someone named Zheng Yue came from out of town, saying he's looking for you. He has the address you gave him and is holding a red balloon."
"Let him come up." Yang Jian's expression shifted, and he gestured for him to be allowed up.
He remembered the matter; a few days ago, having just escaped from the ancient house, not wanting too much trouble, he had someone convey the red balloon, and unexpectedly, this person was quite diligent and actually delivered it.
The red balloon is a supernatural item, relatively special, holding some value.
Soon enough.
A man in a suit with a haggard face, holding a red balloon in his hand, walked over from the elevator entrance.
He had a slightly surprised look in his eyes.
He had initially come to Dachang City with a "let's see" attitude, not expecting all the information here to be true, that this person was indeed in Shangtong Tower and seemed to have a considerable status.
Soon enough.
Zheng Yue entered the expansive office, his eyes took in the bizarre individuals around him: a child resembling a paper figure, a man with a face akin to a dead person's pallor, and a woman so stunningly beautiful she seemed almost unreal... Lastly, he saw the person drinking cola by the bar.
Yang Jian said, "You are very trustworthy. Zhang Liqin, take the balloon and store it in the safe room."
Zhang Liqin nodded, her expression slightly serious. She took a look at the unusually vibrant red balloon, understanding that it must involve a supernatural item and not be an ordinary balloon. But since Yang Jian had her handle it, he must have determined it wasn't dangerous,
Indeed.
Once Zhang Liqin took over, everything was normal, with no danger whatsoever.
"Then the matter you promised before, does it still hold?" The man named Zheng Yue, with a somewhat ingratiating smile.
He now understood that this person in Dachang City was a figure of considerable power, not as simple as he might seem on the surface.
"Of course it holds, you'll understand when you return," Yang Jian waved and gestured for him to leave.
Zheng Yue, puzzled and not understanding, nodded with a smile and left.
"Captain, what did you promise him?" asked Huang Ziya.
Yang Jian replied, "Nothing much, just something about a promotion and raise."
"So, you deceived him?" Huang Ziya chuckled.
Yang Jian retorted in surprise, "No, why would I deceive an ordinary person? Is that necessary?"
He naturally hadn't deceived this person because when he left earlier, he had modified the memories of several important people at Zheng Yue's company. As soon as Zheng Yue returned from Dachang City, those memories would activate, and then they would support him unconditionally for promotion and raise. This departmental consensus left even the boss no room to oppose.
Of course, if Zheng Yue hadn't come to Dachang City, or if he came but didn't return to his company, then those memories would never activate.
The power of the supernatural is that terrifying.
In front of Yang Jian, an ordinary person's memory could be toyed with freely, and the person wouldn't notice a single thing.
Having dealt with some trivial matters,
Yang Jian didn't stay long in the company. After discussing and arranging a few things, he left early. Before leaving, he checked the coffin in the safe room of his office.
An extremely ordinary coffin.
The coffin itself wasn't special; the contents within it were.
Originally, the coffin held the corpse of a fierce ghost, something brought from his hometown, the source of the phenomenon known as Ghost Dream.
However, since the last nightmare ended, the corpse inside the coffin has been continuously undergoing strange transformations.
First, it rotted, then grew black hair. An originally ordinary corpse was evolving into something unrecognizable.
Yang Jian understood, this is the supernatural meddling with reality, with the source of Ghost Dream undergoing changes, so in reality, the image of the fierce ghost's corpse is also altering.
And upon this inspection, he could basically confirm.
The image of the Ghost Dream corpse had completely morphed into something unfamiliar, though not entirely formed yet, it could be identified.
It had become a large black dog covered entirely in thick black fur.
This indicated that the source of the Ghost Dream was no longer the ghost it had been but had become a large black dog.
"A dog, set to replace the fierce ghost within the Ghost Dream, will awaken and become a true anomaly." Yang Jian felt a chill in his heart, while secretly anticipating the awakening of this dog.
In the supernatural circle, no one would have guessed that the one harnessing the Ghost Dream and becoming an anomaly isn't a human, but a dog.
But this was the best outcome.
The living had no way to control the ghost within the Ghost Dream, so Yang Jian's father realized this and pulled a dog into the Ghost Dream to find a way to suppress the fierce ghost.
After all, having a dog harness the fierce ghost is far better than letting Ghost Dream spiral out of control and evolve into an unsolvable supernatural incident.
At least up until now, Yang Jian wasn't confident he could survive within the Ghost Dream.
"Within a month, this dog will completely replace it; by then, it will awaken, inheriting all the ghost's traits."
Yang Jian closed the coffin again after the inspection, then shut the door of the safe house.
This kind of inspection wasn't the first time; every once in a while, he would observe the progress.
Last time in the ghost dream back home, Yang Jian's father mentioned that the process of transformation and replacement could take as quick as a month or as slow as three months. Now it seems that the fierce ghost in that ghost dream is more difficult to deal with than imagined.
More than two months have passed, and the replacement and transformation are only seventy to eighty percent complete.
However, the ghost in the ghost dream has been largely replaced, and complete replacement is only a matter of time.
In other words, the fierce ghost in the ghost dream is almost finished.
And indeed, it was just as Yang Jian had guessed.
Inside that coffin, some kind of supernatural connection linked to a dream world.
It was a forest.
The forest wasn't large, yet it seemed like an entire world.
From within the forest came the low growls of wolf dogs, one, two, three...a real pack of wolf dogs woven through the old woods, running swiftly.
A strange figure, incomplete and covered in scars.
It felt no pain, nor fatigue, only trying to escape this place, but no matter how it fled, it always ended up being knocked down by the wolf dogs and torn apart to death.
But after one strange figure died, another appeared, and so on.
An endless cycle of deaths has played out in this old forest countless times.
And the wolf dogs, after biting the fierce ghost to death in the dream, have become increasingly fierce.
Previously there was only one wolf dog, but now there is a whole pack.
Each wolf dog is identical, just like the fierce ghost, all derived from the supernatural.
The true source wolf dog, however, is only one.
That source wolf dog sat silhouetted in front of a small wooden cabin in the old woods like a guardian, loyally watching over this cabin.
The wooden cabin was now empty, and no one would ever live there again.
But the cabin still maintained the appearance of being inhabited, so this dog awaited its owner's return, protecting the cabin from being approached by the fierce ghost, charging up furiously to bite it to death if it got too close.
However.
The ghost did not think of entering this wooden cabin, but since the ghost appeared in this forest, the wolf dogs had already regarded it as an enemy.
They bit recklessly, without any regard.
After all, the ghost couldn't leave this forest, and if it wandered aimlessly, it would eventually be targeted by the wolf dogs.
In countless cycles, there were a few instances where the ghost managed to stay far enough from the cabin, resulting in a standoff throughout the night. The ghost was lucky to survive one night without being bitten to death.
But the second night was even more terrifying because two dogs would appear... If the ghost was lucky again not to be bitten to death the second night, then three dogs would appear on the third day.
The ghost's luckiest time was when it survived twelve consecutive nights.
But in the end, it was chased down by twelve dogs, torn apart horribly, and died more miserably than any other time.
Only this scene all took place within the dog's dream, and no one knew what was happening there.
And no one knew how many cycles had occurred in this forest in total.
Thousands? Tens of thousands? Or even hundreds of thousands?
But the only thing known is.
The ghost's body became increasingly tattered and was on the brink of disappearing completely...
In reality, Yang Jian had now returned to the Guanjiang Residential Complex.
He needed to prepare some things, then planned to act with Li Yang again, heading to the fifth floor of the post office.
The fifth floor was the last level, and with luck, they could thoroughly solve this supernatural place this time. Time was urgent, and he didn't want to wait any longer, especially since Sun Rui, the person in charge in Dahan City, was still guarding the first floor of the post office.
If they were late, Sun Rui might not hold on and die in the post office.
Yang Jian did not want to see this result happen.
So he came to Li Yang's home.
But at this time, Li Yang was in the yard with his family, happily grilling skewers.
"Captain? You're just in time. Come, have some food, freshly grilled beef skewers."
When Li Yang saw Yang Jian appear, he first paused, then smiled and enthusiastically offered a freshly grilled skewer.
"This skill I learned from the barbecue shop downstairs at the company, guaranteed to taste good."
Yang Jian greeted Li Yang's family first, then took the skewer and said, "When did your family move to Dachang City? I didn't see them before."
"They just moved recently. I used to live in Dayuan City, but it wasn't peaceful there either."
Li Yang lowered his voice and said, "So I had already prepared for my family to move, but too many things kept happening, delaying it again and again, until when we went out, my family finally all moved over."
"Luckily, Captain, this community is big enough, and there are enough houses, no need to worry about a place to live."
He then smiled again.
"With me in Dachang City, it's relatively safer than other places, and any city with the captain will be very safe in the future."
Yang Jian said, "It's a trend, and the headquarters is also clear, letting the captain stay stationed in big cities to ensure stability. I'm lucky to have been the person in charge of Dachang City before; otherwise, I'd have to move to another big city."
Li Yang nodded.
The two ate some food and talked for a while before he finally said, "Captain, when are we departing this time?"
Yang Jian looked around and said, "No rush, we'll go after we finish eating, relax a bit."
"Then I'll listen to the captain." Li Yang knew they would be going on a business trip again this time.
Although it's hard and dangerous, he didn't have any complaints.
After all, no one else was idle either; they all had to deal with supernatural events around the city, and no one was really free or relaxed.
Two hours later.
Time reached five o'clock.
Yang Jian and Li Yang planned to set off because they had to go to the fifth floor of the post office before six. If they waited until after six, they would have to go to the post office tomorrow.
Because after six, the post office lights would go out, and it would be dangerous to go at that time.
Going an hour early is safer too,
But going early isn't necessarily safe either; after all, it's a supernatural place, and many things are unpredictable.