Mysterious Revival

Chapter 887 - 854 Room in the Darkness

"We have half an hour to act, after which we'll reach the reset boundary of the ancient mansion and killing these people again will be meaningless."

In the grand hall of the ancient mansion, Yang Jian began the next phase of the operation after eliminating Liu Baimu by using the triggering medium.

He was going to lead the team to clear out the remaining enemies.

These people were all potential hidden threats, and they couldn't be spared even if they had to act again.

"There must be some unknown dangers within the ancient mansion, otherwise, they wouldn't have fled deep inside waiting to die," Feng Quan said with a parched voice, speculating some clues.

"When truly facing death, these people will definitely fight desperately. I've seen it many times when I used to catch criminals. Even knowing there's no escape, they would still resist fiercely," Tong Qian added from the side.

Yang Jian didn't respond but instead asked, "What about Li Yang? Why hasn't he appeared yet?"

"I don't know what happened, but suddenly we can't contact him," Huang Ziya said.

"Could it be that he encountered danger after breaking away from the team earlier and something happened?" Feng Quan asked.

Yang Jian said, "Li Yang had already successfully eliminated those two people. Previously, during the reset, someone who was after Li Yang appeared again, so Li Yang is fine. Now that they can't be contacted and haven't appeared, most likely they are lost within the ancient mansion. That is the situation here; some people encounter incomprehensible situations and get lost."

"Li Yang probably got lost, so let's not worry about it for now. He can handle this situation; let's focus on the task at hand."

He didn't stop the operation just because Li Yang had broken away from the team.

"Don't break away from the team again. Let's move together; we can't lose anyone else," Yang Jian cautioned, then immediately started moving.

He led the way with Ghost Child at the very front.

The others followed behind.

Feng Quan trailed behind because of the need to guard against any dangers that might arise at any moment.

Yang Jian was very familiar with this area, as if he had been here before, lacking the sense of unfamiliarity and caution.

"Everyone has hidden away, which makes them hard to find; half an hour might not be enough. Once this time has passed, we'll reach the reset boundary, and there are dangers within the ancient mansion; it seems that the other side wants to wear us down until we give up," Feng Quan observed the surroundings cautiously while walking through the hallway where there was nothing.

Only the dark, blackish old lime bricks made up the walls.

"Maybe blocking the doorway would be better, if there's only one way out, they can't possibly survive and leave," Huang Ziya reflected and made a suggestion.

As they spoke, Yang Jian had already stopped moving.

He turned to look at a lime brick wall nearby.

Behind the wall was a hidden small compartment, which seemed to have housed something eerie before but that thing was long gone, now serving as a hideout for one person.

"Footsteps have stopped… How could Yang Jian possibly know there's a secret chamber here? It's his first time here, and without access to Ghost Domain, there's no way he should have found me," thought Xu Ming, a ghost controller, separated by just one wall.

At this moment, he was sweating nervously.

But he dared not move or even breathe heavily.

Because if Yang Jian discovered him, then he was as good as dead.

Although he was well-hidden, he could still clearly hear a series of footsteps stopping right outside where he was hiding and not moving forward.

He could even hear the conversations between Yang Jian and his teammates.

"Many people know about this secret chamber, so they think it's unsafe and have let me use it. But Yang Jian definitely doesn't know, so I should be safe. This is just a coincidence; I shouldn't worry so much," Xu Ming reassured himself internally.

However, just as this thought appeared in his mind.

Suddenly.

"Bang!" The wall in front of him suddenly broke apart.

Following that, a dark, ice-cold hand reached in through the broken wall and grabbed his neck.

"What?"

Xu Ming's eyes widened in horror, unresponsive to this sudden change. Just as he was about to resist instinctively, he found himself powerless.

The hand clutching his neck was cold and stiff, not at all like the palm of a living person, but rather resembled a dead man's hand.

A huge pulling force slammed Xu Ming heavily against the wall, as if trying to squeeze him into a hole in front of him; his bones cracking harshly all over his body.

The wall could not withstand this great force and collapsed directly.

He was dragged out, covered in dust and blood.

"Is there actually a secret room here?" Tong Qian was shocked; he also couldn't react immediately to Yang Jian's sudden action.

"You hid quite well," Yang Jian said, his dark pupils completely indifferent.

"Please, spare me, I can help you..." Xu Ming, looking at Yang Jian and others, was increasingly terrified and hastily pleaded for mercy without considering anything else.

He did not want to die.

If he had wanted to die, he would have died long ago; he would not have endured the Pendulum Clock curse until now.

Moreover, facing the group led by Yang Jian, he did not dare gamble on resurrecting after a reset.

"Help me with what?" Yang Jian asked another question.

Xu Ming hastily said, "I can lead you; I am familiar with this place. I can take you to find others, I can scout for you, just spare me."

"I don't trust the paths you lead," Yang Jian's darkened Ghost Hand suddenly exerted force.

Crack.

A crisp bone-breaking sound echoed.

The spirit medium named Xu Ming's eyes bulged out, and he died a brutal death on the spot.

And he had died twice within an hour; this was his second time.

Yang Jian threw the body into the secret room and continued forward without looking back: "Next one."

"Don't we need to handle the body? Later, it might resurrect as a malevolent spirit," Tong Qian asked.

"No need, spirits wandering in this ancient mansion will only get lost; they can't affect the outside. Besides, we're here to eliminate these people, not to handle the aftermath. Let Wang Chaling deal with it; having such an incident in his area and not yet settling the score with him, he should handle some laborious tasks."

Yang Jian did not spend time dealing with Xu Ming's body.

And he did not have the conditions for it either.

If Feng Quan were to bury them one by one, even with three spirits under his control, he too would succumb to spirit resurrection.

Suddenly.

Yang Jian continued deeper into the ancient mansion, coming to the doorway of a room.

The door of the room was old and shaky, not even locked, but inside it was pitch-black, with visibility less than five fingers, exuding a sense of eeriness and abnormality.

This is one of the unsolved mysteries of the ancient mansion.

A room enveloped in darkness.

Inside the dark room seemed limitless; venturing too deep could lead to getting lost, and what happens after that, nobody knows.

Yang Jian's mind contained the memories of the previously deceased Liao Fan.

In Liao Fan's memories, someone had once tried to explore this room, using a rope tied to equipment to measure. The rope stretched over hundreds of meters without reaching the end. Instead, they encountered inexplicable dangers and the rope broke middle way, and the measurement failed.

So, this place is very dangerous.

But the more dangerous a place, the safer it is.

Hiding in this dark room makes it quite unlikely to be found.

"Is there someone hiding inside too? Daddy Xiong sure won't go into this little dark room," Xiong Wenwen took a look then shrank back, unwilling to enter.

Yang Jian pushed open the shaky door but stood at the entrance without going inside.

Peering with his Ghost Eye, he could see a clearer picture inside up to about ten meters ahead, and within this range, he spotted several previous ghost manipulators standing.

The distance was small enough that they weren't at risk of getting lost.

"Tong Qian, it's your turn. Just cry towards this room and drive those people into the depths of darkness, letting them get lost inside," Yang Jian suggested, not taking action himself but thinking of a better idea.

"Drive them inside?" Tong Qian was somewhat puzzled.

Yang Jian explained, "The darkness in the room seems boundless, and no one knows what would happen once they go deeper. The only exit here is this door, and there are people hiding inside, but they haven't gone deep enough."

"I see."

Upon hearing this, Tong Qian immediately understood Yang Jian's intentions.

Some wanted to use the ominous nature of this place to evade their pursuit.

Without hesitation, he stepped into the room.

Tong Qian didn't go too deep, just taking about ten steps forward.

After ten steps, Tong Qian found himself engulfed in darkness, unable to see anything around him and eerily silent, as if cut off from the world, hearing only his own breathing and heartbeat.

With a bizarre twist of his neck.

A gender-neutral face with a smiling expression turned straight ahead.

A bone-chilling laugh began to echo in the room.

Strangely, although the darkness seemed boundless, the laughter echoed back surprisingly fast, as if it was just confined to the size of the room, not as vast as imagined.

The laughter contained supernatural power, and the darkness seemed unable to completely engulf this supernatural power; part of the laughter was unaffected.

And since the sound of Ghost Face's laughter could not be completely isolated, the echoing laughter accumulating would be terrifying.

Suddenly.

The ghostly laughter emerged from nothing and began to grow increasingly clear in the darkness.

"This laughter... not good, that's Tong Qian's Ghost Face laughing. Damn it, Yang Jian has discovered us here," someone who heard the laughter first paused, then startled.

"What should we do? Should we rush out and confront Yang Jian?" someone suggested on the side.

"Rushing out is suicide, Liu Baimu has already slipped away, and if we leave this room, Yang Jian will definitely kill us. We can't leave; this laughter also proves Yang Jian fears this room and didn't come deep inside, and hence had Tong Qian laugh to see if he could withstand his own ghost's resurrection."

"You're right, it's just about who can endure, and we can hold out," they agreed among one another.

In the darkness, they decided not to leave the room at any cost, and to just hold out against Tong Qian.

After all, all ghost manipulators run the risk of their ghosts resurrecting, and using supernatural power comes at a price.

But what they didn't know was that Tong Qian's two Ghost Faces had malfunctioned, an anomaly with no cost for resurrection.

Thus, the laughter of Ghost Face continued, intermittently accompanied by cries.

In the narrow room, the echoing speed of the laughter was terrifying.

In just a brief moment, laughter echoed four times consecutively.

The laughter inside the darkness grew clearer, as if a real ghost stood beside one, emitting a spine-chilling laugh.

The fifth wave of laughter arrived.

Inside the room, a ghost manipulator died.

Although the supernatural power within the darkness weakened the laugh, making it less clear outside, the pace at which it echoed was too fast, and the horror level of the laugh had reached a fatal stage.

The sixth wave arrived, nearly pushing everyone to their limit, someone cried out in terror: "Can't hold on anymore, this laughing sound has an echoing overlap..."

But as terrifying as it was, the person had not finished speaking before he abruptly stopped.

"Escape."

Some had also prematurely realized something was amiss and, gritting their teeth, ran deeper into the darkness.

At this time, those lost in it still had a chance to survive, but if they headed towards the exit, they would definitely be blocked and killed by Yang Jian.

Staying in place wasn't an option either; Tong Qian's Ghost Face continued to smile as if with no intention of stopping.

Very soon.

In less than two minutes.

The ghost controllers hiding in this dark room were dealt with.

Some died under Tong Qian's Ghost Face's laughter, others, in terror, fled deep into the darkness, completely vanishing.

But for safety's sake, Tong Qian's laughter continued for three more minutes before it abruptly ceased.

"This room is strange; the laughter seems to be trapped inside the room and can't seep out."

Yang Jian squinted his eyes, observed for a long time, yet heard no movement from Tong Qian inside.

No cries, no spread of laughter.

However, he could see Tong Qian's figure; he was indeed moving.

After the laughter stopped, Tong Qian turned around on the spot, took ten steps to the door, and walked out smoothly: "What's the situation?"

"It's all cleared." Yang Jian said.

"Good." Tong Qian nodded.

"Go to the second floor, there are some remnants left, continue cleaning." Yang Jian said.

"Okay."

The group, once again, headed to the mansion's second floor.

Meanwhile, as Yang Jian and others were pursuing those cursed by the Pendulum Clock within the mansion.

Dadong City.

At the top floor of Ning'an Building.

Wang Chaling was meeting with another guest.

A distinguished visitor from headquarters.

"Captain Li is one step too late, Yang Jian has already led his team into the mansion, and most of the people inside the mansion have probably been mostly killed by now, and he went unprepared, it seems like the aftermath will be left for me." Wang Chaling gently smiled and poured a cup of tea for the man in front of him.

The man in front of him wore the uniform of a headquarters captain, his resolute face was stern without frivolity, and sunglasses covered his eyes.

However, one could still see the ominous and eerie ghost lights mirrored behind those sunglasses.

That was the Ghost Flame burning.

Moreover, Li Jun's facial complexion was odd, the skin pigment intense, as if dyed, rigid and bizarre, exuding a stark, deathly aura.

"I came here not to watch over Yang Jian, he is a man with boundaries and restraint, knows what can and cannot be done, his performance in the Hungry Ghost incident is commendable, such people are highly tolerated by headquarters." Li Jun spoke like a lifeless corpse, body rigidly unmoving.

"So Captain Li didn't undertake a long journey to Dadong City just to have tea with me, please, taste this freshly brewed black tea." Wang Chaling gestured.

Li Jun said, "Yang Jian has boundaries, doesn't mean others have boundaries, my purpose here is to peg those who lack boundaries."

Wang Chaling's smile stiffened, he said, "Why, are you referring to me?"

"Not you, but all the people in this city, you included of course." Li Jun stated, tone harsh, adopting a purely official attitude.