"What bad luck, to run into these people," Fang Ming grumbled as he fled, lamenting that for the first time in his life, he'd encountered such desperate characters in reality.
What was even more outrageous was that these individuals were armed with guns. How did they manage to roam around China with such weapons undetected?
Fang Ming had no time to bother with the Grey Resentment Dolls anymore. The group pursuing him was relentless. If he stopped even for a moment, they would find him, and his chances of escaping again would be uncertain.
An hour later, Fang Ming stopped, panting. He glanced back at the pursuit, realizing they hadn't caught up. He then cautiously slipped into a room to hide.
"This must be on the fifth floor. They shouldn't find me for a while," Fang Ming thought as he sat behind a sofa to rest. He took out his diary from his cloth bag to check for upcoming events.
"To escape the pursuit, I made my way to the fifth floor. Simultaneously, I noticed the sky outside was gradually darkening. But the problem is, according to the time, it should be noon. The Grey Resentment Dolls are beginning to stir, and a large number of unknown malevolent beings are also becoming active."
Closing the diary, Fang Ming moved to the window, pulled back the curtain, and looked outside. Indeed, the sky was growing dim, as if night were about to fall.
Regardless of the circumstances, Fang Ming knew this situation was dire.
The village of Bai Mu, with its dual malevolent spirits, could only suppress the diary's predicted time to an hour. But this eighteen-story building had compressed that warning to a mere thirty minutes.
If the diary's prediction was related to the number and intensity of nearby malevolent spirits, then the road ahead would be quite treacherous.
Fang Ming felt a pang of despair. He had just wanted to find a place to enter the white mist world, but he had stumbled into such an absurd location.
Meanwhile, Fang Ming, standing by the window, was unaware that the cloth dolls on the floor had begun to move. Soon, they all floated into the air, their eyes glowing crimson, tears of blood streaming down their faces as they slowly drifted towards Fang Ming's back.
On the other side, Old Liu and his companions, following the compass, also arrived on the fifth floor. Unlike Fang Ming, the ordinary people among them immediately felt a strange aura coalesce in their hearts upon entering the floor—a feeling of death.
"Everyone be careful, something is wrong with this floor," Old Liu said, holding his gun and cautiously surveying their surroundings. Years of tomb raiding experience told him that something was watching them nearby!
The others also looked around nervously, not daring to let their guard down. The man in the jacket and the young master, bundled up beside him, were kept securely in the middle of the group.
"Heh heh heh..." Suddenly, laughter echoed from the darkness, a mix of male and female, old and young voices, but all undeniably eerie.
"Red cloth shoes, white cloth hat, married daughters bring family doom, ten thousand families weep, princes smile, the sun rises, the rooster remains silent..."
A series of chants began to fill the air, accompanied by the unsettling laughter, making the atmosphere even more bizarre.
"Everyone be careful, we've walked into a trap," Old Liu warned. "Quickly scatter the cinnabar ash around, light a candle, and everyone turn off your flashlights!"
His subordinates fumbled in their bags, producing a box. They opened it and scattered the cinnabar ash around. Then, one of them lit a candle and stuck it in the ground.
Everyone switched off their flashlights. The dim candlelight cast a hazy glow over the group. Using the faint light, Old Liu took out a stack of yellow paper from his bag, approached the candle, and set it ablaze. He then chanted something under his breath, as if speaking to the surroundings.
Soon, footprints began to appear on the cinnabar ash surrounding them, quickly filling the area around the group. However, these unseen entities dared not easily touch the area illuminated by the candlelight, only pacing impatiently around the periphery.
Seeing this, Old Liu breathed a sigh of relief, and the tense expressions of the others also eased somewhat.
"Be careful, these things aren't very dangerous, but there's something else behind them," Old Liu said cautiously, his gaze fixed on the disordered footprints. He had encountered such things in some large tombs.
In the trade, these were called "Yuanzi" (resentful spirits). They looked terrifying, were invisible and intangible, and constantly loitered around, but their actual offensive capabilities were not strong. Those with a bit more courage could basically ignore them.
However, what worried Old Liu were the entities behind these Yuanzi. Yuanzi were essentially attachments to powerful beings; their appearance often signaled the presence of other entities nearby.
"Ah!" Suddenly, a scream rang out from within their group. One subordinate, his face contorted in terror, clutched his forehead and slowly collapsed. A bloody hole had suddenly appeared on his forehead, from which blood flowed uncontrollably.
A swift, fatal blow!
They hadn't even seen the shadow of the assailant!
"Heh heh heh..." The laughter of the surrounding Yuanzi grew more bizarre. Cold sweat involuntarily broke out on everyone's foreheads, forcing them to become even more vigilant.
Fortunately, this group comprised seasoned tomb raiders. Otherwise, this single incident would have been enough to shatter their ranks.
"Damn it!" Old Liu cursed, putting away his gun. He pulled a copper coin sword from his backpack, bit his finger, and drew it across the sword's blade, chanting incantations at it.
"Ah!" Another person fell victim, again a fatal blow to the center of the forehead!
Old Liu's eyes narrowed. Seizing the opportunity, he flung the copper coin sword. The sword, as if possessing eyes, twisted unnaturally towards the ceiling and stabbed into the darkness.
"Pfft!" It hit!
Old Liu's eyes brightened. He quickly used a secret technique to activate the copper coin sword. A flash of golden light erupted from the darkness, and the group finally saw the "assailant's" face—a resentful, monstrous toad.
"Damn it! It's not them!" Old Liu was shocked. He quickly used his finger as a brush and his blood as ink, drawing runes in the air.
But unfortunately, his speed was a step too slow. He sensed a danger approaching him from an unseen force. He quickly dodged to the side.
"Oof—" Old Liu let out a pained groan. His shoulder, which he had not fully managed to evade, suddenly bore a bloody hole. Had he not dodged, this hole would have appeared on his forehead!
The unseen attacker retreated immediately after missing its target, giving Old Liu no chance to retaliate. Old Liu clutched his injured shoulder and continued to draw runes in the air.
Finally, after half a minute, a complex rune was completed in the air. A flash of light followed, and it vanished into the void.
Old Liu finally breathed a sigh of relief, his face pale as he sat on the ground, gasping for air.
"Sixth Master, are you alright?" The others, who had witnessed Old Liu perform "immortal arts," were stunned into silence. Seeing Old Liu slump to the ground, they quickly inquired with concern.
"I'm fine, just a bit tired. Let me rest," Old Liu waved them off, preventing his subordinates from helping him up. "It's safe for now. Once this rune is successfully drawn, ordinary spirits won't dare approach easily."
"Impressive skills indeed," the man in the jacket said, wiping the sweat from his brow and praising Old Liu. "When we get out of here, I will report to the master and recommend you as our family's security chief!"
Old Liu gave a wry smile. "Forget it. Let's worry about getting out first." These people didn't understand the current situation, but he knew some things. The higher they went in this building, the more dangerous it would likely become. Encountering opponents of this caliber on the fifth floor, what kind of entities awaited them on the top floor, the eighteenth?
How could the country allow such a dangerous place to exist within a human city? Weren't they afraid that the entities inside might go berserk and come out to kill innocents?
Protected by the surrounding runes, the unknown monster sensed that it was difficult to deal with and quietly retreated. The Yuanzi that had followed it also gradually dispersed, and peace returned to Old Liu's surroundings.
Meanwhile.
Fang Ming stared thoughtfully at the pile of torn cloth on the ground. He hadn't expected that after the Grey Resentment Dolls transformed into their vengeful state, the resentment within them would triple in potency. If they hadn't been so weak, they might have succeeded in their surprise attack just now.
"It seems that once the sky darkens, these monsters become active," Fang Ming stretched. With his abilities, as long as he didn't encounter any powerful malevolent spirits or get mobbed, he should theoretically be relatively safe.
"I killed so many cloth dolls during the day. If I run into these things again, they'll likely target me first. It's better to be cautious."
However, with these monsters becoming more active, it was also good news for Fang Ming. The humans tracking him would likely be delayed by the monsters. After all, while Fang Ming feared bullets, these monsters did not. Fully formed malevolent beings could even withstand gunfire, as their regenerative abilities were not to be underestimated.
Suddenly, Fang Ming sensed a dense wave of resentment rapidly approaching him from a distance. Judging by the amount and concentration of the resentment, this entity's strength was not to be underestimated.
"Finally, a big one is showing up," Fang Ming sneered, suppressing his breathing. He cautiously hid behind a cabinet, keeping an eye on the room's door. As soon as the entity opened the door and entered, it would face Fang Ming's storm of attacks!
This week's silver ticket count is only over 200, less than half of last week's. Feeling down~ Please give me some votes.