Chapter 108: The Woman Outside the Apartment

"You can go."

"The next time we meet, Shanghai City will be in complete chaos. A brand-new era will slowly rise."

Gao Tian stood before the sinister Buddha statue, its entire body seeping blackish-red blood. The statue was heavily damaged, its hideous flesh peeling back to expose stark white bone—like a monster that had been torn apart alive and forcefully pieced back together.

After swearing never to leak anything about the Galan Society or the Woman in the Rain, Gao Tian felt as if something had been drawn out of his body. He couldn't tell if it was just his imagination.

"You still remember the path out of the Divine Tree, right?"

"I have other matters to attend to, so I won't see you out."

Xu Yuan still wore that fake, skin-deep smile. Perhaps it was a side effect of his rotting corpse puppet body.

Beyond the Divine Tree lay the countless stations of the Inner World, suspended thousands of meters in the air. Without the Phantom Train or the Supernatural Bus, crossing the Supernatural Zone would be nearly impossible—not just for the living, but even for those with special abilities.

Standing at the freezing, wind-swept exit of the Divine Tree, Gao Tian watched the white clouds drifting slowly beneath his feet. He didn't hesitate in the slightest. He took a step forward and simply jumped.

This was Xu Yuan's lair, after all, and lingering only invited trouble. He couldn't delay for a single second; he had to leave before Xu Yuan changed his mind.

He had already earned enough today, whether in lifespan, Supernatural Items, or a glimpse at the tip of the iceberg regarding this world.

His body plummeted. The ground below rushed up to meet him.

Right before he splattered into a pile of tomato paste, Gao Tian activated the Black Card in his hand and teleported away.

Inside the Living Apartment, a black hole appeared out of thin air, and a human figure dropped directly above the sofa.

Jiang Yang crashed heavily onto the couch. He was covered in blood and mud, a look of pure disbelief still plastered across his face.

Even for a veteran Apartment employee who had survived five Green Text Missions, the events that had just unfolded at the subway station completely exceeded his expectations.

While he was waiting for a train on the platform, a misty drizzle had suddenly begun falling inside the underground station. Then, a tall woman holding a White Umbrella slowly walked out of the tunnel.

—

Some passengers realized something was wrong and tried to leave the station, only to find the exits sealed. Others actively courted death, even crowding around to take pictures of her.

However, the final fate of both groups was exactly the same.

They were all taken away to a place that defied description.

Recalling this, Jiang Yang began to pant heavily.

At first, he had planned to save his Black Card and linger at the subway station a bit longer. He wanted to see if there was any path to survival, or at least observe the Woman in the Rain's Killing Rule.

That was until he saw the children in the chaotic crowd, realizing they were going to die there too.

Unable to hold back his impulse, Jiang Yang abandoned his plan to watch from the sidelines. He drew his revolver and unloaded silver bullets at the Woman in the Rain, hoping to interrupt her and give the crowd a chance to escape.

He never expected that this momentary act of kindness would nearly cost him his life.

The Woman in the Rain, who had been a hundred meters away at the other end of the platform, instantly abandoned the crowd. In the very next second, she glided right in front of him.

The White Umbrella slowly tilted up, and beneath its canopy, he saw the Woman in the Rain's actual face for the first time.

What did this woman actually look like?

Every time he tried to recall it, Jiang Yang's temples throbbed madly, his blood pumping so fast his veins felt like they would burst. It was a terrifying, utterly horrifying face—more bloodcurdling than anything he had encountered in a Green Text Mission.

In that second, Jiang Yang's entire body had gone rigid. He couldn't even twitch his pinky finger.

Even after he returned to the Living Apartment, his brain triggered a self-defense mechanism, forcibly erasing the memory of the face beneath the umbrella. It was the only way to keep him from suffering a total mental collapse.

He was going to die—that was the only thought Jiang Yang retained from that moment.

Fortunately, as the Woman in the Rain slowly closed in on him, he relied on sheer willpower to forcibly activate his Black Card at the very last second. He escaped to the Living Apartment in the nick of time.

For the first time in his life, he was grateful he had been recruited into the Living Apartment.

Lying on the sofa, Jiang Yang regained some composure and tried to sort through what had just happened.

According to rumors on the internet, the Woman in the Rain's initial Killing Rule had been relatively simple: anyone who watched a video of her would be taken away on a rainy day about seven days later.

At the same time, the cursed person would become a source of infection. Anyone who came into contact with them would also eventually see the Woman in the Rain, becoming the next link in the Meme contagion.

But that was exactly the problem.

It was impossible for every single person in that station to have seen the Woman in the Rain.

At the very least, Jiang Yang was absolutely certain he had never watched her video.

And even if someone had, the curse still required an incubation period to take effect.

Yet the Woman in the Rain's manifestation this time proved she genuinely intended to indiscriminately take away every single passenger and staff member waiting in the station.

Was the Woman in the Rain's Killing Rule changing?

Jiang Yang lay flat on the couch, trying to clear his thoughts.

Once the Woman in the Rain spread to a certain extent, did she start splitting and mutating like a virus?

If a Fierce Ghost could evolve, that was truly terrifying news.

In a densely populated metropolis like Shanghai City, who knew how many people had already watched the Woman in the Rain's video.

If the curse erupted from all those people at once, half the city would be wiped out. Not to mention that given how far it had already spread, cutting off the source was now virtually impossible.

They could only watch helplessly as the Woman in the Rain completed cycle after cycle of transmission and evolution, until she finally morphed into some unspeakable entity.

Having figured this out, Jiang Yang knew that relying on his strength alone—or even the Living Apartment's—wouldn't be enough to handle this paranormal incident.

He needed to borrow a higher-level power. An official organization, for instance.

He walked over to the counter in the first-floor lobby and dug an old telephone directory out of the drawer beneath it.

"Please show me the current phone number for the Supernatural Disaster Bureau."

This was a Supernatural Item Xia Ta had obtained during a mission. Upon the user's request, it could display whatever phone number was needed.

Most of the time, this item was completely useless, so it had been casually tossed in here. He hadn't expected it to actually come in handy at a time like this.

The Supernatural Disaster Bureau had no fixed number. Right now, their latest number slowly surfaced on the pages of the phone book.

Jiang Yang pulled out his mobile phone, ready to dial the number displayed.

He had to bring this paranormal event to the attention of the official organizations. The Woman in the Rain was entirely different from other internet-based supernatural phenomena that typically claimed only one or two victims, or at most a few dozen. A Meme-type incident, once it fully erupted, carried the genuine risk of wiping out an entire city.

A busy signal buzzed from the other end of the line. It seemed the Supernatural Disaster Bureau was experiencing an explosive workload, receiving god-knows-how-many calls every second. He wasn't even sure if he could get through on this number.

Just as Jiang Yang held his mobile phone and waited, he heard a continuous dripping sound outside the Apartment's doors.

He lifted his head and looked toward the glass doors leading out of the lobby.

It was raining.

Wait, when did the rain get so heavy?

Slightly surprised, Jiang Yang temporarily exited the call screen and opened his weather app to check the forecast for the next seven days.

Sunny.

Sunny.

Sunny.

Still sunny.

There wasn't even a single overcast day scheduled, much less a heavy downpour like this.

Was this sudden rain caused by a paranormal event?

Beep, beep, beep.

The busy signal on his mobile phone continued to sound. Mixed with the patter of the heavy rain outside, it wove into an ominous premonition.

Amid flashing lightning, a tall woman holding a White Umbrella slowly walked step by step across the muddy, rain-flooded bluestone pavement until she reached the glass doors at the entrance of the Living Apartment's lobby.

The roaring downpour couldn't drown out the sound of her footsteps splashing in the puddles.

Jiang Yang stood perfectly still in the center of the lobby, silently facing off against the Woman in the Rain outside. They were separated only by a thin pane of glass.

This woman had come from a subway station thousands of meters away just to find him.

Right now, she stood just beyond the glass, seemingly blocked by the door, making no move to enter.

But she showed no sign of leaving, either.

Contrasted against the woman's towering figure and the massive canopy of her umbrella, the entrance to the Living Apartment looked exceptionally fragile.

This was really bad.

Jiang Yang thought to himself.

He had been targeted.

The only piece of good news was that the Living Apartment's rules were still effective. The Woman in the Rain lingered outside, with no immediate sign of entering.

Ai Ning put on her black uniform. Today was her first official day of work at the Supernatural Disaster Bureau.

—

—

Shanghai City hadn't been very peaceful lately, with incidents happening every few days. For example, the Jinhai Building right in front of her had suddenly been destroyed by an unknown force. Dozens of the upper floors had been crushed into compressed biscuits by a terrifying, freakish power, causing countless casualties. Fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, and the media were all here, and emergency rescue operations were underway.

Because she was a rookie, Ai Ning had been assigned to the perimeter. Her only job was to persuade gawking citizens to leave and to keep out tabloid reporters trying to sneak into the Jinhai Building. This damn place could suffer a secondary collapse at any moment, resulting in even more casualties.

This job was completely different from what she had imagined before joining the Supernatural Disaster Bureau.

All those days of grueling training had been wasted; any ordinary security guard could have done this.

Just as Ai Ning was standing there like a statue, she caught a glimpse of a skinny old man out of the corner of her eye. He was smoking a large Smoking Pipe, wearing a faded, washed-out military greatcoat, and squatting on the ground. She had no idea when he had slipped past the police line.

The little old man squatted there with great interest. As he tapped some ash out of his large Smoking Pipe, he continuously dug and scratched at the ground with his yellowed fingernails, though it was impossible to tell what he was trying to dig up.

He looked like a rural old man who had just come to the city.

How strange.

Ai Ning suddenly felt that something was off.

Why hadn't she seen this old man walk over earlier?

It was as if he had popped out of thin air.

If she had seen anyone approaching the police tape, she would have immediately called out to stop them.