Chapter 109: Risking Death to Open the Door

The old man was like a ghost, having appeared inexplicably inside the police cordon. He stood in an empty clearing before the ruins of the Jinhai Building, tapping his large Smoking Pipe against the ground and muttering incomprehensible words. "Not an ordinary ghost—there are traces of a ghost domain having been deployed—"

"Strange. There's more than one ghost here—"

"What do these bastards want? To come to Shanghai City and throw a party together—"

"To be able to force a Fierce Ghost to deploy its ghost domain—here in the Jinhai Building, a ghost is fighting something.

"Shanghai City—since when did such an impressive figure show up? Why have I never heard of them—"

Seeing the old man completely immersed in his own world, ignoring the thick smoke and the precarious, crumbling debris overhead, Ai Ning finally couldn't hold back. She lifted the police tape and stepped inside. "Old sir.

"It's dangerous here. According to regulations, you need to head back immediately."

Ai Ning called out to him three times, but the rustic old man in the military greatcoat remained incredibly arrogant. He couldn't even be bothered to lift his head and look at her. Even with Ai Ning's excellent temper, she began to lose her patience. "Old sir, why are you so stubborn?

"If you don't leave right now, I'll have to forcibly remove you for your own safety."

Ai Ning had a Supernatural Item on hand. Although dealing with a true Fierce Ghost would be difficult, taking on three or four ordinary people would be no problem at all, let alone dragging away an old man.

Only then did the old man in the greatcoat seem to realize there was someone beside him. He slowly raised his brow and cast a glance at Ai Ning.

He squinted, his face full of wrinkles. "Carry me out?

"Little girl, just you?"

Hearing the mockery and doubt in his words, Ai Ning huffed angrily, "Yes, just me.

"Don't blame me if things get rough, old man. This is for your own safety."

The old man chuckled and tapped his large Smoking Pipe against the ground, knocking loose the excess ash. "Hurry up and go home, little girl.

"I'm a colleague of yours, also from the Supernatural Disaster Bureau. I can keep watch here just fine."

Hearing this, Ai Ning genuinely couldn't hold back a laugh. "Old man, do I look like an idiot to you?

"If you wanted to join the Supernatural Disaster Bureau, you'd fail on your clothes alone. Not to mention that, according to Rule 147, you'd at least need to pull out an ID first to prove—"

Before she could finish her sentence, Ai Ning abruptly snapped her mouth shut.

The old man in the greatcoat, who had appeared inside the police cordon like a ghost, had vanished into thin air the very next second without a trace.

This—

Ai Ning rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

Had she just been talking to thin air this whole time?

Just as Ai Ning wondered if she had hallucinated, if she was being affected by some supernatural power, and what she should do according to the Safety Regulations...

Suddenly, the countless people gathered at the foot of the building threw their heads back, gazing up at the burning higher floors, and started to scream.

It was as if they had witnessed an unbelievable scene.

Many people pulled out their mobile phones and began filming the highest, still-standing floors of the Jinhai Building.

Instinctively, Ai Ning also raised her head, looking up toward whatever was drawing the screams and cameras of the massive crowd below.

What she saw was the old man in the greatcoat. He had somehow appeared at the very top of the Jinhai Building, standing on a piece of protruding wreckage from a collapsed pillar.

He stood perfectly balanced on the beam.

Right in front of the old man was an enveloping sea of fire. Beneath his feet was a bottomless abyss.

With the blaze on the upper floors still completely uncontrolled, the small, jutting fragment beneath the old man's feet could collapse at any second.

Yet he didn't seem to care in the slightest. Over a hundred meters in the air, he took a drag as if standing on solid ground, then tapped his Smoking Pipe against the stone pillar beneath his feet.

His greatcoat was blown back by the fierce wind, billowing wildly against the sky like a cape.

Ai Ning wanted to get a closer look, but in the blink of an eye, the old man a hundred meters in the air vanished yet again.

The Woman in the Rain was blocking the entrance of the Apartment. Although she couldn't enter under the Apartment's rules, the people inside couldn't enter or exit normally, either.

Jiang Yang felt a headache coming on. He couldn't stay in the Apartment for the rest of his life. If someone had to execute a Green Text Mission right now and was forced to leave, it would be a disaster.

Just as the stalemate dragged on, a black hole materialized out of thin air in the first-floor lobby. A second resident had activated their Black Card and teleported in.

Gao Tian crashed onto the sofa. Before he could even steady himself, he spotted the tall woman holding an umbrella outside the lobby's glass doors. Her exposed jaw was pressed tightly against the glass, tracking every move the two men made inside the Apartment.

The sight was as bizarre and eerie as it could possibly be.

Gao Tian instinctively turned his head and asked, "Is this the Woman in the Rain?"

He never expected this. He had just been chatting with Xu Yuan about this ghostly entity by the Divine Tree, and the very first thing he saw upon returning to the Living Apartment was her.

Speak of the devil, and the devil appears.

Jiang Yang sounded somewhat bitter. "Yeah. I provoked her at the subway station.

"I thought I'd be fine once I used the Black Card to return to the Apartment. I never expected this woman to be so relentless that she'd actually chase me all the way here.

"Sorry. I might have dragged you into this."

The initial Killing Rule of the Woman in the Rain was that anyone who saw a recording of her would become a source of infection, and they would be taken away by her on a rainy day.

Seeing her in person was even worse; Gao Tian was now highly likely infected.

Even while they stayed inside the Apartment—and even though the Apartment could suppress the entity's curse—the Woman in the Rain had already memorized Gao Tian's face. Not to mention, they couldn't even leave right now.

One crisis hadn't even passed before another struck. To make matters worse, lines of green text slowly began to surface on the rear wall of the first-floor lobby.

A new Green Text Mission had been issued.

It wasn't clear whose Green Text Mission it was, but this meant an Apartment resident would be forced to leave the safe zone of the Living Apartment.

Now, they couldn't hide out even if they wanted to.

Jiang Yang fully loaded the cylinder of his revolver. Clenching his jaw, he finally made a decision. "Forget it. I'll go out first and lure this bastard away.

"I won't drag anyone else down with me."

Gao Tian stared out the glass doors at the woman's eerily smiling jaw beneath the umbrella. "It hasn't come to that yet. Don't go out just yet.

"If you leave the Apartment's safe zone right now, you'll definitely die."

This might actually be an opportunity instead.

If the Woman in the Rain continued to endlessly pollute and grow in Shanghai City, she would evolve into an entirely unsolvable S-Level incident.

Because of his oath before the Corrupted Evil Buddha, even though Gao Tian knew this secret, he absolutely couldn't tell anyone else. He couldn't report it to the Supernatural Disaster Bureau—he couldn't even entertain the thought.

However, while he had sworn not to tell others, he had never sworn not to imprison the Woman in the Rain.

Gao Tian still had an empty Urn on him. It was originally used to suppress the Ghost Infant, but since the Ghost Infant had been let go, the Urn was empty once more.

If he used this Urn to forcefully drag the Woman in the Rain into a game, he could successfully imprison her with the help of his Ghost Luck.

It would resolve the Living Apartment's crisis while simultaneously ruining the Galan Society's arrangements.

Killing two birds with one stone.

Noticing the shift in Gao Tian's gaze as he looked at the woman outside the glass doors, Jiang Yang guessed what he wanted to do. "Are you considering using a Supernatural Item to deal with this Fierce Ghost?"

Gao Tian nodded. "Yeah, I am.

"I have a Supernatural Item that has a very high success rate against this type of Fierce Ghost."

But he didn't recklessly push open the glass doors and step outside.

A Meme-type urban legend capable of growing to the S-Level and destroying Shanghai City had naturally been meticulously handpicked by Xu Yuan. The terror it possessed meant it wouldn't be contained so easily.

Jiang Yang cautioned him. "That's a bit risky, Gao Tian.

"This woman can teleport instantly. She's no ordinary Fierce Ghost.

"If the Supernatural Item is too weak, she might forcibly break free from it."

Outside, the clear, heavy downpour had, at some unknown point, gradually turned blood-red.

The world beyond the Living Apartment resembled a bloody hell, pitching and swaying amidst a vast ocean of blood and sinful bones.

Through the glass doors, they could barely make out the woman's silhouette outside. Even her pure white umbrella was gradually turning blood-red.

Gao Tian didn't have much time left. This Fierce Ghost was undergoing some sort of bizarre transformation, and that was not a good thing.

He would take the risk and try it. If he won, the payoff would be massive.

Gao Tian quickly rushed to the front desk, found a small Mirror, and tucked it away for self-defense. Then, he walked up to the glass doors and cast a glance at the woman outside.

Inside the Apartment, no Supernatural Item could be used. Gao Tian took a deep breath. The exact moment he pushed the doors open to leave the Apartment, he popped open the Urn in his hands and aimed it directly at her.

No blood rain drenched his body. It was as if both the human and the ghost had been dragged into an independent world, even though the environment around them hadn't changed at all.

Beneath the umbrella, the woman's exposed lips curled into a faint, eerie smile.

As a plume of gray ash drifted out of the box, the rules for this drawn game automatically materialized in front of both Gao Tian and the Woman in the Rain.

It worked. The Urn had pulled them both into the game without provoking any resistance from the Woman in the Rain.

[Comparing Points]

The rules of the game were incredibly simple and relied completely on luck.

A deck of cards appeared between the man and the ghost. Both sides would draw a card at the same time, and whoever had the higher value would win. If both sides' cards were identical in value, or if either side drew a Joker, the round would automatically be voided and they would proceed to the next.

When it came to a battle of luck, Gao Tian had never been afraid.

Even a cheater like the Ghost Infant, who could directly swap its opponent's hand, had suffered a crushing defeat under Gao Tian's overwhelming Ghost Luck.

Before drawing a card, Gao Tian immediately opened his Luck Jar, releasing a portion of his stored Ghost Luck.

At the same time, he placed his hand on the deck of cards suspended between them and drew his first card.

What he drew was only a 10 of Spades.

It wasn't exactly a low card, but it wasn't particularly high either.

It could be beaten by Jacks, Queens, and Kings. That meant there were twelve cards in the deck higher than his.

Right at this moment, the Woman in the Rain's free hand—the one not holding the umbrella—extended outward. She drew her card from the deck.