Chapter 171: Yusheng's Backup Plan

In the distance, countless helicopters buzzed like flies. Xu Yuan knew that reporters around the world were aiming their cameras and telephoto lenses at the center of Minghai City. Ghost hunters from Xia Country and abroad were already deployed just outside the city limits. The moment he lost control, they would attack.

Viewers in front of screens across the globe were watching, waiting to see what fate would befall Minghai City today.

Originally, Xu Yuan had planned to use this opportunity to wipe out the reinforcements from Xia Country and the World Ghost Hunter Association in one fell swoop, killing them all.

But after the Smiling Man descended upon this era, Xu Yuan changed his mind. There would be no battle today.

Let it end here.

Using Gao Tian as a vessel had only temporarily suppressed the Smiling Man. The entity could return at any moment.

It was highly likely that this era had already begun to be corrupted, though the mutations remained unnoticed for now.

Time-manipulating Fierce Ghosts were exceedingly rare across the entire world. No ghost hunter knew how to deal with them.

Old Man Sun didn't know, the Eighth Young Master of Shunjin City didn't know, Bushin Taiga didn't know, and the people from the Black Cross Exorcism Company didn't know either.

Even with his profound supernatural knowledge, Xu Yuan was no different from an ignorant novice in this specific field. He could only act conservatively, taking Gao Tian back to the Divine Tree to study him slowly.

A single misstep could trigger some sort of space-time paradox, quite possibly driving the entire human race to an early extinction.

Xu Yuan compressed his form, shrinking from a terrifying, tens-of-meters-tall giant of human heads into a thin man in a trench coat. This was his appearance from when he was alive.

Beneath his clothes and under his skin, countless resentful, twisted human faces churned and surfaced like the waves of purgatory, ready to crawl out at any moment.

He was still the King of All Ghosts who had devoured tens of thousands of Fierce Ghosts. This physical form was merely an illusion.

"Killing Rule 3765: Black Door.

"Create a black door in any location. Pushing it open leads to a random station in the Inner World."

With a mere thought from Xu Yuan, a black-framed wooden door slowly materialized on the devastated earth.

This black door briefly connected Minghai City to the Inner World. If Xu Yuan wanted to leave, tens of thousands of ghost hunters couldn't stop him.

The moment he pushed this door open, today's war would officially be over.

"Come with me, Gao Tian."

Xu Yuan pushed the door halfway open and took half a step through. But behind him, Gao Tian remained motionless, standing in place like a rooted wooden stake, showing absolutely no intention of obeying his command.

"What's the matter? Do I need to chop off your limbs, blind your eyes, deafen your ears, and stuff you into a vase like a bouquet of flowers just to make you behave?

"I only promised not to kill you for the time being. I never guaranteed you'd stay in one piece."

A trace of viciousness flashed through Xu Yuan's eyes.

Failing to devour the Smiling Man and allowing it to descend upon this era ahead of schedule had already sparked his ire.

Only his excellent self-control had kept him from lashing out.

Yet even now, this Gao Tian still thought he had the right to bargain with him. Was he planning to loiter here in Minghai City, refusing to return to the Inner World with him?

Refusing a toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit. If he wouldn't walk, then he would never walk again. He might as well just chop off Gao Tian's legs.

Standing at the threshold of the black door, Xu Yuan slowly turned his head. Right then, he heard a bone-chilling, entirely irregular bout of giggling.

The laughter, sometimes low and sometimes piercingly sharp, was coming from right behind him. It was coming from "Gao Tian."

"I told you—heeheehee—I told you—you'll never, never—ever get rid of me—

"No matter the method—heehee, no matter the time—even if you hide at the ends of the earth—I will—find you—

"Find you—find this time—

"I am Gao Tian—ha—Gao Tian—is me—

"I am—a sweet dream—you can never—ever—wake up from."

Fresh blood slowly trickled from Gao Tian's eyes. He turned his head, fixing his hollow, blood-red sockets in Xu Yuan's direction. At the same time, the corners of his mouth began to curl upwards once more. Stretching into an exaggerated, twisted arc, his trembling lips parted as he broke into uproarious laughter.

Xu Yuan's pupils shrank into pinpricks.

He was back. The Smiling Man, who skipped across countless points in time, had returned.

Would this ever end?

He had pulled Gao Tian back to take the wheel, but it hadn't even lasted thirty seconds. Gao Tian's consciousness had been submerged again, swapping the Smiling Man back online.

Xu Yuan could certainly dive into Gao Tian's consciousness again and drag him back to the surface. But it was pointless. The intervals between the Smiling Man's returns were growing shorter and shorter. It was only a matter of time before it completely replaced Gao Tian.

The final method of containing this Fierce Ghost that could jump across the timeline had failed. Theoretically speaking, it was now completely invincible.

Had things completely spiraled out of control?

Even someone as experienced and knowledgeable as Xu Yuan was momentarily rooted to the spot, unsure of what to do next.

"Wh—what's wrong—wh—why aren't you saying anything—

"Ar—aren't you happy—that I came—came all this way to play with you—

"Little friend—you were the one—who peeked at me—across all that distant time—you're the one who invited me here—

"Why—why did you pluck out your eyeballs again—

"Were you—that terrified—I would come looking for you—?"

Countless corpse spots rapidly spread across the Smiling Man's face as his skin rotted at an accelerated rate. He took slow, deliberate steps toward Xu Yuan, leaving a bloody footprint with every stride.

The environment around the entity underwent a grotesque mutation. The ruined, collapsed buildings began to "rebuild" themselves, rising from the earth as though time were flowing backwards. However, they didn't take the shape of the city center's former skyscrapers. Instead, they formed towering edifices of human bodies, constructed from chunks of corpses, flesh, and blood.

For the Smiling Man, time was a chaotic mess. Its version of "rewinding time" didn't restore Minghai City to its pre-war state. Instead, it used human flesh and bone to replace what should have been steel and concrete, creating a clumsy, farcical, and blood-soaked imitation of the past.

Xu Yuan knew that the time and space around the Smiling Man were already being corrupted. If left unchecked, this corruption would rapidly spread until everything mirrored the Smiling Man itself—stripped of linear time and independence. The entire world would devolve into a chaotic, randomly skipping mass of fragmented time.

Just as the Smiling Man descended into fits of uncontrollable, hysterical laughter—just as the entirety of Minghai City, and even the King of All Ghosts, Xu Yuan, found themselves completely out of options—the Gray Card in Gao Tian's pocket spontaneously combusted, abruptly activating its power.

Before Gao Tian ascended to the fourth floor, Yusheng had gifted him a Gray Card. Later, during a life-or-death crisis on the fifth floor, Gao Tian had tried to activate the Gray Card to escape, but it had refused him.

The Gray Card possessed its own independent judgment. It had determined that the true crisis wouldn't arrive for another three months. Since that situation wasn't guaranteed death, there had been no need to use it then.

At the time, Gao Tian had cursed that treacherous Gray Card half to death in his heart. He had even briefly suspected that Yusheng was intentionally trying to get him killed.

Now, the guaranteed, fatal calamity the Gray Card had foreseen three months ago had finally arrived.

With its master's consciousness forced offline, the Gray Card made its own judgment. It was going to forcibly teleport Gao Tian—or whatever ghost monstrosity the Smiling Man was—back to the Living Apartment.

"Trying to leave?"

Seeing Gao Tian's corpse twist into a black hole as it prepared to teleport away, two entities present moved to stop it simultaneously.

Human faces surfaced on Xu Yuan's hand as a Killing Rule called "Ghost Intestine" activated. If anyone tried to teleport away from him, that blood-red intestine could follow them straight into the teleportation zone and forcefully drag them back.

At the same time, the Smiling Man was having far too much fun and had no desire to leave just yet.

The entity dug the burning Gray Card out of its pocket. Its smiling lips slowly parted, drool spilling to the ground as it tossed the card into its mouth and chewed it to pieces.

Yet even with both of them acting simultaneously, they still couldn't stop the Gray Card's activation.

Gao Tian's corpse morphed into a black hole, dragging the bloody intestine in Xu Yuan's hand along with it as it forcefully vanished into thin air.

A black hole materialized out of thin air in the first-floor lobby of the Apartment. The superimposed corpse of Gao Tian and the Smiling Man was violently hurled onto the sofa.

The Apartment's absolute suppression immediately kicked in. The very first thing it severed was the ghost intestine wrapped around the corpse's ankle.

The ghost artifact Xu Yuan used to track escapees incinerated into ash, completely severing its hold on Gao Tian.

Following that, because Gao Tian had entered the Apartment, the Smiling Man sharing his superimposed state was dragged in alongside him. However, ghosts were strictly forbidden from entering the Apartment. An unprecedented level of suppression descended.

The walls, furniture, sofa, and staircase began to tremble, letting out agonizing creaks as if they were on the verge of snapping. The sheer weight of the entire Apartment pressed down upon the corpse. The expressions on Gao Tian's face rapidly warped and alternated. One moment, his mouth split open into an eerie, twisted smile; the next, he would regain brief lucidity, overwhelmed by a landslide of suffocating agony so intense he didn't even have the strength to scream.

A relentless tug-of-war began.

The Smiling Man was desperate to fully descend, but the Apartment absolutely forbade the presence of Fierce Ghosts on the first floor. Gao Tian was shoved back into control one second, only to be violently suppressed the next. The excruciating, soul-tearing agony reached an unbearable crescendo, his life flashing before his eyes like a flickering reel of film.

Several times, Gao Tian felt that just dying then and there would be a blessing. But a second later, he would be forcibly jolted awake and dragged back out to replace the Smiling Man. He truly couldn't die even if he wanted to; he didn't even have the luxury of suicide.

Heehee—haha—heeheeheeheehahahahahaha.

The Apartment didn't give a damn about time-jumping rules; it didn't matter what point in time the entity skipped to. As long as it stepped inside, Fierce Ghosts were absolutely forbidden. Not for a single minute, not for a single second.

A hundred years, a thousand years, ten thousand years—the lobby of this Apartment would never allow a Fierce Ghost to exist within it.

Time ticked by. The eternal tug-of-war ravaging "Gao Tian" on the lobby sofa seemed like it would never end.

How much time had passed in the outside world? An hour? A day? A week? A month or a year? Gao Tian had completely lost all concept of time. Perhaps even if the world ended and humanity went extinct, he would still be trapped here in the Apartment, locked in this endless tug-of-war against the Smiling Man.

After an unknown amount of time, the tug-of-war finally came to an end.

Wracked with unimaginable agony, his bones shattered to dust, paralyzed and burning with a raging fever, Gao Tian couldn't even open his eyes—his world was pitch black.

But he knew that everything was over.

The Apartment had won.

There was no concept of time inside the Apartment. The rule forbidding Fierce Ghosts was absolute and eternal. If the Smiling Man wanted to play, the Apartment would play with it until the bitter end. Even if ten thousand years passed and the outside world crumbled to dust, the Smiling Man would still never be allowed to set foot inside.

Gradually, Gao Tian felt a pair of cold yet gentle hands slowly lift his "sleeping" body from the sofa.

Without a word, the person carried him up the stairs and onto the Third Floor. They pushed open the door to Gao Tian's room and gently laid him on the large bed.

The person's movements were incredibly soft. Strands of long hair brushed faintly against his cheek, tickling him slightly and carrying a faint, delicate fragrance.

Then, they pulled the blanket over him and turned off the lights. Turning around, they stepped out and quietly closed the door.

From start to finish, the person didn't say a single word.

Gao Tian couldn't open his eyes. He couldn't even twitch his pinky finger.

He didn't know anything at all.

He only knew that he could finally get a good night's sleep.

It was all over. No one would ever disturb him here again.

This was the Apartment. It was safe here.