Chapter 177: Old District

This search-type Supernatural Item was currently quite important to Gao Tian.

He needed to find the Hanged Man in the Old District, Shen Nian in Blood Door Village, and Xia Ta back in Shanghai City.

Every single one of his three missions involved finding a person or a ghost.

The fifty-year lifespan cost would be a devastating blow to an ordinary person—one misstep, and the Ghost Merchant would scam and kill them. But what did it matter to Gao Tian? Xu Yuan had topped off his lifespan with four hundred years at the Divine Tree.

"Two Supernatural Items in exchange for one Bone Compass.

"As for the exchange, any Supernatural Item will do. There are no restrictions. We accept them all."

The Ghost Merchant's front face spoke.

Gao Tian wasn't having it. He was no sucker. Two Supernatural Items, even the most garbage ones, was too steep a price.

The Wind Attendant Buddha said, "Using the compass once drains fifty years of life. You're already making a killing, and you still have the nerve to ask for two Supernatural Items?

"One, at most. If you won't take it, forget it."

Another face spoke up. "Sell it to him.

"He'll be dead after using it twice anyway."

A normal person's lifespan couldn't possibly exceed a hundred years. The Ghost Merchant had calculated perfectly: once Gao Tian died, wouldn't all the Supernatural Items on his corpse just end up abandoned on the street? It just had to wait to loot the body.

The other two faces agreed in unison. "Deal."

"Hehehe."

Next came the exchange. Gao Tian had to think about which Supernatural Item to offer.

He certainly couldn't hand over his life-saving trump cards: the Black Tie, the Urn, and the Ghost Card.

The slightly weaker ones—the Black Suit, the Black Leather Shoes, and the Terror Blade—all had their own uses under specific conditions. Losing them would still be a definite setback.

Suddenly, he thought of an absolutely perfect option:

The Supernatural Die.

This thing had three negative effects and three positive effects.

The positive effects had all been used up and ruined. Only the negative ones remained, making it completely useless to Gao Tian.

This item had been rendered useless after the great battle in Shanghai. He might as well recycle the trash and trade it for a useful Bone Compass.

This Ghost Merchant was truly conscientious. It even knew how to run a trade-in program.

The Wind Attendant Buddha immediately brought out the Supernatural Die, damaged on three sides. The Ghost Merchant kept its word, handing a dilapidated compass with a human finger bone for a needle to the Wind Attendant Buddha.

The deal was struck.

Before getting off, the Ghost Merchant stood by the Bus's rear doors as they prepared to open and turned its head. Three of its four faces revealed eerie smiles. "After speaking with me...

"...you have forty-five seconds left. Of your life."

With that said, its massive, bloated body, wrapped in a high-end coat, slowly squeezed off the Bus.

Once the Ghost Merchant stepped off, it was no longer a passenger. Its delayed Killing Rule perfectly bypassed the Bus's punishment.

Relying on this Killing Rule, it really had killed quite a few inexperienced rookie ghost hunters.

They all subconsciously assumed the Bus was safe—that ghosts couldn't kill people there.

With a bang, the head of the Wind Attendant Buddha sitting in front burst open. Unable to hold its form any longer, it immediately dissipated into a cloud of flowing mist.

Gao Tian bent down and picked up the Bone Compass from the floor, completely unbothered. The Wind Attendant Buddha wasn't worth anything anyway; he could just mold another one in five minutes.

The Ghost Merchant had put on quite the act.

"Arriving at the Old District.

"Passengers needing to disembark, please gather your personal belongings and exit through the rear doors."

The intermittent, mechanized female voice rang out from the malfunctioning old-fashioned PA system.

While waiting to get off, Gao Tian fiddled with the Bone Compass in his hand.

It had a tiny keyboard on its underside. After he typed in "Hanged Man 57", the finger bone on the dial began to spin, pointing toward the Old District ahead and trembling slightly without pause.

Fifty years of lifespan consumed. He had three hundred and fifty years left.

The Hanged Man was active in the Old District just ahead.

It seemed that although the Ghost Merchant's every word was a trap, it hadn't lied about its merchandise.

The Bus pulled into the station. With a creak, the rear doors slowly opened, and Gao Tian stepped off at the Old District stop.

In the distance lay rows of old-fashioned buildings, shops, and schools. Among the various residential blocks were alleys paved with bluestone slabs, where occasional pedestrians strolled past and elderly people holding stools dozed at the alley entrances.

Aside from the buildings and facilities being a bit dated and showing their age, this stop appeared perfectly normal—like a typical day in an ordinary small town. It formed a stark contrast to the bizarre, twisted, and even disgusting stops elsewhere in the Inner World.

But Gao Tian knew full well that sometimes, "normal" was the greatest abnormality of all.

How could the Inner World, overrun by the dead, tolerate the existence of a "normal town"? If the people living in the Old District were all ordinary humans, they would have been slaughtered long ago.

Death might even be considered a merciful release.

Were those "residents" deep within the Old District truly human?

Without first figuring out the Killing Rule of this place, Gao Tian didn't immediately set foot inside.

Besides, the Old District had its own unique, eerie aspects.

At the intersection of the paths leading into the district, along the uneven steps, and further into the winding alleys deep inside, there were yellow-and-black striped barricades, banners, and blood-red warning signs everywhere.

Bold, thick text repeatedly warned:

No living persons allowed.

Living persons are strictly prohibited from entering.

Normal personnel, please detour.

In accordance with relevant regulations, this area is not open to normal humans.

What did this mean?

What would happen if a living person insisted on entering? Would they just die outright?

Deeper into the Old District, the slogans and warning signs became even more varied, and the prohibited actions were no longer limited to "living persons."

Resurrection prohibited.

Flight prohibited.

Speaking prohibited.

Fishing prohibited.

—

Walking prohibited.

Looking at the sky prohibited.

Dancing prohibited.

There were all sorts of baffling prohibition notices. There wasn't a single forbidden action you could imagine that couldn't be found in some corner of the Old District.

Right now, Gao Tian had two choices.

The first was to mold another Wind Attendant Buddha and have it enter in his stead to scout out a safe path.

Of course, the Wind Attendant Buddha might not be able to operate in the Old District either. Some Supernatural Items already classified it as a living person.

Would it trigger the Old District's bans?

The second choice was to use the Black Leather Shoes to fly into the sky and survey the layout of the entire Old District from high above.

Once he found the Hanged Man's coordinates, Gao Tian could swoop down like an eagle, grab the Hanged Man, and activate the Ansheng Stone simultaneously. It would take only a very short time to seal the target away and leave.

However, this decision carried significant risks.

—

When riding the Phantom Train through the Inner World, the Dead Man's Head had once warned him not to look recklessly at the stops below.

The Killing Rules of many stops didn't care whether you were in the sky or not. Even glancing from afar was strictly forbidden; if you triggered a rule, you died.

He couldn't afford to leave things to luck.

While Gao Tian was deep in thought, the Bone Compass in his hand began to tremble frantically. It pointed one way, then another. It seemed the Hanged Man inside the Old District had encountered something—it was highly active and constantly shifting positions.

"Don't even think about it. This place refuses to accept the living. The moment you step foot inside, you will die instantly. You won't be able to activate any Supernatural Items, and even resurrection will be banned by the rules.

"Unless you wear this little Black Scarab. It lasts for about seven minutes, during which you will be temporarily classified as a dead person. It will temporarily deceive the Old District's first rule."

Just as Gao Tian was pondering, a soft, fragile child's voice rang out from a bench in the waiting room opposite him.

Who was it?

Gao Tian was slightly startled. Since when had his vigilance dropped this low? He raised his head and turned toward the outside of the Old District, toward the direction the voice had come from.

A fourteen- or fifteen-year-old girl was sitting quietly on the corner of a bench. She was thin, her faded, washed-out school uniform hanging loosely on her frame and making her look even more frail. The bridge of her nose was straight, and her thin lips were pressed tightly together. Thick eyelashes cast a small shadow beneath her eyes, making it impossible to read her gaze.

Her head was tilted, revealing a stretch of fair neck. Several open exercise books—math, history, geography, and physics—were scattered in front of her. The little girl propped her head up with one hand while writing furiously with the other, looking exactly like a student who had stayed behind after school for tutoring.

If only this weren't the Inner World.

Wait. Was this girl in the waiting room when he just got off the bus?

Absolutely not. The waiting room had been empty at the time; otherwise, Gao Tian would have noticed a figure long ago.

When had she appeared there?

It was like teleportation. Was she a ghost?

Was it because he had triggered some Killing Rule? Had the ghosts inside come out to find him before he even entered the Old District?

Gao Tian didn't dare lower his guard. The two remained in a standoff for a moment until the little girl in the waiting room turned another page of her workbook. Summoning the Wind Attendant Buddha, Gao Tian took a step forward and asked, "Who are you?"

The little girl slowly raised her head. With radiant white skin and heroic, starry eyes, she looked in Gao Tian's direction. "Me? That's true. This is our first time meeting, so you wouldn't know my name.

"My name is Qin Zhuguang. My nickname is Ersi. You can also call me Qin Ersi.

"You must be Gao Tian. I rushed all the way here while still having to catch up on my homework, but I finally caught up to you. It wasn't easy."

Qin Zhuguang.

He had never heard this name before.

To meet in the Inner World and have the other party call him out by name—the situation was rather eerie.

The Wind Attendant Buddha asked, "Are you familiar with the Old District?"

Seeming slightly dissatisfied with Gao Tian's overly cautious attitude, Qin Zhuguang began packing her schoolbag, stuffing the workbooks back inside one by one. Only when she was certain she hadn't left a single one behind in the waiting room did she slowly stand up and stretch lazily. "Strange. Didn't Ye Jiu tell you?

"Didn't you ask him to scout for a candidate to help you complete your missions in the Inner World?

"I really came. But judging by the look on your face, you don't seem very happy about it.

"Come. Put this Black Scarab on and get ready to head out. Hurry up, I still have to go back to school for class this afternoon."

An absolutely impossible thought rushed into Gao Tian's mind.

No. That was impossible, absolutely impossible.

This completely defied common sense.

Qin Ersi, Qin Ersi, Qin Ersi.

Two times four is eight.

Gao Tian had never imagined that "he" would turn out to be a third-year middle school girl wearing a school uniform, carrying a schoolbag, making up her homework, and taking extracurricular classes.