Chapter 184: Escaping into the Mirror World

Before entering the Old District, he had placed a Mirror at the entrance just outside the city.

His adrenaline spiked to its absolute limit as the Black Suit began to burn. His speed, strength, reflexes, and overall physical attributes skyrocketed, making him sprint faster than a leopard.

At the same time, he emptied out every last drop of Ghost Luck remaining in his Luck Jar. He was staking it all on this final gamble.

Gao Tian first rushed to the corner of the alley.

There stood the "No Looking" warning sign.

He closed his eyes, reached into his blind spot, and forcibly yanked the sign out of the ground. Tossing it into the Mirror World, he picked up his pace and sprinted wildly toward the next street.

With the disappearance of the "No Looking" sign, a middle-aged man in the window across the street seemed to sense something. He violently shoved his window open and stared at the empty wall. His eyes turned bloodshot, unable to tear his gaze away as blood filled his eyeballs until they completely ruptured, splattering blood all over the windowsill and the floor beneath it.

"Aunt Yu—"

"Why did you bury me alive under that pile of brush? Why?"

"Did you know that after I died there, the people walking by treated me like some weed or wildflower, plucking off my facial features and limbs just to play with them?"

"Did you know that I still had sensation even after I died? That I could still feel all that agony? Do you have any idea how long I endured it?"

With the restraints of the Rule-Based Horror gone, the first victim had emerged.

The man with the ruptured bloody eyes let out a mad roar. Twisting his body, he slithered out of the window like a snake and wriggled rapidly in the opposite direction down the street. He was clearly going after the "Aunt Yu" who had murdered him.

That "No Looking" sign had been there to prevent the man across the street from remembering everything. Now that the sign was gone, the first Old District resident to remember their past had awoken.

Windows flew open on both sides of the street. Countless residents thrust their hands out, trying to reach Gao Tian and stop his frantic sprint.

Gao Tian ignored them completely. When the occasional elongated arm managed to entangle him, he tore himself free with all his might, letting their nails gouge chunks of flesh and draw blood from his body as he charged forward like a madman.

In the shadows at the corner of the alley, several "people" suddenly lunged out of a door set into the wall, nearly tackling Gao Tian by the waist. He didn't even glance at them as a fishhook descended from the darkness above.

Before those pitiful Old District residents could even let out a scream, they were snagged and hauled away by a certain angler sitting in the sky.

Countless voices screamed behind him. A massive number of Old District residents surged toward him like a tide of black water.

It was madness. The entire Old District was rioting.

Gao Tian had caused an absolute catastrophe this time. He could forget about ever returning here for the rest of his life.

Soon, the next intersection appeared, and the "No Smiling" sign was right in front of him.

Gao Tian threw himself at it, forcibly yanked it out of the ground, and tossed it right into the Mirror World.

Unable to arrest his momentum, he stumbled and pitched violently forward.

Up ahead, a half-mad beggar clutching a shattered camera was running toward Gao Tian with wide strides.

"Take me with you, please!" he begged incessantly. "I've been trapped here for ten years—"

"I've photographed so many secrets in the Old District. As long as you let me out, I'm going to be famous! I promise we'll be famous!"

"I'll do exclusive interviews, shoot documentaries, win a Pulitzer! I'll put you in my autobiography! Please, just take me with you!"

"I know why the Old District turned into a ghost town, I know every secret here! Please, just take me with you! I'll do anything!"

Two streams of hot tears rolled down the beggar's face as he maintained a death grip on his camera. The videos and photos inside were the only things that had kept him sane for the last ten years.

Behind him, an endless horde of neighborhood aunts and uncles came rushing over, wielding shovels and toilet plungers to block Gao Tian's path.

They completely ignored the beggar standing in the intersection, shoving him roughly to the ground. Foot after foot trampled over his body, knocking him around like a useless rag. No one cared whether the bleeding beggar lived or died. The mob simply rolled over him like a swarm of locusts.

"Take... me... with... you..."

"I'm... human... I don't want... to die here..."

Right before the beggar was trampled to death, he curled into a tight ball, still desperately shielding the broken camera in his arms.

It was his last shred of dignity from the past ten years.

At this moment, Gao Tian had no capacity left to worry about the beggar.

He looked around. From every direction of the T-intersection, all the old neighbors of the Old District had poured out. A long, stretched-out neck snaked down from a high window of a tube-shaped apartment building, a human head dangling at its end as it slithered toward him. The ghostly transformations of these residents could no longer be suppressed.

The crowd marching over from across the street—men and women, young and old—were all weeping tears of fresh blood.

Yet they were completely oblivious to their own grotesque transformations. They just kept closing in on Gao Tian, step by step.

There were simply too many "people." At least several thousand, maybe ten thousand. The number vastly exceeded the amount of fishhooks available; there was no way the Fishing Ghost could haul them all away.

Catching a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, he saw an endless tide of residents flooding out of the alleyway behind him as well. There were old ladies who used to sit on small stools, idle middle-aged men with cigarettes clamped between their lips, and neighborhood aunts carrying vegetable baskets.

All of them stared blankly at Gao Tian without a shred of expression. The vegetables in the baskets had turned into severed hands and feet, the palm-leaf fans they held had become stretched human skin, and the cheap cigarettes tucked behind their ears were now bleeding severed fingers.

Reeking of heavy corpse rot, the mob closed in from three directions, steadily shrinking the empty space in the middle.

"Since when... did we become like this?"

"It truly is... grotesque."

"And here I was saying that I hadn't left the city in ages, that I'd go visit my relatives who married far away tomorrow. Turns out... more than ten years have already passed."

"That old man from out of town ten years ago really tricked us good."

There were puddles and shattered glass littering the street. In the reflections, some of the residents were slowly catching sight of their own hideous appearances, triggering a violent flood of sealed memories that rushed back into their minds.

They were gradually remembering everything. Everything that had happened in this Old District, everything that had happened over the past ten years.

Some of the "people" were overwhelmed by such excruciating agony that they fell to their knees, smashing their heads against the ground until their brains leaked out, or even gouging out their own eyes. They would rather destroy themselves than remember it all.

But others remained utterly expressionless, advancing step by step toward the center of the intersection, tightening the encirclement around Gao Tian.

"You should stay here too, child."

"The Old District isn't some terrifying place. On the contrary, it's very peaceful and serene. You'll come to love the life here."

"As long as you forget that you're dead... the life here is quite beautiful."

Taking advantage of this brief window, Gao Tian activated the Fishing Ghost's ability one last time. He specifically targeted the warning signs hidden in the shadows, no longer caring what effects they carried, and snagged them all.

Every single one he could snatch was a victory.

Then, activating the Mirror Ghost's ability, he dove straight into the Mirror, vanishing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

The only thing left behind in the world of the Old District was a single makeup Mirror that had fallen to the ground, shattering into tiny pieces.

High up on the tube-shaped building, Qin Zhuguang stood balanced on one foot, watching as Gao Tian was "swallowed" by a tiny Mirror just as the crowd converged.

Vanished into thin air.

Even though she had claimed she was leaving, Qin Zhuguang had lingered in a neglected corner. Only after confirming that Gao Tian had successfully escaped and hadn't gotten himself killed did she finally relax.

This palm-sized chimney rim she was standing on was no longer safe, either.

Down below, windows slowly pushed open, and multiple faces poked out. Twisting their necks upside down, they stared up at her.

"Little girl, what are you doing all the way up there?"

"This building is very high; it would be terrible if you fell. Hurry up and come down. Auntie will catch you."

The auntie downstairs opened a maw wider than a washbasin, motioning for Qin Zhuguang to jump right into her mouth.

From the pitch-black opening of the chimney itself, the square face of a middle-aged man slowly surged upward, looking like a deformed freak who had been wedged inside the chimney his entire life.

It seemed this place really wasn't safe anymore.

"Never mind. I'm out of here."

Qin Zhuguang stepped out into the empty air beyond the eaves. In the next second, she dissolved into a streak of mountain moonlight, vanishing entirely from the skies above the Old District.

Crashing onto the long white corridor within the Mirror World, Gao Tian gasped heavily for air. Only after confirming he was completely safe did he finally have the energy to inspect the deep, bone-exposing gashes all over his body.

The Black Suit possessed an effect similar to the Blood Shroud, allowing it to regenerate on its own.

However, it required the consumption of Ghost Luck.

The very last drop of Ghost Luck in Gao Tian's Luck Jar completely dissipated. The Black Suit lost its supernatural effects, reverting into an ordinary suit.

But this exchange of resources was entirely worth it.

That mysterious black Inverted Cross belonging to the Hanged Man could cleanse the Ghost Cards off his soul. Without the need to spend Ghost Luck on drawing cards, his maximum number of resurrections had been significantly increased.

The "No Smiling" sign and the Bone Flute were both Supernatural Items that could theoretically counter the Smiling Man.

Their actual effectiveness was another matter. The Smiling Man was a Super S-Level Fierce Ghost; one or two Supernatural Items might not be enough to suppress him.

Still, having them was better than nothing.

The "No Looking" sign was also an incredibly overpowered item. It worked just as effectively on ghosts.

Gao Tian took off his Black Suit and draped it over the sign to prevent himself from accidentally catching a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye.

Right before escaping into the Mirror, he had also managed to randomly snatch three more signs.

Once he emerged from the Mirror World this time, the Gao Tian of today would be worlds apart from the Gao Tian of the past.

Having just caught his breath, his first order of business was to reach for the suppressed Inverted Cross, intending to enter its ghost domain and clear the nine Ghost Cards attached to his soul.

That had been his primary goal for this entire trip.

Qin Zhuguang should still be waiting for him outside the Old District. He needed to finish clearing the cards and get out quickly.

Otherwise, the Eighth Young Master might assume he had died in the Old District and just head straight back to Shunjin City.

The instant Gao Tian touched the Inverted Cross, the countless bloody eyes on it that had been suppressed by the Ansheng Stone snapped open once again.

Activation successful.

Gao Tian remembered the first time he had been pulled into that blood-red world; the Inverted Cross had opened its myriad of bloody eyes exactly like this. It was the precursor to the expansion of its ghost domain.

In just a few seconds at most, he would be dragged inside.

Right at that moment, a child's milky voice suddenly rang out from outside the third Mirror down the long corridor.

"Mommy, why are you chewing on my foot? You've already chewed it down to the bone. Can you please stop chewing on it?"

A young woman's voice replied, "Shh. Don't speak.

"Someone nearby might be eavesdropping.

"Did you not see the 'No Eavesdropping' sign?"

Standing rooted to the spot, Gao Tian's right arm—which was reaching for the Inverted Cross—violently convulsed and flipped inside out. Every nerve, every strip of flesh and muscle on his arm was inverted, unspooling to the outside.

Simultaneously, an invisible, crushing force clamped down from both his left and right, squeezing in on his body like two solid walls.

Unable to breathe, unable to move, nowhere to run.

'You've got to be kidding me. Again?'

'I already escaped into the Mirror World, and I still triggered an Old District Rule-Based Horror?!'