Chapter 66: Lan Zhu's Sudden Death

Watching her carelessly drag the mummified corpse toward the Study without an ounce of caution, Gao Tian finally couldn't hold back. He spoke up to warn her:

"We don't know who or what is inside that Study. Approaching it so recklessly is dangerous.

"Be careful not to trigger some fatal Killing Rule."

Lan Zhu looked highly displeased. She shot Gao Tian a glance over her shoulder:

"Do I really need you to tell me that?

"Of course I know. I'm just going to sneak over and take a quick look. What's the worst that could happen?"

Gao Tian felt exasperated.

Lan Zhu might listen to Xia Ta a little bit, but everyone else's words were nothing but empty air to her.

He honestly had no idea why Xia Ta had insisted on bringing this woman into their group.

Watching the oblivious Lan Zhu inch closer and closer to the Study and its ominous glow, Gao Tian couldn't just sit back. Even if the woman had a few screws loose, he couldn't just watch her court death right in front of him.

An idea suddenly struck him:

"Hey, Lan Zhu, aren't you known for being cautious?

"Think about what you taught me before we set out. Didn't you survive all those horrific incidents in America by being careful, careful, and even more careful?

"Even a breeze or a grain of sand could hide a signal of danger. You told me over and over that explorers of supernatural events should never touch anything they don't understand.

"You sounded so logical when you were lecturing me. So why are you acting so recklessly now, blindly approaching a Study we know absolutely nothing about?

"Wait, I get it. Are you testing me?"

While shouting at Lan Zhu, Gao Tian had already activated the power of the Memory Ghost.

He altered her memories, forcefully implanting a persona of extreme caution into her mind.

With that, this woman surely wouldn't go around causing trouble anymore.

Hearing Gao Tian's shout, Lan Zhu indeed stopped a short distance away from the Study. Just as Gao Tian thought he had her perfectly handled, Lan Zhu slowly turned around and gave him a baffling look:

"When did I ever say that to you?

"Are you daydreaming and inventing rules on your own?

"Psycho."

Gao Tian froze.

Being called a psycho by an actual psycho was already a terrible experience.

But what shocked him more was that in the face of the Memory Ghost's power, Lan Zhu wasn't just unaffected—she didn't even hesitate before shooting down his fabricated facts.

Just how terrifying was her mental resistance?

Or was her brain just so messed up to begin with that it somehow canceled out the manipulation, leaving the Memory Ghost with no way to break through?

Forget it, Gao Tian gave up. All he could do was stay far away from her so he wouldn't get caught in the crossfire when she inevitably got herself killed.

Teaming up with this lunatic did have its perks. If she wanted to scout ahead, let her scout. Even if whatever was inside the Study killed her, she would still be eliminating a wrong answer for him.

Lan Zhu first twisted the doorknob, finding it locked tight. When no one answered her knocks, she gave up on the door.

She pressed herself against the window, peering inside through the anti-theft bars for a while. Slowly, she lost interest in whatever was inside the Study, turned around, and walked away.

"Strange,"

Lan Zhu muttered to herself.

Gao Tian thought her luck was genuinely absurd. To act that recklessly and not pay a single price for it.

He couldn't help but ask:

"What's strange?

"What did you see in the room?"

Lan Zhu was still recalling the scene inside:

"There are five people in that Study, and everyone's posture looks incredibly awkward.

"Isn't a Study supposed to be a place for reading? Why are they posing like that? Are they doing yoga?"

The more Gao Tian listened, the more wrong it sounded:

"Five people?

"Lady Lan Zhu, what are those five people doing in the Study?"

Lan Zhu chewed on her fingernail:

"The first one is skinny with a head of silver hair. He has a rope around his neck, hanging from the ceiling beam with his feet dangling in the air, like he's playing on a swing.

"The second one is a huge guy taking up two seats by himself. He's lying on the sofa. Looks like he drank red wine or something, because he threw up red liquid all over the place.

"The third one is a girl. She's wearing a heavy, elaborate dress and sitting motionless at the desk with a knife jammed into her neck. She's still bleeding, and it's dyed half her dress red."

Gao Tian fought the urge to swear.

He cut Lan Zhu off entirely:

"The fourth person, does he look a lot like me?

"And the fifth person is a woman who looks just like you?"

Lan Zhu nodded repeatedly, looking quite pleased:

"Right, right, right! How did you know?

"I thought you were actually stupid, but you're surprisingly clever sometimes."

Gao Tian forcefully suppressed the fury burning inside him:

"Tell me, what are the person who looks like me and the person who looks like you doing in that room?"

Lan Zhu tilted her head, clearly trying to remember:

"That ugly guy who looks like you is lying motionless on the floor in the spilled wine. The big guy threw up red wine all over the floor, and the ugly guy is probably licking it up because he's afraid to waste it.

"The beautiful girl who looks like me is standing next to the girl in the heavy dress. She probably isn't feeling well, because her face is as white as a sheet. She has a long scar on her arm."

Gao Tian stared into Lan Zhu's eyes and enunciated word by word:

"The big guy is Zhao Zhenjia. He bled to death.

"The skinny guy is Jiang Yang. He hung himself.

"The one in the heavy dress is Xia Ta. She was stabbed in the neck.

"I'm lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

"And you bled out from a slit wrist.

"What you saw in the Study was the dead bodies of the five of us. What do you mean 'looks like us'? That IS us!"

Talking to Lan Zhu could seriously infuriate someone to death. If Lan Zhu ever died, her Killing Rule as a ghost would definitely be maddening someone to a breakdown.

But why would the corpses of their five-person team be inside this strange, abruptly appearing Study?

What was this? A warning from a Fierce Ghost, a curse, or some kind of hint at the future?

Whatever it was, it wasn't a good omen. It was best to stay as far away from this Study as possible.

But if he went back the way they came, not only might he fail to escape Mirror Alley, he might even run into the Old Man Red ghost.

He was caught in a real dilemma now.

Gripping the Terror Blade in one hand, Gao Tian prepared to back away from the Study.

Right before he moved, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. From a Mirror directly behind Lan Zhu, two blood-red arms stripped of human skin were slowly reaching out, grabbing toward her back. The crazy woman remained entirely oblivious, still holding the Dog Leash chained to the mummified corpse, staring blankly at him.

What was that thing?

A ghost hiding in the Mirror?

And yet, the very Mirror extending those blood-red arms still perfectly reflected Lan Zhu's back.

"Behind you, watch out!"

Gao Tian shouted, gesturing for Lan Zhu to watch her back.

Alerted by Gao Tian's cry, Lan Zhu finally reacted and turned toward the Mirror behind her.

The blood-red arms clamped onto Lan Zhu's shoulders, but they hadn't exerted force yet. If she crouched and dodged right now, she still had a chance to escape the bloody arms reaching from the Mirror.

But Lan Zhu, clearly feeling those monstrous crimson hands, did something Gao Tian wouldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams—

Instead of showing the slightest hint of fear, she became extremely interested in the thing reaching out from the Mirror:

"It's actually a ghost hiding in a Mirror."

Muttering to herself, Lan Zhu actually reached out and grabbed the bloody arms protruding from the Mirror.

"Caught you, heehee.

"Take me inside. Let's see what it looks like inside the Mirror."

In the next second, the bloody hands gripping their prey suddenly magnified in strength by more than ten times. Caught completely off guard, Lan Zhu, along with the leash in her hand and the mummy attached to it, was violently dragged into the Mirror. She was instantly swallowed up without a single trace left behind.

By the time Gao Tian rushed over to the Mirror with the Terror Blade, the glass had completely returned to normal. All it reflected was his own confused, shell-shocked face.

The ghostly shadow of the bloody hands, along with Lan Zhu, whom they had dragged into the Mirror, had vanished completely.

Lan Zhu had disappeared just like that. She had entered the Mirror World just as she wished, entirely swallowed by a ghost.

"Unbelievable. What a lunatic."

Gao Tian cursed.

But it wasn't because Lan Zhu had disappeared. He didn't feel a shred of pity for her death. Someone who loved courting death that much was bound to die eventually; it was a miracle she had even survived this long.

The Mirror Ghost's Killing Rule had appeared.

No wonder this place was called Mirror Alley. It was a hunting ground explicitly prepared for the Mirror Ghost.

Now he was the only one left, and the Study blocked one of his escape routes. If he wanted to navigate through the endless Mirror Alley and reach the other side, he would have to walk past who knew how many Mirrors. He was going to be the next prey for the bloody hands inside the glass.

It was truly impossible to defend against.

But if he didn't head back, he would be stuck here, forced to face the bizarre Study all by himself.

Wait...

Gao Tian slowly raised his head, as if something had just occurred to him.

Something was strange.

A strange thought had just flashed through his mind.

These blood-red, skinless hands... Was their true form that Old Man Red?

Was that the thing the "Gao Tian" in the Future Urn had fought?

"I think I know why he pinned that Old Man Red down so desperately."

Faintly grasping the truth of the matter, Gao Tian looked a little conflicted, caught between tears and laughter.

He had acted like a madman because he wanted to use the power of the Shattered Face Ghost to copy the Mirror Ghost's Killing Rule.

The Shattered Face Ghost's eye contact condition was relatively strict. Staring continuously only counted as one instance of eye contact, and glancing away too quickly didn't count either. Fulfilling five instances of eye contact was probably harder than he had imagined.

Gao Tian completely understood why the future "Gao Tian" had been so crazed. The Mirror Ghost's power was much more important than he had realized.

For a ghost, its Killing Rule wasn't exactly unsolvable.

But for a living person, this was the god-tier rule he had been dreaming of and desperately trying to copy.

Its ability was to reach bloody hands out from the Mirror and drag victims inside.

If it could pull people, couldn't it also pull ghosts?

That meant if Gao Tian mastered this Killing Rule, couldn't those immortal, indestructible Fierce Ghosts be locked inside the Mirrors? He could imprison them like in a jail, ensuring they could never come out and harm anyone ever again!

How was that any different from finding a way to kill Fierce Ghosts?

No wonder "Gao Tian" had gone mad, pinning it down to force eye contact. He wanted to obtain it at any cost.

Deduced like that, the crazy actions of the "Gao Tian" in the Future Urn made perfect sense.

However, there was still one small loophole that couldn't be explained.