Chapter 632: The Only Innocent Person

Closing the wooden boards, I climbed down the wooden ladder. By the time my feet hit solid ground, I felt completely drained, my mind swarming with those humanoid spider monsters.

'If I hadn't found that little girl's ghost, I might have been the next one backed into a corner.' A shiver ran through me as I remembered Gu Bei's helpless terror when he was dragged into the water tank. If it had been me in that situation, I wouldn't have had a single hope of escape either.

'Now that he's fallen into the water tank, there's no telling if Gu Bei will become a monster or food.' The corpse-raising method in this hospital differed from what Daoist Master Wan had described. The mastermind hadn't buried a coffin in the earth to refine the corpse using earth and corpse energy; instead, they had placed it inside a sealed water tank and nourished it with an unknown medicinal liquid.

Speaking of liquid, I reached into my pocket. I had retrieved three Injections from the Writer's plastic doll earlier and kept them on me, though I still hadn't figured out their purpose.

'If there's a problem with the liquid in the hospital's water tanks, the Writer, as the gatekeeper, would definitely have taken precautions. The smell and color of these three Injections are different from the liquid in the tanks. They might not be poison, but an antidote.' Of course, this was just a guess. I still needed more clues to prove it.

Standing up straight, I scanned my surroundings. The ceiling was about two and a half meters high, and the wooden ladder was over four meters long. I had entered the secret passages twice in a row. Based on that, I should currently be on the sixth or seventh underground floor.

It seemed unfinished down here. There were no tiles on the floor—just firmly tamped earth—and the walls were rough.

'The corpse refiner must have dug this floor out later, but...' I stared at the pale walls. 'That's weird. The dirt walls haven't been painted, so why are they still a light white?'

I stepped closer and reached out to touch the dirt on the wall, but the little girl's ghost suddenly blocked my path. She shook her head.

'Why is everything in the hospital white? This clue from the Live Show really does run through the whole place. Too bad it's so hard to crack.' The girl definitely had her reasons for acting like this, and I didn't want to fall out with her just yet. I pulled my hand back. Only after stepping far enough away to avoid her gaze did I secretly pick up a small stone and toss it at the wall.

The stone struck the wall with a soft click. Then, as if a ball of yarn were unraveling, countless fine threads surged out from deep within the pale surface.

I stared fixedly at the wall. I had seen those fine threads on Che Chili's corpse before. When I stuck a talisman onto her forehead, these white, hair-like bugs had crawled out of her orifices and vanished into the pool.

'Pale walls, white bugs?' I snapped my head around to look down the corridor. The entire passageway was pale white. What was even more terrifying was that ever since I entered the hospital, the color I had seen most was white!

Everything was painted white. The floor tiles and ceramics were all white too.

'I'm probably just overthinking it. They can't all be bugs...' As the stone fell to the ground, the fine threads retreated into the wall, acting as if they had never appeared at all.

After witnessing that, goosebumps broke out all over my body as I looked at the walls on either side. 'I have to stay away from them.'

Stopping and starting, it took me over ten minutes to reach the end of the corridor and spot the first room.

'It looks like this place was abandoned halfway through construction.' The door was very narrow; it didn't look like a warehouse meant for moving goods, but rather a single room, like a duty office.

I tentatively pushed the door. The little girl didn't try to stop me, and my courage gradually grew.

"Dispatch Room?" The writing on the door was faded, but I could barely make out the words. Pushing the door open, I found simple desks, chairs, and a bookcase inside.

To my surprise, the items in this room weren't white.

The craftsmanship was rough, as if someone had built the furniture themselves using whatever materials were lying around.

"What's this?" I muttered, walking over to the desk. To my surprise, a blueprint and a Compass sat on top of it.

'Someone brought this blueprint in. If it were from a few years ago, it would have rotted away by now.' I didn't touch it directly. Using my clothes as a buffer, I unfolded it. Drawn on the paper was a massive array formation.

Three great mountains interlocked like jagged dog teeth, suppressing the Three Talents positions. Countless other details were densely sketched around them, depicting the flow of rivers, mountains, and water veins, as well as the celestial movements of the sun, moon, and the Big Dipper. In short, just looking at it made me dizzy.

'What is this room used for?' The ghost girl didn't dare come inside; she hid out in the hall, harboring an instinctive fear of this place.

'What is she so afraid of?' Deciding not to overthink it, I simply aimed my phone at the blueprint on the desk. "Daoist master, there's a whole bunch of scribbles on this blueprint. Do you know what it's saying?"

Because of the Burial Scripture's appearance, Daoist Master Wan had stayed in the livestream chat the whole time, keeping a close eye on my every move. "Isn't there a Compass sitting right next to it? This drawing is a Dragon-Seeking Map drawn by a feng shui master. It uses mountains, rivers, water veins, the sun, moon, and stars for positioning to establish a feng shui layout. You'd better be careful, kid. Any feng shui master who can draw a Dragon-Seeking Map is no simple character."

"A Dragon-Seeking Map? Is there treasure buried here?" I stared at the drawing for a long time but couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Daoist Master Wan replied, "Rotten wood cannot be carved. What treasure in this place could possibly compare to the Burial Scripture and the Uncorrupted Bone? The other party drew this Dragon-Seeking Map to pinpoint the location of the Uncorrupted Bone, while continuously adding corpse energy, earth energy, and resentment to this place to stabilize the Broken Face Wenqu feng shui layout. You wouldn't understand even if I explained it to you. It's truly like playing the lute to a cow."

Seeing the blank look on my face toward the end of his explanation, the Daoist master wisely shut his mouth.

'Feng shui masters use Compasses to measure positions, I know that much. In that case, this room must be where the mastermind once stayed.' I brushed the back of my hand against the Compass. It was bone-chillingly cold. It looked ordinary, but it felt incredibly heavy when I picked it up—even heavier than the Chu Palace Compass I had snatched from Lu Jin.

"Daoist master, this counts as a treasure, right?" I figured I couldn't leave empty-handed. It was the enemy's stuff; I might as well take it.

But before I could tuck the Compass into my jacket, Daoist Master Wan's comment popped up on the screen. "It's best not to mess with a feng shui master's belongings. If you take their things, your own luck and destiny will become entangled with theirs. It'll be very easy for them to harm you."

Before I even finished reading the comment, something felt wrong in my hand.

I looked down. A paper figure, about half a finger tall, had crawled out from under the pitch-black Compass at some point. Maybe it was just my guilty conscience playing tricks on me, but I swore the paper figure smiled at me before diving straight into my clothes!

"What the hell?!" I stripped off my jacket and patted myself down, but I couldn't find any trace of the paper figure. I had no choice but to ask the livestream for help. "Did you guys just see a paper figure crawl out from under the Compass?"

"A feng shui master's items aren't that easy to take. They have all sorts of bizarre methods. That paper figure is probably a failsafe they left behind. When I get to Jiangcheng in a few days, I'll try to help you break it."

Even Daoist Master Wan was helpless. Holding the heavy Compass, it suddenly felt like a hot potato. "Hiding a paper figure under the Compass. How insidious."

Speaking of paper figures, I was reminded of that mysterious Mr. Paper from Xinhu City.

He was a feng shui master working under the Two-Faced Buddha. It was entirely possible that he had arranged everything here.

Since the paper figure had drilled into my body and vanished without a trace, I decided I had nothing left to lose. I kept the Compass in my hand. Even though I didn't know how to use it, the thing was incredibly heavy. In a pinch, it would make a decent bludgeon.

My eyes returned to the Dragon-Seeking Map. The drawing was extremely detailed, dividing the underground into nine levels. On the very bottom floor, eight characters were written: Ninefold Nether Opening, Immortal and Uncorrupted.

'Does this mean the Uncorrupted Bone is on the Underground Ninth Level?' I could hardly believe it. I had only made it to the seventh floor, yet this building had a full nine underground levels!

Underground structures were incredibly difficult to build. I had been shocked enough when I reached Basement Level 4, but who would have thought that four floors wasn't even half of it?

Folding the blueprint and stuffing it into my pocket, I found myself torn. To be honest, after witnessing Gu Bei's death, I had already started thinking about retreating.

'I haven't killed anyone or saved anyone in this livestream, so I won't get many points, but just surviving is enough.' I looked at the ghost girl outside the door. For some reason, I felt she was quite pitiful. If I wanted to escape, I could just leave, but she had no control over her fate.

Stepping out of the room, I raised the Ghost Ring. "How about I take you with me, little one?"

The ghost girl tilted her head at me, not understanding what I meant. She pointed ahead, seemingly indicating that the place I was looking for was close by.

'I'll just scout this floor. If I don't find anything, I'll evacuate immediately.'

Having made up my mind, I didn't hesitate anymore. I followed the girl through the pitch-black corridor.

We hadn't gone far when my ears twitched. I faintly heard babbling, like a child speaking.

I looked down at the ghost girl, but she hadn't opened her mouth.

'What's going on?' I followed behind her in confusion, feeling that something wasn't quite right. 'She hasn't gained full sentience yet. Did she misunderstand me?'

As the voice grew clearer, that uneasy feeling in my chest intensified.

When we turned a corner, I saw a faint beam of light shining out from one of the rooms.

'Light? Is there someone alive?'

The girl stopped at the doorway of that room and waved at me. Unsure of what she meant, I carefully pushed the door open.

An emergency light sat on a desk. It was the same model the Writer had used earlier.

'Could this be where the mastermind lived?' Before I could process it, a strange noise suddenly came from underneath the desk, sounding as if someone had accidentally bumped their head against the wood.

"Who is it?! Come out!" I took a step back, my eyes fixed on the spot. A moment later, a little girl, no older than two or three, crawled out from under the desk.

She was wearing a dirt-stained princess dress. Her tiny hands, like little cat paws, gently gripped the edge of the desk as she poked half her head out. Her big, expressive eyes looked at me timidly, as if she were about to burst into tears at any moment.

"Huh?" The moment I saw the girl, the missing person poster I had seen in Gu Bei's car flashed into my mind. This porcelain doll of a little girl in front of me was none other than Gu Bei's daughter!