Chapter 643: A Formation Within a Formation

By the time I tried to run, it was too late. White Worms on the walls had completely blocked the path.

The scene was utterly bizarre. The fine white fur clumped together like demonic hair, writhing across the walls.

"Over here!" Wang Wu shouted. He wasn't worried about me; he was just terrified that the Jade Bone in my hand would fall into Chen Jiuge's grasp.

All the yin energy in my body had been sucked away by the Five Plague Ghosts, and my Eighteen Yin Apertures were completely drained. I didn't want the White Worms anywhere near me, so, left with no other choice, I circulated the Profound Truth Mental Method and threw out two Suppression Talismans.

The talismans struck the White Worms, but the effect was negligible. There were simply too many of them, and the two Suppression Talismans were swallowed by the white fur in the blink of an eye.

Forced to expose the secret that I possessed the Plum Blossom Gu, I shielded Gu Tongtong with both hands and charged straight into the rampant white fur.

The person behind the scenes was incredibly insidious, hiding white fiends and Earth Corpses within the wildly growing white fur. If I hadn't had the Jade Bone protecting me, even if I were immune to the white fur, I would have been torn to pieces by the monsters lurking inside.

I kept my head down and pushed forward until I finally broke into the emergency stairwell.

Wang Wu led the way. But the further we went, the more white fur appeared. The walls on both sides of the stairwell were entirely coated in white, making the whole building feel like it had come alive.

"Hurry!"

Wang Wu and I sprinted upward without stopping. I didn't know what kept cutting into me, but new wounds kept appearing on my body.

Racing against the clock, I clung to a sliver of hope and ran with everything I had. But when I reached the third underground level, that last shred of hope shattered.

The stairwell door was locked tight. What was even more horrifying was that the door panel itself was crawling with white fur!

Layer upon layer of it blocked the exit completely.

"We can't get out? Are there any secret passages around here?" I yelled frantically at Wang Wu.

He hesitated slightly, seemingly weighing the pros and cons. The locations of his secret passages were incredibly well-hidden, and there were some that even Chen Jiuge didn't know about. They were the escape routes Wang Wu had left for himself.

"What the hell are you hesitating for! If Chen Jiuge catches me, the Jade Bone is definitely falling into his hands, and then we're all screwed!"

"Follow me." Wang Wu was finally convinced and reluctantly led me into Mortuary No. 2.

I had been to this place before, but hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary.

"I spent twenty grueling years digging these secret passages for myself. I never thought they would end up benefiting an outsider." Wang Wu ran deep into the morgue and pulled open the innermost drawer. "Come help me!"

Together, we shoved aside the freezer leaning against the wall, revealing a half-person-tall hole behind it.

It was roughly dug, without any support pillars inside. Dirt kept crumbling down, and it looked like it could cave in at any second.

The white fur was surging toward us from behind. Once we entered the secret passage, there would be no turning back.

Forced by the situation, I had no time to think. I squeezed into the tunnel right behind Wang Wu.

It was pitch-black and freezing, and it seemed to stretch on endlessly.

The only thing that brought me any comfort was that the tunnel generally sloped upward.

After we fumbled through the dark for a few minutes, a wooden board appeared in front of us.

"We go out through here, then enter another secret passage to escape the hospital." Wang Wu moved the board aside. He poked his head out to take a look, and his body suddenly froze.

"What's wrong?" I realized the situation had changed, but there was nowhere left to retreat. The white fur had chased us into the tunnel and was already spreading right behind me.

"Get out!" Unceremoniously, I kicked Wang Wu out of the tunnel and then carefully crawled out myself.

Beyond the wooden board was a large hall. This place was likely situated right in the center of the hospital's three buildings—it was a crucial node of the Broken Face Wenqu Terrain.

"Didn't he leave? Hurry up, don't dawdle." Wang Wu scrambled up from the floor, my footprint still lingering on his clothes. He didn't bicker with me about it, but instead made a shushing gesture.

Even if he hadn't warned me, I wouldn't have made a sound. The scene before my eyes was entirely beyond my expectations.

The four walls of the hall were covered in drawn runes and plastered with all sorts of talismans. At a glance, there were at least several dozen.

In the center of the hall stood a sand table. On top of that sand table sat a Daoist with his eyes tightly shut.

He wore a plain-colored Daoist robe, and the expression on his face was somewhat contorted, as if he were trapped deep in a nightmare and couldn't wake up.

"Don't go near that sand table, and definitely don't touch the talismans on the walls. This is the core of the great formation. Once we pass through here, we can enter the other buildings, and then leave completely unnoticed through the secret passages I dug." After Wang Wu finished speaking, he muttered to himself, "Didn't he leave the sand table just a moment ago to hunt down the intruders himself? Why did he come back?"

Wang Wu took a few steps forward before suddenly realizing that I was still standing right where I was. He frowned. "Hurry up! Don't go getting any ideas. Ruining this formation is equivalent to shaking the very foundation of the building. If you don't want to be buried alive, you'd better just leave with me."

I remained rooted to the spot. I didn't clearly hear what Wang Wu said; my gaze was locked onto that Daoist like a knife, and the killing intent in my heart boiled uncontrollably.

"Chen Jiuge!" I squeezed the name out from between my teeth, my eyes turning entirely crimson. "Enemies really do meet on a narrow road. That Mr. Chen really was you all along!"

The Daoist sitting squarely in the middle of the sand table was none other than Chen Jiuge. He had also participated in this live broadcast. When we first entered Jianghu Hospital, I had still been wondering why I hadn't caught sight of him. Now I was certain—he was the corpse-controller pulling the strings from behind the scenes!

Running into the exact same person in two separate live broadcasts sparked a flood of thoughts in my mind.

Chen Jiuge was a chess piece that the Two-Faced Buddha had planted inside the Live Show. In the very beginning, only the Traitors and the Two-Faced Buddha himself should have known about this.

It seemed the Live Show had realized ahead of time that there was a traitor among the streamers, but they couldn't be sure who it was, so they used the live broadcast missions to test them.

Thinking back on it now, my live broadcast entering Ye Bing's Dream Realm must have been single-handedly orchestrated by the Live Show. They had been hiding in my broadcast room, observing every move the traitor and I made.

That broadcast was originally meant to test my loyalty, but unexpectedly, it yielded a surprise harvest. Through Xiao A's words, the Live Show discovered the Double-Faced Buddha Chess Piece—Chen Jiuge, who had entered the dream on the exact same day I did.

Only after confirming that Chen Jiuge was the Double-Faced Buddha Chess Piece did the Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital live broadcast happen.

This broadcast was held under the banner of multiple streamers participating together, but the real objective was very likely to eliminate Chen Jiuge!

The Live Show had been extremely subtle when issuing the mission, yet Chen Jiuge had still noticed it beforehand. Without giving the other live show streamers any chance to strike, he went straight into the great formation, secretly took over everything here, and manipulated the white fiends and Earth Corpses to hunt everyone down using the terrain to his advantage.

"He certainly is decisive. He'd rather choose to expose himself than put his own life in danger." I clenched my fists tightly. When it came to killing Chen Jiuge, the Live Show and I were on the exact same page.

This man was far too terrifying. He was truly worthy of being the chess piece carefully cultivated by the Two-Faced Buddha.

Not only had he become a live show streamer, but he had also entered Xiao Zhuang Taoist Temple—the most mysterious of sects—and practiced the Secret Dream-Making Art.

Wielding the powers of a fate usurper, a prestigious orthodox sect, and the Live Show all at once, Chen Jiuge was highly likely to become a second Two-Faced Buddha if he were allowed to continue growing.

Noticing that my expression was off, Wang Wu quickly spoke up, "The formations in this place are entirely interlocked. They were meticulously arranged by Mr. Paper. The moment you destroy one spot, it'll set off a chain reaction. Do not act on impulse! I've been here for twenty years and still haven't found a countermeasure..."

Before he could finish, I was already stepping out.

I didn't care about any formations or advice; I only knew that this was the best opportunity to kill Chen Jiuge!

If I didn't get rid of him, once we returned to Century New Garden, he would sooner or later realize that I was the masked man who fought him for the Flower of the Dream Realm in the Deep Dream Layer. When that time came, he would have his sect and the Two-Faced Buddha backing him, while I would be too weak and isolated to stand a chance against him. Because of that, I absolutely couldn't let this chance slip by.

Shaking off Wang Wu's blocking hand, I activated my Judging Eye to sweep over the hall.

The seemingly ordinary hall actually held hidden mysteries. This was the spot where the Broken Face Wenqu gathered earth energy. It was densely packed with talismans, and several layers of great formations had been laid down, creating a layout of a formation within a formation.

Chen Jiuge seemed to be only a dozen or so meters away from me, but in reality, crossing that distance wouldn't be easy.

"Wang Wu said earlier that Chen Jiuge left the formation core to chase after the intruders himself, yet now he's back here. Does that mean the intruders have already been subdued?" My Judging Eye could see through illusions. As I walked along the perimeter of the great formation, I quickly discovered that behind the sand table lay a man at death's door.