Chapter 18: Ghost Shadows in Mortuary

Su Xing had long known that high inspiration was not a good thing.

Because this kind of perception is two-way. It is not that his inspiration is high and he perceives those weird things, but also that those weird things can perceive him.

When he woke up, there were still many predecessors. These predecessors even had people from three or four batches ago. They also obtained a lot of information from maintenance personnel in other areas, and most of them told Su Xing without reservation.

According to the Nightmare rules explored and summarized by some predecessors, Nightmares are generally urban weirdness, monsters, or those gods and Buddhas that many people sing about, which are the biggest Nightmare possibilities.

Secondly, there are many types of Nightmares. The reason they are called Nightmares is because Nightmares specifically target maintenance personnel entering the Dream World, while other weird things in the Dream World are not necessarily so. Some weird things will even communicate, trade, or impart power to maintenance personnel.

Third, the perception of Nightmares toward maintenance personnel is supernatural, not relying on eyes or certain organs to perceive. According to the summary of predecessors, in a higher-level perception system, the whole world is dark, and only life will have light. In the perception of Nightmares, it is to perceive these lights. When maintenance personnel first enter, their light is the same as ordinary people under the protection of the Main Brain, with only a little difference, so Nightmares are difficult to perceive maintenance personnel unless face-to-face in the first five days. But once it exceeds five days, the light of maintenance personnel will become more and more intense, until all Nightmares in this world can perceive it. And this perception is two-way. The higher the inspiration, the brighter the light in the darkness. You can see Nightmares, and Nightmares can naturally see you.

Finally, this kind of light is just a general description. Nightmares will not carefully distinguish the difference between maintenance personnel and Dream World natives. And most Nightmares are also some "things" without knowledge, and only a very small part have so-called self. In many cases described by predecessors, Nightmares killing maintenance personnel and the Dream World natives around them together are common.

So Su Xing really didn't lie to Xu Rongyu. Now Xu Rongyu only has a way to survive by following them, although this way is not big. After all, they only need to survive for five days, while Xu Rongyu can only stay in this world, which is actually an unsolvable thing.

But at least within five days, Xu Rongyu can indeed survive by relying on them.

There is still a lot of food in the post station, although it is some rice, flour, vegetables, radishes, a few pieces of old bacon and dried fish, etc. However, as an official post station, it also needs to receive some official clerks, and the Qing court has not completely collapsed yet, and there is still effective rule. There is indeed enough food inventory in this post station outside the prefecture city.

Su Xing has money. Hundreds of taels of silver are enough to buy a lot of food. Then he bought a cart for transporting goods and a donkey. Because it was a joint purchase and there was no robbery, the small clerk of this post station got the silver, lost some public, and gained some private, and would not say anything randomly. The four drove the donkey to the direction of mortuary.

Along the way, Xu Rongyu was like losing his soul. The cleverness before could not be seen at all. On the contrary, the two newcomers, Yi Ya and Xu Shilan, had their faces restored to normal, and even began to talk and laugh along the way.

Su Xing really looked at these two newcomers with admiration. The battle on the Gaia was also like this. Yi Ya's combat power exploded, and his mentality was also amazing. And Xu Shilan looked like a charming woman, and this mentality was also amazing.

Don't think that this kind of weird supernatural terror is easy. It's okay to tell stories and listen to stories, but if you really encounter it in reality, some people might even be scared to death.

This Xu Rongyu was captured by Su Xing, his life was in someone else's hands, and he could still talk and laugh, ask for meat, and ask for wine. But after encountering this weird glance, now his mentality began to collapse. This is the real normal state.

Su Xing said to the two newcomers: "It seems that your energy before becoming maintenance personnel is amazing."

Yi Ya and Xu Shilan were slightly stunned. Yi Ya laughed loudly and said: "It's just a word of death, or as you said, a fate worse than death. But biochemical beasts in the Third War also had the same effect. You don't know, the comrades who died in my hands are not one hundred, but eighty. This is not shooting them in the back, but they fell into special biochemical beasts, were transformed, parasitized, mutated. The worst time, the heads of more than twenty comrades were embedded in the shell of the biochemical beast. They were still screaming and hadn't died yet, but their mouths and eyes could spray machine guns. This kind of cruelty has been seen a lot, and these weird things are nothing to be afraid of."

Xu Shilan also smiled and said: "The Fourth War won't be mentioned. After the war, the solar system except the sun, everything turned into nebula fragments. Even before the Fourth War broke out, the thirteen singularity technology companies, as well as some suspicious black technology, the dark side of the government, and some strange weird talks that I only heard of, the terror created would not be much worse than these."

Su Xing shook his head and could only sigh that it was simply against the sky.

The crowd walked and talked, and they saw a dirt road appearing by the official road ahead. Xu Rongyu was familiar with the terrain and geography here. If a horse bandit was not familiar with these, he would be surrounded and suppressed by government soldiers, or if he wanted to rob a merchant team, he probably wouldn't even be able to eat hot shit.

Seeing Xu Rongyu leading the crowd onto this dirt road, perhaps to dissipate the fear and anxiety in his heart, he found a topic: "There are three mortuaries around this prefecture city, one of which was burned down two years ago. Now there are two left. The one we are going to is called Yijia mortuary, originally..."

Yi Ya asked: "So, what is mortuary?"

"A place to pile up dead people."

Xu Rongyu said casually, then paused, thinking that he would have to face that terrifying weirdness with these people next, he explained: "We Chinese are different from you barbarians. We pay attention to falling leaves returning to roots, body hair and skin are from parents, even if we die, we want to return to our hometown. You barbarians naturally don't understand this point, but..."

"The world is so big, how many people have the family background to return to their hometown after death? Most of the corpses are eaten by wild beasts in the wilderness, so there is this mortuary that can store their corpses, waiting for their descendants to come and take them back to their hometown, falling leaves returning to roots. At the same time, this mortuary can also allow the broken distant relatives of big families to have a place to live, so they don't become people of troubled times."

Xu Shilan thought thoughtfully: "So this is a place to stop corpses? But will there be living people?"

Xu Rongyu said: "There are living people in other places' mortuaries, but this Yijia mortuary is gone. They..."

Xu Rongyu shook his head.

At this time, Yi Ya suddenly said: "Su Xing, is it okay? Will dead people trigger weirdness or Nightmares?"

Su Xing was a little speechless and said: "Still call me Su. As for whether a large number of dead people will trigger any weirdness... it is very likely, but this is Baseline Reality 0.9 after all, and the deviation from the real world is small. At least in the Dream World of Baseline Reality 0.9 I have experienced, I haven't encountered any weirdness other than Nightmares."

Yi Ya nodded understandingly.

The crowd followed the small path and continued to move forward. After walking for a long time, they vaguely saw a wooden building in front. Suddenly at this time, Su Xing stopped on the spot without moving.

Yi Ya was the fastest to react. He was a Third War veteran. He would have died long ago without such vigilance. After Su Xing stopped, in less than a second, he immediately blocked Su Xing's back and stood back-to-back with him. Xu Shilan's reaction was slightly slower, but it only took a second or more, and she immediately stood on the side of the two men, standing in a triangle with them.

On the contrary, Xu Rongyu, the horse bandit, drove the donkey and walked at least five or six meters, then realized, and then regardless of anything, almost crawled to the side of the three, looking at the surroundings with a terrified face.

After waiting for five or six seconds, there was no movement around, and the three were puzzled. Yi Ya asked: "Is there anything?"

Su Xing was silent for a while, then reached out and touched the skin of several people. He wanted to test whether he could share his inspiration with them.

The moment they touched Su Xing, all three felt a chill, and then they saw human shadows vaguely behind a row of trees near mortuary. Even in broad daylight, these human shadows existed.

This is not the kind of thing that suspicion creates ghosts, but really semi-transparent non-human human shadows, each missing arms and legs, and some showing semi-rotten appearance, which definitely won't make people mistake them for humans.

Xu Rongyu's legs softened and he knelt on one knee, his whole body shaking like anything, while the other two were stiff, but still maintained a defensive state. And Su Xing was okay. His Qi and blood flowed, and his whole body was like a crouching fierce tiger, only bloodthirsty, crazy, and fighting intent.

This may be that the art is high and the courage is great. Su Xing didn't feel that he was a warrior by nature. In the past, he was naturally afraid of these supernatural things, but now he has become a Dark Jin National Martial Arts practitioner, and has the Tiger Demon Art controlled by perfection. He is really not afraid of these wandering ghosts now, and even the paper people before only made him feel dangerous, not fear.

Of course, this is probably related to the characteristics of National Martial Arts. Practicing National Martial Arts itself can exercise courage. Even those cowardly and incompetent people, as long as they can exercise National Martial Arts for a long time, can become courageous and firm.

And as he circulated his Qi and blood, the Tiger Demon Art's distracting thoughts and demonic thoughts emerged, and at the same time, a spiritual light that did not sleep suppressed everything, and his body's Qi and blood surged, and his body temperature began to increase. Standing around him, one could feel streams of weak heat surging.

With such changes, the ghosts twenty meters away actually had some commotion, and then gradually disappeared.

After at least ten seconds, Xu Rongyu breathed heavily, and the other two were relieved. Yi Ya immediately asked: "So many ghosts, do we still want to go in?"

Su Xing looked at the mortuary building in the distance and said: "Go in, why not go in? These are all dead people, on the contrary, they won't be changed by Nightmares. Staying with them is better than staying with a bunch of living people who will turn into paper people at any time! Go, let's enter mortuary!"

Although the three couldn't say what was wrong, thinking of the full city of paper people they saw before, comparing the two, these ghost shadows gave them a feeling far less weird and terrifying than the paper people. At this time, they had no choice.

They followed Su Xing toward the mortuary.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 19 =====