Chapter 18: Ghost Shadows in Yizhuang

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

Because this perception is two-way, it is not that his spiritual sense is high and he perceives those strange things, but it also allows those strange things to perceive him.

When he woke up, there were 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 zones, 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 greatest Nightmare possibilities.

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

Third, the Nightmare's perception of maintenance personnel is supernatural, not relying on eyes or certain organs to perceive. In the words summarized by the predecessors, in a higher-level perception system, the whole world is dark, and only life will have light. In the Nightmare's perception, 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 the specific location of maintenance personnel unless face-to-face in the first five days. But once it exceeds five days, the light of maintenance personnel will become stronger and stronger, until all Nightmares in this world can perceive it. And this perception is two-way. The higher the spiritual sense, the brighter the light in the darkness. You can see the Nightmare, and the Nightmare can naturally see you.

Finally, this light is just a general description. Nightmares will not carefully identify the difference between maintenance personnel and the original residents of the Dream World. And most Nightmares are some kind of "things" without knowledge or consciousness. Only a very small part has so-called self. In many cases described by predecessors, Nightmares killing maintenance personnel and the original residents of the Dream World around them are common.

So Su Xing really didn't lie to Xu Rongyu. Now Xu Rongyu only has a way to survive if he follows them. Although this way to survive is not big, 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, and a few pieces of old bacon and dried fish, 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 the post station got the silver, damaged some public, fattened some private, and would not talk nonsense. The four drove the donkey to the Yizhuang direction.

Along the way, Xu Rongyu was lost, and the previous cleverness could not be seen at all. On the contrary, the two newcomers, Ya Made and Xu Shilan, had their faces returned to normal, and they even started to talk and laugh along the way.

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

Don't think that this weird supernatural horror is easy. Telling stories and listening to stories is fine, 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, his mentality started to collapse now. This is the real normal state.

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

Ya Made and Xu Shilan were both slightly stunned. Ya Made laughed and said: "It's just a word of death, or as you said, a fate worse than death. But the Third World War biochemical beasts also have the same effect. You don't know, there are no fewer than eighty comrades who died in my hands, not shooting them in the back, but they fell into special biochemical beasts, were transformed, parasitized, mutated. The most miserable 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 is seen a lot, and these weird things are nothing to be afraid of."

Xu Shilan also smiled and said: "The Fourth World War won't be mentioned. Except for the sun, everything else in the solar system became nebula fragments. Even before the Fourth World 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 horror created is not much worse than these."

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

Everyone walked and talked like this, and saw a dirt road appearing on the side of 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 troops, or if he wanted to rob a merchant team, he would probably not even catch up with hot shit.

Xu Rongyu led everyone onto this dirt road. Perhaps to dissipate the fear and anxiety in his heart, he found words and said: "There are three Yizhuangs around this prefecture city, one of which was burned down two years ago, and now there are two left. The one we are going to is called the Yi Family Yizhuang, originally..."

Ya Made asked: "So, what is Yizhuang?"

"A place to pile up dead people."

Xu Rongyu said casually, and then he paused, thinking that he would have to face that terrible weirdness with these people next, so he explained: "We Chinese are different from you barbarians. We pay attention to falling leaves returning to roots. The body, hair, and skin are received from parents. Even if we die, we want to return to our hometown. Naturally, you barbarians 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 bitten by wild beasts in the wilderness, so there is this Yizhuang 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 Yizhuang can also allow the distant relatives of big families to have a place to stay, so they don't become those people in troubled times."

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

Xu Rongyu said: "There are living people in Yizhuangs in other places, but this Yi Family Yizhuang is gone. They..."

Xu Rongyu shook his head.

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

Su Xing was speechless. He 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 weirdness other than Nightmares."

Ya Made nodded understandingly.

Everyone continued to move forward along the path. After a while, a piece of wooden architecture appeared vaguely on the official road ahead. Suddenly, Su Xing stopped his feet and stood still without moving.

Ya Made was the fastest to react. He was a veteran of the Third World War. He would have died long ago without such vigilance. Less than a second after Su Xing stopped, he had 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, only then was he surprised, and then he ran to the side of the three regardless, looking at the surroundings in horror.

After waiting for five or six seconds, there was no movement around. The three were suspicious. Ya Made asked: "Is there anything?"

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

The moment they touched Su Xing, the three felt cold all over, and then they saw human shadows looming behind a row of trees leaning towards Yizhuang. Even in the broad daylight, these 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 appearing semi-rotten. This will definitely not make people mistake it for a human.

Xu Rongyu's feet softened and he knelt halfway, shaking like anything, while the other two were stiff, but still maintained a defensive state. As for Su Xing, he was fine. His blood and qi flowed, and his whole body was like a crouching tiger, only bloodthirsty, crazy, and fighting intent.

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

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

And as he circulated his blood and qi, the Tiger Demon Art's distracting thoughts and demonic thoughts grew, and at the same time, a point of spiritual consciousness suppressed everything, and his body's blood and qi surged, and the body's temperature began to increase. Standing around him, one could feel weak heat flows surging.

With such changes, those ghosts twenty meters away actually had some slight disturbance, and then gradually disappeared.

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

Su Xing looked at the Yizhuang building in the distance and said: "Go in, why not go in? These are dead people, but 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 Yizhuang!"

Although the three couldn't say what was wrong, but 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 towards the Yizhuang.

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