Chapter 226: Lamp-Extinguishing Ghost

"Haunted..."

A trace of annoyance rose in Ning Zhe's heart. This annoyance did not belong to him, but to the woman named Wang Jingli.

There was no need to go head-to-head with the Inverted Ghost; that would only let Fen Wu, who was hiding in the dark, reap the benefits. Just hide.

Another "thud" came from outside the bathroom. The Inverted Ghost attached to Old Li's corpse had jumped one step closer. Ning Zhe looked up and saw the ventilation fan on the bathroom wall, covered with a fine-mesh screen. For a bee to fly out from here, it would have to tear off the screen.

Tearing it by hand was too slow. Ning Zhe held his pistol, aimed at the screen, and fired a shot. The large-caliber pistol using standard rifle rounds made a hole large enough for a bee to pass through.

Thud——

The ghost jumped closer.

Ning Zhe tucked the pistol back into his waistband and was about to turn into a bee to escape when suddenly, a childish call came from outside the bathroom.

"Grandpa Li?"

Thud——

The moment this call rang out, the ghost jumped again, but this step was not toward the bathroom. Ning Zhe could clearly distinguish that the sound of the skull hitting the ground was further away from him.

"Ah... Old Li turned his head?" Ning Zhe understood immediately.

That ghost was calling Old Li.

Ning Zhe had looked into Old Li's background; he was just a simple, uneducated old bachelor. He wasn't a bad person. Usually, when children in the village ran into his yard to pick the dates he grew, Old Li wouldn't get angry, and the village children all called him Grandpa Li.

"But isn't Old Li already dead? Does it call even the dead?" Ning Zhe was somewhat puzzled.

Or perhaps, Old Li isn't actually dead...?

Thinking about it carefully, it wasn't impossible. Ghosts are rules that operate entirely on logic without emotion or reason. Rules are absolute, rules are fair, ghosts don't target anyone, and ghosts don't favor anyone.

And this Inverted Ghost was clearly targeting Ning Zhe.

"There are so many people in the prison, yet it kills none of them, choosing instead to chase me all over the prison. Earlier, when I heard the crying in the lounge, it was also the Inverted Ghost arriving just in time to prevent me from entering this bathroom at that moment..."

Ning Zhe's gaze slowly shifted toward the outside of the bathroom door. He took out the camera he had just recovered from his travel bag, silently extended it outside the door, and turned on the recording.

He seemed to have figured something out in his heart.

"If the thing standing outside the door right now isn't actually a ghost from the start, but... a human?"

Ghosts are fair, humans are not.

In this situation, a familiar feeling suddenly lingered in Ning Zhe's heart. It was nearly two months ago, when he and Bai Zhi drove to the Sunshine Gas Station outside Gubei Town. The employees and the boss inside the station, everyone acted as if they were possessed and wanted to kill her...

Just like Old Li, possessed by a ghost, chasing him tirelessly all over the prison.

At this very moment, it was just like that moment back then.

"Grandpa Li?"

Another call rang out from outside the bathroom. Ning Zhe came back to his senses, only to hear a dull "thump"—the sound of a flesh-and-blood body wrapped in cloth falling onto the concrete floor.

The next moment, a cold wind blew through the hall and quietly into the small bathroom where only Ning Zhe was. A soft call rang out from behind Ning Zhe:

"Lili?"

It was the voice of Wang Jingli's mother, the identity Ning Zhe was currently using. Ning Zhe looked expressionlessly at the mirror on the bathroom wall, his pupils slightly contracting.

He saw Wang Jingli, wearing a red hoodie, standing expressionlessly in front of the mirror. Pale firelight danced on her face, which was marked with dark circles. A small, pale flame floated above her head. The small bathroom was filled with a ghostly atmosphere, and the milky white tiles on the walls reflected the cold white flame, making one's hair stand on end.

Not just above her head, but also on the shoulders of her reflection in the mirror, a pale flame danced on each side, identical to the ghost fire above her head.

Three pale flames without temperature burned on his left shoulder, right shoulder, and head respectively, but when Ning Zhe turned his head to look, his own shoulders were empty.

"Can these three ghost fires only be seen in the mirror?"

Ning Zhe stared intently at himself in the mirror and the three white flames dancing on his body, narrowing his eyes slightly. He saw Wang Jingli in the red hoodie standing expressionlessly in the bathroom reflected in the mirror. A blurred human face contour slowly emerged from behind Wang Jingli's shoulder, flickering in and out of existence, as if an invisible, intangible "person" was silently following behind her.

"Lili..."

In the mirror, that translucent, blurred human face slowly opened its mouth. Wang Jingli's mother's voice rang out behind Ning Zhe, and an intense desire to turn his head emerged uncontrollably from the bottom of his heart.

【I must absolutely not respond to this ghost's call】

Applying the Thought Steel Seal to himself again, Ning Zhe forcibly suppressed the urge to turn his head, cold sweat dripping down his temples.

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Inside the mirror, that translucent human face twisted visibly. Vicious hatred radiated from the old, wrinkled face of Wang Jingli's mother, and the flames on her shoulders seemed to turn a bit colder.

Ning Zhe let out a light breath, his eyes meeting the resentful gaze of the fierce ghost behind him.

"Your mother is dead." Ning Zhe held up his middle finger to the mirror.

The next moment, a pitch-black two-dimensional human figure moved on the bathroom wall. Yeyao held a sharp dagger in his hand, and the pitch-black blade cleanly and decisively stabbed into the transparent ghost shadow projected on the wall through the pale flames.

"Ah——! Lili!! I am your mother! I am your mother! Lili!"

A shrill scream echoed through the small bathroom. Ning Zhe straightened the fierce ghost mask on his face, and a bee flew through the bullet hole in the screen, disappearing into the night.

Flying outside the west wall of the prison, the bee landed in the east corner and crawled into a hidden storeroom. In the darkness, Ning Zhe pulled the zipper and took out the camera from inside.

Connecting the data cable and accessing the local storage, a screen lit up in the pitch-black darkness. Ning Zhe began to play the footage he had just recorded.

Because the last segment of the recording was filmed by Ning Zhe holding it with his hand, the image was a bit shaky, but it didn't affect the viewing:

Outside the bathroom, an upside-down figure stood straight beside the coffee table. Moonlight spilled onto the steps outside the door, and bright red, round "footprints" were illuminated on the gray-white concrete floor.

Thud——

Thud——

The ghost jumped forward two steps.

Ning Zhe, who had been busy dodging ghosts and running around like a headless chicken, hadn't had a chance to observe Old Li's condition closely. Now, it was his first time clearly seeing the ghost's face.

Old Li was standing upside down on his head. His wrinkled face was covered in blood, the skin on the top of his head had long since been worn away, and his face was filled with a twisted expression of pain.

His features were writhing, displaying a bizarre, stretched angle, as if it weren't the face of a living person, but a comedy mask drawn with exaggerated techniques.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 227 =====