Chapter 281: Vanessa

“Ghosts…”

Ning Zhe looked up at the oil lamp hanging above, the flame flickering inside its glass cover, the blinding light making him squint slightly.

“If these things in the castle are truly ghosts, then what happened before can be explained.” He spoke softly.

“What happened?” Bai Zhi asked.

“Spencer’s death.” Ning Zhe said: “Back in the first-floor hall, Spencer startled the wandering ghosts. I saw several of them grab his limbs and waist, while a pair of pale, bony hands squeezed his throat—I nearly thought Spencer was strangled to death by those things, but he wasn’t.”

“There were no bruises on Spencer’s neck. Aside from one missing finger on his left hand, he had no external injuries.”

And that was because…

“Because ghosts can’t kill.”

Bai Zhi continued his thought: “In folk tales across the Nine Provinces, ghosts always appear as deceivers and tricksters—they lure passersby into the deep forests where tigers dwell with sweet talk, not as violent, murderous spirits who kill with their own hands.”

“Hmm…” Ning Zhe recalled the moment Spencer had choked him—Spencer’s hands were cold and strong, crushing his throat, bringing suffocation.

The human brain is an organ with extremely high energy consumption, drawing priority oxygen supply from one of the body’s most developed arteries: the carotid.

At the same time, the brain is an extremely fragile organ—so fragile that even standing up after squatting too long on the toilet can cause a brief drop in blood pressure, leading to insufficient cerebral oxygenation, causing spots before the eyes, and in severe cases, immediate fainting.

In unrestricted combat, there is a jujutsu technique called the “naked choke,” where the wrist locks the opponent’s throat, compressing the carotid artery and cutting off blood flow to the brain; this process takes no more than ten seconds to induce unconsciousness, and a few more seconds can cause shock and death.

A woman’s physical condition is even weaker than that of a fighter, and with Ning Zhe’s left arm injured and blood loss from his abdomen, he was utterly weak—under such conditions, being tightly choked by an adult male would not let him last ten seconds; he would pass out in no more than five.

“Yet I didn’t die then. I even struggled enough to shout that I was Cynthia, confusing Spencer’s consciousness.” Ning Zhe opened his eyes; the bright flame danced in his pupils.

Did Spencer really spare him because he was deceived?

No—he simply couldn’t kill him…

“Ghosts can’t kill. Only the ‘tiger demon’ that enslaves them can.”

Lowering his head, Ning Zhe’s thoughts became clear: “When I died as a tourist in the room, and when I died as Cynthia in the hall—those two deaths weren’t caused by the ghosts themselves, but by the ‘tiger demon’ hiding among them.”

That was the rule of “serving the tiger as a ghost”—anyone killed by the tiger demon becomes a ghost enslaved by it.

Remember what Lan Shiwen said: Vanessa Castle was built by the Freymistret family as a prison, and beneath it, a “Degenerate” was imprisoned.

A Degenerate is a Transcendent who has fallen into a ghostly state, and now Ning Zhe had nearly confirmed the identity of that “Degenerate.”

“Once, there was a Transcendent in Vanessa Castle—a figure similar to a ‘necromancer.’ He commanded ghosts and gained the power to enslave the dead; just as those eaten by the tiger demon become ghosts, all those killed by this ‘necromancer’ became ghosts bound to his will.”

This necromancer had some connection to the Freymistret family—or was, in fact, a family member.

“Transcendents are short-lived. This necromancer never found a ghost capable of compensating for his flaw before his death, and ultimately Degenerated, imprisoned by the Freymistret family deep beneath Vanessa Castle.”

“The ‘Taiyin’ that slows time, the ‘Xizhao’ that replicates two Vanessa Castles—both were tools the Freymistret family used to imprison this Degenerate. They forged this supernatural, eerie prison to hold a fallen demon.”

The Freymistret family’s method of imprisoning the demon had, to some extent, become an obstacle to Ning Zhe’s reasoning, blocking him from uncovering the truth. “But for some reason, the demon escaped. Vanessa Castle fell into supernatural chaos; all those killed by ghosts became ghosts, wandering the post-flood Underworld, imprisoned here alongside the Degenerate demon.”

Bai Zhi thought for a moment, then said softly: “Because of the flood?”

Ning Zhe nodded: “Because of the flood.”

According to the information he had Joshua find, Vanessa Castle originally stood on a cliff halfway up the mountain, and the dead Degenerate had been imprisoned in a secret chamber beneath the castle.

During the European Unification War, northern Italy experienced an unprecedented downpour—massive rainfall triggered landslides that collapsed the cliff behind Vanessa Castle, dragging its foundation down with the falling earth, finally coming to rest at the mountain’s foot.

That is Vanessa Castle’s current location.

The records also mentioned that at the time, the head of the Freymistret family spent his entire fortune hiring craftsmen to reinforce the castle’s foundation and completely rebuild and repair it.

When Ning Zhe had read this earlier, he had been puzzled: the Freymistret family had already declined due to war—why had their head squandered everything to restore the castle?

The answer now was clear: to re-imprison the demon that had broken free.

“Before the landslide, Vanessa Castle originally stood halfway up the mountain.”

Nothing is wrong with the content of this one!

Ning Zhe closed his eyes, recalling the vast, exposed, ochre scars on the mountainside he had seen from the tower’s peak after the landslide.

“Comparing the height before and after, the underground chamber that once held the Degenerate—if mapped to the current Vanessa Castle—should be located…”

At the top of Zhong Lou.

Ning Zhe opened his eyes; the mystery in his heart was solved.

The underground chamber repeatedly mentioned by players never existed—it had been destroyed long ago by the landslide and flood-induced mudflow. Beneath the newly rebuilt Vanessa Castle lay only thick soil; the closest point to that former chamber was the top of Zhong Lou.

“Have you figured it out?” Bai Zhi sat on the bed, legs neatly together, watching him curiously.

Ning Zhe drew his long crossblade, gripped the blade, and handed the hilt to Bai Zhi: “Kill me.”

“Huh?” Bai Zhi froze, hesitant to take the sword: “Why?”

“I’ve nearly figured out this ghost’s rule. I can try breaking it now—but the dream’s restrictions are too great. Many of my tools can’t be used here.”

For example, the “Tongue of the Blow-Out Ghost” or the “Music Box with Eight Requiem Melodies”—Transcendent artifacts—cannot be brought into the dream.

As he spoke, he forced the hilt into her hand: “Kill me. Let me wake up. Then I’ll come to Vanessa Castle in reality and kill every ghost here.”

Bai Zhi nodded, taking the hilt: “I’ll wait here for you. Be careful.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Bai Zhi gripped the hilt and drove the blunt, unsharpened blade into Aureol’s heart.

He died again.

(End of Chapter)