Chapter 70: Shadow Without Form

Ning Zhe’s corpse crashed to the ground, the gun barrel, still smelling of gunpowder, clanged against the staircase railing and fell to the floor; the fallen flashlight cast a pool of bright red blood across the ground.

“Ning Zhe…?” Bai Zhi was stunned into silence by this sudden scene; she clapped her hands over her mouth and nose, her wide eyes brimming with terror. Trembling, she picked up the fallen flashlight, two tears sliding down her cheeks.

Bai Zhi wore the uniform of a gas station employee; the loose hem of her shirt cast a hazy, grayish shadow from the flashlight’s glow, trembling slightly with her shuddering body.

“...Te Rang isn’t on him.”

Ye Tian’s heterochromatic eyes, devoid of emotion, swept lightly over the corpse and the wall’s shadow, silently retreating back into the darkness without a single sound.

Approaching, assassinating, concealing—a seamless sequence, no hesitation, no delay; a life had already been reaped. This was the source of Ye Tian’s fearsome reputation among the Ascended.

Hmph… without real ability, who has the right to approach someone as high as “Tu Yu”?

Ye Tian’s eyes shimmered with luminous hues, silently watching Bai Zhi, crouched helplessly beside Ning Zhe’s corpse, refraining from imprinting her mind with a death command—the use of a Ghost’s power demands a price.

After much hesitation, Bai Zhi finally steadied her nerves, wiped away her tears, and continued climbing the stairs, holding her phone and flashlight.

That’s right, girl—take me to the last remaining person. Ye Tian, hidden in the shadows, silently followed Bai Zhi’s steps upward. He was now certain Te Rang was not on Ning Zhe or Bai Zhi; his target had been trapped in this hospital since yesterday—the woman named Feng Yu.

The girl’s footsteps echoed faintly through the stairwell. Perhaps because he focused entirely on Bai Zhi, or because the hospital’s darkness offered almost no visibility, or perhaps because the thrill of soon obtaining Te Rang and resolving his own death crisis made him careless… Ye Tian, trailing behind Bai Zhi, failed to notice that the man’s corpse on the first floor—blasted beyond recognition by a shotgun—wore a badge from Hengsha Ecological Park.

But the badge had been tucked inside his collar, leaving only the lanyard visible.

A few minutes after Bai Zhi reached the second floor, the corpse vanished, leaving only a pool of deep red blood that lingered long after.

“Mom, I’m on the second floor—where are you?” Bai Zhi put on her headphones, dialed Feng Yu’s number, and whispered.

Ye Tian did not hear the reply from the other end, but saw Bai Zhi exhale slightly, as if relieved, then turned her flashlight toward the sign above the second-floor clinic door and began searching room by room.

It seems they had already arranged a meeting point.

Bai Zhi kept the call open as she ran forward, panting heavily: “Mom, Ning Zhe can’t come with me anymore—he—he’s dead. I don’t know if he broke some rule or just couldn’t go on—he shot himself in the head. …I’m so scared. Will we die like him, senselessly, in this hospital?”

She was still just an inexperienced girl; even after surviving the bizarre events at Bishuiwan Villa, witnessing death strike so close still shook Bai Zhi deeply. Her voice trembled with sobs, like a helpless little girl crying for her mother after being bullied by peers.

Almost there.

As Bai Zhi’s steps slowed, Ye Tian held his breath—her mother’s location must be near. Feng Yu would appear soon.

A pair of luminous heterochromatic eyes narrowed slightly in the dark. Ye Tian curled into the shadows, waiting for Te Rang to appear.

Bai Zhi stopped outside the Otolaryngology Clinic door, raised her right hand, and shone the flashlight toward the sign above the doorframe.

“It must be here…” Bai Zhi murmured, her whole body relaxing. Ye Tian’s gaze shifted from the girl to the interior of the clinic door, ready to imprint the death command the moment Feng Yu appeared. But suddenly—

Bai Zhi’s right hand, gripping the flashlight, swept in a smooth arc, casting its pale light down the corridor behind her.

“Shit!”

A surge of intense danger struck Ye Tian—but human reaction could never outpace the speed of light. Before he could respond to Bai Zhi’s motion, the colorless light spilled across the tiles, projecting the silhouette of a crouching man onto the floor.

“Huh?” Bai Zhi frowned, confused—under the flashlight’s glow, only a human-shaped shadow appeared, yet the man himself—the one crouching on the ground—was nowhere to be seen in the corridor.

The corridor was empty, save for Bai Zhi and the black shadow before her.

At that moment, the crisp tap of high heels on tile reached Ye Tian’s ears.

Tap—

A dignified, elegant woman, holding a delicate parasol, appeared soundlessly behind Ye Tian; the tip of her high-heeled foot quietly extended and pressed lightly onto the shadow where he crouched.

Instantly, agony like a split brain surged through his nerves—a twisted, pained moan, as if from the deepest abyss of hell, pierced his eardrums.

Feng Yu’s left foot landed precisely on the shadow’s head; her slender toe, like a sharp nail, drove into the shadow as if it were a living snake nailed to the wall—writhing, contorting, screaming in unbearable agony.

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But the scream did not last long. The pinned snake tore free from the nail piercing its body, ripping off a large chunk of bloody flesh.

The already scarred human shadow now lost another section at its head, fleeing at blinding speed beyond the flashlight’s range, vanishing swiftly into the dark corridor.

“He ran away,” Bai Zhi pouted, frustrated: “Why didn’t Te Rang kill him?”

“Maybe because I’m not your mom,” Ning Zhe lowered his parasol, his plump, mature body shedding the long dress to reveal his original shirt and trousers: “If the real Te Rang were here, he’d already be dead.”

—When Ye Tian assumed Ning Zhe on the other end of Bai Zhi’s call was Feng Yu, he truly became Feng Yu.

And “Feng Yu in Ye Tian’s perception” was the one who held the death rule—Te Rang.

“So now, what we must first ask is…” Ning Zhe paused, then said: “Why did that man have only a shadow, no body?”

Where did his body go?

(End of Chapter)