Global Ghost Stories: I'm Investigating Ghosts in My Nightmare!

Chapter 20: The Road to Rebirth
Dead silence.

After breaking the trap of the child's cries, the cursed village fell into a more suffocating silence than ever before. The roars filled with resentment and ecstasy from the direction of the ancestral hall vanished, as if the monstrous vengeful spirits that were fusing and transforming, along with the awakened corpse groom, had sunk into a nightmare brewing even greater terror.

This calm before the storm is far more unsettling than the raging tempest itself.

"time up."

An Mu's voice broke the silence. He threw the last empty tube of high-concentration nutrient solution on the ground, forcibly suppressing the blood rising in his throat, and slowly straightened up. Although his face was still frighteningly pale, his eyes had regained the composure and sharpness of a commander.

"Check your equipment and get ready to go."

Mo Fei vigorously shook the black bloodstains off his battle axe, making a soft "hum." He first glanced at Bai Yu, whose face was ashen, leaning against the wall for support. Mo Fei then looked at Lan Ce, who was wiping the instruments with alcohol swabs, and finally fixed his gaze on An Mu, nodding heavily. Having just experienced a brush with death, this team seemed to have been tempered by fire; their anger and fear had subsided, leaving only a tacit understanding that needed no words.

With Lan Ce's help, Bai Yu struggled to his feet, clutching the burlap map he had obtained from his elder's old home. The rough fabric seemed to be the only tangible link to hope they could grasp in this desolate wasteland.

The four left the courtyard that had witnessed regret and redemption, and once again stepped into the village lanes shrouded in thick, blood-red fog.

According to the map, the so-called "path to survival" was not any road in the village, but a narrow crevice hidden between the last row of houses and the steep mountainside behind the village. The entrance was covered by a pile of rotten firewood and an abandoned stone mill, and even the most thorough search would have been impossible to find without the map.

Mo Fei walked at the front, using the back of his battle axe to clear away the obstacles one by one. A dark path covered with moss and vines was exposed to them, like a scar that the village did not want to be uncovered.

A damp, earthy smell mixed with the stench of decay wafted from the depths of the path, sending a chill down the spines of all four.

"Let's go." An Mu didn't hesitate at all and took the lead, stepping aside to walk inside.

The road was even more oppressive than they had imagined. To their left were the mottled, damp back walls of the villagers' houses, piled high with abandoned debris—broken water vats, rusty farm tools, benches with missing legs… These objects, once brimming with life, now stood like silent tombstones, telling the story of a village's death. To their right was the steep, black cliff face of the mountain behind them; the cold rocks seemed to possess a living, tangible quality, constantly encroaching on their space, instilling a sense of claustrophobia and impending burial.

They walked about a hundred meters along this seemingly endless road when Anmu raised his hand again to signal the group to stop.

Directly in front of him, beside the path, stood a stone tablet, about half a person's height, mostly covered in moss. The tablet was made of rough material, clearly not erected by the authorities, but rather built privately by the villagers. At the top of the tablet, a blurred name was engraved in faded vermilion.

“Lin…Aniu…” Lan Ce shone his tactical flashlight and struggled to make out the writing on it. “It looks like a tombstone.”

“It’s a ‘Rebirth Monument’.” Bai Yu’s voice echoed softly. He looked at the stone tablet with a complicated expression. “The villagers dared not disobey the village rules, dared not build graves for their relatives who died from the plague. They could only secretly place a memorial for them on this forgotten road, praying for their early rebirth.”

Just as Bai Yu finished speaking, a terrified howl suddenly rang in Mo Fei's ears.

"...No...don't grab me...I'm not sick...it's Ah Cai's son...he got sick first...grab him...don't grab me...I don't want to die...ah!!"

"Who?" Mo Fei's body jolted, instantly switching into battle mode, gripping his battle axe and warily scanning his surroundings. However, there was nothing around him except for the swirling red mist and the deathly silent walls.

"It's an auditory hallucination! Guard your mind!" An Mu immediately shouted. "This is the resentment left on the stone tablet! It's affecting our spirits!"

Mo Fei gritted his teeth, forcibly driving the voice out of his mind, but his face turned extremely ugly. The kind of humanity that betrays each other to survive in the face of death is more terrifying and infuriating than any monster.

They could only keep moving forward.

However, this "path to life" is more like a "path to death." Every few dozen meters, there is an identical stone tablet, engraved with different names, representing one desperate soul after another who died in that plague.

And with each stone tablet they passed, they would hear a final "last words" from the deceased.

“…My child…my child…let me see him one more time…just one more time…” It was a young mother’s weak, desperate plea that rang in An Mu’s ears. As the captain, he bore the lives of everyone on his shoulders, and this lament about family ties and the inability to reverse the situation struck his nerves, which were already taut with responsibility, like a heavy hammer.

"Why? We clearly made a sacrifice... Why won't the mountain god let us go... Why wasn't it Lin Sheng, that outsider, who died..." An old man's vicious curse echoed in Lan Ce's ears. He could only force himself to treat these as meaningless data streams, but the emotional pollution carried by that resentment still made his rapidly working brain feel a stinging pain.

These voices, these dying words filled with fear, regret, selfishness, malice, and resentment, constantly eroded their will.

“This road is a river paved with the despair of the dead.” Bai Yu’s voice echoed in the telepathic link, carrying an extraordinary calm, but his teammates could all sense that he was bearing a burden heavier than all of them combined. “We are like walking on a riverbed, each step stirring up silt that has settled for centuries. Don’t listen, don’t think, focus all your attention on me. Follow my breath, follow my heartbeat, and keep moving forward with me.”

Having drunk that cup of "wine of resentment," Bai Yu heard more than just scattered fragments. In his world, the cries and curses of hundreds and thousands of lost souls were interwoven into a grand requiem. It was an extreme torment, yet it also allowed him to clearly "see" the strength and direction of every stream of resentment along this path.

He began leading the three along a seemingly erratic route. Sometimes, he would have them hold their breath and quickly pass by a stone tablet; other times, he would stop in another seemingly peaceful place, waiting for an invisible tide of resentment to recede.

They were like a group of small boats struggling to navigate a turbulent sea, following a shaky lighthouse, at any moment at risk of being capsized by a giant wave and never recovering.

Just as she passed a stone tablet engraved with "Lin Li Shi", Bai Yu suddenly stopped in her tracks.

"What's wrong?" An Mu immediately became alert.

“Something’s not right about the resentment here.” Bai Yu’s brows furrowed. Among the resentment filled with the seven emotions and six desires of mortals, he caught a trace of extremely faint malice.

That malice was not human; it was cold and indifferent, carrying an air of superiority as if observing ants. It was like drops of ink falling into clear water, silently polluting the resentment that belonged to the "Lin Li family."

“…My son…listen to your mother…hand over that vixen from out of town…the mountain god will protect you…you’ll be alright…I’m doing this for your own good…”

The woman's loving words of comfort contained a trace of will that she herself was unaware of.

“It’s the ‘Mountain God’.” Bai Yu’s eyes turned cold. “It’s not just an observer; it’s been secretly driving everything from the very beginning. It planted the seeds of ‘sacrifice’ in the hearts of the villagers and then quietly waited for them to blossom and bear fruit.”

This discovery sent an even deeper chill down the spines of the four. They were confronting a demon that had been orchestrating events for a century, using the human heart as its chessboard and despair as its sustenance.

They fell silent, following Bai Yu in quiet desperation as they trudged along this "path to survival" leading to hell. After an unknown amount of time, just as their spirits were about to crumble under the weight of the endless wails and resentment, the path ahead finally changed.

The narrow path suddenly opened up, and they emerged from the suffocating crevice into an open space at the edge of the village. Here they were at the foot of the mountain behind the village.

In the center of this open space stands the last and largest stone tablet on this road.

The stone tablet was entirely black, its material unlike any of the previous ones; it appeared to be carved from a single piece of charred wood struck by lightning. No name was inscribed on it.

There was only a clear handprint that had turned dark brown, a bloodstain left by someone unknown.

The moment they saw this handprint, the cries and curses of hundreds and thousands of dead souls that had been lingering in their ears came to an abrupt end.

The world fell silent once again.

But this time, a resentment more terrifying than ever before was brewing within the deathly silence.

"Not good!" An Mu was the first to react, roaring, "Mental defense! Maximum power!"

But it was too late.

An indescribable torrent of resentment, like the waters of the Netherworld River bursting its banks, erupted from the stone tablet bearing the bloody handprint, fiercely washing over the souls of the four!
It wasn't anyone's resentment, but rather the rejection and obliteration of these four "intruders" by this cursed land and this distorted space itself!

Mo Fei let out a painful groan. He felt as if ten thousand red-hot steel needles were piercing his brain at the same time. Stars flashed before his eyes, and his hand holding the battle axe began to disobey his commands.

Lan Ce's detector screen flashed with a series of garbled characters and sparks for a moment, then went completely black with a "snap." He clutched his head, collapsed to his knees in agony, and blood slowly seeped from between his fingers.

An Mu managed to stay upright, but his face was as pale as paper, and his body swayed precariously, as if he would be completely overwhelmed by the torrent of resentment at any moment.

Bai Yu's situation was the most dire. He already had the deepest connection with the resentment in this space, and now, this torrent of resentment was almost using him as its only outlet. He felt as if the countless cracks on the porcelain of his soul were being forcibly torn open, a feeling of "disintegration" more painful than death.

"...Is it over...?" His consciousness began to fade.

At this critical moment.

"Hmph, a bunch of ignorant ants, how dare they damage my 'collection' in front of me?"

For the first time, Hei Yan's cold and arrogant voice was tinged with undisguised rage. A dark power, far more ancient, chaotic, and terrifying than the groom's resentment, erupted from the depths of Bai Yu's soul!

Bai Yu's eyes were instantly replaced by darkness burning with scarlet flames. He slowly raised his head, staring directly at the stone tablet that exuded endless resentment, and a graceful yet cruel smile, belonging to Hei Yan, curled at the corner of his lips.

He extended a finger and pointed it at the stone tablet in mid-air.

"go."

A concise syllable, yet seemingly containing the supreme authority of the universe, escaped his lips.

"boom!!!"

The torrent of resentment, powerful enough to sweep everything away, was like a rat encountering a king the moment it came into contact with that syllable. It let out a shrill cry and, even faster than it had come, spun back and retreated back into the stone tablet!

The bloody handprint on the stone tablet vanished as quickly as if it had been scorched by flames. The entire stone tablet emitted a cracking sound as it succumbed to the pressure, and countless fine cracks appeared on its surface.

The crisis was abruptly halted in a way that no one expected.

The crimson in Bai Yu's eyes faded rapidly, his body went limp, and he collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Hei Yan's attack had almost drained all the strength from his body.

It took An Mu, Mo Fei, and Lan Ce several seconds to recover from the extreme shock and disbelief. Looking at the unconscious Bai Yu, and then at the stone tablet that had lost all its spiritual power, a storm raged within them.

Just now, it was the black words within Bai Yu's body that saved all of their lives.

An Mu quickly stepped forward to help Bai Yu up and promptly injected him with a powerful stabilizer. Then, he stood up and looked ahead, past the broken stone tablet.

The "path to rebirth" has come to an end.

Before them lay a gloomy, deathly black forest. A rugged mountain path, covered with withered leaves and white bones, wound its way upwards, disappearing into the depths of the almost blood-dripping mist.

The malevolent aura belonging to the "mountain god" in the air was like an invisible giant net enveloping the entire mountain forest, waiting for them to walk into its trap.

The cave where the sacrifice was performed is located there.

“We’ve arrived.” An Mu’s voice was hoarse, but filled with unwavering determination.

He carried the unconscious Bai Yu on his back and gave his final instructions to Mo Fei and Lan Ce, who were equally exhausted, behind him.

“Let’s go and meet… this ‘mountain god’ who likes to watch the show.”

(End of this chapter)