Mysterious Resurrection: What If

Chapter 8 Out of Control (Part 8)

The first to react was Fang Shiming, who was closest to Tong Qian. Tong Qian only felt a gust of wind rush past, followed by a black shadow flashing before her eyes, with Yang Jian's ghostly figure following closely behind.

Ye Zhen shouted and punched the rotting, stinking head of the starving ghost. A green flame rose from beneath his feet, spiraling upwards along the starving ghost's rotten, blackened feet.

Almost instantly, everyone made their move.

"Be careful, its hands have a crushing effect like coffin nails!" Behind Wang Chaling, two lifeless old men appeared on top of the starving ghost's head.

"What a joke? You're only telling me now?" Yang Jian abruptly withdrew his ghost hand, his first target being his hands.

Just as everyone rushed toward the starving ghost, Li Leping appeared silently in front of Shen Lin.

"Shen Lin, don't resist, cooperate with me."

Shen Lin felt as if he was being invaded, and his memories began to become blurred.

"Is it a ghost of the same type? What does it want to do..."

Suddenly, the hungry ghost in front of them flickered incessantly, then abruptly disappeared from the spot. The entire process, from the hungry ghost's appearance and attack to its disappearance, lasted less than ten seconds.

Fang Shiming looked at the empty ground in front of him.

"Disappeared?"

Yang Jian looked at Li Leping and Shen Lin, and he could roughly guess what the two had done.

"The idea of ​​using the power of a vengeful spirit in this way is astonishing."

Fang Shiming followed Yang Jian's gaze, and after a brief moment of thought, he seemed to understand something as well.

"To devise a solution to combat the starving ghosts in this way in a mere instant and execute it successfully, that's an extraordinary person."

"What are you talking about? Didn't I knock that little glutton away with one punch?"

Ye Zhen stared at his fist with an invincible expression.

"As expected of me..."

Shen Lin squatted on the ground, with wisps of black smoke billowing from his body.

"Actually, I was also gambling, but after I invaded Shen Lin's memories, I realized I had won the bet..."

"However, it's a little different from what you're thinking. I can't do it alone..."

"The ghost in Shen Lin's body is the same type as the one in mine, at least in some respects, which is why I was able to complete this plan successfully."

"I'll first invade Shen Lin's memories, and then Shen Lin will invade them back, helping me recall the scene when he was attacked by the starving ghost, so that he can forget that attack."

"Of course, one cannot completely forget when facing a starving ghost."

"But the ghost will always follow the rules of killing, constantly recreating the memory scene and returning there to continue attacking Shen Lin."

"The hungry ghost only ate part of the ghost, it's not even a puzzle piece. I assumed it could only appear in the same memory scene, which is very dangerous... but I bet I was right."

"At this point, if Shen Lin repeatedly recalls the moment when we triggered the murder pattern, the ghost will malfunction because it cannot choose, and will repeatedly appear in two different memories..."

"However, incomplete puzzle pieces cannot perform this kind of backtracking; infinite memory backtracking would cause infinite crashes..."

"However, Shen Lin and I only restricted this part of the supernatural force; the starving ghost is still somewhere within this ghost painting."

Li Leping patiently explained.

In this era of resurrected vengeful spirits, no one is guiding this generation; everyone is groping their way forward in the dark.

Li Leping's actions were undoubtedly an attempt to share his experience. Everyone listened attentively, because perhaps at some point this experience would save their lives.

Black smoke billowed from his parched skin, and Li Leping was in very poor condition.

“Li Leping, you are a man who is hard to remember but hard to forget. I, Fang Shiming, rarely admire anyone, but you are one of them.”

Fang Shiming walked up to Li Leping and helped him up from his squatting position. Fang Shiming greatly appreciated Li Leping's selfless act of sharing.

“Yang Jian, you’re the only one here who has come into contact with the ghost messengers twice. Do you have any good suggestions?” Li Jun squatted on the ground, frowning. He really couldn’t think of any solutions.

Yang Jian shook his head, looking at the ghost coffin hanging in the air with a solemn expression.

"It's impossible to imprison him. The method used at the training base to change the killing patterns of the ghost messengers and bring him back to the ghost coffin cannot be replicated. Now, because of the starving ghost and the ghost painting, unpredictable changes have occurred. We can only make contact with him first."

"Perhaps we should try to change our thinking, just like Li Leping did just now. We can't assume a connection between the three ghosts based on preconceived notions."

Fang Shiming stood beside Li Leping, also pondering their next move.

“Find the true location of the Ghost Painting, attack its source, and restart the vengeful ghost. The restarted ghost will return to the Ghost Painting, and we must imprison it the instant it returns,” Wang Chaling explained his solution. Shen Lin added, “However, without the Ghost Painting’s restraint, the ghost messengers and the starving ghost might instantly go out of control. We must imprison both the starving ghost and the ghost messengers simultaneously.”

"It's impossible. Restraining the ghost painting is already the limit of what we can do. Trying to imprison the starving ghost and the ghost messengers is no different from sending them to their deaths."

"But the situation is no longer up to us. We need to devise a plan to imprison at least two ghosts at the same time."

Su Fan looked at the old-fashioned phone in his hand; the little figure inside had died again.

"The source of the ghost paintings is here, but not on this level. Every place in this ghost painting world can lead to the source of the ghost paintings, but I don't know how."

"It's a ghost realm. My ghost eyes are suppressed by the ghost paintings here and I can't use them..."

Yang Jian felt the tightly closed ghost eye on his forehead, and had been in silence ever since he entered the Ghost Painting.

Li Jun, who was squatting by the roadside smoking, stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. Suddenly, greenish-blue flames erupted from his charred half-body, and everyone felt a burning sensation.

A world filled with bluish-green flames overlaps with a ghostly, gray world, but it seems to end there.

"We failed. We need a deeper level of the ghost realm to infiltrate it."

"Wait, Li Jun, in your ghost realm, the Ghost Eye seems to have regained its power."

A flash of red light streaked past, and Yang Jian immediately activated the fifth layer of his Ghost Domain. But the next second, Li Jun's cyan-green Ghost Domain was instantly torn apart and disappeared by a flash of red light. Then, the red light entered Yang Jian's body and his Ghost Eyes closed tightly again.

“No, ghost domains can only cancel each other out. Perhaps they can achieve some kind of balance and form a temporary fusion by invading each other, but your ghost domain is too low-level and cannot withstand my invasion, so it disappeared. If your ghost domain were a little deeper, perhaps I could make a little attempt.”

Li Leping looked at Li Jun and said to him.

"Li Jun, this might be able to help you."

He threw a blood-red double-sided drum at Li Jun.

Li Jun stared at the small drum, which exuded an eerie aura. "The human skin of a human skin lantern?"

"Yes, but I can't guarantee that the vengeful spirit won't immediately resurrect after you control this human skin. After all, controlling any ghost is extremely dangerous."

“There’s nothing to hesitate about. When faced with paranormal events, we often have no choice. Ah Hong, get ready to assist me.”

Li Jun ripped the human skin stuck to the drum and, without hesitation, covered his face with it.

The moment the human skin touched Li Jun's face, the bluish-green flames on his body suddenly turned dark green, and everyone immediately felt a strange, cold burning sensation.

"Ah Hong!" Li Jun's deep voice came from behind the human skin.

Ah Hong had already begun her actions before Li Jun called her. Under the scorching heat of the deep green ghost fire, Ah Hong trembled uncontrollably, and the makeup on her face melted rapidly, but Ah Hong's hands steadily drew her familiar face on the human skin.

Finally, after half of Ah Hong's face was melted away, Li Jun's face reappeared on the human skin. However, Li Jun's face looked very strange now, with a blank expression, like the kind of paper doll used for folk burial.

"Yang Jian, let's begin." Li Jun spoke without moving his mouth; his voice was deep and eerie.

A darker, green will-o'-the-wisp slowly spread out and enveloped everyone, who felt only a cold, burning sensation.

"Li Jun, hold on! Suppress the will-o'-the-wisps and expand the area of ​​effect!"

These dark green will-o'-the-wisps can even burn down my ghost realm. The only way to reduce their erosion on my ghost realm is to expand their range. What would happen if I shrank my ghost realm...?
A bright, deep red light flashed, and then the entire gray world seemed to be illuminated instantly, enveloped in a golden glow.

Yang Jian looked at this golden world.

"Did the fusion between the ghost domains produce some kind of qualitative change? However, the outer perimeter is still Li Jun's ghost domain. I just cleverly changed the innermost area."

The intense burning sensation made everyone feel as if they were in a furnace, and the golden flames burning around them seemed to have a strong suppressive effect on the evil spirits.

Ye Zhen stared blankly at the golden ghost realm before him.

"I'm so..."

"It's there! There!" Tong Qian's three faces instantly locked onto a half-person-high oil painting in front of everyone.

The oil painting floated silently in mid-air, isolating it from all the golden flames. The surroundings were hazy and gray, making it appear as if one were looking at something in the distance with a nearsighted eye. The bright red frame contained only an empty gray space, as if the ghosts inside had already escaped.

"Was it the ghost that attacked Ye Zhen before?" Ah Hong pondered, looking at the empty oil painting.

Suddenly, without any warning, a person dressed in red, whose face was obscured, stood behind Ah Hong, and a pair of pale, eerie hands slowly reached out towards Ah Hong.

"Attack!" Before the voice even reached her, she was already there. A burst of golden flames instantly enveloped the eerie woman in red. The golden flames exerted a powerful suppressive effect; with just a moment's contact, the pair of pale, strange hands gradually vanished.
Everyone's attention was drawn to the sudden attack. A pitch-black hand suddenly stretched out from the empty ghost painting and grabbed straight at Ye Zhen's neck.

Meanwhile, in the gray, ghostly world...

The starving ghost that had been standing still suddenly started to move, breaking a certain balance, and the dark blue ghost domain expanded rapidly.

The starving ghost's dark blue skin was slowly turning ashen.
(End of this chapter)