For ten years I practiced Gu poison in Southeast Asia; all living beings revered me as a deity.

Having already experienced two supernatural phenomena, Luo Feng was somewhat prepared.

Before he arrived, he had asked Wuchai for black magic candles and a matchbox.

Whoosh! The flame of the oil lamp began to flicker, then suddenly the wind picked up and the flame went out again.

Wuchai groaned, his throat emitting a wheezing sound as if he were choking and unable to breathe.

This time, Luo Feng did not retreat. He quickly lit the candles while closing the distance with Wu Cai. He reached out and suddenly reached for Wu Cai's mouth, grabbed a clump of damp hair, and lit it directly with the candle flame.

Chi!

A burst of fire shot forward. A sharp sound came from Wuchai's throat, sounding like a child's scream.

"It's done!"

Luo Feng hadn't expected the fire to be so effective. Wu Cai knelt on the ground, bent over, coughing violently. Then he stretched out his fingers and pulled a clump of charred hair from his mouth.

"A curse! When...when did this happen?!"

As he gasped for breath, he managed to say, "Quick... Panupong, my bag, check my bag, see if there's anything inside..."

Wuchai threw out the cloth bag he was carrying.

"What do you want me to find?"

Luo Feng took it and hurriedly asked questions. His intuition told him that this was a very important clue.

"Hair... There must be something tangled in hair in the bag. Hurry, get it out."

He spoke halfway through his sentence, then coughed repeatedly, spitting out hair from his mouth.

Luo Feng quickly rummaged through the contents of the cloth bag.

His hand touched a cold, metallic block.

"A revolver?"

Luo Feng frowned slightly.

However, this thing is useless right now.

He continued searching, and found that Wuchai's bag contained a lot of odds and ends, including several fruits used as offerings, a few coins, amulets, incense sticks, nails, bells and other items.

"Wait a minute, what's this?"

Luo Feng also discovered two straw figures with their hair tied up, and it seemed that there was a note stuck to each of the figures.

"...It's a descent medium, and our names are probably written on it."

Wuchai then recovered, snatched the candle, and set the two straw figures on fire.

"Quick... we can't stay in this graveyard any longer, we have to get out of here right away."

As he finished speaking, he quickly sealed the bamboo tube containing the corpse oil and put it away.

"OK."

Luo Feng quickly got up and glanced at the female corpse again.

"Then, what should we do with the body?"

"Just leave it alone."

Wu Cai thought Luo Feng was worried that the corpse would attract the police.

"There are plenty of people who steal corpses to make corpse oil; nobody knows it was us unless you leak your secret..."

Luo Feng pretended to nod.

Actually, that wasn't what he was worried about at all. He was worried that if the body wasn't buried properly, it might come back to life.

"Let's go quickly."

Wuchai raised the candle and quickly left the grave mound.

Luo Feng quickly followed, and the two walked out one after the other. However, after walking for a while, Wu Cai and Luo Feng both realized that something was wrong.

"There's only one way out of the cemetery," Wuchai said. "We've been walking for so long, but it seems like we're still going in circles. We're trapped in a maze... Panupong, take this ritual candle."

He then handed over the black candle, which Luo Feng obediently accepted.

The candlelight flickered, sometimes bright and sometimes dim, but the light was too weak.

The quiet woods ahead exuded a chilling darkness.

"Listen carefully, keep moving forward."

Wuchai turned around and drew his demon-slaying knife from his waist. He muttered incantations, seemingly reciting a spell. Then he lowered his body and used the knife to draw a long line, as if separating the front from the back.

"What did you do?"

Luo Feng asked, puzzled.

"Someone cast a spell at some point, which made the ghosts in the cemetery more active. If they keep chasing us, it will be troublesome. I cast a spell to temporarily seal the exit of the cemetery."

Wuchai added, "Hopefully we can hold out for a while longer... Also, keep moving forward and don't look back, but walk slowly."

Luo Feng nodded, holding the candle in his hand, and stepped forward.

Wuchai followed, but he walked backwards, his eyes fixed on the road behind him.

The two moved in sync, one on the left and one on the right, but Wuchai remained in a backward posture the entire time.

Luo Feng held up the candle and noticed something else: the candle had been burning for a while, but it was getting shorter and shorter, and it was almost burning his hand.

"The candle is almost burned out."

He reminded Wuchai.

"I know."

Wuchai's expression was solemn.

"I still have a candle in my bag, enough to last a little longer... But about ten meters behind us, there's a woman standing under a palm tree, staring intently at me. The clothes she's wearing are the same ones worn by that female corpse from earlier..."

"..."

Luo Feng remained silent, not because he liked to act cool or keep quiet, but simply because about ten meters ahead of him, under a large tree on the right side of the road, he could vaguely see the figure of a woman.

Through the dim moonlight, he could clearly see half of a woman's face behind the tree, with a small black mole on the corner of her mouth.

Luo Feng muttered, "This is troublesome, Wu Cai. There's another woman ahead of me, hiding under a tree. She has a mole on her lip, and there's a little hair on the mole."

He was a little confused. Hadn't Wu Cai just cast a spell? How could this female ghost still get in front of him?

"I understand."

Wu Cai sighed, "This woman was originally just a corpse guardian. Due to some arrangement of the graveyard and the fact that I collected her corpse oil, she is immune to the effects of the Demon-Slaying Blade..."

He added a sentence.

"Also, someone must be casting a spell, turning this corpse-guarding ghost into a vengeful spirit. But who exactly is working against us?"

Wuchai frowned as he pondered, and after a moment, he shook his head.

"Forget about that for now. Neither of us should move around. I'll give you the Demon-Slaying Blade, and you're responsible for drawing a line in front of us. I'll chant some scriptures to bless it and prevent that female ghost from getting close."

He drew another line on the ground behind him and handed the knife to Luo Feng again.

"Let me row?"

Luo Feng took the knife.

"Since the female ghost has been watching us from both sides, we can't move around carelessly. We need to stay alert because she might attack us while we're moving."

Wu Cai said in a deep voice, "As long as we keep our eyes on this thing, it may not act immediately, but if we don't look at it, the female ghost might move over quickly."

"In other words, you draw lines on the ground while keeping your eyes on the female ghost."

Luo Feng understood the intention behind it.

"I will take this opportunity to chant a blessing. For safety's sake, let's not take our eyes off the woman under that tree."

Wuchai added a further explanation.

"Remember, do not look away."

"I know."

Luo Feng dared not be careless. He half-squatted down, drawing a straight line on the ground with his knife while keeping a close eye on the woman under the tree.

While chanting a spell, Wuchai took out a new candle from his cloth bag and lit it with a match.

The firelight shone from behind him, and Luo Feng immediately felt a sense of relief. However, he didn't dare to move, because the woman under the tree showed half of her face, her empty eyes staring straight at him.

"What do we do now?"

He asked Wuchai.

"wait."

Wuchai said calmly, "If we can hold out until dawn, we'll have a chance to survive."

Upon hearing this, Luo Feng simply sat down on the ground, still holding the Demon-Slaying Blade in his hand.

Wuchai remained silent and calmly sat down.

He placed the black candle in front of him and remained seated without moving.

Time passed by, second by second.

Luo Feng didn't know what time it was, but the flame of the candle that Wu Cai had lit was getting smaller and smaller.

"Wuchai, the candle is going out, should we keep waiting?"

"We can't wait any longer."

Wuchai suddenly stood up straight.

"Didn't you notice that the straight line you just drew is getting shorter little by little?"

"What?"

Luo Feng was so focused on observing the woman under the tree that he completely ignored the line that had just been drawn on the ground.

The straight line did indeed become much shorter. It was as if some unseen force was slowly erasing the drawn line.

"This is the power of the female ghost at work. We can't wait any longer, or we'll die."

Wuchai asserted, "We must run."

"run?"

Luo Feng hesitated for a moment: "Wait a minute, why don't you draw a few more lines?"

"It's no use."

Wuchai shook his head.

"This method might work once or twice, but don't expect it to work the third time."

"Okay, but even if we want to run, where can we run to?"

Luo Feng asked again, "There are ghosts both in front and behind, we can't just run into the woods on either side of the road, there's no road there at all."

"We'll run separately."

Wu Cai said calmly, "No matter how outrageous the ghost wall is, it can't trap both of us at the same time. As long as we each choose a direction to run forward, the ghost wall effect will be broken."

"But there are two female ghosts in front of us. If we run forward, we'll be walking into a trap."

Luo Feng was even more puzzled.

"That's not right."

Wuchai said, "There are not two, only one... Ghosts can deceive people's senses. If we see two, it's just a trick they're playing. There is only one female ghost. If we see one of them, it must be an illusion or a smokescreen."

"Then, wouldn't one of them running out mean they'd inevitably run into the female ghost?" Luo Feng swallowed hard.

"You're right."

Wu Cai nodded.

"So we're going to take a gamble. Once we start running, the ghost can only choose to block one of them, and the other person will definitely have a chance to escape."

Upon hearing the word "gambling," Luo Feng felt a sense of unease. He disliked gambling, as it was not a good idea to entrust one's life and fortune to unknown luck.

"I plan to run towards the cemetery behind."

Wuchai lowered his voice and said, "Although it's dangerous enough, there's still a glimmer of hope... You take my Demon-Slaying Blade. If anything happens, with the protection of the blade, you can cut down anything you encounter and still have a chance to survive."

Luo Feng was clearly taken aback for a moment, and then he fell silent.

Wuchai's words sound nice, but who can guarantee he's not planning to use himself as a scapegoat?

"Whatever you want."

Wuchai must have noticed his hesitation as well.

"Anyway, I'll count to three and run towards the graveyard. It's your business whichever way you run... Even if you stay here and wait to die, I won't care."

He started counting.

"1, 2—"

Wuchai made a starting motion.

"3!"

Luo Feng heard the sound of wind behind him.

—That was the wind stirred up by Wuchai's wild running.

"ah!!"

But after running for a short while, a heart-wrenching scream came from behind.