Chapter 184 - 170: Double Kill

Jiang Ying’s real name wasn’t Jiang Ying, but Song Yingshu. "Uncle Ying" and "Yingshu" sounded the same, so she used "I Am Uncle Ying" as her forum nickname.

At this moment, she tightly clutched the object in her arms and looked at her teammates. Zhang Hai and Liu Hua had acted too decisively, killing Zhou Ji the moment they met.

The ghost that attacked Zhou Ji was extremely violent. Before Zhou Ji even had time to react or use an Item, his head was blown off.

Immediately after, Jiang Xiyin was grabbed. Originally, another White-faced Ghost had tried to attack her, but fortunately, she was prepared and didn’t get hurt by it.

Song Yingshu and Jiang Xiyin exchanged a glance from afar. Jiang Xiyin was trembling violently, tears welling in her eyes, yet she bit her lip tightly to suppress her fear.

All three of them were Players who had joined this game in the final round of the previous world. Less than ten minutes after entering the Red Corpse World, everything was ended by the Wealthy Lord Blossoming Prosperity. They hadn’t even awakened their Extraordinary Abilities.

Fortunately, the new world was the Mysterious World. Song Yingshu’s grandfather was an old Daoist who ran a street stall by the overpass. Having grown up watching him, she had learned quite a few things.

They had experienced a perilous ordeal in the puppet carving room and barely managed to escape. Now, before they could even attempt to complete the team mission, one of their members was already dead.

"Fine, I’ll give the thing to you, but you have to let her go," Song Yingshu said to Liu Hua and Zhang Hai.

The hand Zhang Hai used to choke Jiang Xiyin loosened slightly.

"Put it on the ground slowly, then back away!" Liu Hua commanded sternly.

Song Yingshu bent down slowly, pretending to place the bundle on the floor. However, just as it was about to touch the ground, she gave her wrist a sharp flick and tug. The bundle tore open instantly, and the wooden puppet inside was flung far away.

In the split second that the two were stunned by Song Yingshu’s sudden move, the hostage Jiang Xiyin immediately took out the Item Song Yingshu had just transferred to her through the team interface.

"I want to go to the toilet!!!"

As soon as the words fell, Jiang Xiyin vanished into thin air from Zhang Hai’s grasp.

This was the only Item Song Yingshu could afford right now. In the Mysterious World, fleeing to a toilet using this Item wasn’t necessarily a good thing, which was why it had been discounted and could be bought at half price.

Zhang Hai stared at his empty palm in disbelief. "Damn it!"

Liu Hua gasped in shock. She didn’t rush to chase after the thrown puppet either. She wasn’t an idiot—that thing was incredibly vicious. Now that its outer seal had been torn open, she had no intention of approaching it.

The first reaction of both Liu Hua and Zhang Hai was to release their respective ghosts and kill Song Yingshu first.

The White-faced Ghost instantly appeared in front of Song Yingshu. Showing no fear on her face, Song Yingshu grabbed a handful of red rice from her pocket and threw it violently at the White-faced Ghost.

TSSSSS!

The red rice instantly triggered a massive plume of pungent white smoke. The White-faced Ghost’s body twitched, forced back a step, as tiny scorch marks appeared on its flawless body.

However, Zhang Hai’s Evil Spirit had already appeared behind Song Yingshu’s defenseless back, smashing an invisible steel pipe down ruthlessly.

Song Yingshu suffered a heavy blow. Her entire body was sent flying by the tremendous force, crashing into an old locust tree several meters away.

She fell to the ground and spat out a large mouthful of blood, her face instantly turning as pale as paper.

By this time, Liu Hua also got a clear look at the puppet in the distance. It wasn’t the one they had seen under the stage at all, nor did it have any supernatural aura.

"You dare play us!" Liu Hua was furious. "Speak! Where is the real puppet?"

Coughing, Song Yingshu stood up, spat out another small mouthful of bloody froth, and pointed at the puppet on the ground.

"Isn’t the thing... right there?"

Song Yingshu didn’t understand it either. They had picked out a good-looking puppet in the carving room, planning to take it to the front stage for a puppet show to complete the team mission.

Because everyone thought puppets looked sinister and terrifying, she had taken out the rune-inscribed yellow cloth and red string she had prepared in advance to wrap it up. In reality, her Taoists were insufficient, so she couldn’t create a truly effective sealing kit.

Who would have known that as soon as they left the room, these two lunatics would demand this broken puppet. If they had just asked earlier instead of killing someone, she would have offered it up with both hands.

Liu Hua sniffed the air. "No, you have something on you. Hand it over if you don’t want to die!"

Hearing this, Song Yingshu frowned. She wondered, "Could it be that they want that thing?"

"Do you need help?"

A voice suddenly came from above. The three of them turned their heads simultaneously and saw Yin Zhen sitting on the eaves, wearing a black tracksuit, carrying a backpack, with a black bucket hat pulled low over her head.

Liu Hua’s eyes twitched the moment she saw Yin Zhen, unsure of how long she had been watching from up there.

Zhang Hai waved a hand at Yin Zhen and strode toward Song Yingshu. "No need for help with such a trivial matter!"

Seeing the aggressively approaching Zhang Hai, Song Yingshu retreated in fear. She had no more tricks left. Aside from some rice soaked in chicken blood and vermillion in her pocket, she had nothing else that could save her life.

Was she going to die here today?

Yin Zhen vanished from the eaves in a flash, appearing directly beside Song Yingshu. Before Song Yingshu could react, Yin Zhen knocked her out with a chop to the back of the neck, then lifted her hat, shooting a cold, sharp glare at Zhang Hai and Liu Hua.

Zhang Hai watched this scene in shock and suspicion. Liu Hua had a bad premonition and began to back away, preparing to flee.

"Action!"

Yin Zhen suddenly took out a Clapperboard and snapped it shut. The air within a fifty-meter radius instantly froze. For five minutes, no living creature could escape. She didn’t immediately announce the filming rules; instead, she used Shadow Instant Teleportation to appear behind Liu Hua, ruthlessly thrusting a dagger at the vital acupoint on the back of her neck.

The blade pierced through the flesh without resistance, but no fresh blood spurted out. It felt like stabbing into a corpse.

Liu Hua’s body stiffened violently, a flash of fear crossing her eyes. But in the next moment, the White-faced Ghost instantly materialized beside Yin Zhen, and its supernatural Strength began to corrode her.

Yin Zhen had anticipated this. Before that Strength could touch her body, she raised Night Song and pulled the trigger without hesitation!

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The gunshots exploded in the silent backyard, deafeningly loud. Bullets condensed from the Strength of Inheritance pierced through the White-faced Ghost’s body.

She had arrived early on. The reason she stayed on the roof without making a move was to wait for the Effect of the Emotion Suppressor to wear off, pouring all her suppressed and erupting emotions into the attack.

The White-faced Ghost let out a twisted, miserable howl. Three fist-sized bullet holes were blasted into its flawless body, and the Strength within them acted like a branding iron, wildly eroding outward along the edges of the holes, causing them to continuously expand.

Like an image with a bad Signal, the White-faced Ghost’s body flickered and became increasingly ethereal.

After realizing that there was indeed something wrong with this Qiao Yun in front of him, and that she intended to kill them to silence them, Zhang Hai immediately controlled his Evil Spirit to step forward and help.

But right at this moment, the shadow beneath his feet stood up without any warning!

The black shadow silently condensed into a physical form. Its silhouette was identical to Zhang Hai’s, but its face only had a pair of blood-red eyes. Before Zhang Hai could react, the shadow’s hand clamped down on his shoulder.

In an instant, Zhang Hai’s chest full of rage and killing intent—all the intense emotions he had deliberately provoked and maintained—were completely drained. An eerie sense of calm swept over his brain and soul.

His expression grew peaceful as he watched his Evil Spirit, having lost the support of his emotions, turn bewildered at first. Then, it slowly turned toward him and raised its invisible steel pipe at him.

Zhang Hai’s body trembled slightly from instinctive struggle, but his expression remained numb and calm.

At this moment, Zhang Hai noticed a greedy hunger in the eyes of the ghostly shadow beside him, much like a person who had been locked up and starved for a long time suddenly seeing delicious food.

Thick, viscous black liquid dripped steadily from the shadow’s body, quickly pooling into a small, expanding black puddle that flowed toward where the Evil Spirit stood.

Upon touching the black liquid, the Evil Spirit slowly lowered the hand holding the steel pipe. Its expression carried the liberation and indifference of a soul that had crossed over, allowing its body to slowly melt away bit by bit into the black puddle.

Seeing Zhang Hai and his Evil Spirit instantly suppressed by the ghostly shadow, Liu Hua was terrified out of her wits. She suddenly whipped a small yellow Paperman out of her pocket and slapped it hard against her own body.

The Paperman spontaneously combusted, instantly burning to ashes.

Immediately after, Yin Zhen felt the sensation under her dagger change. She twisted the dagger and pulled it sideways, only to find that the flesh and blood sliced open by the blade had turned into paper.

Liu Hua had disappeared!

"Set rules: No makeup allowed!"

Yin Zhen shouted urgently, and a figure emerged ten meters away at the side door leading out of the courtyard.

Since Liu Hua couldn’t remove her makeup immediately, it triggered the NG Effect. Her body stiffened for three seconds, and the Effect of her Paperman substitute was broken.

She remained frozen in a running posture, her back facing Yin Zhen. Unable to see her, she could only feel the suffocating killing intent radiating from Yin Zhen’s body.

"Actually, I lied to you," Yin Zhen said, her voice light, rapid, and tinged with mockery. "I’m not Qiao Yun!"

The moment her words fell, Liu Hua’s body regained mobility, but Yin Zhen’s hand holding the scalpel also swung down.

Liu Hua’s body violently shuddered, the terror in her eyes instantly freezing. A thin line of blood appeared diagonally across her neck, extending all the way to her shoulder. Her head, along with the weakened White-faced Ghost inside her body, was separated from her neck!

Liu Hua’s headless corpse slumped softly to the ground. Blood gushed out from the severed neck, quickly dyeing the ground red.

The White-faced Ghost floated up from the corpse, attempting to flee, but was instantly swallowed whole by the black shadow that suddenly lunged up and spread out from the ground, leaving no remains behind.

Deathly silence filled the backyard.

Yin Zhen flicked her scalpel to shake off the non-existent blood, then glanced at Zhang Hai, who was lying stiffly on the ground in the distance. Bloody silk threads condensed from her fingertips as she began to form a resonance with their memories.