Chapter 195: End of the Mist

Ordinary ghost hunters couldn't leave Blood Gate Village. Otherwise, they would have all fled long ago.

Yet Shen Nian had persistently pointed toward the outside. What exactly had he discovered?

The Wind Attendant Buddha removed the Floral Wreath from the corpse and placed it on its own wrist.

Gao Tian wasn't sure if this would work. Was this Floral Wreath a Supernatural Item left behind by Shen Nian? Could it open a path to survival through the mist?

At the bottom of the well, beneath its feet, the gravel began to squirm. It was as if something suppressed underneath was preparing to break out.

Was the Well-Coiling Bone about to emerge?

The Wind Attendant Buddha couldn't stay here. If it came face-to-face with the Well-Coiling Bone, it would be instantly killed.

Empowered by the Light Cat, the Wind Attendant Buddha possessed boundless strength while remaining as light as a swallow. Gripping the edge of the well, it climbed back to the opening at top speed.

From the corner of its eye, it caught sight of a blurry figure in the deep well behind it. The entity was crawling up in an extremely twisted, eerie posture—moving both agonizingly slowly and terrifyingly fast.

The Wind Attendant Buddha didn't dare look back. Wearing the Floral Wreath on its wrist, it sprinted wildly into the mist toward the border of Blood Gate Village, following the direction Shen Nian's corpse had pointed.

What lay waiting ahead? No one knew.

Endless mist surged from all directions, quickly swallowing everything in sight. The sky and earth were both a vast, boundless expanse. With every step, there was nothing but white fog to the front, back, left, and right. The Wind Attendant Buddha quickly lost its bearings, no longer knowing where it was.

"It's dark."

"It got dark outside so quickly today!"

"It's true, it hasn't even been two hours."

"I've stayed in Blood Gate Village for so long, and I've never encountered anything this abnormal."

In Blood Gate Village, astonished voices echoed from many houses. The villagers were both shocked and baffled by the sudden change in the sky over this area.

In the distance, the Bell Ringer loyally tolled the bell, warning every villager who had yet to return home that the Well-Coiling Bone was coming.

Inside Yin Jiu's room.

The shattered Blood Gate barely blocked the doorframe. Tightly sealed, it separated the inside and outside of the house into two entirely different worlds.

Gao Tian sat on the floor, leaning against the wall as he waited for news from the Wind Attendant Buddha outside the village. Beside him, Qin Zhuguang walked over without warning and plopped down.

"I'm out of time." That was Qin Zhuguang's first sentence. "I can wait for one more hour at most, then I have to take you out of here," she said.

From his initial lack of reaction, Gao Tian slowly remembered something terrible.

He had been too immersed in Blood Gate Village and the whereabouts of Shen Nian.

He had completely forgotten that Qin Zhuguang staying here to accompany him came with a time limit.

The defensive line at Shunjin City was still waiting for her to take charge.

Qin Zhuguang had never mentioned it, but accompanying him in Blood Gate Village for an entire night had already vastly exceeded her expected timeframe.

If the Eighth Young Master wanted to leave, Blood Gate Village couldn't keep her. The only reason she was waiting here was entirely because of him.

"You can leave first," Gao Tian said. "Let me check if the Mirror Ghost's ability can take me out of Blood Gate Village.

"Once I'm done, I'll leave on my own."

Qin Zhuguang was very serious as she rejected the idea. "No. If I leave, you have to leave with me.

"I won't feel at ease. If you stay here, you might be killed by something.

"I said I would absolutely never let you die in the Inner World. I, Qin Zhuguang, have never broken a promise."

However, if Gao Tian left right now, Shen Nian's Green Text Mission would end in failure.

What would happen to Yin Jiu and everyone else left in Blood Gate Village?

"Can you take a few more people when you leave—" Gao Tian asked.

"Unfortunately, no," Qin Zhuguang replied.

"I can freely travel back and forth between Supernatural Zones and reality. Leaving Blood Gate Village isn't difficult for me.

"Taking one more person is a bit difficult, but it's within the scope of my abilities.

"However, bringing two people at the same time carries the risk of failure. Not to mention taking everyone in Blood Gate Village."

The one person she had chosen to take away was definitely him.

Even though she was very strong, she wasn't a god. She couldn't carry even one additional person.

Gao Tian knew full well that Qin Zhuguang had already done so much for him.

He really had no right to ask her for anything more.

"Just one hour, right?" Gao Tian asked.

"All right, I'll do my best to resolve everything within an hour."

The first thing Gao Tian needed to do was test the Mirror Ghost's ability.

He needed to see if it could break through the restrictions of Blood Gate Village and return to the Inner World.

He and Qin Zhuguang could leave whenever they wanted. As for Yin Jiu and the others, he wanted to save as many as he could, even if it was just one.

When Gao Tian was pulled into the Mirror World, he was thoroughly disappointed.

The long white corridor stretched into the distance. The number of Mirrors here was pitifully sparse—only a dozen or so.

Further out lay pure darkness, where even the white corridor vanished.

Thirteen Mirrors. That was the total number of Mirrors in the entire Blood Gate Village, including the one he was carrying.

Entering any single one of those Mirrors would just leave him wandering in circles within Blood Gate Village.

It was completely impossible to use the Mirror Ghost to connect to a Mirror in the outside world and escape.

Now, Qin Zhuguang was his only path to survival.

The Wind Attendant Buddha kept walking forward, endlessly forward.

At one point, Gao Tian thought it would be trapped in this white fog forever, walking until it died without ever finding a way out.

In that case, it would be reduced to a discarded pawn, abandoned directly in the mist. Gao Tian's exploration of the mystery Shen Nian had pointed to before his death would end in complete failure.

That was until the silhouette of a black building slowly emerged from the white fog, appearing in front of the Wind Attendant Buddha.

Within the eternal, unchanging white fog all around, a slight change had finally appeared.

Gao Tian, who was controlling the Wind Attendant Buddha, felt a surge of wild joy. He had a strong premonition. Shen Nian was right.

He must have discovered something, pointing the way in the right direction for those who came after him.

Using his own corpse as a road sign, he had carved out a new path.

This Floral Wreath really did have a use. If it hadn't been wearing it, the Wind Attendant Buddha would have been no different from the countless ghost hunters who had explored the village borders before—it would have just walked until it dropped dead, starving alive.

As the Wind Attendant Buddha's footsteps drew nearer, the various outlines and details of the black building in the white mist became increasingly clear, until it could finally see the structure in its entirety.

Gao Tian could hardly believe his eyes.

This was a station.

The waiting room for a Bus.

In the Inner World, such stations could be seen everywhere. Bus 444 connected one supernatural stop to another: Longshu Temple, Abandoned Pagoda School, Old District, Moonlight Asylum, Dexin Hospital...

But to the ghost hunters trapped in Blood Gate Village, this station was an existence they had sought for half their lives. Many ghost hunters had aged and died in Blood Gate Village without ever finding the station to return home.

Had Shen Nian found the station to leave Blood Gate Village?

As expected of a veteran ghost hunter whom even Qin Zhuguang had praised.

But then why had he still died in Blood Gate Village?

Gao Tian only thought about it for a second before he figured out the answer.

Shen Nian's mission in coming to Blood Gate Village wasn't just to survive.

He had proactively come to Blood Gate Village to find his child, who had been snatched away by a Fierce Ghost.

Whether or not he could leave Blood Gate Village was the most trivial issue for Shen Nian. If he could trade his life to get his child back, he would willingly die.

The waiting room of the Bus station was not empty.

There were people inside.

Two figures, one large and one small.

The smaller one was sitting on a chair that was far too high for him. His legs dangled in mid-air, swinging back and forth. As if sensing someone approaching, the small figure slowly turned his head, glanced in the direction of the Wind Attendant Buddha, and nudged the larger figure with his elbow, signaling for him to look too.

Following the small figure's pointing finger, the larger figure also turned his head and looked toward the Wind Attendant Buddha.

Gao Tian, who was controlling the Wind Attendant Buddha, felt his heart pound wildly.

Finally, it reached the door of the waiting room.

The Wind Attendant Buddha pushed the door open, clearly seeing the true faces of the two figures inside.

It was Shen Nian's face.

However, his face was now covered in livor mortis spots. Many of his wounds were rotting, and stark white bone was exposed all over his body. Fine mud and sand continuously fell from his mouth and ear canals, looking as if his corpse had just been dug up from the dirt.

The aura of death upon him far outweighed any sign of life.

The little boy, on the other hand, had a fair and rosy complexion. Sturdy and energetic, he looked like a perfectly normal human on the surface.

He didn't seem to realize in the slightest that the "dad" beside him was already a corpse. He continued to lean against Shen Nian's bug-infested shoulder, swinging his legs and chatting with a smile.

The moment the Wind Attendant Buddha pushed open the door and entered, the father and son fell quiet for a moment.

Upon seeing the puppet made of wind, Shen Nian visibly displayed hostility. His hand reached toward the Long Spear under his trench coat as he stood up, shielding the little boy behind him.

Even though he had already become a corpse, he still maintained his fatherly love. He would not allow any unknown danger to approach his child.

After getting a clear look at the Wind Attendant Buddha's build and appearance—which were identical to Gao Tian's—Shen Nian slowly lowered his guard. His expression shifted from vigilance to a smile, a transition that only took a few seconds.

"It's been a while, little brother Gao Tian," Shen Nian said.

"I didn't expect you to have improved so much. I completely can't understand the Supernatural Items on your body anymore."

The Wind Attendant Buddha didn't smile.

It merely stared at the corpse-like Shen Nian before it and asked, "Are you human or a ghost right now?

"I don't have much time left to stay in Blood Gate Village. I hope you can tell me exactly what happened as quickly as possible.

"What happened to you, and what happened to this little boy?"

Back in the house in Blood Gate Village.

Qin Zhuguang, sitting beside Gao Tian, shared the vision of everything the Wind Attendant Buddha saw at the misty station through her cat-like pupils.

Upon seeing Shen Nian's face covered in livor mortis spots, she slowly raised her head. As if recalling something, her gaze flickered between solemnity and unfocused haze. "Gao Tian."

"Do you remember, on the way to Blood Gate Village, I told you that I once skimmed past Shen Nian's name among thousands of ghost hunter files?"

"I remember," Gao Tian said.

Qin Zhuguang had mentioned it casually at the time. Among the three people named Shen Nian in the Supernatural Disaster Bureau, only one matched the dual-spear-wielding Shen Nian who had entered Blood Gate Village.

There was a very illogical, fishy detail in that Shen Nian's file. It had made Qin Zhuguang feel as if a fishbone were stuck in her throat.

But that was from a long time ago, and Qin Zhuguang had only skimmed it casually. Even though her memory was astonishing, she couldn't recall it word for word like a machine.

Gao Tian asked, "Have you remembered that fishy detail you cared about?"

"Yeah," Qin Zhuguang replied.

"I remember now. I remember it completely.

"The timeline doesn't match up.

"That Shen Nian's file is from twenty years ago."