The door yielded easily under Xu Hui’s pull, opening just a crack. He took a deep, steadying breath, then pulled it fully open, only to stop dead, dumbfounded: outside, a wall of dull grey brick stood flush against the frame, sealed tight.

A feeling bordering on hysterical laughter rose in Xu Hui. He reached out, pressing his palm against the wall, then hammered it a few times with his fist. The cold, unyielding surface offered no clue as to whether it was real or illusion.

He stepped back a few paces in frustration, tempted to pull out his gun and blast a few rounds into the wall to vent his rage, but knew it would solve nothing.

After sizing up the wall one last time, Xu Hui frowned and approached it, running his hands carefully over the surface. He tapped it twice with the corner of his talisman, and the sharp sting in his hand only solidified his belief that this wall was no phantom.

Unable to decide what to do next, Xu Hui murmured to himself, “Kuang Feifan, Kuang Feifan, where are you now?”

At that very moment, Kuang Feifan was also trapped, confined within another room.

The truth was, the moment Xu Hui had been detained, Kuang Feifan hadn’t even realized it. Stepping out of the room, he had intended to check another adjacent room, remembering vaguely that he had left a cabinet in there.

Just as Kuang Feifan stepped clear, the door behind him slammed shut with a loud thud, as if thrown by a strong hand. Startled, he called out, “That was rough; you scared me.”

Turning around, he spotted a figure standing by the doorpost behind him. Since the hallway was much darker than the room, the silhouette resembled Xu Hui. Just as he was about to turn his flashlight on the figure, a voice came from behind: “Let’s go quickly.”

Kuang Feifan instinctively replied with an “Oh,” and moved forward, the shadow closely trailing him.

Following his memory to the next doorway, Kuang Feifan noticed the door was ajar. His heart tightened. He gently pushed it open; the door swung inward slowly. He shone his light inside—nothing seemed amiss—and called back to the person following him, “This is the one.”

He stepped inside first, casually asking, “Xu Hui, where’s your flashlight?”

“It’s broken,” a faint voice answered.

Kuang Feifan paused slightly, sensing something was fundamentally wrong. He spun around and violently swept the beam of his flashlight toward the person who had been trailing him.

He saw Xu Hui slightly tilt his head, eyes closed, as if trying to avoid the direct glare of the light. Whether it was the light or not, Kuang Feifan thought his complexion looked unnervingly pale.

But apart from that, there were no other anomalies. Kuang Feifan hesitated, then turned back to scan the room with his light. The overcast sky meant almost no ambient light penetrated the window; the room was as dark as it had been that other night, making Kuang Feifan feel increasingly tense. He couldn’t fathom why they were encountering this situation when they had specifically chosen to enter at noon.

However, dwelling on it was useless. When the beam of light landed on the cabinet, he spoke up, pointing, “Look, there’s the cabinet.”

“Then let’s open it and see,” Xu Hui’s voice sounded unusually level, completely devoid of inflection, suggesting a total lack of interest.

Kuang Feifan frowned involuntarily, glancing at him with clear dissatisfaction. “What’s wrong? Disappointed? You insisted on coming here.”

Saying that, he walked over to the cabinet. His gaze immediately dropped to the upper right corner of the wood surface. Etched clearly into the thick layer of dust were those two words: Flee Now.

He remembered He Shaoqing had written those words. Seeing them, Kuang Feifan was suddenly struck by an odd sensation, as if those words were warning him now.

He abruptly swung the flashlight beam back toward the figure standing by the door. Although the person looked identical to Xu Hui, the face, white as if drained of life, and the eyes lacking any spark of spirit, all indicated that this was no longer Xu Hui.

Kuang Feifan cursed silently, realizing he had been too careless.

Noticing the light shining on him again, the “Xu Hui” figure asked with a hint of impatience, “What is it?”

Kuang Feifan quickly pulled the flashlight away, suppressing the urge to lash out, and masked his turbulent emotions. “Nothing, I’ll keep the light on for you. Aren’t you coming to check?”

“You check. I’ll wait here.”

The “Xu Hui” figure then slowly began moving toward the doorway.

Kuang Feifan was startled and urgently called out, “Quick, look! I found something.”

The “Xu Hui’s” movement halted momentarily. Kuang Feifan seized the chance, shouting, “Hurry up and come look.”

The figure clearly hesitated before slowly walking toward him. It was only then that Kuang Feifan noticed the “Xu Hui’s” gait seemed remarkably awkward; his arms and legs moved with extremely small arcs, almost as if he were shuffling or dragging his feet along the floor.

Kuang Feifan carefully placed the flashlight on the cabinet surface, gripping his collapsible baton in one hand and casually snatching a talisman with the other. Unexpectedly, perhaps due to his sudden movement, the “Xu Hui” stopped dead when he was about ten paces away, silent, and began backing away instead.

Kuang Feifan’s face changed instantly. He flung the talisman toward the retreating figure while shouting, “Five Elements Borrowed Law, Thunder God’s Edict, Command the Thunder!”

As the incantation left his lips, the talisman instantly transformed into a burst of blue electrical sparks, shooting directly toward the rapidly receding “Xu Hui.” Simultaneously, Kuang Feifan snapped open his collapsible baton, holding the three sections firmly, ready to meet any attack.

Surprisingly, the “Xu Hui” made no move to engage him, continuing to retreat, actually moving slightly faster than the speed of the talisman Kuang Feifan had thrown. The blue electrical light exploded around the figure, missing its target, but the force of the blast lifted the figure off the ground, sending him tumbling straight out of the room.

In the instant the “Xu Hui” flew out the doorway, Kuang Feifan clearly saw that he was no longer Xu Hui, but had transformed into a paper effigy, the kind burned for the dead.

Kuang Feifan lunged toward the doorway, but he was a moment too late. The door slammed shut immediately after the paper figure shot out.

What followed was the same situation Xu Hui had faced: no matter how hard he pushed, the door remained utterly immovable. To his astonishment, even wearing his prayer beads offered no purchase, not even a hairline crack opened.

Had the spirits in this small building grown more potent? Or were the prayer beads he wore entirely useless?

Kuang Feifan too was rendered helpless.

Unlike Xu Hui, however, Kuang Feifan had prior experience with similar terror; his mental and psychological fortitude was significantly greater. At this point, he worried about Xu Hui more than himself, recognizing that he held all the means necessary to combat fierce spirits and evil specters.

Kuang Feifan turned back, picked up his flashlight, and scanned the room, desperately searching for a way out.

He had only swept the beam halfway around the room when an unnerving, icy draft swept through. Startled, Kuang Feifan instinctively looked toward the window—the one directly opposite the door. Unbeknownst to him, clusters of shadowy figures were seeping in through the cracks of the windowpane. These shadows, varying in size and shape, gathered along the window edge, merging against the wall, their color deepening like ink staining parchment. They then began to consolidate rapidly in one spot, soon coalescing into the distinct shape of a human figure.