Kuang Feifan could scarcely believe what he was seeing. Hovering barely a foot away from a solitary candle was a figure, and in the flickering light, he could make out a face—a face that, frankly, did not belong to a human being.

The apparition in mid-air possessed a doll-like visage, yet it was horribly mutilated. Its deathly pale face featured eyes wide open, completely devoid of pupils, just two spheres of uniform white bulging from their sockets, staring fixedly at some point beyond Kuang Feifan, seeming to look straight through him toward He Xu lying inert on the floor.

The face lacked a nose and ears; all that remained, besides those staring eyes, was a gaping maw. The lips, almost unnervingly white, were stretched impossibly wide, revealing what looked like decayed, festering flesh within, where only half a tongue remained, writhing. Worse still, white maggots writhed upon the tongue and teeth inside that cavernous mouth.

Kuang Feifan distinctly recognized that the piercing screams emanated from that doll-face’s mouth. Yet, had he only seen the face, he felt he wouldn't have been shaken enough to tremble; what truly horrified and defied belief was the body beneath the doll-face. It appeared to be composed of three elongated, distorted human figures painfully intertwined. He couldn't discern how they were knotted together, as their forms merged seamlessly, but their heads were all exposed.

Kuang Feifan’s eyesight had always been good, so even in the dim candlelight indoors, he could make out the sexes of the three heads: two women with long, matted hair and one man with a close-cropped cut. Their features were obscured, as each head was a pulpy, bloody mess.

More shockingly, the three figures that formed the body were constantly twisting and convulsing, causing their heads to shift positions. The only constant was that all three were screaming. The ear-splitting shrieks rose and fell from their four mouths—if he hadn't been protected by his prayer beads, Kuang Feifan suspected the sound alone would have burst his eardrums.

Regardless of how the three bodies writhed below, the doll-face remained locked on Kuang Feifan’s position, giving him the distinct impression that if not for the protective circle of red thread surrounding He Xu, the apparition would have lunged long ago.

Charge forward, or remain still.

This thought flashed through Kuang Feifan’s mind, and he immediately resolved to observe the situation. Since he was currently shielding his head with his hands, he wasn't immediately driven to madness by the noise.

But just as he made that decision, he heard a faint, repetitive clacking sound, like upper and lower teeth knocking incessantly against each other.

That sound, audible even amidst the shrieks, startled Kuang Feifan, momentarily dulling the terror inspired by the doll-face. He concentrated, realizing the noise wasn't far off. His gaze fell to He Xu, sprawled on the floor.

Upon looking closer, he saw that He Xu seemed to have partially roused from his earlier unconsciousness, but the shrieking had thrown him back into a state between awareness and stupor. He was curled tightly, almost like a shrimp, hands clasped over his head. The clacking came from him. Though he couldn't see He Xu’s face, he was certain the expression must have been contorted by intense agony, evident from the continuous tremors racking his entire body.

It seemed the sheer magnitude of the pain was so overwhelming that it prevented He Xu from making large movements; he could only writhe silently, enduring it all.

This placed Kuang Feifan in a dreadful bind. He knew that if this continued, the already half-dead He Xu would certainly perish. He couldn't just stand guard; he had to act quickly to silence the doll-face’s screaming.

“Go to… hell!” Kuang Feifan roared, surging forward and throwing a punch toward the doll-face.

The figure shifted infinitesimally, dissolving into a gust of wind next to the candle. A cold, dark breeze erupted, making the flame dance wildly, yet failing to extinguish it. In fact, the forward momentum Kuang Feifan generated almost snuffed out the flame himself.

The screaming vanished instantly from the room.

Kuang Feifan stared blankly at the near-extinguished candle. Though he didn't fully grasp Feng Tian’s methods, it appeared the circle of candles created a barrier the doll-face couldn't cross.

If he blew them out...

Kuang Feifan gasped inwardly, quickly retreating and putting distance between himself and the candles.

Unexpectedly, a short while later, the doll-face reappeared beside a different candle, seemingly preparing to shriek again. Kuang Feifan had developed a degree of resistance to the sight by now. He rolled his eyes, raised his hand, and sprayed the “Ghost Repellent” directly at it.

The action was swift; not a drop of the misty spray was wasted, landing perfectly on the doll-face.

Fortunately, there was no fear of the water mist extinguishing the candles, and luckily, the “Ghost Repellent” proved effective.

Struck by the spray, the doll-face twisted in agony and vanished again into the air. However, Kuang Feifan noticed this time it faded slowly, piece by piece, unlike the abrupt dissipation into a gust of wind before.

Progress!

He glanced at He Xu and saw that his body seemed slightly more relaxed, suggesting his pain diminished when the screaming stopped.

Kuang Feifan gritted his teeth, holding the “Ghost Repellent” ready for the apparition’s next appearance.

But when the doll-face materialized before another candle, Kuang Feifan recoiled in shock. Blood was weeping from the corners of its eyes, flowing like tears. Blood also began to seep slowly from the corners of its mouth. What truly made his scalp prickle was the continuous deluge of white maggots pouring from its mouth—their squirming forms were nauseating.

The most unbearable part was that these maggots spilled ceaselessly from the doll-face’s lips onto the floor, where they began to writhe and crawl forward.

Disgusting…

Kuang Feifan couldn't help but grimace, lunging forward to spray it again.

This time, however, he was too slow. Feng Tian, who had been seated by the mirror, acted a fraction of a second before him, tossing out a loop of red thread.

When Kuang Feifan noticed Feng Tian’s move, he simultaneously realized that Feng Tian only intervened because the doll-face had appeared near the candle closest to the mirror, positioned almost directly opposite it.

Feng Tian’s red thread loop snapped around the doll-face’s neck. As the loop tightened, Kuang Feifan saw the apparition’s body visibly stiffen.

Simultaneously, the three heads making up its body suddenly lunged forward, mouths agape, seemingly trying to bite the tightening red cord.

But Feng Tian gave them no quarter. With a sharp tug, he yanked the doll-face toward the mirror.

“Quick, force it into the mirror with the spray!” Feng Tian shouted to Kuang Feifan.

The way the red thread vibrated confirmed that the doll-face had no intention of returning to the mirror willingly.

Kuang Feifan dared not delay, furiously depressing the nozzle of the spray, ignoring the squirming maggots his boots now trod upon.

Feng Tian held the doll-face fast, slowly forcing it toward the mirror under the constant pressure of the “Ghost Repellent.”

The closer it got to the mirror, the fiercer the doll-face resisted. Yet, constrained by the red thread, it could only struggle, its three heads constantly snapping at the cord. Each time they touched it, they recoiled as if scalded, only to immediately resume biting at the red thread…

Just as the doll-face was about to make contact with the glass, Feng Tian yanked the rope and commanded, “Fast, hit it with the prayer beads!”

Kuang Feifan didn't hesitate, hurling the beads in his hand.

Regrettably, the beads missed the doll-face’s body, striking the mirror surface before falling onto the floor.

Kuang Feifan watched in astonishment as the doll-face slipped inside the mirror just before the beads could connect.

“Damn it…”

Kuang Feifan stamped his foot in frustration, certain that once inside the glass, the apparition could evade both him and Feng Tian.

But Feng Tian showed no sign of quitting. On the contrary, he pulled out his remaining jar of black dog’s blood and splashed it the moment the doll-face materialized within the mirror.

Instantly, with a sharp crack, the spot on the mirror surface hit by the blood developed a fissure, as if struck by a hard object, which immediately spiderwebbed outwards. Both Kuang Feifan and Feng Tian clearly heard a scream erupt from inside the mirror. This scream, unlike all the previous ones, held the despair of facing death but didn't cause them physical discomfort.

Instead, Kuang Feifan felt an unprecedented sense of relief, the sweet exhaustion following a major battle. He watched as the doll-face’s entire body shattered into several pieces, like a broken mirror, along with the two men and one woman who formed its structure.

As they watched the doll-face crumble into countless shards inside the glass, the massive mirror before them also began to crack extensively before pieces detached and fell onto the floor.

Simultaneously, the eight candles on the floor mysteriously extinguished themselves without any breeze, plunging the room into absolute darkness.

After a long moment, Kuang Feifan gasped for breath and murmured, “Is it over?”

After a pause, Feng Tian let out a long exhale, his tone relaxed. “It should be… over.”

But this was clearly no time for rest. Kuang Feifan tried the door; the main villa lights remained off, but the exit door could now be opened. He located the circuit breaker and saw the main switch had tripped.

Flipping the breaker back on flooded the villa with light. The entire ordeal felt like a nightmare. When they saw the corpses of the maggots still littered on the floor of the training room, Kuang Feifan still felt a surge of nausea.

Feng Tian retrieved his satchel, pulled out a bottle of oily substance, poured it over the remains, and quickly burned the bodies to ash. Then, the two of them carried He Xu, who had once again lapsed into unconsciousness, back to the living room.

At that moment, Kuang Feifan remembered something and asked Feng Tian, “Right, back in the living room, how did you manage to find water to wake me up? If cold water worked, we should have prepared more.”

“Uh…” Feng Tian paused, scratching his head somewhat unnaturally, and admitted sheepishly, “Actually, that wasn't just ordinary cold water…”

“What? Was it laced? With ash?” Kuang Feifan pressed curiously.

Feng Tian rubbed his chin and murmured quietly, “It was mixed with virgin… urine…”