"The clock in the ancient mansion has stopped? Could it be that Li Jun and Wang Chaling's actions are starting to show results?"
Near the ancient mansion.
On the rooftop of a high-rise building.
Yang Jian stood here with Xiong Wenwen and the Ghost Child, surveying the scene of the ancient mansion from above. Although he couldn't see much from the outside, certain changes provided enough clues to judge whether the situation was good or bad.
Earlier.
He saw the entire mansion engulfed in flas, surrounded by an eerie green glow—that must have been Li Jun's Ghost Fla.
But soon, as the clock in the mansion chid, the blazing fire disappeared.
Yang Jian speculated.
This must have been another reset for the mansion.
But after that instance, the clock never chid again.
"Most likely, the confrontation inside the mansion has already begun. However, this isn't a good sign. The lack of the clock chiming ans the one triggering the pendulum hasn't been pushed to the point of resetting yet. The opponent still has strength left. If the clock repeatedly chid and the mansion kept resetting, then it would an the opponent had run out of options."
Yang Jian's eyes glimred faintly, emitting a subtle red glow.
"They're in danger."
Based on his experience, Yang Jian ca to a less-than-favorable conclusion.
At this mont.
The battle inside the mansion was indeed ongoing—danger and horror intertwined, and an unimaginable eerie event was erging.
Inside the desolate and dimly lit hall.
A woman in a red dress, her facial features blurry and indistinct, stood quietly. Utterly motionless, her figure lacked a sense of reality, as if she didn't belong to the mansion but had intruded from so other unknown supernatural realm.
She rely stood there silently.
But the ancient mansion began to experience an incomprehensible transformation.
From above, ashes resembling paper residue began to drift down, coating the ground. These ashes behaved like a corrosive dye, gradually spreading and eating away at every corner.
anwhile.
The darkness within the mansion deepened—thick like a viscous fog that refused to dissipate, coalescing into a distinct shape. The shape resembled a massive coffin placed in the center of the mansion.
No.
Or rather, the entire mansion seed like one giant coffin, enveloping everything inside.
Chen Qiaoyang's face turned pale as he stared intently at the woman standing in the hall.
There was no doubt about it.
It was that terrifying cursed painting.
But why? Why had the woman in the cursed painting appeared here? Wasn't the painting taken overseas back then? Even if it had been poorly maintained over the years and the ghost within had resurfaced, shouldn't it be causing havoc abroad?
How did it end up in the Wang Family's ancient mansion?
And so abruptly?
Then there was the black coffin.
Rumors said countless people had died because of that coffin. Although Chen Qiaoyang wasn't involved, he had heard the stories.
Later, the coffin disappeared—no one knew its whereabouts. It was thought that this supernatural incident had vanished from the world, but now, right after escaping one catastrophe, he found himself facing another.
"These things didn't appear here without reason. It must be connected to Li Jun. There's sothing unusual about him."
Chen Qiaoyang's thin, gaunt face twitched. Gritting his teeth, he lifted his shirt and dragged his nail across his chest.
His nail was unexpectedly sharp—tearing open the skin on his chest, exposing a gash.
Once the layer of skin split, beneath it there were no organs. Instead, viscous, pitch-black blood oozed out, reeking of the stench of rotting corpses.
Within the thick, black blood, flickering green flas danced.
Chen Qiaoyang reached into his abdon and clawed into the darkness. Black blood churned as he pulled out a smoldering Ghost Fla.
Along with it ca a person.
Li Jun, crushed and distorted, his body hollow—devoid of bones or flesh—reduced to little more than a grotesque human skin. From within the head of this macabre skin, the Ghost Fla flickered, strange and terrifying.
"Let's see what's truly going on with you," Chen Qiaoyang muttered, gripping Li Jun by the neck. He could feel no resistance or bone beneath his grasp.
His neck caved inward, limp and fleshy—it felt less like holding a man and more like clutching an empty shell.
Li Jun wasn't dead. His sunglasses had fallen away, revealing empty, charred eye sockets devoid of eyeballs. Within the hollow void, Ghost Fla danced.
"The real has long since died. What stands here now is rely a temporary state. I don't even know how long I can maintain this condition. But if I can take down a dangerous person like you today, it's worth it." Li Jun's thin lips quivered as he uttered his hoarse words.
He was alive.
The dry skin gradually plumped—like an inflated balloon lit from within by Ghost Fla.
Ghost Fla couldn't burn through Li Jun's human skin.
Because this wasn't just ordinary human skin, but the skin of a ghost.
The Ghost Skin didn't belong to the ghost Li Jun wielded; it ca from Chen Yi during the ghost painting operation.
Ghost Skin Chen Yi.
One of Big J City's three heads, who perished during the ghost painting operation.
Now, that Ghost Skin covered Li Jun, suppressing the resurgence of Ghost Fla. Yet, it seed the situation wasn't so simple.
Chen Qiaoyang touched Li Jun's face, saring so oily residue—a brightly colored dye resembling mortuary makeup applied to corpses by embalrs.
"You're not human. You're a man painted onto a piece of Ghost Skin. You're right; the real you has long been dead. Soone used this ghostly makeup to paint you back to life, making you replace Li Jun. Once I sar away the makeup, you'll disappear, triggering the ghost hidden within the skin to awaken."
"Do you dare to make disappear here?" Li Jun showed no fear of death, glaring at Chen Qiaoyang intensely.
The increasingly thick skin ford a pair of hands, grasping Chen Qiaoyang's arm tightly.
Li Jun was no longer truly Li Jun; he had been created by a Headquarters officer nad Ah Hong. Code na Ghost Makeup—Ah Hong could paint soone to turn them into another, even giving them possession of abilities identical to the target.
This Ghost Makeup could even paint images of ghosts.
Before the makeup was removed, an ordinary person could temporarily wield its ghostly abilities.
However, while ghost-replication lasted only briefly, painting a living human could persist for much longer.
Thus, Ah Hong had painted Li Jun onto Chen Yi's Ghost Skin.
In doing so, Li Jun had been resurrected.
This resurrection was a forbidden act so extre that even Ah Hong couldn't tell if what she'd resurrected was a ghost identical to Li Jun, or a facsimile of him.
It didn't matter.
The painted Li Jun had replaced the dead man while retaining his mories.
The only drawback was that every so often, Ah Hong had to retouch his makeup, lest it smudge and disappear.
Chen Qiaoyang froze, unwilling to sar away Li Jun's Ghost Makeup out of fear. If sothing spiraled out of control, he'd have to face both the ghost painting and the black coffin—a prospect far too dangerous.
"You're utterly insane. If I'm not mistaken, that painting is on you."
Frustrated, he grabbed at Li Jun's shirt and tore it off.
On Li Jun's Ghost Skin, besides the face painted by the makeup, there was another eerie painting embedded—a scene of a darkened world resembling a city. Most parts of the city, however, were blurred, except for a collapsed skyscraper missing several floors.
On the skyscraper, an unmistakable na glead—four characters read: Ping'an Tower.
Had Yang Jian been present, he would have recognized it as the Headquarters building, where he had clashed with Fang Shiming.
Now, the building was deserted—a re background elent of the painting.
In that background should have been an oil painting of a figure, yet the figure was missing.
No, it hadn't truly disappeared.
Rather, the ghostly figure from the painting had left Li Jun's Ghost Skin and was now standing in the hall of the mansion.
Clearly.
Li Jun's Ghost Skin contained a derivative ghost painting—but not the original source. It was a secondary supernatural image.
But don't forget.
The derivative ghost painting was still connected to the authentic ghost painting.
And the original ghost painting resided within the background structure of the painting—the abandoned Ping'an Tower.
"Unlucky as hell," Chen Qiaoyang muttered, both startled and furious. He tossed Li Jun aside.
For now, the man couldn't die.
If he did—
The ghost painting would spiral out of control, perhaps unleashing the coffin, reducing the Wang Family mansion into a true forbidden zone too perilous even for him.
His plans weren't complete. Losing the mansion wasn't an option.
Li Jun fell from the third floor, but then the flas surged again. Ghost Domain enveloped him, placing him firmly back in the center of the hall.
"Chen Qiaoyang, dangerous figures like you can no longer be allowed to wreak havoc. Today, I will seal you away and erase you from this world forever," he rasped, his voice filled with determination.
"You're no match for . Don't get carried away, youngster. Your body is linked to extrely perilous objects. I hold back only to avoid encountering ill fortune. Had I not restrained myself earlier, you'd be done for already. Everything—the Ghost Fla, the Ghost Skin—is powerless against ."
Chen Qiaoyang's face remained icy as he spoke.
"Besides, you're just a painted figure. Smudge your makeup and you'll vanish. You're so fragile—do you think you can stand against ?"
"I know my own strength is limited. Alone, I can't defeat you. But this… this is sothing altogether different," Li Jun murmured, taking a deep breath as the flas on his body receded. Then, he stretched out his palm.
A chilling Ghost Fla flared to life.
Within the fire, an ominous, desolate building erged—like a hallucination.
At the sa ti.
The background skyscraper in the ghost painting embedded on his Ghost Skin vanished.
It seed Li Jun had extracted the skyscraper from the painting using Ghost Fla.
Ghost Domain connected Ghost Fla to the ghost painting, and the ghost painting linked to the building within. Li Jun bypassed the interdiate steps, directly wrangling the background building from the ghost painting.
The Ping'an Tower, wrapped in countless yellow seals, bore nurous red prohibition and danger markings.
At the building's entrance.
A worn wooden staircase bridged the interior and exterior, shrouded in eerie mystery.
Within a certain floor of the tower hung a peculiar sign bearing three characters: Huanggang Village.
Through the building's glass panels and windows, hints of terrifying supernatural phenona could faintly be seen.
Li Jun knew exactly what he was dealing with—this tower captured the original ghost painting and even housed the dread-inducing Ghost Envoys.
His Ghost Skin's painting was rely a derivative of the source artwork.
Like a portal connecting to the true ghost painting, it was now under his control.
And this portal was the only one left.
Old Qin had intentionally left it for him.
All other portals had been erased.
Which ant the painting embedded in Li Jun's Ghost Skin was the last remaining fragnt of the ghost painting out in the world.
"This…?" Chen Qiaoyang stared at the illusory building erupting from the Ghost Fla.
He'd never seen such a technique.
This was a new way of manipulating ghosts.
Yet, his instincts warned him—the building was perilous. No, terrifyingly hazardous.
Step inside, and he'd never erge for the rest of his life. He'd surely die within.
"Dealing with that coffin and the source of the ghost painting—those are things not to be trifled with," Chen Qiaoyang cautiously retreated a few steps.
Li Jun's hand burned brighter, the flas swelling wildly, consuming even the hallucinated skyscraper within. It expanded as if trying to engulf the entire mansion.
The path to unimaginable terror was being opened—personally unlocked by Li Jun.
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