Mysterious Awakening

I had intended to handle a case and sort out Dachang City's potential troubles, but I didn't expect to come across an unexpected windfall this time.

After returning home, Yang Jian started to ponder over the three golden cases in front of him.

"The ghosts collected by that company certainly won't be of a high level. If the level was too high, with their abilities, they wouldn't be able to capture them. Of course, it's also possible that they had purchased them at a high price from the Underground Market... If that's the case, using them to trade with the Ghost Cabinet isn't a loss. Even if something goes wrong, I can respond in time."

Even if he released the ghost from this particular case, Yang Jian believed he could still suppress one or two of them.

He thought about it for a moment.

He picked one of the cases and moved the other two to a room on the fifth floor, then he went to the bell tower where he hid the Ghost Cabinet.

Because the Ghost Cabinet possessed many unpredictable factors, Yang Jian didn't dare keep it too close to him. However, he also didn't want to let it out of his sight, lest he lose it accidentally or be unable to stop any sudden changes right away. So he had carefully considered the location to hide the Ghost Cabinet.

Climbing to the very top of the bell tower,

Yang Jian saw the old-style wooden cabinet again.

The bright red lacquer on the wooden cabinet seemed like blood that had yet to congeal, ready to drip at any moment. Even an ordinary person would find this object sinister and extraordinary with just one glance.

As if knowing Yang Jian had come to trade, the Ghost Cabinet's door creaked slowly open no more than five seconds after he had steadied himself.

Even though it was dusk and the outside light was still bright, the inside of the Ghost Cabinet remained pitch black, like an abyss.

It was unimaginable what fate would befall anyone who entered there.

Yang Jian had once curiously peered inside and all he saw was a pair of eyes, lifeless as those of a corpse, sending a shiver down his spine.

"I'll trade one ghost for Zhao Lei's location. Then the Ghost Cabinet will make a demand of me. If I can't meet it, the Ghost Cabinet will likely stir up trouble again," he thought.

What concerned him now was not the trade, but the problems that could arise after it.

Based on the previous attempt with the bowl of fried rice, it was clear that the Ghost Cabinet's demands would be roughly equal in value to what was asked for.

Meaning, the upcoming demand from the Ghost Cabinet would equate to the value of a single ghost.

Difficult to say, but not easy either.

"If I can't find Zhao Lei, I'll also face big trouble later on. The ghost that altered Zhao Lei's memories is growing somewhere unknown to me. Once it feels it can kill me, it will come looking for me, and then I'll be facing a major crisis. I must strike first, resolve the issue with that ghost before anything else," Yang Jian had already thought it through before coming.

Trading with the Ghost Cabinet was unwise, but allowing Zhao Lei to wander out there was an even greater potential horror.

The ghost had attacked him, seemed to have gained his memories, and even tampered with his memories. This ability chilled him to the core.

If he were attacked by that ghost again, and his memories altered once more, Yang Jian feared he might forever become the ghost's slave.

A being similar to a Ghost Slave.

The same fate as Zhao Lei.

This was something Yang Jian would never allow to happen.

Taking a deep breath to calm his emotions, Yang Jian forcefully pried open the golden box.

The gold wasn't thick; he had the strength to open it by force.

As soon as he opened it, the foul stench of rotting corpses assaulted him.

Yang Jian saw a half-destroyed corpse he could no longer recognize. However, the body was bound with many gold wires, wrapped around it countless times like a zongzi. Beyond this, there were several bullet holes in the body.

"Gold wires? Bullet holes? So it seems this was a ghost controller?" His expression darkened instantly.

Without a doubt, this half-destroyed body was not a ghost but a living ghost controller who seemed to have been targeted by the mercenaries from Paul's company, assassinated and then the body, along with the ghost inside that had not yet revived, was sealed in this case.

"These beasts are absolutely despicable. Do they think the world is too peaceful and needs more terror?"

Although this was unrelated to Yang Jian, as a ghost controller, his face sank upon witnessing this.

This brazen act of hunting ghost controllers and stealing dormant ghosts was nothing short of anti-human.

Or was it that the capitalists and ambitious figures behind Paul had, in their pursuit to collect ghosts for a certain purpose, become utterly ruthless?

"In the future, whenever I encounter companies like Paul's, I shouldn't bother with investigations; they should be wiped out on the spot. Such people are the cancer of the world. Tackling supernatural events is useless; hunting ghost controllers is their true forte—a typical bully within the nest," Yang Jian thought of his own assassination experience.

Although it was Wang Xiaoqiang's plan, for any company to be in this line of work was a mistake in itself.

However, just as he was seething with anger, the decaying body inside the box suddenly twitched restlessly.

The gold wires wrapped around it prevented the body from moving too violently, but Yang Jian, holding the case, still felt it.

Though the ghost controller was dead, the ghost would not die.

Even if it was an unawakened ghost, that didn't mean it was harmless.

Only less dangerous by comparison.

"You won't be able to rest in peace like this, burying you will only lead to problems sooner or later," Yang Jian dared not hold this thing in his hand all the time.

Instead of using his hands, he used Ghost Shadow to grab the torn, half corpse and stuff it directly into the Ghost Cabinet.

No sooner had the corpse made contact with the darkness inside the Ghost Cabinet than it was seized by something.

"Bang~!"

The decayed and mangled body was instantly pulled into the cabinet, vanishing into the pitch dark as if dropping into some abyss, and as the body disappeared, the open wooden door immediately shut.

A ghost's condition was met.

Barely ten seconds had passed.

"Clang~!"

It sounded like metal dropping inside the cabinet, and it seemed there was now something inside the once empty cabinet door below.

Quickly, the cabinet door below creaked open on its own.

Yang Jian saw a metal tag.

On the tag was a number: 13

"This is a room number plate for some door," Yang Jian glimpsed a situation.

"But with just this information, it is impossible to find Zhao Lei, this Ghost Cabinet better not renege on its deal."

He then picked up the tag, only to see that the back of the room number plate was scrawled with a line of words: Dachang City, Caesar Hotel.

"I knew it, I gave you a ghost, you should at least give me a satisfactory answer," Yang Jian immediately had an exact location upon seeing the address behind.

Dachang City Caesar Hotel, Room 13.

This should be Zhao Lei's current location.

"So under the circumstances of the trade starting again, what requirement is the Ghost Cabinet going to ask of me?" He furrowed his brows, beginning to worry.

A piece of paper unremarkable in its appearance fell inside the cabinet, with a line of black, crooked letters left on it.

"Find within one year."

The paper had only six words, and on the other side was unexpectedly a color photograph, as though it had just been printed out from a printer.

The photograph depicted a person, more precisely a woman; her features were indescribable, partly stunning and partly eerie, because her open eyes were hollow without eyeballs, but even so, the woman still smiled at the camera gently.

However, upon a closer look, it was apparent that this smile was very stiff, puppet-like, emitting a deathly aura, while her hands placed in front were pale, stiff and started to show patches of corpse spots.

Undoubtedly, this woman was already dead, and quite possibly, she was a ghost.

Additionally, the woman's attire and the background of the photo made Yang Jian's face darken. The woman was dressed in a red cheongsam, seated on a wooden stool, while the backdrop was an ancient wooden door with a corner of two red lanterns hanging from it. The surroundings were dim, as if a layer of black fog had swept through.

"This photo can't be that of the Dried Corpse Bride," Yang Jian's heart sank.

Very familiar.

Indeed, it was exactly like the place where the Ghost Car had stopped to wait for the Dried Corpse Bride to board.

It was also an old house with red lanterns hung up.

Although he couldn't see clearly on the Ghost Car that day, he could still recognize the silhouette of that wooden house and the two red lanterns at the door.

He could never mistake such distinctively identifiable objects.

However, the woman in the photo, even though her clothing was similar to that of the Dried Corpse Bride, was a body that hadn't been dead for long, whereas the Dried Corpse Bride was already a mummified body.

A significant difference.

But that didn't rule out the possibility that the woman in the photo had turned into a dried corpse over time.

"No, that's not right, the Dried Corpse Bride's head was covered with a red cloth, her face was not visible, the dried corpse under that cover might not necessarily be this woman," Yang Jian's gaze shifted subtly, and though he couldn't be certain, he could assert that the background in the photo was definitely the old house where the Ghost Car had stopped.

"The Ghost Cabinet is asking me to find her within a year; this requirement is quite peculiar. It's just about finding her, not bringing her here, nor meeting her... And could it be that the Ghost Cabinet is unable to find the Dried Corpse Bride? It can even find Zhao Lei."

"Unless, the woman the Ghost Cabinet is looking for is not in this world, or she is in a special place, for instance, the Ghost Coffin, or the tomb where the Crying Tomb Ghost wails, or inside some other supernatural entity," Yang Jian's mind raced to many possibilities in an instant. Enjoy new stories from My Virtual Library Empire

It seemed there were things even the Ghost Cabinet could not do.

Yet, he soon grew suspicious again about what the Ghost Cabinet wanted with this woman.

What terror lay behind it all.

Looking at the photo in his hand, a sense of unease in his heart was faintly being magnified.

"The more you deal with these ghostly things, the more fearful it becomes, as if you're prey being lured step by step into some terrible trap. It was so with the human skin paper, and it's the same with this Ghost Cabinet." Yang Jian felt no joy after the success of the trade.

Only an inexplicable chill.

Dealing with ghosts was truly terrifying.

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