At this moment, Yang Jian was frantically thinking of a plan.
He was acutely aware that the knocks he had heard during the phone calls would surely lead the old man to them. And once the old man appeared, the outcome was dreadfully predictable.
Forums, stories, audio files... the old man who knocked and the phone he dialed.
All these clues collided chaotically in Yang Jian's mind. He had discerned patterns within but couldn't derive any further information. This was his first ghostly encounter, and he had no prior knowledge to draw upon; even making it to this point was commendable enough. He was no Fang Jing, claimed to foretell the future.
"Wait, Fang Jing... the future," Yang Jian suddenly had an epiphany. "The parchment!"
He hurriedly retrieved the stack of dark brown parchment from his pocket.
"Y-Yang Jian, look, look over there..." Suddenly, Zhang Wei pointed towards the school, his voice trembling.
Yang Jian looked up and felt coldness seep through his limbs.
A dense, ink-like darkness a few hundred meters away began to creep towards them, swallowing everything in its path. The ground around them started to decay, trees withered and rotted, concrete became mottled and moldy, and the street lamps rusted and looked as though they might collapse at any moment.
An old man clad in a black robe, his body covered in death spots, with a ghastly pale face and vacant eyes, was stiffly walking in this direction.
Step by step, unhurried and unrelenting.
"Damn it, is it coming already?" Yang Jian's heart thrummed with dread.
"Yang Jian, what do we do now? Are we going to die?" Zhang Wei was close to crying, "I don't want to die, I'm still so young, I'm still... Yang Jian, you must think of something. Fang Jing said you'd become amazing in the future, you must have a way out, right?"
"Are we trapped?"
Wang Shanshan, grasping his arm until her knuckles turned white and wearing an expression of terror, chimed in.
Seeing the encroaching darkness, Zhao Lei trembled uncontrollably, backing away, hoping to flee the school. But when he turned around, he saw a similar darkness approaching from behind.
They were entirely surrounded by darkness, with nowhere to run.
Yang Jian ignored everyone else for the moment. With beads of anxious sweat on his brow, he opened the parchment, hoping to find some crucial piece of information.
On the parchment, a line of clear, bold text came into view: "On the 22nd of June, at 5 a.m., the ghost realm reappeared before us. Yes, the ghost has come again..."
"June 22nd, at 5:30 a.m., all of us died, not a single soul survived."
"...I am Yang Jian. If you're reading this, then I'm already dead."
"You've written us off to die? Bullshit, there's got to be a way out. That old man didn't follow me into the restroom before, and I want to know why. If you're not telling me now, I'll bury you so deep you'll never see the light of day again," Yang Jian hissed, the threat in his voice palpable.
The parchment seemed to hear his words, the ink on it blurring until all the writing vanished, only to be replaced by a new line: "June 21st, at night, a ghost dragged me into the restroom. I didn't die because there was an even more terrifying ghost in there, another ghost realm. I saw some horrific things, but at the time, I didn't realize..."
"June 21st, at 9:30 p.m., I got lost in the restroom. But that old man came knocking at the restroom door. He was looking for me, but I didn't hear it. Perhaps for this reason, I escaped a certain death."
A shiver ran down Yang Jian's spine.
Could it be that when he was lost in the restroom, the old man had been knocking just outside?
Quickly, more writing emerged on the parchment.
"...After that incident, I surmised that the ghost realm was the key to survival. If I could harness the ghost realm, maybe there would be a chance to live, after all, I am now... a ghost. Zhou Zheng was right; only a ghost can combat another ghost, and only one ghost realm can overcome another."
"June 22nd, at 5:15 a.m., the old man appeared. I tried to use the ghost realm but failed, my power was insufficient."
"June 22nd, at 5:30 a.m., all of us died..."
Yang Jian's pupils narrowed.
Despite the same fatal outcome at 5:30 a.m., there seemed to be a glimmer of hope for survival.
The Ghost Realm!
Indeed, where the old man appeared, a ghost realm emerged, and now he too was a spirit controller.
Why couldn't he use the ghost realm?
If Zhou Zheng were here, he would have laughed at Yang Jian's line of thought because not every ghost possesses a ghost realm. Those that do are rare... and truly terrifying.
"I must try, there's no other way," Yang Jian gripped the parchment tightly. "Tell me how to use the ghost realm."
Words quickly continued to float up on the parchment.
"Yang Jian, who are you talking to? Look, everything around us is changing. What should we do now?"
Zhang Wei was crying already, his hopes lying solely with Yang Jian, terrified to hear any bad news from him.
"Quiet! I'm trying to think. Give me a moment," Yang Jian replied urgently, sparing a quick glance.
The old man was still approaching, now less than a hundred meters away.
They were desperate, they were afraid. Yang Jian shared their urgency, their fear.
After all, no one wants to die.
More writing appeared: "June 20th, at 5:20 a.m., after the first failure, I thought it was because the ghost inside me hadn't awakened enough. If I could open a few more eyes, it might be useful."
The number of eyes?
Yang Jian had no time to think further. With only ten minutes left until 5:30, he refused to succumb to the parchment's prophecy and die here.
Thereupon, he opened the flesh of his arm, and five blood-red eyes opened in unison, emitting a faint red glow.
"5:22 a.m., I decide to increase the number of eyes," the parchment revealed.
"The method, I need the method!"
Yang Jian roared at the parchment, "If I die, this thing will get lost. Before, you didn't want me to discard you. If I die, do you think someone else will pick you up?"
The ink on the parchment blurred again, followed by new words emerging: At 5:24 a.m., after my experiment, I consumed one of the eyes on my arm and successfully increased the number by one, owning six eyes I successfully used my own ghost realm... I am becoming more ghost-like.
5:30 a.m., I didn't open the ghost realm, and all of us died...
Eating an eye?
Yang Jian looked at the five eerie blood-red eyes on his arm, his entire body went stiff.
But seeing the last sentence - that all of them died at 5:30 - he knew he had no choice.
Now, as darkness enveloped them and the surroundings quickly darkened, the old man was less than twenty meters away from them.
"Creak..."
As the shadows engulfed them, the door to the nearby security booth slowly opened, and a pale hand reached out.
Beyond the railing behind them, a blurred figure in the darkened street inched closer.
Nearby, the faint light of several cell phones pierced the darkness, likely classmates wielding their phones and closing in step by step.
Yang Jian, Zhang Wei, Zhao Lei, Wang Shanshan, Miao Xiaoshan, Qian Wanhao... they were all trapped by ghosts.