Terror is resurging, but only I am.

Chapter 4: I saw an elderly person breathing out.
Pretending to be a ghost.

Is this the special rule of this ghost realm?
Dr. Wang's theoretical research has explained that each ghost realm has such a singularity, which exists almost eternally, just like the gravitational constant.

However, to Yan Ming's surprise, such strange rules are usually related to the specific type of ghost. The big-bellied ghost is a starving ghost, so the rules here should be related to "food".

The rule of imagining oneself as a ghost seems completely unrelated to starving ghosts, doesn't it?
Let's deal with the important matters first.

Yan Ming knew he didn't have phobia of ghosts, and if he wanted to survive in this ghostly realm, he had to learn to pretend to be a ghost.

He looked at the cat-faced old woman, who didn't say anything more, but just lay on her hospital bed, seemingly resting with her eyes closed.

She just generously shared her method for pretending to be a ghost; it's very simple.

First, believe in the existence of ghosts.

Secondly, visualize the ghost in your mind and create its behavioral logic and settings.

Finally, let's put ourselves in the ghost's perspective.

The stronger one's belief during this process, the easier it is for them to transform into a demon.

The old woman didn't offer a deeper explanation of the ghost-pretending technique, because it had become an instinct for her, much like an adult wouldn't remember the precautions for infants learning to walk.

Yan Ming took a deep breath, and several physical images of ghosts gradually appeared in his mind.

When the target is not determined, the ghost appears in physical form and repeats certain logically fixed behaviors.

Once someone violates the taboo, its state will tend towards idealism, entangled and harmed in various ways until death.

So what are my taboos and rules of killing?
As he began to ponder this question, all other images in his mind vanished abruptly, leaving only a lively, realistic, and malevolent eyeball high in the sky, while the rest of his body remained hidden in darkness.

A spy.

Taboo: When it is secretly watching, the target makes a "searching" response.

Murder pattern: He may appear in the vicinity at any time, spying through some gap, and strangle the target if the target does not notice him.

Yan Ming had been harassed by the Spying Ghost for a month, so he was naturally familiar with its characteristics.

Once the taboo is broken, one must remain vigilant at all times, promptly locate the spy ghost, and force it back into the crevice by making eye contact.

It didn't sound very dangerous, and at the time he felt that with Dr. Wang by his side to help take care of him, he should be able to hold on for a long time.

However, Wang Ming casually remarked, "Even a gap between teeth is a gap."

Even after teeth are extracted, gaps will remain in the fingers, skull, and even memory. The way ghosts attack will only become more abstract and idealistic, and may even expand their scope to indiscriminately kill along the target's network of relationships.

Yan Ming tried to imagine other types of ghosts, and even conceived a ghost according to the basic logic of ghosts, but all of them failed.

Only the appearance of the Spying Ghost's eye became clearer and clearer, and then it suddenly opened.

A blurry image with a blood-red filter immediately appeared in his mind: next to him was a hospital bed with an old woman lying on it with her eyes closed.

Cat-faced old lady?

Where am I in the ward?
Yan Ming has a dual field of vision. When he concentrates, he can examine one of them carefully. The world seen by the ghost eye covers his mind, and everything he sees emits an ominous red light.

Dark, cramped, and malice devoid of any emotion or reason.

To pretend to be a ghost requires adopting the ghost's perspective, which in a sense means he is empathizing with the ghost. Yan Ming is aware that his mental state changes under this condition, but he does not reject it.

Because this will not interfere with his judgment.

The ghost eye was located on the cabinet next to the hospital bed; when it opened, it created a crack.

Pretending to be a ghost was simpler than Yan Ming had imagined. Perhaps the only difficulty was believing in the existence of ghosts, and since he had seen it with his own eyes, his conviction far surpassed that of ordinary people in Wangcheng.

However, the Spying Ghost seems to be different from the Cat-Faced Old Woman.

Yan Ming touched his eyes to confirm that the ghost eyes on the cabinet were newly formed.

The old woman's act of pretending to be a ghost was a transformation of herself, but he also gained an extra ghost eye.

Because the initial form of the spy is too small?

If he also transformed himself, then after pretending to be a ghost, all that would remain is the ghost eye.

Just as Yan Ming was pondering, the old woman suddenly felt a chill run down her spine. She turned around and looked at the ghost eye that was so close to her. The pupils in the cat's eyes contracted sharply, and she instinctively slapped it with her paw.

Yan Ming subconsciously closed his ghost eyes, withdrew the ghost eyes of the spying ghost, and then immediately raised his hands: "I'm sorry, grandma, I didn't mean any harm. I couldn't control myself the first time I pretended to be a ghost."

He surrendered quickly, afraid that the old woman might have a stress reaction.

The old woman looked at the bedside table she had smashed, then at Yan Ming sitting obediently, her brows furrowing repeatedly before she finally let out a long sigh: "Don't try it in the ward. If you show hostility again next time, I won't be able to hold back."

She looked at Yan Ming, and couldn't help but be surprised. She hadn't expected that this strange child could figure out how to pretend to be a ghost in just a few words.

He has strong convictions, great courage, and is more useful than you might imagine.

“Okay.” Yan Ming nodded in agreement. He could tell that the old woman wanted to say something but hesitated, but he didn’t ask.

In his view, the old woman bore a special mark that only he could see.

Just now, as his ghostly eyes peered at the cat-faced old woman, she turned around and "searched" for his whereabouts.

This violated the taboo of the voyeur, so the old woman is now the voyeur's target.

However, Yan Ming still maintained his rationality. When he opened his Ghost Eyes, he could restrain his malice and think in a relatively normal state, without attacking his allies indiscriminately.

This was enough for him to confirm the purity of his human consciousness, at least for the time being, that it had not yet been corrupted by demonic nature.

After his instinctive attempt, Yan Ming obtained some information about the Spying Ghost.

When he opens his ghost eye, it can appear in some unnoticed place, creating a crack to spy on the target and wait for them to violate taboos.

Once the mark is completed, the Spying Ghost can appear around the target on its own and quietly extend its ghostly hand to attack.

It is basically consistent with his real-life experience.

For a spy with its own consciousness, it's not difficult to make someone break taboos, but its attack methods are rather weak.

Yan Ming himself could hold out for half a month, which is enough to be considered a ghost, but it is clearly not good enough as an immediate combatant.

Unless the Spying Ghost gains conceptual-level extensions of its abilities, such as "tooth gap realm," "skull gap realm," "cellular gap realm," or even abstract things like "memory gap" or "dimensional gap."

Yan Ming tried to sense the actual appearance of the Spying Ghost in his mind, but even he couldn't sense it. He only knew that it had one ghost eye and two hands, and the rest of the body was hidden in the gap.

It can't be a one-eyed little geode, can it?
Yan Ming walked to the bedside in the ward, lifted the curtain and looked outside. In just half an hour, the street was already deserted and desolate.

The few pedestrians who were there all looked hurried, constantly checking their phones and rushing on their way.

This scene confirms his judgment: he must go home before 10 o'clock, even if staying in the hospital is safer than sleeping on the streets.

Time ticked by, and the entire hospital fell silent. There was no sound of voices or footsteps. For a building that housed at least a hundred inpatients, this was definitely not normal.

Yan Ming glanced at his phone; it was 9:59 PM, just seconds before 10:00. At the same time, the old woman, who had been motionless, opened her eyes and gazed towards a certain spot.

"There's some noise in the psychiatric ward," she said in a low voice.

Psychiatry?
Yan Ming was about to say something when he suddenly heard crisp footsteps echoing through the quiet hospital.

They were a pair of small leather shoes, clicking and clattering on the corridor floor. Their light, quick steps sounded extremely eerie in the empty darkness.

"Old Wolf, Old Wolf, what time is it?"

The innocent and cheerful voices of girls rang out one after another, their steps echoing down the corridor.

Through the small window of the door, Yan Ming noticed that the light outside was gradually dimming, as if the lights in the hospital building were gradually going out amidst footsteps and inquiries.

That thing came along the corridor?
Yan Ming's expression hardened, and he took half a step back to the bedside, away from the ward door.

Finally, the footsteps stopped at the door of the ward.

Yan Ming bent down and looked out of the window, but he could only see the lower half of a pink dress swaying slightly, with nothing underneath.

The small window on the door is about 1.5 meters high, but you can only see the hem of the skirt. Just how tall is this thing?
"puff."

The lights suddenly went out, plunging the room into darkness. At that moment, the same question echoed in the hallway outside: "Old Wolf, Old Wolf, what time is it?"

"Shh-"

The cat-faced old woman quickly turned around, made a "shush" gesture to Yan Ming, then bent down and nimbly jumped to the side of the ward door to avoid the gaze coming in from the window.

Yan Ming understood, quickly lay down on the ground, hid behind the hospital bed, and then gently opened the phone camera, only pushing out the camera lens to let it observe what was happening outside.

A screeching sound of some kind of metal pipe scraping against the floor came from the corridor, and then a gaunt, yellow face appeared in the small window, with a strange, thin head topped with a fluffy, pinkish-green wig that resembled a mushroom.

The face was pressed tightly against the window, the skin and flesh almost glued to the glass, and a pair of large, swollen eyes, like those of a goldfish, were swimming wildly across the glass, searching for the figure inside the ward.

Looking from the outside in, the ward was empty and there was no answer. So the face fell off the window, leaving only the mucus from the rolling eyes.

Footsteps sounded again; the little girl outside the door seemed to have gone next door.

"Old Wolf, Old Wolf, what time is it?"

The question was the same, but the difference was that the person in the next room answered it. Yan Ming heard someone say, "Ten o'clock."

"boom."

Then the door to the next ward was slammed open, followed by a "click" as the door was pushed open completely, and the light footsteps entered the room.

Did the girl in the hallway go into the ward?

It seems the protective charms in the ward were completely useless, or perhaps the "response" was the cause of the trouble.

Yan Ming was pondering when his attention was drawn to a scream from next door.

The scream initially echoed through the corridor, then gradually faded, but not because the scream was getting weaker.

He felt it was more like the volume had been directly turned down, making the overall sound quieter.

Should I turn the volume down?

No, it was the girl who released something that could block sound, preventing the sound from spreading.

Hearing the faint scream, Yan Ming felt a sense of relief.

In this situation, it's actually a good thing for the ghosts to have a target, at least for them.

The old woman also realized this. She nimbly stepped over the hospital bed and came to Yan Ming's side, whispering, "This thing should be a psychiatric patient. I don't know why she was able to get out. Let's wait until she's far away before leaving the ward."

Psychiatry?
It's because mentally ill people can overcome the effects of phobia to some extent and can act like ghosts just like those without phobia.
Is this what they call a hospital's "domesticated ghost"?
The cat-girl grandma looked serious as she slowly walked to the small window and peered out.

She saw that all the lights in the wards on her left were off, while the door to the ward next to her on the right was open, and the lights were on in a row of wards a little further to the right.

It seems the girl came from the left side of the corridor, turning off the lights as she went, and only entered the ward after receiving a response from the next room.

"Click."

A very faint sound arose, seemingly coming from next door, and then the scream seemed to grow slightly louder.

The voice sounded somewhat familiar to Yan Ming, but he couldn't quite place it for a moment.

Wait a minute, it looks like a window clip.

Yan Ming recalled the scene when he lifted the curtain to look outside. He had paid attention to the structure of the locked window and prepared in advance to break the window and escape.

It wasn't our ward window; it was the window of the ward next door that was opened, which is why the screams were louder.

He thought of the girl's slender and tall figure in the corridor, and a sudden inspiration struck him. He immediately reminded the old woman to hide under the hospital bed.

However, it was too late. Through the window, he could see the shadow of a long, thin neck stretching out from next door, with a head wearing a wig at the top of the neck, swinging back and forth like a windshield wiper.

The swollen, goldfish-like eyeballs peered through the gap in the curtains into the ward, and the little girl's high-pitched voice pierced through.

"Hehe, there really are people here."

The next second, the head smashed through the glass and rushed into the ward, while the old woman jumped onto the aisle between the beds, her cat-like eyes wide open and her mouth revealing sharp teeth.

"Hiss-ha-"

Yan Ming was taken aback, realizing that it was a genuine old man breathing heavily.

However, this breath obviously did not scare away the slender girl. She laughed and swayed her head from side to side, widening the hole in the window. Then she put her long, thin arms on the window frame, trying to squeeze her whole body into the ward.

Looking at the girl's upper body, Yan Ming immediately thought of a stick insect.

"I can not stand it any more!"

The cat-faced old woman arched her back and hissed, her whole body seemingly about to bristle, and rushed forward recklessly, trying to overturn the stick insect's center of gravity and make it fall off the building.

The girl screamed, the whistling sound startling the cat-faced old woman, whose spear-like upper limbs pierced straight towards her chest.

Danger!

Yan Ming naturally considered the old woman as an ally, so the ghostly eyes of the spy opened on the window frame directly in front of the old woman, and at the same time, two ghostly hands emerged from the crack, precisely blocking the stick insect's attack.

The spying ghost chose the old woman as its target, thus being able to appear around her. The appearance of the spying ghost's ghostly hand does not necessarily mean it can only strangle her; if used cleverly, it can have unexpected effects.

At the critical moment, the cat-faced old woman finally recovered. She stepped on the stick insect's forelegs and rammed into it. The brute force pushed the girl far away, almost causing her to fall off the building.

The stick insect's forelegs were still hanging on the window frame, so the old woman raised her cat's paw high and struck it repeatedly with a series of rapid blows, making a series of metallic clanging sounds, and finally broke its forelegs completely.

The stick insect fell down the stairs with a shrill cry. The old woman turned around and ran towards the ward door, instinctively shouting to Yan Ming, "Run!"

But then she saw that the guy had already opened the door and run into the corridor, so the old lady immediately shut up and followed him out of the ward.

　New author, new book, seeking everything!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)