Chapter 35 A Lingering Ghost: Are you exorcising a ghost, or summoning a spirit...?
If he were completely still, or if he could move constantly, that would be fine. But he moves intermittently, seemingly still, and then suddenly becomes active again at any moment. Lin Jianyu couldn't help but feel nervous just thinking about it.
“Even if he moves, he can only attack you from the front. He can’t suddenly disappear from your sight and then sneak up on you from behind. You have Whale Fall in your hand, so at worst you can just give him a counterattack. What’s there to be afraid of?” Zhu Liu said.
"Could you please not hide behind me when you say that?" Lin Jianyu said coldly.
Zhu Liu wanted to say no, but before he could speak, the undead that had been in front of them suddenly disappeared.
"Gone? Gone?" Lin Jianyu stopped in her tracks and mechanically turned to look at him. "Did you jinx it, or am I blind again?"
"I jinxed it." As he answered her, Zhu Liu quickly turned around to look behind him, to prevent the undead from actually attacking from behind, but there was nothing there. "They're not behind me."
"It's not up, down, left, or right either," Lin Jianyu said.
"Has it completely disappeared?" Zhu Liu asked.
"Good question." Lin Jianyu obviously didn't know the answer either.
"So what should we do now?" Zhu Liu asked again.
Lin Jianyu knew the answer to this question.
"run."
"Where do you want to run?"
"Go back," Lin Jianyu said, and ran straight ahead.
Following the trend closely behind.
The two had only run a few steps when the ghost that had disappeared suddenly reappeared in the same spot. Lin Jianyu stumbled and almost bumped into it, but fortunately Zhu Liu grabbed her by the back of her collar in time.
But because the distance was so close, she was hit head-on once again.
"Damn, damn, damn..."
"Stop fucking, this isn't the time for heavy stuff, quickly use Whale Fall to send him flying," Zhu Liu said.
Upon hearing this, Lin Jianyu immediately used the whale fall as a baseball bat. With one strike, the undead disappeared—not flew away, but vanished again.
She hit nothing and almost twisted her back.
"Damn, is he lacking in spiritual power?" He appears for a moment and then disappears.
"I don't know." Zhu Liu knew very little about the undead, especially artificially raised undead.
Lin Jianyu didn't expect him to give her an answer. After asking, she turned and ran, intending to take a detour.
Seeing her run away, Zhu Liu hurriedly followed, asking as he ran, "Aren't you going to run back?"
"Let's take a detour." Lin Jianyu circled back to the main road. As he ran back, he didn't forget to turn around and look at the spot where the undead had been. It was empty.
I don't know if it hasn't been implemented yet, or if it has disappeared.
She didn't let her guard down and continued running back, and as she ran... she suddenly came to an abrupt stop.
The spirits that were originally behind them suddenly appeared in front of her, scaring her to death.
"Fuck!"
Even those who follow the crowd want to swear.
"Did he switch to magic attacks because his physical attacks failed?" This is the first time in my life I've known what it means to be a persistent ghost.
"What should I do?" Lin Jianyu dared not run anymore, afraid that he would suddenly appear in front of her again, and she would not be able to stop and crash into him.
"How about we try running in a different direction?" Zhu Liu suggested.
“Okay,” Lin Jianyu said. “This time you’ll run in front.”
Zhu Liu wasn't too afraid of running into a ghost head-on, so he didn't try to outrun her and turned to run away.
Lin Jianyu followed behind him, keeping a distance of one or two meters, afraid that if he suddenly stopped, she wouldn't be able to stop in time and would cause him further injury.
The two ran one after the other for a distance without incident.
Just when they thought they had finally rid themselves of the undead, the undead reappeared in front of them.
Lin Jianyu stopped in time and turned around to run back.
She hadn't run more than a few steps when the undead that had been behind her appeared in front of her.
Lin Jianyu: "..."
"I think we've encountered a maze of ghosts."
"I'm tired." Zhu Liu was a little exhausted, both physically and mentally. "Why don't we sit down and rest for a while, and wait for the big boss and the others to come and rescue us?"
“Sit down and rest for a while. I’ll go back and call the big shots to come and rescue you,” Lin Jianyu said.
"Are you sure the undead will stay here and guard me, and won't go with you?"
Lin Jianyu is uncertain.
"Give it a try."
Let's give it a try.
Lin Jianyu ran back by himself, leaving Zhuliu alone in the same spot.
She ran away, but Zhu Liu didn't actually sit down to rest. Instead, he stood there watching her run away and then run back.
"What are you doing back here?"
"It seems like he's following me; I can't escape," Lin Jianyu said, utterly dejected.
“If you can’t escape, don’t come back,” Zhu Liu said. “You lure him away, and I’ll run back to get the big boss and the others to rescue you.”
"I can't run anymore." She was already hungry, and after being tormented by the undead, she had no strength left. The fact that she didn't just collapse to the ground was the greatest respect she could show to the undead.
"Then I'll run, and you stay where you are?"
"Mmm," Lin Jianyu replied weakly, leaning against the tree trunk.
Having received her response, Zhuliu ran back on his own.
Not long after, he ran back.
“That won’t work, we have to split up,” he said. “I’ll run back, you can choose any direction to run, or walk if you can’t run.”
"Why can't I run back?" Lin Jianyu really wanted to go back to Lu Jiao's side and be his leg accessory.
She had realized that it wasn't that Lu Jiao couldn't live without her, but that she couldn't live without Lu Jiao. Every time she left Lu Jiao, her fate was tragic.
“Because you can’t run anymore, I might kick the bucket before you get back to the boss and the others,” Zhu Liu said. “Besides, you and the boss have a telepathic connection. No matter where you run, he can find you and he will definitely come looking for you.”
Lin Jianyu thought what he said made sense, but she didn't really want to listen.
"Are you so sure the undead will follow me and not you?"
Well... it's really hard to say for sure if we're going with the flow.
"Give it a try."
The results of the test showed that the undead followed them all; Zhu Liu couldn't escape, and Lin Jianyu couldn't leave either.
So, the two of them found a sunny spot and lay down flat.
"Aren't the dead ghosts? Why aren't they afraid of sunlight?" Lin Jianyu asked, looking at the dead not far from them.
"Who told you that the dead are ghosts?"
"Isn't that right? Then what are the undead?"
"It is a soul that transcends itself."
"I don't understand, put it simply."
“You can think of it as a soul that is more powerful than your physical body,” Zhu Liu said. “When your soul is more powerful than your physical body, you may transform into an undead, which is like an advancement. However, the process is very risky, and most members of the Shan Hai Clan lose their sanity after transforming into undead.”
"I see." Lin Jianyu suddenly realized.
Did you really understand?
"It doesn't matter," Lin Jianyu said nonchalantly. "Anyway, I most likely won't turn into an undead. Even if I do, I'll most likely be an undead that has lost its mind."
"Pure-blooded humans will not be transformed into undead." These words were spoken by a woman.
"Why has your voice changed?" Lin Jianyu turned to look at Zhu Liu beside her.
Zhu Liu clearly didn't have that ability, and the voice was obviously coming from above them.
He looked up and saw a woman sitting on the tree they were leaning against.
Lin Jianyu followed his gaze upwards and also saw the woman.
Upon seeing the woman, her first reaction wasn't fear, but rather concern about whether sitting in a tree wearing a skirt would expose her.
The answer is no, because she didn't see anything.
Sitting in the tree was a woman dressed in green. When she saw Zhu Liu and Lin Jianyu looking at her, she smiled slightly at them and then disappeared.
"Did you see it?" Lin Jianyu asked Zhuliu.
Zhu Liu said, "I saw it."
"If it's not a hallucination, then what is it?" Lin Jianyu asked.
"It seems to be a member of the Mountain and Sea Clan?" Zhu Liu wasn't entirely sure, because he couldn't sense any aura from her, as if she didn't exist, yet they had indeed seen her.
"Can the Mountain and Sea Clan also disappear on the spot?"
“Yes,” Zhu Liu said. “Some races have this racial talent, and those that don’t have it but are strong enough to do so.”
"I thought she was a ghost too."
“The dead are not like her. The dead are spirits, like that fish, while she is clearly a physical entity.”
Lin Jianyu glanced at the motionless spirit not far away, and then recalled the appearance of the woman she had just seen. It seemed different... well, completely different.
Thanks to the cultivators of Gouqu Mountain, she has seen many undead in the past few days. Without exception, these undead are all in their original form. She has never seen an undead in human form, and she doesn't know if there are any.
"Yeah?"
"What are you questioning?" Zhu Liu asked.
“Idiot, that’s not my voice at all,” Lin Jianyu said.
Zhu Liu: "..."
Zhu Liu glanced around but couldn't see the woman from before. However, judging from the voice, it clearly came from right next to them.
"I'm a little cold." He hugged Lin Jianyu's arm tightly.
"With the sun shining so brightly, are you sure?"
“I wasn’t really sure at first, but you were shaking so badly,” Zhu Liu said.
Lin Jianyu didn't want to tremble, but her body was beyond her control. For this reason, she even recited the core socialist values: "Prosperity, Democracy, Civility, Harmony..."
"It's getting hot," Zhu Liu said. "It's useful, memorize more."
Lin Jianyu also felt the heat.
Indeed, in the face of socialism, all demons and monsters are paper tigers.
Suddenly she wasn't afraid anymore and continued reciting, her voice growing louder and more passionate, and she felt increasingly hot, so hot that she started sweating.
"Okay, okay, stop carrying me, it's getting too hot."
Lin Jianyu also felt it was too hot, but as soon as she stopped reciting, she heard a "pfft" laugh in her ear, and the temperature around her dropped sharply in that instant.
"Keep memorizing, don't stop," Zhu Liu said, and started memorizing as well.
As he repeatedly shouted "prosperity" and "democracy," Lin Jianyu felt the surroundings growing colder and colder, so cold that she couldn't help but shiver.
"Are you exorcising a ghost, or summoning a spirit?"
Zhu Liu was obviously trying to exorcise the ghost, but it seems he accidentally summoned a spirit instead.
"You do it, I can't."
Even if Lin Jianyu comes, it won't work.
The core socialist values seemed to have lost their effectiveness. Just as she was considering whether to try memorizing something else, the surrounding temperature rose again, but not to the point that they felt hot; it was as if the temperature had returned to normal.
"Have they left?" Lin Jianyu asked.
"No," Zhu Liu answered with absolute certainty.
Because at that moment, a hand was resting on his shoulder, a cold hand.
"There shouldn't be any ghosts in this world, right?" he asked.
"It's hard to say, after all, there are already spirits of the dead," Lin Jianyu said.
"Then I might have been captured by a ghost," Zhu Liu sighed.
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