Chapter 60 Meeting Shang Xiaoyu Again

Three ghost nurses appeared like phantoms at the entrance of the specimen room.

Ji Yun and the other three had been relaxed just a moment ago, but were instantly driven into a desperate situation.

Seeing this sight, their Adams apples bobbed as they swallowed hard, and their backs grew icy cold.

At the same time, they were filled with confusion. They had clearly been careful enough; how had these ghost nurses discovered them?

They hadn't heard footsteps at all.

As he glanced out of the corner of his eye, Ji Yun suddenly realized that the problem might lie with the fetal specimens in the glass jars.

However, dwelling on it was meaningless now.

The fact was that the four of them were trapped in the room by the three ghost nurses.

There was only one path left: fight them head-on.

...

The three ghost nurses seemed to have been waiting at the entrance for a long time.

Giving Ji Yun and the others no time to digest their shock, the leading ghost nurse sprang up like a zombie, baring its fangs and claws as it lunged toward the four of them.

Ji Yun did not hesitate in the slightest. Channeling his inner Qi into the Thunder-Fire Talisman, he lunged forward in a bow stance and struck out with his palm directly at the evil ghost's chest.

"Boom!"

Firelight burst forth.

The Thunder-Fire Talisman still possessed immense lethality against low-level ghosts of this kind.

The ghost nurse was blasted back like a torn sack, flying backward several meters before slamming solidly against the wall outside the corridor.

Before anyone could see how badly it was hurt, two other dark shadows darted into the room with a whoosh amidst the flashing flames.

Fatty and Lu Jiu, standing beside him, reacted instantly.

Having fought evil ghosts together several times before, the three of them had developed a certain tacit understanding.

They knew Ji Yun needed time to draw his talismans.

Without hesitation, the two of them met the enemy head-on, holding up their blood talismans and slamming them onto the ghost nurses.

Seeing this, Ji Yun did not dare to hesitate. He immediately swallowed the Yin Soul Sand he had obtained earlier.

The moment he took the spiritual medicine, his internal Qi surged turbulently within him.

In this life-or-death moment, Ji Yun could not afford to gamble on luck.

He had to ensure that every single Thunder-Fire Talisman he drew was successful!

Consuming the Soul Sand was his only choice.

"Boom!"

Another violent explosion sounded beside his ear.

Fortunately, luck was on their side. Just like before, Lu Jiu's blood talisman dealt massive damage to the ghost nurse.

With a single palm strike, she batted the airborne ghost nurse away, smashing it into the glass jars behind it.

Glass shards shattered everywhere with a clatter, and yellow liquid spilled across the floor.

Fatty, on the other hand, was not so lucky.

Knowing that his blood talisman wasn't very effective, he simply charged forward, wrapped his arms around the female ghost in close combat, and grabbed her.

Having learned a few moves in judo class, the guy shifted his footing and prepared to execute a body slam.

Little did he expect that while the ghost nurse looked physically frail, its strength was astonishingly great!

Instead of slamming it down, Fatty found himself lifted and forced to ride on top of the ghost's body.

The ghost nurse opened its mouth to bite his arm, but Fatty slapped it across its ghostly face.

The blood talismans on his hands snapped and popped against its face like firecrackers.

Though the magic power wasn't great, the disrespect was extreme. That slap caused the evil ghost's baleful aura to surge violently.

The next moment, the ghost nurse flew into a rage!

With Fatty weighing as if he had no weight at all upon its body, the human and the ghost rushed straight toward the wall.

With a dull thud.

Zhao Kai had no time to dodge and crashed heavily against the wall, coughing up a mouthful of blood with a gasp.

Gritting his teeth, Fatty endured the pain and refused to pass out, countering with a rear-naked choke.

He knew that if he let go now and allowed this evil ghost to free its hands, all of them would perish here.

Although a rear-naked choke wouldn't stop the already breath-breathing ghost nurse from dying, it severely restricted its movements.

To break free, it had no choice but to smash wildly into the wall and shake Fatty off first.

"Thud!"

"Thud!"

"Thud!"

Even the walls trembled in response.

The ghost nurse flew around carrying the 180-pound Fatty, crashing into walls everywhere as the room descended into utter chaos.

The violent impacts caused Zhao Kai to cough up blood mouthful by mouthful, yet he stubbornly refused to loosen his grip.

...

On the other side, although Lu Jiu had batted the ghost nurse away, she hadn't hit a vital spot, nor had she incapacitated it.

In the blink of an eye, that ghostly shadow struck again, carrying a piercing resentment.

With quick eyes and swift hands, Ji Yun, having just swallowed the soul sand, dodged while the blood talisman in his palm began to emit a faint glow.

Lu Jiu maneuvered and evaded with all her might.

Ji Yun shouted in a low voice, "Lure it over!"

The moment their backs brushed and their breaths crossed, he shouted in a low voice again, "Left!"

As Lu Jiu tacitly dodged to the left, his talisman was finished.

"Swift!"

With a fierce shout, Ji Yun slammed his palm onto the evil ghost.

With a boom, the firelight erupted, striking the evil ghost in the lower back and sending it flying backward once more to crash into a pile of desks.

Giving the fierce ghost no chance to flip over, Lu Jiu bravely hoisted a mottled, paint-chipped wooden chair, her long side-hair fluttering, and brought it down upon the ghost nurse.

This bought Ji Yun more time.

Affording the ghost nurse no further chance to catch its breath, he drew another blood talisman and rushed forward in a single bound, slapping it directly onto the iron-blue forehead.

Having suffered three consecutive heavy blows from the Thunder-Fire Talisman in a short period of time, the ghost nurse's baleful aura suddenly collapsed.

Eerie golden-red burning patterns began to show beneath its blue-purple skin. The moment a painful shriek pierced their eardrums, the evil ghost's skin ignited with ghostly flames, instantly swallowed by the thunder and fire. The fire spread across its entire body, shattering it into fine ashes amidst crackling sounds, leaving only a few wisps of yin mist drifting within the embers.

It was finished!

...

Seeing the flames ignite, Ji Yun and Lu Jiu's tense expressions finally eased somewhat.

However, before the two of them could catch their breath, a scream rang out from the room: "Help!"

Glancing over, they saw Xia栗, who had been trembling in the corner of the wall, calling for help.

Before her, the ghost nurse that Ji Yun had previously batted out into the corridor had somehow already reappeared.

...

It was clearly in the corridor just now... how did it get inside?

Ji Yun felt a jolt in his heart.

He suddenly made a connection to the senior sister in white from upstairs earlier.

In an instant, he finally understood how the three ghost nurses had appeared silently at the entrance of the specimen room earlier.

It was spiritual body drift!

These ghost nurses could also transform into spiritual bodies and float!

Ji Yun wanted to go forward and help immediately, but having drawn two blood talismans in a row, he couldn't squeeze any more blood out of his index finger.

He had no choice but to bite his middle finger instead, drawing the talisman frantically.

Furthermore, because Xia栗 had hidden too far away out of fear, she was now cornered by the ghost into the innermost corner of the specimen room, with nowhere left to retreat.

When Ji Yun rushed forward, he was still a step too late.

The delicate Xia栗 lacked Zhao Kai's strength and Lu Jiu's agility; she had no ability to resist whatsoever.

She could only watch helplessly as the ghost nurse's sharp claws pierced through her throat.

At the threshold of death, Xia栗 widened her eyes.

The blood talisman in her palm had clearly struck the evil ghost's body, yet it failed to spark even a single flame.

In her shocked and helpless gaze, there remained only an intense fear of death and an unwillingness to part with life.

Yet life drained away so rapidly that Xia栗's expression froze in place.

The color quickly faded from her pretty face, and the light in her eyes rapidly dimmed.

...

The ghost nurse blocked his vision.

In the critical moment of crisis, Ji Yun hadn't seen exactly what happened.

Seeing the fierce ghost pause for a fraction of a second, he decisively slapped a blood talisman onto the ghost's back, right over its heart.

Ghosts shared the same weakness: the heart and the head were where Yin Qi gathered.

Channeling his inner Qi into the Thunder-Fire Talisman instantly triggered a deafening roar, bursting forth with dazzling firelight.

This time, it struck the vital spot squarely.

The ghost nurse's body was rapidly ignited, and in the blink of an eye, it was burned into a wisp of ash.

Yet as the ghostly entity dissipated, before Ji Yun's heart could feel any relief, his pupils suddenly constricted.

Only then did he see Xia栗, with three bloody holes in her throat from which blood was gurgling out.

And the blood talisman she was still holding in her hand, unreleased.

"This..."

Ji Yun's gaze trembled violently.

Dead?

Although he and Xia栗 weren't particularly close, they were, after all, companions who had shared life and death together.

Watching someone who had been alive just moments before die right before his eyes, a violent wave surged up within Ji Yun's heart.

Life was as fragile as paper, easily pierced through.

She was truly dead.

Yet the shock lasted only an instant before the "thud, thud, thud" of impacts brought Ji Yun back from his complex emotions.

Not forgetting that there was still one ghost nurse left in the room, Ji Yun panicked internally: "Oh no, Fatty!"

Disregarding the corpse, he looked over and saw that Zhao Kai was still desperately grappling with that evil ghost.

One man and one ghost were riding each other like wild horses, crashing wildly all around the room.

Seeing Fatty coughing up mouthfuls of blood, he probably couldn't hold on much longer.

Without a moment of delay, Ji Yun bit hard on his bleeding middle finger, rushing forward while tracing a blood talisman in his palm.

Lu Jiu, standing nearby, did not flinch either. Understanding Ji Yun's intent, she bravely followed suit, firmly wrapping her arms around one of the ghost nurse's legs.

Only with their combined strength did they manage to hold it back.

Perhaps stimulated by Xia栗's death, Ji Yun channeled the foul qi swirling in his chest along with his surging internal Qi directly into the blood talisman.

With a palm strike fueled by anger, he slammed it heavily into the evil ghost's chest.

"Boom!"

The firelight erupted once more.

Hitting the vital spot this time, the ghost nurse burst into flames directly.

A pleasing burning scent drifted through the air.

The three of them felt the struggling force in their hands vanish into nothingness, and they collapsed limply onto the floor all at once.

The ghost was dead.

They had finally survived.

...

"Hoo... hoo..."

Ji Yun gasped heavily for breath.

After experiencing so many eerie scenes tonight, this was truly the first time he had experienced walking along the edge of life and death.

Eliminating the three ghost nurses seemed to have drained every ounce of strength from his body.

Beside him, Lu Jiu's chest heaved violently.

Ji Yun also collapsed limply to the ground.

Yet the moment his taut nerves relaxed, as if remembering something suddenly, he dared not lie down for long and flipped himself up.

At that moment, Zhao Kai was lying on the ground with his eyes closed, his entire jaw covered in blood.

Anxiously, Ji Yun called out twice: "Fatty! Fatty!"

Getting no response, he quickly slapped him across the face a couple of times and continued shouting: "Fatty! Fatty..."

He knew very well that certain fake-death states of soul detachment could be reversed to call the soul back through physical stimulation.

Slapping the face was the most effective method.

After taking a barrage of slaps, Zhao Kai finally let out a breath.

His face burning with pain, he replied in a voice as thin as gossamer: "I'm not dead yet. Stop hitting me."

Hearing his voice, Ji Yun finally released a heavy breath.

As long as he was still alive, it was fine.

Noticing that Fatty had coughed up quite a bit of blood from the collisions, and still feeling uneasy, he gently pressed down on several vital bone areas, finding them all intact with no signs of fracture.

Only then did he truly relax.

It seemed that when it came to taking beatings, a thick layer of fat still had a miraculous, life-saving effect.

Zhao Kai's memory was somewhat hazy, feeling as though he had been run over back and forth by a tricycle numerous times.

Although his whole body felt as if it were falling apart, he didn't feel any particularly sharp pain.

His injuries weren't actually very severe.

After lying down to rest for a moment, he was able to sit up.

Seeing this, Ji Yun and Lu Jiu's expressions finally softened.

The three of them sat on the ground, looking at each other, their faces filled with the relief of surviving a catastrophe.

...

A sense of surviving a disaster lingered in the air.

Accompanied by a faint scent of blood.

At this moment, Zhao Kai turned his head to look around the room, as if remembering something, only to realize there were only three people left.

As he stood up, his peripheral vision drifted toward the corner of the wall, where a familiar pair of slender legs came into view.

Just as he intended to rest a bit longer, his expression instantly changed, and he tentatively called out: "Senior Sister?"

Ji Yun and Lu Jiu lowered their gazes, remaining silent.

Seeing their expressions, Zhao Kai understood what had happened.

Disregarding his own pain, he hurried to his feet and walked toward the corner.

Looking over, he saw Xia栗 sitting slumped against the corner, her head tilted to one side, her entire body covered in bloody grime.

She had already lost all breath of life.

Zhao Kai froze in place on the spot.

He stared at Senior Sister Xia栗 collapsed in the pool of blood, disbelief flickering in his eyes.

Someone who had been alive just moments before...

How could she...

How could she be dead?

From childhood until now, this was the first time Zhao Kai had liked someone this much.

Even if she had a boyfriend, even with all her various flaws, he had truly liked her after all.

The person he liked was dead.

It felt as though a piece had been carved out of his heart, leaving it hollow and empty.

Zhao Kai stared at the corpse on the ground, feeling an unreal sensation that lingered for a long time.

His mouth slightly parted, wanting to call the senior sister's name and wake her up from her "deep sleep."

Yet when he opened his mouth, no words could come out of his throat.

Ji Yun watched from the side without disturbing him.

To people of a college student's age, death had always seemed infinitely distant.

Having experienced the dream-like sensation of witnessing a peer's death once before, Ji Yun understood.

Knowing how much Fatty liked Senior Sister Xia栗, he couldn't bear to interrupt and had nothing to say.

Standing up, Ji Yun silently collected the three clusters of Yin Soul Sand from the ground.

These were items to preserve their lives.

...

The commotion from the battle had been too great, leaving the specimen room in utter disarray.

This place was not somewhere they could linger.

Having gathered the soul sand, Ji Yun turned to look at Zhao Kai, who was still standing in a daze before Xia栗's corpse, a complex look surfacing in the depths of his eyes.

Within the Ruins realm, the dangers extended far beyond what was immediately visible.

Of the ten people who had live-streamed tonight, only the three of them remained alive.

Yet the crisis was far from over.

He walked over, let out a soft sigh, and called out to him: "Let's go."

Zhao Kai froze for a moment, as if only then snapping back to reality.

Turning his head, he looked at his good friend: "Brother Yun, Senior Sister she..."

Ji Yun met a pair of vacant, grief-stricken eyes.

He had never seen such sorrowful emotion in Fatty's eyes before.

For some reason, Ji Yun was reminded of when he received the phone call about Shang Xiaoyu's fatal car accident—it had carried that exact same dreamlike, surreal sensation.

"Let's go."

Ji Yun shook his head, casting aside his chaotic thoughts.

Hearing this, a final trace of reluctance surfaced in Zhao Kai's eyes.

Knowing this would be the very last time he would ever see her in this lifetime.

Reluctantly, Fatty glanced at the pretty face that had haunted his dreams, looking back again and again.

Not wishing to linger any longer, Ji Yun reached out to pull Zhao Kai away quickly.

Yet as he turned his gaze, he saw a young girl wearing a black leather jacket and a helmet standing outside the dilapidated doorway at some point.

...

"???"

At first glance, Ji Yun was absolutely certain he must be seeing things and rubbed his eyes vigorously.

He looked up again.

It wasn't an illusion!

Right there at the entrance of the specimen room stood a girl in a motorcycle leather jacket.

Although her helmet completely obscured her face, Ji Yun recognized her instantly from her figure alone.

This was definitely his ex-girlfriend—Shang Xiaoyu!