Was it too late to wish to leave?
Jing Tuoshen, who was arrogant, just wanted to leave at that moment. The anxiety in his heart reached its peak. The smile on Gao Ming’s face grew wider. He slowly raised his hands. The chains moved through the shadow like snakes. Each of them was engraved with a hatred-filled name.
“I’ve waited for this day for so long. I’ve been meaning to kill you when I first laid my eyes on you. I know you feel the same. Of the thirteen candidates, only one can survive. However, compared to killing you, I’m more interested in seeing whether you or the other candidate hidden by the headquarters will survive longer…”
Jing Tuoshen didn’t dare to turn around. He walked faster. However, he discovered with shock that a strand of his hair and his shadow were stuck to the spot. It was as if no matter how far he ran, something of his would never leave with him.
Suppressing the fear in his heart, Jing Tuoshen frowned and turned back. The anomaly in his eyes had shifted completely. The door of Everlasting Life Apartments was covered by layers of iron locks. A hellish dungeon yawned its maw. However, for unknown reasons, the prison never left Everlasting Life Apartments.
“Bring everyone I want here before sundown, or else I will cause all the anomalies to lose control and turn Han Hai into a demonic city.” Gao Ming’s words were sharp and chilling. No one present suspected the veracity of his threat. The shadow obfuscated one’s view. The torture room disappeared into the anomaly. This was a simple interaction, but it formed a basic understanding of future transactions. Plus, Gao Ming had gained what he needed.
“Granny Shen is very good. She even predicted that you’d be the first gift.” Gao Ming fed the big dog some broken souls. The big dog could barely move his mouth. Once he did, the curses would pour out. However, Jing Tuoshen’s shadow was hidden among the many curses. It was hard for Gao Ming to consume Jing Tuoshen in front of so many security members. The secrets of Jing Tuoshen aside, when Gao Ming wanted to harm Jing Tuoshen, he could sense something powerful sticking its gaze on him. The God of Flesh and Blood also warned Gao Ming that Jing Tuoshen reeked of a Dream Ghost.
“The headquarters now desperately wants to find out more about me. Consuming Jing Tuoshen will lose me many things. Instead of capturing him, it’s more effective for me to reserve his name and shadow in the prison. However, I wonder if he’ll be forced to be reborn inside the torture room once he’s wiped off by fate.” Now that the torture room had expanded, Gao Ming needed more inmates.
“Gao Ming…” The big dog recovered after he feasted on the broken souls. “You have to save Zhang Ding. Boss Zhang took on all the sins on his own. The bastards from the investigation centre kept torturing him to get him to reveal the other’s secrets.” The big dog was normally a very gentle person. He barely cursed. However, he wanted to curse nonstop when he mentioned the investigation centre.
The big dog’s eyes slowly focused with fear. “You can’t imagine it! The headquarters are hiding an impossible horror underneath the New Hope City!”
“Take it slow and tell me.” The big dog had encountered a lot of wickedness in his life. When he was at the black pool, he was not this scared.
“The name and number of every investigator who died in the anomalies are recorded. Then, their black bands were given to the next generation of investigators. This is usually fine, but we found a strange cemetery underneath the headquarters’s main building. Each grave carries the picture of a dead investigator. Their souls are not allowed to leave after they die. Instead, they are trapped at that cemetery.” The big dog shivered. “Zhang Ding and I felt something was wrong once we reached that place. It didn’t take long for us to see someone kneeling on a grave. The thing fed on the investigators’ regret. His body is covered in names of the dead.”
“Is he the Dream Ghost?”
“He is just the vessel, a plate for the real food. The real terror is deep inside the cemetery!” The big dog confirmed, “The headquarters funnelled the investigators’ obsession with the ghost! The anomaly they tried so hard to fight against is right underneath the headquarters! The irony is that everyone treats the headquarters as Noah’s Ark. The reality is that the place is a direct ticket to death.”
“Were you caught there?”
To Gao Ming’s surprise, the big dog shook his head. “When we realise how much the investigation centre is hiding, we can’t understand why they’re being cautious.” Gao Ming took out a few more souls, and the big dog recovered quickly, “The outside layer of the headquarters is the residential area. There are around ten buildings in the core area. These buildings look normal aboveground, but each building hides a horrible secret underground.
“The basement of the main building is the cemetery. The basement of the Research Centre, where Jing Tuoshen is from, has various kinds of labs. They are homes to the divine corpses trafficked over from outside Han Hai. A lot of investigators who have been exposed to anomalies are treated as experiments. They separate out the curses to study.
“The investigators do not receive any treatment at all! Only the first floor of the Research Centre is the hospital. The rest of the floors consist of labs that are scarier than the morgue!”
The big dog was a big ghost that could reconstruct a nightmare, but even he felt that the place was like hell.
“When I exited the Research Centre, I already felt light-headed, but that was not the worst. The tenth building is the worst.” The big dog looked into Gao Ming’s eyes. “When Granny Shen and I entered it, we were flung out by Zhang Ding. He was instantly swallowed by despair. I have no idea what is inside the tenth building. I only heard the word Zhang Ding said before he disappeared: truth.”
“Truth?” Gao Ming tapped his chin. “Is the truth behind Han Hai hidden inside the tenth floor? Or is it the truth about the shadow world?” Zhang Ding’s team had found too many secrets. This worried Gao Ming. The centre would place a lot of restrictions on them so that they wouldn’t reveal anything.
“Other than you guys, the others were not captured, right?” Gao Ming ignored the curse and fed the souls into the big dog’s mouth. “Did Xuan Wen escape?”
Something snapped within the big dog. His eyes coloured with deep confusion. Then, he asked, “Who is Xuan Wen?”