The ghost was successfully imprisoned, and this marked the end of the cooperative relationship between Yang Jian and Yan Li.
What came next was a struggle for their respective interests.
There was only one box, and Yang Jian had no reason to let Yan Li hold onto it.
Once out the door, who recognized whom?
These days, the debtor is the real master.
"Yang Jian, what do you mean by that? Do you think I would monopolize this artifact?"
Yan Li's eyebrows raised, and he said to Yang Jian, "The artifact will stay with me for now. Later, I'll spread the word in the club, and soon a buyer will come looking. When that happens, we'll go to the transaction together, split the money half-and-half after the deal is done, and share the intelligence."
"I won't take advantage of you, nor will I let you suffer a loss."
Yang Jian said, "If that's the case, then why can't it stay safely with me? You go contact the buyer, and when the time comes, you can find me. I'll appear with the artifact. Are you worried I'd run away?"
"So there's no point discussing this?" asked Yan Li.
He hadn't expected that this young man would start talking about interests right after they had dealt with the supernatural incident.
"If you can't give me peace of mind, then I think there's no need to continue this conversation."
Yang Jian said seriously, "You don't trust me, just as I don't trust you."
"Enough, it was I who personally imprisoned that ghost," Yan Li snapped back.
"I saved you, twice," Yang Jian said calmly.
Yan Li was getting angry now. "You have the nerve to talk about saving me? Just now, when you asked me to leave the Ghost Domain, it was clearly a ploy to use me as bait to lure the ghost out. You couldn't tell which one was the ghost among these corpses either; otherwise, you would have let me enter the Ghost Domain in an instant and not have me slowly back out."
"Do you realize that what you did just now almost killed me?"
Yang Jian looked at him and said, "Because you could only be used as bait, or else our attempt to capture it would definitely have failed. I was thinking of the big picture, or else why would you be able to stand here and argue with me? Also, given the situation in the Ghost Domain, I could have saved you within a second. I am confident in my ability to ensure you wouldn't die.
But can you be confident you'd ensure my safety in return?"
"What if I insist on taking this box with me today?" Yan Li said coldly.
He absolutely couldn't let the hard-earned artifact stay with Yang Jian.
"Then are you sure that the box in your hand is real?" Yang Jian's eyes narrowed slightly. "Do you... understand the Ghost Domain?"
Yan Li's eyelids twitched, and he instinctively glanced at the object in his hands.
He was startled in an instant.
The gold box in his hands had at some point turned into a rotting Dead Man's Head.
Almost instinctively, he flung the head away.
"You, when did you switch them?" Yan Li was both shocked and furious.
Yang Jian said, "In the Ghost Domain, only what I believe to be real is real, everything else you see could be false... So, an interesting thing has happened. What do you believe to be real now?"
"What your eyes see? What your hands feel, or what your nose smells?"
"When all of this turns out to be false, you'll find that the world itself is false as well, and that is the Illusionary Realm."
"Quite an interesting ability, isn't it?"
"Impossible, the power of your Ghost Domain comes from fierce ghosts, it shouldn't affect Gold, that's a known fact to all spirit manipulators around the world," Yan Li said through clenched teeth.
Yang Jian said, "I might not be able to affect Gold, but can't I affect your eyes? Do you really think what you just threw away was a Dead Man's Head?"
Yan Li's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly picked up the head not far away.
"Are you sure the head you're picking up now is the same one you threw away?"
Yang Jian spoke again, his lips curling into a slight smile, "After the task is done, you're unwilling to trust me, and I can't trust you either. The box can't be split into two, and although you've made a significant contribution, so have I."
"It was I who first discovered the pattern of this ghost, it was I who found it."
As he finished speaking.
One could see that somehow a golden box had appeared in his hand.
It was the very box Yan Li had used to imprison the Headless Ghost.
If the box was in Yang Jian's hands, then what Yan Li held... was indeed a real Dead Man's Head.
"Damn it." Yan Li cursed inwardly.
He once again hurriedly threw away the head he had picked up.
By now, his mind was utterly confused, for he could not distinguish what was real and what was fake within the Ghost Domain. At the same time, he couldn't understand why a sense of relief surged through him, as if he were relieved that Yang Jian wasn't a real ghost. Otherwise, how could this ghost be restrained?
They were about to be annihilated in an instant.
"I admit, I'm no match for you, and this time you take charge. What would you like? You're not planning to monopolize it, are you?" Yan Li said.
If Yang Jian chose to go it alone, then he would have no recourse.
Yang Jian said, "Although we've had some unpleasantness over the division of profits, I am still a man of principles. If a person has no bottom line, then what's the difference between a person and a ghost? So... let's continue our previous cooperation, but this box stays with me. You'll be responsible for contacting the buyer. However, the negotiation of this deal must be done by me.
"...Do I have any capital to negotiate terms?"
Yan Li said, "Let's do it your way."
Being able to maintain a cooperative relationship, he was already thanking his lucky stars. If it had been someone more ruthless, he would have been out of the picture today.
"Good, call me when it's time for the trade. Don't call at other times; I'm very busy... and, pleased to cooperate."
He took out a pen from his pocket, wrote down a phone number, and then placed it on the ground.
After all this was done, the red light surrounding them vanished.
Yang Jian disappeared as well.
Had he left the Ghost Domain?
Yan Li looked around and caught sight of the Dead Man's Head on the ground.
It wasn't actually a Dead Man's Head, but just a pack of instant noodles, and the flavor he hated the most—the plain one.
"Pleased my ass. This unsolvable Ghost Domain..."
Yan Li clenched his fists tightly, feeling a wave of helplessness.
Both were masters of ghosts, so why did Yang Jian have such good fortune to obtain such a terrifying ability... it's not fair.
If Yang Jian knew his thoughts, he would surely find it amusing.
This fortune was something he would rather do without.
If it were not for him becoming a master of ghosts and getting the reminder from the human skin paper, that time would have ended in a total wipeout, with no chance of any survivors.
Could Yan Li have survived if he were in the same position?
Yang Jian did not immediately leave the mall.
He had not forgotten a person.
"Jiang Yan, my sister, you're not dead, are you? There was no sound on the phone." Yang Jian appeared out of nowhere in the monitoring room.
His time in the Ghost Domain was still ongoing.
At that moment, Jiang Yan was holding a mobile phone that had been disconnected for lack of payment, curled up in a corner, burying her head and sobbing softly.
She had already felt desperate.
Because after Yang Jian and Yan Li had entered the clothing store, they never came back out, and she thought the two had died inside.
The conditions in the Ghost Domain could not be captured by the surveillance cameras.
Jiang Yan was breaking down inside. If Yang Jian was dead, what would she do? That ghost was still outside, and if she just walked out like that, she was surely going to die...
However, with the sound of Yang Jian's voice, her sobbing stopped, and she hurriedly lifted her head.
Seeing Yang Jian appear before her, she immediately stood up excitedly and lunged forward, "I thought you were dead. I'm so glad you're okay."
What was meant to be a warm embrace ended with Jiang Yan passing straight through Yang Jian's body and falling onto the ground, nose bleeding as she looked up.
"Big sister, why are you so excited? I thought you were attacking me," Yang Jian said, looking at her, puzzled.
"Are you a person, or a ghost?" Jiang Yan asked, lifting her head and looking at Yang Jian in terror.
She was certain she had just passed through him.
Indeed, directly through, face to face.
"I don't want to explain things you won't understand. Your task is complete; it's time to go," Yang Jian said, grabbing her wrist.
The two of them disappeared from the spot in an instant.