Zhou Ze stood up, preparing to call out to the girl.

But at this moment, he was stunned to find black footprints everywhere in the mall. Not just the girl from before, but all the customers, salespeople, everyone's shoes seemed to be smeared with a layer of black grease, leaving clear footprints with every step.

This was a situation Zhou Ze hadn't anticipated. Could it be that everyone in this mall was a ghost?

Even a ghost market couldn't be this exaggerated.

The last time Zhou Ze and Xu Qinglang witnessed Madam Bai's banquet, there were only a few tables of people making a ruckus. It wasn't nearly as grand as this. After all, Madam Bai had cultivated for two hundred years and even had her own temple.

A feeling of dizziness suddenly swept over him.

Zhou Ze felt as if he were on a carousel in an amusement park.

Everything around him was so unreal, so bizarre and fantastical.

You couldn't tell what was fake, nor could you understand what was real.

You could only blankly look left and right.

He remembered that Xu Qinglang had seemed to experience the same thing not long ago, and then he suddenly rushed into the road. If he hadn't kicked him, he might have been hit by a car.

And now, that feeling was attacking him.

That guy,

was he planning to attack him?

As a ghost messenger, to be counterattacked by the ghost he was chasing seemed a bit much. The most deadly thing was that Zhou Ze didn't know how to resist.

His understanding of catching ghosts had always been limited to the ingrained habit of using his fingernails to achieve success, but this time, it seemed his fingernails couldn't help him.

Staggering, Zhou Ze sat down on the ground. He seemed to see someone handing him some change,

and faintly heard someone say to him, "Here's your eight yuan change."

Then,

the girl's face began to blur. Everything in his vision seemed to be covered in a layer of paste, making him nauseous and dizzy.

It felt as if he had returned to the Road to the Yellow Springs, numbly tiptoeing forward with the masses.

The Buddha said that there were myriad appearances of living beings,

but on the Road to the Yellow Springs, there was only one.

Zhou Ze felt that he couldn't even breathe. He subconsciously grabbed his neck, lowered his head, and coughed forcefully, wanting to shout, but no sound came out.

It was a feeling that made one day seem like a year, a kind of torture inflicted on the spirit. Xu Qinglang had easily broken down in it before, and Zhou Ze was now trapped in it as well.

Zhou Ze felt that he should do something, but at this moment, he seemed to be able to do nothing but passively endure all this.

Pain,

oppression,

suffocation,

all kinds of tortures came one after another, constantly whipping at his soul.

…………

"Sir, sir, what's wrong?"

The girl handed Zhou Ze the change, but suddenly noticed that the man in front of her was beginning to look dazed, as if he were in great pain.

The girl's first reaction was that this man was trying to scam her, that he had drunk the water sold in her supermarket and was now feeling unwell.

But after watching for a while, she didn't think so. The man seemed to be in real pain.

"Sir, should I call 120 (emergency services) for you?" the girl asked.

Who knew that the man in front of her would reach out and push her to the ground, then stagger to his feet and run outside.

The girl wanted to call the police or 120, because she felt that the man's condition was very unstable, but in the end, based on the idea that it was better to avoid trouble, she didn't take out her phone.

…………

Everything around him was like a mirror made of water, reflecting all kinds of light. The few rays of light that shone in didn't bring warmth, but instead added to the restlessness in one's heart.

Zhou Ze didn't know where he was going, nor did he know what he was doing. He was even mentally prepared that he might have walked onto the road like Xu Qinglang before, and was waiting for a car to hit him.

He could only passively resist. He didn't know where he was, nor did he know where he was going, but he kept resisting the self-destructive impulse that arose in his heart.

"Clang..."

A sound came.

Zhou Ze knocked over the trash can in front of him, and then fell into the pile of garbage. The pungent, sour smell didn't wake him up. In his vision, there was lush grass everywhere, as if it were a paradise.

Clearly, the surrounding scenery was beautiful. Clearly, the surrounding colors were gorgeous.

But it didn't give people the slightest sense of comfort.

It was more like a cage, making people instinctively reject it and want to escape it.

Laughter came from around him. It seemed that there were a group of beautiful women dancing around him, and in the distance, there was incense lingering, as if countless people were worshipping a shrine.

All kinds of images kept appearing in Zhou Ze's mind, squeezing his nerves bit by bit. Any one of these images could become the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Finally, the image froze.

Zhou Ze found himself standing at the entrance of a familiar courtyard.

The sign of the orphanage hung above it.

And in front of him, a couple was leaving a stroller there. They seemed ready to leave.

When Zhou Ze grew up, he asked the director about his birth. In fact, the director wouldn't hide anything from the children when they grew up. He told Zhou Ze that he had been actively abandoned by his parents.

Since then, Zhou Ze had never thought about finding his biological parents. He just treated them as if they were dead. He wouldn't need them in his life anymore.

But at this moment,

Zhou Ze suddenly had a premonition.

The couple in front should be his parents,

and the child in that stroller

should be him.

He subconsciously raised his foot,

wanting to run over,

to see what his parents looked like, and even to question them why they abandoned him.

But this foot was only raised,

but not put down.

A look of struggle appeared on Zhou Ze's face.

He instinctively sensed something. If this foot landed, it would be an abyss!

All that was beautiful finally froze into the scene before him. This was a pie filled with poison, a trap set by a hunter, just waiting for its prey to take that step.

…………

At the edge of the rooftop of a building,

Zhou Ze, who was already standing on the parapet, was teetering, subconsciously leaning forward as if he were about to fall, but then repeatedly adjusting his center of gravity.

He was struggling.

He was resisting.

And his life hung by a thread.

On one side of the rooftop stood a headless woman.

The woman was no longer wearing a yellow sweater, but a cyan robe, the style of which was somewhat old, with many tears and damages around it. But the woman stood there coldly, facing Zhou Ze, who seemed as if he could fall at any moment.

And on the rooftop, there was a third person, a priest.

Unfortunately, Zhou Ze couldn't open his eyes to see at this time. Otherwise, he would definitely recognize that he had just met this priest not long ago.

At Miss Liu's funeral, this priest, from beginning to end, did nothing but hand him a cigarette, without any other words.

Even when facing the two families' weird and cold banquet, the priest just stood on the side, quietly watching, as if he were admiring a ukiyo-e painting.

The priest looked at Zhou Ze for a while, and then looked at the headless woman in front of him.

He shook his head,

and said to the headless woman:

"Qing Yi Niangniang (Cyan-Clothed Goddess), he is a ghost messenger."

This was a reminder,

reminding the headless woman in front of him of the man's identity.

But this reminder was undoubtedly like adding fuel to the fire.

The priest didn't realize that he was adding fuel to the fire, and continued: "If he is killed by you, it will cause a reaction from hell."

The headless woman suddenly turned around and faced the priest.

The priest smiled indifferently, and directly changed his tune:

"But he is just a temporary ghost messenger, an unranked official. Even if he is gone, he is gone.

At this time, anyone who dares to disturb Niangniang's (Goddess's) mood shouldn't have a good end.

And Niangniang herself, didn't do anything wrong."

The headless woman turned back and continued to face Zhou Ze, seeming to let go of this somewhat annoying priest.

The priest stood there, continuing to play the role of a spectator. This seemed to be his favorite role.

He knew the identity of this headless woman, and was even a little strange that this ghost messenger, whom he had met once before, hadn't been able to detect the woman's identity in the first place.

How unprofessional was this ghost messenger?

She wasn't a ghost,

she was not something you could govern at all,

but you stared at her, chased her,

and in the end,

you angered her.

Women, can be very vengeful.

Especially this one in front of him,

a woman who doesn't have much time left.

The priest looked behind him. The building was very high, and the view was very good. He could see a construction site in the distance, where demolition was being carried out. There, dust was flying.

The most direct memory that an era can leave people is actually architecture. And the current urban renovation and upgrading is undoubtedly a process of slowly erasing many past imprints.

Looking back,

at Zhou Ze, who was still standing on the edge, his body shaking back and forth,

the priest was also a little surprised.

This temporary ghost messenger was really able to hold on.

Even if it were him, he might not be able to hold on for so long.

But at this moment,

the priest suddenly saw that the fingernails of Zhou Ze's ten fingers were slowly melting, but the melted juice didn't drip down, but flowed back into his body.

Zhou Ze's skin was gradually beginning to show a bronze luster at this time. This wasn't a bronze color created by sunlight and fitness, but a color mixed with

darkness,

curses,

coldness,

and many negative existences.

At the same time, the priest found that at the location of Zhou Ze's tightly closed eyes, green light was slowly being released, like a ferocious beast that was originally dormant,

was now,

gradually being stimulated to awaken.

At the corners of Zhou Ze's mouth, two fangs were gradually penetrating his lips.

Bai Yingying had always been curious about one thing. She was, after all, a zombie who had been sleeping for two hundred years, but why was she beaten so badly by Zhou Ze's fingernails!

Before his eyes,

the priest, with a look of disbelief on his face, gave her the answer.

The corners of his mouth twitched,

and he spat out two words:

"Jiangshi (Zombie)!"