Chapter 39: Chapter 39: The Jar from the Old Home

The thug, who’d been hiding behind the junk pile under a black cloth, suddenly sprang up. He fired a single shot at the glass window to the back kitchen, and after shattering it, he jumped out the window to escape without a second’s hesitation.

He knew full well that the entire white house had precious few hiding places. With the woman’s face searching them one by one, it was only a matter of time before he was found. Surviving behind the junk pile for this long was a miracle in itself.

More importantly, the sky outside was now completely clear.

The timing was about what the Burnt Ghost had predicted in the chat group. In about ten minutes, the Ghost Realm had completely dissipated.

He was back in the normal world. As long as he got out of this white house, the ghost inside couldn’t chase him. If he didn’t escape now, when would he?

The henchman acted with extreme decisiveness. You don’t live long doing dirty work for mob bosses without being quick on your feet. The instant the female ghost bent over Gao Tian to check on him, he leaped out like a leopard, fired his gun, and jumped through the window—the entire sequence taking less than ten seconds.

But he had underestimated the female ghost’s speed.

The moment he leaped, the ghost sensed the disturbance behind her. As he escaped through the window, she shot over to the opening as fast as lightning, propelled by her long neck, and screamed out into the yard:

"Zhang Youguang..."

"Zhang Youguang."

"Zhang Youguang!"

After she finished shouting the name three times, the henchman who had just barely escaped the house exploded into a shower of blood in the backyard. His death was horrifyingly gruesome.

Unfortunately, he was just a little too slow. If he could have instantly gotten beyond the yard, he might have escaped the ghost’s curse.

At that moment, Gao Tian knew. The final, and best, opportunity he had been desperately waiting for had finally arrived.

The Ghost Realm outside had receded; he could leave the white house whenever he wanted.

The ghost who had been looming over him was now distracted by the fleeing thug. Her neck was stretched toward the window in the other direction as she tried to peer outside.

Gao Tian shot up from the ground and sprinted in the opposite direction.

He wasn’t heading for the front door, however. Instead, he raced toward the stairs leading to the second floor!

Gao Tian had no intention of merely escaping. Xu Yuan had screwed him over too badly this time. He couldn’t leave without taking the "jar" the bastard had left in his old home; it was the only way to quell the hatred in his heart.

The ghost guarded the third floor so strictly, so the jar was probably up there.

At the same time, Gao Tian was incredibly curious why Xu Yuan was so attached to this jar he’d left behind, so obsessed with it that he’d set up so many traps to protect it.

Gao Tian moved the exact moment the ghost floated to the window to kill the thug. By the time Gao Tian charged headfirst up to the second floor, the ghost had finished off the escapee outside and turned, flying back toward the second floor.

The white neck, which spanned all three stories of the house, began to contract, trying to block Gao Tian’s advance.

Gao Tian dodged left and right, narrowly evading several attempts by the long neck to strangle him.

"Zhao Qiang."

"Zhao Qiang."

"Zhao Qiang."

"Zhao Qiang!"

The ghost’s resentful voice echoed from behind him. Her limited intellect couldn’t comprehend why her usual killing method had absolutely no effect on this person.

Powerful ghosts often have low intelligence, which was why Gao Tian couldn’t use a Memory Ghost on her—she was too dim-witted to even hold a normal conversation. But her behavioral patterns were simplistic. Even after failing so many times, she just kept repeating Zhao Qiang’s name.

In one close call after another, Gao Tian used his agile footwork to dodge the neck as it swept at him like a giant snake. At last, he burst onto the third floor he had been so determined to reach.

Outside, the dawn was fading. Golden sunlight trickled through cracks in the ceiling, illuminating the dim third floor and allowing Gao Tian to just barely make out the scene before him.

The third floor’s layout was sparse and simple. There was a broken table with an incense burner on it, holding three sticks of incense that had long since burned to ash. Above the burner was an enshrined, grayscale photograph of a woman with a long, horse-like face. In life, she had looked quite gentle, her teeth white and clean—not like after her death, where only a dark, gaping hole remained.

This was clearly the ghost Xu Yuan was "raising" in the white house. By some unknown means, he had placed the dead woman’s photograph and ashes on the third floor of his old home. After her death, the woman became a vengeful spirit, taking up residence here and killing any living person who dared to set foot on the third floor.

Beneath the table sat two large jars, each half the height of a person. One was white, the other blood-red.

The woman’s slender neck extended from the mouth of the white jar. Gao Tian glanced from a distance and saw some white powder near the rim. ’There’s a ninety-nine percent chance her ashes are in there, anchored to this spot by Xu Yuan.’

Just as he was about to make his move, the woman’s face shot back to the third floor like a bolt of lightning. Gao Tian turned his head just in time to see a massive mouth, large enough to swallow the world, lunging at him. He instinctively threw up a hand to defend himself, but before he could offer any resistance, he felt a wet sensation, as if he’d been swallowed into a squirming organ. His consciousness quickly faded into an endless abyss.

...

...

You have died.

Per the effect of the Ghost Card, you are about to be resurrected.

The card you have drawn this time is—

The 3 of Clubs.

There are no other cards on your soul, and no point value conflict. Resurrection successful.

cards remain in the deck. The drawn card will be permanently branded onto your soul until a duplicate point value is drawn, at which point the user will die instantly.

We wish you a pleasant resurrection.

...

...

It felt like waking from a terrible nightmare.

Gao Tian felt his consciousness returning, bit by bit. First his head, then it spread to his neck. The cold touch of the floor where his body lay came back, and he could begin to control his limbs again.

He was back.

Gao Tian knew he had run right into the ghost. When she saw her killing curse was useless against him, she had simply swallowed him whole. After crushing his internal organs, she had spat his corpse out onto the third-floor ground.

Thankfully, he had the supernatural Ghost Card. Otherwise, it really would have been all over.

At the cost of having the 3 of Clubs added to his soul, Gao Tian, who should have been dead, was resurrected on the spot, good as new.

But even after regaining control of his body, he remained motionless on the floor, suppressing his breathing until it was nearly undetectable, playing dead.

Even with his eyes closed, he could sense a massive, terrifying shadow gliding slowly above him, letting out a constant, horrifying "GEH GEH GEH" cackle.

After killing all the intruders, the ghost from the spirit altar had retreated to hole up on the third floor, guarding her own funerary jar and that strange, red one.

’The red one is most likely the "jar from my old home" that Xu Yuan was talking about,’ Gao Tian surmised. ’The one he was so obsessed with and worried someone would find.’

’But now for the real problem. How do I, newly resurrected, lure the ghost away from overhead, grab the red jar, and get out of here in one piece?’

’Just getting out alive won’t be easy. The moment I get up from the floor, the ghost hovering near the ceiling will spot me. To her, it’ll be a simple matter of killing me all over again.’

’I’ll be killed instantly if I get up. No amount of Ghost Cards would be enough.’

’There is another way: activate the black card in my pocket and teleport directly back to the Living Apartments.’

’But I think I still have options. I don’t want to waste my one and only, extremely precious black card here.’

He had already set a backup plan in motion while he was lying on the first floor.

He had deliberately placed Zhao Qiang’s phone under the sofa and set an alarm on it for fifteen minutes later, with the volume turned all the way up.

’Thinking about it now, the time should be about up.’

’As long as the phone on the first floor suddenly makes a noise...’

"Don’t mind me, I’m only a sheep!~"

A deafening noise, combined with a vibration, suddenly erupted from downstairs.

"GEH GEH GEH GEH!"

Hearing the strange noise, the shadow circling overhead didn’t hesitate for a second. It shot down like a white streak, bypassing the stairs to the second and third floors and flying directly toward the first floor.

After arriving on the first floor, the woman’s face spun around and quickly located the source of the sound under the sofa. She slammed her face down hard, smashing the already dilapidated sofa to pieces. The noisy phone underneath was also shattered under her repeated head-smashes, its components and casing scattered across the floor.

After the phone was destroyed, the strange sound stopped. Even with her low intelligence, the ghost quickly realized that there was no one here—it was just a phone used as bait to attract her attention.

As the phone lured the ghost down to the first floor, Gao Tian on the third floor sprang into action.

Having been resurrected on the spot, he leaped to his feet and charged toward the table. He kicked over the jar containing the ghost’s ashes, snatched up the other blood-red one, and sprinted for the third-floor window.

GAK!

The ghost downstairs felt the funerary jar connected to her neck get kicked over. She let out an unearthly, bizarre shriek—a sound of extreme agony and incandescent rage. Her long neck dragged her face behind it as she shot back up toward the second and third floors at maximum speed, seeking to settle the score with the man who had died and come back to life.

The ghost was utterly bewildered. Why was this human so hard to kill? She had clearly killed him several times already, yet each time, he just got back up as if nothing had happened.

But no matter how fast she was, she was still two floors away. By the time her huge, deathly pale face arrived back on the third floor, she saw Gao Tian already on the windowsill, just one step from leaping out and escaping the terrifying white house for good.

"Well then, see you around."

"Not really a fan of your looks, so do me a favor and stop chasing me."

With that farewell to the lady of the house, Gao Tian didn’t hesitate for a second. Clutching the red jar to his chest, he leaned back and fell.

A three-story drop was certainly high, but the ground below was all soft soil and weeds. As long as he angled his fall correctly, he wouldn’t die.

Gao Tian’s only worry was that the jar in his hands would shatter from the impact. But there was nothing to be done. Escaping at all was a stroke of luck amidst this disaster. ’Since Xu Yuan from the chat group treasures this jar so much,’ he thought, ’I’d rather take back a few broken pieces than leave it sitting here in his old home.’