The human skin clothes clung to their bodies, the stuffiness making their skin feel slightly sticky.
Chen Xi walked at the very front to lead the way, keeping her footsteps as light as possible, while Zheng Wenxuan brought up the rear, his hand resting on the baton at his waist as his vigilant gaze swept over their surroundings.
Only Li Yafei was sandwiched in the middle, her eyes darting all over the place—clearly both terrified and curious, occasionally stealing glances at the roadside stalls.
Wandering souls drifted along the street in twos and threes, slowly wandering about.
But they hadn't walked very far toward the entrance of the Mong Kok alleyway before the "people" suddenly began to multiply.
And it wasn't just a normal increase.
Densely packed and crowding together, a swarm of "people" like a colony of ants crammed the street.
White-collar workers in suits, trishaw drivers, elderly women carrying vegetable baskets, students with backpacks, young couples hugging each other...
"People" from all walks of life and of all ages were crowded along both sides of the street.
Even the flowerbeds and curbs were completely packed.
At first glance, it looked like a bustling weekend crowd in a downtown district, full of life and activity.
But upon closer inspection, it made one's skin crawl.
Every single "person" was holding the exact same posture—looking up at the sky.
A white-collar worker held up a briefcase, his arm frozen in midair, his head tilted back as his hollow eyes stared at the inverted city hanging overhead.
An old woman sweeping the street gripped her broom, her back bent but her face tilted upward, the tip of her broom frozen barely half an inch from the ground.
A kissing couple held each other close, their faces pressed together, yet both of their heads were turned upward, their lips fractions of an inch apart, their stiff postures resembling wax figures.
A taxi driver sat with his hands on the steering wheel, leaning forward as he stared fixedly at the sky.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of "people" were looking up in unison.
Though their postures differed, they were all oriented precisely toward the dome of the sky, completely motionless, without even the rise and fall of breath.
The entire street was terrifyingly quiet.
Only the footsteps of the three of them rang out with extreme clarity.
“What on earth are they doing?”
Terrified, Li Yafei grabbed the hem of Chen Xi's clothes, her voice trembling. “Madam... are these living people?”
She had just been clamoring to see the sights, but now her face was completely pale.
Having to suddenly walk past hundreds of pairs of eyes staring in unison at the sky was like passing through a room full of dolls; it was inexplicably creepy.
Zheng Wenxuan also swallowed hard. “Why aren't these ghosts moving? It's like they've had their acupoints struck.”
Chen Xi didn't speak, her brow merely furrowing deeply.
These "people" didn't seem to possess autonomous consciousness like Granny Lai or Sister Fang. They were more like... mindless wandering souls and wild ghosts.
They were stuck repeating their last action before death, frozen in place by some kind of force.
What were they all looking at?
Chen Xi cast her eyes upward for a brief scan, then quickly retracted her gaze.
The inverted living world still looked the same.
Heavy traffic and bright lights; there was nothing unusual.
Were they trying to return to the living world?
Thousands of them, at the very least, stood packed tightly across the street, heads tilted back like a patch of humanoid mushrooms growing toward the sky.
...
“Don't look up,” Chen Xi warned in a low voice. “These things have no intelligence. They've probably been frozen by something. Try not to touch them, and walk around.”
“O-okay.” Li Yafei hastily lowered her head, staring at the tips of her shoes, not daring to look around.
But the problem was that the entire street was completely packed. Shoulder to shoulder, back to back, there wasn't even space to set a foot down.
If they wanted to pass through, it was inevitable they would bump into them.
“Which way is the candle shop?” Chen Xi asked Li Yafei, who lifted her chin and pointed diagonally ahead. “Over there... turn into the Mong Kok alleyway and you're there. But... but we have to cross that street.”
Chen Xi glanced in the direction she was pointing.
The widest road was blocked solid, with ghosts layered over each other like a human wall.
“Wait for me here.”
Leaving them with those words, Chen Xi took two steps back, ran, leaped, and braced her hands against a nearby traffic light pole. Moving as nimbly as a cat, she climbed up in just a few bounds.
Crouching at the top of the pole, she squinted and scanned into the distance.
Under the paper-white sky, the entirety of Mong Kok Street lay before her eyes:
Densely packed, frozen figures stretched from one end of the street to the other like a sea of chess pieces.
Only the flowerbed strip on the left, being narrow, had sparse ghosts—it could actually allow someone to slip through sideways all the way to the alley entrance.
However, at the end of the flowerbed, a few paper-crafted trash cans were piled up, and seven or eight ghosts with broken arms and legs stood beside them.
Having a plan in mind, Chen Xi leaped down from the three-meter-high pole, landing without a sound.
“We'll go along the left flowerbed. The path is narrow and there are fewer people.” She grabbed Li Yafei's wrist. “Keep close to me, don't touch anything, and don't speak.”
“Mhm!” Li Yafei nodded quickly.
Zheng Wenxuan gripped his baton tightly and nodded. “Then I'll bring up the rear.”
The three of them stuck to the side of the road, carefully stepping onto the edge of the flowerbed.
The flowers in the flowerbed were dark in color. Amidst the paper-crafted red and green fake flowers, a patch of blackish grass was actually growing, which drew Chen Xi's gaze for a few extra moments.
The three of them tiptoed, walking along the lawn, trying their best to stay as far away from the neighboring ghosts as possible.
Up close, they could see much more clearly.
Standing at the entrance of the alley was a woman in a cheongsam. Her face was heavily powdered, her lips painted blood-red, and she stared upward without blinking.
The powder on her face had cracked into fine lines, making her look like a paper doll that had been left out for decades.
Li Yafei held her breath, not daring to make a sound as she carefully squeezed past from the side, nearly falling into the flowerbed.
Chen Xi was quick to catch her and support her, whispering, “Be careful.”
Li Yafei nodded.
After taking a few steps, Zheng Wenxuan suddenly whispered from behind, “Captain Chen, don't you think... they seem to be waiting for something?”
Chen Xi pursed her lips.
Yes, looking up in unison and staying completely motionless—it really did seem like they were waiting for something.
This state of collective stiffness among the ghosts was far too abnormal.
“Don't think too much, let's deliver the goods first.” Chen Xi suppressed the unease in her heart. “We'll head back to the building as soon as we're done.”
She had a feeling that some immense terror was hidden beneath this anomaly.
...
The closer they got to the alleyway, the more mobile ghosts they encountered.
An old man with a severed leg limped along, dragging a leg with exposed bone fragments, his blood leaving a long black trail on the ground.
A young man with a kitchen knife sticking out of his stomach clutched his belly, his intestines spilling out from between his fingers and dragging on the ground.
He would occasionally reach down to stuff them back in, only for them to slide right back out, repeating the cycle over and over.
A student with half of his head crushed walked along with brain matter mixed with blood dripping down his cheek, clutching half a piece of bread in his hand and chewing on it as he walked.
Sickened by the sight, Li Yafei closed her eyes and didn't dare to look, relying entirely on Chen Xi to pull her along.
Zheng Wenxuan's face was completely numb—after seeing how Sister Fang acquired her "raw materials," his tolerance threshold had clearly increased significantly.
Chen Xi suddenly asked, “Sai Mui, are you coming with us to the candle shop, or are you going to find your grandmother?”
Li Yafei was taken aback, then thought about it before saying, “Although it's scary outside, nothing bad seems to have actually happened. It feels like a waste to just go back like this... I'm going to find my grandmother.”
“She should be doing villain hitting on Temple Street. I'll go look for her. You guys should return to the building as soon as you deliver the goods. It's really dangerous.”
“Then be careful.”
Chen Xi didn't try to persuade her otherwise. She pulled a Raw Glutinous Rice Lime Pack from her backpack and stuffed it into her hand. “Throw this if you encounter danger. It can hold them off for a bit. Don't go anywhere isolated.”
“Got it! Madam, you're so loyal! I'll treat you to sweet soup when we get back!”
Filled with gratitude, Li Yafei waved at her, and her figure in the blue cloth student skirt quickly vanished into the ghostly crowd.
Zheng Wenxuan watched the direction she had vanished, looking a bit worried. “She's just a kid, will she be okay?”
“Since she's survived in the building for so long, she must have some way to protect herself. Besides, she has Granny Lai, a fierce ghost, protecting her.”
Chen Xi retracted her gaze. “Let's go. Business first.”
The two of them turned and walked deeper into the Mong Kok alleyway.
The alley was darker than the main street, lined on both sides with incense candle shops and paper-craft stores.
Their storefronts were very narrow, hung with white paper lanterns that swayed in the chilly yin wind.
They had barely walked a few dozen paces when Zheng Wenxuan suddenly stopped, his face pale. “Constable...”
“What is it?”
“I-I feel like...” Zheng Wenxuan swallowed hard, his voice tightening. “Those motionless ghosts from earlier... seem to have moved.”
Chen Xi's heart jolted, and she whipped her head around.
Out on the street beyond the alley entrance, those previously frozen ghost figures were indeed moving.
Like rusted machinery, they turned their necks bit by bit and lowered their arms, their movements stiff and sluggish, resembling puppets being jerked by strings.
Low, wailing cries of ghosts began to echo, and the entire street instantly came alive.
What was even more bizarre was that without the slightest warning, the sky suddenly darkened.
Just moments ago, the paper-white sky had been blindingly bright.
Yet in the span of just a few sentences, the sky darkened at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The paper-white faded to a hazy gray, and the hazy gray deepened to a dark charcoal. In just over ten seconds, the entire street plunged into darkness.
The white paper lanterns along the roadside lit up on their own, their eerie glow casting flickering, menacing shadows of the ghosts.
...
“What's going on?” Zheng Wenxuan cried out. “We've barely been out for any time! How is it already dark?!”
At most, they had been out for twenty minutes.
From day to night in just twenty minutes?
Chen Xi's face darkened completely.
The day-night cycle in this Instance was likely not based on actual time at all.
“Oh no.” She grit her teeth. “The night patrol time is approaching, and the quest is about to time out—”
Uncle Biao had said that they had to do the night patrol at midnight.
But she wasn't sure if time in the building flowed at the same rate as outside.
Now that it was dark outside, was it already time back in the building?
There was definitely no time to rush back.
Returning to the Shing King Building from here would take at least twenty minutes.
By the time they made it back, the night patrol would have long timed out, and heaven only knew what kind of punishment that would trigger.
“Captain Chen, what do we do now?” Zheng Wenxuan was growing panicked.
Day and night inverted, and the ghosts acting up—this was far too bizarre.
“We have to complete the delivery quest first. If we fail, we might anger Sister Fang.”
Chen Xi took a deep breath and quickly made a decision. “Kang Xiaojia, Jiang Chen, and the others are still in the building. Hopefully, they can hold out.”
“Let's go!”
No longer hesitating, the two of them bolted deeper into the alleyway.
The doors and windows of the paper-craft shops on both sides creaked and groaned, and rustling sounds came from within, as if things were trying to crawl out.
Behind them, the wailing cries of the ghosts on the main street grew louder and louder:
“So bitter... my life is so bitter...”
“Woooo... woooo...”
“I want to go home... I want to go home!”
“So hungry, so hungry, so hungry, no matter how much I eat I can't get full, so hungry, so hungry, so hungry...”
“The scent of the living, there's the scent of the living!”
“So fragrant, so fragrant, so fragrant!”
Mingled with chaotic footsteps, the various delirious murmurs surged toward them like a tide.
The two ran for their lives as the yin wind howled and swirled past their ears in gusts.
After running for about two minutes, a shop appeared before them at the end of the alleyway.
The shop was tiny, its storefront pitch-black, shaped like an inverted coffin.
Hanging over the lintel was a wooden sign with five traditional characters that read “Wong Kee Candles.” The characters were also inverted and crooked, looking as if they had been carved with fingernails.
This was exactly the place they were looking for.
...
...
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