Qi Family Gang (9)

Nan Yue thought for a moment. "Did you see those white figures reflected in the Bagua mirror earlier?"

Jiang Yuhao nodded vigorously. He hadn't just seen them in the Bagua mirror. Before they left, he had seen shadows standing at their previous campsite.

"Do you think the skeletons at the bottom of the jars look like those figures?"

Jiang Yuhao had been too far away to see, but the others had caught glimpses.

Everyone fell silent at Nan Yue's words.

"It seems... they match up."

"Those figures look like they have no bones. They're all twisted and distorted. Without bones to support them, they're just piles of rotten meat."

A pile of rotten meat.

Nan Yue remembered when the eeriness first began. While she was washing her face, a reflection of another face had appeared right next to hers.

She had felt the face was strange then. It was as if it had no bones, completely deformed and pressed against her like a pile of rotten meat.

...

So those skeletons really belonged to those white figures?

"Have you noticed something?"

Gu Xiang Kai suddenly spoke. "Those white figures appearing around our horses and on the road haven't actually done anything."

"It's as if they're only trying to scare us."

Nan Yue looked up at Gu Xiang Kai, deep in thought. "You mean..."

Gu Xiang Kai glanced at the resting horsemen. "Don't they look like they're trying to block us?"

They made the horses too weak to walk. They blocked the road so the black horse wouldn't pass. And...

One appeared next to Nan Yue to startle her.

Another frightened Jiang Yuhao.

These white figures truly hadn't done anything to harm them yet. It could be that the time wasn't right, but there might be another possibility.

Were they simply trying to stop them from going to Fish Fry Village?

"Fish Fry Village..."

Zhu Xi Ning spoke up. "Whether the white figures and the skeletons in the jars were the same people in life, they are clearly two different things now."

"To me, the white figures are just ordinary spirits lingering after death. However, I don't know what the white mist in the jars represents."

Would spirits actually warn them?

This was a first.

Generally, the ghosts in these missions couldn't be communicated with. Even if they could, they were always filled with resentment and negative energy.

Even on the Devil's Bay, though some spirits offered blessings to the scavengers, they never stopped them from stepping into death traps.

They could only provide hints. Whether one survived in the end depended on the scavenger themselves.

But if the white figures were truly trying to block them from Fish Fry Village, it proved they knew what was going to happen there. Considering the skeletons in the jars, they might have been victims themselves.

Would ghosts warn total strangers?

"Regardless, the horse gang will continue. Solving this isn't about stopping the horse gang's progress."

Yin Qian interjected. "I agree with Nan Yue. From what I've gathered, the punishment from the Ancestral Master for breaking rules isn't just an empty threat."

"It actually happens."

"I heard them talking on the road. There was a small horse gang in the southeast that usually transported grain or acted as escorts. Last month, they took a job delivering the belongings of a lady who had died far from home, and things went wrong on their journey too."

"That gang was small and inexperienced with such matters. They abandoned the cargo and fled back to the city."

"Even though they eventually returned the money to the client, the entire gang was found dead in an old temple on the outskirts of the city a few days later."

Whether the rumor was true or false, the Qi Family Gang would never abandon their cargo.

Furthermore, based on how pollution worlds are formed, these events have either already happened or are things people fear will happen.

They couldn't stop what was destined to occur.

Chi Yu scratched her arm. "Anyway, we'll find clues once we reach Fish Fry Village. This rainforest is a miserable place to stay."

Her arm was red from scratching, covered in a patch of rash-like bumps from some unknown insect.

"These bugs are driving me crazy."

The others weren't faring much better. Most of them had bumps on any exposed skin.

Once the itching started, it was impossible to get comfortable. It even felt like they were itching under their clothes.

While the other horsemen were distracted, they applied insect repellent and anti-itch cream. The cooling sensation finally suppressed the urge to scratch.

"As expected of a mission in a pollution zone. We're suffering so much before we've even reached the main plot."

Yin Qian joked, but no one responded.

In truth, they all had a feeling by now. This was likely an extreme mission.

Based on the Federation's logic, they wanted to purify as many nightmares as possible, so the operating system typically selected ordinary missions.

This allowed them to maximize the results with predictable losses.

Extreme missions were rare for that very reason. Dealing with these high-difficulty extreme missions simply wasn't cost-effective.

Therefore, disordered nightmares that fell outside of monitoring were almost always extreme missions.

The thought that everything ahead of them might be an extreme mission made even Nan Yue's heart feel heavy.

This was their last night before entering the village. Everyone hurried to get some rest.

Zhu Xi Ning fell asleep and dreamed she was submerged in water. Her lungs felt tight, her nose and mouth were filled with water, and she struggled instinctively for air.

Suddenly, she felt the lake water around her turn icy cold and somewhat viscous.

Even while holding her breath, she could smell that overwhelming fishy stench.

Zhu Xi Ning looked back and saw a massive, moss-green sphere.

It was some distance away, and she couldn't make out exactly what it was.

Was it some stone carving sunken at the bottom of the lake?

Zhu Xi Ning didn't know. She only knew that the moment she saw it, a wave of unspeakable terror surged in her heart.

It was the primal instinct of a living being sensing death.

She felt her own insignificance. She had no idea what it was, only that it was extremely dangerous.

By now, Zhu Xi Ning realized she was dreaming, or rather, experiencing a death foresight within a dream.

She was witnessing the death signs of this mission in her sleep.

Zhu Xi Ning suppressed the uncontrollable despair and fear, swimming closer to it.

She wouldn't die here. What she saw were only possible futures.

Closer...

Just a bit closer...

Suddenly!

The moss-green sphere vanished, disappearing into the black depths of the water.

In the next second, that massive sphere, as large as Zhu Xi Ning herself, appeared right in front of her, only inches away.

Being so close and without the interference of the current, Zhu Xi Ning finally saw a straight red line in the middle of the moss-green sphere.

The line twitched and distorted, widening into an oval.

This...

This wasn't a sphere!

This was...

An eye!