Ji Li's sense of unease grew. He felt something was off about the funeral procession, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
Then a blood-curdling scream rang out—from the drunken men.
Without hesitation, he ran. On the way he saw that of the three drunks, only two remained; the fattest, the one who had drunk most, had vanished without a trace.
Ji Li's eyelids twitched. He realized: the first casualty had appeared.
The lanky man and the yellow-haired one were stunned, only able to stare at Ji Li and then at the blurring funeral procession, words failing them.
Ji Li grabbed the dazed lanky man and asked in a low voice, "What just happened?"
The lanky man pointed at the stone wall where Liuzi had stood, trembling as he stammered, "Liuzi… Liuzi—he…"
Ji Li impatiently shoved him aside and looked to the yellow-haired man.
The yellow-haired man was the clearest-headed of the three. He exhaled, glanced at the receding funeral line, and whispered, "We hid here, waiting for them to pass. Just turned our heads for a moment—and Liuzi disappeared from where he stood. Even now we don't know what happened…"
Vanished in an instant.
Ji Li's face went cold. He hurriedly asked, "Is that all?"
The yellow-haired man, still shaken and baffled, said, "Before he disappeared, I only heard three words."
"What did you hear?"
"How do I…"
"That's it?"
"That's it."
Ji Li's face turned ashen as he watched the funeral procession fade into the distance and began to piece things together.
Liuzi's death must have triggered some fatal mechanism.
Perhaps what Liuzi had seen before dying, and those unfinished words, held a clue. But everything was too vague to recover.
"This won't be so simple. Those people will come back and kill us all." The thought had barely formed when the funeral procession, which had already disappeared into the alley, reappeared and rapidly closed in on Ji Li and the others.
The lanky man looked like he'd seen a ghost and tried to flee, but Ji Li grabbed his wrist and forced him to stay.
"There's no way out. Stay and find the rule the thing uses to kill—maybe there's still a chance!" Ji Li said, each word deliberate as the procession neared.
"What is it?" the lanky man asked.
"A ghost," Ji Li answered.
The lanky man and the yellow-haired man exchanged a look and took a step back, regarding Ji Li as if he were mad. Yet neither ran. Perhaps subconsciously they realized the white-clad figures held something supernatural.
"When the funeral procession first approached, I watched everyone's movements," Ji Li said. "Until Liuzi died, I'm certain the white-clad people hadn't acted. So maybe the real anomaly is the coffin."
This was the second clash between the living and the funeral procession.
Ji Li's attention fixed on the coffin. As it drew closer, he still noticed nothing unusual—at least from the outside. The coffin was heavy; it clearly contained a corpse.
*Hey—did the coffin's weight change?* The third persona's cool, puzzled voice emerged in Ji Li's mind.
"Hmm…" Ji Li listened.
*The ropes on the pallbearers' shoulders are sagging more than before.*
Ji Li's eyes brightened and followed the thought. Indeed, as they passed, the shoulder ropes of the four bearers had cut into flesh, and their steps were much heavier than earlier.
Where did Liuzi's body go? The question struck Ji Li, and his thoughts began to race.
Ghosts don't act without purpose; every detail matters for life and death.
Liuzi was dead—so why did his body disappear? If the coffin's weight increased, could it be that the coffin now held both the ghost and Liuzi's body?
Watching the coffin approach, Ji Li felt a chill that numbed his senses.
Liuzi must have seen something before dying, and from his location, he should have been very close to the coffin. Ji Li inhaled sharply—everything strange linked back to the coffin.
"If that's the case, the coffin holds the deepest secret. To find clues, we must expose that secret."
Ji Li's gaze flicked between the two men trembling beside him. If he wanted to minimize cost and achieve the goal, the simplest option was to use the people at hand.
"You two, I'll be blunt—Liuzi was killed by the ghost inside the coffin."
The lanky man shrank back, terror flashing in his eyes as he looked at Ji Li.
The yellow-haired man, steadier than his companion, struggled before asking, "What do you mean…?"
Ji Li exhaled slowly, his tone low and grim. "Everyone in this alley is already marked. The only chance we have is to uncover its killing rule."
He shifted, eyes narrowing on the two men, and drew two sharp knives from his bag, tossing them at their feet.
"Here's your choice. If you trust me, pick up the blades. We'll lift the lid of the coffin together, from all sides at once."
Silence.
The air thickened with dread and confusion.
"N-no way! Even if you're right, if the ghost's inside the coffin, opening it is suicide!" The lanky man pressed himself against the wall, voice hoarse with fear.
Ji Li only squinted, saying nothing. The yellow-haired man bent first, picked up a knife, and said, "He's right. Liuzi didn't die for no reason—this was supernatural. At the time, only Liuzi was nearest to the coffin. That has to be the source."
His composure and clear thinking placed him nearly on Ji Li's level. Sweating, clutching the blade, he looked at Ji Li. "Can you guarantee that opening it will reveal the ghost's killing rule?"
Ji Li nodded firmly, hand tightening on his own knife at his waist.
His gaze locked on the coffin as it drew close. This time, at such proximity, he caught a faint, strange scent…
The scent of death.
He knew it well—it had clung to him through every resurrection. The coffin swayed with heavy weight, far too much for a single corpse. He was almost certain Liuzi's body was inside.
To the yellow-haired man's question, Ji Li answered lightly, but with unshakable certainty:
"The coffin holds the ghost—but it also holds the rule. If we master it, we can survive."
He gripped his knife, stepping toward a corner where he would face the coffin's southeast edge.
After wavering, the yellow-haired man mirrored him to the northeast corner. The lanky man lingered beside him, legs trembling as his eyes flicked toward the white-clad faces in the procession.
Ji Li saw this from the corner of his eye, the shadow of a knowing smile tugging at his lips.
He didn't speak, but the third persona sighed in his mind.
*You're pushing them onto the road to death. The plan is clever—opening the coffin is a bold counterattack—but the risk is just as high. To discover a killing rule, someone must first be killed. You used *courage* and *survival* as excuses, forcing them to share the risk. You've cut your own chance of being targeted from a hundred percent… down to thirty.*
The thought was razor sharp—this third voice had pierced Ji Li's true intent.
Silence fell. Both living and dead waited for a moment.
And then the coffin arrived.
Ji Li's right hand gripped the knife, but he didn't move, only watching as it passed.
When the coffin reached them, he barked, "Now!"
The yellow-haired man and the lanky one flinched as if struck by lightning, stabbing at the coffin lid in reflex.
But Ji Li never moved.
He had ordered them forward, while keeping himself out of harm's reach.
The third persona had been wrong—Ji Li had never intended to act. He wanted them to bear the risk, to trigger the rule, while his own chance of attack was zero.
Yet before their blades touched the lid—
A creak.
Ji Li froze. A blinding glare shot into his eyes, forcing them shut.
His heart lurched. He turned to flee—
But a hand, ice-cold and merciless, clamped onto his left arm. His body locked up as if bitten by a venomous snake. A sudden force yanked hard—dragging him toward the coffin.
The ambush was too sudden. Ji Li hadn't even reacted before he was pulled down.
The lanky man and the yellow-haired one saw it clearly:
The coffin lid had been pushed open from the inside.
Something gleamed briefly. A bloodless arm reached out and seized Ji Li.
The lanky man staggered back against the wall, shaking violently, his eyes glued to the open coffin.
And then his pupils shrank in horror—he had glimpsed something unspeakable inside, something that should never exist.
The yellow-haired man had no idea what was happening to the lanky one.
He was closest to Ji Li, and when disaster struck, he instinctively grabbed hold of Ji Li's body, trying to pull him back from death's grasp.
It all unfolded in less than half a second.
But with the yellow-haired man's strength anchoring him, Ji Li finally seized a sliver of time to act. The knife he had prepared flashed upward, aimed straight at his own left wrist.
In the lamplight, he glimpsed the coffin, its lid open. The interior was swallowed in darkness—only a pale hand reached out, clamped onto his wrist like iron pincers.
Just as the blade was about to fall, the hairs on Ji Li's neck bristled. A shriek ripped through the alley—raw, inhuman—followed by a cryptic warning:
"Don't look at it!"
The lanky man had perished.
At the very instant Ji Li should have been dragged inside, the other had become a substitute, ripped away without reason or mercy.
Ji Li watched as the lanky man's figure dissolved into a black blur, sucked into the coffin. A dull thud echoed as the lid slammed shut.
The ghost released him—but agony surged through Ji Li's arm. His left hand was caught fast, crushed between coffin and lid.
The pain was blinding, searing through every nerve. Madness flickered in his eyes.
No one cared about the lanky man's death, nor his final warning.
The coffin kept moving, dragged by immense force, carrying Ji Li's trapped arm—and the yellow-haired man clinging to him—down the alley.
Blood streaked Ji Li's skin as flesh tore away, scraped raw by the relentless pull.
His vision turned scarlet. The knife trembled, then dropped with brutal force—
Sinking into his wrist already crushed beneath the coffin lid, hacking through flesh and bone.
He severed his own hand to survive.
The sickening crunch of steel against bone echoed down the alley, the only sound left in that slaughterhouse of shadows.
The two remaining survivors collapsed by the roadside, powerless, as the coffin that devoured life receded into the distance with its white-clad escorts.
Ji Li had been the second target, yet he lived.
The price: his left hand—
And the lanky man's inexplicable fate as the substitute—
both locked away inside the coffin.