Translator: CinderTL
"How could this happen?" Fatty couldn't help but exclaim. "She was wearing that uniform! Didn't they say..."
"Everything has its pros and cons. Just because ordinary Sculpture Ghosts can't see it doesn't mean all Ghosts are blind to it. This uniform might have made her a priority target for another kind of entity," Wang Qi said calmly, as if he had long foreseen Shen Mengyun's fate.
Following a similar line of thought, Jiang Cheng immediately thought of the eye pattern on the work uniform. Perhaps it was a warning.
A warning to anyone who wore the uniform: they would be targeted by something far more terrifying.
"It's that half-body statue Ghost," Huai Yi mused.
This was an incomplete answer, as all the Sculpture Ghosts had been eliminated, yet they still hadn't found the source of the Urban Legends.
The eerie half-body statue.
"Doctor, look!" Fatty pointed at the ground. From his angle, he could clearly see a trail of bloody footprints leading from the stand where Shen Mengyun had been propped up, stretching far into the distance.
Strangely, they hadn't noticed the footprints or the bloodstains earlier, when they were farther away. It was as if they had suddenly materialized as they got closer.
Jiang Cheng stared at the bloody footprints on the floor. They were bizarre, alternating left and right with no consistent stride length.
Just from these footprints, one could imagine how strangely the person had been walking at the time.
They had also dragged one leg occasionally, leaving a long, smeared trail of blood across the floor. In the dim light, it was utterly terrifying.
Thinking of Shen Mengyun's missing legs, a chilling image flashed through everyone's minds:
After killing Shen Mengyun, the half-body statue Ghost had torn off her legs and attached them to itself.
Then, like a child taking its first steps, it had stumbled away on Shen Mengyun's legs.
The footprints vanished near the staircase.
After a moment's thought, Jiang Cheng walked forward and removed the blood-soaked work uniform from Shen Mengyun's upper body. The hem was soaked in fresh blood, still dripping onto the floor.
Once he was done, Jiang Cheng knelt before Shen Mengyun and gently closed her eyes.
Fatty's nose twitched, feeling pity for Shen Mengyun and the Doctor.
Following the footprints, Jiang Cheng led the way, the others trailing behind him. Huai Yi stared at the bloody trail, noticing what looked like bits of flesh clinging to the floor.
On the first floor, the footprints stretched all the way to the end of the corridor on the opposite side.
Finally, the trail ended before a Gate.
Everyone recognized this Gate.
Behind it lay the Sculpture Hall.
After circling around, they had returned to where they started.
"This was intentional," Wang Qi said, staring at the footprints on the ground. Bloodstains still clung to the doorknob, making the trap obvious.
No one suggested knocking this time. The Gate was ajar, and a gentle push opened it.
The scene inside remained unchanged: a dimly lit space filled with sculptures of various forms. This was the perfect hiding place for the half-body statue.
Or perhaps, its hunting ground.
The male teacher had died here.
Standing in the center of the Sculpture Hall, Jiang Cheng took out the half-body work uniform and meticulously put it on, even adjusting the collar.
Huai Yi could sense a shift in Jiang Cheng's aura after he donned the uniform. It was as if he had become a different person.
Wang Qi narrowed his eyes. From that moment on, he detected a different scent emanating from Jiang Cheng—as if something within him had opened its eyes.
Jiang Cheng, however, wasn't overthinking it. His sole purpose in wearing the uniform was to lure out the half-body statue Ghost, snap its neck, and smash its head.
Shen Mengyun had saved his life twice.
He refused to let her die in vain.
The moment Jiang Cheng put on the work uniform, he felt an unsettling chill. His body grew cold—just as he'd expected. The side effect of wearing the uniform was that it would attract the attention of the half-body statue.
Among a crowd, he would become the half-body statue's primary target.
Perfect.
Jiang Cheng's insight far surpassed Shen Mengyun's. In less than ten seconds, he had located the peculiar statue among the dozens in the Sculpture Hall.
Hidden between two other statues, it was almost completely shrouded in shadow, with only a sliver of its outline visible.
That sliver of outline resembled a person with their neck crooked, half their face peeking out as if spying.
Simultaneously, an icy chill permeated Jiang Cheng's entire body, freezing him in place. He couldn't move or speak.
Huai Yi and Fatty quickly noticed Jiang Cheng's strange behavior.
"Don't touch him," Wang Qi said, stopping Fatty, who was about to slap Jiang Cheng in a panic.
"This is likely the Ghost's ability," Wang Qi said, following Jiang Cheng's gaze. It landed on two statues that appeared perfectly normal.
"Wait here. Don't move," Wang Qi instructed, heading toward the direction Jiang Cheng was looking. He reminded Fatty and Huai Yi that if Jiang Cheng shifted his gaze, they should immediately point out the new direction.
Arriving at the location Jiang Cheng had pointed out, Wang Qi quickly scanned the surroundings. He even touched some of the empty spaces with his hands and tools, as if he suspected something invisible to the naked eye was present.
Before he could finish his inspection, Fatty waved frantically at him, gesturing for him to search in another direction.
Wang Qi frowned. The new location Fatty indicated was much closer to Jiang Cheng.
It wasn't hard to deduce that only the person wearing the work uniform could see the half-body statue Ghost. Moreover, once seen, the person couldn't move or communicate with their teammates to report the Ghost's position.
Even more terrifying, the half-body statue Ghost was closing in on the person in the uniform in a way that defied comprehension.
Once it reached them, Shen Mengyun would be its next victim.
But what was the pattern?
Wang Qi stopped wasting time. He quickly returned to Jiang Cheng's side. Since the Ghost couldn't see him, he had to rely on Jiang Cheng's reactions.
By now, Jiang Cheng had also figured out the Ghost's movement pattern. Every time he blinked, the half-body statue Ghost would mysteriously advance a short distance toward him.
Now, the creature was less than 15 meters away.
In no more than three blinks, it would teleport right in front of him.
At this distance, Jiang Cheng could clearly see its hideous form. The upper half was indeed a statue, but the lower half consisted of two long, slender legs.
The legs were covered in blood, creating a stark contrast against their original fair skin—the legs it had stolen from Shen Mengyun.
The half-body statue and the two legs were crudely joined together, the connection a bloody mess, as if they had been roughly glued together.
The half-body statue's gray-white eyes were locked on Jiang Cheng, and he knew it was waiting for him to blink.
As long as he stared at the half-body statue, it couldn't move. But unlike a living person, the half-body statue Ghost possessed an inherent advantage: it didn't need to blink.
Theoretically, anyone who encountered the half-body statue Ghost alone would meet only one fate: death.
The Ghost itself wasn't particularly strong. If Jiang Cheng could get close enough, a single scythe strike would finish it. But its ability was terrifying, especially in certain specific settings, making it incredibly difficult to deal with.
A problem now confronted Jiang Cheng: there was only one set of work clothes. This meant that no matter how many people survived, only one person could see the half-body statue Ghost at any given time.
The person who could see the Ghost alone, unable to communicate with their teammates and unable to move, would inevitably be killed by it.
So the question remained: how could they survive?
In other words, where was the path to life?
Wearing the work clothes meant being killed by the Ghost. Not wearing them meant not being killed by the Ghost, but also failing to complete the mission, since the mission's objective was to defeat the half-body statue Ghost.
This brought them back to square one.
If they couldn't even see the Ghost, how could they possibly defeat it?
But Jiang Cheng knew one thing for sure: there was no such thing as an unsolvable mission. Therefore, the Ghost had to be visible at some point, and there had to be a way to defeat it.
With his next blink, the half-body statue Ghost drew closer, this time standing in the corner to his right, less than ten meters away.
As he felt Wang Qi and Fatty bustling around him, Jiang Cheng gradually formed a new theory. The moment this theory took shape, he felt at least a 90% certainty about it.
Just now, he had tried to guide Wang Qi to attack the half-body statue's location, but he found that Wang Qi couldn't see the statue at all, nor could he touch it.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Wang Qi even pass right through the spot where the statue stood, as if he were a phantom.
But the strategy of using Wang Qi, Fatty, and the others was correct. He needed to try another hypothesis: What if he could guide Wang Qi, Fatty, and Huai Yi—that is, everyone present except himself—to simultaneously look at the half-body statue's hiding place?
Could it be possible that the statue would not only be immobilized but also reveal its true form?
During this time, Jiang Cheng blinked again. The next moment, the half-body statue finally materialized before his eyes.
The distance between them was only a meter, almost face-to-face. The statue's gray-white eyes gleamed with an eerie light, fixedly staring at him.
This was the moment Jiang Cheng had been waiting for!
Wang Qi was a sharp-minded individual. Noticing Jiang Cheng's intense gaze fixed on a single point ahead, he immediately signaled Fatty and Huai Yi.
The three of them stood in separate positions, all staring at the spot Jiang Cheng had been fixated on. In less than a second, a half-body statue's figure mysteriously materialized in the empty space before him.
First, long legs appeared out of thin air, followed by the gradual emergence of the statue's upper body until it was fully formed.
Blood continued to drip from the statue's legs, making Fatty's heart clench with worry.
The instant the half-body statue fully materialized, Jiang Cheng's binding suddenly vanished. He rushed forward, grabbed the statue's head with both hands, and strained with all his might.
But no matter how hard Jiang Cheng pulled, the statue's head remained stubbornly rooted in place.
Fatty and the others grew frantic. Every passing second could bring unforeseen changes. They had tools! Why didn't he just smash the back of its head with one of them?
As Fatty and the others watched in stunned silence, a black shadow suddenly emerged behind Jiang Cheng. The shadow swiftly extended two hands and covered Jiang Cheng's own.
The next moment, with a sharp "crack" and a low roar from Jiang Cheng, he ripped the half-body statue's head clean off.
(End of the Chapter)
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