Splash—
The sound echoed eerily in the darkness, water slapping against stone. I tried to speak, but the old man just dragged me forward, his grip cold and unyielding. Soon, we reached the foot of the mountain. My eyes widened.
A village emerged from the mist—ancient, silent, surrounded by a sprawling cemetery. Hundreds of graves pressed in, the oppressive air thick with the scent of earth and decay.
The relentless roar of waves outside left me sleepless. I climbed up, my limbs heavy. Pale sunlight seeped through the cracks in the window, casting long shadows across the floor. I yawned—and realized, with a start, that every wound on my body had vanished.
That guy, John Chou.
Just thinking about these past few days made my blood boil. John Chou kept making me fight the Skeletal Shade, but no matter how I attacked, I couldn't leave a single mark on that skeleton.
The old man who’d dragged me to the center of the village finally let go of my hand. He turned and flashed a strange, unsettling smile.
No matter how much I questioned John Chou, he remained silent. At best, he'd tell me to figure it out myself.
Being around someone like him made my skin crawl. His tone always carried that biting, contemptuous edge.
I still didn’t know what John Chou was really planning here, but he definitely had a purpose. Bringing me along was just a side effect.
I got up in frustration and stepped outside. The elders in the village were all kind, and in my spare time over the past few days, I’d helped them with small tasks.
But as I crossed the threshold, unease prickled at my skin.
"Move faster, Rachel Lan! Come here, now!"
John Chou’s voice echoed in my mind. I glanced at the red Specter Web coiled around my wrist, its threads pulsing with ghostly energy. I stuck out my tongue, feigning bravado, but my heart raced.
Only now did I see clearly—the person before me was John Chou.
After breakfast, I headed for the mountaintop again, planning to walk there and think harder about what John Chou really wanted from me.
The sparse woods in the morning weren't cold, and sunlight streamed straight through. But I couldn't shake the feeling something was off about this island.
Aside from fighting the Skeletal Shade, I'd spent days carefully observing the island's surroundings. The whole island was shaped like a curved blade. The village to the west sat right at the blade's edge, while the east side was hollowed out—a massive cliff lay east of the mountaintop where I stood.
I didn't know much about formations, just the basics, but I could tell—the island's east side could gather yang energy, and its back and southern sides lined up with the directions of Zi and Wu. By the Eight Trigrams, the island was oddly regular, almost like some kind of formation.
The thought made me shake my head.
"Tch, why think so much? I have to find something today."
I slapped my cheeks and started jogging, determined to reach the mountaintop in one go. I trusted my stamina—after all, I'd been running from ghosts since I was a kid. I knew too well: if you can't run, you're ghost food.
About half an hour later, I reached the summit. Sure enough, the Skeletal Shade sat right in the center, but John Chou was nowhere to be seen.
"John Chou."
I called out, but got no response. The Skeletal Shade didn't move either. I'd compared this skeleton to John Chou countless times—the bone structure and height were nearly identical. It had to be John Chou's corpse.