In the room, only the long-haired, pale-faced ghost remained; all the other ghosts that had emerged from the book had completely vanished. That ghost crept toward the young Martin Ouyang with a sinister expression.
My mind was filled with the face I had just seen in Martin Ouyang's heart—a face brimming with resentment.
"Go ahead, what story do you want to tell me?"
The ghost quietly sat down beside Martin Ouyang and began to speak.
Years ago, there was a merchant, already over forty, yet still without an heir. He tried countless remedies, consulted many renowned doctors, and even sought out monks and Taoist priests, but nothing worked.
A wandering Taoist once told him that, in previous generations, his family had acted as accomplices to evil, oppressing the innocent and committing numerous wicked deeds. By his generation, all good fortune was spent, and his bloodline was doomed to end.
The Taoist was right. The merchant had wives and concubines who conceived children, but most died in the womb, or perished mysteriously soon after birth.
Though the merchant had no heir, his business remained stable. Still, now over forty, if he did not produce an heir soon, his family's lineage would end with him.
"What's the point of this?" the young Martin Ouyang pouted. The ghost just smiled.
"Chris, do you know what a Ghost Fetus is?"
Finally, as the child was about to be born, that man told the merchant there were certain things he must pay attention to.
"And then?"
"Chris, tomorrow night."
The ghost and Chris Dawn agreed to continue the story the next night.
The next day, Chris Dawn stayed in his room, and his father kept to himself as well. Their meals were nothing but plain tea and coarse food, but Chris didn't mind. He simply waited happily for night to fall.
Yet I noticed that the ghost did not return to the book, but remained in the corner of Chris Dawn's room, silently watching him, as if for some hidden purpose.
At night, as promised, the ghost resumed its story.
The man hired by the merchant told him that on the night of labor, he would need to prepare a pair of children—a boy and a girl—and ensure that no one in the house had a destiny linked to fire. That night, the child was born. The merchant was stunned. From the concubine’s belly came not a human infant, but a dark, misshapen thing with a huge head, tiny body, and a mouthful of sharp teeth.
The moment the ghost fetus was born, it claimed its mother’s life and devoured the prepared boy and girl. The merchant did everything he could to cover up the incident, and outwardly, the ghost child appeared no different from a normal person.
But gradually, everyone in the household became the ghost child's food—one by one, until finally, it was the merchant’s turn. By then he was powerless to resist, and the ghost child devoured him alive.
"That's it?" Chris Dawn asked, sounding bored.
"Don't be impatient, Chris. I have many more stories to tell. I only hope you can write them all into the book. Including this one, your grandfather’s book is nearly at 1,000 stories. Chris, how many are there now?"
"Oh, just 937."
The ghost departed, and I watched Chris Dawn’s memories pass by, year after year, day after day. Each night, Chris would write one horror story into that terrifying book.
Until Chris Dawn turned eleven. On that night, the thousandth story was born from the ghost’s lips, and as always, Chris wrote it down.
But at the story’s end, the ghost snatched the horror story book away.
"What are you doing?"
The ghost only laughed, thanking Chris for helping complete the Thousand Ghosts Record, and then vanished.
Chris Dawn was deeply disappointed. Without the nightly stories, he could only continue dreaming—strange, unsettling dreams every night. But from the day the ghost left, the Ouyang family began to decline. They were accused of crimes they hadn’t committed, and their business suffered grave setbacks.
And young Chris Dawn seemed to realize that everything started with his time spent with the ghost and the completion of the Thousand Ghosts Record.
I saw how Chris Dawn, watching his family’s steady decline and the entire clan dragged into ruin, began to hate ghosts.
Chris Dawn fell ill—strange sores broke out all over his body, and his life hung by a thread. His father spent the family fortune trying to save him and pull strings for help.
"Do you know, Ethan Zhang, once the Thousand Ghosts Record is completed, the ghost who possesses it will gain tremendous power. That ghost was the Ghost Painting Book Immortal, a powerful spirit known among ghosts for his mastery over supernatural arts."
I stared in disbelief at Ouyang Dream, who had suddenly appeared beside me. But he was not Chris Dawn. I’d seen him before, in memories belonging to Ouyang Dream and Ouyang Weng—he was Ouyang Dream’s instinct, a figment of imagination.
He began to explain that Chris Dawn was a unique presence in his generation, having inherited the bloodline of his ancestor Ouyang Weng. This meant Ouyang Dream’s blood flowed in his veins, granting him the ability to enter dreams at will.
Chris Dawn was much like his grandfather—prone to wild thoughts and fanciful imaginings, creating things in dreams that didn’t exist in reality.
Naturally, this caught the attention of the Ghost Painting Book Immortal. The horror stories Ouyang Dream had been tasked to handle once fell into the mortal world because of the Society of Eternal Life. By chance, the Ghost Painting Book Immortal discovered the book’s secrets and traced its origins to the Ouyang family.
But for generations, no one in the Ouyang family could inherit their grandfather’s power—until Chris Dawn appeared.
It was then, as Chris Dawn hovered near death, that he fell into a deep sleep. Ouyang Dream’s power, to protect the family’s descendants, activated—healing Chris Dawn bit by bit through the power of dreams, saving his life.
At that time, Ouyang Dream emerged from the Infernal Hell, his body lost, able only to exist in dreams. Helpless, he could not bear to see his old friend Ouyang Weng’s descendants suffer so cruelly.
"It was Yvonne May," Ouyang Dream’s instinct continued. I looked at him in surprise.
Because Ouyang Dream could only exist in dreams, without a body, he could not appear in the mortal world. At that time, Yvonne May—who had not yet become a ghost sovereign—used certain methods to pull Ouyang Dream from the dream world, seal him in a jar, and send him to the Ouyang family through a subordinate.
The story unfolded just as Vivian Ouyang, the wicked one, had described—Ouyang Dream found his vessel in Chris Dawn.
In dreams, Ouyang Dream and Chris Dawn were like friends, living joyfully together. Chris was so much like Ouyang Weng—the two were very close at that time.
"What happened after that?" I asked. Ouyang Dream’s instinct raised a hand, and the world around us began to change.
I watched quietly as the scenes around us shifted—these were Chris Dawn’s dreams. Yet I saw that half were black and half were bright white.
I’d heard before that, for a person’s life, good dreams and nightmares are equal in number. No matter how powerful Ouyang Dream was, even he couldn’t change that.
Chris Dawn had long since used up all his good dreams. From then on, his nights were filled almost exclusively with nightmares, even though Ouyang Dream kept encouraging him.
But over time, Chris Dawn grew fearful and angry toward Ouyang Dream. Coupled with everything happening in the real world, Chris finally broke down.
Because Ouyang Dream had forged a bond with the Ouyang family, he intended to protect his old friend’s descendants.
Ouyang Dream even allowed Chris Dawn, an anomaly, to enter the world of dreamers and dream ghosts. From then on, Chris’s heart changed. I didn’t know exactly what he was thinking, but by now, I understood.
If all he could have were nightmares, and a good dream was impossible, then he would seize Ouyang Dream’s power and replace him.