Only two days remain until the Jialan Ceremony. For days now, the city's ghosts have been working relentlessly, hauling countless items to the mountaintop—a sprawling space lined with tables and heaped with food.
Vincent Swallow’s strength has barely returned—just enough for him to stagger upright. Over these days, I’ve prowled the city, tracking the ghosts’ every move with watchful eyes.
No meaningful breakthroughs—apart from overheard talk about the ceremony, not a whisper about the Ghostworm.
Brother Owen, the Ghostworm Monk, has wiped their memories clean. Every trace of fear and anxiety from that day’s battle—erased from existence.
I kept wandering the streets. These past few days, something peculiar gnawed at me—no proof, but the unease was chilling. These ghosts mimic human routines, following a daily rhythm. When I asked around, they all claimed the same: here, every ghost sleeps on schedule and wakes with the morning.
Allen Zhang confirmed it: for years, the ghosts here have lived with eerily human routines—standard schedules, just like people.
But ghost sleep is nothing like human sleep. When humans rest, their minds still stir; when ghosts sleep, they sever all connection between consciousness and ghost soul. In truth, ghosts have no need for sleep. As long as their ghost soul churns within, restoring ghostly essence, they could remain awake for eternity.
Yet this sleep—it haunted my thoughts. Today I wandered the streets again, desperate for even the faintest trace of a clue.
After careful observation, I’ve tracked the pattern: the ghosts don’t all move things at once—they do it in batches. And always, there’s a fixed, unnatural interval of slumber.
Hugh Thompson once taught me: never overlook the smallest detail. Tiny oddities can pile up, and if you spot something strange, follow it—trace the pattern. Even the most bizarre phenomena obey hidden rules.
I used my phone to precisely measure the time: these ghosts sleep for six hours. That means, every ghost here has six hours each day when their consciousness is completely severed from their ghost soul.
After lingering near the Daoist ritual site close to the mountaintop for some time, I made up my mind to get closer, to see if anything went wrong when these ghosts slept.
I scanned the area and finally spotted a ghost. After it slipped into a house, I followed, waiting a long time to ensure no other ghosts were around. Then I slipped through the courtyard wall and drifted silently inside.
The strangest thing about these ghosts is that ever since the day they could fly here, I’ve seen many escape to the outskirts, desperate to avoid the slaughter at Ye Guyun’s hands.
But now, they've completely forgotten they can fly. I approached the unconscious ghost and began threading strands of ghost web into its body, probing deeper.
This was a Yellow Page Ghost. After inspecting it for a while, I found nothing odd—its ghost soul was perfectly normal, with no sign of any force compelling it to sleep.
I checked several other sleeping ghosts nearby. They were all the same—nothing strange at all. The investigation hit a dead end.
I sat quietly in a ghost’s house, watching the sleeping specter. A thought emerged from the depths of my mind.
"It’s dangerous, but I have to try."
Next, I would drive the ghost web straight into the soul of this specter, probing every corner. If I lost control for even a moment, this specter could die.