I drank some more water, and my body warmed up quite a bit. Luckily, it's dry here, the temperature is decent, and there's no water on the ground.
Justin Huang lay comfortably on that bed made of bones and human hide, resting his head on a hide pillow, watching me.
"I'm not giving you the bed to sleep on."
"Who wants to sleep on it?"
I muttered. The discomfort I felt upon entering had faded. I sat on a mat made of human hide and began to ask questions.
"How many years have you been here?"
Justin Huang held up two fingers.
"Twenty years."
"This is the Shadow Realm, right?" I asked. Justin Huang nodded. I blinked, looking at him in disbelief. Twenty years—someone surviving alone in the Shadow Realm for twenty years was beyond imagination.
"You're human, aren't you?"
Justin Huang looked at me with disgust.
"Are you done yet? I'm not human, what else could I be—a ghost?"
I glanced at Justin Huang again. His hair stuck out like a hedgehog, uneven and wild, his teeth were yellow and black, though his face was relatively clean. Then I started asking about his story.
Justin Huang turned his head and looked at me.
"You really want to hear it?"
I nodded.
"It's a long story," Justin Huang said, and began to tell his heavy tale.
Twenty years ago, Justin Huang was eighteen, a senior in high school. As an orphan, he received help from a kind benefactor and generally kept out of trouble at school.
Back then, society wasn't like it is now—it was a bit chaotic. Justin Huang always liked a girl two grades below him. Sometimes he'd secretly follow her, just catching a glimpse was enough to satisfy him.
Hearing this, I couldn't help but cast a wistful look at Justin Huang.
"Hey, in our era, it wasn't like yours—so open. Students nowadays can just date and rent a room whenever they want."
I gasped and looked at him.
It was a cold winter night. As usual, Justin Huang followed the girl. Unexpectedly, when they reached a secluded spot, someone suddenly covered her mouth and dragged her into a small grove.
Justin Huang hurried after them and discovered a group of school thugs nearby. They had been drinking and started harassing the girl. Justin Huang was scared, but he couldn't just walk away.
In the critical moment, Justin Huang grabbed a stone and stepped forward. But facing seven or eight people alone, he was badly beaten. The gang even threatened to kill him, forcing him into a corner. In the end, Justin Huang killed someone.
That incident resulted in three deaths and five injuries. Because Justin Huang had just turned eighteen, he was arrested and sentenced. Originally, it was only eight years, but the family of one of those killed was wealthy and influential, so his sentence was secretly increased to twenty years.
"I don't regret it—not at all," he laughed. "But my biggest regret is not confessing to that girl. That's what I really regret."
I didn't laugh. I just listened, watching Justin Huang recount the past. He looked cheerful, almost as if he were joking.
In the days that followed, Justin Huang endured months in prison, thinking of that girl every day. Finally, she came to visit him once, seeming to understand the truth—that Justin Huang acted because he liked her.
"She suddenly came and said, when I get out, she'll marry me, that she'd wait for me forever. Heh."
I let out a sound of surprise and looked at Justin Huang.
"Didn't you say..."
"Oh, come on. I'm a grown man, confessing to a girl—how undignified is that? But later, during a special prison visit, I got tricked by those bastards."
Justin Huang spent his days like years, clinging to that girl's promise, constantly hoping the twenty years would pass faster. He'd heard that good behavior could reduce his sentence, so even when bullied and insulted in prison, he never fought back or talked back—just waiting for the promise twenty years later.
Then a lawyer came to see Justin Huang and offered him a deal: if he did as told, he could get out early, and after the job was done, he'd receive a hefty seven-figure reward.
Justin Huang agreed without hesitation. The lawyer instructed him to feign madness. Sure enough, after several psychiatrists confirmed his condition, Justin Huang was diagnosed as mentally ill and sent to this psychiatric hospital.
Life in the psychiatric hospital was much better—he just had to pretend to be crazy. At first, it was fine, but after a month, Justin Huang was scheduled each night after midnight to gather in a room with other patients faking insanity.
In each corner of the room, white candles were lit, and strange symbols were drawn in the center. The whole room was especially cold. Although it was summer, it felt like winter.
After several nights, Justin Huang sensed something was wrong. It felt like, besides the ten of them, there were others in the room. One night, someone went mad, screaming that they'd seen an eleventh person.
Soon, more people started going mad. In the end, only Justin Huang and three others remained unaffected, but the three inexplicably fell ill, their faces pale, coughing constantly. It wasn't until one of them died coughing up blood that Justin Huang realized something was seriously wrong.
Two months later, by year's end, Justin Huang and another person were close to death, but every night they were still brought to that room. Finally, both of them saw it—a room full of ghosts.
At that moment, a masked person stepped out, clapping and laughing, then explained the situation about ghosts to them.
The next day, the two miraculously recovered. They were informed they'd been chosen—if they completed the next task, they could join and enjoy a lifetime of wealth and glory.
Justin Huang thought good days were finally coming. He learned some important things about ghosts from the hospital director.
"I was pretty excited back then. The director said they needed people with the ability to withstand prolonged exposure to yin energy to catch ghosts."
This chapter isn't over yet ^.^, please click next page to continue reading!
"Wait, shouldn't you have joined the Ghost Burial Squad?"
Justin Huang glanced at me, puzzled.
"Is there really such a ghost-catching organization?"
I nodded. Justin Huang smiled.
"Tell me about it sometime."
Things got strange after that. Justin Huang saw many others pretending to be crazy just like him—a second batch of people arrived. He knew they were all serious offenders.
Until the person who was with Justin Huang mysteriously disappeared, he got scared. Finally, on the last day of the year, December 31st, Justin Huang was awakened in his sleep. The door opened, he walked out, and when he returned, he found himself here.
"That's how I've been here for twenty years. Sigh, I could've gotten out of prison a while ago, but that promise expired, and that girl probably married someone else long ago. Sigh."
Justin Huang sat up, sighing.
"So what's next? What exactly is going on here?"
I asked anxiously. Justin Huang shook his head.
"That's enough. It's time to rest. Get some sleep, we'll need to go out hunting later, or we'll run out of food."
I didn't ask any more. I was pretty tired myself. Even though lying on human hide made me uneasy, I curled up and went to sleep, closing my eyes.
"Wake up, hurry."
I opened my eyes. Justin Huang stood in front of me, holding a bone knife sharpened to a deadly point.
I got up, and Justin Huang handed me a piece of dried rat meat. I ate it and drank some water.
"How do we get out?"
I asked, and Justin Huang crawled into a pitch-black tunnel. I followed him—there were stairs leading up.
"It's all luck. If we're lucky, we can get out, but we have to move fast. If the ghost here finds us, it'll be trouble."
I let out a sound of surprise.
"That guy might've been mentally ill when he was alive. The Shadow Realm he created is like a maze—he probably can't escape it himself."
I couldn't help but laugh.
"What about those monsters?" I asked.
"They're like zombies, but all made by that ghost, pieced together from human limbs and body parts. What you ran into was just the lowest kind—there are much stronger ones."
We kept climbing up, and soon reached the top.
"Did you make this place?"
"No, I just stumbled upon that room below. There were bone tools and a peaceful-looking skeleton sitting at the table. It must've been made by that guy."
We lifted the lid and water flowed in, so we hurried out and closed it again.
"Don't go too far, remember that." I nodded, but was puzzled about the hunting.
As soon as we came up, there was a path ahead, but luckily the lid below was still in place.
A faint rumbling sounded, and suddenly the monster that had been chasing me appeared, crawling toward us.
"Let's go, quickly." I said, about to open the lid, but Justin Huang just smiled, completely unhurried.
The monster crawled closer, and Justin Huang suddenly grabbed it with his strong hands, slammed it against the iron bars, then used the bone knife to sever its limbs, and with a few pulls, tore off its heads and tossed them aside.
The monster was still moving on the ground. Justin Huang laughed, picked up the bone knife, and began cutting it up. I stepped back in shock.
Then I watched Justin Huang skillfully strip the monster's tendons and some meat, wrapped it in a cloth.
I gagged and almost threw up, but quickly turned away.
"You have to get useful stuff! It's just a corpse, what's there to be afraid of? I collect tendons to make thread—otherwise, you'll never get out. And the meat, you can make human oil from it. How else would you boil water or roast meat?"