Chapter 1: Rescuing Someone in the Depths of the Secluded Forest
Do you believe that there are ghosts in this world?
Do you believe that a dead person can be resurrected?
In the past, Ji Younai never believed that.
Until...
She opened her eyes once more after committing suicide by slitting her wrist, only to discover that she was lying in the embalming room of a terrifying funeral parlor.
All she could hear was the bizarre and extreme silence.
The peculiar stench of formalin solution wafted up to her nose.
She was engulfed by pangs of confusion, fear, and uneasiness.
'Aren't I dead?'
She had killed herself in a shabby bathroom of an old hotel!
The air was filled with the hair-raising aura of death.
She realized that she was surrounded by corpses...
All of a sudden, Ji Younai's pupils constricted before dilating again in horror!
Her heart began to race!
Overwhelmed with extreme fear, she clutched the white cloth laid over her body and sprinted out of the door of the suffocating and horrifying place!
She dashed out like a madwoman!
Outside the room, boundless black walls seemed to be closing in on Ji Younai who felt as if she was about to be devoured by a giant, terrifying creature.
While running, she managed to find the emergency passage by using the moonlight that was radiating in through the tightly shut window at the corner of the corridor as a light source. She fumbled about and made her way downstairs. At the instant that she saw the exit, Ji Younai almost burst into tears of joy.
She saw a person pacing back and forth at the exit.
It was a woman.
What is a woman doing at a funeral parlor in the wee hours of the night?
She did not wish to find out the reason.
Instead, she dashed towards the glass door and tugged the lock with all her might, putting all four limbs to use.
However, a sudden chilling sensation rose up behind her...
Then, she heard a voice.
It was a voice that gave her the creeps!
"Do you also… want to go out?"
She took a subconscious glance...
Ear-piercing shrieks resounded throughout the dark and empty hall on the first floor of the funeral parlor.
A bloodied human face was right in front of her.
Half of the woman's head was gone, and blood was oozing out of her eyes as she glared at Ji Younai with an outlandish smile.
The feeling of extreme fear of dying a horrible death in the next minute quickly overwhelmed Ji Younai and made her feel breathless.
After seeing an emergency fire axe on a side of the glass door, she grabbed it with tears in her bloodshot eyes before hacking the door open hysterically...
She has escaped!
She escaped a spooky and horrifying funeral parlor in the dead of the night!
She was running for her life like a madwoman...
When she reached an empty road in the forest below where there was not a single soul, she was shrouded in the cold, bleak white moonlight.
Collapsing from exhaustion on the quiet and lonely road in the dead of night, Ji Younai began to wail as she burst into tears—her almond-shaped eyes filled with helplessness and despair. She felt as if she were an orphan who had been abandoned by the world and whom no one would come to rescue.
The dim and obscure streetlights were almost drowned out by the dark and deep forest.
The rustle of the leaves caused by the gust of cold wind that was blowing through the trees gave her the chills.
A wave of fear had surged before she could even calm down!
She heard the startling sound of a violent collision on the downhill side of the road ahead.
All the nerve cells in her body tensed up again!
The sounds of the collision vanished, but it was soon followed by the sounds of five gunshots!
Ji Younai's pupils were instantly filled with fear and terror!
The sound of gunshots!
She panicked and started to look for a place to hide. However, she soon heard the sound of a vehicle's engine fading away before disappearing completely. The car had been driven away!
What's going on there?
Why were there gunshots?
Petrified, she wiped away the tears in her eyes.
Ji Younai mustered up the courage to walk towards the scene to find out what was going on.
Before she could even take a few steps, she saw a black Mercedes Benz G500 that had its tail lights flashing, and half of its body crashed into a tree at the side of the road.
The car had flipped and all four of its wheels were facing up. The hood was on fire, the interior was charred and had turned pitch black, while the glass was shattered—leaving fragments of broken glass all over the ground. However, there were still a few people in the car.
'Are they still alive?'
Ji Younai was unsure, so she quickened her pace.
Breathing in the chilly air, her vision began to blur due to her tears. However, Ji Younai stopped two meters away from the scene of the car accident and the shooting. Like a shocked innocent deer, she stared at the exterior of the shattered car window to see that there was a blood-soaked hand resting weakly upon it.
In her mind, the bloodied half of a face that she had seen at the entrance of the funeral parlor surfaced again. Feeling fearful, she closed her eyes.
The funeral parlor, the embalming room, the ghost of a woman.... and now a carload of corpses.
She had completely collapsed, and she was about to lose her mind.
The half-conscious, half-awake Gong Siyu only regained some consciousness after hearing the soft, pitiful sobbing and weeping.
He was severely injured and was trapped in the car.
Apart from him, no one else in the car survived.
However, at the same time, he tried hard to see the white shadow of a dejected and crestfallen person, slumped on the ground outside the car.
"Please… please help me."
Gong Siyu, who at one point, thought that he would really die here, felt as if he had seen his savior who was shrouded in a shining halo.
With a glimmer of hope, he began to call for help.
Ji Younai was kneeling on the icy cold road distractedly, overwhelmed with fright.
Fear took over her senses, and she couldn't get rid of it at all.
The forest was cold and gloomy, and she was shivering.
She only looked up again when she heard a faint, hoarse, and feeble voice that suddenly sounded in the car in front of her.
She crawled to the other end of the car door where the sound had come from and lay on the ground. Thereafter, she looked through the shattered car window.
She happened to meet a pair of cold, hostile narrow eyes that were deep yet distant and was glistening sharply...
The startled Ji Younai covered her mouth in shock.
Feeling daunted, she asked softly, "Are you… still alive?" She could no longer tell the difference between a living person, a ghost, and a dead person.
"Yes," he answered softly and weakly.
He was really alive!
Ji Younai's eyes glowed.
"Are you… okay?"
When Gong Siyu heard the soft female voice that was as fine as hair, and as sweet as sake, he almost felt a slight relief from the intense and excruciating pain in his body, even though her voice was full of panic and fear.
"I'm not okay..." he said in a hoarse and low voice that resembled a cello. The last intonation was so alluring that it seemed to be able to penetrate through the bottom of a person's heart.
Gong Siyu raised his eyebrows when he saw that the flames that were engulfing the front of the car were becoming more and more intense. He knew it was trouble!
The car was about to explode!
He looked at the young girl who was still lying next to the window and looking at him. He coughed gently, ignoring the fresh blood that was gushing out of his mouth. There was a hint of consolation in his alluring male voice.
"Will you do me a favor?"
Ji Younai nodded fervently and said, "Sure! Tell me what it is!"
"Get me… out of this car. It's going to explode."
Before he could finish his words, the axe in the hand of the girl outside the car window caught his attention. He had no more energy to be paranoid and suspect her. She was the only one who could save him now!
That was fast!
In order to ensure that the man who was still alive did not turn into another corpse, Ji Younai tried her best to free him from the car by dragging him out.
Ji Younai sat the injured man down under an obscure tree in the forest by the side of the road.
He was breathing rapidly and breaking out in a cold sweat.
There was a sharp foreign object that had pierced into his abdomen but he was not bleeding much.
The bullet that struck him on the spot between his left shoulder and his heart was more severe.
"Do me.... another favor, will you?"
Straining to speak, Gong Siyu tried to make his voice sound as gentle and low as possible, though he had never spoken like that before.
Making sure that the shroud she was wearing would not give her a wardrobe malfunction, Ji Younai looked up with her watery eyes and nodded.
"Sure."
"There's a cellphone in the car… go find it..." As soon as Gong Siyu said those words, he immediately changed his mind. "Forget it… you'd better not go there. It's dangerous, it's about to explode...."
But before he could finish his sentence, Gong Siyu was shocked to see the slender and delicate figure turning around and dashing towards the car that was about to explode.
While he was surprised that the slender girl who appeared out of nowhere was that obedient, he watched worriedly as she dug into the car where there were corpses.
At the same time, the unusual sound of a car engine being started resounded nearby.
The assassins who tried to kill him had returned!
With a chilly gaze, he was alarmed to realize that the girl who had gotten inside the car may have already found the cellphone and was slowly climbing out of the car...
Looking at the car that was getting closer and closer to them, Gong Siyu wanted to yell and tell her to hide!
He struggled, but he was too weak to shout. He fell feebly onto the muddy ground of the forest that was covered with dead leaves.
He saw the young girl sprinting towards him.
Under the white moonlight that intertwined with the shadow of the forest, her tiny and fair face was stained with tears. He was heartbroken to see how petrified and frantic she was.
The deafening explosion sounded behind her, along with the blazing flames that were shooting upwards.