"You can believe the voice if you want. But tell , why would I ever stop you from calling Lucian? And since when do I have telepathy as a superpower?"
The driver opened his mouth to respond...
But the voice inside his mind quickly interrupted:
"She’s lying! Telepathy is my trump card; I hid it until now!"
The driver felt his head spin.
He looked at Lana in front of him... then rembered "Lana" whispering into his mind earlier...
For a mont... he was completely confused.
Suddenly, the Lana standing before him said calmly,
"If you’re so confused, why don’t you just call Lucian?"
The driver froze. Those words... made sense.
If he called Lucian, everything would be solved instantly. Lucian would co, take charge, and any problems would vanish.
For the first ti, he felt that the Lana in front of him was telling the truth.
"As long as I call the boss... everything will be fine," he muttered to himself.
With that, he took out his phone.
But the next second, the familiar inner voice echoed sharply in his mind:
"Don’t call Lucian! He’s busy with an important eting. You’ll only cause trouble."
The driver hesitated mid-dial.
A eting? Lucian? Busy?
He frowned faintly. Sothing felt... off.
He glanced at the Lana in front of him again. Strangely, he felt like she was the one he should trust.
Suddenly he thought of sothing, and his eyes widened.
He inhaled sharply, nodded to himself, and mouthed the words, "Miss Lana, let’s leave."
The next second, both of them got into the car, and the driver started the engine.
As the car sped forward, the inner voice suddenly scread inside his mind:
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! DON’T RUN AWAY WITH HER! THAT’S NOT LANA! THAT’S THE GHOST!"
But the driver didn’t respond. He ignored the voice completely and drove faster.
Within minutes, they crossed the invisible boundary.
The oppressive aura vanished instantly, and Lana felt her entire body lighten. She slumped back into the seat and patted her chest.
"I can finally breathe again..."
She turned to the driver and asked, "How did you even know that I was the real Lana?"
The driver’s expression turned serious.
"The voice in my head... seed to hear your words and argue. But telepathy doesn’t allow the other side to hear your private conversations."
Lana nodded slowly.
The driver continued,
"Also... Miss Lana already knows Lucian doesn’t have any etings today. That voice claiming he was busy, that’s when I realized it must be a ghost trying to deceive ."
Lana’s eyes softened. "Smart."
"And," the driver added quietly, "I don’t think you suddenly developed telepathy. If you had it, you would have used it long ago."
He fell silent after that, focusing on the road.
On the other hand, Lana leaned back, letting out a tired sigh.
’At least Lucian’s people are competent... thank goodness.’
anwhile, Mr. Crow was dramatically tapping his chest with his wing.
"I swear... Today I almost had a mini heart attack! Lana, we are dropping this mission. Imdiately!"
Lana nodded with a grim expression.
"Not only will we drop this mission... we must report it. This wasn’t an E-rank ghost. It wasn’t even a normal D-rank."
She clenched her fists.
"The ghost we encountered had at least 30 to 40 years of cultivation. At minimum, 20 years. That’s not sothing a Yellow Rank mystic cultivator can deal with."
Mr. Crow agreed instantly. "We’re not going back there anymore!"
Lana nodded again.
As they continued driving, she closed her eyes and tried to restore her mystic energy, only to realize it was completely drained.
She wasn’t surprised.
Even though she didn’t fight or didn’t use talismans or didn’t even form an attack, her mystic energy was depleted.
Mr. Crow felt her condition and was stunned.
"Lana, why is your Mystic Energy depleted? You didn’t do anything!"
Lana opened her eyes slowly. "Because the choking hand wasn’t illusionary hands, Mr. Crow."
"What do you an?" he asked, confused.
Lana took a deep breath. "I an... we were choking ourselves."
Mr. Crow’s eyes widened. "WHAT?!"
"It’s common during possession," Lana explained. "A ghost creates illusions so real that the possessed person thinks they’re attacking the ghost... But in reality, they’re hurting themselves. That choking feeling? That was us... literally strangling our own throats."
Mr. Crow’s feathers stood on end. "How do you even know this?"
Lana fell silent for a mont before whispering, "Because... I’ve experienced it before. And it wasn’t pleasant."
She didn’t elaborate.
Instead, she continued explaining calmly.
"To escape these illusions, the first step is to close your eyes. Our eyes are the strongest perception tool. We saw children playing... a playground full of illusions... And because of that, we forgot about the real danger."
She added softly,
"What’s even more horrifying is... that playground never had any children. Everything we saw was just images projected into our minds. None of it was real. The illusions didn’t exist outside our perception."
Mr. Crow was silent, absorbing her words.
Lana continued,
"Once we stared into their eyes, our minds accepted the illusion as truth. That’s why our hands moved toward our own necks; we didn’t notice it happening."
She clenched her jaw.
"That’s why I shut my eyes. It cut off the visual perception that made everything feel real."
"Then," she said, "I used my mystic energy to surround both myself and you, to block out the demonic influence. It took ti... but eventually, we disconnected."
Mr. Crow nodded slowly. "Then why did we feel paralyzed?"
"We weren’t," Lana replied. "It was all in our heads. Ghosts can’t fully puppet a human’s body because of karmic law. So they manipulate the brain instead, making us believe we can’t move."
Mr. Crow stared at her in awe. "Lana... even when you were terrified, you still thought so clearly."
Lana let out a hollow laugh. "It wasn’t clarity. It was just... an experience."
She lowered her gaze.
"The first ti I faced this type of possession... I was like a helpless duckling waiting for soone to kill . I learned the hard way."
Mr. Crow didn’t speak after that.
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