But this ti, after walking only a short distance, an accident occurred. Yang Xiao stopped in his tracks and stared intently at the ground not far in front of him, where bloody footprints had appeared again.
The footprints were still from wooden clogs, and the bloodstains were very fresh, indicating the ghost had just passed by less than a few minutes ago.
The ghost had left the Mirror World again, and the footprints led out of one door and into another directly across from it.
Now with no way back, Yang Xiao had no choice but to move forward bravely. He found the gaps between the footprints, carefully stepped over them, and continued onward.
Soon he reached the second corner, 112 steps; he rembered it clearly, and after lifting the door curtain, the facts proved his mory correct. He passed through successfully, and now a third corridor appeared in front of him.
Walking down the dark, icy corridor, Yang Xiao often felt as if he was inadvertently heading back the way he ca. After all, each corridor looked the sa to him; both sides lined with endless doorless rooms and the door curtains hanging above were hardly distinguishable from one another. The hauntingly beautiful cherry blossoms now seed to carry a sense of solemnity as if they were escorting him to his funeral.
Each room here was a grave, and Yang Xiao was walking by these graves, the hanging door curtains performing the role of headstones.
Just as he was about to reach the third corner, sothing unexpected happened. Yang Xiao halted, spotting a rag doll discarded on the floor of the corridor.
The rag doll, dressed in a loose, bright red robe and kimono with wide sleeves tightened around the waist by a belt, sat upright on the ground. What really caught Yang Xiao’s attention was the doll’s makeup: its face thickly painted white, with blackened teeth and eyebrows drawn high, topped with a head of straight, long hair. To Yang Xiao at that mont, these features combined had no aesthetic appeal whatsoever; he only felt terror.
If he had a choice, he would have changed paths without hesitation, but now, he had to continue past it despite his reluctance. He planned to shift to the side near the wall to bypass this mysterious rag doll. Holding his breath, he inched closer. Thankfully, the rag doll remained unusually obedient, sitting there like a docile, submissive wife, head slightly bowed, not moving an inch.
But as Yang Xiao ca to the side of the rag doll, preparing to walk past it, a sudden gap ripped open in the door curtain on his left. A scythe erged from the slit and hooked viciously toward him. If it had made contact, it would have decapitated him. Yang Xiao reacted swiftly, imdiately turning to his right and dodging to avoid the blade, but in the process, he lost control of his steps and collided with the right-side door curtain, crashing through it into the room.
At that mont, Yang Xiao’s heart turned cold. He had taken a wrong turn, and it wasn’t ti to enter through this door at the corner yet... He had never been through this door before!
Indeed, what lay beyond was not a gloomy corridor but a room decorated in a traditional Japanese style, surrounded by elegant, old-fashioned wooden furniture. The flower arrangent on the table carried an air of the sharp beauty of autumn leaves swept by the wind.
But at that instant, Yang Xiao had no ti to take in anything else. He whirled around, following the direction of the sounds, and looked toward a wooden sliding door with a gap about three fingers wide at its edge. Peering through the gap, he saw in the dimly lit bedroom, a woman dressed similarly to the rag doll, with her back toward him, facing a mirror and combing her hair.
"Click—"
"Click—"
"Click—"
The sound of the comb running through the long hair seed to stab right into Yang Xiao’s heart with each stroke, nearly driving him insane amidst this eerie atmosphere and terrifying scene.
But at this mont, Yang Xiao’s legs were so weak he couldn’t move. He stared unblinkingly at the long-haired woman, fresh blood uncontrollably trickling from the corners of his eyes. Then, abruptly, the woman stopped combing her hair.
A spasm of inexplicable horror seized Yang Xiao’s heart as if sothing terrifying was about to happen. The woman raised her deford, elongated hands, pressed them against her head as if to adjust her thick, classical hair bun. But in the next instant, she detached her own head.
With her hands lifting it, the woman’s head, burdened by the heavy hair bun, spun around swiftly. A face caked with a thick layer of white powder, the visage of a dead person, fiercely faced Yang Xiao, its leaden, lifeless eyes coldly piercing him.
In the next second, the woman stood up abruptly. Her arms rotated 180 degrees as she carried her head, walking backward toward Yang Xiao in pursuit.
Swinging the Human Bone Staff, he struck at the woman and, without looking back, turned and fled, running down the corridor the mont he burst through the door.
"Snap."
"Snap."
"Snap."
The woman, holding her head, stepped barefoot on the ground, each step covering three of Yang Xiao’s. In the nick of ti, Yang Xiao counted his steps, ran two, equaled three, and dashed through the door on his right.
And this ti, by a hairbreadth, he chose correctly. He rushed through the door into a new corridor, not a room.
After storming through the door, the relentlessly pursuing female ghost vanished, and the sound of footsteps disappeared. Yang Xiao rested only briefly before setting off again. This place was too dangerous; he did not want to stay a mont longer.
This was the fourth corridor. Just one more door, and he would be back in the original corridor, outside of which lay the exit.
Yang Xiao advanced cautiously, constantly on alert for any movent behind the doors on either side. Soon, though, he noticed sothing awry. His vision grew increasingly blurry, fresh blood continuously ran from the corners of his eyes. This injury was even worse than before if it continued like this, within a few minutes, he would be completely blind. And the fate of a blind man in a labyrinth goes without saying.
"What’s going on?" Yang Xiao was shocked. He had clearly shaken off the female ghost; how could his injuries have gotten worse instead?
Furthermore, as he walked, he felt an unusual soreness in his shoulders and neck, like he had been shouldering a heavy load for a very long ti, one so burdenso that he couldn’t lift his head. He tried to move his arms, which were sore too, even lifting the Human Bone Staff was a strain.
Suddenly, Yang Xiao halted. An eerie image instinctively flashed across his mind.
To confirm his suspicion, he summoned the Ghost Lantern in his left hand, pouring a massive amount of spiritual power into it. Despite the aching in his shoulders, he raised the lantern as high as he could manage. The next second, the shaking green light cast Yang Xiao’s shadow on the wall.
He glanced sideways slightly, and the scene before him made the corners of his eyes twitch violently, his breath becoming rapid. Behind his own shadow, which was taller and oddly shaped, he quickly made out the details. A woman wearing a wide robe was riding on his neck, her hands like hooks, gouging into his eyes.
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