If it was a disguise, then this was too low-level; after all, from a distance, one could tell that this wasn’t Nalan Shuo but a Ghost.
But since this face has appeared, it ans that the Ghost must have seen Nalan Shuo, and even... killed him!
There was no ti for fear as it instantly made Yang Xiao think of the first Ghost he encountered upstairs.
That Ghost was completely different from the one before him, and they were complentary: one had the body of Nalan Shuo but the face of a ghost maid.
There was a visible connection between these two Ghosts, and among all the Ghost Substitutes discovered so far, only these two bodies were abnormal, which made Yang Xiao think more deeply.
Either these two Ghosts had collaborated to kill Nalan Shuo, one stealing the face, the other the body, or...
Yang Xiao held his breath, thinking about the peculiarities of the first Ghost, and a bold speculation ford in his mind. Could it be that was the real Director Nalan, who’s had his face stolen and was trying to save himself but couldn’t explain it?
"What are you looking at?" Suddenly, a voice erging from behind his head interrupted Yang Xiao’s thoughts, causing him to shiver with alarm.
Coming back to his senses, he cald himself down before slowly turning his head. As a test, he tried to tell Xiang Fengchen about the Ghost maid he found with Nalan Shuo’s face.
But the developnt of the next events made Yang Xiao cautious; Xiang Fengchen, as an experienced player, responded very indifferently to this significant discovery, simply telling him that the Ghost Substitutes here, tainted with the Ancestor’s Dragon Energy, had various quirks. He advised him not to get distracted and said the pressing matter was to find Nalan Shuo and then they could all leave together.
To brush aside such crucial information and to rush to find soone did not fit Yang Xiao’s understanding of Xiang Fengchen. He could almost confirm that this Xiang Fengchen in front of him was fake, a Ghost.
If that was the case, then the problem was serious. Including the rest of the six wandering Ghost Substitutes downstairs, plus this "Xiang Fengchen," there were seven Ghosts downstairs, matching the total number of Ghost Substitutes previously found.
That being the case, the so-called first Ghost encountered upstairs was not a Ghost; the most likely possibility was the Director, who had fallen victim to the trap.
The Director, transford into that state, must not have been in good shape, and it was unknown what exactly had happened to him.
However, the Director, though under a spell, should still be alive; otherwise, there would be no need for the Ghost to go through such trouble to fool him into helping find soone.
Moreover, Yang Xiao realized sothing else; among the three of them, the last one, Xiang Fengchen, likely had fallen, for this imposter Ghost was single-minded about having him find Nalan Shuo but had not ntioned Xiang Fengchen at all.
"Didn’t find it yet?" The Xiang Fengchen behind him urged.
"How about this? Let’s split up and search, increase our chances with more people," Yang Xiao suggested. "We’ll each take a loop, one to the left and one to the right, then et back here."
"We have no other choice," Xiang Fengchen, seemingly reluctant, agreed.
The two "people" agreed to et in front of a large post not far from the staircase; Yang Xiao took the first step towards the right.
This choice was also after much deliberation; the right side was next to the main entrance, and in case of an ergency, that door would be his last exit.
Not long after "Xiang Fengchen’s" figure disappeared into the fog, a shadow returned to the original spot; Yang Xiao slowly crouched down, his gaze fixed on the remaining footprints on the ground.
The footprints were sared with blood, the stains very fresh, left by Xiang Fengchen just now. By comparing the footprints, Yang Xiao confird the identity of Xiang Fengchen; there was no doubt he was disguised by a Ghost.
The real Xiang Fengchen, playing the role of a military officer, wore broad-rimd tiger-head boots, but the footprints left here were of pointed-toe slender boots, commonly worn by higher-ranking servants in the house.
Yang Xiao looked forward in the direction of the stairs, as rembered, and decided to shake off the Ghost to et up with the Director first.
But just as Yang Xiao changed direction and hadn’t gone far, he noticed movent in the fog behind him, sothing that seed to be catching up at an incredibly fast speed.
Those aimlessly wandering Ghost Substitutes would not act like this, only the Ghost disguised as Xiang Fengchen would, and it was catching up!
Yang Xiao imdiately realized that the other party could lock onto his position!
Yang Xiao looked down at his left hand, which he now clenched tightly, holding "Xiang Fengchen’s" so-called Evil Technique in his palm. It allowed him to see the positions of the other Ghost Substitutes, which had helped him successfully avoid their paths, but it seed there were pros and cons to it; this thing was like a tracker.
As he quickened his steps, Yang Xiao found a half-human-high square wooden fra, leaning against a post, covered with a layer of dust, as if it had originally held vases or similar objects, but now it was empty. As he opened his left hand, a shiver of disgust shot through him.
In his palm was not any blood-stained Paper Money, but a rotten, stinking eyeball emitting bursts of foul odor. The dingy, cloudy pupil shriveled into a slit and seed to be moving; he placed the eyeball on the fra and quickly turned to leave.
But "Xiang Fengchen’s" speed was much faster than he had thought; almost as soon as he left, the figure arrived. Out of necessity, Yang Xiao had to hide behind a nearby post.
It was here that he stealthily witnessed a chilling scene. He saw "Xiang Fengchen" stop in front of the wooden fra and pull a face, scolding the wooden fra.
"Why are you here?"
"Why did you not follow our plan?"
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