Mysterious Awakening

"Don't move, everyone squat down, hands on your heads."

Less than five minutes had passed when a squad of armed personnel sprinted into the Guanjiang Residential Complex.

Terry and his team were apprehended without any suspense.

Dachang City was currently under martial law, and these people dared to cause trouble; even without Yang Jian's intervention, they were swiftly subdued. If they had resisted, being shot dead on the spot was not out of the question.

"Remember to interrogate these individuals; their contact with me was purposeful. This matter should be reported, and any developments should be communicated to me," Yang Jian said.

A commanding officer replied, "Please rest assured, we guarantee to complete the task."

Killing a few insignificant characters did not interest Yang Jian, nor did it address the root of the problem. He was determined to clarify which forces were attempting to contact him. When he had the chance, he would pay them a visit, to teach them a lesson and prevent them from constantly causing trouble—disrupting his business by day and disturbing his sleep at night.

"Alright, back to business."

Yang Jian soon arrived at the front of the old mansion from the Republican era.

The construction crew had done a nice job renovating the place. The walls had been clad externally, the roof had been rebuilt, and collapsed sections of the wall had been reinforced. They had cleaned inside and out; it looked much better than before.

Zhang Xiangu's efficiency at handling tasks was sufficiently fast, although according to previous plans, a temple was to be built to conceal the old mansion,

The recent events, however, meant that the construction of the temple would have to wait.

"Not bad, it's lost that eerie feel after renovation."

Yang Jian surveyed the area and ascended the staircase to the dimly lit second floor.

Despite a fresh coat of paint, ridding it of the damp, decaying smell, the building's odd architectural structure still made the hallway quite gloomy. The outside was bathed in bright sunlight, yet it felt chillingly cool and unsettling inside.

"What the human skin parchment spoke of is inside this house," Yang Jian paused in front of the second floor's main door.

This was a brass door, less prone to rust and remarkably heavy, with no keyhole left. The entire door had been sealed shut as if the original builders did not wish for it to be easily opened.

"The room that held the Ghost Mirror was simply secured with a wooden door and a lock, indicating that the original owner wanted the Ghost Mirror to be discovered. But this second door has been sealed shut, meaning the original owner didn't want what's inside to see the light of day again... No, that's not quite right either. The door was made of brass, not gold.

The original owner didn't want to hide it forever, but rather wished for future people to treat it with caution and not to open it carelessly."

"Which means, whatever is inside must be even more special than the Ghost Mirror."

Yang Jian thought for a moment and concluded that there probably were no ghosts inside.

If there were ghosts, a chamber like this wouldn't be able to contain one. On the contrary, it was very possible that the first room contained a ghost, especially since gold had been used for its door. In those times, the value of Gold was self-evident.

After some thought.

Red light emanated from Yang Jian's body as he activated Ghost Domain and passed directly through the heavy door in front of him, entering into the second chamber.

Despite the pitch darkness, his ghostly eyes could see everything within.

Though he entered with utmost caution, upon seeing everything clearly, he realized his worries had been superfluous and his deduction was spot on.

The second chamber held no dangers.

It was merely a small room with an old cabinet that had lost its paint, revealing the dull, aged wood beneath.

Besides that, there was a small table.

Someone had used a carving knife to etch a line of characters into the table,

"You will possess everything, yet you will lose everything. Proceed with the utmost caution."

The handwriting was neat and deeply incised into the wood, appearing like a warning. It was also the only clue left behind by the original owner of the premises.

"Saying it is the same as not saying it, feels like taking off your pants to fart—superfluous. What were the people before me thinking, couldn't they leave behind a bit more information? What's the difference between leaving such a message and not leaving any? If there was time to carve words, wouldn't it kill to leave behind a few letters? Am I supposed to guess what this riddle-like thing means?"

Yang Jian had still been hoping to unlock some past secrets, but the previous owner must have had an artistic temperament, not leaving messages, only a vague warning.

"Forget it, I'll just have to figure it out by myself."

He slapped the table to see if there was anything weird about it, but accidentally used too much strength and smashed the table to pieces.

Just an ordinary wood table, nothing special about it.

"No issues with the wood table, so that just leaves this thing..." Yang Jian eyed the wooden cabinet in front of him.

Plain and ordinary, like a usual old piece of furniture.

The cabinet was split into upper and lower sections. The first layer had wooden grilles for doors, with horizontal and vertical bars creating multiple square holes, behind which was pitch black, making it impossible to see if there was anything behind the doors.

The lower layer seemed like a cupboard, with its doors tightly closed.

"Could it really be this thing?"

Yang Jian frowned, "How could this thing possibly track down Zhao Lei? What kind of joke is that?"

He didn't bother to go closer to try to see clearly what was inside the first layer of the cabinet; with his ghost eyes, he should be able to see despite the darkness.

But his ghost eyes couldn't penetrate the darkness inside the cabinet. Read latest stories on empire

Peering through one of the square wooden grilles, he still saw nothing but darkness, as if some eerie force was blocking everything. Even though the cabinet doors were latticed, it revealed nothing within.

"There's a bit of a mystery here," Yang Jian thought as he turned on his phone's flashlight and shone it inside.

But the light only managed to penetrate a few centimeters deep, still unable to reveal the real situation behind the cabinet doors.

However, the next moment, as he was looking at the cabinet door, suddenly from the depths of the darkness within, a set of eyes appeared in his field of view. These eyes were pressed against the back of the door, peering through the hollowed wooden lattice at Yang Jian, who was looking inside.

They were locked in a gaze, and the moment froze for a second.

"Damn it."

Yang Jian was startled and stumbled several steps backward, nearly retreating from the secret room.

There were eyes in the cabinet door?

But when he looked again from a distance, the pair of eyes behind the cabinet door had disappeared.

"Is there a ghost inside?" Yang Jian's expression fluctuated. Seeing that nothing had emerged, he calmed himself down.

Even though everything happened so quickly, he was certain it was not an illusion—there was something inside.

"Judging by the size of those eyes, the creature inside shouldn't be very big. If it's a ghost, it's probably just a child ghost. Only a child could fit into a cabinet door of that size."

"But why didn't it come out to attack me? The cabinet door shouldn't be able to hold it back."

Yang Jian's gaze was uncertain, "And what does the original owner's cryptic message mean? 'I will have everything, and I will lose everything?'"

"There's definitely more to this than meets the eye."

He felt that if it were just a plain ghost, the original owner had no need to go through such trouble to leave it behind. This thing must be something special, like the Ghost Mirror, it's just that it was his first encounter and he couldn't fully understand it yet.

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