Chapter Forty-Five: Night Parade of a Hundred Demons

After Lin Ran returned to Ghost City, he found a place and promptly fell into a deep sleep. The exhaustion from the night weighed heavily on him, making him feel as though he could run a marathon. He was surprised at how far he’d managed to run, not realizing that the little ghost girl, Yan’er, had actually carried him a great distance; instinctively, he assumed he’d run it all himself. Fortunately, his time at the police academy had prepared him well—five kilometers of armed cross-country was hardly a challenge.

When Lin Ran awoke, night had already fallen; the streets were eerily silent, not a soul in sight. He quickly reached for his phone: it was nine o’clock. Shocked, he realized he’d overslept. Was it the ghostly aura of Ghost City that had kept him under?

He hurriedly tidied himself up and discovered the hotel entrance had been shut. With no other option, he returned to his room. His room was only two stories up—he pushed the window open and leapt down.

Time was running short. Lin Ran raced toward the gate of the City of Wrongful Death. After several blocks, he noticed the aura of the streets that night was especially thick, growing denser by the minute.

Just as he wondered why, the ground began to tremble faintly, as if something massive was approaching. Lin Ran glanced at the surrounding low houses, sprang onto a rooftop effortlessly, and hid himself.

He hadn’t been hidden long when he saw a dense, white fog rolling swiftly toward him. This was no ordinary mist—it was the spectral aura, so concentrated it had become tangible, just like what he’d seen by the factory that once hovered in the air.

The white fog drew nearer. Lin Ran could faintly hear footsteps—he frowned, peering toward the sound. Pale, spectral figures appeared on the street ahead. He was puzzled: why were so many people out so late?

The fog was too thick to see clearly, so Lin Ran pressed his palms to his eyes and opened his ghost sight. Instantly, his vision sharpened. He looked ahead, and his heart chilled—these were not people, but fierce ghosts.

Leading the procession was, more precisely, crawling at the front, a female ghost with twisted limbs and a face mangled beyond recognition. A long trail of blood marked her path. Beside her was another ghost, whose crushed head suggested death by traffic accident, or perhaps by a sledgehammer.

His whole head was oddly flattened, one eye bulging, the other dangling by a shred of flesh, swinging grotesquely in front of his face. Lin Ran’s scalp tingled. Behind them followed countless more, each with terrifying signs of death.

Suddenly, Lin Ran caught a strange scent—part fragrant, part rotten, like decaying flesh. Corpse fragrance? The realization struck him, and his expression changed. The Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts! Corpse fragrance was used to control the hundred ghosts.

According to the Chronicles of Yin and Yang, a foreign magician from the Western Regions once came to ancient China. He would soak a corpse, dead less than seven days, in a cauldron of medicine, boil it dry, then place the body in a giant incense burner and light the incense. The resulting fragrance could control ghosts, but the method was so cruel, no one dared to learn it. Lin Ran had never expected to encounter such a thing here.

It seemed these ghosts were headed for the City of Wrongful Death—could this be the Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts that Liu Chen had mentioned?

A strange crunching sound suddenly echoed behind Lin Ran.

He turned slowly to look. What he saw nearly made him lose control.

"Hey! Damn it, are you trying to kill me? Why sneak up behind me?"

A simple-minded fool stood there, gnawing contentedly on what looked like a human leg—or perhaps an arm. The sight made Lin Ran’s stomach churn.

"Heh heh! Want some? It’s pretty tasty!" The fool grinned and offered the limb.

"I’ll eat your—!" Lin Ran was about to curse, but realized the footsteps behind him had stopped. Silence fell, heavy as death.

A sense of foreboding stabbed through him. The hundred ghosts had paused, staring in his direction. He suddenly felt like a circus monkey, performing for a crowd of specters.

"Ah, to hell with it! I’ll fight you all!" Lin Ran looked skyward, feigning tragic heroism, and let out a thunderous roar—like a warrior charging to his death on the battlefield. The cry startled the fool gnawing on the limb; he stared at Lin Ran, baffled by his sudden outburst.

Lin Ran’s roar cut off abruptly, as if his throat had been squeezed shut. The wind was rising—time to run! Without a second thought, he leapt off the rooftop and dashed toward the edge of Ghost City, never looking back. Fight? What a joke! So many fierce ghosts, even with a mourning staff he wouldn’t stand a chance—let alone now, empty-handed.

After a few steps, Lin Ran remembered to summon the ghost coffin, which carried him as he ran. He hadn’t gone far when he heard heavy, labored breathing behind him, like a burly man straining on the toilet.

"What the hell, why are you following me?" Lin Ran glanced back. The fool had caught up, still clutching the now-bare leg bone.

"I don’t know! You ran, so I ran too!" the fool replied, still gnawing at scraps of meat.

Lin Ran’s lips twitched—this one truly was a fool. He decided to ignore him. Glancing behind, he saw no sign of the hundred ghosts. Perhaps they hadn’t reacted yet, he thought, relieved.