Mysterious Revival-Chapter 709 - 676: A Key

As midnight approached, Yang Jian had already arrived next to the Ghost Cabinet in advance.

He didn't want any accidents to happen, so it was better to be cautious.

He checked the time, half an hour to go.

Yang Jian didn't go anywhere and just sat on the bell tower watching the unchanged red cabinet in front of him, waiting for the moment to arrive. This time, he came with a knife, prepared for any eventuality. If the task given by the Ghost Cabinet wasn't too demanding, then he could try to complete it, to give himself a chance to survive in the future.

If it was too demanding, he planned to use the eerie Firewood Knife to split the cabinet tonight.

He wasn't sure if the Firewood Knife could actually split the cabinet that easily.

But under normal circumstances, a knife should be harder than wood and ought to work.

Time ticked away.

Yang Jian watched the time, and soon, midnight struck.

The deadline for his transaction with the Ghost Cabinet had finally arrived. So much had happened within those seven days that surviving was almost a miracle. Anyone else probably wouldn't have known how many times they had died.

At that moment, the previously calm cabinet began to show abnormalities. The doors trembled as if something inside was shaking the wooden doors, struggling to break free.

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This had never happened before.

Click!

The shaking and trembling of the cabinet ceased after a moment, and suddenly it fell silent. All its doors, both upper and lower, opened on their own in that instant.

Blood-red, viscous blood started to ooze from the opened crevices.

"What's going on? I've followed the agreement and come to the Ghost Cabinet, so why are there abnormalities?" Yang Jian immediately frowned and couldn't help but take a few steps back, very cautious.

However, the blood flowing on the ground stopped after a while as quickly as it began.

Meanwhile, Yang Jian realized that his own feet, which he had been retreating on, were covered in blood, leaving behind bloody footprints on the floor.

This blood wasn't smeared; he hadn't stepped in it at all. It was as if the blood had always been on him, only he hadn't noticed, hidden in an extremely secretive way.

Yang Jian's pupils constricted slightly upon seeing this.

He had previously speculated that the transaction rules of the Ghost Cabinet were actually a curse, similar to the Eight-Tone Music Box. He was familiar with the thick blood that was now coming from his body, having seen it before in Wang Xiaoming's laboratory, although he hadn't paid it much attention at the time.

"So it is, this blood is both a ghost's curse and a form of protection from the Ghost Cabinet... the seven-day transaction rules were referring to this."

"Earlier at the Exorcism Club, that strange projector showed images of my death. At the time the walls were also bleeding. The blood didn't come from the projector, but from the curse of the Ghost Cabinet. The presence of the projector caused the curse to surface again... If that's the case."

"Then what was the Ghost Cabinet protecting me from at that time?"

Yang Jian's expression changed slightly.

He began to realize.

The strange thing about that eerie projector, which he couldn't see clearly at the time, but he was certain that something bad would happen.

It was either that the Ghost Cabinet's curse had shielded him, or there was an unseen confrontation between them.

From the looks of it, the Ghost Cabinet had won.

His feet were still bleeding, and he was unaware of where this sticky blood was flowing from his body, feeling no discomfort at all.

After bleeding, the blood started to merge with that of the Ghost Cabinet and then gradually retreated back into it.

It was as if the Curse of the Ghost Cabinet had been withdrawn, or perhaps the period of protection was over, with an indescribably eerie dissipation occurring.

Once all the blood disappeared, the previously opened cabinet doors closed again with a bang.

Yang Jian tried to seize the opportunity to see clearly inside, but it was pitch black, like an abyss, or the entrance to hell – nothing was visible. A supernatural power interference prevented even him from seeing anything with his ghostly eyes.

After attempting and failing, he had no choice but to give up.

Now was not the time to dwell on this.

After the abnormality ended and the Ghost Cabinet returned to a brief silence, this calm didn't last long before Yang Jian heard something drop inside the wooden cabinet.

The lower door of the cabinet opened eerily.

The transaction with the Ghost Cabinet had started again.

After taking it out, his eyebrows furrowed instantly.

It was another photo, of a dim, eerie place, but the focus of the photo was an old wooden house. No, calling it a 'wooden house' wasn't quite right, rather it was an old residence that felt very historic, made entirely of wood. Yang Jian had seen this style of residence when touring scenic spots before; such houses were at least from the Republic of China Period, if not older.

The main door of the old house was a weathered wooden door, worn by rain. The door was tightly closed, revealing nothing of what lay inside.

"A photo of an old residence; I feel like I've seen this house before... and more than once. Right, the background of that Ghost Bride photo."

All of a sudden, Yang Jian remembered something.

A fierce ghost had once sat in front of the door of this residence for a photo shoot. Back then, the residence hadn't been as worn down, and there were two lanterns hanging on either side of the door.

And he seemed to have glimpsed this old mansion in some eerie place while on that supernatural bus.

He couldn't be certain because, at the time, he hadn't paid much attention to his surroundings, focusing instead on staying alive on the bus.

There was a line of text on the back of the photo.

"Open that locked door, the deadline is three months."

The handwriting was black and so twisted that it was almost illegible, as though something had scrawled it haphazardly, yet the characters could still be recognized, and the message discerned.

After looking at the photo, Yang Jian also saw a key.

An old brass key.

"What a joke, asking me to go to that old mansion and then open a locked door inside?" Yang Jian felt a chill just thinking about the task.

Obviously, that old mansion must be haunted.

And the locked door meant that something even more terrifying was trapped inside; unlocking it could mean his immediate death.

As for the three-month deadline, it wasn't particularly short but wasn't long either.

"A task that looks simple is in fact the most dangerous. I guessed the difficulty of the tasks would escalate, but I hadn't expected the change to come so swiftly. Before, I was just supposed to find a ghost, but now I'm being sent to a horrifying place to open a door," Yang Jian mused, sensing the complexity of this mission.

However, the relatively generous timeline somewhat lessened his urgency.

If those three months had been three days, Yang Jian would right now be chopping open the Ghost Cabinet.

"There's no more activity in the Ghost Cabinet; it seems the details of the trade are quite clear now."

Once Yang Jian confirmed the situation and saw that the Ghost Cabinet had returned to its tranquil state, he closed the cabinet door, which now looked innocuous. If discovered by others, they could never imagine how connected to the Ghost Domain and terrifying it was.

"I'll hang onto this key for now and just take things one step at a time. It's not time to have second thoughts yet,"

He examined the brass key in his hand.

It appeared unremarkable, not like some eerie object, but rather like a common old item. However, his intuition told him that this key was definitely unusual because it had fallen out of the Ghost Cabinet. If it were just an ordinary brass key, it wouldn't warrant such an elaborate setup to have him open a door.

Because an ordinary door could be easily forced open, only a special door would require a special key.

"Ghost Cabinet, Ghost Bride, ghost paintings, wooden old mansion... locked door, key—all of these are connected, not lacking any common thread. Although they are just simple tasks, they have linked all these elements together, forming a precise arrangement, one leading to the next, as though in the end, whatever terrifying purpose is meant to be achieved through the trader's hands."

"The purpose of a ghost."

As Yang Jian held the key, an inexplicable sense of unease and coldness welled up inside him.

If the trades continued, he felt certain he would end up like his predecessor. He had to find a way to end the trades before the ghost's goal was reached, otherwise, he had no idea what might happen.

But whatever that was, he couldn't allow it to occur.

With that thought, he left the bell tower, his mind heavy as he returned to where he stayed.

Perhaps he had pondered a bit too long.

When Yang Jian came back, Zhang Liqin, lying in the bed, had already fallen asleep, clearly unable to stay awake due to work the next day. He didn't wake her, but after a glance, he switched to another room to take a bath and rest.

After all, a lot had happened today, and Yang Jian was also tired.

"The wound has disappeared."

During the bath, Yang Jian noticed the wound on his arm left by the Firewood Knife had now surprisingly healed, leaving a scar similar to a knife mark, but the rot had vanished, and the decay hadn't progressed further.

It seemed the wound had healed.

"Was it because the trade was completed just now?"

Yang Jian thought of the eerie bleeding from before, and perhaps the curse brought by the Firewood Knife had been lifted as well.

That could be considered an unexpected gain.

Otherwise, it was uncertain whether this arm could have been saved.

Humans are simply too fragile.

Unable to withstand the slightest encroachment of supernatural powers.

"This one-time effectiveness should only apply to this occasion. If I use the Firewood Knife again, the negative effects probably won't be eradicated so easily... unless there's another change in me after completing the next trade,"

Yang Jian thought quietly.

One trade, one curse on his body lifted.

No, it was more likely a replacement.

Perhaps the Ghost Cabinet had already imposed another curse on him, which is why the impact of the Firewood Knife had been erased.

He had yet to experience what would happen if the curses of the Firewood Knife and the Eight-Tone Music Box erupted at the same time.

Yang Jian didn't dare to test it; such matters were only to be thought about, not acted upon, unless he found himself with no other choice.