“Don’t get reckless just because you can resist the Ghost River’s mind warping.”

  Ron knew John was always eager to jump into ghost fights. Naturally, he assumed the kid was itching to take matters into his own hands.

  Little did he know, John only ever threw hard punches at weak, low-level ghosts…

  “You’re still young. Your life matters more than anything.”

  Ron clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t go trying to play the hero, you hear me?”

  “…”

  “Alright, off you go back to class. The Peace River situation will be handled by the official forces.”

  John stared at him with a weird, puzzled look, then turned and left.

  Ron’s lecture hadn’t given him any inspiration. If anything, it had completely derailed his plan to run away.

  “I’ll just lay low and see how it goes for now…” John mumbled to himself. He decided to wait and watch.

  If even the official authorities couldn’t contain Peace River, he’d have no choice but to flee for his life.

  Almost the very same day, the Public Security Bureau launched a full operation, extending the blockade by hundreds of meters.

  Higher authorities even transferred extra personnel from other cities, preparing to seal off Peace River entirely.

  The threat level of the river was still unknown, after all. The officials had to be extremely careful about sending in elite Spirit Wardens. Losing too many of them would deal a devastating blow to the entire Great Xia.

  Days slipped by in the blink of an eye.

  With Peace River under heavy lockdown, the number of people trying to jump in and drown themselves had dropped to nearly nothing. Anyone foolish enough to try was immediately stopped by the guards.

  For a while, it seemed the Ghost River crisis had been temporarily brought under control.

  At the Peace River blockade:

  Two officers in Public Security Bureau uniforms stood guard with guns in hand, keeping anyone and everyone away from the water.

  “Bro, how long d’you think we’ll be stuck out here like this?”

  “No idea. Might be forever.” The other officer shook his head. “We don’t get to leave until someone puts that freaky ghost thing down for good.”

  He glanced back at the Ghost River, his eyes filled with dread.

  They’d all seen its paranormal power with their own eyes. It twisted people’s minds without warning, leaving them completely defenceless.

  In the early days of setting up the blockade, quite a few officers had been brainwashed on the spot. Luckily, those incidents happened during the daytime; only a few had fallen under the spell, and the rest who stayed conscious had managed to hold them back.

  Now that they knew the Ghost River’s area of influence, they could stand guard safely even at night.

  The first officer stared out at the calm river and sighed.

  “Man, I grew up in Blackwater City my whole life. Never thought this river would turn out to be this terrifying.”

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  “Tell me about it. Who could’ve guessed—”

  The other officer never finished his sentence. His face suddenly went rigid, and he snapped, “Who’s there?!”

  Beneath the dim yellow streetlights, a figure in white was slowly walking toward them.

  The two men raised their guns at once, their eyes sharp with vigilance.

  Besides sealing off the Ghost River, they were also ordered to watch for other paranormal threats.

  Is it just another person brainwashed by the river?

  They’d seen dozens like that lately.

  People would stagger toward the water in a daze, but they weren’t aggressive. Knocking them unconscious was usually enough.

  “No! Definitely not!”

  The second officer’s face turned grave. He spoke in a low, shaky voice. “It… it’s coming from the direction of Peace River.”

  Logically, even someone under the river’s spell would only walk toward the water, never away from it.

  This was the first time they’d ever seen anything like it.

  “Then it’s a ghost?!”

  The first officer’s heart sank. But then a thought crossed his mind.

  “That can’t be. HQ said even ghosts get corrupted by the Ghost River.”

  The two were utterly confused, but they didn’t let their guard drop for a second.

  When the figure gave no reply and just kept walking closer,

  the officer made the call to open fire.

  In such a dangerous area, right next to Peace River, there was no way this was a living human being.

  Bang!

  A rooster-blood-coated bullet streaked through the air, burying itself in the figure’s leg. But not a single cry of pain followed.

  The white figure kept moving forward, slow and unhurried.

  “Alert the others!”

  Without hesitation, the two sent an emergency signal back to the bureau, slowly backing away at the same time.

  They couldn’t fight the ghost in front of them. There was no point in getting themselves killed for nothing.

  But as one officer stepped backward, a heavy, icy weight pressed down on his back. A bone-chilling cold washed over him, making his heart skip a beat as if it had stopped entirely.

  “…”

  The man swallowed hard and instinctively turned his head to the side.

  Right on his shoulder, he saw a horrifying, featureless face.

  It was the Faceless Woman who had sunk into Peace River that night.

  Only now, her white dress was soaked and dripping, her entire body looking as if she’d just been dragged out of the river.

  Dread exploded in the two officers’ chests. But in the very next second, their eyes glazed over, and they lost all reason in an instant.

  Like walking corpses, they began to stagger toward Peace River—exactly the same as everyone else who had fallen under its spell.

  The waterlogged Faceless Woman did not stop. She kept moving forward, heading straight into the heart of the city.

  And she was not alone.

  Chaos was breaking out at every single blockade line across the river.

  A few minutes earlier, the moment midnight struck twelve,

  the once-calm surface of Peace River erupted into violent churning. One by one, dark shadows emerged beneath the waves, drifting toward the shore.

  With loud splashes, the shadows crawled out of the water.

  They were not the floating severed heads.

  They were ghosts—all the ghosts that had drowned and sunk to the riverbed over the years.

  They kept their original human shapes, but their bodies were dripping wet, twisted and turned into Ghost Servants of the Ghost River.

  One by one, the ghosts left Peace River and marched toward the brightly lit city in the distance.

  The Public Security Bureau’s blockade had kept all living people away from the river. Even stray ghosts had grown scarce nearby.

  After days of feeding on not a single drop of fear, the Ghost River had a new plan.

  If the prey wouldn’t come to it…

  it would go hunting for the prey.

  That night, the entire blockade collapsed completely. Officers were either brainwashed and threw themselves willingly into Peace River, or forced to evacuate to save their lives.

  But the ghosts did not stop.

  Carrying the Ghost River’s corrupt paranormal power with them, they began to invade every corner of Blackwater City.

  No. 5 High School, Blackwater City.

  “Hope I can finally get a decent night’s sleep…”

  Ron left the staff office, heading back to his dorm to rest.

  These past few days, he’d been stuck in endless high-level meetings, trying to calculate the Ghost River’s exact threat level so that elite Spirit Wardens could be sent in to end it early.

  It was a ticking time bomb. It was only a matter of time before it exploded.

  But Ron never imagined it would blow up this soon.

  “What did you say?! The whole city is under a ghost attack?!”

  Ron was halfway to the dorm when his phone suddenly rang.

  As a veteran Spirit Warden, all major paranormal reports were sent directly to him first.

  Listening to the urgent news from the Public Security Bureau, Ron’s face turned stone-cold grave, and a rare, raw panic flashed across his features.

  Even he had never faced a city-wide disaster like this before.

  “Evacuate all civilians immediately! Organize your men and hold the line! I’m on my way—right now!”

  Ron’s voice was tight with panic. He broke into a full sprint and raced nonstop toward the Public Security Bureau headquarters.