Stranger Danger

Chapter 286: Ghost Song

There was no gore, no screams, no struggle. They just... transformed into hats as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

From an observer’s perspective though, well. Ye Qing felt a chill shooting from the bottom of his feet all the way to the top of his skull.

It wasn’t like those five Blood Demon Sect disciples were weaklings. They were all late-stage Astral Refiners. However, the Stranger—or was it an Anomaly?—still turned them into hats with almost no effort at all.

Even worse was the fact that at least twenty hats were floating in the sky. How many of them were humans before?

“Uwah!”

Suddenly, Ye Qing heard a baby’s cry behind him. At the same time, a baby with red eyes and a pair of wings manifested into existence. It was approaching Ye Qing when it saw the hats in the sky and abruptly burst into tears. Terrified beyond belief, it slipped into the void and disappeared just like that.

“Was that... the Little Shoulder Ghost? The hats scared off the Little Shoulder Ghost?!”

Clearly, the Little Shoulder Ghost was planning to give him a tap on the shoulder just now. However, the sight of the hats had scared it away.

Just how scary were the hats?

“We need to go.”

Next to Ye Qing, Chu Qingge suddenly blanched as if she recalled something. “We need to go now. To the center!”

She took off in a burst of speed, and Ye Qing was right behind her. Ye Qing had zero intentions of being anywhere close to the hats, though unlike Chu Qingge, he was planning to escape to the outskirts instead of the center. Since the Little Shoulder Ghost, there was no longer any reason for them to stick together.

Ye Qing ultimately changed his mind, however. Judging from Chu Qingge’s bloodless face, she probably knew what those hats were. In that case, he must take her words seriously.

The duo had just made a move when the hats started dancing toward them. They looked slow, but in reality they had covered a long distance in just the blink of an eye. The childish song was growing louder and louder as well.

Ye Qing’s consciousness immediately blurred when the song grew louder. He started feeling the inexplicable desire to dance according to the tune.

“Don’t listen to the song! Seal your hearing and keep a clear head!”

Chu Qingge immediately noticed Ye Qing’s unusual reaction and shouted on top of her lungs. It was enough to jolt Ye Qing back to reality.

“Thank you.” Ye Qing mouthed and sealed his hearing immediately. It was only then he felt much better.

The hats were still gaining on them, however, so he pushed “Illusionist’s Grace” to its limit and dashed to the center of the Mountain of Demons at top speed.

As it turned out, they weren’t the only ones who were being pursued. Ye Qing and Chu Qingge quickly realized that a number of people were also running toward the center of the Mountain of Demons like beaten dogs, and they were all being chased by a certain number of hats.

Worse, the hats’ power seemed to increase after they met up with each other. Sealing their hearing had worked for a time, but over, their countermeasure became useless. It was because the childish song appeared directly inside their heads as if it had forged some sort of telepathic connection with them.

Those with weaker spirits were unable to withstand the song’s corruption for long. One moment they were running, and the next they were swaying left and right. Ye Qing noticed that the time it took for them to transform into all kinds of colorful hats had shortened as well. The weaklings were quickly subsumed into the singing army of hats.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, their numbers just kept growing and growing. It was like this whole graveyard was full of hats. Ye Qing could almost believe that the graveyard was really a theater where countless people and hats were dancing to a catchy tune.

He felt neither the joy nor the relaxation he normally felt in a theater, however. In fact, he was a little out of breath.

No one was fighting each other right now. They were all running to the center like their lives depended on it.

Orthodox warriors and unorthodox warriors only glared daggers at each other,

Sworn enemies only scoffed at one another before running off in different directions,

And friends exchanged bitter chuckles as if saying: Yo! You’re on the run too?

Right here and now, there was no such thing as orthodoxy or unorthodoxy; grudge or friendship. There was only fast or slow, life or death.

Those with a fast pair of legs would live, and those without would die!

About half an incense stick later, the hats finally stopped singing and came to a stop.

Naturally, everyone else came to a stop as well.

The hats hadn’t suddenly found their conscience, of course. No, they had just entered a place where even the hat Strangers were wary of.

Ye Qing scanned his surroundings quickly and quickly discovered that their location didn’t have a single gravestone. There was only a massive tree.

It would’ve been better if he hadn’t looked. His and everyone else’s face turned deathly white in an instant.

The tree was extremely tall and massive. There were vines stretching down from its branches, and hanging at the end of these vines were bodies. Lots and lots of bodies.

The good news was that the vines weren’t wrapped around the bodies. The bad news was that they were piercing right through the skull. Even worse news was the bodies slowly turning around to face the group as if they were watching them as well. It was a spine-chilling moment to put it mildly.

Thankfully, the bodies didn’t do anything besides staring at them. Over time, everyone began to relax.

Most Jianghu warriors possessed great adaptability.

“Huh? There’s a stele over here!” Someone suddenly shouted. That’s right. A stele, not a gravestone. Ye Qing looked and saw what the man was referring to amidst a bunch of tall, dead grass.

Two lines were engraved to the stele: “Sanctuary of the Mountain of Demons. Keep away.”

Ye Qing rubbed his nose as he began to ponder the words’ meaning.

The sanctuary of the Mountain of Demons probably refers to the center and heart of the Graveyard of Demons. Pretty straightforward.

The second line is even more straightforward. Keep away. Nothing else needs to be said besides that.

Ye Qing rubbed his nose again as he glanced back and forth between the stele and the sea of hats outside. Now this was what they called stuck between a rock and a hard place.

A lot of people shared his sentiment and wore nervous expressions as well.

It was at this moment a young Taoist wearing an Eight Trigram Daoist robe with a yellow dragon sewn to the sleeves spoke up, “Worry not, everyone. Those hats are the Ghost Song, and they will leave once their patience wears thin. We’ll be able to leave when that happens.”

“Ghost Song? What’s a Ghost Song?” Someone asked.

“You don’t even know what a Ghost Song is, and you came to the Demon’s Tomb? You must have a death wish!”

A man with a stern face and carrying a ghost-faced saber scoffed in disdain as soon as the question was asked. The eyes of the skull that made up the saber’s crossguard also lit up and smashed its teeth together to create a strange laugh.

The inquirer looked like he wanted to mouth a retort, but as soon as he caught sight of the man who insulted him, he immediately fell silent. He seemed to be deathly afraid of the man.

It was at this moment a cold voice spoke up, “Ghost Song is a Phenomenon-class Stranger with no fixed shape or form. It loves singing, but anyone who hears its song would become a part of it.”

When Ye Qing looked, he discovered that the speaker was none other than Luo Zhan, one of the Pacification Bureau members Hong Jianglong had brought with him.

The man carrying the ghost-faced saber seemed displeased, but he ultimately didn’t say anything.

Luo Zhan ignored him and continued, “The hats you’re seeing are all a part of the Ghost Song.”

The group broke out in cries of shock, fear, or both. Even Ye Qing couldn’t help but gasp in surprise. He had thought that each hat was an individual Stranger, but Luo Zhan had corrected his misunderstanding.

“The Ghost Song may only be a Phenomenon-class Stranger, but it is extremely difficult to kill it or shake it off. The Ghost Song also possesses multiple forms, and the hats we’re seeing are but one of its many forms. This particular form possesses the power to curse all those who listen to its song into a hat.”

“Some forms of Ghost Song could transform humans into all kinds of livestocks, some could afflict them with terrible diseases, some could kill without a trace and more.”

“What... What should we do then?” A terrified warrior asked when he heard this.

“We wait!” Luo Zhan declared. “The Ghost Song can only exist for a certain amount of time. When their time is up, they would automatically disappear into nothing. We only need to wait until then to be safe.”

“Really?” Someone asked suspiciously.

“Hmph! Why are you wasting your breath on these people, Luo Zhan?” The man carrying the ghost-faced saber sneered. “You did them a favor, and they don’t even believe you!”

Luo Zhan replied indifferently, “I speak because I chose to speak. Just the same, it is their choice whether to believe me or not. Not that I care even if they didn’t.”

“...” If you don’t care, then why say anything at all?

The man carrying the ghost-faced saber was Zhong Ji, the “Ghost Saber”. He cultivated a cultivation art called the “Ghost King Sutra”, which warped him into a gloomy, ruthless, and somewhat twisted person. Zhong Ji himself thought that his personality was pretty twisted, but Luo Zhan had proven to be an even stranger man than he was.

As Luo Zhan said, the Ghost Song started fading about half a teatime later. It didn’t fly away or disappear with a poof as Ye qing thought it would, however. Instead, the hats dissolved into colorful fog that converged into a massive, sky-blotting silhouette.

Judging from its curvy figure, it was probably a woman.

The woman started singing a sad, ancient song then. Full of longing and sorrow, it sounded like a tune one might play during a funeral. Despite themselves, tears started sliding down everyone’s cheeks uncontrollably.

Thankfully, the song didn’t seem harmful like the one before. The silhouette and the mournful song eventually disappeared completely.

“Alright. The Ghost Song is gone. If you wish to leave, now is the best time to do so,” The Taoist from before spoke up. “Also, the Strangers and anomalies within the graveyard would be temporarily inactive before and after its appearance. You shouldn’t encounter any danger along the way.”