Borrowing Money

Run.

Run for your life.

Ah Fei and a few buddies sprinted forward as if their lives depended on it, their faces pale as ghosts, their eyes wide with terror, as if they had just witnessed something horrifying.

And indeed, they had encountered something truly terrifying.

It seemed like... they had bumped into a ghost.

They ran for what felt like an eternity until exhaustion forced them to stop, bending over and gasping for air in huge gulps.

Reflecting on what had just happened, Ah Fei felt his limbs trembling slightly.

"Ah, Ah Fei, what was with that guy back there?" one of his companions asked, his voice tinged with fear.

Ah Fei cursed, "What else could it be? Probably some bad juju. We'll go to the temple to get a talisman to ward off the evil spirits. Damn it, today was just bad luck. Should've known better than to take a shortcut through a deserted area. We were just about to get some cash from a guy when we ran into that... thing..."

But before he could finish, another friend pointed shakily ahead, "Y-you, you guys see what's ahead?"

The gang looked up, their faces instantly replaced with shock.

A public restroom.

The very place where they had their eerie encounter.

In front of the restroom stood a person, emitting a faint red glow, motionless, staring at them.

This person was none other than Yang Jian.

After running so much, they had somehow circled back to where they started.

Seeing this, some of them collapsed to the ground in fear, too terrified to even muster the strength to run.

"Run!"

Although exhausted, Ah Fei was more afraid of Yang Jian standing in front of the restroom, and he turned to run again.

In his panic, he had no mind to ponder why he had run so much and ended up back where he started. All he could think about was to get away from this person, away from this restroom.

At that moment, Yang Jian frowned, "My ghost realm is different from the old man's. The old man could disorient everyone in the teaching building, even affect the walls and buildings, but all I can do is confuse people?"

"No, since the ghost realm is the same, I must not have mastered the method yet."

"Ghosts are not the same as humans."

Yang Jian took a step forward.

Suddenly, he vanished from the spot and reappeared walking towards Ah Fei from the direction he had been running.

It was as if he had just moved from one end of a circle to the other.

"I see, within the ghost realm, I can appear anywhere. That makes sense. It explains how the knocking old man could appear nearby after hearing a knock."

"Ah!"

Ah Fei, seeing Yang Jian suddenly appear in front of him, stopped abruptly and scrambled away in a panic.

"If I can change my own position, what about affecting the surrounding things?" Yang Jian's eyes flickered. He grabbed a thug who was paralyzed with fear and slammed him into the wall of the restroom.

Under the red glow, it seemed everything was under his control.

The thug screamed in agony.

The next moment, his head was jammed into a ventilation hole in front of the restroom.

The size of the ventilation hole did not allow a head to pass through, yet Yang Jian had forced the thug's head through the wall, with his neck perfectly stuck in the hole.

"So it is..."

Yang Jian gradually understood some of the secrets of the ghost realm.

Here, distances warp, things change, and what you see also changes... Everything is both fake and real, while also isolating everything from the outside world.

Within the ghost realm, it is a world that revolves around the fierce ghost.

It appears because of the ghost, and it changes because of the ghost.

Yang Jian tried many uses of the ghost realm, using these thugs as experiments, and gradually understood what this fierce ghost's power represents.

Insoluble.

Yes, insoluble.

For humans, this power that distorts reality at will is indeed insoluble. No wonder even bombs cannot destroy the ghost realm.

Because within the ghost realm, it is no longer the reality you know.

Bombs can destroy everything in reality, but how can they destroy something in between reality and illusion within the ghost realm?

"If I shrink the distance of the ghost realm to just envelop myself, then I would be a being of both reality and illusion..." Yang Jian contracted the power of the ghost realm.

The surrounding red glow quickly dissipated.

The streetlights returned to normal, neon lights lit up on the distant high-rise buildings, and the sound of car horns returned to the surroundings.

However, a faint red glow still emanated from Yang Jian.

He took a step forward.

His body naturally passed through a wall and entered a nearby residential building.

He saw a couple in the room with the lights on, engaged in an intimate act.

Yang Jian looked at them, and they looked at Yang Jian.

The couple, seeing an extra person suddenly appearing in the room, with a faint red glow, their eyes bulged with extreme fear.

"Sorry to interrupt, carry on." Yang Jian turned and disappeared into the wall.

"Ah, a ghost!" The screams of the couple echoed in the room, even reaching outside.

Ghost?

Yang Jian looked at his own state.

He was indeed becoming more and more ghost-like, if it weren't for the consciousness of a human.

A ghost master, truly a being neither human nor ghost.

Yang Jian felt some restlessness within his body again. A red paper covered one ghost eye, but using the fierce ghost's power for a long time still took a toll, and he felt the eye within his body becoming restless again.

"The ghost realm lasts only five minutes, and after five minutes, my limit is reached."

Yang Jian checked the time on his phone and made a note of it.

He withdrew from the state of the ghost realm.

Today's experiment was indeed very important.

He looked around.

Ah Fei and the other thugs were either hiding behind trash bins, trembling in fear, or had been scared out of their wits.

Such poor endurance, and they wanted to extort money?

"Bro, you're shaking, huh? We're friends, and we help each other out in tough times, right? I'm a bit short on cash right now, don't mind lending me some, do you?" Yang Jian said with a squint, patting his shoulder.

Extort money?

He was so poor he could hear coins jingling in his pocket, with only a little over two hundred bucks, and now he couldn't even go home, so he had to get some money somehow.

"Here, take it, take it all, don't come for me, don't come for me, I'll burn incense for you, go find someone else..."

Ah Fei was so scared he was about to cry, trembling as he took everything out of his pocket.

There was only a little over a hundred bucks.

"I'll consider it a loan, I'll pay you back next time." Yang Jian took his money and said with a smile.

"No, no need to pay back, big bro, it's yours." Ah Fei said, trembling with his head down, not even daring to look at Yang Jian.

Just a hundred bucks, who cares about paying it back?

All he wished in his heart was for this ghost to leave him alone.

As long as he didn't get involved with him in the future, he would agree to any demand.

"Extort more money in the future, so it's easier for me to find you." Yang Jian stood up and said in an eerie voice.

"Ugh, ugh ugh." Ah Fei was so scared he started crying.

I'm still just a kid, why is this happening to me?

He vowed that he would never extort money again in his life, he wanted to be a good person.

He would help old ladies cross the street tomorrow.

Yang Jian went through the other thugs, knocking on them and "borrowing" a few hundred bucks from them.

He believed that with today's experience, they would completely give up the idea of extorting people. Who knows, the next person they extort might be a person or a ghost?

"No more playing, it's time to get down to business." Yang Jian glanced around.

When he saw the thug he had stuffed into the ventilation hole trying to get his head out, he couldn't help but find it amusing.

Call someone to knock down the wall tomorrow.

Daring to scare people with a knife.

You're lucky you didn't see the real ghost.

However, when Yang Jian returned home again, he found the door open.

The dimly lit room was empty.

The red newspapers that had been torn up and scattered on the ground were gone.

The ghost... was gone.

"Is the ghost gone?" Yang Jian's face changed.

He was prepared to fight the ghost, but he was caught off guard.

Did the ghost fear him and run away?

Or did the ghost go looking for the next target?

"I must find that ghost." Yang Jian thought firmly in his heart.