Chapter 48: Xia Li's Birthday is Also Fake

On the exact same windowsill, from the exact same angle, appeared the exact same woman dressed in white.

Just as everyone's gazes shifted toward it, that white-clad figure was already standing on the windowsill and jumped down without a moment's hesitation.

It was as if the scene was repeating itself.

This moment was identical to the footage captured during the previous live stream.

Xia Li pointed at the white figure and screamed, "Ghost!"

This was definitely not part of the streaming script she had arranged.

Wu Feng and Zhang Xiaonan, the two transcendent beings, also looked perplexed: Why did it jump again?

They rushed over at the very first moment.

Right now, it seemed that this white-clad figure might be the source of the grudge within this ruins realm.

Only by eliminating it could they escape.

Seeing the two of them enter the room, Ji Yun and the others dared not stay in the corridor and hurriedly followed them inside.

The moment Ji Yun stepped in, he noticed something was wrong: "No, this isn't the room we were just staying in!"

The dust on the floor was thick, with no footprints on it.

The table also lacked the live-streaming lamp they had left behind in the room.

Catching onto this, a thought flashed rapidly through Ji Yun's mind. He too leaned his head out of the window frame alongside Wu Feng and Zhang Xiaonan, wanting to see the corpse.

"As expected!"

Ji Yun saw the corpse lying in a pool of blood downstairs, a bad feeling rising in his heart.

Although it was the same white clothing and long hair, the posture of the corpse hitting the ground was clearly different from what they had seen before.

This was not the same corpse as the last one!

At that moment, it was as if he understood something.

Everyone thought the haunted place was the No. 426 Hospital, but only Ji Yun, who had read the detective files, knew that this building had once been the site of a series of serial suicides by jumping from the building.

The source of the grudge might not be some ghostly nurse, but rather those senior female students!

Yes!

Senior female students—plural!

At least many senior students who had jumped to their deaths!

Thinking of this, Ji Yun couldn't help but swallow hard.

No wonder eliminating one ghost earlier hadn't allowed them to leave.

That was likely the reason.

There was more than one ghost!

And it seemed they were not even from the same time node.

.......

Just at that moment, as if sensing something, Wu Feng's expression suddenly turned stern. "Humph! You really showed up!"

After the scare, the ghost should have revealed itself.

Without a moment of hesitation, he turned around and fired a rapid succession of ghost-fire projectiles directly toward the doorway in the dark.

Everyone was startled by his action.

Ji Yun jerked his head around just in time to watch the flame projectiles strike a mass of ghostly shadow lurking in the darkness at the entrance.

However, this ghostly shadow was noticeably much stronger than the previous one.

The shadow was engulfed in raging green flames, yet it still lunged fiercely toward the interior of the room.

"Huh?"

Wu Feng let out a soft exclamation of surprise.

He seemed unable to understand why a creature he had previously vaporized in a second was still not destroyed.

Even so, this spiritual pressure remained beneath his notice.

He drew his back leg, kicked off the floor, and leaped forward fiercely.

His fist, wreathed in ghost fire, punched out with a loud pop that actually triggered a sonic boom.

Before everyone's eyes, ripples formed in concentric circles in the air.

His fist did not actually touch the body of the ghostly shadow; the ghost fire erupted from his fist and blasted straight through the entity.

At that moment, the ghostly shadow burst into intense flames.

Just like before, a ghostly mask materialized within the shadow before burning away into nothingness.

The group, who had just been shivering from the corpse of the jumper, watched the ghost get killed in the blink of an eye.

A unanimous sound of exhaling relief echoed throughout the room.

Standing nearby, Zhao Kai stared at that dazzling fiery punch with eyes full of worship, instinctively muttering under his breath, "So cool!"

Ji Yun was no calmer than the chubby guy upon seeing this remote qigong fist strike.

This was genuine, authentic qigong.

He immediately recalled some rumors circulating on the gossip forums and guessed inwardly, "Is that the 'God-Shattering Void Fist'? It's indeed as formidable as the legends say."

He had heard earlier that the official Supernatural Investigation Bureau possessed a powerful set of ancient martial arts boxing techniques known as the "Eight Forms of the Black Dragon."

It was said that in earlier years, a simplified version of this ancient martial art—the military calisthenics boxing—was actually taught in special forces units for a period of time.

However, because this boxing set was based on qigong and featured ruthless moves, failing to cultivate genuine internal energy would result in injuring others as well as oneself.

Consequently, it was eventually banned.

Later on, with the resurgence of the supernatural, it became the exclusive physical training routine of the Supernatural Investigation Bureau.

Consisting of a total of eight forms, every single move was a master technique.

Among them was this remote punch technique called [God-Shattering Void Fist]. Ji Yun had seen people on the forum's black market offering high prices for the boxing manual and training videos.

Now, watching Wu Feng execute it, he couldn't help but praise it inwardly; it was truly powerful.

.......

At the same time, however, he realized that this Wu Feng was actually a dual-practitioner adept in both spells and close combat.

According to the forum lore, anyone who walked the path of both sorcery and physical martial arts was a monstrous talent.

Having such an expert in the team offered a significant sense of reassurance.

However, watching the ghostly shadow vanish amidst the firelight, Ji Yun couldn't shake the feeling that the ghost had deliberately come here to throw its life away.

Furthermore, the ghostly mask inside that spiritual entity was different from the previous one.

It constantly gave the impression of carrying a special meaning.

.......

The ghostly shadow was burned clean.

The roller-coaster emotions of the group briefly settled once more.

Knowing now that they couldn't get out, no one dared to run around blindly.

Following the two experts from the Supernatural Investigation Bureau made them feel much safer.

Yet, the expressions on Wu Feng and Zhang Xiaonan's faces grew increasingly grave.

Because the second ghost had been slain, yet the ruins realm still had not dissipated.

Coming back to their senses, everyone belatedly realized that this room was not the one they had stayed in earlier.

It was as if time in this haunted building had been reset.

The group found it impossible to comprehend this situation which defied all cognition.

Wu Feng patrolled the area once and arrived at a startling conclusion: "It seems to be a distorted spacetime. Although it's the same haunted building, going up and down the stairs earlier has brought us to another time node. The complexity of this ruins realm far exceeds imagination. It might be above B-rank..."

During the training courses of the Supernatural Investigation Bureau, instructors had explained similar cases.

Hearing this, a barely perceptible tremor flickered through the depths of Zhang Xiaonan's eyes, and she said, "Indeed. The most crucial part is that we still cannot determine what the source of the grudge in this ruins realm is..."

The database of the Supernatural Investigation Bureau contained all kinds of information on ruins realms. As elite graduates, although the two of them had never experienced one firsthand, they had read plenty of reports.

Ruins realms involving spacetime rules were without exception of B-rank difficulty or higher.

They were new agents fresh out of the training camp; handling a C-rank ruins realm was already pushing their limits, let alone a B-rank.

That was why their complexions looked so grim.

.......

The others didn't understand the difficulty level of a B-rank, so they didn't think anything was amiss with the two agents' conversation.

But Ji Yun knew!

If the "B-rank" Wu Feng and Zhang Xiaonan referred to was the same classification system he saw on the forum, then this matter had blown up into a massive crisis!

Ruins realms were also categorized by danger levels.

They were generally divided into five tiers based on the lethality of the ghosts within: D, C, B, A, and S.

D-rank: The ghosts inside were ordinary vengeful spirits or zombies. They harbored malice and could kill, but standard firearms and low-tier spells could usually resolve them, and ordinary people stood a chance of escaping alive;

C-rank: The ruins realm contained fierce ghosts capable of killing through special methods, generally requiring transcendent beings with certain abilities to resolve;

B-rank: This was the "Urban Legend tier." It belonged to ghosts capable of wide-area slaughter, representing a danger rating with a high mortality rate for transcendent beings;

As for the higher A-rank Divine Spirit tier and S-rank Cataclysm tier, they were rarely discussed on the forum.

Because once that level of danger was reached, the probability of transcendent beings surviving a trip inside was virtually zero.

With few survivors, information naturally remained scarce, and what little existed was classified as top secret.

It was fundamentally impossible for such data to leak onto civilian forums, so they didn't need to be discussed for now.

However, anything B-rank and above was already synonymous with "extreme danger" to the transcendent beings on the forum.

Listening to the two of them, Ji Yun felt a sinking premonition.

He had thought he was clinging to a thick golden thigh earlier, but now it seemed that thigh might not be so stable.

He remembered Hua Ling mentioning before that the Jianghua City Supernatural Investigation Bureau was stretched thin on manpower, and most personnel in the bureau were newcomers.

It made one suspect that agents sent out undercover were likely not highly experienced senior investigators.

A grim thought popped into Ji Yun's mind: What should they do if these people couldn't handle this ruins realm?

.......

Despite Wu Feng easily obliterating two entities with overwhelming strength, there was still not a shred of hope in sight regarding how to leave.

That was the core problem.

Without finding the source of the grudge, no one could even dream of getting out.

Seeing the two official operatives, Wu Feng and Zhang Xiaonan, fall silent with increasingly solemn expressions, the rest of the group grew more and more panicked.

Fortunately, after the previous entity was destroyed, no further bizarre occurrences happened for the moment.

Xia Li's legs had long since turned to jelly from fright; she didn't want to go anywhere else and suddenly offered a proposal: "How about we just stay here until dawn?"

Wu Feng immediately rejected the notion, stating, "Useless. Time in the ruins realm is chaotic. Several years could pass here while only an instant passes outside. Even if we wait here to die, we will never see the dawn."

Upon hearing this, Xia Li lost her composure completely: "Then what should we do?"

Wu Feng did not hide the truth from the group: "We can only figure out a way to find the source of the grudge so we can leave."

Jiang Tian chimed in with a suggestion: "What about climbing down from the window?"

Although the fourth floor was high, using curtains or something similar as a rope might keep them from dying from a fall.

Hearing this, Wu Feng rejected it once more: "Meaningless. I cannot explain clearly to you what a ruins realm is. But you need only know that unless we deal with the ghosts in this building, even if we make it to the ground floor, we will never escape."

After a brief pause, he added, "Besides, if we really try to jump... I suspect that might be precisely what the ghost is guiding us to do. I can basically conclude that the moment anyone attempts to descend via the windows, the probability of a fatal misstep is extremely high."

As soon as these words fell, everyone instantly quieted down.

A suffocating atmosphere quietly crept through the room.

.......

After resting for ten or so minutes, the group gradually recovered from their intense terror and began to accept reality.

Wu Feng and Zhang Xiaonan searched everywhere again but still found no useful clues.

Waiting any longer was utterly pointless.

Zhang Xiaonan turned her gaze once more toward Xia Li, seeing as it was her live stream that had led everyone into this mess.

She asked again in a stern tone, "Student Xia Li, we have traced all your communication records. No fan ever left you messages containing those metaphysical concepts. Explain honestly: where did the things you knew actually come from?"

Exposing the fact of official surveillance was tantamount to pressing her into a corner.

Xia Li answered weakly, "I was afraid of being discovered, so I deleted them."

"..."

Zhang Xiaonan felt deeply perplexed; she couldn't detect the slightest hint of falsehood in Xia Li.

Yet that was the very strangeness of it.

Even if communication records were deleted, their technical department's monitoring methods would definitely have detected them.

Clearly, this "mysterious fan" did not exist, yet Xia Li insisted that they did.

Where exactly did the problem lie?

Could this also be a supernatural phenomenon?

Continuing to question her this way would still yield no results.

Suddenly, another crucial point occurred to Zhang Xiaonan, and she asked, "Then who instructed you to put your pure-yin birthdate on your homepage?"

That had been the most vital detail that initially drew their attention.

A pure-yin birthdate easily attracted spiritual entities.

"That fan did too."

Xia Li was already scared out of her wits.

Even if she were foolish, she knew she might have been used as a pawn, so she hurriedly explained, "Th-that... actually, that isn't even my real birthday. I just wrote it down randomly on a fan's suggestion."

Hearing her spew a web of lies, Zhang Xiaonan could no longer suppress her anger: "Impossible! We investigated the school registry records, and your birthday is..."

Before she could finish her sentence, however, as if something suddenly dawned on her, her expression shifted drastically.

Xia Li could not possibly forget her own birthday.

If she was telling the truth,

there was only one other possibility—someone had tampered with the school registry records!

And they had tampered with the household registration records as well!

As an official operative, Zhang Xiaonan knew this wasn't impossible.

Yet the mere thought of this possibility made her instantly realize that the scope of the problem had expanded infinitely.

.......

Perhaps assuming they were just a bunch of clueless college students, Zhang Xiaonan and Wu Feng did not bother to keep their conversation private from the others.

However, Ji Yun listened closely to every single word.

He had wondered earlier why Xia Li kept her birthdate displayed so blatantly on her homepage without any hesitation.

So that was it!

It was a completely fake birthday to begin with!

Moreover, this "pure-yin birthdate" wasn't originally all that unique.

Yet here at Jianghua University, it was different.

Because Lin Kexin, the subject of the jumping case known to Ji Yun, possessed a pure-yin birthdate!

Previously, it was uncertain whether the incident involved supernatural elements.

Now that they were trapped inside a ruins realm, it could be confirmed with 100% certainty that this pure-yin birthdate was tied to the T4 dormitory ruins realm!

He had originally thought Xia Li had accidentally stumbled into this ruins realm during her live stream tonight.

Now it seemed she had most likely been deliberately guided here.

Without these people from the Supernatural Investigation Bureau, she would undoubtedly have died.

And it probably would have turned into yet another new falling death case.

Connecting all these clues, a word flashed instantly through Ji Yun's mind—fishing.

Xia Li's "pure-yin birthdate" was the bait.

Someone was using her to go fishing.

And what they were fishing for might well be the mastermind behind the serial falling-to-death cases!

Judging from the expressions of Wu Feng and Zhang Xiaonan, they were completely oblivious.

If it wasn't the people from the Supernatural Investigation Bureau doing the fishing, then who on earth was it?

The "mysterious fan" who instructed Xia Li and packaged her into a spirit medium persona was undoubtedly the angler, so what was his actual background?

Thinking this, Ji Yun's thoughts instantly descended into chaos.

The Supernatural Investigation Bureau, the fans behind Xia Li, the fans behind Liao Fei, the masterminds of the cover-up cases...

Ji Yun could now see at least four distinct factions entangled in this matter.

Yet here came the problem.

Xia Li's pure-yin birthdate was fake!

Yet a fish had still taken the bait.

What on earth was going to happen next?