On the highway leading to the Villa Area.
A phone rang abruptly.
Jiang Jiuguo, who was focused on driving, caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye.
His mind was entirely set on the journey, wanting to reach the Villa Area as soon as possible. He didn't want to answer, but when he saw the caller ID, he immediately abandoned that thought.
Caller ID—Jiang Xinyue.
Jiang Jiuguo hurriedly swiped to answer.
"Brother! Help!! There's, there's a ghost!!"
Before he could even open his mouth, Jiang Xinyue's voice erupted from the phone first.
Upon hearing this.
Jiang Jiuguo's expression changed drastically.
"A ghost? Xinyue, be clear. You encountered a ghost?"
He desperately wanted to reassure himself that the ghost his sister, Jiang Xinyue, mentioned was just a joke or something similar.
But Jiang Xinyue's next words made self-reassurance impossible.
"Brother, save me, there's a ghost. There really are ghosts in this world. Pan Qiang and the others are dead. That ghost just turned its head, and Pan Qiang died."
Jiang Xinyue's voice came through the phone with a tearful tremor, her words stumbling.
Faced with the fear of the unknown, no one could remain calm, let alone a high school senior.
Jiang Xinyue was actually being quite composed.
While asking Jiang Jiuguo for help, she didn't forget to explain the situation.
"Brother, hurry and call the police for me. Many classmates were killed by that ghost. I'm so scared... Yan Yan and I are hiding on the third floor. The ghost is still on the first floor..."
As she spoke, she tried her best to control her emotions, not wanting to worry Jiang Jiuguo, but tears still rolled uncontrollably in her eyes.
"Don't be afraid, Xinyue. I'm on the highway to the villas right now. I'll be there very soon."
Jiang Jiuguo's voice was low and gentle.
He was trying to use a calm tone to soothe Jiang Xinyue and the others.
"Xinyue, don't ask why right now. Just listen to me."
Jiang Jiuguo turned on the speakerphone.
At the same time, he floored the accelerator, completely ignoring the speedometer needle as it climbed toward the maximum speed.
"Find a place to hide first. Also, try not to hide in one place alone. If you sense the ghost coming, you must, must move, regardless of whether the ghost has found you or not."
"If the ghost is in your room, even if you're hiding in a closet, you must rush out and leave that room."
It seemed Number 47 was right.
Once you're involved with ghosts, it's almost impossible to simply walk away from this circle.
Jiang Jiuguo never imagined that after living for twenty-four years without ever seeing a ghost, now that he had become a Sequencer, he would encounter one.
Science?
This kind of thing couldn't be explained by science.
But in the eyes of those familiar with the occult, it was nothing unusual. Once ghosts were involved, no matter how sinister things got, it was considered normal.
However, there was no time to worry about how sinister it was.
"Brother, can't we just hide... Brother, Brother!! The ghost, the ghost is here!!... Ah!!"
The call was forcibly disconnected.
There seemed to be a signal problem on Jiang Xinyue's end.
Staring at the "Call Ended" screen on his phone.
Jiang Jiuguo didn't say a word.
But those eyes, which had been dull from a year of torment, now shone with a cold, piercing light on the dark highway.
He floored the gas pedal, making it creak.
He wished he could increase the speed even more, but the car had already reached its limit; there was no way to go faster.
"After today, I need to get a new car."
Jiang Jiuguo's voice echoed softly.
Fortunately, there was no one else in the car, so no one could hear how strange his voice sounded at that moment.
But if someone were actually in the car, they definitely wouldn't care about the sound of Jiang Jiuguo's voice. Their attention would be on something else... Traffic Department, monitoring room.
9:10 PM.
As the guardians of the highway, the night shift personnel were focused on checking the monitors one by one, occasionally switching between camera feeds.
A beep sounded.
A night shift worker had just sat down with a cup of coffee. The night was long, and he was afraid he'd fall asleep without it.
"Hmm?" He looked at the computer screen.
A speeding alert was displayed.
"Another speeder?" He habitually clicked on the alert to check the footage from the highway segment where the speeding occurred.
He clicked to open it.
"Whoa," he thought to himself.
In the captured footage, a car shot past the camera like a bolt of lightning, moving so fast that it became a blurred image.
"Geez, how fast is that?" The night shift worker switched to the photos taken by the highway camera. "Are you racing on Mount Akina? Driving this fast, are you in a hurry to be reincarnated?"
With a few clicks of the mouse.
He pulled up the high-speed photo. The speeding vehicle immediately appeared on the screen, with the car's speed displayed in the bottom right corner.
"180?! A Wuling can reach 180? This driver really wants to rein—"
Before he could finish the word "reincarnate."
As he curiously glanced at the driver's appearance in the photo, his pupils contracted rapidly, and his playful expression instantly turned into one of pure terror.
Clang—
The coffee cup in his hand fell to the floor.
The glass shattered crisply.
"Huh?"
"What's wrong?"
Everyone in the monitoring room was drawn by the sound of breaking glass, their eyes focusing on the night shift worker.
"What happened?"
"Chen Wen, what are you doing? So careless."
"You gave me a fright."
They were a bit speechless. Could Chen Wen not even hold a cup of coffee steadily? Their confusion lasted only a second.
Hmm?
Something seemed a bit off.
It was just a broken glass; why did Chen Wen look so terrified, like he was about to piss himself?
"That wasn't the cup your wife bought, was it?"
"Surely not. Chen Wen, are you really that henpecked? Scared into such a state."
Regarding the crowd's teasing.
Chen Wen didn't say anything.
Looking at the speeding photo, his heart felt like it was on a bungee jump, pounding wildly. He couldn't hear what anyone was saying.
His lack of response.
Those present soon noticed.
Just as they were wondering.
Chen Wen looked up, his words heavy with terror: "I... I... saw... a ghost."
On his computer screen.
A speeding photo was displayed, showing a Wuling car speeding at 180 km/h.
However, the most surprising thing wasn't the speed.
It was that in the photo, through the front of the car, the driver behind the window was clearly captured.
At first glance.
The driver was young and handsome.
But looking closely.
The driver wasn't a normal living person at all.
His skin was as pale as paper—yes, deathly pale like paper. That wasn't a metaphor; it was a statement of fact. The driver was a lifelike paper man.
It was incredibly eerie.
Looking through the window in the photo, the car was empty except for the driver.
Ignoring everyone's questions, Chen Wen rubbed his eyes hard and looked at the screen again.
The result didn't change.
In the photo on the screen, at 9:10 PM, a lifelike paper man was driving a Wuling car at 180 km/h... rushing at full speed.
Jiang Jiuguo arrived at the entrance of the Villa Area.
This was where he had dropped off his sister, Jiang Xinyue, to enter the villas earlier.
He opened the car door and got out.
Jiang Jiuguo, who had transformed into a ghost, stood before the villas. Those paper eyes were rotating eerily, which, combined with the dark surroundings, was exceptionally hair-raising.
"There's a ghost."
The seemingly normal Villa Area ahead looked bizarre in his eyes. The entire area seemed to have distorted space, becoming crooked and warped, exuding an indescribable, eerie atmosphere...