Chapter 831: Chapter 798: Real and Fake People

In the dim supermarket, there was no one around, and the air was permeated with an unshakable stench of decay.

The most horrifying sight was not the various goods or snacks placed on the rows of shelves in the supermarket, but pale human heads, all of which were fresh and some even retained a pinkish hue, appearing to have been freshly severed from living bodies.

Yang Jian and Li Yang hid behind a shelf filled with human heads.

Because in the empty supermarket, the sound of a cart came.

Someone was slowly pushing the cart, moving in this direction.

This place was so eerie, it was absolutely impossible for normal living people to appear, and if there were any, they would have been scared off long ago, not lingering around here.

Therefore, Yang Jian and Li Yang could act without worrying.

“It’s coming.”

Yang Jian and Li Yang thought in their heart, feeling that the sound was already very close.

Just about seven meters away.

Both men stayed silent and hidden, still undiscovered.

Suddenly.

The sound of the cart stopped.

The person pushing the cart seemed to have halted in front of a row of human heads, and then all the sounds quieted down again.

It seems that there was no movement.

Yang Jian’s expression shifted slightly, as he cautiously peeked out, hoping to see what was approaching.

In the dim environment, a pair of eerie red eyes glinted.

He saw a shopping cart.

The cart was filled with human heads showing signs of decomposition; bluish-purple blemishes had formed on the skin, and the complexions had become pale and blackened, reeking of a ghastly odor.

These were heads that had decayed due to being kept for too long.

The one pushing the cart was a strange-looking young male, barely in his twenties, but bizarrely, the head on this male’s body was that of a middle-aged man.

The body and the head seemed mismatched, pieced together.

This peculiar man had a dull and expressionless face, also marked by blotchy decomposition.

However, just then, another person emerged from behind this man.

No, to be precise, there were two people behind the cart.

It’s just that the person in the front was blocking the line of sight, initially concealing the person following from view.

The person behind was a woman; also young, around twenty-something, but the head on her neck was aged, that of a wrinkled old woman, leaving one to wonder where the head that originally belonged to the woman’s body was.

At that moment, Yang Jian saw the woman reach out and remove the head of the man in front from his shoulders.

Like a human Lego, the heads could easily be detached.

The body without the head just stood there quietly, motionless, completely losing its capability to move.

It seems.

The head on the neck is the most important; the body is not so essential.

Then.

The woman reached for a new head from the shelf.

This was a young head.

It matched the headless corpse well, most importantly, it was fresh enough and did not carry the rotten smell like the one switched out before.

After placing the new head on the neck, the young man quickly began to move.

The neck twitched as if resurrected, the closed eyes opened, and then he looked around somewhat awkwardly.

Yang Jian, not wanting to be discovered, immediately withdrew his gaze and hid again.

“Captain, what’s the situation?” Li Yang whispered.

“Ghosts are swapping heads, but it’s probably not the Source Ghost, more likely a Ghost Slave… Let’s watch a bit longer, no rush,” Yang Jian did not rush out at this moment.

Dealing with two Ghost Slaves was meaningless.

However, he guessed that since Li Leping’s satellite-located phone was here, it meant he must be here as well, and possibly the Source Ghost too.

Finding and neutralizing it would eliminate the supernatural incidents in Dachuan City.

The replaced head was not put back on the shelf, but was placed in the shopping cart instead.

And so, the young man pushed the cart, continuing unhurriedly forward with the middle-aged woman behind him.

At this moment, Yang Jian once again peered in closely.

He noticed that these two people were continuously wandering around this supermarket, pushing the cart, occasionally taking human heads off the shelves.

The heads that were taken down were already showing signs of decay.

At this moment, Yang Jian understood.

These two people were employees of this human head supermarket.

Their purpose was to push the shopping cart, incessantly cleaning up the decayed human heads, ensuring that the “products” on the shelves remained fresh at all times.

The reason why there were two people was because if one of them had a decayed head, the other needed to help install a new head, thus they alternated roles to continuously maintain this terrifying and bizarre human head supermarket.

But the more this was the case, the more the information revealed behind it became frightening.

Ghosts had already taken control of living people, opening a supermarket in this urban district so openly and unabashedly, without any ghost controllers intervening. Upon careful thought, this was indeed chilling.

There are definitely more ghost controllers in Dachuan City than just Li Leping; he might have teammates or there might be civilian ghost controllers.

Under such circumstances, for a large city like this to be eroded by fierce ghosts to this extent is very difficult.

Conversely, it is also understandable that if this city has been eroded by fierce ghosts to this extent, it indicates that the supernatural incident this time is more horrifying than imagined, and definitely not as simple as it appears on the surface.

“Don’t pay attention to those two people pushing carts; they, like the others, are Ghost Slaves controlled by fierce ghosts, not real fierce ghosts. Head to the location of the signal and see.”

Yang Jian then said, choosing not to concern himself with these two trivial beings.

Such ghostly beings are numerous in Dachuan City, and it’s impossible to deal with them in a short time.

“Okay,” Li Yang nodded.

The two continued to follow the signal.

As they walked along the supermarket’s shelves, looking at the neatly arranged rows of Dead Man’s Heads on either side, a shadow involuntarily darkened their hearts.

Yang Jian had seen many dead people.

But this scene was still a first for him.

In the hands of fierce ghosts, human life seemed to have truly become just a number, an item, utterly meaningless.

The sound of the cart still echoed within the supermarket.

Those two people pushing carts remained wandering in this dim area, incessantly clearing out those decayed heads, seemingly with no intention of stopping, planning to work continuously.

Soon.

The location of the signal was found.

It was at another exit of the supermarket, a cashier’s desk.

On the cashier’s desk, there lay a satellite positioning phone, with a blue light faintly glowing on it, emitting positioning signals.

But there was no one around the phone.

“No one?” Yang Jian didn’t approach; he stood in the shelving area, looking at that phone and suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“Li Leping is not here?” Li Yang paused, speaking softly, “Could this be a trap, deliberately placing the phone here to lure me in, so as to trap me all at once?”

Yang Jian immediately retorted, “Impossible. If Li Leping wanted to deal with us, he didn’t need to lure us; he could have acted at the airport, or in the previous five-star hotel, why bother going through all this trouble?”

“That’s true,” Li Yang felt his hypothesis was wrong again.

“Let’s go and see.”

Yang Jian hesitated for a moment but without much reluctance, he immediately walked toward the cashier’s desk and then picked up the satellite positioning phone that belonged to Li Leping.

No danger occurred.

No anomaly appeared.

However, at this moment, Li Yang suddenly exclaimed, pointing at the nearest shelf, “Captain, Captain, quickly look, look here.”

He was pointing at a Dead Man’s Head on the shelf.

This head was of an ordinary-looking man with nothing extraordinary, but upon closer inspection, Yang Jian was instantly stunned.

Li Leping?

No mistake.

This ordinary-looking man’s head was actually that of Li Leping whom they had seen at the airport earlier.

Exactly the same, and there was no possibility of the head being a fake.

“Am I seeing things wrong, this should be Li Leping, right?” Li Yang looked at Yang Jian incredulously, appearing as if he had seen a ghost.

If Li Leping’s head is here, then who was the Li Leping we saw earlier?

Yang Jian’s gaze suddenly turned grave: “No mistake, this is indeed Li Leping, identical to the one we met before, there’s no possibility of a switch, but this further corroborates my previous hypothesis.”

“Captain, are you saying that Li Leping is a ghost?” Li Yang asked.

“No, I’m not yet certain if Li Leping is a ghost, but I’m sure that the Li Leping we met during the day, just like the others, had already been eroded by a ghost….. wait.”

Yang Jian suddenly exclaimed in shock: “I’ve met the real Li Leping before, in the headquarters’ conference room, but I can’t recall his face, yet I can remember this Li Leping. How could we recognize this head if we couldn’t remember him? Therefore, the memorable person isn’t Li Leping, he is a fake.”

“The one we met before was not Li Leping at all.”

Li Yang said, “If he’s not Li Leping, then how does he know us and know so much?”

“Perhaps Li Leping was attacked by a ghost, suffered erosion, had his memory and consciousness stolen, and then a ghost pieced together a fake Li Leping using a head and a living body to take over this city,” Yang Jian speculated, his gaze flickering slightly.

“No one recognizes Li Leping because no one remembers what he looks like. Today this head can be Li Leping, tomorrow another group of people could come, and then another head can be Li Leping too. We have only seen the satellite-tracked cell phone and Li Leping’s ID, so we’ve been preconceived to believe that this is the person himself.”

Yang Jian felt a hint of dread: “This is misleading, misdirecting us to believe that a ghost is Li Leping.”

“If that’s the case, then where is the real Li Leping?” Li Yang asked.

“Maybe… dead, maybe still alive in some corner of this city, because he tends to be forgotten, even his appearance isn’t remembered, so unless he shows himself, nobody can find him,” Yang Jian said somberly.

“Mingyue Community, Building 7, Room 301, could Li Leping be there?” Li Yang suggested.

This address is the destination for this delivery.

Yang Jian said, “You think this delivery isn’t for a ghost, but for Li Leping?”

“I’m just speculating, giving you some ideas, Captain,” Li Yang also guessed randomly.

Although it’s unlikely, there’s still a possibility, since Li Leping has disappeared now, and we don’t even know if he’s alive or dead, and the Ghost Post Office has asked us to come here to deliver a letter, giving an exact address no less.

There definitely has to be a connection.

Yang Jian pondered deeply.

Now, he felt the place getting weirder and weirder. Initially, he could have found Li Leping to understand everything, but now it seems not so straightforward.

The Li Leping he knew turned out to be just an ordinary head on a shelf.

No different from the other heads.

The ghost just borrowed Li Leping’s identity and memories, deceiving Yang Jian and Li Yang who just entered Dachuan City.

If it weren’t for actively following the signal here, Yang Jian might not suspect anything the next time he sees Li Leping, still thinking that person is Li Leping.

“Tap! Tap! Tap!”

Suddenly.

At that moment, there came a series of footsteps nearby.

Someone appeared from the direction of the supermarket and walked towards them.

These footsteps were a bit hurried, completely different from the previous two ghostly beings pushing carts.

“Someone’s coming,” Yang Jian immediately snapped back to reality.

Very soon.

A strange man emerged from the dim area and appeared in front of the two.

“Yang Jian, it’s me, Li Leping? How did you find this place? I just finished investigating the accident involving that driver, the person has been caught, I believe you will be satisfied,” the strange man continued to greet Yang Jian and Li Yang as Li Leping.

The slightly stiff smile on his face showed a bit of warmth.

As if nothing had happened at all, completely ignoring the row upon row of chilling dead heads on the shelves.

“Bang!”

The next moment.

The sound of a gunshot echoed here.

The head of the strange man immediately shattered, splattering blood, and then fell off the neck and rolled to the side.

“This ghost thing seems to have interconnected memories. Whatever a ghost-eroded person sees and hears, it seems to know, I’m not mistaken, a ghost must have invaded Li Leping,” Yang Jian slowly handed the gun back to Li Yang.

He truly didn’t want to waste words with this ghostly thing, better to take it down first.

“What do we do now?” At this moment, Li Yang felt at a loss.

This city had lost control, they both came here and if they don’t find a good solution soon, they will quickly be swallowed by this city.

If they don’t run away, either they die or become one of them.

There definitely won’t be a second possibility.

Yang Jian squinted his eyes and touched the old firewood knife at his waist.

If he slashed down with it through the medium, would he be able to kill all the Ghost Slaves?

But this thought had just surfaced when he dismissed it.

It was a price he could not afford.

Even if Li Yang used it, Li Yang could not afford the price either.

“The matter of Li Leping’s disappearance has to be put aside for now, it’s not possible to find the Source Ghost in a short time either; first, let’s look for Mingyue Community, that may be a breakthrough.”

“If I’m not mistaken, that so-called Mingyue Community is exactly at the location marked for the Ferocious Ghost District in the documents.”

“We’re leaving this place.”

Yang Jian decided not to stay any longer and immediately chose to head to another location.

But just as the two of them were about to leave.

Suddenly.

All the lights inside the supermarket turned on at that moment.

The gloom dispersed, and the surroundings suddenly became extremely bright.

The heads on the shelves appeared even paler under the white light.

But this wasn’t the most important thing.

The most important thing was that nearby, a dense sound of footsteps began to emit.

It was like a dense crowd was pouring into the supermarket.

“Seems like leaving casually isn’t going to be so easy,” Yang Jian took a deep breath.

He had a premonition.

The real ghosts were about to attack him.

Because he had just been seen by that strange man after entering the supermarket.

Although being seen was not a big deal, according to his speculation, these memories should be shared.

That is to say, being seen by one person meant that the ghosts had seen you, and the ghosts now knew your location.

At this time, it seems understandable that the ghosts would start to kill.

“This time, there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to the killing; it seems this ghost is quite special. Once targeted by a ghost, you will be attacked, it’s the kind that kills indiscriminately, so the only thing to be wary of is the ghost’s method of killing,” Yang Jian’s eyes flickered as he thought to himself.

“Go upstairs.”

He made a decisive decision to go upstairs and fight the ferocious ghost head-on.

If really impossible, they could also escape by jumping out the window, not to be trapped on the first floor.

Immediately.

Yang Jian and Li Yang immediately ran upstairs along the stairs.

His guess was not wrong.

Outside this large shopping supermarket, at some point, a large crowd of eerie people gathered on the plaza outside, then surged into the supermarket like a tide.

So many people, yet not a single one spoke.

The only things echoing around were those dense footsteps and an increasingly strong stench of decay.

Soon.

The first floor of this large shopping supermarket was completely crowded with people.

But they did not find Yang Jian and Li Yang, so the crowd began moving towards the second floor.

In front of such a number of people, it’s impossible to remain undetected.

Unless Yang Jian uses Ghost Domain.

But now, as Yang Jian’s Ghost Eye was in the stage of resurrection, he could neither use the Ghost Eye, nor could he recklessly use the Headless Ghost Shadow or Ghost Hand in his body; he needed to maintain balance and suppress the revival of the Ghost Eye.

This building was not very tall, having only five floors.

Yang Jian and Li Yang went all the way upstairs, finally arriving inside a storeroom on the fifth floor.

Behind the storeroom was a safety passage that could lead both upwards and downwards; there were windows on both left and right sides, which they could jump out of.

If unable to contend with the ferocious ghost, Yang Jian still had some contingencies.

In any case, he and Li Yang were already well-prepared to face the attack of the ferocious ghost.