Entering the room, Lin Bai's eyes emitted a faint red glow, and everything around began to become clearer.
'I can see in the dark too?'
He saw a completely burnt man crawling on the ceiling. Nearby, Chi Xiaoyu vigilantly looked at Lin Bai's position, shining her flashlight over.
"Who's there?"
"I'm a passing concerned citizen, here to help you."
Chi Xiaoyu looked vigilantly at the white-haired girl before her, who didn't look human no matter how she looked at her.
"Are you a contracted anomaly sent for support? What's your name?"
Lin Bai didn't know what a contracted anomaly was, but as long as it temporarily lowered her guard so they could fight together, it was fine.
[Ghost Master: Can contract with anomalies by paying a certain price]
"My name is Bai Ling."
Chi Xiaoyu nodded.
"Alright, can you help me find his position?"
Bai Ling picked up a blood brick from the ground and hurled it hard at the man on the ceiling.
"He's been crawling up there."
Seeing this, Chi Xiaoyu took her thunder blade and slashed at the position of the brick. The moment the man was hit, he smiled eerily, making strange sounds, then turned into ashes and disappeared...
Bai Ling looked at this scene in confusion.
"Is he dead?"
Chi Xiaoyu shook her head.
"Impossible, this should be his innate ability."
As the two were searching for the position of the burnt anomaly, the surroundings began to change. The entire room started to shake violently.
"It's an anomalous domain, an anomalous domain has formed!" an officer exclaimed.
An urgent voice came through the walkie-talkie.
"Don't let anyone in or out. Wait until we arrive."
When the shaking stopped, Bai Ling sat dizzily on the ground.
Looking at the now-new room around her, decorated with pink patterns, with teddy bears on the bed, and a pink quilt complementing the clean white room, it was a girl's children's room. Opening the door and walking out, there was a little girl in a school uniform watching TV in the living room.
Bai Ling walked over and patted the little girl.
"Little one, where is this place? Who are you?"
The little girl slowly turned her head to look at Bai Ling, who was horrified to discover that her eyes were empty, without eyeballs, and her mouth had no teeth but was pitch black. Suddenly, blood began to flow from her eyes, and the corners of her mouth involuntarily curled upward, smiling eerily.
"Will big sister help me find mommy?"
Just as Bai Ling was scared and fell on her butt, the little girl disappeared.
Still shaken, Bai Ling stood up, patted her pants, and said angrily:
"So young and not being good, learning to scare people!"
Opening another door, Bai Ling saw a wedding photo placed in the room. The room was decorated very cleanly—clearly a happy family.
The scene around began to change again, this time to a hospital. Bai Ling saw a weak woman lying on the hospital bed, who was the one in the wedding photo.
"Sir, if you can't afford the medical fees, we can't perform the surgery."
"Please, I will definitely make it up, she can't wait anymore."
"I'm really sorry, sir, but you've already delayed payment for half a year."
After the doctors left, only a desperate man remained, powerlessly pounding the floor with his hands.
The scene shifted to a construction site, where the man wearing a yellow hat was shouting angrily at a man wearing a red hat:
"You promised me! Where are our wages?"
The man with the red hat shook his head helplessly.
"I haven't even received my money yet, how can I pay you? I've already urged them."
The man with the yellow hat grabbed the collar of the red-hatted man and shouted angrily:
"I don't care! When you brought us here, you guaranteed timely payment. Look how long it's been! Do you know my wife has stomach cancer?"
Bai Ling silently watched this scene, as if watching a movie. The cause of everything was roughly clear.
The scene shifted again. On the hospital rooftop, a girl of about 10 stood at the edge. The man wearing the yellow hat carefully approached the girl.
"Daughter, don't be impulsive."
"Give mommy back to me, give her back!"
The little girl cried out.
The man sat on the ground powerlessly, tears streaming down his face.
"It's my incompetence. Mommy has gone to a world without pain. Please come back, okay?"
"I want to find mommy."
Saying this the girl jumped from the high building. The man rushed over trying to grab her, but could only watch helplessly as his child fell.
The scene shifted back to the original room. Bai Ling picked up the photo and examined it carefully. Just then, the man in the photo began to burn. Following the photo, the entire house began to burn.
Bai Ling heard sobbing sounds all around.
"It's dad's fault for being incompetent. I've let you down. Dad is coming to accompany you."
As the room continued to burn, Bai Ling covered her nose and ran out of the bedroom.
"What is this, a death replay?"
Cough, cough, cough—
The increasingly intense smoke and flames made Bai Ling unable to breathe. Coupled with intense hunger, she couldn't bear it and sat on the ground as the house was about to collapse.
Just then, Chi Xiaoyu beside her pulled Bai Ling out of the house.
"How come an anomaly like you needs me to save you? Can't you float out yourself?"
"It's my first time being an anomaly, I don't know either."
Standing outside the collapsed little house, a little girl in red clothes with bare feet walked over, tilting her head. Blood flowing from her empty eyes, she looked at them.
"Big sister, can you take me to find mommy?"
Bai Ling turned around in terror, and the little girl suddenly disappeared again.
"What do we do now? What's happening?"
"An anomalous domain. This whole area is an illusion now. We need to find their core location."
With that, Chi Xiaoyu murmured something and took out a feather. The feather hovered in the air, spinning continuously, then pointed straight in one direction...
"Let's go!"
The two kept running through the city, and the scenes around them kept changing as they moved. Bai Ling saw the little girl's happy family, the father happily following the red-hatted man to work, the girl going to school happily every day, until the mother suddenly developed stomach cancer.
Despite spending all their savings, they couldn't save her. Finally, under the enormous surgical fees, the man who had worked on a major project for years without getting paid, and the broken family...
They arrived at a house that Bai Ling was very familiar with—it was the home of her roommate Li Mingzhe. Fellow workers surrounded the house, shouting:
"Where's the pay, Li Wen? Did you embezzle it? Get out here!"
"Brothers are waiting for this wage to feed their families, and you only give us this little bit?"
"You're a murderer! Old Wu's family died because you didn't pay wages. His wife couldn't afford surgery, his child jumped off a building, and he self-immolated."
"They're all infected."
Chi Xiaoyu looked vigilantly at these workers.
Bai Ling shook her head.
"They just want to get the wages they deserve."
With the workers' cursing, they too began to burn. In an instant, the entire street turned into a hellscape. A leading worker broke down the door and rushed in.
The two followed closely behind. Those workers didn't pay attention to them.
Inside the house, father and son Li Wen and Li Mingzhe were hanging from the ceiling, eyes closed, unconscious. Beside them, a pitch-black man was viciously whipping them with a belt.
Seeing Bai Ling and Chi Xiaoyu, the man spoke in a hoarse voice:
"Well? After seeing all this, do you still want to save them? They killed my whole family!"
Chi Xiaoyu frowned and stepped forward.
"Did you find money in their home? Obviously, they don't have money either. It's the higher-ups who embezzled it."
"Of course I know that! But everything is because of him. He promised me, brought me here to work, said I could earn money quickly. Otherwise, why do you think I kept him alive?"
"Those who took this money are already dead, hahaha!"
With the man's unrestrained laughter, waves of black mist came, and the workers around also laughed uncontrollably.
"We've taken revenge, we've taken revenge."
Chi Xiaoyu drew her thunder blade toward the man.
"Since you've already had your revenge, then let them go."
Hearing this, the man turned to look at Chi Xiaoyu as if he had heard the biggest joke.
"Let them go? Then who will let me go?"
Countless flames suddenly ignited, and the entire room began to spark with fire. Seeing this, Chi Xiaoyu hurriedly summoned lightning that attached to her blade and slashed at the man.
Bai Ling also threw swift punches at the surrounding workers.
The man kept laughing uncontrollably, and the surrounding objects burned with him. Countless flames shot out, and it looked like the Li father and son were about to perish in the flames.
Chi Xiaoyu, seeing Bai Ling swinging her fists, couldn't help but criticize:
"Aren't you an anomaly? You're using fists? Don't you have any special skills? Hurry up and save them!"
Bai Ling belatedly said "Oh."
She somewhat awkwardly summoned a blood-red light that shot toward the ropes hanging from the ceiling. Chi Xiaoyu, with one arm around each of the Li family men, rushed out of the sea of fire.
Seeing this, the man distorted his face and pounced on Bai Ling.
Because Bai Ling had been hungry for so long, she was directly knocked against the wall. Seeing that Bai Ling hadn't followed, after dropping the Li father and son in a safe place, Chi Xiaoyu walked back toward the house.
"Is this anomaly so weak? Could she be dead?"
At this moment, Bai Ling had lost consciousness. Dazed, she arrived in her consciousness space, where a woman identical to herself sat on a throne. The space around was filled with hourglasses.
Bai Ling touched her head and stood up.
"Where... am I?"
"Awake?"
Bai Ling looked at the woman before her, who looked exactly like her current self, and hurriedly said:
"Um, who are you? And why have I turned into your appearance? Is this what you meant by the price?"
"Don't mind it. You'll get used to this body. I am the future you."
"Future me?"
"See these hourglasses? Each hourglass represents a future you. If you are correct, I will give you the power of time from the hourglass. Conversely, if you are wrong, you will replace me to become the next future me, until we find the correct one."
"What do you mean by correct or wrong?"
"Anyway, you're about to die now, so let me help you."
The girl lying on the ground suddenly opened her eyes and grabbed the burnt man's fist and flames that were attacking her. Chi Xiaoyu hadn't entered the house yet when she saw flashes of red light inside. The anomalous domain was instantly broken, and a pillar of red light shot out from the house.
Chi Xiaoyu looked at the red light in shock, her face showing disbelief.
'Was she pretending to be weak? What level of anomaly is this? I think her name was Bai Ling? Do we have this contracted anomaly in our team?'
Outside, the police who had come for support hurriedly shouted to the director:
"Director, it's not good! The instrument detected that an Anomaly King level has emerged!"
"What? How is this possible?"