Li Mo remained impassive, extending his Sprout-enhanced left hand into the raging inferno of hellfire. The human-spider, being roasted by the flames, let out a piercing shriek. It had harvested the most perfect limbs from different people and seized their cognitive abilities, so it could feel the pain that only humans could.
Without the support of its Bizarre paranormal power, Li Mo easily tore off the limbs that didn't belong to it and tossed them aside. The moment the limbs detached from the human-spider, visible livor mortis appeared on them, turning them a dull, ashen gray.
Li Mo moved quickly.
The hellfire suppressed Bizarre entities indiscriminately, friend or foe alike, so he had to completely dismember the human-spider before the flames spread to his entire arm.
The reason was simple: the creature possessed the wisdom of too many people, combined with its own original and inherent Bizarre paranormal rules. Li Mo didn't think he would get a second chance to catch it.
Once it escaped back into the shadows, a ghost would be constantly harassing him in the dark for the next five days of the ritual, waiting for him to reveal a flaw and deliver a fatal blow.
"A tangled mess of hair. So this is your true form. Pathetic." The hellfire had already burned up to Li Mo's elbow. The strength in his Sprout-enhanced left hand was rapidly diminishing, now far weaker than his normal right hand. Even so, Li Mo was still unwilling to touch it with his right hand; that would be too dangerous.
"You're very clever. To this day, I still don't know what your rules are, so I can't effectively make other ghosts confront you with their rules and force you into a state of dormancy."
"But you deliberately avoided the time when the candle was lit and extended your webs through the cracks in the wall. There must be another reason. You can't be exposed to the light of the candle, at least not at close range."
"I don't need to make you dormant. I just need to make you suffer eternally, unable to break free." With that, Li Mo endured the searing pain of the hellfire and wrapped the twisted woman's hair around the candle on the wall outside the eighth room.
There were candles both inside and outside the rooms.
The candles inside could suppress and shield against ghosts, while the ones outside could suppress them but not shield against their perception. It could be said that these rooms were carefully preserved for the living. As long as one was cautious and avoided letting ghosts into the rooms, they were absolutely safe.
Sure enough, when the hair was wrapped around the sconce, it shriveled up like dehydrated flesh, becoming frail and weak. Even the shadow beneath it was no longer dark and dense.
However, Li Mo also noticed that the candle outside the wall was constantly flickering. After observing for a while, he saw that although the candle was only slightly consumed, the flickering flame proved that the presence of the Bizarre entity would affect its burning. This contradicted his previous view.
No, it didn't.
The ghost in the Outer World probably hadn't eaten many people yet, so its completeness was not high. That's why the candle in the room, as Kanagawa Yume's president had said, was flickering and being consumed, but not to the point of going out at any moment.
Li Mo and Kanagawa Yume had waited in the second room of the Inner World for about ten minutes before the candle went out. And the fact that the candle could be relit meant that Kanagawa Yume's president in the Outer World had relit it, which also meant that the ghost hadn't been able to make the candle burn out completely in a full ten minutes, showing its low level of completeness.
In contrast, the ghost Li Mo had encountered, even when dismembered to its most basic state, still affected the candle. The only thing better than the situation in the Outer World was that the candle wasn't being overly consumed, just constantly flickering. The flickering indicated that its stability was being disrupted. If another ghost appeared at this time, it might cause the candle outside the door to go out.
If this ghost hadn't been dismembered, Li Mo couldn't imagine how long the candle would have lasted. A minute? Half a minute? Even ten seconds?
"The candles outside and inside the doors can both suppress ghosts, but the level of suppression isn't high. Once they encounter a ghost with a slightly higher level of completeness, the candle will be extinguished quickly."
"I must find other ways to fight the ghosts."
Li Mo didn't relax. This was only the first day. With each passing day, the completeness of the ghosts encountered would most likely increase, not decrease. If he entrusted his life entirely to two fragile candles, Li Mo was certain that a normal person wouldn't survive the second day.
As Li Mo was deep in thought, Kanagawa Yume shouted, startling him.
"Hey, what are you spacing out for? Come in and help me with my wound, then be a gentleman and take off your clothes for me. I'm feeling a little cold." Kanagawa Yume hugged herself in a suggestive pose, but unfortunately, she didn't have a voluptuous chest.
There was something, but not much.
Li Mo nodded. His perception of Bizarre paranormal auras had increased, but his perception of temperature had plummeted. In a paranormal event, a sudden drop in temperature always meant a ghost had appeared, and that took priority.
Bizarre paranormal auras could be hidden by certain means. For example, when that mess of hair was lurking in the shadows, Li Mo couldn't sense its aura and could only rely on temperature changes to judge.
The thermometer measured the surrounding environment in a general way, which wasn't specific enough. Humans were still more useful.
"Mm."
After entering the room, Li Mo took off Kanagawa Yume's white socks, revealing her exquisite, fair feet. Her skin was delicate, like a newly peeled eggshell, and looked translucent in the dim candlelight.
The soft touch, if Li Mo had died one less time, he could have enjoyed the artistic, silky pleasure that brought immense joy to men. But alas, he was terrifyingly calm now.
"Ooh... ugh!! G-g-gentle... It hurts, it hurts so much!!"
"Ouch, ouch, can't you be a little more gentle, you son of a bitch?" Kanagawa Yume had been biting the bedsheet, but found that enduring the pain was too much. She couldn't help but curse to feel better. Beads of sweat dripped from her forehead, making her silky black hair stick to her cheeks.
Kanagawa Yume sat on the bed, watching Li Mo kneel on the floor, meticulously removing the bullet from her calf. If not for her gritted teeth, the scene could have been described as beautiful.
"It's out. This bullet isn't very harmful to ordinary people. You won't die." Li Mo's expressionless face made Kanagawa Yume not know whether to laugh or cry. What was that supposed to be?
"You're putting on such a gloomy, calm act, and it's really pissing me off. How can anyone be such a poser? Who did you learn it from? Agul?" Kanagawa Yume expressed her strong dissatisfaction.
"I've always been like this."
"Liar! Your expression was clearly changing at the beginning! Now you're like a dead person... Wait, your eyes?!" She hadn't noticed before, but now, Kanagawa Yume suddenly met Li Mo's gaze as he stood up.
Li Mo's eyeballs were cloudy and unfocused, just like the corpses in movies that were forcibly opened by forensic pathologists. His eyeballs were like glass crystals.
"..." Li Mo didn't answer. No matter what explanation he gave, those who were afraid would always be afraid, and those who were wary would always be wary. It was meaningless to him. As long as it didn't affect his work, he didn't care what others said or how they looked at him.
"That's... so cool! How did you do that? WTF! And the livor mortis on your skin, the overall faded, ashen gray skin. You'd look so cool walking out like this on Halloween!"
"...The crisis isn't over yet. Be quiet, don't disturb my thinking," Li Mo said calmly to Kanagawa Yume, taking off his own clothes and wrapping them around her. The thin bedsheet in the room was better than nothing.
Who knew that as soon as Li Mo took off his clothes, Kanagawa Yume couldn't help but limp over to him, leaning on the wall, and poke him with her index finger again and again.
"Your body is so cold. And so hard."
"..."
For a moment, Li Mo felt that this person was a bit too ridiculous, but he could still understand.
After encountering such bizarre events several times in a row, a normal person would be scared and cling to any straw they could grasp, acting meek and submissive.
Some people, on the other hand, would boost their confidence in other ways, comforting their cowardly souls. It was commonly known as escaping reality and distracting oneself. Kanagawa Yume probably belonged to the latter category, while Saori Tsuruyu belonged to the former.
"Hey, this diary of yours... why does it feel a little strange?" Kanagawa Yume noticed the notebook Li Mo had taken off his clothes and placed on the bedside table. It was simple and ordinary.
"It's not a diary, it's a notebook."
"...Perhaps you're right. I misunderstood. It is a diary, not a notebook," Li Mo said inexplicably after staring at the notebook on the bedside table for a while. "But that's not important. You seem very interested in it. Do you think it has special abilities, like my pistol?"
The next second, Kanagawa Yume's words instantly aroused Li Mo's vigilance.
"Emmm... there's that, but mostly because I was thinking, could this diary be the same kind of thing as the Bloody Newspaper from the supernatural forums?"
"Bloody Newspaper?"
"Yeah, a newspaper that can answer any of your questions. It's a shame my phone is dead now, or I could show you the video. Someone on the supernatural forums uploaded a video of them using it."
"You can just tell me. You don't have to be brief. Be as detailed as possible."
Hearing Li Mo's reply, Kanagawa Yume knew he was interested, so she didn't hold back.
"It's just an old newspaper with a lot of things written on it."
"I remember in the video, the vlogger asked how long he had left to live. Then, a blood-like liquid appeared on the newspaper. It was in Japanese. The video might have been edited."
"The answer that appeared on the Bloody Newspaper was: two days."
"Two days?" Li Mo thought for a moment. It didn't seem out of place.
After a normal person entered the haunted manor, as long as they hid in a room and didn't run around, and if they were lucky enough not to have a ghost mixed in their group, surviving the first day would be very simple. When night fell on the second day, the number of unknown ghosts would increase. Staying on the first floor might lead to terrifying things...
Wait, there didn't need to be any terrifying things.
Li Mo glanced at the burning candle on the wall inside the room. Although it was melting very slowly, it was still being consumed, which meant the candle was resisting the unknown ghosts outside the door, maintaining a fragile balance between the room and the haunted manor.
At this rate, the candle in the room would go out after the first day, and the room would lose its protective ability. Anyone still on the first floor at that time would surely die. Even if someone was lucky enough to spend the night on the second floor, they would be killed by a ghost for triggering an unknown rule.
Two days was a very reasonable number. But it wasn't enough to prove the accuracy and authenticity of the Bloody Newspaper's prediction, because Li Mo could also come to this conclusion through deduction. The Bloody Newspaper didn't specify a particular moment, unlike his notebook.
"The Bloody Newspaper answers any question. Then, the vlogger asked a question that you should be very interested in," Kanagawa Yume looked at Li Mo, teasing him.
"What question?" Li Mo asked.
"He asked the Bloody Newspaper: 'Who are you?'"
"..."
Directly asking a Bizarre item such a deeply philosophical question. If this Bizarre item really answered any question, and the answer was true, without any traps, perhaps Li Mo could get some clues about the origin of the Bizarre.
"Hmph, hmph, what do you think? Did I pique your curiosity?" Kanagawa Yume put her uninjured foot on Li Mo's lap next to her and said triumphantly, "Give me a massage, and maybe I'll be merciful and tell you."
Li Mo ignored the jade-like foot on his lap and picked up the Bizarre pistol, aiming it at Kanagawa Yume's head.
"Hey, hey, hey! Why are you pointing that thing at me? I was just joking! Just joking! I'll put it down now, you put the gun down too, be careful it doesn't go off!" Kanagawa Yume shouted in a panic. She hadn't expected Li Mo to pull a gun on her for a simple joke.
"Don't move. My aim is very bad. If you move around, you might really die." Li Mo was emotionless. He had already confirmed his previous thoughts. Now it was time to deal with the black blood left on her head by the human-spider.
The muzzle was aimed at the hair on Kanagawa Yume's head. With a gunshot, a faint hellfire began to burn the blood on the top of her skull.
"It's burning! It's burning!" Kanagawa Yume waved her hands like butterfly wings, trying to put out the fire but afraid of getting burned.
"This fire is harmless to people."
"You have the blood from that ghost's mouth on your head. I'm helping you get rid of it," Li Mo replied calmly, quietly watching the black blood being burned away by the hellfire. The derivatives of a ghost could be killed, let alone powerless blood.
"Alright, back to the previous topic. How did the Bloody Newspaper answer the question 'Who are you?'" Li Mo was calm, as if nothing had happened.
Kanagawa Yume's mouth twitched. She had a strong suspicion that this guy was a cunning schemer deep down, not just someone who didn't care about her.
"Alright, alright, I'll answer. But you can't point that gun at me anymore."
"Practice makes perfect, doesn't it? You know, my aim is bad. I suck," Li Mo said.
"You... alright, back to the point. This is what the Bloody Newspaper said."
"Tetsuya Yamashita, I am you from two days in the future, and I am telling you what will happen through this newspaper."
"In two days, you will be killed by a ghost. To survive, you must remember every word I say—"