This Damned Thirst for Survival

Chapter 38

In the unlit private room, where not a single beam of light dared to intrude, the furniture lay engulfed in darkness. A shroud of black mist enveloped Jiang Luo from head to toe, concealing every strand of hair, every tip of his fingers within its obscure embrace.

Pressed against the wall of the room by this force, Jiang Luo found his arms bound by the mist, stretched above his head in an enforced surrender. His toes barely touched the ground as he strained his neck to gaze at his hands, struggling fiercely against the invisible bonds.

The veins on the back of his hands stood out, stark and pronounced against the backdrop of the dark fog, their appearance oddly alluring, a hint of seductive danger in the shadowy light.

Gradually, the mist coalesced into a humanoid form, and a pale hand tinged with a hue of deathly blue emerged, its slender fingers lightly touching the tips of Jiang Luo's.

This ghastly hand, devoid of life, traced a path down from his fingertips, gliding over his pronounced veins and forearm from his struggling, teasingly moving to hover by Jiang Luo's lips before suddenly gripping his chin tightly.

Jiang Luo let out a muffled grunt, instinctively kicking forward.

But his leg was intercepted by the specter.

Another strand of black mist wrapped around his raised leg, suspending it mid-air, while a second strand of mist gently rested on his leg, sliding from the bend of his knee upwards, reaching his thigh.

The touch was fleeting, barely there, like a dragonfly skimming water. Yet, the cold, lifeless sensation of the ghostly hand, akin to that of a corpse or a block of ice that had been frozen for countless years, was enough to send shivers down his spine, evoking an eerie sense of dread.

A sense of crisis began howling within Jiang Luo.

Every move of the ghost was irrational, absurd, and bizarre, perfectly mirroring the unexpectedness of the Wu Wang hexagram. Jiang Luo clenched his teeth, his intuition screaming that something was terribly wrong. He tried to turn his head away from the fingers creeping towards his lips, only to have his chin forcibly gripped and turned back by the ghost.

Jiang Luo cursed under his breath, "Chi You, what the fuck are you doing?"

He could have never imagined such a scene!

The young man with black hair displayed a rare combination of anger and shock on his face, a sight seldom seen. A low laugh echoed from within the black mist.

In the next instant, the entire form of the ghost emerged from the mist.

His shoes wedged between Jiang Luo's legs, touching the wall that marked their boundary. The black mist that had lifted Jiang Luo's legs dissipated, replaced by the ghost's hand, skillfully moving down to grasp Jiang Luo's thigh.

The position was utterly bizarre, making Jiang Luo's expression grow even stranger as he struggled to free his legs, pressing back as hard as he could.

Chi You's face appeared before him, the ghost's features still as flawlessly perfect as ever—high nose bridge, full forehead, and eyebrows extending into the temples. However, this time, Chi You's face bore the tail mark of a whip Jiang Luo had struck him with previously.

The inch-long red mark on Chi You's left cheek was brazen, revealing the inherent wickedness, madness, and indifference of the ghost hidden in his bones and blood.

This was bad.

Very bad.

Jiang Luo's alarm bells rang louder than ever.