The City of Terror

 It was late in the night at eleven when the six boys and one girl arrived at the abandoned laboratory building.

In all honesty, two of the boys already given up before they even entered the building.

Just the dim lights, empty environment and the atmosphere of the night were enough to make the more timid ones terrified, let alone making them play Inviting the Brush Spirit. That would only be more horrifying.

The two boys might actually be timid, or perhaps they sensed something, but they adamantly refused to remain here and turned to leave.

The remaining four boys and one girl gathered before a table and told some ghost stories first.

According to the girl, the effect of Inviting the Brush Spirit was at its best at midnight.

The ghost stories caused goosebumps to rise all over their bodies.

At 11.50 in the night, Zhang Tian Kun and the other boys started preparing under the instructions of the girl.

An A3 paper was placed on the table horizontally between two people. “Tang”, “Song”, “Yuan”, “Ming” and “Qing” were written in the upper-middle portion of the paper with a pencil. “Yes” and “No” were written on the upper-left half from top to bottom, while “Male” and “Female” were written on the upper-right half in the same fashion.

The remaining portion of the paper was split into another two halves. The Arabic numbers 1 to 9 were written on the top half. This allowed the Brush Spirit to tell you numbers in its answers. Chinese phonetic pronunciations, pinyin, was written on the bottom half. (This was important, as the Brush Spirit would use the first pinyin of every word to tell you the answer to a vague question. If you were extremely compatible with the spirit, it might even spell out the entire word for you.)

After making all these preparations, the girl asked who would be the main questioner. As a reminder, she mentioned that the one who acted as the main questioner would be taking on relatively greater risk and could experience misfortune after the game.

Perhaps it was his bad mood, but Zhang Tian Kun volunteered to be the main questioner. One of his closest friends, Huang Chang Jun acted as the assistant questioner.

When it struck midnight, the Brush Spirit Invitation ceremony began in earnest.

Zhang Tian Kun and Huang Chang Jun sat across each other, their hands crossed as they held the pen over the paper. Their arms and elbows hovered above the paper as Zhang Tian Kun chanted according to the instructions the girl had given him: “In my past, past life, I was you in this life. If you wish to continue your fate with me, please draw a circle on the paper! In my past, past life, I was you in this life. If you wish to continue your fate with me, please draw a circle on the paper…”

After repeating this chant several times, the ballpoint pen that the two of them were holding started to move.

Zhang Tian Kun was excited. According to the girl’s explanation, the Brush Spirit must have come.

“Have you come?”

Zhang Tian Kun continued to ask.

The tip of the pen was not controlled by the two of the boys and simply pointed at ‘Yes’.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Zhang Tian Kun suppressed his excitement, but he had no idea that everyone watching the ceremony was already shivering in fright, the girl included.

In all honesty, the girl had played this game plenty of times. However, there had never been a successful incident like Zhang Tian Kun.

The tip of the pen trembled slightly on ‘Yes’ with his question. It did not move away.

Zhang Tian Kun was overjoyed. He hurriedly asked, “Can you help me?”

The tip of the pen trembled again.

Zhang Tian Kun then explained the whole saga of love and hatred between him, Meng Xiao Ling and Zhou Xing Yuan, treating the Brush Spirit like a confidante.

The face of the girl turned pale white when she saw this happen.

The reason was pretty simple. Requests like this during a Brush Spirit ceremony would never end well.

When Zhang Tian Kun requested the Brush Spirit to aid his revenge, something unexpected happened.

Blue smoke emerged from the ballpoint point. In a moment, several black ink brushes appeared above everyone’s head.

Before the students could even react, the black ink brushes stabbed into their heads.

Pupupu!

The sound of several sharp objects penetrating flesh could be heard.

Cries of pain rang out in the room and blood splattered everywhere.

The problem was that the black brushes moved very slowly after piercing their heads. They did not instantly kill the students.

Such agonizing torture caused the students to deeply regret their decision to conduct this Brush Spirit ceremony. They never expected such a terrifying, bloody and occult thing to happen!

They could very clearly feel the slight movement of the tip of the brush as it stabbed into their brain, along with the intense, throbbing pain. It was so agonizing that even the greatest of warriors would have thrown his hands up in surrender.

“I don’t want this! I don’t want this!”

The female student was the first to break under the pain. She screamed and charged out of the laboratory in an attempt to escape the pain, clasping her head as she did so.

The boys gained hope when they saw the girl run out. However, just as they got up, the girl let out a bloodcurdling scream. The sound of a splitting skull rang out and the girl’s head exploded before the eyes of the boys. Blood rained down like a fountain, spurting from her all over the room.

The boys didn’t even dare to charge out of the room at the sight of this.

The pain they were enduring here was intense, but at least it was much better than death.

However, staying in the laboratory didn’t mean they had escaped the threat of death.

Just thirty seconds later, the head of the girl’s boyfriend exploded as well. Red blood and white brain matter splashed all over the other three people.

“I can’t take it any longer!”

The boy who slept on the bunk above Zhang Tian Kun and the good friend who suggested the ceremony in the first place suddenly leaped from his seat and ran away.

Death came even quicker this time. The boy only managed to run five steps outward before an explosion rang out and his head splattered all over the place. His headless corpse fell to the ground after another three steps, completely motionless.

At this point, only Zhang Tian Kun and his friend Huang Chang Jun were left.

A vicious expression appeared on their faces as they looked at each other. Their heads hurt immensely and fear filled their hearts.

At this rate, none of them would be able to survive.

However, just then, a strange thought appeared in their minds. Kill the other person and they would live!

They would definitely live!

Thus, the two simultaneously began fighting for the black brush in their hands.

At this point, their psyche had completely fallen apart. They could no longer care for some friendship between roommates.

Zhang Tian Kun was the first to strike, immediately punching his friend across the face with his left hand.

The boy was already wincing from the pain from his head. He couldn’t have noticed Zhang Tian Kun’s fist. He was hit in the nose and in his daze, Zhang Tian Kun snatched the brush away from him.

Zhang Tian Kun did not hesitate at all. He stabbed the black ink brush down at his friend’s face.

The black brush suddenly turned into a gleaming dagger.

Pu chi!

The dagger went straight into the boy’s face. He couldn’t even cry out in pain before he died.

I killed him! I finally killed him!

The pain in Zhang Tian Kun’s mind finally faded and another voice rang in his head.

The basic idea was that Zhang Tian Kun had obtained their approval. He would gain incomparable power. In return, he had to lure ten people here monthly and have them conduct the Brush Spirit ceremony.

Zhang Tian Kun then fell unconscious.

When he woke up, he discovered that he had become immensely strong, with the strength of five grown men. He could even use the Brush Spirit’s clone that had merged with his body to launch some extremely strange attacks.

In conclusion, Zhang Tian Kun felt like he had become extremely powerful and invincible.

The four headless corpses outside the laboratory had vanished without a trace. He didn’t know where they had gone at all.

Moreover, when Zhang Tian Kun asked around, he discovered that there was no news of his friends at all. Some of his friends were also gradually losing their memories of these people!

This caused Zhang Tian Kun to become even more fearful of the Brush Spirit and dispelled all thoughts of rebelling against it.

For the sake of his revenge, Zhang Tian Kun smashed up all the bars and clubs under the management of Da Hao Security Firm, including Lou Lan Club.

Then, Wei Xiao Bei struck and everything else was history.

As for luring students to conduct the Brush Spirit ceremony in the laboratory? Zhang Tian Kun had been too busy with his revenge and wasn’t in a rush to do something like that.

Given his current power of a Two-Star Elite, Wei Xiao Bei estimated that he would probably have no problem dealing with a bunch of students.

Zhang Tian Kun already had a plan. He had intended to just abduct a few students and force them to do the Brush Spirit ceremony.

From Zhang Tian Kun’s perspective, these students would likely not be alive after the ceremony, so there was no worrying that they would spill the beans.

In the end, through Zhang Tian Kun’s descriptions, Wei Xiao Bei learned that he was a victim himself. However, his behavior afterward was that of a man that had lost himself in power. This was probably the consequence of unrestricted power.

It could be said that Wei Xiao Bei would feel no guilt killing Zhang Tian Kun after all he had done.

A person like him could easily become a serial killer in the future now that he had no more restraints.

“Bring me to the laboratory building.”

Wei Xiao Bei examined Meng Xiao Ling and confirmed that there were no problems with her body. It was only some surface injuries.

Wei Xiao Bei then gave Zhou Xing Yuan a call and had him come here to take Meng Xiao Ling to the hospital.

It might be very late now, but with Zhou Xing Yuan’s status, he had no problem entering Cui Hu City and sending an injured female student to the hospital.

Meanwhile, Wei Xiao Bei had Zhang Tian Kun lead the way to the laboratory building.

The building was indeed in a very remote location. Just walking along the path there would make one feel sinister vibes of terror.