Mysterious Awakening

“Is everything settled?” Sprawled on the floor, Ethan watched in stunned disbelief as Writing and his followers vanished from sight. His gaze then swung towards Miles.

“Must you always use such dramatic language?” Miles chided, lounging languidly on the couch, a chocolate egg cradled in his hand. “As a fellow ghost tamer, it’d be rather embarrassing if word got out that you were overwhelmed by a mob and beaten to a pulp.”

Smiling slightly, he offered the other guy a different Kinder Surprise egg, “Want a taste?”

Ethan retorted and glanced at the nail pining his hand, “Couldn’t you have bothered to free me first before eating?”

“Hold on a minute,” Miles replied, his eyes suddenly shut tight. “I need to settle whatever’s stirring within me first. I can’t risk your blood agitating it.”

While he appeared to be enjoying his treat, Miles was acutely aware of something unsettling beginning to churn within him. It felt like a restless eye twitching inside him, a sign that the ghost within was close to awakening.

“The red paper isn’t working anymore,” Miles sighed, eyeing the tattered red sheet on the floor. “The only way to remedy this is by snatching another red newspaper from that ghost. However, finding a concealed ghost in a city as big as Dachang is almost impossible.”

The red paper lay discarded, useless, slowly disintegrating to ash.

“The paper is just a vessel. The true suppressor of my ghost eye’s resurrection is the spectral power contained within. But it’s almost depleted. After a few suppressions, it’s now utterly useless,” Miles mused, his gaze unfocused. “Writing might have been onto something.”

“Like Ethan can suppress the headless shadow ghost, one ghost can indeed suppress another. Yet, there are still many unknown factors in play.”

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden, excruciating pain in his chest. It was as if his heart was being ripped out, a pain so intense it felt like his very soul was being torn. His chest split open, revealing a blood-red eye. It was the seventh eye on his body.

“You’re not going to start now, are you?” Ethan’s heart clenched at the sight of Miles’s agony. “If you’re on the brink of awakening, let me out of here first. I’m not equipped to handle your internal ghost.”

Miles’s forehead glistened with cold sweat as he gasped out, “I’m not dying, not yet. My limits are just pushed too far. It’s accelerated my awakening, probably less than a month away.”

Ghosts that can establish their own domains truly were fearsome.

Miles had used this ghost domain a handful of times, not enough to need more than one hand to count. But those instances had eroded the efficacy of the red paper and triggered the emergence of an additional eye on his body. Now, his awakening was likely imminent.

Ethan voiced his remorse, “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t slipped up, your state wouldn’t be this dire.”

It was his actions that had forced Miles to exert his power yet again.

“Are you joking?” Miles retorted, struggling to his feet. “It was my choice to come here, my decision to use my power. We adults own up to the consequences of our actions.”

He reached down, hefting a crowbar to pry the nails from Ethan’s hands.

“Also,” he continued, “if I don’t court danger, it finds me regardless. Eliminating Writing and his crew was a preemptive strike. They could have threatened my family and me, making things worse. Death seems to be a given at this point, so I may as well go all in.”

Ethan was finally free from his constraints with the last nail extracted from the hand.

“What’s the plan now?” Ethan asked, standing up. His body was smeared with fresh blood, his injuries healing at an impressive speed.

Miles regarded him, realizing the healing must be a unique trait of Ethan’s ghost blood. No wonder Writing hadn’t been able to kill him despite his numerous attempts.

“I need to head to your club to make some calls,” Miles replied, suddenly producing a phone and placing it on the table.

It was Writing’s phone.

“Also,” Miles continued, his tone chilling, “I have no intention of leaving anyone from this phone’s contact list unscathed. I won’t leave any potential threats to my family in the future. As the saying goes, ‘When you cut grass, also pull out the roots.’ And I aim not only to uproot them but to also overturn the soil in which they grow. Most likely, these contacts are our own kind. Even if there are a few innocents, it doesn’t matter.”

His eyes glinted ominously with a faint red light.

“Better to make a mistake in killing than to let a single one escape. If we don’t root out these leeches, it’s our families who will pay the price.”

“But how are we supposed to pull this off?” Ethan interjected, aghast. “We can’t predict how many more times we can tap into the ghost’s power given our condition.”

He could sense the vengeful ghost’s deepening influence on Miles’s personality, likely warped from the very second of the merging, yet he wasn’t entirely against his ruthless approach. After all, Writing had started this, and the mastermind was still at large. The plan had potential, but it seemed an insurmountable task to execute.

“There’s a strategy in the ‘Thirty-Six Stratagems’ called ‘borrow a knife to kill’,” Miles proposed. “There’s a ghost I know of, a terrifying one. My plan is to set it on these contacts. If they survive the ghost’s wrath, well, consider them lucky.”

“Do you understand this ghost’s behavior?”

“Just about,” Miles admitted.

Ethan took a deep breath, staring at him incredulously.

He never anticipated Miles having such an ace up his sleeve. It was horrifying enough that he possessed a ghost domain. To think he could exploit other ghosts was another level of scary.

“But the phone’s locked,” Miles mentioned, trying to unlock it, only to be met with a password prompt.

“What now?”

“Don’t worry,” Miles reassured. “I know a guy who owns a cellphone store. He should be able to crack this. I’ll take care of it. You go connect with the buyers.”

“Wait,” Ethan interjected, “Are you seriously going to sell that ghost? Writing said controlling two ghosts might delay the awakening. You went through so much trouble to catch the headless ghost. Why not keep it and give it a shot?”

“I’ve given it some thought,” Miles replied nonchalantly. “I don’t plan to actually sell it. Instead, I’m thinking of passing off a fake. It’s not about the profit, but more about leveraging this opportunity to reach those normally out of our grasp. In addition, Writing’s method is more of an educated guess; it lacks concrete details. You can’t seriously be thinking of carelessly experimenting with the headless ghost, right? What if it takes control of one of us? We would not only have released the headless ghost but also let it control our internal ghost. We’d inadvertently be nurturing an even more formidable entity.”

Ethan conceded, slightly abashed, “I hadn’t fully considered that.”

“Success leads to study, study uncovers patterns, and from patterns, we can devise a plan,” Miles elaborated. “The ghost we have is like a pawn, a bargaining chip to gain the detailed plan of execution. Although time is of the essence, we’re not in dire straits yet.” Pausing, Miles narrowed his eyes as if he’s thought of a plan, “When’s the earliest you can connect with the buyers?”

“Tomorrow night,” Ethan replied.

“Good. I’ll await your call tomorrow night then.” With that, Miles gathered the crowbar and Writing’s discarded gun and baton, readying himself to leave.

As he turned to depart, he threw over his shoulder, “If you mess up again, don’t drag me into it. Clean up your own mess.”