Julian West was silent for a moment. “The last time you brushed me off like this was when you dressed up like a wolf in sheep’s clothing to meet your university’s campus belle. Every time you start acting all sneaky and secretive, it’s always because you’ve run into a beauty—hey, at least tell me, is this William Sherman a man or a woman?”

Logan Sullivan replied to him in a sinister tone, “Amitabha, form is emptiness.”

Julian West: “…”

Logan Sullivan slipped into the gloomy, narrow corridor, raised his lit lighter, and looked around. The hallway branched off in all directions, like a dead and silent spider’s lair.

Why did Julian West say that Quinn Barnes wasn’t with William Sherman and the others? Did they really leave the girl behind for some reason, or… did they just “think” they had brought her along?

Just then, “Quinn Barnes” quietly opened her eyes in the corner of the storage room.

Chapter 16: The Reincarnation Sundial Fifteen …

Charles Gray heard a noise, turned around, and saw that Quinn Barnes had stood up on her own.

Her movements were extremely awkward, like a clumsy marionette being jerked around by an unskilled puppeteer—there was something indescribably strange about it. But since she’d just woken from a deep sleep, maybe she was still under the influence of the drugs, so Charles Gray didn’t think much of it.

He let out a huge sigh of relief and said, “Thank goodness, classmate, you’re finally awake.”

Quinn Barnes didn’t respond, just stared at him blankly.

Charles Gray suddenly felt something was off. “Classmate?”

He took a step forward, but William Sherman reached out and stopped him.

At that moment, Quinn Barnes smiled. Her mouth stretched into a particularly bizarre arc, a strange “cluck-cluck” sound coming from her throat. Her shoulders seemed rusted, twisting slowly and awkwardly, her whole body swaying in place.

Just as Charles Gray was starting to worry she might be paralyzed, the next second, Quinn Barnes suddenly lunged forward at an inhuman speed, crashing like a firecracker into William Sherman, who was standing in front, and immediately opened her mouth to bite William Sherman’s shoulder.

Her face was illuminated by the phone’s light, her gaping mouth revealing a set of uneven teeth, her nose wrinkled, and her eyes wide open so that the whites showed above and below—she looked just like a blue-faced, fanged monster.

William Sherman was knocked back a step by her, his shoulder twisting to the side and bumping into Charles Gray’s arm. Charles Gray, already slow to react, had no time to think and could only act on instinct, inadvertently fulfilling his promise to “protect” the others.

He flailed like an octopus, using both hands and feet to fend off Quinn Barnes… though his moves were a bit bizarre—pulling her hair, scratching her face, and even looking like he wanted to bite her back.

In the midst of Charles Gray’s dog-paddle style fighting, he accidentally slapped Quinn Barnes across the face, snapping her head back, and in his panic, he even stomped on her feet a couple of times.

And even though his actions could almost be called heroic, Charles Gray still maintained his usual clumsy style, bawling with tears and snot streaming down his face: “Don’t come any closer! Don’t come any closer! Help! Stay away from me!”

Sandwiched in the middle, William Sherman felt the situation couldn’t get any more chaotic. He had no choice but to push Charles Gray aside with one hand and hold down Quinn Barnes with the other, twisting her arm.

Quinn Barnes was like a crab that had just realized it was about to be thrown into a pot—completely frenzied, snapping and clawing everywhere. William Sherman freed one hand, grabbed her by the neck from behind, spun her around, and pinned her against the wall, restraining her wildly flailing arms.

The tiny storage room was a scene of utter chaos—inside, the abnormal girl was hissing, a little ghost girl of seven or eight clung to the leg of the snot-and-tear-streaked junior officer, the black cat was loudly cursing, occasionally letting out a “meow”; outside, a monster was relentlessly scratching at the door with sharp claws.

Even with William Sherman’s composure, which was almost inhuman, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was dreaming a schizophrenic dream.

“Someone give me a rope to tie her up,” William Sherman said. But with all the crying and cursing, no one paid him any mind, so William Sherman had to raise his voice in exasperation and turn to Charles Gray, “Stop crying, Officer Greg Shaw, that little one doesn’t bite. Come over here and give me a hand.”

As if to prove his words, the little ghost girl opened her mouth—now with only three teeth left—and bit down on Charles Gray’s leg.

Charles Gray immediately let out a dolphin-like screech, only to have the black cat, who had somehow jumped onto him, smack him on the head with a paw.

“Idiot, look carefully!”

Charles Gray, in the midst of his agony, squinted his eyes open a crack and looked down, only to realize that the little ghost girl’s teeth and hands had passed right through his body—she couldn’t touch him at all!

Charles Gray blinked in surprise, and the burning pain vanished instantly—it had all been a product of his overactive imagination.

Quinn Barnes’s struggles grew more intense, and William Sherman, dealing with these two handfuls, was starting to break out in a cold sweat. “Officer Greg Shaw!”

Charles Gray scrambled to his feet, hastily unbuckled his belt, and, legs clamped together to keep his pants from falling, helped William Sherman tie up Quinn Barnes in a few quick moves.

At this moment, the old lady who had been absent until now reappeared, though she seemed much weaker. She anxiously tried to touch Quinn Barnes, but her hand kept passing through the girl’s body, and each time it did, her shadow grew fainter.

Charles Gray couldn’t help but reach out to stop her, frowning. “Ma’am…”

But as expected, his hand passed right through the old lady.

The old lady turned to look at him, and Charles Gray finally saw her face clearly—deep nasolabial folds, heavy eye bags, sparse white hair held together only by a wig bun, exposing her ugly, shriveled scalp. The wrinkles on her forehead dragged her eyelids down, her eyes squeezed into triangles, with a pair of cloudy eyeballs inside.

She looked desperate to say something, but when she opened her mouth, no words came out. When she reached out in vain and realized she couldn’t touch anything, her urgency finally turned to despair.

Gradually, she quieted down, staring blankly at Quinn Barnes, standing helplessly to the side.

After a moment, she began to cry silently.

Her tears were as cloudy as her eyes, like rainwater washing away mud.

Charles Gray didn’t know what to do, standing there dumbly, looking to Professor Sherman and Darrin Grant for help, pointing at Quinn Barnes and asking, “She… what’s wrong with her?”

William Sherman lowered his head, lost in thought, but Darrin Grant snorted, “She’s possessed by something dirty. But flies don’t land on eggs without cracks—even you’re fine, but she got possessed, so she’s even more useless than you.”

Charles Gray was so flustered he couldn’t tell if that was a compliment or an insult.

But he didn’t have much time to think. With a ripping sound, the storage room door was yanked open, and a mantis-like scythe claw rudely reached in.

William Sherman ducked nimbly, shoving Quinn Barnes aside as the starving ghost’s scythe-like claw swept past his scalp.

The storage room door was completely torn open, and the starving ghost—now seemingly even bigger than before—charged at the living people inside, barreling straight through Quinn Barnes’s grandmother’s body. The old lady’s soul didn’t have time to dodge; in an instant, she vanished like steam, her face still frozen in shock and fear, but she was already gone.

Darrin Grant shouted, “Everyone, get out of the way!”

Charles Gray instinctively plopped down on the floor. Darrin Grant leapt to a high spot, his body suddenly swelling to twice its size, his eyes turning a dazzling gold. Sometimes, from a certain angle, a cat looks like a miniature leopard—especially when it opens its mouth and bares its fangs, it gives the illusion of a roar.

But Darrin Grant neither let out a carnivore’s roar nor a comical “meow.” Instead, he spat out a soundless wave, carrying invisible energy, and pounced straight at the rampaging starving ghost in the cramped storage room.

Charles Gray couldn’t hear it, but he could feel the energy—it sliced past his face like a knife, and he almost thought his nose had been shaved off.

The next second, the starving ghost was slammed against the wall. In the faint light, William Sherman and the others saw tiny cracks spidering across the wall.