The little girl pulled out a huge, thread-bound ledger from behind the desk and flipped through it page by page. After a moment, she suddenly spoke: “Found it.”

The little girl looked up and smiled at Logan Sullivan: “I forgot to ask, what is the full name of the current Lord of the Order?”

“My surname is Zhao,” Logan Sullivan frowned, a sense of foreboding rising in his heart, “Logan Sullivan.”

“Then there’s no mistake.” The little girl pushed the massive ledger toward him.

On it, it was clearly recorded: Buyer: Fifteenth day of the seventh month, Year of Renwu, Lord of the Soul Suppressing Order, Logan Sullivan.

Chapter 84: The Soul Suppressing Lamp …

Logan Sullivan was stunned for a moment and didn’t rush to deny it. After a while, he asked, “Which year was the Year of Renwu again?”

“2002.” black cat counted on its claws, “What were you doing back then?”

“I was struggling with the underground work of the Soul Suppressing Order,” Logan Sullivan recalled, “I could barely juggle my main job and side gigs, almost dropped out of college to become a professional charlatan, but my dad stopped me. That was the year I proposed setting up the Special Investigation Office. Later, my dad agreed and helped me out as much as he could.”

Then, Logan Sullivan frowned: “Come to think of it, was it really my dad back then or…”

His words trailed off under Darrin Grant’s puzzled gaze. The man patted Darrin Grant’s head: “I’ll explain this to you in detail when we get back.”

Logan Sullivan turned to the little girl in the general store and asked carefully, “I have to ask, how do you confirm the buyer’s identity here? It can’t just be the buyer writing it themselves, right?”

The little girl looked up, a profound and inscrutable smile appearing on her stiff face—no one knew how she managed it. A seven- or eight-year-old girl wearing the same expression as the Tianshan Child Elder would look ridiculous anywhere else, but in this eerie ghost town, it was nothing short of bizarre.

She said, “My records are, of course, meticulous. The buyer’s name and identity are just like those in the Book of Life and Death. Does the Lord have any questions?”

Logan Sullivan nodded, said nothing more, put away the book, and turned to leave. Just as he reached the door, Logan Sullivan suddenly remembered something, turned back, and asked, “The ‘me’ who came to buy the book eleven years ago—do you remember what he looked like?”

The little girl curled her crimson lips into a meaningful smile and said, “At first, I couldn’t recall, but now that you mention it, I do have some impression—looking at you now, I realize you’re a familiar face from the past. If you hadn’t brought it up, I wouldn’t have noticed it’s been over a decade.”

She was hinting that the “Logan Sullivan” who came to buy the book back then looked much the same as he does now.

Logan Sullivan lowered his head and pondered for a moment, then said to her, “Thank you.”

With that, he strode out, and Holly Harlow hurried to catch up. At that moment, the little girl behind the old counter called out to him again, her once crisp child’s voice now pressed low, sounding unspeakably eerie and somber: “Let me give you a word of advice, Lord. In the coming days, you may face a disaster of bloodshed. You’d best be careful.”

Before Logan Sullivan could react, Holly Harlow blurted out anxiously, “What? What disaster of bloodshed?”

The little girl’s black, plastic-like eyes stared straight at them, her face holding a strange smile, but she said nothing more. Holly Harlow was about to step forward and ask, but Logan Sullivan pulled her back. He nodded to the little girl and dragged Holly Harlow away.

Holly Harlow: “But…”

“She only mentioned it because I gave her brother a few pounds of cured meat during the New Year. How much goodwill do you think a few pounds of meat can buy?” Logan Sullivan quickly walked out of the general store’s courtyard, lowering his voice to a whisper and giving Holly Harlow a warning look. “As for the rest, even if she dared to say it, I wouldn’t dare to listen. There’s no morality or courtesy in the ghost town—sometimes not even logic. You can’t judge the dead by the standards of the living. Why do you think the underworld keeps them penned up here, out of sight and out of mind? Remember, favors from the dead are not easily repaid.”

Holly Harlow fell silent for a moment, then suddenly asked, “Why are you telling me all this now?”

“I have few women under my command—they’re rare as it is. The guys are all tough, reckless idiots, always running errands or dealing with all sorts of freaks. Of course I can’t bear to send you on those jobs,” Logan Sullivan chuckled softly, “But I was wrong too. I never thought you’d leave one day. If I’d known… Remember, if you’re too detached from the world, even if you cultivate to the level of the goddess Nüwa, you’ll only ever be a technical analyst under me. When you return to your clan, you won’t be able to handle those old monsters who’ve lived for thousands of years.”

Holly Harlow’s nose and eyes turned red at the same time.

“Shh, keep the leaf in your mouth. Save your tears for when our department is all together and we throw you a farewell party. This isn’t the place for crying.” As Logan Sullivan said this, he suddenly stopped, reached out to block Holly Harlow behind him. On the bluestone path at the general store’s entrance, at some point, a “person” was squatting there.

He… she… or it, had arms that could reach past its knees, squatting on the ground like a hairless baboon. Its neck was as long as two adult male hands spread fingertip to fingertip—almost forty or fifty centimeters. When it lowered its head, its chin could touch its chest, and it had no hair.

It looked up toward Logan Sullivan, suddenly grinned, its mouth splitting all the way to its ears. Then, it stood upright, suddenly stretched its neck, and its entire head twisted 180 degrees, so the “back of its head” was now in front, revealing a classic blue-faced, fanged visage straight out of a ghost story, and lunged at them.

Logan Sullivan had already drawn his gun, finger on the trigger, but before he could fire, the two-faced creature suddenly braked in midair, somersaulted to the ground, and its resource-efficient, double-sided head spun back around, facing them with a bizarre grin, showing two big yellow teeth with a gap in the middle.

It shook its head and sized up Logan Sullivan, then suddenly started giggling, rocking back and forth, its voice like a mother duck laying eggs, as if Logan Sullivan had suddenly turned into Guo Degang.

Logan Sullivan didn’t want trouble here. Gun in hand, he motioned for Holly Harlow to take the other side, planning to steer clear of the creature.

Seeing them about to leave, the two-faced ghost suddenly hissed from its throat: “The living and the dead walk different paths, the living and the dead walk different paths—”

The words struck straight at Logan Sullivan’s heart. His face darkened instantly, and he whipped around, glaring coldly at the grinning two-faced ghost, his voice frosty: “I’m trying to save face, not tear things up with the underworld, but you keep pushing your luck.”

The two-faced ghost’s smile faded, its head tilted, staring at Logan Sullivan with its eerie face. Holly Harlow couldn’t help but tug gently at his sleeve: “Chief Zhao, let’s go.”

The hand Logan Sullivan gripped his gun with bulged with veins. He was just about to move when the two-faced ghost suddenly started rambling: “You have to choose—human or ghost. You have to choose—mortal world or ghostly path. You have to choose—heaven and earth or the underworld.”

Its voice grew louder and louder, until it was almost shrill. The words “you have to choose” rolled out like waves, echoing through the desolate, chilling streets of the ghost town, reverberating from all directions, lingering in their ears like a question that could never be shaken off.

Countless ghosts and spirits poked their heads out from broken bricks, cracks, and underground, their eyes gleaming with strange light, peering and whispering as they watched.

Logan Sullivan, with Holly Harlow in tow, was already uneasy and trying to leave when suddenly, the two-faced ghost’s head spun around, bringing the blue-faced, fanged side to the front.

It let out a shrill cry like an old owl at night, shouting, “There is a living soul here—there is a living soul here—”

The words were like pouring water into boiling oil—there was a sizzling uproar. Without hesitation, Logan Sullivan fired, shooting straight through the two-faced ghost’s head. The special bullet burned within its skin, and soon, everything above its shoulders turned to ash.

But a horde of little ghosts had already gathered, their faces blank and greedy, like starving wild dogs, their eyes burning with a desperate hunger for life. Even the bristling black cat couldn’t stop them—there was no shortage of madmen here.