"Damn!" Su Xuan hurriedly reached out to pull Old Zhou.

He was certain that if Old Zhou pushed open that sinister and terrifying gate and walked inside, he would truly enter the Netherworld. Old Zhou would cease to exist in this world!

"Leave me alone!" Old Zhou seemed possessed, waving his arms to push Su Xuan away.

Su Xuan helplessly knocked Old Zhou on the head with the iron rod.

CLANG!

Old Zhou's eyes rolled back as he collapsed into Su Xuan's arms. Su Xuan then laid him flat on the ground and looked up at the gate.

THUD!

THUD!

A muffled sound, like a pile driver striking the earth, came from behind the gate. It sounds like a behemoth is walking in there! The sound is getting closer and closer, as if it's about to break through at any moment!

The gate began to tremble, and Su Xuan's heart pounded in his chest.

"You..." The woman in red suddenly turned her incomparably beautiful face toward Su Xuan. "Want to see what's behind the gate?" she asked.

"I definitely want to!" Su Xuan replied.

"Better not." The woman in red said with a faint, charming smile. She stepped toward the gate, but her feet moved as if wading through a marsh, each step slow and deliberate. When she reached the gate, she pressed her delicate hand against its surface. With a great surge of force, the gate shook violently and then shattered with a boom!

But the fragments floated in the air, continuously converging as if trying to re-form.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

The muffled thudding, which sounded as if it came from another world, grew more urgent. The thing inside seems like it's trying to squeeze out of thin air, with or without a gate!

The woman in red waved her sleeve and said coldly, "Scram!"

The fragments exploded again, turning into dust that scattered on the wind. The air fell silent.

A fleeting blush crossed the woman's face, as if destroying the gate had taken a significant toll on her.

RIP!

The woman in red flickered and reappeared beside Su Xuan, tearing open the shirt on his shoulder.

Su Xuan instinctively raised his hand to grab her arm, but it was like grasping at empty air.

"This isn't fair," Su Xuan muttered. "You can touch me, but I can't touch you."

"You're still young," the woman in red said cryptically, then focused her gaze on Su Xuan's shoulder.

"I'm not that young," Su Xuan retorted, looking at his own shoulder as well.

On his shoulder was a deep, sharp wound, inflicted by the Armored Ghoul. What amazed him was that two wisps of white vapor were on the wound, stitching it up like thread. In just a moment, the wound healed completely, not even leaving a scar.

"Did you do that?" Su Xuan asked in surprise.

"No." The woman in red shook her head slightly. "This is the Incense Power you've earned. You should try to accumulate more when you have the time."

"Where did I get Incense Power?" Su Xuan asked, puzzled.

"You helped them."

Seeing that Su Xuan was not seriously harmed, the woman's figure began to fade rapidly before vanishing completely.

Su Xuan's mouth fell open. "Hey, you could at least tell me who you are before you leave!"

"Ouch! Ow!"

At that moment, Old Zhou groaned and came to his senses. He rubbed his head, unable to remember who had knocked him out or even that he had seen a great gate. All he recalled was the scene of Su Xuan fighting the ghoul.

Su Xuan glanced at the wreckage in the memorial hall. Filled with deep suspicion, he strode out, iron rod in hand.

"Boss, wait for me!" Old Zhou hurriedly followed. In his eyes, Su Xuan was no longer an ordinary person, but a veritable god of war.

"Don't look for me! It has nothing to do with me!"

Outside the funeral home's gate, a figure cowered in a corner, muttering in terror. It was none other than Zhang Shan, who had fled in disarray.

Su Xuan walked up to Zhang Shan, kicked him, and looked down. "Zhang Shan, who's looking for you?"

The chaos inside had been immense. He refused to believe it was a mere coincidence. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

"Ah! Boss, are... are you alright?" Zhang Shan stammered, shivering as he looked up at Su Xuan.

"I'm asking the questions!" Su Xuan grabbed Zhang Shan by the collar. "What the hell have you been up to, you old coot? How did you turn a funeral home that serves the people into a nest of ghosts?"

"I... I..." Zhang Shan stammered, "I didn't do anything!"

"Didn't do anything?" Su Xuan naturally didn't believe him. He hauled Zhang Shan toward the main hall. "There are still plenty of ghouls inside. You can go talk to them!"

"No, no! Boss, please stop!" Zhang Shan pleaded desperately. "I'll talk! I'll talk!"

Su Xuan dropped him to the ground.

"Boss, if I tell you, you mustn't tell anyone else, alright?" Zhang Shan looked up at Su Xuan before recounting a rather bizarre story.

"A company undertook a project to build a large theme park.

"At first, everything went smoothly. But when they were digging the artificial lake, they found a lot of corpses!

"There was no telling how long those corpses had been there, but they hadn't rotted into skeletons. They looked as if they had just died!

"That company, fearing the bodies would delay construction, came to me for a favor, and I just..."

Although Zhang Shan didn't finish, Su Xuan understood. Zhang Shan had taken the company's money and cremated those corpses, which had triggered the haunting at the funeral home.

Clearly, those weren't ordinary corpses! Maybe... some of them even had connections to the Netherworld! Otherwise, why would that gate have appeared?

"Those corpses..." Su Xuan pondered for a moment. "Were any of them wearing armor?"

"Armor?" Zhang Shan shook his head. "No, when they brought the bodies, they were all in tattered clothes. None wore armor! There was only one body whose clothing was relatively intact—a long robe!"

"Is that robe still here?" Su Xuan asked.

"Yes, yes!" Zhang Shan nodded hastily. "I thought the robe looked valuable, so I kept it hidden in the storage room."

"Take me to it!" Su Xuan hauled Zhang Shan up again.

Zhang Shan, however, was terrified to go back inside the funeral home.

"Boss Zhang, don't be afraid," Old Zhou said. "The unclean things are gone, they were all..." He glanced at Su Xuan, who shook his head slightly. Old Zhou continued, "...I burned them all with a Spirit Talisman, so just take the Boss!"

Only then did Zhang Shan lead Su Xuan into the storage room and hand over a long, mud-stained robe.

Su Xuan shook the dirt from it. He was about to examine it for clues about the ghouls' origins when Old Zhou's eyes lit up.

Old Zhou took the sleeve of the robe, rubbing the gold thread pattern with his fingertips. "Straight collar, large placket, right-side closure, wide sleeves with fitted cuffs..." he muttered. "Boss, this is a Daoist robe!"

But none of them knew that in a certain building in the city, two sets of armor were resting quietly on display. If Su Xuan were to see them, he would recognize them at a glance. They were the very sets worn by the two Armored Ghouls.

A man was there, carefully wiping the two suits of armor with a cloth...

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