Chapter 112: Lighting the Way with Fire

Tao Xiaoyi was dying—not at Fang Shenyen’s hands, but at Tongguan’s.

No one had anticipated this.

She was not yet dead, but she was about to taste the bitter consequences.

Here, no one was innocent. Scheming against others required skill, and failure demanded a heavy price.

She had put on the blood-red wedding dress.

The moment it touched her, her outstretched arms slid into its sleeves on their own, and the dress suddenly began to contract.

From that instant, Tao Xiaoyi let out a scream that could pierce the heart.

Her blood seemed injected into countless needles hidden within the dress. Each needle pierced her veins, violently drawing blood.

The process was agonizingly slow. Despite the pain, Tao Xiaoyi stumbled forward, desperately running. Even in her final moments, she wanted to live, to escape.

Tongguan gave her a narrow path, observing the murderous pattern of the dress carefully. Here, only two lives mattered.

Though he disliked thinking this way, the reality was undeniable: he was using another person’s life to find a way to survive.

Yet by this measure, Tongguan had not violated his so-called clear conscience.

Tao Xiaoyi tried to harm him but failed—she became the victim instead.

Here, there was no moral blame, only victory or death.

Under his gaze, Tao Xiaoyi’s body rapidly shrank, becoming emaciated. By the time she reached the door, she was almost a dried corpse.

All her blood and even her bones were quickly absorbed and crushed by the dress.

Her final sound came from her desiccated right hand slapping against the wooden door.

It was that slap which caught Tongguan’s attention.

He clearly saw the door, once sealed by supernatural force, tremble slightly with that final blow, rocking outward for a brief moment.

This was a shocking discovery.

Since entering the place, neither Tongguan nor Tao Xiaoyi had managed to break the door, no matter how hard they tried.

Now, on the brink of death, Tao Xiaoyi had cracked the rule.

Tongguan immediately realized: if one wore the wedding dress, escape from the warehouse was possible.

The dress was the source of the supernatural power here. To survive, the only way out was to put it on.

Tongguan’s mind trembled. Tao Xiaoyi had already died, reduced to a lifeless husk on the ground.

He began calculating in his mind.

From the moment a living person donned the dress to complete death, there remained roughly three seconds of survival.

Though the wearer would endure extreme agony during this time, three seconds were enough for him to leave and break the supernatural hold.

Severe injury was inevitable, but that was a price he was willing to pay.

Suddenly, he understood everything.

No wonder the dress had not acted—it knew the path to survival was to wear it.

At that moment, he heard a clumsy roar from the northwest: Yu Guo.

“Damn it, Tongguan! Your wife’s turned into a ghost—come deal with this!!”

Tongguan frowned. Listening carefully, he realized he and Yu Guo had taken opposite paths.

And now, Chang Nian seemed to be in far greater danger, perhaps even possessed by the ghost.

Tongguan’s calm was gone; he could wait no longer.

After killing Tao Xiaoyi, the dress detached itself, floating in the air, seemingly waiting for the next willing wearer.

That next wearer was about to appear.

Tongguan advanced in three quick steps, eyes ablaze, grabbed the dress midair, and swiftly donned it.

Though broader in build, the dress fit surprisingly well.

Immediately, a piercing pain shot through him, escalating into excruciating agony as his blood boiled and was rapidly siphoned into the dress.

Almost instantly, he lost over thirty percent of his mass.

Everything was still under his control, though he had underestimated the struggle in pain. With the dress on, each step accelerated death.

Luckily, he had positioned himself much closer than Tao Xiaoyi had been—only two steps away from the door.

There was no need to endure the pain step by step. He braced himself and leapt, using his body to force the door open.

Sure enough, under the dress’s supernatural power, the door yielded. Tongguan crashed to the ground.

Opening his eyes, he saw a silent, lifeless garden. Only a distant, familiar scream pierced the stillness.

Bloodied and battered, he could no longer tell the extent of his injuries—every inch of him hurt. But having worn the dress for only a second, he could stumble to his feet, quickly remove it, and, after a moment’s thought, stow it in his bag.

He immediately sprinted toward Yu Guo.

Clutching his wounds, Tongguan’s mind was hazy, but he remembered Yu Guo’s shouted words:

Chang Nian had… turned into a ghost.

The distance wasn’t far. When Tongguan, covered in blood, arrived, he saw Yu Guo already lying on the ground.

His body was completely ensnared by the dense black hair, cocooned like a chrysalis, writhing continuously but with no room to struggle.

It was impossible to tell how long he had before death would fully claim him.

Tongguan’s heart raced. He glanced around in panic, but could see neither the ghost nor Chang Nian, and could only focus on rescuing Yu Guo first.

Fang Shenyen had been perched on the roof beam for some time. The wooden stick in his hand had been charred at the tip, and the eyeball in his left hand rolled wildly.

Yet he seemed unaffected, as though it had no impact on him.

The eye in his palm allowed him to see what was happening around Tongguan—not through clairvoyance, but because a ghost was nearby.

The eye could only see ghosts; its purpose was to act as a guide.

The wind gradually grew stronger, and Fang Shenyen’s body swayed slightly.

But the eye glowed ever brighter. Through the endless darkness, he heard the rapid pounding of hooves.

On a nearby long street, he seemed to see a long-haired man riding a tall horse, clutching a portrait, rapidly approaching.

A smile curved Fang Shenyen’s lips. He pulled out a lighter, and with a crisp flick, the torch in his hand ignited.

It was the only light in the Li Mansion.

Slowly raising the torch high, Fang Shenyen used it to guide the approaching rider, pointing out a direction.