178: Chapter 178 Contact Again

Chapter 178: Contacting Again

Late at night.

Inside the bedroom, it was pitch-black.

The red light of distant neon signs projected through the window, casting flickering shadows across his face.

Fang Cheng sat at his desk, staring at two postcards.

The printed designs on the front were different; one featured a scenic landmark, while the other showed a cartoon character.

They were likely bought casually from a shop.

Turning them over, two lines of strange characters in almost identical handwriting could be seen.

Neither contained the sender's name or address.

Clearly, both postcards came from the same person.

Fang Cheng's eyes flickered as his gaze swept over the messages written to the recipient.

"I hope to have the honor of hearing your voice..."

"Are you... afraid of me?"

The two sentences carried completely different meanings.

The former possessed the probing caution of a first meeting.

The latter seemed to carry a bit more irritation and disdain.

Moreover,

beneath the words "afraid of me," there was a drawn cartoon smiley face.

Although the artwork appeared childish, Fang Cheng felt a sense of familiarity from it.

The upturned corners of the smiley face's mouth faintly overlapped with a face deep in his memory.

*Snap!*

A scene instantly surged in his mind.

Torrential rain poured down amidst flashes of lightning.

The tragic shrieks of victims, a figure sprinting through the downpour.

A face hidden beneath a raincoat hood raised to reveal a pair of strangely glowing eyes.

Two gazes intersected and collided in the rainy night.

That face similarly grinned upward, offering him a smile in greeting.

...

"Phew—"

Fang Cheng exhaled a breath, brow slightly furrowed, and muttered to himself:

"Could it be... the murderer behind the Hotel Massacre?"

Lost in thought, his fingers unconsciously twirled the fountain pen on the desk.

The person who sent the postcards seemed very eager to establish contact and communicate with him.

And Fang Cheng, in fact, really wanted to know what the other party's intentions were.

However,

in the past, he had not delved deep into the spiritual Domain and was a complete layman.

For safety's sake, he had chosen not to open that door or establish contact with the sender of the postcards.

Under the circumstances back then, that was a wise move.

But now, the situation was different.

Fang Cheng could not help but speculate.

Did sending two consecutive invitations carry a subtle warning or threat?

If he chose to refuse again, what would happen next?

Fang Cheng could not be certain of any of this.

After all, the other party was lurking in the shadows, while he was relatively exposed in the light.

"..."

Thinking of this, Fang Cheng immediately put down the fountain pen in his hand.

Restraining his gaze, he observed the burning "flame" in his mind.

Present-day him was completely different from before as well.

His Meditation skill had successfully reached the entry level and even advanced to the Expert level, birthing the Flame of Spirituality with its marvelous effects.

Coupled with his Spirit stat breaking through the 40-point mark, he shouldn't be much weaker than those psychic ability users.

"Then, let's give it a try."

After carefully weighing his options and making a decision, Fang Cheng's eyes fell upon that string of strange characters.

He then sat cross-legged on his bed, closed his eyes slightly, and quickly entered a state of Meditation.

Once in deep contemplation, his lips moved slightly, fluently reciting an extremely tongue-twisting incantation.

"Om, Ah, Mi, Ma, Wa, She, Hum..."

As the incantation was recited character by character, sound by sound, it echoed clearly through the air.

The surrounding scenery seemed to fast-forward, rapidly receding into the background.

At the same time, countless noises surged into his ears like a crashing wave.

Rustling, immensely chaotic human voices filled his ears.

Like radio frequency crosstalk, it quickly returned to normal and receded like a tide.

Fang Cheng remained calm and composed, suddenly observing his surroundings.

The small bedroom was now completely engulfed in darkness.

Looking as far as the eye could see.

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Apart from tiny specks of light twinkling like stars, his vision contained only an endless dark mist shrouding the entire world.

Vast, silent, and ethereal.

It was as if he stood at the end of the world; one step further, and he would plunge into a deeper, darker abyss hiding countless evil entities.

Even though Fang Cheng now possessed a Spirit attribute as high as 43 points,

his vision still could not fully penetrate this slowly flowing, extremely dense black mist.

The first time he stepped into this place, Fang Cheng had felt an indescribable sense of shock.

But after systematically studying Meditation and practicing in reality, entering here again brought him a revelation.

If the subconscious world were divided into levels,

this special mental space would be located at the junction of human subconsciousness and conscious mind, belonging to a transitional layer.

That is, a level that many ordinary people can also reach by chance during lucid dreaming.

As long as the Spirit attribute reaches the standard, one can smoothly enter and exit through certain communication media without needing Meditation.

And the medium he currently possessed was precisely this string of characters on the postcard, acting like a voice password.

At this thought, Fang Cheng composed himself and locked onto a looming target not far away.

In the blink of an eye, his form appeared in front of a slightly dim speck of light.

Looking up at the carved double doors that suddenly appeared, Fang Cheng softly recited the "voice password."

At this moment, if viewed from a distance,

as the big doors slowly opened, two similarly sized specks of light drifted closer together and finally merged.

...

In a church in the suburbs of Xiguan.

The lights were extinguished, leaving it pitch-black and silent.

Late at night, in front of the chapel pulpit, there was still the kneeling, praying figure of a man.

Wearing a black tracksuit and a baseball cap, his palms were tightly clasped, whispering with his head lowered in an unusually pious manner.

Faint moonlight leaked through the stained glass window like flowing water, softly illuminating the pointed arched vault and solemn walls.

Religious-themed murals were painted above, faintly revealing a scene of the Last Judgment where devils fought apostles.

The suffering deity hanging on the cross looked down with lowered eyes, silently observing the believer kneeling before him.

However,

right beneath such a solemn and holy space was a horrific scene straight out of Hell.

Over a dozen corpses lay scattered in pools of blood, their faces contorted and limbs mutilated.

A bloody stench pervaded, filling the chapel.

"How about it?"

The praying man suddenly raised his head, looking straight at the deity hanging high on the cross, and questioned:

"Haven't I been praying to you all this time, asking you not to turn me into a monster?"

"And now? Look at this! Since you can't even save your own believers, how are you qualified to be called a god?!"

The dim moonlight revealed his blood-stained face and the slightly upturned corners of his mouth.

"I will keep going, judging those immoral believers of yours until you are willing to show a shred of mercy and give me even a tiny response..."

The man looked like he was driven mad, gazing at the divine statue while whispering to himself.

Suddenly, his smile froze, and his eyes flickered eerily, like a wild beast that had unexpectedly spotted its prey.