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The night was as dark as ink, and the air in Donghai City was filled with a damp, musty smell after the torrential rain.

The black SUV, like a silent beast, slid silently into the depths of the old town. Its headlights pierced the darkness of the narrow alleyways, illuminating the mottled, peeling brick walls on either side. This was the city's appendix, a corner forgotten by the process of modernization.

"The entrance is just ahead, the car can't go in." Qin Yue, sitting in the passenger seat, broke the silence. Her face was pale, and she was tightly clutching the test tube containing Lin Mo's blood and tears sample, her knuckles turning white from the excessive force.

Li Haotian stepped on the brakes, and the car came to a steady stop under a withered old locust tree. He glanced at the rearview mirror; Liu Hu was checking the holster in his hand, while Xiao Hei was crouching on the back seat, his eerie green eyes warily staring at the dark night outside the window, a suppressed growl emanating from his throat.

"Get out of the car." Li Haotian pushed open the car door, and the cold air instantly rushed into the car.

This is the legendary "Ghost Market".

It's not on any street marked on the map, but hidden among a complex network of illegal buildings and abandoned factories. Only on certain nights and certain days does it reveal its true form like a ghost emerging from the earth.

The moment you step into the ghost market, it feels like you've crossed a barrier of time.

The dim tungsten filament bulbs swayed precariously overhead, casting long, distorted shadows of pedestrians. Street stalls lined both sides of the street, selling not everyday necessities, but all sorts of indescribable old objects: chipped porcelain bowls, rusted copper locks, bones of unknown animals, and even some old clothes stained with dark red.

The air was filled with a mixture of cheap incense, old paper, and some kind of indescribable fishy smell.

"What bad luck." Liu Hu shrank back, his eyes scanning the suspicious-looking people around him warily. Most of these people wore hats and masks, their eyes were cloudy, like walking corpses that had just crawled out of their graves, and they bargained in hoarse voices, which sent a chill down his spine.

Li Haotian walked at the front, his military boots making a dull thud on the wet, slippery flagstones. His right hand remained resting on his waist, his muscles taut like a bowstring. Here, violence and transaction were separated by only a fine line.

"The 'Liuli Zhai' we're looking for is located at the deepest part of the Ghost Market." Qin Yue walked beside Li Haotian, suppressing her unease, and pointed to an even narrower and darker alley ahead. "That's the most famous 'yin goods' shop in this area, specializing in collecting things of unknown origin and imbued with malevolent energy."

The further they went, the sparser the crowd became, but the feeling of being watched grew stronger. Little Black stopped growling and instead moved close to Li Haotian's legs, its black fur standing on end, clearly sensing some extreme danger.

Finally, at the end of the alley, a lone red lantern came into view.

Beneath the lanterns hung a faded black plaque with three ancient seal characters written on it in dark gold lacquer—"Liuli Zhai." The characters were twisted and bizarre; staring at them for too long gave one the illusion that they were slowly wriggling.

Li Haotian pushed open the heavy wooden door, and with a tooth-grinding creak, a strong sandalwood scent wafted out, trying to mask the original stench of decay.

The shop was dimly lit, and the shelves around the room were piled high with all sorts of strange objects. Some of them even trembled slightly, as if they were alive. In the center of the room stood a mahogany table, behind which sat an old man dressed in a gray cloth robe.

His eyes were closed, his eye sockets were deep, and his eyelids appeared to be sewn together with fine thread, clearly indicating that he was blind.

"They're here."

The old shopkeeper's voice was hoarse and dry, like two rough pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other. He didn't look up, but his gaze was precisely fixed on the doorway, his hand caressing a smooth jade bead.

Li Haotian and his two companions immediately went into battle mode. Liu Hu's finger was already on the trigger, while Li Haotian calmly took a step forward, standing in front of Qin Yue.

"Did you know we were coming?" Li Haotian asked coldly.

"The shards of the mirror are bleeding, and the tears of the dead are weeping." The old shopkeeper slowly stopped what he was doing, and his previously lifeless face suddenly twitched. "The smell is too strong; you can smell that nauseating stench from three streets away. I've been waiting for you for a long time."

Qin Yue took a deep breath, stepped forward, and placed the test tube on the table. "Sir, do you recognize this?"

The old shopkeeper stretched out his withered, bark-like hand, and recoiled as if burned the moment he touched the test tube. But he quickly reached out again, and this time, he carefully traced the dark red liquid inside the test tube with his fingertips through the glass.

Suddenly, his body trembled violently, and a strange sound, like the howl of a wild beast, came from his throat.

"It's...it's the bait for the 'Mirror God'..." The old shopkeeper's voice was no longer calm, but filled with undisguised fear, his whole body trembling violently. "The mirror isn't a mirror, it's a door! It's an eye! It's a window to hell!"

"A god in the mirror?" Qin Yue keenly caught this key phrase. "What exactly is that?"

The old shopkeeper didn't answer directly. Instead, he turned around shakily, fumbled for a dusty scroll on the display shelf behind him, and threw it onto the table.

"This isn't a god, it's a nightmare of imprisonment." The old shopkeeper pointed at the things on the table, his breathing rapid. "Decades ago, or even longer, before these skyscrapers were built in Donghai City, this totem circulated in the underground waterways. Some say it's the city's guardian deity, while others say it's a seal used to suppress something."

Li Haotian reached out and unrolled the scroll. On the yellowed Xuan paper, a complex topographical map was drawn with cinnabar, depicting the underground drainage system of Donghai City. And at the very center of the map was a gigantic mirror composed of countless eyes!

"This totem..." Li Haotian's pupils suddenly contracted; he had seen similar symbols at previous crime scenes.

"Blood and tears are the key," the old shopkeeper said, trembling, his blind eyes seemingly seeping blood. "When the thing in the mirror begins to weep, it means the seal has loosened. It's hungry, it wants to get out, it wants to turn this illusory world into reality, to crush us all inside the mirror!"

"What will happen if we don't stop it?" Liu Hu couldn't help but ask, his voice trembling slightly.

The old shopkeeper chuckled eerily, the sound echoing through the empty shop, sending chills down one's spine: "Stop? No one can stop you. You're already caught in the middle. Look behind you."

Li Haotian suddenly turned around.

Inside the Liulizhai store, the antique objects that had been still all began to tremble slightly. In a bronze mirror on the shelf, instead of Li Haotian and his companions being reflected, wisps of distorted black mist were trying to climb out of the mirror.

"Run!" Li Haotian roared, grabbing the scroll from the table with one hand and pulling Qin Yue with the other. "It's not safe here!"

"Take this!" The old shopkeeper suddenly pulled a seemingly ordinary bronze fragment from his pocket and tossed it over. "Go to the sewers! Go to the center of the totem! Only there can it be sealed back up!"

Li Haotian caught the shards; they were icy cold to the touch. He gave the blind old shopkeeper a long look, knowing this place would instantly turn into hell.

"Walk!"

The three of them, along with Xiao Hei, rushed out of Liuli Zhai.

The ghost market behind them seemed to awaken instantly. The originally noisy hawking turned into shrill screams, the goods on the surrounding stalls began to mutate, and countless eyes opened in the darkness, greedily watching the intruders.

The torrential rain poured down again, blurring the chaos and eeriness of the antique street even further. Li Haotian gripped the bronze fragment tightly, rain streaming down his cheeks, but unable to extinguish the burning fighting spirit within him.

What secrets lie buried beneath Donghai City? And what kind of terrifying being is this so-called "God in the Mirror"?

Regardless, now that the clues point to the underground drainage system, he has to venture into it, even if it's a dangerous place.

Because at this moment, they had nowhere to retreat.