It's late at night.

The group's gazes followed the direction Chen Qi was pointing, and sure enough, they saw a ghostly figure.

A few meters away, a wet head emerged from the water.

Under the searchlight, it looked like a white balloon, swollen and rotten, with not a single piece of good flesh.

The cloudy eyeballs hung precariously from their sockets, as if they were about to fall out.

"run!"

Zhou Ze'an now believed that Xia Yao was human, since even ghosts can't be in two places at once.

But Xia Yao wasn't killed when she fell into the water. What does it mean that she reappeared after they retrieved the lamp?

The group frantically rowed back the way they came.

The small boat rocked back, and the head submerged in the water followed behind at a distance.

"Wait for me."

Chen Qi, her voice choked with sobs and clearly terrified, didn't fall behind the group at all, perhaps due to her survival instincts.

Xia Yao glanced back and saw that head, but then a question arose in her mind.

The ghost could have killed him or dragged him to the bottom of the lake when he fell into the water.

But he was only allowed to experience the replay of his death before he was allowed to come up. What does that mean?

Could it be that this ghost's target wasn't them?

Xia Yao turned her head and looked at the burning lantern.

"That thing is just following along, it hasn't boarded the ship yet, is it because of this light?"

Zhou Ze'an's attention also shifted to the lanterns, but he didn't stop rowing the oars at all.

"It's quite possible that the light is a form of protection for us, but if the candle goes out, it will become his target."

Now that you mention it, I regret not reaching out further and grabbing a few more lamps to keep on hand.

"No, no!"

Chen Qi's voice trembled. She had the fewest candles in her hand, and if this rule were followed, she would likely be the one left behind.

This was no time for sympathy; they rowed quickly, trying to get ashore as soon as possible.

I glanced back every now and then, and there was still that floating head following me.

"Damn it, what kind of lousy candle is this? It burns out way too fast!"

As they were talking, the lanterns on Lu Qifa's boat were almost burned out.

He freed his hands and quickly lit the extra candles, inserting them into the original lantern.

"Me too."

While they were talking, the other three also changed their candles.

However, the candles seemed unable to burn fast enough to allow them to reach the shore safely.

Before it had gone very far, another half candle had been used up.

"What should we do? At this rate, it'll all be burned before we get back!"

Lu Qi shouted loudly, seemingly because his fear had caused him to lose control of his emotions.

"What else can we do? We can't just give it a person, can we?"

Zhou Ze'an was also helpless, but he made his point clear.

One known solution is to leave one person for it, allowing the others to escape.

But under the watchful eyes of everyone, even if someone had the intention, who would do such a thing?

In this eerie game, cooperation is essential, and sabotaging your teammates is strictly prohibited.

You can run away when you encounter a ghost and not help someone in distress; the most important thing for a person is to survive.

However, if you send your teammates to fight the demon slayers and survive yourself, you will become the target of everyone's hatred and become the next person to be sacrificed.

After all, people wouldn't feel comfortable having someone who might betray their teammates at any time by their side.

But Zhou Ze'an's subtext had another meaning: in the comparison of how long the candles burned, Chen Qi would definitely be the first to be eliminated.

This unfortunate newcomer will become a target for ghosts.

He needs to act more composed now and be more patient with the risks.

Lu Qifa, this seasoned veteran, finally understood and his emotions calmed down considerably.

Chen Qi was out of luck; she clearly knew that she had the fewest candles and was the most likely to become a target for ghosts.

So she could only plead for help, "No, I don't want to die. If the candle goes out, is there any other way?"

Silence—if there were other options, they wouldn't be so anxious.

Xia Yao looked down at the flickering candlelight and then glanced at the searchlight on the bow of the boat.

To make it handheld, the searchlight was not made very large.

The square lampshade is spacious inside to prevent the candle flame from getting inside.

Xia Yao suddenly had a brilliant idea, "Why don't we try putting the searchlight inside the lantern?"

The woman only asked that the lanterns be lit; she didn't specify that they had to be candles. The searchlights are also lit.

"Will this method work? It sounds a bit far-fetched."

Lu Qifa glanced at it, then hesitated.

"I don't know, but do you have any other ideas?" Xia Yao asked in return.

"Let's give it a try, just in case."

Zhou Ze'an didn't care, since he wasn't the first one to be tested anyway.

If the method works, everyone's happy; if it doesn't, they can only say goodbye to the poor little girl.

Chen Qi had no choice but to accept it.

Seemingly afraid of death, she rowed frantically, and the small boat seemed to be overtaking Lu Qifa.

Perhaps they still harbored a sliver of hope, thinking that maybe they were the last ones to be caught.

The others could only speed up, their hands swinging until they were smoking.

The ghost continued to follow at a distance, neither too close nor too far, without making any other move.

As expected, Chen Qi's candle burned out first when they could see the shore in the distance.

She panicked for a moment and immediately stuffed the searchlight into the square lampshade.

Believe it or not, it actually got stuck.

The lanterns no longer had candles, but they were still brightly lit, and dazzlingly so.

After making this move, she looked back in a panic.

To her surprise, the ghost remained on the surface of the water and did not attack her.

This means that changing the bulb wick works, not only against ghosts, but probably also against that woman.

The candles burned unusually fast, as if they didn't want them to come ashore.

Before long, everyone switched to searchlights.

Xia Yao was cautious. When the candle was almost gone, he fanned it out with a strong fan. He then put the candle in his pocket and attached it to the searchlight.

This serves as a safeguard; if anything happens, he can replace the candle and there's still a chance to save his life.

Everyone extinguished their candles, but the ghost still followed.

The boat was getting closer and closer to the shore, where there were streetlights, so they could probably see the situation on the shore clearly.

The woman stood on the shore, seemingly arguing with Liu Lili.

"Sister Liu doesn't have a light. Could it be that a woman isn't letting her leave?"

Chen Qi had calmed down considerably and asked softly.

"Very likely."

"Serves her right, that little wench just abandoned us and ran away."

Lu Qifa gloated, and then spat into the water as he spoke.

When she was less than two meters from the riverbank, Xia Yao suddenly had a bad feeling.

Even though we were about to get ashore, I felt a nagging fear.

This premonition made him turn around to look, and as soon as he looked, everything went black.

At this moment, the floating corpses that had been slowly following behind the small boat seemed to sense something and actually increased their drifting speed.

In the blink of an eye, it had drifted from a few meters away to the side of the boat!