The Creators: From Night City

So this time, it was not only people who rushed out, but also several vicious dogs.

Arthur pulled out another revolver and fired several shots, sweeping away all the vicious dogs, but two cannibals and several dogs still rushed forward.

Margaret's scream had just sounded when Jiang Bing's sword reappeared.

Ignoring the enemies and enemy dogs that were split into two and then four, Jiang Bing was completely focused on the cold white mist rising from the corpses.

These white mists that are invisible to ordinary people are very ethereal, but they stubbornly hold a shape and float in one direction.

But there was no wind in the forest, and Jiang Bing didn't think that wind in the traditional sense could move them.

So the fog was floating in front, and the two confused people followed behind under the leadership of Jiang Bing.

At this moment, just as at that moment, the ghost train reappears.

The fog slowly carried the three people towards the depths of the black swamp. Soon, the narrow path turned into mud, with bushes growing everywhere and trees becoming increasingly dense.

Chapter 212 So that’s it

The road ahead was too far for them to move forward on all four legs, so Arthur and the maid had no choice but to dismount and walk, continuing their trek forward with difficulty.

But soon, they were left behind by Jiang Bing who was leaping through the woods.

He followed the white mist until he reached a clearing in the woods, where sunlight could finally penetrate the treeless sky and into the forest.

As the sunlight brightened the eyes, the white mist poured into a small wooden house in the center of the clearing and disappeared without a trace.

The wooden house looks ordinary, but the biggest problem is that it appears here.

Fortunately, Jiang Bing never lost his energy and pushed the door open without hesitation.

There is no one in the house.

This is also normal.

The small room is filled with a large number of folk ornaments.

Elk skull, stuffed bald eagle, porcelain, sofas, wooden chairs, a canopy ruler, a wooden fish, a shamanic drum, an Indian-style rectangular scarf, a full-length mirror covered by a scarf, a shrunken voodoo head, a straw doll, a metal helmet from the Civil War, a Kalaha of an unidentified creature...

The room is filled with ornaments of various styles, and the walls are painted with a large number of strange religious graphics, which push the overall style of the room towards the direction of global religious integration.

It has a certain beauty to it, like the exclusive meditation dressing room of Grand Priest Wang Lama at the Shaolin Temple's Wudang Mountain Office...

It can be seen that other parts of the wall were once covered with words, but now they are all painted over and covered with red paint.

But what caught Jiang Bing's attention most was a metal lantern placed on the table in the middle.

The lantern is only the size of a baby's fist. It is made entirely of metal with a verdigris surface. It is shaped like a coiled dragon, but has wings on its back, which is quite strange.

Wisps of cold white mist continuously dissipated from the lantern, but disappeared into the air the moment they moved away from the lantern.

This process repeats itself over and over again, seemingly never ending.

Obviously, it is the source of the white fog and also the origin of the "ghost train" and "ghost girl".

Jiang Bing did not start working directly, but stared at an easel behind the table.

The flower stand is an ordinary wooden easel, on which is placed a half-finished oil painting. The artist has just finished outlining the outline and the coloring is only half done, but the content of the painting can still be seen.

This is a portrait.

From the blurred color outline, it is still easy to make out that it is a man wearing black clothes and a top hat.

Not surprisingly, this is a portrait of the man in the top hat.

The room was eerily quiet and lifeless.

Suddenly, the wind started to blow.

The wooden door slowly closed due to the surging air from nowhere.

The brightness in the room suddenly dimmed a little, reflecting Jiang Bing's overly bright eyes.

As his mental strength was mobilized crazily, a faint golden light appeared from his eyes in a physical sense.

His eyes were almost dyed golden, and his mental power could imitate the operating mechanism of the laurel crown and mobilize wisps of air without even mobilizing it.

"Aren't you coming out yet?"

Facing Jiang Bing's questioning, the hut remained silent.

Then a breeze suddenly blew away the large square towel on the full-length mirror, revealing the smooth mirror surface.

Jiang Bing was standing right in front of the full-length mirror, which reflected his figure faithfully.

Also reflected is the owner of the house behind Jiang Bing.

Top hat man.

In the mirror, he was sitting leisurely on the sofa, wearing a long black trench coat, the material of which was so thick that it almost blended into the shadows. On his head was a pure black top hat with a wide brim, slightly frayed edges, and a high crown, a classic style of the Victorian era.

Facing Jiang Bing's cold gaze, he was not in a hurry. Instead, he politely took off his hat and gestured to him in the mirror.

Jiang Bing looked at the other person's leisurely expression, and without hesitation, he stepped towards the full-length mirror.

For a moment, it seemed as if the world was upside down.

The warm fire illuminated the room, and outside the window was an endless expanse of cold white fog.

The man in the top hat sat on a large and comfortable sofa, with two cups of steaming tea on the table in front of him.

Obviously, the other party has been waiting here for a long time.

"Welcome to my courtyard."

Jiang Bing sat down, picked up the teacup and poured it into his mouth, not caring at all about the high temperature of sixty or seventy degrees.

"Gaunt O'Dimm, or the Man in the Top Hat, what should I call you."

Jiang Bing looked at Master Mirror, who only had two more mustaches, and his tone was full of "as expected".

"Whatever you want, the name is just a code name, right, 'Craftsman'."

Jiang Bing did not intend to respond to this and instead brought up other topics.

“Your business scope is so wide?”

"Of course, good fun doesn't come everywhere."

The tea in the cup was automatically filled up without me noticing.

Jiang Bing picked up the cup again, and the water reflected the real world.

"Master Mirror, you're not called that for nothing."

Gaunt O'Dimm stroked his mustache in a very down-to-earth manner and spoke in a normal tone.

"It's just a little trick."

"Tell me, what do you want me to do this time?"

"You're really turning the tables, dear Jiang, my friend. This time, you took the initiative to break into my home."

Jiang Bing stared at the other party's slightly exaggerated behavior, and sighed that he really did adapt to the local customs and imitated the manners of the gentlemen who claimed to be superior people in this era to perfection.

So he looked indifferent, as if to say, "Let me see how you perform."

"Alright, alright, I surrender. I just wanted to catch up with you, my old friend. After all, among the countless planes of existence, isn't it fate that we two met here?"

"I don't think so." The 'craftsman' stood up with the cup and walked to the door.

"There are too many coincidences, Gaunt O'Dimm. The traces of your existence are too strong and too conspicuous. It even makes people feel that you don't intend to hide at all."

"This is not your style." Jiang Bing said with a hint of meaning.

"what"

Master Mirror picked up the teacup, took a sip, and laughed in silence.

"Business must adapt to the market. In this remote and poor area, everyone likes to be direct, unlike the places I went before, where people prefer to be 'euphemistic'."

"You can be completely straightforward."

Jiang Bing interrupted.

"Of course, of course." Master Mirror put down his teacup.

"Are you asking me to collect the debt again?"

"No, no, no!" Master Mirror shook his head.

“Someone in Armadillo Town and Emerald Ranch does owe me a debt, but fortunately I can handle it myself in the near future.

Master Mirror shrugged. "You know, I have to follow my own set of 'rules'."

He snapped his fingers, and the rusty lantern that was constantly emitting white mist appeared on the table.

"Just to give you a gift, I believe you have seen it."

"I don't think you'd be so kind."

Chapter 213: Persuasion is beyond words

Jiang Bing walked to the door, put the teacup aside, and in the indifferent expression of the Mirror Master, he suddenly pulled open the door of the wooden house in the mirror.

Outside.

Everything was upside down, the sky and the earth lost their color, and endless fog filled the scorched earth.

Thousands of death birds squatted on the branches of the dead trees, staring at Jiang Bing, the uninvited guest, the visitor from the world of the living, with their shining scarlet eyes.

"Welcome to the world of the dead."

Jiang Bing turned around and found that Master Mirror was no longer in the room.

He stood far away in the black wilderness outside the door, waving to Jiang Bing to come over quickly.

At this time, Master Mirror was as thin as a piece of old pine tree scorched by lightning. He was wrapped in a black tuxedo with the edges so tattered that the flossing was visible.

The most eye-catching thing was the top hat on the other person's head. It was as black as if it was fished out from hellfire, and the brim of the hat was pulled down very low, revealing a pale chin... That was not the flesh of a living person at all, but rather a layer of moldy plaster, with a faint cold white light seeping through the cracks.

The lantern was now hung around the other person's waist, flickering a faint fluorescent light in the darkness.

Under the guidance of the other party, Jiang Bing set foot in the territory of the dead, the dimension of death for the first time.

Fortunately, he didn't feel unwell.

"Look at these lonely ghosts."

The faint fluorescent light emitted by the lantern on Master Mirror's waist illuminated the space in front of the two people.

This is a human figure made up of several balls of black mist, curled up on the ground, with skinny limbs like sticks, a ferocious face, and the long braid behind the back swinging constantly with the painful struggle.

"Chinese workers are yellow-skinned pigs, an endless stream of dying livestock."

Master Mirror put the lantern into Jiang Bing's hand and signaled him to hold it high.

Under the light, there was black fog everywhere, stretching into the distance with no end in sight.

In 1848, news of the discovery of gold in California spread across the ocean to the coast of Guangdong. Local fishermen, enchanted by the legend of "San Francisco awash in gold," were lured to the scene. Smugglers, holding up colorful flyers, enticed them with the slogan, "Go to America to mine, and build your ancestral temple in three years!" However, no one told them that the mines in San Francisco had long been occupied by whites, leaving the Chinese workers with abandoned pits with an 80% collapse rate.

Master Mirror was talking about some unknown history while leading Jiang Bing forward in the black wasteland. Countless echoes emerged under the light of the lanterns.

Death, these echoes are all distorted images of death at the end of life.

Shooting, burial by landslide, disease, beating to death, overwork, starvation, freezing to death, and torture.

"This resulted in an average of 20 Chinese miners dying from mining accidents or lung disease for every 100 ounces of gold they dug out, and miners with pneumoconiosis coughed up bloody phlegm that could dye half the tunnel red."

"Every gold mine entrance was filled with a ten-foot-high 'human bone sieve' – the further the gold sand was sent east, the more the tuberculosis-ridden blood of the Chinese workers soaked into the muddy western sand."

When construction of the Central Pacific Railroad began in 1863, a white foreman publicly declared, "Chinese are cheaper than mules, and when they die, they save money on coffins!" It was this railway that cost the lives of 1200 Chinese workers.

Master Mirror walked at a steady pace and spoke at a steady pace.

"Of course, this is just the official statement. In reality, up to that point, the number of Chinese workers who died in railway construction had reached 40298."

Master Mirror paused, then added, "There was just an accident where nitroglycerin explosives detonated prematurely. A whole group of 14 Chinese workers were blown into a bloody mist."

"So now it's 40312 people."

Jiang Bing held the lantern, listened to the other party's words, and remained silent.

Master Mirror chuckled, "Of course, their families can receive $3 in compensation from the railway company, which is quite a bit of money."