# 347
**Chapter 347: The Paper Man Behind the Window**
"Someone's there?"
Hearing this, Cao Yuan and An Qingyu furrowed their brows simultaneously, readying themselves for battle. Baili Pangpang's face turned pale as he stammered:
"Is... is it a living person or... a dead one?"
"If it's watching us from behind a window, of course it's alive!" Cao Yuan couldn't help but retort.
"No." Lin Qiye stared at the pitch-black window, his other hand slowly tightening around the hilt of his Straight Blade. He took a deep breath and spoke hoarsely:
"That's not a living person... You all need to prepare yourselves mentally."
Not a living person?
An Qingyu turned toward the window, a gray hue surfacing in his eyes. Moments later, he froze completely.
"How is this possible..."
Cao Yuan's pupils contracted slightly as he instinctively shifted his flashlight beam toward the window, trying to get a clearer look...
The bright light swept across the dilapidated gray wall and pierced into the dark hollow. Behind the tattered brown-red wooden frame, a deathly pale human face was pressed tightly against the wall. A pair of pitch-black eyes—completely devoid of whites—stared straight at the four of them downstairs!
The face was bizarre. It lacked the three-dimensionality of a normal human face, instead appearing eerily flat. Slanted, thin eyebrows, jet-black eyes, crimson lips... There was no nose—only two dark, gaping holes where it should have been.
The instant he saw that face, Cao Yuan felt a chill shoot from the soles of his feet straight to his brain. Every hair on his body stood on end.
This was no human!
It was clearly a paper effigy used in funerals!
Baili Pangpang's heart lurched at the sight. Thanks to the rigorous mental conditioning from training camp, he didn't scream outright. Instead, he bit his lip hard, wordlessly pulled out a string of Buddhist beads from his pocket, and shoved them into Cao Yuan's hand.
"What are you doing?" Cao Yuan jumped.
"Aren't you a monk! Take the beads—chant a sutra and banish it!" Baili Pangpang whispered frantically, his face as white as paper.
Cao Yuan: "......"
After being illuminated by the flashlight, the ghastly paper face flickered and vanished into the darkness. Lin Qiye's pupils shrank. Sword in hand, he shot into the building like lightning, shouting:
"Catch it! Don't let it escape!"
Yet someone was faster than him.
An Qingyu had already bolted ahead. Behind his glasses, his eyes locked onto the window where the paper figure had vanished. He flipped out a scalpel used for dissection, pressed flat against the wall, and sprinted vertically up the side of the building, his face alight with excitement and scientific curiosity!
Seeing Lin Qiye charge in, Cao Yuan followed right behind. Only Baili Pangpang stood frozen, clutching the beads. A second later he too tore after them.
"Don't leave me!!"
Inside the light-swallowing building, Lin Qiye moved like a blur. In under two seconds he reached the room the paper figure had occupied; simultaneously, An Qingyu vaulted in through the window.
But the paper man was gone.
"It leapt out that way—toward the woods." Lin Qiye tracked every movement within his perception. He immediately dove out the opposite window.
After stepping into the River Realm, the range of his Mortal Divine Realm had soared to five hundred meters. Though the paper figure was fast, it couldn't escape his senses in such a short time.
The four abandoned the derelict logging camp and sprinted full-tilt into the forest beyond!
A paper effigy appearing in a remote, long-abandoned lumber camp deep in the mountains was already bizarre; Lin Qiye and the others naturally weren't about to let it go.
The paper body seemed weightless. Riding the night wind, it glided vast distances with each light leap, then drifted down into the depths of the woods.
Lin Qiye's group chased for a long while but couldn't close the gap; instead, they fell farther behind until the figure vanished from sight.
Lin Qiye frowned and halted beneath the trees.
Roughly half a minute later, Cao Yuan and the others caught up. They glanced around—no paper man—and sighed in resignation.
In truth, Lin Qiye could have kept up. In the darkness his speed was already terrifying; add the boost of Skyward Bard and he stood a good chance of overtaking it. But Cao Yuan and the rest lacked such means. If he pushed on alone, he'd only split the team. Stranded in this vast primeval forest, that would spell real trouble.
Baili Pangpang panted, "Qiye, what on earth was that thing?"
"No life signs, no spiritual-energy response, no trace of Forbidden Ruins manipulation..." Lin Qiye pondered, then shook his head. "It doesn't feel like a Mystery. But what it actually is, I have no idea."
An Qingyu exhaled in disappointment. "If only I could dissect it."
Cao Yuan seemed to recall something. Uncertain, he said, "Doesn't what just happened... sound familiar?"
The other three froze.
"A deathly pale face, indistinct features, human yet... not." An Qingyu murmured, "Now that I think of it, it matches a legend I once heard."
"Don't tell me that legend is real?" Baili Pangpang blurted. "The lumberjack who vanished—he saw the same paper man we just did?"
"The location fits an old logging camp..." Lin Qiye's brows knit. "Place, event—everything aligns. Too much of a coincidence."
"If the paper-man part is true," Cao Yuan asked, "what about the rest of the story?"
"Which part?"
"The eternal realm of the dead said to lie deep within the forest."
Everyone fell silent.
An everlasting kingdom of the dead hidden in the heart of the primeval woods? It sounded like fantasy—yet they'd just confirmed one piece of the legend was real...
Mysterious red giant ants, an elusive queen's nest, a paper man that appeared from nowhere and vanished into the night, and tales of an eternal realm of the dead deep in the mountains...
Lin Qiye gazed up at the dense black canopy and the distant ridges cloaked in night, then let out a long sigh.
"The secrets of this place run far deeper than we imagined."