Shhh...

The five fingernails slowly lifted on the back of Wang Congshan’s head, slightly tilting upward,

then five gray-black fingers extended from below.

Li Ang’s pupils shrank, his brain rapidly processing, flashing back through all the experiences from when the two entered the village until now, as they walked towards the courtyard of the Hiratsuka Family Residence.

What is this hand, and why is it appearing behind Wang Congshan’s head?

After entering the Hiratsuka Family Residence, Li Ang released the level-zero superpower of the Psychic Prophecy System, [Fuzzy Intuition], at regular intervals, with a certain probability of roughly sensing whether the next actions would be good or bad,

but until now, he hadn’t sensed any threat at all.

Was it that [Fuzzy Intuition] just happened to fail,

or had this hand already parasitically attached itself before they entered the Hiratsuka Residence,

or was the hand only targeting Wang Congshan, not Li Ang, hence the Spiritual Energy detection didn’t take effect...

In an instant, the five fingers continued climbing out from the back of Wang Congshan’s head, revealing a gray-black, bloodless-looking palm, wrist, and even a half-exposed arm.

It was as if someone were trying to crawl out of her head.

Wang Congshan felt her hair suddenly lift, followed by an itch and prickling pain at the back of her head, an inexplicable weight pressing down, causing her head to droop uncontrollably.

She immediately realized what was happening, a shiver ran over her scalp, a chill surged through her body, and instinctively she raised her gun, aiming at the back of her head.

"Wait a second!"

Li Ang raised his hand to hold down the gun in Wang Congshan’s hand, at this moment, he too felt the weight dragging down the back of his head,

but his gaze was firmly fixed on a lantern hanging in the front courtyard.

The lantern was the only light source facing this corridor, currently emitting light, casting its beam into the corridor.

With the help of the Level-One Superpower [Extended Vision] of the Psychic Prophecy System, Li Ang, facing forward, could also see a similar gray-black arm growing out from the back of his own head.

The sensation of having a hand growing from the back of his head was extremely bizarre, not painful, but accompanied by a dizzying sense of his Sanity Value rapidly disappearing.

Li Ang’s hair fluttered despite no wind, Spiritual Energy quietly flowed, releasing a paralysis hint towards the gray-black arm at the back of his head.

Ghosts, specifically those entities that are not anomalous phenomena but possess individual independence, can be affected by Spiritual Energy,

[Paralysis Hint], though just a Level-One superpower, can cause a spirit at this level to experience slight sluggishness or even complete halt.

The manifestation of Spiritual Energy took effect, and the gray-black arm at the back of Li Ang’s head indeed went limp,

however, at the same time, Li Ang’s own right arm, suspended in mid-air, inexplicably lost sensation and control, hanging limply, as if completely severed from feeling.

As expected.

Li Ang took a deep breath, not bothering with the arm behind his head, and used his still functioning left hand to grab Wang Congshan’s shoulder, pulling her back,

both retreating from the corridor, back to the courtyard entrance, causing the gray-black arms behind their heads to dissipate accordingly.

"What just happened..."

Wang Congshan felt a lightness behind her head, the sensation of her sanity slipping away finally stopping.

"It’s the light."

Li Ang quickly explained: "The arms extending from the back of our heads aren’t evil spirits, they’re our own shadows.

The lantern in the courtyard has a problem, the light it emits can activate our shadows.

If we attack our own shadows, the damage reflects back onto ourselves,

like so."

He lifted his right shoulder, the shoulder moved freely, but the arm below it remained limp and powerless.

"I didn’t realize at first until I noticed the outline of the shadow arm, from the fingernails to the palm, was identical to our own hands."

Li Ang slowly exhaled, explaining: "My right middle finger bends slightly to the left due to pressing too hard when writing in the past.

And you have the habit of trimming your nails into an oval, slightly trapezoidal shape."

"Hmm?"

Wang Congshan instinctively glanced at her hand, she indeed liked to trim her nails neatly, parallel to her fingers, but under such circumstances, for Li Ang to notice was quite remarkable.

"Sanity Value dropped by about... ten percent or so."

Li Ang estimated the loss, shaking his right arm, which was slowly regaining sensation, and said: "If we stay in the lantern’s light any longer, the loss could worsen,

and if our shadows fully detach, something very unpleasant might happen."

"So what do we do now?"

Wang Congshan frowned, "According to the map, there are only two routes to the courtyard, if we don’t take this one, we’ll have to return to the foyer and loop through the left corridor again."

"Going back is not an option."

Li Ang pursed his lips, "The courtyard’s lantern, like the hemp ropes in the Rope Corridor, is an anomaly.

Such anomalies may also exist elsewhere in the Hiratsuka Residence, returning to the foyer and re-entering the left corridor might expose us to new dangers..."

He pondered seriously, and to Wang Congshan’s amazement, he used the Secondary Creation Technique to craft a long brown cloak with a large hood.

The cloak was thickly made, its surface covered with mirror fragments, looking dazzling,

its hood round, with two protruding viewing holes,

the overall shape resembled the lion skin in lion dance props.

"We will wear this to pass through the corridor, using the mirror fragments on the lion skin to reflect the light and cancel out the shadow."

Li Ang fiddled with the lion skin, slipped into it, skillfully holding up the lion head, and performed a brief dance on the spot, "If my calculations are correct, this should allow us to evade the light’s effects.

Do you have any questions?"

Wang Congshan looked at Li Ang holding up the lion head with a serious expression, a twitch in her eye, the lion dance prop brown like loess, its surface covered with scales of glass fragments, looked rather unsightly, "...Why can’t you just make a giant mirror, why use a lion dance prop?"