220 Trying to Drive
Everything was ready, and as Yang Jian looked at the mature and alluring Zhang Liqin before him, his attention wasn’t on her figure but rather on her slightly bulging belly.
He was well aware of what a forming Ghost Infant meant.
Although he didn’t know if this Ghost Infant was related to the one Zhou Zheng had encountered before, the pressing matter was to extract it now.
If a few more days passed and Zhang Liqin became too deeply eroded by the Ghost Infant, it would be too late to save her.
She could only wait for death.
“I need to make some attempts, don’t be nervous,” Yang Jian instructed, standing in front of her.
Zhang Liqin’s body tensed up, and she nodded solemnly.
“First attempt,” Yang Jian thought to himself.
In the next moment, red light emitted from his body, and the Ghost Eye on his forehead opened instantly, shrouding Zhang Liqin within the Ghost Domain.
“No effect?” he wondered, looking at her slightly raised stomach.
The Ghost Infant showed no reaction, nor did it resist, smoothly entering the Ghost Domain.
“Just as I had speculated, time for the second attempt,” Yang Jian said without hesitation, his shadow immediately began to change underneath him.
The black shadow thickened like ink, flowing slowly on the ground like mercury before rising from the floor.
Soon, a headless shadow eerily stood behind him.
For Zhang Liqin, it was her first time seeing Yang Jian’s true form so clearly—it was indeed eerie and terrifying because she knew in her heart that neither the extra red eye nor the tall black figure behind him was human, but two truly terrifying ghosts.
The Ghost Shadow slowly approached her.
As they almost touched each other, Zhang Liqin felt a cold aura drawing near, causing her hair to stand on end and goosebumps to appear on her pale skin, a chill spreading from the soles of her feet throughout her body.
“Behave yourself,” Yang Jian said sternly.
“Yes, sorry,” Zhang Liqin’s complexion turned grim.
“Not you, I was referring to my shadow. It wishes to possess your body. The nature of a fierce ghost still lingers; it would lose control if I suppressed it.”
After Yang Jian finished speaking, the body of the Ghost Shadow suddenly split open with several cracks, and within those black openings hid several crimson eyes, a total of five.
The appearance of the Ghost Eyes immediately brought the Ghost Shadow’s movements to a halt, freezing in place, unable to move.
“You can only move where I permit,” Yang Jian said.
He closed one of the Ghost Eyes on the body of the Ghost Shadow, and one of its black arms regained movement.
This time it behaved.
The arm of the Ghost Shadow reached towards Zhang Liqin’s slightly bulging belly.
“Yang, Yang Jian?” Confronted with such a strange situation, even Zhang Liqin, no matter how composed, began to succumb to fear and panic.
“It’s okay, trust me,” Yang Jian said, furrowing his brow deeply.
The Ghost Shadow’s hand had no substance and, like an actual shadow, it passed directly through Zhang Liqin’s pale skin and into her belly.
But the next moment, the attempt failed.
The Ghost Shadow’s hand passed right through Zhang Liqin’s body without touching the Ghost Infant inside.
“The second attempt has failed, just as imagined,” Yang Jian wasn’t surprised because all this was within his considerations.
As expected, if Zhang Liqin’s body became ethereal, the Ghost Infant would also become ethereal, and the Ghost Shadow wouldn’t be able to touch it.
So, the only way to perfectly extract the Ghost Infant was to make Zhang Liqin’s body ethereal while the Ghost Infant remained solid.
Of course, raw force could also extract it, but that would kill the person.
Yang Jian was here to save a life, not take one, and he wouldn’t resort to overly aggressive methods.
“Has that thing been taken out?” Zhang Liqin, trembling slightly, if it hadn’t been for Yang Jian’s calm presence, she would have screamed and run away by now.
Yang Jian said, “One last attempt is needed. If this also fails, your situation will become very dire. But don’t be afraid, I’m eighty percent confident in the third attempt. However, it requires a bit of time to prepare. Stay here and wait for me.”
The third attempt involved merging the Ghost Domain with the Ghost Eye, enabling a perfect synergy of the two powers to extract the Ghost Infant.
And this required a medium.
The medium was Yang Jian’s own body, for he was a ghost controller.
Only Yang Jian himself could blend the abilities of two formidable ghosts, as ghosts do not naturally synergize with each other.
“So I’ve returned to the starting point once again,” he mused. “The method described on the human skin scroll, hanging in front of the Ghost Mirror, resurrecting from death, and perfectly controlling the revived Ghost Shadow?”
Yang Jian felt as if he had unconsciously retraced his old steps.
Could he have been tricked?
Let that be for now, since it’s an experiment, there’s no need to take undue risks; a small trial would suffice.
Yang Jian suddenly looked at his right hand.
Merging just one hand would mean that the risks were controllable, even in the event of failure.
“Hmm, that’s what I’ll do,” Yang Jian nodded.