The imagined scene of green fangs and a hideous face didn't appear.

But just because he didn't see it, didn't mean it wasn't there. The burnt smell in his nostrils repeatedly stimulated his nerves.

It made it clear that the thing was nearby.

Even...

Suddenly, the row of books in front of Shen Mengyun's face shook a few times. Jiang Cheng's brow twitched, and with quick eyes and hands, he grabbed Shen Mengyun's head and pressed her down.

The next second, a few books from the middle of the row were suddenly pulled out, falling to the ground with a crash.

Seeing this, Shen Mengyun's face turned white.

Jiang Cheng's right hand pressed on Shen Mengyun's head, and she crouched beside him, trembling all over.

After the books fell, a large gap was left on the bookshelf. Through this gap, one could stand directly in front of the bookshelf and see behind it.

At the same time, the wind suddenly became much stronger.

It blew in from the gap, carrying an extremely strong burnt smell.

Now the situation was very clear: the invisible charred ghost was standing in front of the bookshelf, and the straight-line distance between them was probably less than a meter.

There was only a bookshelf in between.

Pulling out the books was also to confirm whether someone was hiding behind.

Looking with the corner of his eye, the gap was empty, there was nothing.

But Jiang Cheng and Shen Mengyun both understood that the charred ghost was probably pressing its face there, a pair of burnt eye sockets staring inside.

This scene was visualized in Shen Mengyun's mind, causing her to feel lingering fear.

If Jiang Cheng had pressed her hand a second later, or had planned to abandon her and buy himself time to escape, she would have faced the ghost face-to-face, and the consequences would have been unimaginable.

This man... unknowingly, he had saved her twice.

Jiang Cheng didn't have time to think about what Shen Mengyun thought of him. His mind was racing, and he had noticed an illogical aspect of the ghost.

From the fact that the charred ghost would create a gap to check behind the bookshelf, it could be seen that it had sensed that someone was nearby, and was very likely hiding in the gap between the bookshelf and the wall.

In that case, why didn't it remove more books, or simply push the bookshelf over?

It would be easy for it to do so.

If that were the case, he and Shen Mengyun would have been caught, at least one of them.

But it didn't.

Instead, it chose a method that, in Jiang Cheng's eyes, was both laborious and stupid, making a hole in the middle of the row of books.

Combined with the fact that the charred ghost would step on Gao Yan's footprints and sneak over to look, this ghost couldn't be that stupid.

So that only left one explanation.

This was a restriction imposed on the ghost in the mission.

Before seeing someone with its own eyes, the ghost couldn't make overly drastic actions. All its actions were, in the final analysis, probes, giving people a cautious feeling.

Continuing down this line of thinking, Jiang Cheng tentatively guessed that the premise for this ghost to kill was that it had to see the person with its own eyes.

And it had to be at a very close range.

Otherwise, Shen Mengyun and Gao Yan would never have been able to escape here alive.

The ghost must have discovered or noticed them.

They were being chased by the ghost.

Could it be... Jiang Cheng frowned slightly. Were the conditions for this ghost to kill even more stringent, requiring it to catch or touch the person?

Because there were no victims yet, all the conditions for the ghost to kill were just speculation.

"Teng—"

His ears twitched, and a slight sound came from a distance, as if a very heavy table had been moved, its corner scraping against the floor.

Immediately afterwards, the wind blowing in from the gap suddenly disappeared.

Then, the pungent burnt smell gradually faded.

It seemed that the ghost had been attracted by the sound and left the bookshelf.

Only after the burnt smell had completely disappeared did Jiang Cheng let out a long breath, cold sweat having unknowingly appeared on his forehead.

Sure enough, being separated from such a ghost by only a bookshelf, the psychological pressure one had to endure was not something ordinary people could withstand.

Shen Mengyun's legs were weak, and Jiang Cheng had to turn sideways to help her up.

"Th...thank you, Mr. Jiang," Shen Mengyun said, looking at Jiang Cheng. She suddenly realized that this man was not the unreliable person she had initially thought him to be.

He was actually a very sincere person.

"How are you?" Jiang Cheng asked after taking a breath.

"I'm fine. If it weren't for you just now, I'm afraid I would have..." Recalling the scene just now, Shen Mengyun's face couldn't help but turn pale.

The empty space on the bookshelf and the scattered books on the ground were constantly reminding her that she had been only a hair's breadth away from death.

After a moment of contemplation, Jiang Cheng didn't rashly go out. "I only saw you and Gao Yan running over just now. Where's Wang Qi?"

When everyone had initially split up to find places to hide, Jiang Cheng remembered that Wang Qi had been ahead of them.

He should have encountered the ghost earlier.

"Wang Qi..." Shen Mengyun frowned. "I didn't see him. He separated from us after running for a while, but he should be fine."

It seemed that Wang Qi had avoided the ghost's search.

"How were you discovered?" Jiang Cheng nodded and continued to ask.

At the mention of this, Shen Mengyun's face turned ugly, and her full chest heaved violently. The two were very close, and Jiang Cheng was taller than her, so his eyes would occasionally glance down.

"I wasn't discovered by that ghost. Gao Yan was discovered. I was hiding well, but he ran over and attracted the ghost as well," Shen Mengyun said quickly.

"Do you know how that ghost discovered him?" Jiang Cheng asked curiously.

After taking a few breaths, Shen Mengyun slowly calmed down and nodded. "I know. I was hiding under a table not far from him. He was hiding between two bookshelves, and I could see him from where I was."

"At first, everything was fine, but after a while, he reached out and took something off the bookshelf. The light was too dim, and I didn't see what it was."

"About... about less than 10 seconds later, that ghost came over. No, it was like... like it suddenly appeared, and the smell became pungent in an instant." As if recalling the scene at the time, Shen Mengyun clenched her fingers slightly, feeling nervous.

"Hourglass," Jiang Cheng said after a moment of thought.

"Yes, I also think it was an hourglass," Shen Mengyun said in a low voice. "But I didn't think so much at the time. Seeing Gao Yan running towards me, I panicked and ran along with him. I didn't expect to sprain my... my ankle along the way."

After saying that, Shen Mengyun raised her head. "If it weren't for meeting you, Mr. Jiang, I'm afraid I would have..."

Jiang Cheng directly ignored the rest of her words. It seemed that the reason they were exposed was entirely because Gao Yan had moved an hourglass without permission.

In the library, hourglasses were everywhere. There was one on the bookshelf in front of them.

At first, they had thought that hourglasses only had the function of starting the mission and providing time prompts, but now it seemed that they were more than that.