Not sure if it was because he had exhausted too much physical strength in the struggle with Shadow Wraith, or due to his own psychological reasons, but Adam Carter clearly felt that his running speed had slowed down this time, as if his legs were weighed down with sandbags.

Passing by the glass window of a clothing store, three mannequins stood silently in the crimson glow.

Two of the mannequins wore fashionable, bright clothes;

The third stood to the side, her clothes neither bright nor trendy, but it was the lack of a head that made her stand out.

The distance between the fork in the road and the small temple was not far.

So even though Adam Carter's stamina had dropped, he still quickly ran to the front of the small temple.

Bathed in the orange glow emanating from the temple, Adam Carter felt as if all his physical and mental fatigue was relieved, and an inexplicable sense of security arose in his heart.

Even the ghost hand, which had been restless and needed to be constantly suppressed with the Henry Grant, quieted down a lot.

He frequently used the Henry Grant to suppress the ghost hand, and thus discovered that the sound of the Henry Grant could not affect the Lantern Wraith.

Each palace lantern, as if soaked in fresh blood, continued to spin in the sky as usual; not a single lantern paused for even a moment because of the sound of the Henry Grant.

The crimson light quietly faded away,

Neon lights flashed all around,

The whole place was silent.

Adam Carter stood in the orange glow, examining the small temple before him.

It truly was a small temple built of bricks, abruptly "squeezed" out between the cake shop on the left and the blind massage parlor on the right. There was no plaque, no house number, and it was not connected to the floors above at all.

"Was there always a temple like this on the street?"

"I've never seen it before."

"It seems to have just appeared out of nowhere."

With confusion lingering in his mind, Adam Carter pushed open the half-closed, black-painted temple door, stepped over a wooden threshold, and entered. Immediately, he smelled a strong scent of smoke and fire.

He remembered that when he was a child living in his hometown in the countryside, there was a land god temple at the entrance of his street.

Because a group of old men would hide in the temple all day bragging and telling ghost stories, the various kinds of dry tobacco they smoked, the fires they lit in the temple to keep warm—all these smells mixed together were much like the scent in this small temple now.

There were no deity statues in this temple.

No incense burner, offering table, or merit box.

There was only a stone "candle stand" as thick as a bucket, connected to the ground, with an orange flame burning on top.

No one knew what fuel the flame was burning, but its very presence brought Adam Carter infinite peace.

Chapter 11: The Weirdness in the Work Group

Adam Carter sat down against the wall and rested for a while.

A heavy fatigue kept welling up in him, and even though the firelight in the temple shone on him, it only slightly eased his exhaustion.

Moreover, the area under his ribs, where he was connected to the ghost hand, seemed to have developed layers of wrinkles.

Frowning, Adam Carter struggled to unzip his jacket and saw that the skin under his right armpit, where it connected to the ghost hand, was loose and saggy, like the skin of an old person.

There were even abnormal dark spots appearing on the skin.

What was happening?

—Would the ghost hand cause my bodily functions to decline, my vitality to drain away?!

Adam Carter instantly thought of a possibility. Looking at the quiet, pitch-black arm, he felt that every part of it was filled with evil—using the Gavin Hall could actually have such severe consequences!

He must never recklessly use the Gavin Hall in reality!

Next time he simulated, he had to try escaping using only the Henry Grant!

Time passed slowly. The crimson glow outside the temple would light up and then fade, fade and then light up again, repeating several times. Each time, the duration of the crimson glow varied, and the period of darkness and silence before the glow returned was also unpredictable.

The shortest lasted only a few breaths, the longest nearly ten minutes.

Taking advantage of this time, Adam Carter propped himself up and first flipped through the contents of his notebook.

‘April 10.

I have a premonition that something bad might happen, so I resigned from the company and used this time to make some preparations.’

‘April 11.

I slept in today, all the way until 2 p.m.

Preparations can’t be rushed, I’ll deal with them tomorrow.’

‘April 12.

Night fishing all night, slept during the day.’

‘April 13.

Slept in until noon, after lunch bought a map of Mingzhou City and a map of Huayang County.

The landlord and the couple upstairs had a fight, saying who knows what they’re doing in their room, even caused mold to grow on the wall—must be the landlord’s problem, right?

I see mold starting to grow in my room too.’

……

Adam Carter closed the notebook.

Even though he now possessed the Simulator, his future self never mentioned this item in the diary.

The Simulator is the variable of the present; the future is the result of the present.

The result can, to some extent, reflect the effect of the variable. For example, his future self began consciously buying maps, paying attention to changes in the room in advance, and making preparations due to a bad premonition.

But the result is already set; the variable can no longer be used.

Aside from sleeping in, there was still a lot of useful information in the notebook.

First, the mold had already started growing upstairs on the 13th, and the landlord even quarreled with the couple upstairs because of it, which showed that the mold area upstairs must have been quite large.

Then, on the 14th, three murders occurred nearby.