Chapter 1445: Chapter 1445

The owner of the bookstore was an old woman with silver-white hair who sat in a rocking chair by the counter, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose. A basket of yarn rested on her lap, and her hands deftly manipulated a pair of long, thin wooden needles, knitting a sweater.

When the shop door creaked open, she lifted her head with a sluggish motion, her gaze sweeping over him for just a moment. After confirming he was a stranger, she said nothing—not even a word of welcome. Instead, she simply lowered her head and resumed her work with the red yarn.

Jenkins, taking his cue from her silence, said nothing and moved quietly between the bookshelves, searching for something to read.

The books on the shelves seemed as ancient as the old woman herself. As Jenkins examined them one by one, he discovered most had been published over twenty years ago. Aside from a few rural tabloids and a handful of fantasy novels tucked away in a corner, the shop felt more like a shabby museum of forgotten books.

“Excuse me, do you happen to have a copy of the Detective Knight Biography?”

Left with no other choice, Jenkins approached the counter to ask the owner.

“There are more books in the back warehouse. You can go look for yourself,” the owner replied without looking up.

Jenkins glanced around the shop. “By myself?”

He was implying that it seemed inappropriate for a complete stranger to enter her storeroom alone.

She grumbled under her breath. Left with no alternative, Jenkins pushed open the side door and stepped into the courtyard. A black hound was kept in the courtyard behind the shop, and due to the rain, it was curled up inside its doghouse.

At the sound of the door opening, the dog’s head shot up. Recognizing a stranger, it bolted from its shelter and erupted into a frenzy of barking. The chain fastened to its collar strained, stopping it from lunging at him.

Even without his newly acquired abilities, Jenkins could tell the dog saw him as an intruder. Unlike the wild animals that were naturally drawn to him, domesticated pets one seemed to have lost that spiritual intuition.

Jenkins spared the barking dog a single glance before walking around its house and entering the warehouse.

The warehouse hadn't been cleaned in ages; a thick layer of dust blanketed the floor. Jenkins had opened the door with a bit too much force, sending clouds of dust swirling into the air that made him choke and cough.

This warehouse was nowhere near as large as the one behind Pops Antique Shop, but the sheer number of old books, piled high in cardboard boxes, was still impressive.

Jenkins began to rummage through the boxes with keen interest and was surprised to find a first-edition copy of the first volume of the 'Detective Knight Biography'. But he, and the body's previous owner, had already read it many times over, so he decided to look for something else to pass the time during his dull stay in the town.

Before long, he stumbled upon an entire box of a book titled 'Black Town Secret Records'. According to the foreword, it was written by a third-rate author, a native of Black Town, who had compiled the local rumors and tales into a volume and managed to get it published. It was the newest book in the shop, published just three months ago. The author even mentioned Jenkins’s 'Stranger’s Story Collection,' explaining that the Nolan writer had inspired him to compile the strange local legends into a collection of folktales.

Judging by the stacks of unsold copies here, however, its sales had clearly been less than ideal.

“This one will do. It looks interesting enough.”

After a moment's thought, Jenkins picked up a copy and headed to the counter to pay.

That evening, after dinner, Jenkins decided against going out again. He washed up, changed into his pajamas, and was in bed by a little after eight. He extinguished all the lights, leaving only a single candle burning on the bedside table. Next to it sat a plate of small pastries and a cup of hot tea he’d brought up from the kitchen.

He slipped under the covers, propped his pillow upright, and gently lifted the cat that was resting beside it to retrieve the book from underneath. With a flick of his finger, he turned past the title page, foreword, and . The title of the first story immediately leaped out at him:

Ghouls in the Cemetery

A faint smile touched his lips as he began to read by candlelight. He soon realized it was a horror story, one passed down by word of mouth among the townsfolk, about a haunting in the public cemetery.

Like most frightening tales that circulate about city cemeteries, this one began with a rich backstory—a tragic and poignant love story. The tragic end to this romance resulted in two corpses, brimming with resentment, that returned from the grave not long after they were buried.

“Rather than ghouls, this sounds more like reanimated corpses. A type of low-level undead.”

Jenkins remarked, reaching out to stroke the back of the cat curled into a ball beside him. Chocolate squinted its eyes and let out a contented purr. Dıscover more novels at NoveI-Fire.ɴet

Even Jenkins found it easy to grow drowsy while reading in bed, and the warmth of the blankets combined with the dim candlelight only intensified his sleepiness.

The book was interesting, but after countless yawns, his eyelids grew heavy and began to close against his will. He wasn’t sure exactly when he drifted off, but by the time he became aware that he was dreaming, he was standing before the wrought-iron gate of the Black Town public cemetery.

The town church stood right beside the cemetery; Jenkins had passed it earlier that day. He turned his head and peered into the distance, where the church’s spire was just barely visible through a thin white mist.

It was presumably night, yet the sky above was starless and moonless. Everything was cloaked in a deep gloom, and a thick, white fog of dubious composition filled the air. The scene felt surreal, and Jenkins quickly realized he was dreaming—and that this was no ordinary dream.

Ever since he acquired the [Soul Departure from Dream] ability, he rarely dreamed. Any dream he was lucid enough to recognize as such was guaranteed to be anything but normal.

He sniffed the air, summoned his cane, and gave the iron gate a gentle push. It swung open with a piercing screech. A gravel path stretched out from his feet, leading deep into the cemetery before vanishing into the dense fog.

He stepped forward into the fog, his senses on high alert as he reached out with his spirit, probing for any signs of life within the cemetery. But the place was utterly devoid of life—not even weeds or ants. All he could sense were two masses of necrotic energy, the very antithesis of life.

“So it really is a dream? Could it be related to the book I was just reading?”

The deeper he ventured into the cemetery, the more he felt that something was amiss. He had every reason to believe a permanent Fear Aura ritual had been cast over the area, and the bone-chilling air felt like the environmental side effect of a high-level necromantic ritual. Though he still believed it to be a dream, it was startlingly realistic, with its own self-contained logic.

Suddenly, a whooshing sound reached his ears. It wasn't the wind, but something moving rapidly nearby.