Chen Feng's finger bones struck sparks against the bronze lamp, and the smoke twisted into human faces that hovered in the archives room. This was a secret technique he'd discovered while alone in the Netherworld Security Bureau—ghost lanterns lit with corpse oil could illuminate the cycle of cause and effect. Amidst the swirling black fog, he suddenly saw an image: a rotting hand rising from an unnamed grave, clutching a silver-threaded rope. At the end of the rope were tied hundreds of dazed souls, like a string of captured fireflies.

"Soul-grabbing rope..." Chen Feng's pupils constricted, and he stared intently ahead. He'd seen it mentioned in ancient texts from the Hall of Hell. This craft required the eyeballs of nine hundred and ninety-nine unjustly deceased infants to forge, and for each soul captured, a new bone would be added to the rope.

Suddenly, countless ghost lanterns appeared ahead, their sparks erupting, and the images shattered into smoke. Chen Feng grabbed the Yin-Yang Order and rushed out of the archives room, only to run into the starving ghost team members gnaw on corpse rats in the corridor. These starving ghosts were incredibly greedy, their intestines still hanging from their mouths. Seeing him, they hurriedly knelt, and from their sleeves slipped a blood-stained jade token—the very registration token for the wandering souls who had disappeared a few days earlier.

"Speak!" Chen Feng stepped on the jade token, pressing the bronze token against the ghost's throat. "Who's been backing you since Wang Defa's death? If you dare to lie to me, I'll beat you to pieces, leaving you forever without hope."