The man was utterly useless. As a ghost himself, he’d cornered two ordinary people. Not only had he failed to finish off Lu Liangting, he’d nearly been burned to death. Perhaps his only remaining purpose was to serve as nourishment for her.
It was a pity she hadn’t managed to devour Lu Liangting’s ghost, reducing his arsenal by one card. But it wasn’t a major issue—that ghost’s power was very weak, even weaker than the worthless male ghost.
Spirit fire blazed in the corridor. Bai Yu cast a deep look at Lu Liangting, ignored him, and vanished sideways, slipping directly into Zhao Mingyue’s shadow.
Once inside her shadow, she didn’t forget to remind her, “Mingyue, don’t reveal our relationship. This is critical.”
Zhao Mingyue wanted to say something but stopped. She glanced behind her and gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Nearby, Lu Liangting felt rather awkward. Bai Yu had completely ignored him.
In Lu Liangting’s mind, ghosts were actually far easier to deal with than humans. To him, the human heart was the most complex and untrustworthy thing. He could see through a person’s surface actions but never their inner heart. Ghosts, however, were different. Ghosts were formed from the lingering obsessions of the dead, and because of this, most ghosts were surprisingly simple.
They were either purely evil, purely good, or simply acted for a single, straightforward purpose.
With an evil ghost, there was naturally nothing to discuss.
But inherently kind ghosts were largely pitiable souls. If he could help, he would. Such ghosts were rare. They lingered either because of an unresolved obsession in their hearts or because some restriction bound them, unable to leave. Either way, their fates were quite tragic.
In his experience, this kind of ghost suffered the most. An obsession in life, unresolved after death, tormenting them every moment. If it was the latter case, it meant they were being influenced by another evil ghost. Without help, they would forever be trapped in that tiny, confined space.
To him, Bai Yu naturally fell into the category of a good ghost.
If she were an evil ghost, he would already be dead on the fifth floor.
“Lu Liangting, we have to get out of here, now!” Zhao Mingyue grabbed Lu Liangting’s arm and pulled him toward the exit. The room behind them barely had any footing left. Every piece of furniture was ablaze, and even the floorboards were roaring with fire.
“It’s fine, don’t mind me.”
Lu Liangting held his head as he stood, still dizzy and groggy. He glanced at the magic staff in Zhao Mingyue’s hand, momentarily at a loss for words. She was the one who’d knocked him out with that thing, wasn’t she?
And another thing: Why had he run into her here?
His mind full of questions, Lu Liangting followed Zhao Mingyue back into the corridor. That was when he suddenly remembered there was still a lunatic out here.
Supporting himself against the wall, Lu Liangting had just emerged when he saw Zhao Mingyue raise her magic staff with both hands and smash the female ghost lurking in the darkness to the ground. At that moment, the raincoat man let out a strange cry and charged. Immediately after, Zhao Mingyue slammed her staff hard into his arm.
The raincoat man was, after all, a living person. Lu Liangting heard a sickening crack that made his own teeth ache. He figured the raincoat man’s arm was definitely broken. Luckily, Zhao Mingyue hadn’t hit him with that much force earlier; otherwise, it wouldn’t have just been a little blood.
Standing in the burning corridor, Zhao Mingyue panted heavily, her chest heaving.
This was only the second time she’d used the deadly weapon in her hands to bludgeon someone. Watching the raincoat man collapse, clutching his arm and wailing, she silently apologized in her heart. She glanced back at Lu Liangting, her eyes signaling him to follow, then sprinted toward the staircase.
Some time had been lost; the fire in the corridor was now raging fiercely.
Strangely enough, while the flames in the room felt scorching hot, the fire in the corridor was the opposite. Zhao Mingyue felt wave after wave of chill seeping in from all directions, penetrating every pore of her body.
This cold defied description. It felt as though it wasn’t her body freezing, but her very soul.
Zhao Mingyue recalled an online post she’d seen before. One article reported that a tenant in Tomorrow Apartment had been found frozen to death inside his unit in the middle of August. The police found no useful clues at the scene and had preliminarily ruled out homicide.
She couldn’t understand it. How could this building, where so many had died, still not be condemned? Just a name change and it continued to be rented out.
Clutching a rusty key in her hand, Zhao Mingyue mustered her strength and charged to the fifth floor.
In that short time, the fifth floor had undergone an earth-shattering transformation. Dark red spirit fire crawled across the ceiling, consuming everything. Distorted human faces were emerging from the walls of every room. These faces screamed silently, as if enduring immense agony.
Looking down the corridor, at least a dozen faces lined the walls on both sides—men and women, old and young.
As they writhed in torment, these faces noticed Zhao Mingyue. One by one, their eyes snapped open, rasping to her in hoarse, terrifying voices, begging for help.
“Save me!”
“Pain! Such pain!”
“It hurts so much!”
“My head, where is my head?!”
“Please, save me, save me! Why won’t you save me?!”
Like a drowning person clutching at straws, they all saw Zhao Mingyue as their last hope.
But if Zhao Mingyue actually went to them, not only would she fail to save them, she would be dragged down herself, becoming a new face among the many on the walls.
Her vision seemed to be overlaid with a red filter. The walls weren’t white anymore, but a chaotic blend of crimson and black, and the burning flames were the color of blood.
In this atmosphere, the faces on the walls continued their relentless howling. If it were just one or two, it might be bearable. But a dozen shouting at once—she couldn’t make out a word. It only made her feel a splitting headache and a surge of irritation.
Forcing her way through the sea of fire toward the corridor’s depths, Zhao Mingyue passed several doors before suddenly noticing two rooms with their doors wide open and no faces on their walls.
“Did the monsters inside get out?”
Filing that worrying thought away, she was already at the door to Room 506.
Lu Liangting followed behind, still holding his head. He was clever. Seeing Zhao Mingyue holding the key, he understood everything. Everyone had secrets; there was no need to interrogate her.
“Mingyue, let me open it.”
Zhao Mingyue had already slid the key into the lock. She turned her head to Lu Liangting, gently shook her head in refusal, twisted the key, and pushed the door open.
A foul stench assaulted them. Zhao Mingyue staggered back two steps. Lu Liangting, however, seemed not to notice it at all. He froze for a brief moment, then stepped right inside.
Zhao Mingyue moved to follow, but Bai Yu suddenly materialized, blocking her path.
“Don’t go in. The kid’s trapped in an illusion realm right now. He’s likely been sent back to the day the female ghost was burned alive.”
Bai Yu narrowed her eyes. In the instant before the door to Room 506 slammed shut, she glimpsed a woman standing inside the room.
“Mingyue, get ready. Your quest will be over very soon.”
·
