That thing hadn’t left yet!
Zhao Mingyue’s pupils constricted. Her body, having just relaxed, went rigid again.
Hadn’t the game ended? Why was this happening? Was the game only responsible for summoning a Ghostly Monster, not for sending it back!?
She was absolutely certain this reedy, masculine voice belonged to the very thing that had been calling her name and pounding on the door earlier. From the beginning, she had felt the voice was familiar, but she couldn’t recall where she had heard it.
During the game, in her trance-like state, she couldn’t hear it clearly. Now that the voice was distinct, the image of a thin, frail man surfaced in her mind.
She knew who the ghost outside was. No wonder the voice sounded so familiar, and no wonder it knew her name.
She recalled that when she first moved here half a year ago, an upstairs neighbor had kindly helped her carry her suitcase inside. Initially, she thought this middle-aged man was decent. Though unkempt and reeking heavily of smoke and alcohol, he seemed alright.
But a month later, her opinion had changed.
One night, she had been at a friend’s house and didn’t return until past 11 PM. Heading upstairs, she saw someone standing outside her door, seemingly peering inside. Hearing her footsteps, the person had hurried away.
That person was the same neighbor who had helped her with her luggage upstairs.
Every night after that, at 11:30 PM, she could see that man’s face through the peephole in her door. Once, as she leaned in to look through the peephole, she saw a single, bloodshot eye staring back.
She had even called the Police. Being spied on for three consecutive days, she was terrified. When the Police came, lacking evidence, they merely gave the man a verbal warning upstairs and left.
On the fourth day, the man stopped appearing. It remained that way for a month, except every night at midnight, she could hear coughing from the apartment above.
It lasted a whole month. That night, she heard the rustling sound outside her door again. The man was indeed outside, peeping. His face was terribly pale, his eyes frighteningly red, his skin a ghastly, bloodless blue like a corpse’s face. But he vanished in a flash.
The next day, the Police came. She hadn’t called them; the Landlord had.
That day, the Police carried a highly decomposed body out from upstairs. It was that man. The suspected cause of death was alcohol poisoning.
“It’s him, it has to be him!”
Zhao Mingyue clutched the rabbit doll tightly, retreating into a corner.
The mirror behind her was split down the middle. A man’s figure had appeared in the reflection at some unknown point.
That wasn’t even the worst situation. What was terrible was that the mirror’s perspective seemed to be from the bathroom door. Because behind the man was the corridor connecting the living room to the bathroom, Zhao Mingyue couldn’t be sure if this ghost would emerge from the mirror, or from behind the door itself.
Death was not the greatest despair; the despair lay in the wait for death.
“Boom! Boom! Boom!”
The pounding on the door started again, accompanied by violent shaking of the mirror. Through the mirror, she could see the man using his hands to hammer madly against its surface. A venomous voice, squeezed through gritted teeth, came from all directions.
“If you don’t answer me, I’m coming in!”
The man in the mirror was no longer a Black Shadow. His ghastly blue, horribly decomposed face was practically pressed against the reflective surface. When he looked up, rotting flesh stuck to the mirror. Zhao Mingyue could see most of his gumline, his yellowing, nearly black teeth swaying right before her eyes.
His black cotton pajamas were covered in dark red bloodstains and disgusting vomit. Beneath the fabric, it seemed like patches of maggots were writhing.
His eyeballs had long since liquefied. He slammed his head against the mirror. The mirror shuddered and filled with cracks, splitting the man’s horrifying face into hundreds of fragments. At the same time, the door burst open a sliver with a loud bang.
It all happened too fast. Zhao Mingyue was backed into the corner.
She was truly afraid, but her mind was exceptionally calm in that moment.
She’d had this disposition since childhood; the more critical the situation, the calmer she became.
Unfortunately, being calm was useless. The bathroom window was impossible to climb out of, and the door was blocked. In this cramped space, forget about a weapon—the only thing she had to hold was the toilet plunger in the corner.
It was laughable, really. The only thing giving her a sliver of security was the rabbit doll in her hands.
And she knew this thing was the host item for another Fierce Ghost.
She now had two choices. One, stall the Fierce Ghost and look for a chance to bolt out the door. Two, the moment this Fierce Ghost entered, throw the doll in her hands, letting them “ghost fight ghost.”
“Are you in there… I’m coming in…”
The decaying man’s hand grabbed the door panel, pushing it open with a creak. The very instant the door opened, a bloodstained plushie was hurled straight at him.
Even the middle-aged male ghost was momentarily stunned. The plushie flew mid-air and suddenly froze, as if caught by an unseen person.
Zhao Mingyue had still been planning to seize a chance to run, but the moment she threw the doll, she felt the bathroom’s temperature plummet. In the middle of June, she felt a biting, bone-chilling cold!
Just as she thought, the figure of a “third person” appeared in the bathroom.
With a loud slam, the bathroom door slammed shut. Blood Threads, as fine as pencil lead, began to emerge from the baseboards in the corners, creeping up the walls from the floor cracks, strand by strand.
It was the silhouette of a young girl. A white dress, a slender, elegant figure. A cascade of jet-black hair hung down to her waist. She resembled a ballet dancer, or a proud white swan. Just looking at her from the back, a truly absurd thought surfaced in Zhao Mingyue’s mind.
This Female Ghost… her front, no… she must have been very beautiful when she was alive…
The reason she was clearly a Female Ghost and not a girl was because, aside from her perfect figure, the skin exposed by her white dress was covered in lines of black markings. They stood out starkly against her pallid skin, like a perfect porcelain vessel crisscrossed with cracks.
Bai Yu took half a step forward. Wispy threads of black mist emanated from her body—Resentment Energy that was practically tangible.
Beneath her black hair, a pair of crimson eyes fixed upon the middle-aged male ghost at the door. His terrifying, horrifying appearance failed to stir any emotion in her heart other than disgust.
She raised her right hand, clenching her slender fingers, and looked at her small fist.
This Fierce Ghost’s body was far weaker than she imagined, less than one percent of her true form.
While Bai Yu was familiarizing herself with her new body, the middle-aged male ghost involuntarily took half a step back. He wanted to flee, but the door behind him was already covered in Blood Threads.
“Ghost…”
An ethereal voice emanated from Bai Yu. Her raised right hand, under the covering of black mist, was wrapped around with layer upon layer of chains, as thick as two fingers. Her entire arm no longer looked so frail and powerless.
Bang!
Her small fist shot out like an arrow, carrying a surge of black mist. The middle-aged male ghost had no time to react; the punch pierced straight through his chest, shattering half his body.
He let out a screech like a slaughtered pig. Any thought of Zhao Mingyue vanished from his mind. He jumped up, trying to phase through the wall to escape, but the moment he jumped, his ankle was pierced by a chain tipped with a sharp spike, dragging him back down mercilessly.
Bai Yu stared at him coldly. “What are you running for?”
This brutal scene was witnessed by Zhao Mingyue, huddled in the corner.
Her throat tightened. In her heart, there was even a tiny bit of regret.
One ghost was terrifying enough, but it seemed she had just summoned an even more vicious one…
