Lu Liangting couldn’t fathom having any other options. It wasn’t that he wanted to give up, but he was truly at his wit’s end. Trapped here with no escape route, and what was worse—the ghost at the door was no ordinary Fierce Ghost. The moment he dared open that door, he was guaranteed to die.
A ghost wasn’t a person. If it were a person, he might still try to fight back.
But that creature outside could trap him with a simple Ghost Wall Maze, and he’d stumble around the cafeteria’s second floor like a headless fly.
And yet, he hadn’t succumbed to despair. Even stuck in this dead end, he clung to the most fundamental composure.
Since he couldn’t escape, he’d send out the two ghosts he carried—ones that had helped him so many times. It was the only thing he could do for them.
“Don’t struggle. Don’t resist. You’re not like me. Your lives were already tragic, and you still have final wishes unfulfilled. It’s my fault for being so weak, always needing you to come to my rescue… while I can’t even keep my promises to you.”
“I apologize, once more.”
He felt the fountain pen in his grasp tremble faintly. Even the envelope he kept as an emergency trump card radiated a chilling aura.
Both ghosts wanted out, but he forcibly held them back.
Emerging now meant certain death. That ghost outside was far too savage. Worse, the damned thing had a taste for other ghosts—it had torn apart and devoured the ones that arrived before them.
“If you can get out, find another host. I can point you somewhere. It’s called Sunshine Apartment. On the fourth floor lives a girl named Zhao Mingyue. She’s a kind soul; she’ll help you.”
“Also, there’s a female ghost in that apartment. I don’t know her name, only that she wears a white dress. Looks fifteen or sixteen—very pretty—with a red butterfly hairpin. If you meet her, you can seek her aid too.”
“And… the fifth floor there. You must absolutely, unconditionally avoid it!”
Just then, the wooden door behind him started giving way.
Lu Liangting knew full well this was deliberate. The creature could phase through the wall anytime. It hammered at the door for the sheer thrill—perfectly common behavior. Many Ghostly Monsters feed on the fear of the living, growing stronger from it.
Pounding on the door incessantly to crush one’s spirit, he figured, was more satisfying than just slipping through the wall.
It also told him something else: this ghost possessed disturbingly high intelligence.
For a ghost to even conceive of using fear tactics as a hunting method… most act on instinct alone, single-minded in their violence, driven purely by the obsessions lingering from their deaths.
Ding!
A crisp sound cut the air—the talisman shattered.
His heart lurched. He stepped back from the barricade and placed a hand on the door handle.
One light push and the thing outside would be inside.
Taking a deep breath, he accepted the fate his own arrogance had sealed.
He always knew this place was a deathtrap. Yet he’d charged in recklessly, hellbent on finding Shen Shuyun. This was the price of impulse.
“Remember everything I told you!” he ordered inwardly one last time. His free hand found the handle of the Ox-Slaughtering Knife sticking out from his backpack zipper.
That blade had tasted enough blood. Against the supernatural, it was far deadlier than any peach wood sword.
He would buy them as much time as he could.
“That’s definitely him.” Shen Shuyun locked eyes on the towering, brawny old man in a blood-colored coat, her throat parched.
She wet her lips. “Doctor, you want me to finish my quest, right? Kill him—or leave him half-dead, that’ll do. I can finish it. And once this is over, I’ll tell you the true identity of a certain someone.”
The Old Dean’s current strength was monstrous. Ordinary Fierce Ghosts were beyond her now, let alone a Red-Clothed Fierce Ghost like him.
Had she never switched identities, she could have crushed him with ease. Now? Not a chance.
The upside? That absolute freak of nature fighting at her side.
She’d pieced together Bai Yu’s secret and said it aloud. Not a death wish—a calculated move to force Bai Yu to stop holding back and fight with everything she had.
As for whether the good Doctor would slaughter her afterwards… she couldn’t care less.
In Bai Yu’s palm, countless blood threads writhed and coalesced into a single Crimson Blade.
The blade slanted toward the ground. From Shen Shuyun’s left arm, tendrils wove into two massive chains coiling around her limb. She took a silent half-step forward, and her silhouette dissolved into static—vanishing utterly.
She reappeared in an instant over ten meters away, already looming behind the Old Dean, who was still laughing maniacally while hammering the door.
She slammed her left palm against the wall. The conical heads of her chains sank deep into the plaster. The two chains became twin serpents, diving into the sea of stone and surfacing again half a meter ahead, carving gleaming arcs before plunging back down. They slithered forward in violent repetition, reaching the Old Dean in under half a second.
Only then did the Old Dean register their presence.
His expression twisted in horror as he spotted the spiked chain whipping out of the wall, surging straight for his ankles.
Pure reflex: jump.
The instant he left the ground, Bai Yu’s form dissolved and reconstituted directly in his face.
Clang!
Her blade carved upward at an angle, tearing the very air apart with an ungodly shriek. The Old Dean saw only a flash of steel beneath him—and suddenly, his legs were… gone. No sensation. Nothing.
He was airborne. No dodge, no parry. He could only desperately twist his torso.
But that killing edge was unavoidable, a blur too fast for his undead eyes to track. Within the flicker of a few crimson afterimages, his arms went just as dead.
Squelch!
A chasm opened across his throat, deep enough to flash bone. His chest… calling it a “stab wound” was laughable. Looking down, he could see the wall behind him through the hole carved in his torso. His dead nerves spasmed in disbelief—this was the work of a single blade strike?
Even more terrifying? All of this happened during the split second he was airborne. And the moment his feet touched back down, that grotesque edge was already waiting to welcome him.
Once towering and iron-framed, the Old Dean now resembled a discarded building-block toy, kicked apart by a violent child.
He was shell-shocked. Absolutely beaten senseless.
One mistake. All he did was jump.
How much time exists between leaping and landing?
When that chain came sweeping for him, he could have retreated. Instead, he jumped. One wrong choice.
And then, into this tableau of carnage, the wooden door groaned open.
The Ox-Slaughtering Knife froze mid-swing.
Four eyes met.
Lu Liangting’s mind went blank, staring at Bai Yu. She turned her head to glance back.
“I, uh—”
His throat bobbed. His peripheral vision couldn’t escape the sight of the Old Dean, still spitted on that blade like meat on a skewer.
