Chen Ge closed his eyes and rested for a while. It was the first time he had felt so at ease inside a door-world.
A moment later, he realized his behavior had been a bit inappropriate. He sat back up and whispered, "I'm sorry."
It was an experience he'd never had before. Only now, reflecting on it, did he feel a belated sense of shyness. Before Zhang Ya could say anything else, he grabbed his backpack and slipped away.
After closing the rooftop door, Chen Ge jogged out of the school. Perhaps because he was running too fast, his heart was pounding violently.
"The pressure from Ming Tai must be greater than I thought. I really can't underestimate this door."
Once outside the school, Chen Ge followed his plan and began searching starting from the eastern district of Liwan Town where the school was located.
His ghost employees were unusable, so he could only rely on his senses, far exceeding those of an ordinary person, to continuously scan for places that felt cold and ominous.
All the way until the afternoon classes, Chen Ge found nothing.
He had no keys and couldn't enter other people's homes to search. At one point he considered breaking down doors, but when he saw the police car parked downstairs, he decisively abandoned the idea.
Ming Tai and Yu Jian wanted him to experience despair and sink into darkness. If he rashly resorted to violence, it would likely accelerate the arrival of misfortune.
"This door-world is too large. Liwan Town, half-transformed by Shadow, is a three-and-a-half-star scenario. A complete Liwan Town should be a four-star scenario…" At this thought, Chen Ge froze. "Liwan Town is from my memories, that's true, but it could also be Ming Tai's memories. After all, Shadow's lair is Liwan Town."
Chen Ge's memories of Liwan Town weren't deep. He didn't know the exact location of every building. "Liwan Town doesn't appear in Yu Jian's growth trajectory, and I've only been there a few times. Could this door-world have incorporated Ming Tai's memories as well?"
The thought startled him. If that were true, then the probability of Ming Tai hiding behind the door would increase yet again.
"I still can't contact my employees. I can't even achieve basic communication. Now it's a matter of whether my employees break free first, or whether the calamity of this world arrives first."
In the afternoon, rain began to fall, and Chen Ge obediently returned to school.
He tried talking to his classmates, but everyone seemed to hate him, acting as though they wanted to avoid him at all costs.
"Were my relationships really this bad in high school?" Chen Ge reflected. He felt this was something Yu Jian had imposed on him. What he was experiencing now was exactly what Yu Jian had gone through back then.
"Skipping class, showing up late, terrible grades, keeping a cold face all day long. My advice is you'd better just accept your fate." The chubby kid Du Ming unscrewed his thermos, blew on it a few times, and took a sip. "Actually, it's not so bad being like this. Loneliness is one person's carnival."
Chen Ge ignored Du Ming. He was thinking about how to break through this situation.
If Yu Jian had locked himself in some room and refused to come out, without his employees' help, Chen Ge had no way of finding him.
"It seems I still need to focus on the important people. Maybe I can find some clues around Zhang Ya, my father, or Luo Ruoyu." Chen Ge turned his head to look at the chubby kid Du Ming. Strictly speaking, this desk-mate of his also counted as a relatively important person — at the very least, he had a deep impression of Du Ming.
"Du Ming, how about we make a deal?" Chen Ge asked in a low voice.
"Which subject's homework do you want to copy?"
"Not homework. Can I come over to your house?" Chen Ge wanted to search for clues. Maybe he could find something at Du Ming's place.
"Absolutely not. If my mom found out I was hanging out with you, she'd probably break my legs on the spot."