Pitch black. Nothing was visible. The world beyond this door seemed devoid of light.
Breathing. A heartbeat. And the tick-tock of a clock.
"This seems to be a room."
Ying Tong was blind. His world was shrouded in darkness—he could see nothing—yet others within his world could see him. That was precisely what made this world the most dangerous.
Unzipping his backpack, Chen Ge groped until he found the broken ballpoint pen. He slipped it into his jacket pocket, then took out the comic book and kept it close to his body.
In this completely dark world behind the door, if he tripped or some other accident happened, the backpack could easily fall off.
He couldn't leave everything in the backpack. That was far too risky.
"I'll keep the Skull-Crushing Hammer, the high heels, and
Unable to see anything. Not knowing where he was. Not knowing who the enemy was. Not even knowing what he himself looked like right now. This was the most bizarre of all the doors Chen Ge had ever entered.
He tried mentally calling out the names of his employees. After waiting a long while, he still received no response.
"The bindings this world behind the door places on Red Dress are even more severe than in Yu Jian's world. Can I hold out until the employees wake up?"
Accustomed to light, Chen Ge felt deeply uneasy after losing his sight. This was only natural.
Adjusting his breathing, Chen Ge stood up again.
He had been inside this world behind the door for roughly ten minutes, and for those ten minutes he had stayed rooted in one spot.
"My body still looks the same. My clothes and appearance feel unchanged by touch."
His nostrils flared. Chen Ge caught the faint scent of disinfectant, the smell of blood, and the peculiar odor of a cat.
Following the disinfectant smell, he groped his way behind him. His fingertips met something ice-cold: "The big black iron door is behind me. My top priority now is to figure out my position and find somewhere safe to hide while I wait for the employees to break free of their bindings."
Finding a safe place under these circumstances was extremely difficult, since he couldn't see a thing.
"Black iron doors usually appear in places that are important to the door-opener's memories, and such places tend to be dangerous—they're the places the Nether Fetus and all manner of negative memories frequent."
After roughly fifteen minutes in this world behind the door, Chen Ge finally took his first step.
Slinging the backpack over his shoulders, he placed one hand against the wall and swept the other in front of him.
After getting past the initial anxiety, he gradually calmed down.
"The Yin Eye can't pierce through this darkness either, but Ghost Ear and Spirit Scent are unaffected. I can rely on my hearing and sense of smell, which far surpass those of ordinary people, to make my way."
Not being able to see the enemy's position, or even knowing what they looked like—this was what worried Chen Ge the most.
Thump!
After just the second step, Chen Ge collided with something. His knee throbbed with pain. He grimaced, forcing himself not to make a sound, and crouched down again.
The first sound he made could easily attract the attention of certain spirits. To be safe, he had no choice but to stop moving once more.
No strange noises. The smell in the air hadn't changed either. It seemed like he was the only one in this room.
"Keep movements as quiet as possible."
Chen Ge reached out and felt the object he had just bumped into—a low bedside cabinet: "This height is very similar to the cabinet in Ying Tong's room. Am I in his room right now?"
Pulling open a drawer, Chen Ge felt a photo frame: "Ying Tong was clutching a photo frame when he was sleeping in bed."
The next discovery made Chen Ge even more certain that he was in Ying Tong's room.
He found, one after another, a radio, a doll whose body felt grotesquely disproportionate, and a music box—all things he had seen in Ying Tong's room before.
His fingers glided across the desk, and next to the music box, Chen Ge felt something that seemed unfamiliar.
"Buttons? It looks like a phone designed for the blind?" The buttons on this phone were especially large, each number raised in relief on its key, easily distinguishable by touch alone.
"Should I take this phone with me?"
This phone very likely belonged to Ying Tong. Bringing it along might provide a way to contact him, or yield many useful clues. But at the same time, carrying this phone came with enormous risk.
Chen Ge had no idea when this phone might ring. If he was hiding from some spirit and it suddenly rang, it would definitely give away his position.
"I can't take it. Clues aren't important—what matters is surviving to the end."
Chen Ge didn't want to carry this phone. The risk was too great.
He placed the photo frame and the phone back where they had been and continued groping around the room.
Bedside cabinet. Wardrobe. Bed…
The layout of the furniture in the room was completely consistent with Chen Ge's memory of Ying Tong's room. The pity was that Ying Tong himself was not in the bedroom.
"Where could a blind child have gone?"
Chen Ge tried reasoning from his prior experience: "There's a home of Ying Tong's own inside his world behind the door. That means something happened in this old house that caused him extreme anguish."
"Ying Tong's older brother isn't normal—he's a deeply hidden pervert. This painful memory likely comes from Ying Chen."
"The two brothers were once taken in by relatives. According to Ying Chen, the relatives treated them terribly, so those relatives should also appear as negative figures in this world behind the door."
While Chen Ge was thinking, the blind phone on the desk suddenly rang.
The piercing sound drilled into his brain, instantly shattering the quiet of the small room.
"Damn it!" In that moment, Chen Ge even considered pulling out the Skull-Crushing Hammer and smashing the phone right there. He desperately wanted to leave, but going out now felt far too dangerous.
The phone rang seven or eight times before finally stopping. Only then did Chen Ge breathe a sigh of relief.
"Can't see anything. I have no idea how to set this blind phone to silent mode."
Having found no further clues in Ying Tong's bedroom, Chen Ge took out the Skull-Crushing Hammer and slowly opened the bedroom door.
An icy draft brushed across his cheek. Chen Ge shivered. Outside the bedroom, it was still pitch black.
"I hope this world behind the door isn't too large. Otherwise, I really might get lost in here—unable to even find the way back."
Just leaving a small room of a few square meters had taken Chen Ge nearly half an hour. He had no confidence at all right now.
"Right now, I should be standing in Ying Tong's family's living room."
"Since Ying Tong isn't in his own bedroom, as his older brother, Ying Chen probably wouldn't let him wander around alone. He's most likely by Ying Tong's side."