Shangguan Qinghong's legs wouldn't stop trembling. He knew the blood-soaked figure before him was definitely not Ma Feng.
That was a monster — a creature whose build was nothing like a normal person's.
As the stench of blood grew stronger, his body instinctively began to retreat. The moment his psychological limit was reached, he screamed for Sister Snake to run, then spun around and bolted.
At the same time, a hand seized Sister Snake's arm. Shangguan Qinghong had just called out her name, but it felt as though he were trying to pull her along and flee together.
In the pitch darkness, nothing was visible. Sister Snake could only hear Shangguan Qinghong's ragged breathing and pounding footsteps.
She didn't have time to think — she was dragged up and forced into a stumbling, hurried walk through the blackness.
"Hey! Don't just run around!" Sister Snake wanted to warn Shangguan Qinghong that not all of their teammates had caught up, but he had already been scared witless. When a person loses all sight, they become extraordinarily fragile — fear in the heart magnifies without limit.
Shangguan Qinghong scrambled and tumbled down the corridor. Strangely, every time he was about to slam into a wall or trip over something, a pair of hands would appear in front of him, shielding him from harm.
Under normal circumstances, this would mean someone was protecting him. But the current Shangguan Qinghong had completely lost the capacity for rational thought. He ran through the darkness, and suddenly a pair of hands appeared ahead, blocking his path.
Not knowing the truth, he only felt greater terror. He changed direction and kept running.
Shangguan Qinghong didn't dare stop for even a moment, as if running fast enough meant the ghost couldn't catch him.
After being blocked more than a dozen times in succession, his hand found the stairwell railing. He finally came to a halt.
"A staircase in a place this dark?" Shangguan Qinghong couldn't bear to imagine what would happen if he missed a step. His mind had completely unraveled.
His trembling fingers gripped the railing. Then Shangguan Qinghong did something no one could have predicted.
He sat down on the ground, extended both hands, braced himself against the floor with one hand, and began inching his way downward in a bumping, sliding motion.
The secret owner behind Xinhai's largest haunted house — a man who had witnessed countless grand spectacles — was now using this method to descend a staircase. In that instant, even the arms that had been reaching out to block him froze.
"Shangguan Qinghong, what are you doing?" Sister Snake heard the strange sounds and called out loudly.
"Going downstairs!"
In this total darkness, going downstairs was far too dangerous. Sister Snake was deeply reluctant, but she had no better option. She gripped the railing, half-squatted, and shuffled downward.
Throughout the entire process, her arm was being held. Her companion was protecting her, preventing her from falling.
Sister Snake descended very slowly. Having suddenly lost her sight, she was extremely cautious with every step she took.
And through it all, that hand never stopped supporting her.
"Thanks, Qinghong!"
Sister Snake was slightly younger than Shangguan Qinghong. She had initially looked down on him, but to her surprise, in this critical moment he hadn't abandoned her and fled alone. That moved her more than she expected.
"What did you say?!" A moment later, Shangguan Qinghong's voice rang out from the floor below. In just that brief time, he had already made his way down to the next level using his own method.
Hearing Shangguan Qinghong's voice, Sister Snake's face went green in an instant. She knew the one who had been holding her up was not Shangguan Qinghong.
Her trembling hand tightened around the arm that had been steadying her. It was bone-chillingly cold. Her hand continued to move downward and touched the small floral pattern on a dress.
Dried, viscous blood was crusted along the hem, mixed with what felt like animal hair.
Before Sister Snake could pull her hand away from the dress, she felt a tickling sensation near her ear — as though strands of hair were brushing against it.
A shiver ran through her. Sister Snake wanted to reach up and touch her ear, but a cold gust blew across her earlobe.
"Just after I lost my sight, my best friend accompanied me downstairs just like this. Back then, I believed she was my closest friend."
The melancholic voice drilled directly into Sister Snake's ears. Her scalp went numb, her entire body stiffened.
"My dear best friend cooked for me, took care of me. We were the kind of friends who told each other everything. I even thought about giving A Ming to her. I believed she was the kindest, most lovable girl in the world. I regretted accepting A Ming's confession back in school. I loved A Ming, but I knew she loved him too."
The woman's voice echoed sentence by sentence beside Sister Snake's ear, growing closer and closer, until finally it was as though the speaker were lying on her back, lips pressed against her ear.
"A Ming left me. It seemed he'd found another woman. Now only my best friend was still by my side. She truly treated me well — even after getting a new boyfriend herself, she still came every day to take care of me."
"I felt guilty toward her, but she didn't care at all about the terrible things I'd done before. She said she was willing to become my eyes."
"Our relationship grew even stronger than before. I shared my feelings with her, and we recorded everything in a diary. We took all kinds of photos together. Every time, my best friend dressed me up beautifully. She said I was just like I'd been in school — the prettiest girl in the whole place."
"I was so fortunate to have found such a wonderful best friend. Until one day."
The woman's voice carried a bone-deep chill: "That day she came home very late, seemingly having drunk a great deal. She used her key to open my door and said she wanted to take me out for a walk."
"I smelled the alcohol all over her, so I wanted her to rest properly and not wander around. But she rudely cut me off, grabbed me — still in my pajamas — and dragged me outside."
"I instinctively resisted, but she seized me by the hair and forced my body down."
"She told me she'd had her heart broken that day and that I'd better not provoke her."
"That terrifying tone — nothing like the way she usually spoke."
"After we left the apartment, she forced me to walk upstairs. I was terrified, but she kept holding my arm, just like right now."
Sister Snake could clearly feel her arm being gripped by a force, her body compelled to lean forward.
"She never told me what she was going to do. Not until we reached the very top of the stairwell, when she suddenly seized my hair and whispered a question in my ear."
"She said she hated me. From our school days all the way until now."
"I didn't understand why she hated me. Not until she shoved me down the stairs. Not until I opened my eyes again and saw myself — head bloodied — lying crumpled on the steps. Not until I discovered that the diary chronicling our life together was actually filled with the words 'go die, go die, you worthless bitch, go die' — over and over and over again! Only then did I realize we were never friends at all. I was willing to spend time with her — plain and unsociable as she was — because she made my beauty stand out. And she was willing to befriend someone far prettier than herself because she wanted to watch me become uglier than her, one day at a time."