"Lucky Red-Robed favored one! Congratulations on acquiring the Toilet Ghost! Haunted house employee count increased by one!"
"Toilet Ghost (Dong Wentao): No one knows his past, and no one knows why he became what he is now. All I can tell you is that he carries enormous potential — whether you can unlock it is up to you."
Chen Ge stared at the new message on the Black Phone. He hadn't expected the Toilet Ghost to become a haunted house employee so directly.
"I only invited him with ten Red-Robed, and he agreed just like that — no hesitation at all."
Silently appraising the Toilet Ghost standing among the Red-Robed, Chen Ge realized the Black Phone's evaluation of him was surprisingly high.
Appearance-wise, this ghost was thoroughly ordinary — an old, worn-out suit, messy hair, the textbook look of an overworked office drone.
"If he's got potential, then I need to push him harder. Maybe this uncle can cut through the thorns and ride the storm."
Stuffing the weak-kneed Toilet Ghost and the rest of the Red-Robed into the comic book, Chen Ge walked out of the bathroom. "This place used to be haunted too. Now that the ghost has been collected, letting it rot here would be a waste."
He peeled the yellow talisman off the top of the door, picked up the tape-wrapped ballpoint pen, and scribbled a few lines on the back of the paper: "The evil ghost has departed. You may use this restroom in peace."
He slapped the talisman onto the door, then dragged his Skull Crusher out of the apartment building.
"Next — who should I go pick up?"
Checking the map on his phone, Chen Ge made his way to the Hanjiang Line 3 subway station. "The Black Phone said this ghost is hiding in Hanjiang Line 4, but Hanjiang only has three subway lines right now. Line 4 is still under construction."
The station was about to close for the night. Chen Ge lingered near Line 3 and asked around for information about Line 4.
The staff said Line 4 wouldn't be operational for a long time. They wouldn't give a specific reason, but their expressions were rather strange.
After pressing them repeatedly, a staff member finally revealed that the Hanjiang subway station's surveillance cameras frequently captured a bizarre figure at night.
The person would appear on different subway trains, always sitting alone on some seat, while the people around him seemed completely unaware of his existence.
Once construction on Line 4 began, the figure disappeared from the surveillance footage entirely — but workers kept seeing ghostly shadows drifting through the depths of the tunnels. The staff suspected that a subway specter had fled into the under-construction Line 4.
After getting the general picture, Chen Ge slipped into the Line 4 construction site. To avoid detection, he released several Red-Robed in advance, instructing them to suppress their aura and enter the tunnels to search.
He had braced himself for a long search, but before he had gone very far, he spotted a figure roughly a hundred meters ahead — a naked young man sprinting at full speed deeper into the tunnel.
"At eleven o'clock at night, streaking through a subway construction site?"
Impossible not to notice. Chen Ge immediately had several Red-Robed seize the young man.
What was strange was that the young man seemed to have known Chen Ge was coming. He stared at Chen Ge's face, eyes full of terror.
"Have we met before?" Chen Ge found it deeply odd. They'd never laid eyes on each other — why would the young man look at him like that?
"What you're afraid of isn't the Red-Robed — it's me? Why? Do you know me? That doesn't make sense. If you knew me, you'd have even more reason to know what kind of person I am."
Lines of bloody threads surfaced across the young man's body, weaving into a crude set of clothes. His face was deathly pale, his body almost transparent — he looked like he was about to collapse entirely.
"Brother, at least say something. Is there some kind of misunderstanding between us?" The moment Chen Ge stepped closer, the young man sat on the ground and used every ounce of his strength to scoot backward, until a Red-Robed blocked his retreat.
Seeing no way out, he seemed to accept his fate. He climbed to his feet and addressed Chen Ge: "I'm willing to become an employee of your haunted house."
The young man's words actually stunned Chen Ge. "I hadn't even opened my mouth yet. How did you jump ahead like that? Can you read minds?"
Still pale, the young man shook his head helplessly. "We already met ten seconds ago."
"Ten seconds ago?"
"My name is Shi Guo. My ability is to return to ten seconds in the past. The restriction is severe — I can only use it once a month — but used well, it can produce remarkable results." The young man spoke in a low voice.
"A time talent?!" Chen Ge wasn't the only one astonished; even the surrounding Red-Robed were stunned.
Though Shi Guo could only use his ability once a month, deployed at the right moment, it could completely reverse the tide of a battle.
"Times change, times pass — but only I can go back those ten seconds. It's not as useful as you might think." Shi Guo wore a bitter smile. "I just used it a moment ago, but even with those ten seconds, there was no escaping you. How did you even know I existed? And you brought ten Red-Robed specifically for me?"
"I'm clashing with a cursed hospital over in Xinhai. They got their hands on information about you and wanted to enslave and remodel you. So I struck first." Chen Ge extended his hand toward Shi Guo with genuine sincerity. "Welcome to the haunted house. If you have any unfulfilled wishes or things you want to do, just let me know."
Shi Guo hesitated for a moment, then took Chen Ge's hand.
"Oh, one more thing — why were you so afraid of me? What exactly did I do to you ten seconds ago?"
"I can't say. If I do, the backlash will be terrible." Shi Guo was willing to join the haunted house, but the Black Phone hadn't displayed any notification — he hadn't fully trusted Chen Ge yet, and likely still had other plans in mind.
Chen Ge stored Shi Guo in the comic book and placed him together with Old Bai and Old Zhou.
"The ghosts recorded on the Black Phone's wheel really are of exceptional quality. An ability this rare is incredibly hard to come by." Chen Ge valued Shi Guo highly, but unfortunately Shi Guo hadn't revealed any personal information, so there was no way for Chen Ge to address his underlying concerns.
"One step at a time. I still have time."
Putting away the comic book and the Black Phone, Chen Ge arrived at a high-rise residential complex in the new district.
It was already midnight. The complex had few residents to begin with, and at a glance only a handful of windows still glowed with light.
"The Black Phone only said the butterfly hairpin is somewhere in this complex, but it didn't give me a specific address. There are at least a hundred-plus households here — am I supposed to go door to door?"
Chen Ge stood in the center of the complex, looking up at several high-rise buildings. "How long would that even take?"
He pulled out the comic book, then hesitated. Sending ghosts into other people's homes at random didn't sit right with him.
He was a man of principles. If others didn't provoke him, he wouldn't bother them.
"I'll just search on my own." Clutching the comic book, Chen Ge was about to look away when he suddenly spotted a long-haired woman standing on the rooftop of one of the residential buildings.
His pupils contracting, Chen Ge activated his Yin Eye. He could see it with perfect clarity — the woman was holding something in her hand, standing right on the edge of the building.