The eyeball Chang Wenyu had given him didn't fit anywhere. After mulling it over, Chen Ge handed it to Men Nan.
Among all the Red Dresses, Men Nan had the highest EQ and IQ. Chen Ge sometimes had him handle certain tasks on his own.
So having Men Nan temporarily look after the eyeball put his mind at ease.
"Chang Wenyu is at her weakest right now. She didn't dare stay by my side for too long — the moment she found an opening, she left. It seems she hasn't fully trusted me yet, worried that I'd let the other Red Dresses devour her."
Trust was something that needed to be built gradually. Chen Ge felt that given enough time, he could definitely earn Chang Wenyu's trust.
Dawn was just breaking, but Chen Ge hadn't left. He wandered around the abandoned school for a while longer.
"The Red Dresses in this abandoned school and the ones in the Pailou are both much stronger than ordinary Red Dresses, yet none of their scenes have a 'door' appear. Is it because their despair isn't enough to push one open?"
There was no necessary connection between Red Dresses and doors. A Door Opener was always a Red Dress, but not all Red Dresses had their own door.
Chen Ge hadn't thought much of it before, but looking back now, something felt off.
"Could doors be unique to Hanjiang?"
He entered the classroom where the abandoned school's Red Dress had first appeared and once again saw that familiar message carved on her old desk.
"This is a sick world — why haven't you realized it yet? I will cure you!"
The words were carved crookedly into the desk, like some kind of psychological suggestion, constantly appearing before Chen Ge's eyes.
Over time, he had been unable to forget this sentence.
"The same words, but the handwriting is completely different. They were written and carved by different people, so why did they all leave this same message?"
Unable to figure it out, Chen Ge recalled the haunted house employees, hailed a cab, and returned to Nightmare Academy.
"I'm going to get some sleep. You all carry on," Chen Ge told the employees before heading into the headmaster's office.
Chi Ren had been staying in the room the whole time. Utterly bored, he was building a tower out of playing cards.
"In a few more days, you'll be safe." Chen Ge entered the private room, hugged his backpack, and fell right to sleep. Without having to worry about the haunted house or the visitors, he slept soundly.
At noon, Chen Ge got up and bought food for himself and the living employees, then left the haunted house again.
Xinhai was an untapped treasure trove for him — he wanted to round up every vengeful ghost and Red Dress in one fell swoop.
"After I deal with the Cursed Hospital, should I take the train to various cities and spread some goodwill?"
Of course, this was just something Chen Ge idly considered.
He spent the daytime organizing clues and information, planning to go out and investigate in person after dark.
Before clashing head-on with the Cursed Hospital, he needed to do everything possible to bolster his own strength.
Past six in the evening, the employees were still discussing the future plans for the Nightmare Academy haunted house. Their boss, meanwhile, had already made his way to the outskirts of Xinhai.
Another sleepless night. Chen Ge had originally planned to feed the Red Dresses he'd found to Red High Heels first, helping her become an Evil Spirit.
But she declined his kindness. As a top-tier curse-type Red Dress, devouring other Red Dresses offered her no improvement — only consuming more desperate and evil curses could help her.
In other words, Red High Heels herself knew perfectly well that the key to becoming an Evil Spirit lay within the Cursed Hospital.
Since Red High Heels didn't need to consume Red Dresses, Chen Ge shifted his resources to Xiao Bu instead.
Inside the door, Xiao Bu could unleash the power of a top-tier Red Dress. Her natural talent was extraordinary — she was the shadow chosen by Chen Ge's parents, and the Door Opener Ming Tai valued most.
After devouring one Red Dress, Xiao Bu fell into a deep sleep.
Given her strength, she should wake up within a night at most.
While Xiao Bu was asleep, Chen Ge gave the Red Dresses he'd found to Xu Yin.
Xu Yin wasn't as powerful as the tunnel ghost's son, nor was he the strongest among the Red Dresses, but Xu Yin's Red Dress Heart was highly unusual.
With every beat, black lines would appear across his heart — marks that seemed like imprints of memory, carrying a power impossible to put into words.
The hearts of other Red Dresses were like sources of power, but Xu Yin's heart was more like a seed beginning to sprout.
After devouring a Red Dress, the lines on Xu Yin's heart spread across his chest. What surprised Chen Ge even more was that even after consuming a Red Dress of comparable strength, Xu Yin still didn't fall asleep.
As long as Chen Ge pressed the repeater's switch, Xu Yin would appear.
"Xiao Bu, Zhang Ya — they both fall asleep after consuming Red Dresses of the same level. Why is Xu Yin so special?"
Chen Ge tried asking him the reason, but Xu Yin said nothing, as if even he didn't know why.
By three in the morning, Chen Ge had investigated eleven urban legends. He'd organized his data during the day and mapped out the shortest route.
Just as he was heading to the twelfth legend, the sky over Xinhai's outer suburbs was inexplicably stained red, as though the night had been torn open with a bloody gash.
Normally Chen Ge wouldn't have paid the anomaly much mind, but when he used the wedding ring on his finger and discovered that Xiao Sun's position happened to be right beneath that patch of sky, he grew unsettled.
"Brother Sun is already making his move? I only sent it over two days ago — acting too hastily, won't that blow his cover?"
Xiao Sun was moving too fast. Chen Ge was still building up his own strength, and it seemed the Cursed Hospital was already experiencing problems.
"Worrying won't help. I should focus on my own business." Xinhai's population was several times that of Hanjiang, and the number of urban legends was enormous. Most of them were fabricated, though a small fraction genuinely concealed vengeful ghosts.
For a professional like Chen Ge, sometimes a single legend's description was enough to determine whether it was real or fake.
Even so, Chen Ge had been fooled several times.
Over two nights, he investigated a total of twenty-five legends, and eight of them turned out to be false.
But among the remaining seventeen legends, five Red Dresses had appeared — a probability that was frankly terrifying.
What worried Chen Ge even more was that all five Red Dresses he'd encountered were in a frenzied state. Each one had been cursed, and in each of their scenes, he could find that same sentence about the world being sick.