"Chang Wenyu once said she'd seen the Black Phone somewhere in the Blood-colored City. The person who keeps sending me messages should be there."
More and more threads were weaving together, and Chen Ge was drawing ever closer to the truth.
Back at the Nightmare Academy on Century Boulevard, Chen Ge noticed a pair of eyes watching him from the Shili Xiang Deli across the street as he entered the haunted house.
But when he activated his Ghost Eyes and looked over, he couldn't find the owner of that gaze.
"Is it the owner of Shili Xiang watching me?"
Chen Ge couldn't be sure. He planned to wait until nightfall and investigate more thoroughly.
He entered the principal's office. Chi Ren was asleep inside, and Chen Ge didn't disturb him, settling into the desk chair instead.
He opened his backpack to organize his belongings, and his expression suddenly changed.
"Why is this note still in my bag? Didn't I hand it over to the Xinhai police?"
Chen Ge pulled the note from his backpack. The crooked, jagged handwriting on it looked like some kind of inescapable curse.
"There are over a dozen Red Clothes inhabiting my backpack. If some 'thing' secretly placed this note back inside, my Red Dress employees would definitely have noticed!"
If an ordinary person encountered such a strange occurrence, their first instinct would be to tear the note to shreds or burn it. And then they'd discover that even after doing so, the note would still appear beside them — the standard opening to a horror story.
But Chen Ge was different. He placed the note on top of his shadow, waited half an hour, and when he found nothing abnormal, he picked it up and stuffed it inside the Red High Heel Shoes.
"This note keeps appearing, almost as if it's trying to remind me that the world I'm in is sick."
"It repeats and repeats. If I start to believe it, if I begin thinking along its lines, then I might truly become one of its patients."
The Curse Hospital needed two types of people: patients and doctors.
They treated Doctor Fang and Chen Ge completely differently, as if they'd decided from the very start that Chen Ge was a "suitable" patient. They did everything they could to hint and suggest, and if Chen Ge ever began to waver — if he started to believe this world was sick and needed to be changed — then he'd fall right into the hospital's trap.
"This city of Xinhai gives me a terrible feeling. On the surface it's prosperous and stable, with good public safety, but I feel utterly unsafe here."
Lost in thought, Chen Ge was startled when Chi Ren, who had been sleeping soundly on the bed, suddenly cried out. His arms flailed wildly and he babbled something no one could understand, clearly in a state of extreme agitation.
"Having a nightmare?" Chen Ge had a Red Dress at his side skilled in dreams — the tunnel ghost woman's son — but he didn't dare release him casually. If Chi Ren suddenly woke up and found a massive spider looming before him, the shock alone might do real damage.
"Hey! Wake up!" Chen Ge gently shook Chi Ren's shoulder. Jolted awake, Chi Ren shot upright, his chest heaving violently, his clothes drenched in cold sweat.
"Nightmare?" Chen Ge offered Chi Ren a glass of water, but Chi Ren didn't dare touch it. He shrank back, his eyes filled with sheer terror.
"It came to my dream again! It knows I betrayed it!" Chi Ren's voice was shrill as his hands clawed at his own face, leaving behind bloody scratches.
"Calm down. Tell me first — what did you dream?"
"I dreamed of that ghost with nothing but a mouth on its face. It was standing right beside the bed, demanding I tell it a story." Chi Ren clutched his chest. "I was terrified. I said I had no more stories to tell, but it wouldn't take no for an answer. It threatened that if I didn't tell it a story, it would pry open my skull and crawl inside my brain."
"And then?"
"Just as it was about to burrow into my head, you woke me up." Chi Ren was still trembling with residual fear. "I think it already knows I betrayed it. Everyone who betrays it is punished terribly — a fate worse than death. I have to run! I can't stay in Xinhai!"
"Settle down first." Chen Ge grabbed Chi Ren's shoulder firmly. "The curse on you has been suppressed. Even if it knows you betrayed it, as long as it can't find you, you're safe for the time being."
"It will definitely find me! As long as I'm still in Xinhai, it will find me!" Chi Ren had completely broken down. A man in his forties, now cowering like a frightened child.
"If it can send you dreams, then it's quite possible it could sift through your memories while you sleep, determine your location, and come for you." Chen Ge didn't want to lie to Chi Ren.
"I'm dead. I have to leave immediately! I'm leaving right now! I can't wait until dark!"
"Don't panic. If it can browse your memories through dreams, then as long as you stay awake, it can't touch you for now." Chen Ge flipped open his comic book and summoned Zhang Yi. Now that Zhang Yi had become a Red Dress, the aura radiating from her was entirely different from before — genuinely terrifying.
"I can stay awake for twenty-four hours, but I can't stay up forever!" Chi Ren clutched his head, his eyes brimming with despair.
At first, tipping off Doctor Fang hadn't been a grave offense. But now he'd shared what he knew with an outsider, violating the Curse Hospital's cardinal taboo. If they dragged him back, he couldn't even begin to imagine what those people would do to him.
"The person you fear can look through your memories in your dreams and learn everything about you. That ability is terrifying, yes, but it's not without a countermeasure." Chen Ge gestured for Zhang Yi to use her power. "All we need to do is deceive your memories and perception simultaneously, and we can misdirect it."
"Deceive me too?"
"That's right. I'll temporarily hide a portion of your memories in order to mislead it." When other people ran into trouble, their first thought was how to solve it. When Chen Ge encountered a difficulty, his first thought was how to exploit it to maximum advantage.
"It's no use. Even if my memories are hidden, as long as I'm still in Xinhai, it will find me." Chi Ren shook his head in agony. He had given up. "All the people with the Chi surname in Xinhai are its eyes and ears. And my body still carries its curse — as long as I don't escape Xinhai, it only needs to pay a small price to sense my location. I'm its 'family.' Family that can never break free."
"Is its range of detection limited to Xinhai?"
"The curses of the Chi family are buried beneath Xinhai. They've cursed this city for twenty years. You should leave with me too — we can't win."
"Curses buried underground?" Chen Ge pinned Chi Ren's wrists. "Tell me everything."
"I can't say it! The moment I speak, the curse will activate! It'll come rushing over immediately!" Chi Ren thrashed desperately. The Curse Hospital was a fear rooted deep in his soul — no amount of verbal comfort could reach him.
"Looks like there's no other way. I'll find a way to get you out of here, but before that, I need to take you somewhere first." Chen Ge gestured for Chi Ren to follow, and they left the principal's office, moving through the dark corridors of the Nightmare Academy. "Here — this is the place."
Chen Ge stopped in front of a door and pushed it open while making a subtle hand signal.
Zhang Yi appeared silently behind Chi Ren. As Chi Ren leaned forward to peer inside, Zhang Yi's hand came to rest on the top of his head.
His eyes slowly closed. Zhang Yi erased every memory of Chen Ge from Chi Ren's mind.
"You've helped me a great deal. I'm not about to watch you die." Chen Ge was a man of strong principles. He planned to wipe Chi Ren's memories clean and smuggle him out of Xinhai that very night.
"The Chi family's evil spirit can browse the memories of all Chi-surname holders through dreams. That's something I have to take very seriously."