Chen Ge had been dodging passively the whole time, barely escaping one close call after another. Before long, the creature had driven him into a dead corner. It seemed like he had no way out.
"Wait! I'll play that game with you!"
Facing death, Chen Ge "yielded." He put his phone back in his pocket and looked at the elongated head. "I'll play by your rules."
Chen Ge's sudden shift in attitude made Deformed Face suspicious, but the creature behind him was visibly excited.
"Fine, if you want to play, throw away the knife first." This was the first time Chen Ge had heard Deformed Face speak a complete sentence. The man's voice was peculiar — it sounded as though his throat had been operated on, sharp and grating.
"If I win the game, you have to guarantee I can leave safely."
Chen Ge's eyes were filled with distrust. Seeing that look, Deformed Face actually felt somewhat reassured. "Leave through that door and throw away the knife. Once you win the game, I'll tell you the way out."
This game was designed so the player would lose every time. If Chen Ge actually played, what awaited him was a nightmarish life inside the psychiatric ward.
"Fine, I agree. What do I need to do now?" Chen Ge tossed the cleaver in front of him, handle facing his own side, and shoved both hands into his pockets.
"Just stand there and don't move." Deformed Face took a step forward, closing the distance between them to under two meters. "From the moment I finish this sentence, no matter what you hear or see, you must not speak. If you do, you lose."
He stared fixedly at Chen Ge. The creature on his back was still stretching forward, its ordinary-looking face hanging upside down in front of Chen Ge's eyes.
"Oh, you're not making a sound? Then let's turn things up a notch." Deformed Face sat down on the ground and bent over. The creature's body crawled fully out from his back.
It stood over three meters tall. Its legs were less than a meter long, and its head and feet looked normal. Only the middle section appeared as though it had been stitched together from multiple people.
"What the hell is this thing?"
The creature's upper body was far too long, making it unstable on its legs. After separating from Deformed Face's body, it swayed as it shuffled toward Chen Ge.
Only two meters separated them. The creature's upper body loomed directly in front of Chen Ge while its lower half crept closer inch by inch.
The creature seemed afraid Chen Ge would change his mind. Its bony hand clamped down on his shoulder, preventing him from fleeing.
Being approached by such a creature put Chen Ge on edge too. He mentally rehearsed the moves he had planned out earlier, his eyes locked on the creature's legs.
The moment those legs drew level with the cleaver, Chen Ge's hand shot out of his pocket. He still had one more thing on him that was guaranteed to hurt ghosts and monsters!
The sharp pen tip stabbed deep into the creature's eye socket. The force was so great that the pen barrel — wrapped in five or six layers of clear tape — shattered on impact.
"Ahh!"
Half the pen was buried in the creature's eye socket. Its body convulsed like a struck snake, clearly suffering no small amount of damage.
Back at Haiming Apartments, Chen Ge had accidentally struck the Mirror Ghost with Little Little and managed to rip a chunk of flesh right off it. That was when he had realized something: ghosts and monsters themselves were the most direct and effective weapon against other ghosts and monsters.
Using the ballpoint pen that the Pen Spirit hid inside had been part of his plan all along. The moment the creature lost control, Chen Ge yanked out the ballpoint pen and lunged forward.
He struck first, seizing the initiative. By the time Deformed Face reacted, Chen Ge had already grabbed the cleaver in front of him.