Freed from its bonds, the white shadow retreated backward at great speed.
"Don't run!"
He'd finally seized an opportunity — there was no way Chen Ge was going to watch it slip away. He raised his blade and charged at the white shadow.
Without the woman's control, the aura emanating from the white shadow grew weaker by the moment. Its face became even more blurred, and its body turned increasingly transparent.
Sensing the threat, the creature darted to the side of the black leather suitcase, swept something up from inside, and bolted for the door.
Chen Ge didn't get a clear look at what the white shadow had grabbed. All he knew was that since they were on opposite sides, whatever the white shadow wanted to take away, he had to keep.
The pig-slaughtering blade dealt only limited damage to the white shadow. Chen Ge was decisive — he shifted his target to the object in the white shadow's hand.
He timed his strike perfectly, slashing out with the blade, and when the white shadow dodged, he lunged forward and seized the thing it was clutching.
In the struggle, the object was torn in half. A single page of white paper fluttered to the ground, and the white shadow didn't bother picking it up — it fled through the living room in a panic.
Chen Ge chased it right to the doorway. The pitch-black hallway beyond was completely empty. He considered the situation rationally: without the tape ghost by his side, he really wasn't sure he could take on the white shadow.
He chose not to pursue. Instead, Chen Ge closed the security door, turned on the living room light, and the scene inside made his eyelids twitch uncontrollably.
On the cold floor, the woman's limbs were twisted into grotesque shapes. Her eyes bulged outward as she screamed in agony, yet on her bare face was an expression Chen Ge couldn't quite understand.
It looked like pain, but also like relief — and even a hint of joy.
"Does it hurt?"
How to deal with the madwoman was the tape ghost's business. Chen Ge's only task was to find this woman and help the tape ghost fulfill its wish.
He turned around and picked up the torn half-page from the floor.
It looked like an advertising flyer. The half that contained the detailed description had been carried away by the white shadow. On the half Chen Ge held, there were only four red characters and a brief introduction.
"The Bizarre Tales Association? A true strange story told every week?"
This half-page flyer caught Chen Ge's attention — not just because the white shadow had tried so desperately to take it, but more importantly, because the image printed on it showed a blood-red door, half-open!
"Something to do with the world beyond the door?"
The flyer belonged to the madwoman from Room Two. She herself had entered through the door of the Third Sick Building.
"Could it have been created by those escaped patients? And what does 'a true strange story every week' even mean?" Looking at the crude flyer and its baffling introduction, Chen Ge thought that even those scam ads stapled to telephone poles — the ones offering huge sums for a surrogate child — were more professional than this.
"They have to tell real bizarre stories? What would happen if someone made up fake ones? How would they even verify the truth?" Chen Ge tucked the half-page away and mused that if he told the story of everything he'd been through recently, he could probably leave an entire audience with their jaws on the floor. Of course, that only applied to humans — Chen Ge had no illusions about himself. He was well aware that if every member of the audience happened to be a ghost, then who was really scaring whom was anyone's guess.
The screams inside the room gradually subsided, replaced by a woman's voice repeating mechanically.
"It hurts so much…"
"The woman has been sealed inside the tape?" Chen Ge walked over to the woman. Her gaze was vacant, drained of all color, as though her soul had been ripped out.
Exactly what the tape ghost had done to the madwoman, he didn't know. That was the tape ghost's own affair.