The instant the investigator leaned back,
Three meters — a distance that should have been trivial — suddenly felt like an insurmountable chasm.
His hand never reached him.
Night wind screamed into his ears, shredding eardrums, distorting the investigator's features as his body plummeted at terminal velocity. These were, by all rights, the last three seconds of his life.
The gap between them yawned wider and wider. At the very end, the investigator seemed to mouth something, but they were too far apart for Chen Ge to hear. Through the blur of moving lips, he barely made out two words — "
Chen Ge didn't understand why the man would invoke Men Nan in his final moments. It could have been deliberate misdirection — or an attempt to leave behind a message.
"Yao Qingyi!"
Li Zheng's ragged scream tore through the air from the safety door. Several officers charged forward simultaneously.
The dull, heavy sound of a body striking pavement — it was the first time Chen Ge had ever heard what a life ending sounded like.
Yao Qingyi's skull hit the ground first. Even in death, his face was still angled toward the rooftop, eyes wide open, a strange, eerie smile hanging at the corner of his lips.
Half his body dangled over the edge of the building. Chen Ge's hand hung frozen in midair.
"The Ghost Story Association…" This society of lunatics and killers had finally shown its true colors before him. They had never once cared about the lives of the living.
"Chen Ge, what the hell is going on!" Li Zheng's eyes were bloodshot.
Silently withdrawing his arm, Chen Ge's voice came out low and strained. "Who sent you here?"
"The nurse called it in. A patient saw Old Yao bolt out of his ward in the middle of the night, acting like he was sleepwalking. Given what happened with Xiao Jia, we figured Old Yao might be in trouble too, so we rushed straight over from Fanghuayuan."
"The nurse made the call?" Chen Ge's hands clenched the railing as he stared down at Yao Qingyi below, at the smile frozen on the dead man's face.
Were his last words the truth — or lies?
Who had been controlling him through the scapegoat ghost?
The Ghost Story Association was down to just three people now, but unless the President was eliminated, it would only be a matter of time before the whole organization was reborn.
Misfortune and despair occurred every single day. When that pain festered in a person's heart and slowly corroded their soul, the Ghost Story Association's recruitment flyers would arrive right on schedule.
"Before next Wednesday, I have to wipe the Ghost Story Association off the map entirely."
"I need a new Red-clothed Ghost!"
Police cruisers ringed the People's Hospital. Because Li Zheng and several other officers had witnessed the scene when Yao Qingyi went over the edge, they didn't give Chen Ge a hard time.
At four in the morning, the police drove Chen Ge back to New Century Paradise.
He stepped into the haunted house, closed the rest-room door behind him, and locked himself inside. He set the black phone on the table.
Business opened tomorrow, but he had no trace of sleepiness. He sat in his chair, scrolling through the mission logs.
"Daily missions yield rewards, but only Nightmare-level missions actually change me as a person. Ever since Nightmare missions got switched to random refreshes, I haven't seen a single one pop up. Regular missions are all about improving the haunted house — I can knock those out whenever."
"There are still two Trial missions left in the black phone: the two-star horror scenario 'Death Coach' and the four-star horror scenario 'Psychic Ghost School.' Unlocking new scenarios and clearing hidden missions brings a huge windfall, ghosts included. Running Trial missions strengthens the haunted house too. But low-star trials barely move the needle on me, and high-star ones are way too dangerous." Chen Ge wrestled with the dilemma. It was only after Zhang Ya fell asleep that the realization hit him — his fearlessness up to this point had come almost entirely from this one Red-clothed Ghost who was devoted to him alone.