Grandpa Bai and Old Wei hurried along in front, but Chen Ge deliberately slowed his pace, letting the group spread out.
"This distance is about right. Both Old Wei and Grandpa Bai are still in my line of sight — no need to worry about losing them."
Chen Ge held the voice recorder in his hand, not once glancing behind him, pretending he hadn't noticed a thing.
The wind inside the valley gradually died down, and the surroundings went eerily quiet, as though some boundary had been crossed and they had entered another world entirely.
The temperature continued to drop. Chen Ge could feel a wave of cold slowly closing in on him.
"It's coming."
His heart was as still as water. Perhaps it was because the white cat was behind him acting as a human shield, but Chen Ge wasn't worried at all. He strolled along at a leisurely pace.
When the chill at his back was only three or four meters away, it suddenly stopped — as if it had sensed something.
"The voice recorder isn't even turned on. Why did the ghost stop?" Chen Ge calculated the distance between them in his head and put on a look of fear and dread, as though he didn't dare take another step forward.
He slowed down even more, doing everything he could to "lure" the ghost behind him.
"Why isn't it coming? Do I have to walk backward and bump into it myself?" Chen Ge seriously considered whether he should take the initiative to step back. He was quite confident in his acting skills — he was just afraid that such unusual behavior might scare the creature off.
"Better wait a bit longer."
The path through the middle of the valley grew narrower and narrower, almost completely blocked by bushes and tree branches. Up ahead, Grandpa Bai and Old Wei had been forced to slow down as well, clearing the branches bit by bit.
Chen Ge figured he shouldn't push his luck too far. If the monster wasn't going to take the bait, so be it — he sped up to go help Grandpa Bai clear the path.
But who could have guessed that the moment he picked up his pace, the ghost behind him grew anxious instead, presumably thinking Chen Ge had discovered it and was finally about to make a move.
The cold slowly crept up into his heart. That long-familiar sensation reminded Chen Ge of his first date — Zhang Ya had leaned against his back then too, wearing that adorable expression that said I want you dead.
The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. The temperature plunged further as the chill surged in from every direction.
Before Chen Ge could even react, the white cat suddenly wriggled out of his backpack, meowed twice at him, then darted ahead on its own!
"You're such a coward! Aren't cats supposed to have nine lives?"
In truth, the white cat had been decent enough — at the very least, it had given him a warning before fleeing.
The cold wrapped around Chen Ge's shoulders like a pair of hands, slowly seeping into his body.
"A very familiar feeling." From behind him came a woman's voice, wailing like a funeral dirge — miserable and horrifying.
What was even stranger was that the voice seemed to be something only Chen Ge could hear. Up ahead, Grandpa Bai and Old Wei were going about their business, completely unaware.
The cold bit to the bone, and his shoulders grew heavier by the moment. It was then that Chen Ge remembered Grandpa Bai's story.
The old man's father must have endured this same kind of agony. To protect his son from harm, he had carried the ghost on his back for the entire journey.
His body grew heavier still, and a pulling force tugged at him from behind — the monster seemed to be dragging Chen Ge toward one of the coffins at the roadside.
"Could this be a substitute ghost?"