The woman in red had a caved-in head, a twisted body, and deformed facial features — you could barely make out that she was human.
Even Chen Ge, who had grown up hugging all kinds of haunted house props since childhood, was having a hard time keeping it together.
"Okay, this is genuinely excessive." The woman's death had been extremely gruesome. Chen Ge fought back the urge to bolt and held his ground.
"Help me, I'm right here…"
The woman stood in front of Chen Ge, waving gently, as if she were afraid he couldn't see her.
That face crept closer and closer. The hairs on Chen Ge's body stood on end, and he hurriedly spoke up: "You keep shouting 'I'm right here, I'm right here' — is it because every time you called for help before, the people passing by all ignored you?"
The moment he said this, the woman's rate of speech slowed, and her crooked mouth pressed together.
Chen Ge sensed his chance and immediately adopted the same tone he used with Xu Yin and Zhang Ya: "Rest assured, I'm not like those people."
Without a single vengeful ghost on him, Chen Ge somehow calmed down. He felt himself gradually slipping into the right headspace.
"I can imagine the pain you must have suffered. Every time you cried out, you were giving everything you had to cling to the only sliver of hope, but reality kept hurting you over and over again." A trace of sympathy surfaced in Chen Ge's eyes. He raised his head and looked the woman straight in the face: "I know you've been waiting for someone to lend a hand. Maybe back then, if just one person had stepped forward, you would have had a chance to live. I understand everything you've done, and I know the hatred in your heart. I'm not asking you to trust me — I'm just asking you to give yourself a chance, and to give me a chance to try."
Chen Ge reached out his hand: "They won't help you, I will; they won't care about you, I will; they won't save you, I will!"
As he finished speaking, Chen Ge took a small step forward: "This tunnel is dark and deep, buried under too much resentment. Let me take you out of here, all right?"
When Chen Ge stepped forward, the woman in red shifted almost imperceptibly backward.
A large chunk of her head was caved in, leaving only about three-quarters of her face. Her twisted features squeezed out a strange expression.
It was impossible to tell what she was trying to convey. Perhaps she herself was surprised by Chen Ge's enthusiasm — she had never encountered anyone like him before and didn't know what expression to make.
"How can I help you?" Chen Ge stared intently at the woman's face, speaking with complete sincerity.
The woman's waving hand slowly came to a stop. She tilted her nearly falling-off head and studied Chen Ge for a long while before finally speaking: "I'm here. There's a hole in my head — blood has flowed into my eyes, I can't see anything at all. Help me."
Blood seeped outward from the large dent in her face, making Chen Ge's heart race. He tore a piece from his coat and, under the bewildered gaze of the woman in red, raised both hands: "I'll stop the bleeding first, and then I'll take you out."
The pupils in the woman's protruding eyes twitched slightly. She spoke again: "My arms and shoulders were crushed. Please, help me."
Everything the woman said seemed to be what she had cried out just before dying — so wretched, choked with sobs, her voice thick with despair.
"Is it your left arm or your right?" Chen Ge looked at the woman. She didn't seem to have ever considered that question. He slowly eased his body forward: "Here, let me support you."
Every word Chen Ge said made the woman in red freeze. These warm, heartfelt answers appeared to be something she had never heard before.
With her twisted body and mangled limbs, the woman in red stood still in the passage for a long time. The red tint in her pupils gradually faded away.