"Are there any other methods? Xu Yin only has the area over his heart left un-reddened — his situation is pretty unique, right?"
Throughout the entire time Chen Ge had been speaking, Men Nan had been staring at him unblinkingly. Only after confirming that Chen Ge harbored no murderous intent toward him did his expression soften considerably.
"There are other methods, but compared to the first two, they're more troublesome." Men Nan was barely taller than Chen Ge's knee, yet he spoke with the cadence of an adult. "Ordinary ghosts need to anchor themselves to a physical object to keep from dissipating over time, but Red-clothed ghosts have no such concern. The fundamental reason for this difference is that Red-clothed ghosts possess a heart."
"A heart?"
"Something that can loosely be called a heart." Men Nan's voice carried a note of wistfulness. "Whether it's rage, hatred, or venomous resentment — when a certain emotion reaches its absolute extreme, it becomes the ghost's heart. This heart allows it to break free from its anchoring object and persist in the world forever. The ghost behind you has devoured more than enough spirits, but he still hasn't found his own 'heart.' If he can find it, he'll be able to ascend to Red-clothed with ease."
He glanced at Xu Yin, a faint trace of bewilderment crossing his youthful face. "The ghost behind you is a jumble of many different emotions — despair, agony, defiance, and a strange yearning that's hard for me to understand. Having so many emotions woven together in a single soul is extremely rare, and it's also created a major obstacle for his advancement to Red-clothed."
After hearing Men Nan's explanation, Chen Ge realized that Xu Yin really was different from ordinary ghosts. This ghost obeyed his every command without ever asking for anything in return.
Back at Fanghua Yuan, Xu Yin had been on the verge of being torn apart, yet he'd still forced himself to use a single arm to block the Red-clothed from the Ghost Story Society. Sometimes Chen Ge wondered — why did Xu Yin push himself that far? Was it simply because Chen Ge had saved him?
It was as though Xu Yin was forcing himself to believe every word Chen Ge ever said. He trusted Chen Ge unconditionally, as if trying to prove something.
Chen Ge still remembered what Xu Yin had looked like the first time they met. Back then, Xu Yin had only been slightly stronger than an ordinary ghost — not even a match for the Ghost Story Society's gaunt shadow figure. But even at his weakest, the moment Chen Ge gave an order, he would charge forward without a second thought, as though he were seeking death.
"The more the pain, the stronger the power — maybe I've been underestimating Xu Yin all along." Chen Ge felt he needed to have a proper conversation with Xu Yin, but not here. Men Nan's primary personality was too clever, and before Chen Ge could get him to join the Haunted House, he didn't want to reveal too many of his cards.
"The purer the emotion, the easier it becomes to turn Red-clothed. By the same logic, when a certain negative emotion reaches its absolute peak, that person may very well become a Door Opener." Men Nan felt he'd said more than enough for one night. He waved Chen Ge off. "I still have things to do, so I won't see you out. We'll meet again."
"I finally make the effort to come all the way here, and you're giving me the cold shoulder? I did save your life once, if I remember correctly." Chen Ge led Xu Yin closer to Men Nan.
"What are you trying to do?" Men Nan instantly grew wary.
"Relax, I just want to make a comparison." Chen Ge pointed at his own shadow. "There's another Red-clothed ghost in my shadow. Can you tell how she became one?"
Chen Ge had always been curious about Zhang Ya. The Xicheng Private Academy's scare index had dropped a full star just because she wasn't there.
That alone proved that before Zhang Ya had devoured the old Dean and the Red-clothed ghosts from the Ghost Story Society, she had already been capable of sustaining a three-star scenario on her own.
Men Nan stared at Chen Ge's shadow for a long time, and his expression suddenly turned very ugly. "I'm sensing a very familiar aura from the Red-clothed ghost in your shadow. She's like me — she opened a door while she was still alive."
"Zhang Ya is a Door Opener too?" Chen Ge recalled Zhang Ya's life experiences and shook his head. "The place where she lived didn't seem to have any doors."
After hearing Chen Ge's words, Men Nan's face grew even uglier. His body slowly began dissolving into the blood mist. "My senses are never wrong. If she isn't a Door Opener, then she must have devoured one in the past!"
As his body gradually faded, Men Nan found himself growing increasingly afraid of Chen Ge. This living human was practically a walking nest of monsters.
"I'm warning you — don't get any ideas about me. A Door Opener can exert two hundred percent of their power in the world behind the door." Men Nan paused, seeming to realize that even if his strength doubled, he still wouldn't stand a chance against Zhang Ya. He quickly changed his tone. "The door to the Third Ward has already been riddled with holes by those lunatics. If something happened to me and no one was left to guard it, the consequences would be catastrophic."
Chen Ge had always been curious about the world behind the doors. He followed up on Men Nan's words with a question. "What kind of consequences? Would the monsters behind the door get out into the real world?"
"You're oversimplifying things. That crimson world is saturated with all manner of negative emotions and memories abandoned by the living. If the door isn't sealed properly, these things will gradually seep into reality. And as the gap grows larger, something truly terrifying will appear." Men Nan led Chen Ge into the adjacent room and walked over to a window that could not be fully closed. Strands of blood-thread etched with human faces were wound around the window frame. "I can't speak their names in the world behind the door. All you need to know is that they're very different from ordinary ghosts."
Men Nan tore a strand of blood-thread from the frame. The thread emitted the screams of a living person.
He handed the blood-thread to Chen Ge, seemingly wanting to convey something to him.
Chen Ge reached out and took it. The moment his fingertips touched the thread, a wave of desperate, agonizing memories flooded into his mind. The owner of these memories looked very much like the face on the blood-thread — he was being chased, and then brutally killed.
"Every strand of blood-thread is a brutal memory." Men Nan lay on the windowsill, gazing outside. "And this is an entirely crimson world."
Men Nan was being deliberately vague in what he was trying to tell Chen Ge. He didn't dare elaborate, and Chen Ge couldn't fully understand anyway, so he simply committed everything to memory.
Chen Ge still had many questions he wanted to ask Men Nan, but the other party lacked the patience. Before long, Men Nan ushered Chen Ge back out through the blood door.
Every time the door was opened, it seemed to take a toll on Men Nan, plunging him into a weakened state for a short period. Chen Ge noted this as well — he figured it was likely a weakness of "Door Openers."
After leaving the Third Ward, Chen Ge walked along the road for a long way. It wasn't until the deep hours of the night that he finally encountered a kind stranger.
The person drove him to a spot near the outskirts of the city, where Chen Ge flagged down a taxi and headed straight for Muyang Middle School.