The trial mission required Chen Ge to enter the core area of the underground morgue before midnight and survive until dawn.
He'd only just emerged from the hidden passage at eleven o'clock, so there was still plenty of time to prepare.
"Spill it — what kind of monsters did you two run into out there?" Chen Ge stood beside the hidden passage, keeping a close eye on what was going on inside it.
"There was a girl holding an apple, and a whole lot of corpses that came out of who-knows-where. Their bodies had been stitched up, and every thread used for the sewing was red."
"Red thread? Are you sure you didn't see it wrong?" This was the first time Chen Ge had ever heard that corpses in the morgue were sutured with red thread.
"It was definitely red — thinner than normal thread you'd find in everyday life. And the bodies could move on their own."
Li Xu's description reminded Chen Ge of the blood threads from the Ghost Story Society. "Besides that, did you run into anything else? Something that could scurry along walls like a gecko, or bodies that bounced along the ground like fish?"
"No." Li Xu and Ma Wei shook their heads. They honestly had no idea the underground morgue harbored so many terrifying monsters. It felt like an entire subterranean world completely cut off from the surface.
"Looks like the ones you ran into were only a small fraction of what's in here."
This was the largest underground morgue in Jiujiang — arguably in all of central and southern China — and had been built over the longest period of time. How many monsters had accumulated inside over the years, even the Ghost Story Society probably couldn't say.
"Bro, so what do we do now?" Ma Wei and Li Xu both turned their eyes toward Chen Ge.
"You should count yourselves lucky you ran into me, or you'd have had a hell of a time getting out of here alive." Chen Ge glanced down at the watch on his phone. "Right now it's just the warm-up. Once it hits midnight, that's when this place shows its true face of horror!"
"Midnight?"
"That's right. After midnight, every single monster in this place wakes up. It'll be a carnival — for them." Chen Ge's voice came through clenched teeth, and he shot Li Xu and Ma Wei a hard glare. "I originally planned to come in, look around, and leave before midnight. But no — you two had to go and lure monsters right to us and cut off our only way out! Because of you, I'm stuck in this nightmare too, with no choice but to ride it out until dawn!"
A flicker of guilt and remorse crossed Li Xu's and Ma Wei's faces. "Bro, we didn't have time to think back then. Who could've predicted this would happen?"
They hung their heads, not daring to speak too loudly, and offered Chen Ge a sincere apology.
"Forget it — I can't be bothered holding it against you. Being trapped here is a done deal. All we can do now is figure a way out." Chen Ge's expression was calm; no matter the situation, he gave off an air of someone others could lean on. "During the day those monsters go dormant — they only come out at night. So we have to do everything in our power to hold on until dawn."
"All the way until dawn? Just the three of us?"
"Never give up hope. As long as you're not dead yet, fight to stay alive." Standing in the room drenched in blood-red "moss," Chen Ge turned and walked deeper inside.
Watching his retreating figure, Li Xu and Ma Wei suddenly felt as though the man before them was growing taller and more imposing with every step.
To Chen Ge, Li Xu and Ma Wei were unexpected helpers, and his expectations of them weren't high. He was already running through ways to make the most of two crematorium workers. When things were quiet, they could lend a hand with grunt work. At critical moments, they could scout ahead. And if monsters were hot on their heels with nowhere left to run, he could always use them as a brief distraction to buy himself time to call for Zhang Ya.
"Wait for us!" Li Xu jogged up behind Chen Ge and said in a low voice, "Bro, whatever you want us to do tonight, we'll do it. No more of what happened before — you have my word on that."
"We might not be much, but we've got the strength. The three of us will make it through tonight, guaranteed." Ma Wei walked over too, his clothes soaked through and stained with that strange liquid.
The two crematorium workers volunteering to follow was something Chen Ge had anticipated. They didn't have a choice.