Before the horde of corpses could reach him, Chen Ge shut the blood door.
The instant the door panel sealed shut, blood mist clung to Chen Ge's body, forming a thin membrane of blood.
"The world behind this door seems different from the Third Sick Building and Living Coffin Village."
Chen Ge reached out and touched the layer of blood membrane on his skin. He felt as though his entire body was wrapped in something suffocating—his breathing grew labored, and the sensation was deeply uncomfortable.
"In both Living Coffin Village and the Third Sick Building, I never once had blood mist attach itself to my body."
A vague sense of unease stirred in his chest. He pulled out his comic book and found that it, too, was coated in a thin film of blood.
Moving to a corner, Chen Ge called out softly for Yan Danian and Old Zhou, but received no response whatsoever.
He opened his backpack and pressed the switch on the tape recorder, but no matter how many times he tried, the device refused to function. He couldn't even hear the usual crackle of static.
"Can this blood membrane sever my connection with the ghosts?" Chen Ge tightened his grip on the Skull Crushing Hammer, unwilling to act rashly. "I once saw the Well-Throwing Woman ghost in Living Coffin Village manipulate the blood mist of the world behind the door. In the Third Sick Building, Men Nan's body had also fused with the blood mist. This means the door-opener can control the blood mist."
Chen Ge's mind raced. "I was wrapped in this blood membrane the moment I stepped through. Is this something Doctor Gao left behind before he departed? Or did he never actually leave Jiujiang at all—merely using a special ghost to deceive the police, while he himself is hiding in the world behind the door, secretly manipulating the blood mist?"
Doctor Gao was the one opponent Chen Ge least wanted to encounter, by every possible measure.
"The longer I stay in the blood mist, the thicker this membrane grows. This is going to be tricky."
Stripped of his ghosts, Chen Ge could only rely on the Skull Crushing Hammer in his hand and the white cat that had devoured the blood silk. The situation was stacked against him.
A flicker of panic stirred in his heart. He crouched down and glanced over his shoulder at his shadow. He reached out to touch it—there was no blood membrane on the shadow.
"She's still here."
Chen Ge felt considerably steadier. He tried calling out Zhang Ya's name deep in his mind. He could vaguely hear someone speaking, but the two of them seemed to be separated by an immense distance. Even with his Ghost Ear ability, he couldn't make out the words clearly.
"What is this place? I can barely breathe."
Li Xu and Ma Wei's bodies were also coated in a layer of blood membrane. Strangely, neither of them seemed to see the thin film—they simply kept clutching at their necks, as if an invisible noose were tightening around their throats.
"Don't panic. No matter what happens, keep your composure," Chen Ge said. Then he turned the door handle and opened the blood door once more.
One minute had passed. Beyond the door lay a world of utter, nightmarish absurdity.
The road twisted and curved like a bent intestine, while the walls on either side bulged outward like the organs of some living creature, their surfaces coated in a transparent layer of blood membrane.
Overhead, tube-like structures crisscrossed like a network of blood vessels, with countless threads of blood flowing through them.
Everything was drenched in red. From a distance, it was as though the world itself was a deformed, living organism.
"This is the world as Doctor Gao sees it?"
What kind of transformation would a person's mind have to undergo to imagine the world they lived in looking like this?
"What on earth does Doctor Gao think about every single day?"