"Did you hear their voices? They are telling me of their suffering. Even after death, that obsession remains."
The man's arms slowly spread wide, and the constantly shifting half of his face finally settled into his own appearance.
He looked at
"People like that are not an isolated case. It's precisely because they exist that some people who shouldn't have died were ultimately driven to a dead end."
Chen Ge looked at the man across the tracks. He understood him, but that didn't mean he fully agreed with everything he said: "Friend, I know there are many vile people and things in this world, and they're all around us. But beyond them, there are also many more beautiful things. Good and bad are woven together — that's what makes up our lives. I think what your teacher said makes a lot of sense. You're someone who genuinely cares about your patients, and you're a good person. But you're not a qualified crisis line operator."
"You said it yourself — you can change a person's ability to absorb and give out love. But have you realized that in the process, you yourself have been changed by those who sought your help? Your world has been overtaken by those filthy things. Your eyes can now only see ugliness and disgust. The truth is, the world itself hasn't changed — it's always been this way. The one who changed is you."
The Red-clothed ghost across the tracks was a kind and good person. It was also the first time Chen Ge had seen someone so purely good become a Red-clothed ghost after death.
He hadn't become Red-clothed out of extreme hatred or extreme love, nor out of grudges and various negative emotions — only out of kindness. An ordinary person wanting to shoulder the painful past of every suicide victim — in Chen Ge's eyes, that was something impossible. But the man before him had done it.
In a sense, this Red-clothed ghost might have even greater potential than
The man hadn't expected Chen Ge to push back against his views. His gaze locked onto Chen Ge, and a peculiar emotion churned within his eyes. His composure cracked, and he seemed somewhat agitated: "Do you know why I told you all this?"
"Why?" Chen Ge didn't believe he could convince the man with a few words. He simply felt that this man had suffered greatly — both in life and in death. Perhaps he could try living in a different way.
"The number saved in your phone is one I used to use. The people who answered your calls — they were the people I failed to help." The man's tone and expression grew increasingly strange. His features slowly twisted. If at first he had given Chen Ge the impression of someone close to a living person, now the last trace of humanity had vanished from him entirely.
"The first few people were a test for you. If you hadn't helped them, or had mocked their deaths, or had simply looked the other way — then before long, you would have become one of the shadows behind me."
The man had swung from one extreme to another. This kind of thinking was extremely dangerous.
"It looks like I was pretty lucky then. So have I passed the test now?" Chen Ge was well aware that Red-clothed ghosts weren't easy to come by. Previously, even two ordinary vengeful spirits —
To receive rewards, one must first pay the price. Everything in the Black Phone operated on an equal exchange.
"There were supposed to be seven people you'd encounter. I didn't expect you to identify one of their locations just from some sounds and find me — something I was never able to do back then." The man's expression remained terrifying and grotesque, but his gaze softened slightly. "What I especially didn't expect was that you would risk your life to save a complete stranger. You didn't even know whether the other person was alive or dead, yet you charged onto the tracks right before the train arrived. Did you even think about it? If you'd been a few seconds slower, your life would have been over."
"Real or not, I had to try — because lives are involved. I can't gamble on that. Even if I knew in my heart that there was a ninety-nine percent chance it was a trick, I'd still willingly be deceived." Chen Ge's voice was calm, yet filled with a kind of power that was inexplicably comforting to hear.
"Well, you really are a fool." The man paused, a trace of complicated emotion flickering in his eyes.
"A fool's a fool, then. I've done plenty of foolish things like this. A lot of people have said the same thing — I'm used to it by now." The atmosphere had eased somewhat, and Chen Ge ventured a question: "Now that I've passed your test, is there anything you'd like to tell me?"
He looked at the Red-clothed ghost across the tracks with eager anticipation, his eyes shining as they swept over the dense, dark figures arrayed behind the man.
Being stared at like that, the man furrowed his brow: "It's true that something like this has never happened before. This number was simply a tool I used to ease the grudges of suicide victims. I would use it to filter out the bastards who mocked the dead, and then take them away. You passing the test simply means you get to continue living."
"You're using that number to kill people?" Chen Ge's voice froze. He genuinely hadn't expected it. A number that had once been used to save people — a number into which others had placed their last hope — had now become a tool for killing.
The man's different handling of the same number, in life and in death, filled Chen Ge with a measure of regret.
"I know you'd find it strange. But isn't this exactly what some people wished for?" A thin smile crept across the man's grotesque face. "After what happened to me, this number that had saved countless people was branded by those lunatics as a number cursed by the devil. Anyone who dialed it would end up unfortunate — meeting accidents, dying in the streets. They even turned me into a horror story. And what I'm doing now is simply turning the horror story they made up into reality."
There was no satisfaction of vengeance in his voice — only cold detachment.
Chen Ge understood the man's thinking. He had never intended to harm anyone, yet in the end, he was the one who got hurt. Even in death, he couldn't find peace. If his personality hadn't changed under all that, that would have been the strange part.
After thinking for a moment, Chen Ge spoke slowly: "Actually, you and I are the same kind of person. We're both the reckless fools who throw ourselves in without a second thought — people who gave everything to consider others, only to lose ourselves in the end."
Hearing Chen Ge's words, the man's furrowed brows relaxed slightly. He was about to speak, but Chen Ge cut him off.
"But we're not completely the same. The path I chose is different from yours. You bore everything silently in your heart until you couldn't take it anymore and collapsed."
"The truth is, you never needed to be that tired. You can't change everyone. The only person you can change is yourself."