A person can only push open a "door" when they are at their most desperate and helpless. When the fire came, the boy was trapped in the deformed car window. What he saw was his injured mother, and one after another, figures fleeing at full speed.
The flames scorched his body. When his flesh burned away along with the car door, he finally opened the door that had been pinning his body in place.
His lower body was left inside the car, his upper body fused with the door in fire.
The agony was beyond anything Chen Ge could imagine, so no matter how vicious and cruel the boy acted now, Chen Ge would never step forward to condemn him.
No one is born a monster. Even if their appearance differs from ordinary people, their heart is still made of flesh.
The boy's spider legs threaded through the "corpses" suspended by silk, and the crack across his body sealed itself shut again. "The Shadow wanted to push open a door in Liwan Town, to let something from the other side out. Before he met me, that lunatic had already run all sorts of tests on human nature in Liwan Town — pushing innocent people to the brink, then using them to open the door. But none of them could open it, not even on the verge of death. His plan kept failing, so he set his sights on me. He wanted to capture me, pin me down somewhere in Liwan Town, and use me to complete his plan."
"Needless to say, I refused. So I tried to kill him." The boy's voice turned sinister. He was ruthless in his own right — anyone who dared scheme against him, he killed without a second word.
"Judging by how things stand, you failed." Chen Ge threw cold water on him, reminding the boy that things were different now. The Shadow was their common enemy.
"True. He's hard to kill." After saying this, the boy gave Chen Ge a meaningful look. "He keeps growing stronger. But as long as I'm still in this tunnel, I have the ability to protect myself."
Blood seeped from the boy's lower abdomen. "I can drag everyone who enters the tunnel into the door world. In there, I can do things that are impossible out here."
A Door Pusher's power doubled on the other side of the door — a massive advantage. The boy's ability to forcibly drag people into the door world could be devastating if used well.
"So I was just pulled into the door world by you?"
"That's right. That place is a nightmare I wove — frozen forever on that day. But this ability has one drawback: it can only be used within the Bailong Cave Tunnel. Once I leave the tunnel, I can't open the door." The gash on the boy's lower abdomen resembled a gaping mouth, a terrifying sight. "Sometimes I wonder — did I push open the door, or did the door become me?"
The boy's situation was unique. This was Chen Ge's first time encountering something like it.
"You've fought the Shadow before. Does he have any weaknesses?"
"If I'd found his weakness, I would have eaten him long ago. Why would I still be waiting?" The spider legs beneath the boy lashed out in every direction, and he looked furious. "That lunatic grows stronger every time. I've tried everything and can't kill him. I tried trapping him behind the door world, only to discover he'd slowly figured out the rules of the tunnel behind the door and nearly escaped on his own…"
The boy stopped abruptly mid-sentence, realizing he'd let something slip — that there were rules to the tunnel behind the door.
"And then?" Chen Ge pretended he hadn't heard and asked casually.
"He failed. But next time, I might not be able to hold him." The boy tilted to one side, revealing a massive wound across his spider body. "We fought not long ago. He was desperate — like a starving, mad dog."
"After you fought, where did he go?" That was what Chen Ge wanted to know. He was curious whether the Shadow had latched back onto Jia Ming after leaving the tunnel.
"I don't know." The boy began avoiding the topic. Under Chen Ge's persistent questioning, he only revealed three things.
Every time the Shadow came in to find him, his appearance was different. The boy suspected the Shadow could freely alter his form and body.
Inside the Shadow's body was the silhouette of a child, and no matter how the external appearance changed, that inner child's shadow never shifted.
The last point the boy wasn't certain about himself. He felt that the Shadow carried an aura very similar to Chen Ge's — which was also the reason he'd originally harbored murderous intent toward him.
Chen Ge committed all three points to memory. Once he was certain he couldn't wring any more useful information from the boy, he turned to face the tunnel ghost.
"What are you going to do?" Before Chen Ge could even open his mouth, the boy crawled out from the "corpse forest" and positioned himself between Chen Ge and his mother.
"After you leave the tunnel, the door inside you can't be opened. Your strength will drop considerably. So I'd like to ask her to come with me and help deal with the Shadow. After all, every bit of help counts."
Chen Ge said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world, leaving the boy nearly speechless. "I let you leave. I told you all this information — those were the stakes I put on the table. And now you want to take my mother too?"
"If we don't eliminate the Shadow, the next time he appears in the tunnel, both you and your mother could die." Chen Ge's expression was grave. The boy's mind was consumed by hatred and malice, so the approach Chen Ge typically used to reason with other ghosts wouldn't work on him. He switched tactics, using the threat of complete annihilation — the obliteration of the soul — to persuade him.
"I won't force you to make a choice. But I hope you'll genuinely consider what's best for your mother, and for yourself." Chen Ge's tone was heavy, as though remembering something deeply painful. "I imagine you don't ever want to feel that kind of despair again."
"That's impossible. If she leaves the tunnel, she'll die. They'll all die." The spider legs swept over the corpses hanging from the ceiling. The tormented, struggling souls let out wails. Their obsessions were bound by silk — the boy's capacity for horror was terrifying.
"Rather than waiting to die, I think it's better to keep your fate in your own hands." Chen Ge walked past the boy and looked at the tunnel ghost. "Your child wants to protect you, and you want to protect your child. Neither of you can bear to lose the other again — I understand that. So whatever choice you make, I'll respect it."
The "corpses" hanging from the tunnel ceiling swayed back and forth, wails pouring out endlessly. After several minutes of stalemate, the tunnel ghost smiled at Chen Ge, then walked over to her child.
Just like any ordinary mother, she wrapped her arms around the boy's head. The boy, whose eyes were usually filled with malice and hatred, looked gentle and docile in that moment. All of his massive spider legs retracted, and the grotesque patterns across his spider body stopped oozing blood.
The tunnel ghost whispered something in her boy's ear, then released him and walked toward the tunnel exit.
Chen Ge didn't bother asking what she'd said. He'd already said he'd respect their choice.
He quickened his pace to catch up with the tunnel ghost, and the tension in his expression finally eased.
"I've taken the strongest ghost's mother. This three-star trial mission should count as a success, though the completion rate will probably be pretty low. I can come back sometime in the future. First, I'll deal with the Shadow. Then I'll reunite this mother and son."