Stepping forward, he raised the flyer above his head. "Liwan Town took a third of the Paranormal Society's heritage! Closing that out-of-control door was one of the three wishes you left behind! Today, I've braved countless dangers and hazards to finally make it here — all to shut that door!"
The Shadow was a master of psychological warfare. The more he listened to Chen Ge's words, the worse he felt.
That man didn't seem to be lying. He had come here because the Doctor was guiding him.
"You—"
Chen Ge didn't give the Shadow a chance to speak, cutting him off directly. He locked eyes with
Humans truly were peculiar creatures. Even after bearing all the negative emotions behind a door, even after being cursed by an entire town, even after sinking into a pitch-black abyss, some sliver of humanity still lingered at the bottom of Doctor Gao's heart — a humanity he himself hadn't even known was there. It was the memory of Gao Ruxue.
Those crimson eyes slowly shifted their gaze, and Doctor Gao fixed his stare on the Shadow standing on the other side of the rooftop.
The blood-stained "white coat" billowed in the wind. Black blood poured down from the heights.
Chen Ge didn't know what Doctor Gao had encountered behind the door, nor did he know where the wife he'd been carrying on his back had gone. He only knew one thing — Doctor Gao had apparently gone mad from indiscriminately devouring too many Red Coats and malicious ghosts. Under the bombardment of countless negative emotions, he had completely lost his reason.
He had no memory left, operating purely on instinct. The reason he still remembered Chen Ge likely came down to two factors.
First, Doctor Gao had entrusted his final wishes entirely to Chen Ge — closing the out-of-control door in Liwan Town and looking after his daughter, Gao Ruxue.
Second, and more importantly, every plan Doctor Gao had made during his lifetime had revolved around Chen Ge. He had even planned out what would happen after his death. Everything was tied to Chen Ge and the Haunted House — countless hidden pieces had already been set on the board. That was why he kept holding on to the memory of Chen Ge.
A person could go mad for any number of reasons, but for a madman to truly recover was extraordinarily difficult. The first enemy he had to face was himself.
It was precisely because Chen Ge recognized this that he stepped forward now. He knew Doctor Gao couldn't possibly be awakened by a few sentences, and he wasn't foolish enough to expect the Doctor to abandon his desire to attack him. All Chen Ge wanted was to redirect Doctor Gao's curiosity toward the Shadow.
Once they eliminated the Shadow — that variable — everything else would be far simpler.
"Doctor Gao, even if you've lost your memory, even if you've become a Red Coat, in my heart you are still the President! You're the one who taught me what true horror stories are! You made me understand what the Paranormal Society truly stands for!"
"Don't hesitate anymore! The door in Liwan Town once belonged to the Paranormal Society, and it will always belong to the Paranormal Society!"
Chains engraved with human faces burst out from the building, slithering across the wall. Their target was the Shadow.
The Shadow hadn't expected Chen Ge to actually succeed in swaying a Red Coat who had already lost all reason. And then he quickly realized something far worse was happening.
As the chains reached toward him, black hair descended like a curtain of night, cutting off every possible escape route.
"He's not a Red Coat, yet his life force is even more tenacious than a Red Coat's. We'd best surround him, then figure out how to finish him off for good."
A madman, and a person not far from madness himself — these were the two presidents of the Paranormal Society. It had to be said, in a certain light, Doctor Gao's judgment in choosing a successor had truly been exceptional.
"I am your shadow. To kill me, you'd have to die along with me." The Shadow was already extremely weak, yet he still refused to show any softness before Chen Ge. As though displaying even a hint of vulnerability in front of Chen Ge was something deeply shameful.
"Ever since I burned that love letter, you haven't been my shadow anymore. I don't know if I can kill you, but I'd like you to quiet down and savor the horror story I've prepared for you. Consider it a farewell — the last gift I give you."
Chen Ge stepped back. The shadow beneath his feet was connected to Zhang Ya, while the dark figure stood alone on the other side of the rooftop.
"Gift?" The Shadow let out a grating laugh. "The first gift I've ever received in my entire life is a horror story?"
That laughter was laced with the cries of countless children. It had gone from weeping at every death, to numbness, and finally to laughter even in the face of suffering.
"I will kill you. I can't wait any longer for the Nether Fetus to be born!" After speaking, the Shadow's body solidified. That face slowly became clearer, features emerging from the blur, as though a person was surfacing from water. The Shadow had become a perfect mirror of Chen Ge.
"I am you! I am the real you!"
Both hands plunged deep into his own body. Curse energy flowed from his fingertips. Scars surfaced, one after another — ugly, jagged marks that spread across his skin and converged into a series of peculiar symbols. Finally, all the symbols gathered on his chest, forming the pattern of an infant.
But this was no ordinary child. Its heart was beating, radiating infinite malice. Looking at it was like staring at the evil spirit pattern carved on the door of the Haunted House.
"The Nether Fetus!"
The infant's limbs extended outward in all directions. The Shadow's body was torn apart — four spider-like, elongated limbs burst from within it. His expression and the infant's expression became perfectly aligned in that moment: a boundless hatred for everything in this world.
The chain engraved with human faces slammed into the Shadow. His face twisted grotesquely, and even more arms erupted from behind him, piercing through his own body. Drops of black liquid symbolizing curse energy burst forth, and the rooftop was drenched as if by a downpour of black rain.
"Every despair I've experienced — I haven't forgotten a single one! Every death only makes me stronger! You say you want to kill me, but even I don't know how to kill myself!"
The Shadow's face cracked apart like a mask dropped on the ground, fractures spreading in every direction.
"I am the one closest to death. I love death — and I love making you all taste it too."
The Shadow's face shattered completely. The infant on his chest snapped its eyes open, and the venomous gaze it cast was identical to the Shadow's own.
"Don't give him a chance! Separate the infant from his body!" Chen Ge shouted. As he spoke, Doctor Gao had already lunged forward, his expression manic, having caught the scent of something that excited him. On this Shadow, he seemed to sense an existence that surpassed even the Red Coats.