"My haunted house is pretty famous in Hanjiang. Look it up online and you'll see — we pay the best in the industry. Once we get back, I'll train you gradually, and I hope you'll come to truly enjoy this line of work."
After recruiting the ghost employees, Chen Ge had now gained three living ones. Unlike Xiao Gu and Xu Wan, these three understood everything that had happened in Liwan Town. Their worldview had shifted from that of ordinary people, which meant Chen Ge could safely bring them into the underground scenarios to help out.
"This world isn't as simple as it looks on the surface. The main reason I didn't want your help before was that my haunted house shelters some homeless, vengeful ghosts, so…"
"We understand!" They all grasped what Chen Ge was saying. After witnessing the bizarre horrors of Liwan Town, they could fully appreciate his concerns.
"Good." Chen Ge decided to assign Scissors and the others to the underground scenarios, where they would handle emergencies.
As the haunted house continued to expand, the underground scenarios grew larger and larger, and the number of visitors kept increasing — there was no way Chen Ge could manage everything alone.
"After dawn, take a day to rest and let your families know you're safe." Chen Ge then turned to Scissors and the Doctor. "One of you came here looking for a brother, and the other to find his wife. Later I'll take you on a thorough sweep of Liwan Town. Hopefully we'll find them."
Hearing that Chen Ge intended to help them locate their missing family members, Scissors nodded firmly. The Doctor's expression also softened in that moment, as if a weight had been lifted from his heart. "Thank you."
"Think nothing of it." Scissors and the Doctor each had only themselves left in the world, so there was nothing to worry about. But the Drunkard was different — his boarding the No. 104 spirit bus and ending up in Liwan Town had been a complete accident. In every sense of the word, he was just an ordinary person.
"My family's in the Xinhai city proper. Once this curse is under control, I'd like to go back." The Drunkard scratched his head. "Don't let appearances fool you — my family's actually pretty well-off. It's just that after my mom passed, things between my dad and me haven't been great, so I ran off to Jiujiang to make my own way these past few years. After tonight, a lot of things have clicked into place. I'm not exactly young anymore, so I'd like to find a chance to sit down and talk with him."
"A rich second-generation kid?" Neither Scissors nor Chen Ge had ever suspected the Drunkard had a past like that.
"Don't you think it's a bit rude to call someone a rich second-gen right to their face?" The Drunkard clutched his forehead, already sensing that his future was going to be anything but dull. "Let me reintroduce myself — my name is Zhang Jingjiu. I can't hold my liquor worth a damn, but my clients all like to call me Drunkard. I used to sell real estate, and I was also a baijiu distributor."
"My name was given to me by the orphanage. I don't really like it — you can just keep calling me Scissors."
Scissors and the Drunkard both gave brief introductions. When it came to the Doctor, however, he simply shook his head, as though there were things he couldn't bring himself to say.
Chen Ge didn't press the matter. They followed Xiao Bu back to Liwan Town to regroup with Fan Cong.
"Boss Chen!" Fan Cong's face lit up when he saw Chen Ge, but beneath the joy there was a trace of worry — he still had no idea how his brother Fan Dade was doing.
"Your brother is definitely fine. Fortune favors the good." After reassuring Fan Cong, Chen Ge led his three living employees on a stroll through Liwan Town.
Under the pretext of searching for Scissors's brother and the Doctor's wife, Chen Ge scoured the entire town, but he found nothing left behind by the Ghost Story Society. The vengeful ghosts that had been lurking in the buildings had quietly slipped away after the Shadow's downfall.
After searching for a long time, Scissors and the Doctor still hadn't found the people they were looking for. Their spirits flagged slightly.
"The Shadow has already been dealt with. We can come back here anytime now — sooner or later you'll run into them." Chen Ge wasn't sure if saying this was the right call, but he believed that sometimes the mere act of living came down to holding onto hope. And that was a hope worth keeping alive.
"Let's get ready to leave. We've been behind the door for quite a while now — it's time to go back out and see what's what."
The Liwan Town mission had brought Chen Ge enormous gains. Beyond unlocking scenarios and boosting his employees' strength, he had also uncovered information about the four-star scenario, Nether Fetus. The ghost infant that had last emerged from the Shadow's chest was very likely what Nether Fetus looked like at the moment of birth — and Chen Ge had burned that child's face firmly into his memory.
The group returned to Fan Cong's residential complex. Chen Ge had Xiao Bu prepare for the door-opening, then placed the unconscious Li Zheng in a neighboring room. After that, he began coordinating their cover stories with Scissors and the others. When it came to handling police interrogations, Chen Ge was nothing short of a master.
…
In a dilapidated building on the eastern side of Liwan Town, a family of three had been backed into a corner.
The man was in his forties. Pale and panicked, he huddled together with a woman whose expression was blank and vacant. Standing beside them was a little boy.
"The Shadow is already dead. What are we still doing here? If you want those three, just kill them. Are you really in the mood for a game of cat and mouse?" Kitano squatted on the ground, knife in hand. Beside him stood a tall, gaunt young man.
"Let me say this again — I'm nothing like you." Jia Ming grabbed the boy's face and examined it carefully. "That's right. It's him."
"What are you talking about?" Kitano walked over as well, terrifying the child even further.
"The Shadow did plenty of insane things while possessing my body, and that's how I learned many of his secrets. He once tried to implant a piece of himself into a mother's womb — an experiment to see how much curse and resentment a living human body could bear. As far as I recall, he only succeeded twice. One attempt produced Nether Fetus, and the other created this little monster." Jia Ming stared at the boy and the vacant-eyed woman with a look that was deeply unsettling.
"So this child before us is a part of Nether Fetus?" Kitano had no idea what Jia Ming was after. He had agreed to cooperate with the man precisely because Jia Ming knew so many secrets.
"After his experiment succeeded, the Shadow withdrew the resentment and curses. But even so, there must still be traces left inside this child. He shares a curse that is of the same origin as Nether Fetus, which means he should be able to sense Nether Fetus's location. That alone gives us grounds to take him with us."
"Are you sure? But this kid looks… awfully ordinary."
"That ordinariness is the best disguise there is. If I hadn't seen his mother, I never would have recognized him." Jia Ming picked up the boy and addressed the couple. "For the sake of this child, I won't kill you. But you will obediently cooperate with me to stimulate this boy — help him learn to harness the resentment and curse buried in his heart."
"Of course, of course." The man agreed at once, lowering his head. A flash of venomous malice flickered through his eyes.
"Let's go. I know about another door on the eastern outskirts — we can leave through there." After saying this, Jia Ming led the others into the blood mist.