After going around in circles, Chen Ge had finally found the true owner of the Ghost School. Though he'd only caught a glimpse of a single hand, it was still a major breakthrough for him.
"Just now, I heard someone whisper in my ear — 'Will you be my friend?'"
"That voice didn't come from the phone. I heard it clearly — it came from right beside my ear."
"Those words might not have been meant for Lin Sisi. They might have been meant for me."
Chen Ge looked behind him. The dark red threads of blood lining the bathroom stalls had begun peeling away in large patches at some point, like autumn leaves falling — completely drained of life.
"Did you agree to be his friend?"
Wang Yicheng, who had kept his eyes shut tight the entire time on Chen Ge's back, suddenly spoke. He buried his head against Chen Ge's shoulder, his voice so low it was nearly inaudible unless you strained to listen.
"More or less. He looked very pitiful." Chen Ge's neck was clamped in a vice-like grip by Wang Yicheng. Their bodies pressed together, and he could feel Wang Yicheng's body temperature steadily dropping.
"All his friends are dead, every single one of them!" The sound of dripping echoed from behind Chen Ge. He felt his shoulder grow damp and turned to look — his left shoulder was already soaked through with blood.
The vivid red was almost blinding.
"You—" Chen Ge swung Wang Yicheng off his back. The boy flailed his hands helplessly, clawing at the air, while blood and tears seeped from his tightly shut eyes. "Did you remember something?"
Returning to this place had triggered Wang Yicheng's memories. He had never opened his eyes — just hearing those words Chen Ge had said was enough for him to realize what had happened.
"There's no escape! You agreed to that person's request — he'll come for you! No matter where you go, he'll find you!" Wang Yicheng's voice had changed drastically. He had descended into madness, completely unlike the timid, frightened boy he'd been at first.
"If he won't come find me, then I'll go find him. I'm quite fond of making friends — in every sense of the word." Chen Ge had plenty of friends, only none of them were nearby, so he was perfectly happy to get to know some new ones.
The blood seeping from Wang Yicheng's eyes rolled down his cheeks, staining his outer clothes. Against his skin, the vivid red bloomed like flowers — this frail-looking boy actually possessed the potential to become a Red-clothed.
"I'm growing more and more curious about the school's master. How did he drag each and every one of you through that door?" Chen Ge hadn't expected that every club member he'd randomly recruited would turn out to be anything but ordinary. Part of it was luck, of course, but it also spoke to just how terrifying the Ghost School truly was.
A single half-Red-clothed was enough to anchor an ordinary two-star scenario. Yet within the Ghost School alone, Chen Ge had already encountered several Red-clothed and suspected Red-clothed entities.
"Are you just cracking jokes nonstop to hide the panic inside you?"
Hearing Wang Yicheng say this, Chen Ge became even more certain the boy had recovered his memories. The old Wang Yicheng had been timid and spineless — he never raised objections, only meekly obeyed.
"I'm not joking. Anyone capable of pushing open the 'Door' must have once held hope, even if that hope was long since ground to dust. I genuinely want to help him. Becoming his friend is only the first step." Chen Ge carried Wang Yicheng out of the bathroom. "Have you noticed? Most of the children in this school had warped childhoods — either born with physical defects, or their personalities twisted by external circumstances. Each of them carries memories they'd rather forget."
"What are you trying to say?"
"I'm curious about what the school's master went through before. What kind of experience could have driven the Door-pusher to open that 'Door'?"
"Once you agree to be his friend, you're trapped here forever. This school wasn't always this big — it kept growing as more despair and pain were added to it, until it became what it is now." After finishing that sentence, Wang Yicheng's eyes stopped bleeding, though his body continued to tremble.
"It seems you know quite a lot." Chen Ge felt this school bore a striking resemblance to his own haunted house — the difference being that the Ghost School actively sought out desperate students, or rather, attracted children who radiated the aura of despair, while Chen Ge's haunted house accepted everyone without discrimination. "This school has been around for quite some time, hasn't it?"
"What I can recall is that when I first opened my eyes, I was already here. I don't have Zhang Ju's experiences — I died in this school, was reborn here. Most things have been forgotten. All I know is that the school's scale has been expanding continuously."
"Why were you here? Was it Lin Sisi's punishment?" Chen Ge asked another question that had been nagging at him.
Wang Yicheng paused for a long while before answering. "I was the only person Lin Sisi ever spared. The reason I ended up here is that after Lin Sisi disappeared, I became his replacement. My classmates' fear and anxiety turned into violence directed at me. One night, when I was on the verge of breaking down, that Door found me."
"And you stepped through? According to Zhang Ju, the first time the Door appears, it's far from wherever you sleep, and then it gradually gets closer each day…" Chen Ge didn't finish before Wang Yicheng cut him off.
"The Door is entirely passive, but I was active. I wanted to find a corner to hide in. Besides…" Wang Yicheng hesitated for a long time before revealing another secret. "The hand reaching out of the doorframe was covered in paint. It was Lin Sisi's hand. He was inviting me in, and I wanted to apologize to him face to face. That day, I actually reported it to the teacher, but he never came."
"What else do you know about Lin Sisi and that Door?"
"Nothing else. After entering through the Door, I never saw Lin Sisi. Not once, even up to today." Wang Yicheng released his hands. "You can put me down now."
"Are you sure you're not lying?" Chen Ge set Wang Yicheng down. "At the west campus bathroom entrance, the moment your memory started to loosen, the school's manager appeared almost instantly. If I hadn't knocked you out at the last second, we'd probably have been caught by now. Your treatment is completely different from Zhang Ju's or Zhu Long's."
"Maybe it's because Lin Sisi was his friend, and I was Lin Sisi's friend."
The group passed through the seven stalls one by one. These stalls documented what Lin Sisi had once endured — what the phone had captured was likely only a fraction of it.
"I can't even imagine what that Door-pusher must have gone through." As they were about to leave the bathroom, Chen Ge looked toward the seventh stall. "It's certain that the Door is located in the seventh stall. If we want to understand the school's master, all we need to do is investigate every incident that ever took place in this bathroom."
Based on the clues already gathered, Chen Ge's next destination would be three places — the school archives, the school library, and the oil painting studio in the experimental building, which he'd promised Zhou Tu he would visit.