The sudden appearance of a figure had put the reading room on edge. Chen Ge and the others stood rooted to the spot, none of them daring to take another step forward.
"You'd rather trust the ghosts behind the door than the living person out here?" The figure slowly raised his head, revealing a pair of unsettling eyes.
His right eye looked normal, but his left was entirely crimson—like a glass marble soaking in red paint.
"Chang Gu."
Chen Ge's lips moved as he spoke the name. He hadn't expected to run into him here.
"I know you have a lot of questions right now, but I don't have time to explain. All you need to know is that I won't harm you, no matter what." Chang Gu raised the backpack in his hand. "This belongs to you. I brought it over."
It was indeed the backpack Chen Ge had carried out of the haunted house. The zipper had been pulled open, but everything inside was still there.
"How did my backpack end up in your hands?" Chen Ge took a step forward.
"Don't go over there!" Zhang Ju stopped him. "There's no record of this person in my memory. Something's changed."
Chang Gu heard Zhang Ju's words and broke into a grin. "You really are popular—making friends wherever you go."
He stepped aside to clear the passage and glanced out of the reading room. His speech quickened. "My sister gave me the backpack. She told me you would definitely come here."
"Chang Wenyu?"
"Mm. She'll help you leave the school, on the condition that you agree to cooperate with her." Chang Gu set the backpack down. "That's also why you ended up here."
"It was Chang Wenyu who dragged me through the door? You two cooked this up together?" Chen Ge habitually looked at things from the worst possible angle. He recalled the scene in the hospital where he'd been pulled through the door—the first hand to reach out from inside had been slender and delicate, definitely a woman's arm.
"There are many things I only just found out myself, so this doesn't count as deception. At the very least, I had no intention of deceiving you." Chang Gu looked far healthier than before, as though he'd been rejuvenated by more than a decade.
"Out with it then—what kind of cooperation does she want?" Chen Ge felt there wasn't a single person in this school he could trust. Everyone was looking out for themselves.
"Don't use that reluctant tone. She's saving you. The situation in this school is far more complicated than you've guessed. Without her, you probably never would have woken up." Chang Gu walked toward Chen Ge of his own accord. "We're the ones on the same side—friends with the same goal who understand each other."
Zhang Ju and Zhu Long flanked Chen Ge, and everyone watched Chang Gu with extreme caution.
"What do you need me to do?" Chen Ge didn't like beating around the bush, especially in a place as dangerous as behind the door.
"The Painter is about to become the new Door Pusher. The moment he does, every soul trapped behind this door will be imprisoned here for all eternity—living in a beautiful paradise created by the Painter." Chang Gu didn't stop walking. He was now very close to Chen Ge.
"What's so bad about that? Giving homeless wandering souls a home, letting them forget pain and despair, building a blood-red heaven." Chen Ge noticed that Chang Gu had truly changed. He couldn't sense any trace of a living person about him.