The victim fled in panic, ducking into the last stall of the abandoned school's restroom.
The killer closed in step by step, slowly approaching the prey with a savage grin, tightening the noose around the victim's neck.
The old man standing outside the restroom conjured such a scene in his mind, but when he eagerly peered inside, everything turned out to be nothing like what he had imagined.
A blood-stained man with only one hand had the leader by the throat, slamming him against the wall.
Countless blood threads wrapped around the leader's legs. He thrashed desperately, trying to break free, his hands scratching streak after streak across the clean white wall, but no matter how he struggled, he couldn't escape the bindings.
A pungent stench drifted through the restroom as an absurdly obese man squeezed himself out of a stall. He was more enthusiastic than any of the other employees — the foul aura emanating from the ghosts outside the school had him buzzing with excitement.
One figure after another emerged from the restroom stalls, and the old man stood there dumbfounded.
He froze on the spot, still unable to comprehend what was happening, until five pale fingers clamped around his throat.
Unable to breathe, he strained to see who it was, but even that simplest wish would not be granted.
"Does it hurt?"
That was the last sound the old man heard before his soul scattered to nothing.
In less than thirty seconds, the restroom was calm again.
At this point, he had already mastered many of the techniques that only Xiong Qing could use. The Red-clothes Xiong Qing created by the Ghost Story Society had only half a physical body — the other half was composed entirely of blood threads and negative emotions.
During the fight just now, Chen Ge had noticed that Bai Qiulin had also woven blood threads to fashion his own severed hand.
Bai Qiulin was growing stronger by the day, but the one who had changed the most wasn't him — it was the Stench Boy Chen Ge had brought out from Xicheng Private Academy.
The boy who had spent so long alongside his father's corpse had long grown accustomed to the stench. He had no name, everyone despised him, and the stench was his only identifier.
What surprised Chen Ge was that inside the Spirit-Chanting Ghost School, this special vengeful ghost — who wasn't even a half-body Red-clothes — had found a way to make himself stronger. He siphoned the foul stench from wandering spirits, growing larger and more terrifying in the process.
"What exactly is that stench clinging to the people outside the school? Why could I smell it even in the school the Painter reconstructed?"
Chen Ge hadn't paid much attention to the smell at first, but the Stench Boy's unusual reaction had put him on his guard.
"When there's a chance, I can send him to the waste processing center between the east and west campuses. Those unrecyclable filthy things might just come in handy."
After having his employees quickly clean up the restroom, destroy any traces of the murder scene, and confirm nothing had been overlooked, Chen Ge returned all his employees to the comic book and walked out.