Chapter 851: Blood-Red City Silhouette

In order to find the old principal, Chen Ge had already made several trips to Muyang Middle School. This was the closest he had ever gotten to the old principal. Whoever was standing in his way was his enemy.

In Chen Ge's view, that sort of scenario where you keep circling around only to miss each other by a hair's breadth belonged in third-rate soap operas. He had made up his mind — no matter the cost, he was going to find the old principal.

Not only did the old principal know the way out of the ghost school, but he also had a great deal of information about Chen Ge's parents. That knowledge could prove invaluable in understanding the haunted house, the black phone, and even understanding himself.

"Abandoning his entire class to go gamble his life alone in a four-star scene — does he even have those other kids in his heart?"

Chen Ge didn't know the answer to that question, so he wanted to ask the old principal face to face.

The atmosphere inside the ghost school was growing ever more unsettling. The windows along the corridor emitted sharp cracking sounds, and red mist clung to the glass, through which one could vaguely make out a network of cracks.

"Most three-star scenes behind doors are enclosed spaces — the Third Psychiatric Ward, for example. Liwan Town was a special case, which is why the black phone rated it at three and a half stars…" Chen Ge stared at the window, doubt after doubt surfacing in his mind. "I once saw a shattered window in the Third Psychiatric Ward. Men Nan kept patching up that breach. According to him, if he didn't seal it properly and other foul things spotted it, it could attract something extremely dangerous."

"The Third Psychiatric Ward was enclosed. Because he was weak, Men Nan never considered stepping outside the scene. He didn't dare, and he didn't want to know what lay beyond."

Looking out at the dense red mist beyond the glass, Chen Ge thought of the Coffin Village. "The world behind that village's door was also drenched in blood-red. But the well-throwing female ghost was far stronger than Men Nan — on par with Zhang Ya before she devoured the shadow's heart — which was why she had the power to protect that little village. But from the looks of it, she had always been researching how to be reborn as a human, always trying to shed her identity as a vengeful ghost. She must have seen something terrifying beyond the door, something impossible to cope with — that's why she had such a sense of urgency."

"Something that could make even a top-tier Red-Clothed ghost tremble — that is what truly lurks behind the door."

Another scene flashed through Chen Ge's mind — the showdown with Dr. Gao in the underground morgue. Dr. Gao had chosen to bear all the sins of the afterlife alone. He buried the door and destroyed with his own hands the threshold he had once pushed open.

After that "door" collapsed, the ceiling made of blood vessels and organs crumbled away in large chunks, and blood-red moonlight shone down from above.

Chen Ge remembered the scene he had witnessed with perfect clarity. He had looked up through the breach in the underground morgue toward the surface, where he had seen a blood-red city.

"That boundless, blood-red city — is that what exists beyond all these horror scenes? Or rather, do all horror scenes, regardless of their star rating, actually exist within that blood-red domain?"

Chen Ge felt himself drawing ever closer to the truth, but the closer he got, the more worried he became.

Dr. Gao had been the most terrifying opponent he had ever faced — meticulous in thought, overwhelming in power, backed by a host of allies. Chen Ge even suspected that his final act of suicide had been part of the plan all along.

And yet that seemingly invincible existence, after leaving his original scene and entering the blood-red city, had been reduced to a chain-bound madman in just a few days.

What shook Chen Ge the most was Dr. Gao's beloved wife — the person who had always been the pillar of his will.

In Chen Ge's eyes, even if Dr. Gao's soul had been utterly annihilated, he would never have let anyone harm his wife. Not a single strand of hair on her corpse.

But the reality was that when they met again, the only thing left beside Dr. Gao was his wife's severed head.

Chen Ge couldn't even imagine what Dr. Gao had experienced behind the door, what horrifying, evil entities he had encountered.

That was part of the reason Chen Ge had decisively chosen to ally with Dr. Gao in Liwan Town. He wanted to understand everything beyond the door, because he suspected his own parents had also entered that blood-red city.

"I've seen plenty of three-star scenes — completely sealed off. But four-star scenes…" Chen Ge was mulling this over when a sharp crack sounded beside his ear.

Snap!

The glass in a window next to him suddenly exploded. Countless shards flew toward him, but fortunately Xu Yin deflected them.

"The glass broke?"

The school's window had been shattered. This scene was now connected to the outside world. Through the blood mist, one could vaguely make out the silhouette of buildings — and what was stranger still, those buildings were slowly drawing closer to the school, as if they were moving.

"This way!" shouts and footsteps echoed from the end of the corridor. Chen Ge quickly ushered everyone into a nearby classroom to hide.

Blood mist seeped slowly through the broken window, like a red python hunting for prey.

Moments later, seven men in school maintenance uniforms and teachers rushed over. Leading them was Director Lei, whom Chen Ge had seen before.

They carried all manner of tools, and in barely ten-odd seconds they had repaired the window. But what surprised Chen Ge was this: seven had come to fix the window, yet only six departed. One person had vanished without anyone noticing.

"Every shattered window is a soul — or rather, a kind of obsession?" A flash of lightning crackled through Chen Ge's mind. "A door pusher pushes open the door in their moment of deepest despair. That despair is itself a kind of obsession — one they cannot let go of, cannot set down — which is why they sink deeper and deeper. This obsessive despair seals off their hearts from the world, and it is precisely this obsession that prevents their scenes from merging with the blood-red city, which is why these completely enclosed horror scenes exist."

"For three-star scenes, a single broken window is already a serious danger. They have never been exposed to that blood-red city. But four-star scenes are different. From the way Director Lei and the others acted, they seemed to encounter this regularly — they were already accustomed to the blood-red city beyond their scene."

The more Chen Ge thought about it, the more sense it made. The original door pusher of the Spectral School had been devoured. The school had been riddled with holes, yet it had been fortunate enough not to be destroyed outright. Having endured the most agonizing stretch of time, this door had become something unique.

"The anomaly outside the school this time was most likely caused by the Painter or Chang Wenyu. Those two madmen — who knows what else they'll do. Things are only getting more chaotic."

Once Director Lei and the others had gone far enough away, Chen Ge led everyone out of the classroom and continued sprinting toward the west side of the school.

The corridor was nearly deserted. The warning broadcasts from the loudspeakers had stopped. All that remained around them was deathly silence.