The old principal's appearance had dealt him a heavy blow. One by one, hidden clues had surfaced, his worldview was slowly being overturned, and even the way he processed information was beginning to shift.
"Muyang Middle School and Third Building were among the earliest scenes I ever experienced. So much time has passed — I never expected to encounter something connected to them again inside a four-star scene." No one disturbed Chen Ge. Everyone instinctively stood guard around him in silence.
"Based on the old principal's description, I'm ninety percent certain the mental hospital he mentioned is the Third Building. In other words, the only retreat available inside a four-star scene is a three-star scene I went through a long time ago."
Muyang Middle School was the first two-star scene Chen Ge had experienced. The Third Building was the first three-star scene. Spirit Communication School was the first four-star scene. The three were linked together in an extraordinarily elegant way, forming a closed loop — and it stunned him.
He was beginning to suspect that the tasks on the Black Phone hadn't been assigned at random. Each one carried a deeper purpose behind it.
"Every task on the phone is preceded by the word 'trial.' Could something this dangerous and difficult really be nothing more than a trial?"
"One-star scenes involve ordinary people. Two-star scenes involve vengeful ghosts. Three-star scenes involve Red Specters. Four-star scenes involve beings above Red Specters. In theory, the higher the star rating, the wider the gulf between scenes — yet they're internally connected. The feeling I get is that someone... wanted me to go through these scenes, to experience certain things, and slowly recover something that was lost." Chen Ge's brow was tightly furrowed; he rarely wore such an expression. "Why would anyone do this? What is it I need to know? And what exactly did I lose?"
He looked down at Ying Hong and Ying Bai. Both girls flinched under his gaze.
"Could it be that I lost a part of myself too?" Chen Ge didn't know what expression to wear. His mind was in chaos. For no particular reason, he thought of his haunted house again — and the door inside it.
The first time he had learned that his haunted house contained a "Blood Door," he had been genuinely terrified.
What unsettled him even more was that at midnight, when the door opened, he had heard someone on the other side calling his name.
The voice was etched into his memory — hauntingly familiar, yet impossible to place. It sounded like his own voice.
"Calling my own name in my own voice?" Recalling that eerie experience, Chen Ge felt a cold draft creeping up his spine.
"Maybe I really did lose myself."
Chen Ge had too many secrets to share with anyone. He could only bear them alone. It wasn't that he couldn't feel afraid — he simply buried everything deep inside.
"Dr. Gao once entered that door in my haunted house. He was nearly driven insane and barely escaped with his life. Back then, the Ghost Talk Association was already formidable, yet they fled in panic without even venturing deep — which means the world behind that door might also be a four-star scene."
That door was in the haunted house's bathroom. In other words, the world beyond it was Chen Ge's haunted house itself.
"I wonder what the haunted house is like on the other side of that door." Chen Ge was curious, but with his current strength, stepping through would likely mean never coming back.
"Someone on the other side is calling me. If I went in voluntarily, wouldn't that be exactly what they wanted? Before the whole thing is properly figured out, I have to restrain myself." Chen Ge decided that once he got back to the haunted house, he would install a security door on the bathroom stall and then pour concrete over it — just nailing up wooden planks felt far too insecure.
"That door only opens at midnight. If I can deal with the problem, my haunted house could open late-night sessions in the future, extend operating hours, and earn more money." He shook his head, realizing his thoughts had wandered off.
He set down his backpack and crouched between Ying Hong and Ying Bai.
Whether Ying Hong and Ying Bai were clues left behind by his family or not, he needed to get to the bottom of it.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I just see a version of my former self in you, and I want to figure something out — when did you become this way? Or rather, when did Ying Hong appear?" Chen Ge was inching closer to the truth. It felt like walking through thick fog, where even the faintest glimmer of light was something he desperately wanted to grasp.
"I don't know." Ying Bai was very sweet, her hands clasped together. The person she was closest to among everyone present was the old principal, yet now the principal was shielding another girl — a girl who looked almost exactly like her.
Chen Ge didn't push Ying Bai. He turned to Ying Hong instead.
Under his gaze, Ying Hong was at first frightened and nervous, behaving much like Ying Bai. But as she slowly realized that act wasn't working and wasn't earning any sympathy, her true nature finally surfaced.
Crimson eyes fixed on her school bag lying on the ground, Ying Hong kept her head lowered so that no one around could read her expression. "If I give you the answer, can you give me my school bag back?"
Ying Hong's bag had few decorations, yet it looked youthful and girlish. Who would imagine it was stuffed with notes about curses and murder?
"Deal." Chen Ge agreed without hesitation.
"The day I opened my eyes was a night. It was past two in the morning. I heard a noise in the bedroom and turned to look — my adoptive father was in my room." Ying Hong's tone was chillingly calm, as though she were telling someone else's story. "I was startled and screamed. He opened the door and ran out."
She paused for a moment, then slowly spoke a few words: "That was the day I came into being. I only appear when Ying Bai is asleep. I know everything she's been through, but she doesn't remember me."
"I won't blame her, because no one in the world understands her better than I do. I know exactly what kind of hell she lives in and what kind of terror she faces."
"I don't know why I appeared. Maybe it was because Ying Bai was too frightened, too timid, and couldn't get any help — so she created me." Ying Hong glanced at the innocent Ying Bai. "Of course, it's also possible that I'm simply a wandering spirit that happened to possess her body."
A cruel smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Ying Hong wanted to reach out and touch Ying Bai's cheek, but Ying Bai shrank away. "During the day I'm an innocent, adorable child. At night, I don't even know what I am. I've been trying to find a meaning for my existence, and eventually I did."
Ying Hong pulled back her long sleeves. Both slender arms bore the scars of burn marks. "That old dog liked to sneak into my room in the middle of the night. So I kept a thermos of boiling water ready beside the bed. That was the first time I fought back. Maybe I wasn't strong enough — the result wasn't exactly perfect, but it scared him half to death anyway."
The way Ying Hong referred to her adoptive father kept changing. She had torn away every last shred of her disguise.