"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone else." The old principal replied in a hushed voice.
Chen Ge gave a slight nod. He walked at the very front of the group, and no one could see his expression.
Bai Qiulin, who trailed closely behind Chen Ge and the old principal, didn't dare interrupt either. It was the first time he'd seen his boss wear that kind of look. He couldn't tell whether Chen Ge was putting on an act to win the old principal's trust, or whether he'd actually revealed something from the depths of his heart.
"Boss…"
In his memory, Chen Ge was a man who feared nothing under heaven. So much so that he often forgot Chen Ge was merely a living person. Being by Chen Ge's side felt comfortable, and he would subconsciously forget the fact that he himself was long dead.
Perhaps it was because Chen Ge had never treated them as monsters. That was one of the reasons he and the other employees loved the Haunted House — it had become a home that took them in.
"We're always thinking about ourselves, agonizing over our own obsessions, unable to let go of our pasts — but we've all overlooked the boss. It's always been him considering our feelings, and we've never once considered his." Bai Qiulin carried the mirror on his back. His wretched life had let him experience every shade of the human world, which was exactly why he cherished what he had now all the more.
He glanced sideways at Xu Yin, wanting to ask for his opinion — but to his surprise, Xu Yin was already gazing at Chen Ge walking ahead.
The melancholy and pain in his eyes had lessened considerably. Blood traces shimmered and flowed. Xu Yin's lips moved faintly, as though he wanted to offer Chen Ge a few words of comfort, but when he opened his mouth he realized he had long forgotten how to comfort anyone.
"Yinghong, are there any places in this school more terrifying than that study hall we just left? Take me there now." Chen Ge's tone hadn't changed in the slightest, yet it made the listeners feel a subtle wrongness. The man seemed angry — and it appeared he intended to vent whatever resentment burned inside him on other ghosts.
"Our school has thirteen forbidden zones. The well in the back field that cries at night, the study hall with its doors permanently sealed, and the hospital ward you can enter but never leave — you've already been to those three." Yinghong counted them off on her fingers. "There are several more that are very dangerous. The teachers normally forbid us from going near them. Are you sure you want to go?"
"There are actually thirteen places this dangerous? The children in this school really are living in fire and water." Chen Ge wore a smiling expression. It was easy enough for an ordinary person to keep a smile on their face, but in a world behind the door, surrounded by vengeful ghosts and Red-coats, to still be able to produce a smile — that kind of grin was horrifying no matter how you interpreted it. "Don't just stand there. We can talk while we walk."
Chen Ge grabbed Yinghong's hand, as though he were leading not a Red-coat but a troubled teenage girl from next door who'd just had a fight with her parents. He was in a hurry to reach those places and didn't fuss over such details. "What are the rest of the forbidden zones?"
"The fourth forbidden zone is the specimen room with the hidden window. It's also on the west side of the school. The specimen room stores all kinds of specimens, and because of the special nature of its contents, it has no windows. But some students passing by have occasionally glimpsed a window, and behind the glass there's a human face — smiling." Yinghong stared at her hand being held. She very much wanted to hit someone, yet she knew he meant no harm and she didn't exactly dislike it either. The contradictory feeling was entirely new to her.
"Maybe someone just put a facial specimen in there," Chen Ge said, his tone no different from usual. "If he shares our philosophy, then once we get home, I can build him a wall."
"The fifth forbidden zone is the inverted staircase of the teaching building. In the central teaching building, fourth floor — when you walk downstairs and happen to look up, sometimes you'll find there are people above you walking downstairs as well. To this day, no one has figured out why."
"The sixth forbidden zone is the security booth whose door won't stay shut. Once you close it and come back to check, it's been opened again. Very strange — even Red-coats can't make sense of it."
"The seventh forbidden zone is the chair in the girls' dormitory. This is also one of the most dangerous." Yinghong placed special emphasis on this one. "The fourth floor of the girls' dormitory is unoccupied. In the middle of the fourth-floor corridor sits a blood-red chair with a girl's name written on it. Legend has it that a bullying incident once happened in one of the dorm rooms — several girls forced another girl in their room to jump out of the window while they were learning to dance."
"Wait." That description sounded oddly familiar to Chen Ge. "Do you know the name of the girl who jumped?"
"I don't. I only know that the fourth-floor dorm room must never be entered. Apparently it's packed full of red chairs and red shoes, and it's home to the most terrifying, most brutal, most dreadful Red-coat in the entire school. No one has ever seen her, because every ghost and Red-coat who laid eyes on her has had their soul scattered to nothing. Their hearts are made into candy, their remnant spirits are turned into dolls, and the last traces of their obsession are imprisoned in chairs for all eternity, never to be freed." Just mentioning this Red-coat made Yinghong tremble with fear, as if she were worried the entity might come looking for her.
"Is she… that terrifying?" Beads of sweat appeared on Chen Ge's forehead. Without drawing attention to it, he let go of Yinghong's hand. "Go on."
"The eighth forbidden zone is a room at the deepest end of the boys' apartment. The room is locked, and a thick stench pours from inside. They say what's locked in there is a father's corpse — and a sincere heart that has rotted."
"The ninth forbidden zone is also in the boys' apartment. I can't remember which room — the one where naked women hang from the ceiling. They're all standing on the ground when they're hanged. They say that's the punishment for lying."
"The tenth forbidden zone is in the library. The moment you approach a certain row of shelves, whether you're a ghost or a Red-coat, you simply vanish."
"The eleventh forbidden zone is mirrors. Looking into a mirror in this school invites terrible things."
"The twelfth forbidden zone is a document and a name. No one knows what the name is — only that it's a boy's name. Every ghost who has spoken that name aloud has disappeared without a trace, so no one can say what the name actually is."
"The last forbidden zone is the principal's office. No one knows where the principal's office is, and no one has ever seen this school's principal. All the teachers and staff act according to the school's will. But legend says this school does have a principal."
Yinghong told Chen Ge about the thirteen most dangerous places in the Ghost School. Some of them were genuinely terrifying, while others Chen Ge found harder to judge.
Because of Zhang Ya, he had never taken on tasks related to the Xicheng Private Academy. But he knew in his heart that the three-star scenario without a door was very likely the predecessor to the Spirit Medium's Ghost School.