Dense blood mist surged through the corridor cleared by
"How many people have died on this corridor? Just walking through it makes your heart pound," the old principal murmured. As soon as he spoke, he felt a chill forcing its way down his throat.
"I don't know." Chen Ge shook his head. He was inching closer, step by step, to
The screams and wails in his ears grew steadily louder. Blood dripped, and thin crimson threads began to surface on the wallpaper. The corridor resembled the gullet of some terrible beast, incredibly oppressive.
"Chen Ge, I have a bad feeling about this."
The old principal shielded Ying Bai and Ying Hong. He was about to say more, but Ying Hong cut him off. "This place is making me very uncomfortable. I feel a piercing ache in my heart. You should all stop going forward."
A Red Dress's heart was different from a living person's. Their heart was the deepest obsession. A piercing ache in the heart meant that obsession was being shaken, indicating they were in a very dangerous situation.
"Boss, I'm getting that scalp-tingling feeling too," the severed hand in
"Calm down." Chen Ge was the only one who maintained his composure. His eyes were fixed on the chair deep within the corridor. With every blink, the distance between him and that chair seemed to shrink.
This scene felt eerily familiar, much like his first visit to the Xicheng Private Academy.
"Watch out for that chair!" Ying Hong warned again. The chair itself wasn't the most terrifying thing, but it seemed to represent something that could directly evoke the unease buried in one's heart.
"The screams for help seem to be coming from that chair. Could the school's legends really be true?" The senior ghost students and teachers from the girl's dormitory entrance also witnessed this sight.
The blood mist drifted, and the chair was slowly approaching. None of them had ever entered the forbidden zone before, and now their hearts were all in their throats.
The most terrifying legend of the Ghost School was right before their eyes. No one knew what would happen next. Everyone held their breath.
"Save me... save me..."
A girl's voice grew clearer and clearer. As the chair drew nearer, the crowd faintly made out a female student sitting in it, her eyes filled with malice.
"She seems to be looking for a scapegoat."
Even a Red Dress couldn't make the girl on the chair retreat. Her expression twisted constantly as she charged straight toward them all.
"What is that? I can see it, but I can't sense it. It doesn't feel like a vengeful ghost or a residual thought. So strange." Chen Ge wasn't the only one with this bizarre feeling. Everyone, including the Red Dresses beside him, sensed the anomaly.
The girl on the chair and the corridor seemed to be one entity. Watching the girl approach felt as if the entire corridor itself was moving, like a gigantic maw preparing to swallow them all in one gulp.
"Careful!"
The thick stench of blood mingled with the pleas for help, filling everyone with a sense of foreboding.
"Director Lei, are we just going to stand out here and watch? What if something happens to them? Many students followed him inside," a female teacher said from outside the girl's dormitory corridor.
"Then you go in and call them out. I won't stop you," Director Lei glared at her. "When I first entered this school, the forbidden zone already existed. It hides the most dangerous secret within this academy. Do you know what a secret is?"
The female teacher's face paled. She gave a slight shake of her head.
"A secret is something that demands a price once you learn of it. Death, perhaps, or becoming a part of the secret yourself." Director Lei was a very clever man; otherwise, he wouldn't have thrived in the Ghost School. "Call more backup later. Bring human bricks and prepare to seal this place shut."
"Director, the school is currently under attack from outside. There are breaches everywhere. Pulling more personnel away might cause serious problems."
"We can't worry about that. Do as I say."
"Should we evacuate the students here?"
"No. I want them to watch with their own eyes as that fellow named Chen Ge dies in the forbidden zone. That way, no one will doubt the Ghost School's will anymore, and no one will believe what he just said." Director Lei retreated into the crowd. "This school already has enough disobedient children. It's time they sobered up."
"But is this really okay?" The female teacher tried to persuade him.
"It's too late for talk now. The moment they saw that chair, the outcome was sealed. Vengeful ghost or Red Dress, anyone targeted by those monsters locked in the chair is doomed unless they flee this school." Director Lei clearly knew something he wasn't saying. A hint of pain flickered in his eyes, as if his own friends had vanished here. "This girls' dormitory is a man-eating monster. No one who enters ever comes out again."
Through the crowd, Director Lei gazed into the depths of the corridor. The blood-red chair was closing in on Chen Ge's group at terrifying speed.
"Resistance will only trigger more mutations. The rooms on both sides of this corridor are full of monsters. The moment he acts, these people will be devoured until not even scraps remain." Director Lei's wise eyes seemed to have already foreseen the ending. He shouted to all the students around him, "Fall back! This place will soon—"
Before he finished, Director Lei suddenly noticed the strange expression on the female teacher's face beside him. He turned his head to look, just in time to see the chair finally halt in front of Chen Ge. But before it had even settled, the girl sitting on it suddenly shrieked and fled back down the corridor at a speed even faster than her approach.
"That's impossible!" Director Lei's hand froze in mid-air. He strode to the entrance of the dormitory hallway and shoved aside the pile of debris to peer inside.
The scream from the girl on the chair had startled all the monsters in the corridor. But contrary to Director Lei's expectations, there was no scene of Chen Ge's group being devoured and torn apart. Instead, the half-open doors on either side were all slammed shut tight. He even heard the sound of locks clicking into place.
"What did that girl on the chair see?!"
Director Lei couldn't understand. The students following Chen Ge in the corridor and the old principal were equally baffled. In fact, even Chen Ge himself took a few seconds to process what had happened.
"The girl on the chair might have sensed Zhang Ya's presence. That's the only explanation that makes sense." Chen Ge turned to glance at his own shadow. "The residual aura on me alone shouldn't have been enough to scare her off like that. Could Zhang Ya be about to awaken?"