"I'm not lying to you! Everything I wrote is true!"
The fabric doll's fingers were nearly worn out from writing, yet the person beside him showed no reaction at all. It drove him both mad and embarrassed.
Of course
If anything, Zhang Ya had saved Chen Ge's life on multiple occasions. Without this vengeful ghost, as inescapable as a nightmare, Chen Ge would have been split in half by an axe during his very first trial mission.
The fabric doll lay on the ground, his legs still being dragged by Chen Ge. In this state, no one would ever connect him to the most enigmatic principal of the Ghost School.
"After she left, no one else entered the forbidden zone. I knew she would come back. The moment she discovered I still retained my will, I'd be dead for certain — so you're my only chance!" The doll couldn't speak, so his fingers scribbled frantically while his eyes fixed on Chen Ge, brimming with an incredibly complex mix of emotions.
No one on the corridor spoke. Chen Ge didn't know what to say either — this was a first for him.
"You'll end up dead. Those vengeful ghosts locked away in the rooms — that's your final fate. Don't let her fool you!"
"What did she do to you?" After a long pause, that was the only question Chen Ge managed to get out.
"Can't you see? I've already become like this. Do I really need to spell out the process?" The doll's shame and fury were almost unbearable, his eyes burning crimson.
"The 'her' in your story is nothing like the Zhang Ya I know—"
"Don't! Don't say that name! Don't mention it! Don't even speak it!" Chen Ge had barely gotten halfway before the doll began writing in a frenzy.
"Fine. In my eyes, that girl—"
"Girl? Get a grip! Look at the poor souls inside those rooms, crying and wailing — do you think 'girl' is the right word for her?!" The doll seemed to have lost his mind. If his transformation into a vengeful ghost after death had been driven by a single obsession, then for him now, Zhang Ya had become that obsession.
"So many things I can't say, so many things I can't do — you're quite the character." Chen Ge looked into the doll's crimson eyes, his tone slowly shifting. "The way you've ended up like this — did you do something that made her unhappy?"
The doll's frantically waving fingers suddenly stopped. He seemed to be weighing how to answer.
"The only way I can help you is if you tell the truth." Chen Ge wore an amiable smile on his face. "After all, saving you carries considerable risk."
"Fine." The doll was finally persuaded. Sounds rumbled from his belly and throat, and thin threads of blood wove around the patches on his worn coat, forming line after line of bloody text: "This school came into existence because a child pushed open a door. That child had once been a student at my school. Because of a misunderstanding, after he pushed open the door, he dragged me inside as well."
"You can only push open the door when you're at the very depths of despair. You getting pulled inside by the Door-Opener — that couldn't have been just because of a misunderstanding, could it?" Chen Ge saw through the doll's lie at a glance. "If you keep this up, we're not going to get very far."
"I'm not lying! The school the Door-Opener attended was called West City Private Academy — I was its principal. The boy suffered terrible bullying, and eventually, through a series of events, he perished in a fire. I admit I had problems running my school, but his death truly had nothing to do with me!"
"You were the principal of West City Private Academy?" The name West City Private Academy was one almost no one knew. The doll's ability to state it so clearly proved he genuinely knew something.
"Yes. After the Door-Opener pulled me inside, I knew the boy was pitiful, so no matter what he did to me, I never held it against him. In fact, I felt tremendous guilt. At that time, it was just the two of us inside the school. Perhaps my companionship moved him, and in the end, I earned his forgiveness."
"Don't paint yourself as some saint." Chen Ge was certain the doll was lying, though woven into the lies were a few threads of truth.
"As more time passed through the door, people and vengeful ghosts began entering through it. She was one of them." The doll had finally reached what Chen Ge was interested in. "Neither I nor the Door-Opener ever harmed her. At first she appeared completely harmless — we only later realized it was all an act. Not long after she arrived, the ghosts inside the school and some of the outsiders began disappearing without explanation. The Door-Opener and I suspected they were being devoured by something."
"From that point on, the school behind the door began to change. After investigating, the Door-Opener identified the killer as that woman."
Chen Ge didn't buy everything the doll said — he was never the type to trust others easily. "The Door-Opener discovered Zhang Ya was the killer, yet the outcome was the Door-Opener being killed by Zhang Ya. Doesn't that strike you as contradictory?"
"That woman devoured many vengeful ghosts — she even consumed a Red-clothed ghost. The Door-Opener was no match for her…"
"You're still lying." Chen Ge gripped the doll's two legs and stared into his eyes. "The Door-Opener's power inside his own door was at least doubled. As long as he didn't leave the scene, Zhang Ya at that time was no match for him whatsoever."
Chen Ge had seen enough of the world to understand the hierarchy of Red-clothed ghosts perfectly well. The first time he had encountered Zhang Ya, she had already devoured the Door-Opener — but even so, killing the Door-Opener behind his own door was an extraordinarily difficult feat.
"It was indeed she who killed the Door-Opener, but so much time has passed that some details may have become hazy…"
"If you can't remember clearly, then don't spout nonsense. Lying has consequences." Chen Ge yanked at the doll's legs, pulling hard, though in truth he couldn't actually hurt him. "
Standing nearby, Xu Yin extended a pale, ghostly arm. Before the doll could write anything more, she seized his body and ripped one of his legs clean off.
Despite being merely a fabric doll, blood poured from the wound, and his eyes instantly turned an enraged crimson, bulging as though they might burst from their sockets.
Xu Yin tossed the severed leg aside and quietly returned to her spot.
Truthfully, even Chen Ge hadn't expected Xu Yin to be so decisive. When he'd said "break a leg," he'd meant something more like fracturing it — not complete separation.
Of course, that was not something Chen Ge intended to tell anyone. He maintained his smile and leaned toward the doll. "Has your head cleared up a bit? If not, I can still help."
The doll thrashed on the ground, but apart from his eyes and fingers, he had no way to move. He had no choice but to submit. "I'll tell you the truth! The one who devoured the other ghosts and outsiders in the school was the Door-Opener himself. When he went after that woman, something went wrong. The two of them ended up inside a blood-red city. In the end, the Door-Opener died in that city — but the woman came back."
"So you're saying Zhang Ya was able to kill the Door-Opener because of that blood-red city? Her secret lies within it?" Chen Ge regarded the now much more docile doll.
"That's right. She found something inside that blood-red city. And more importantly, she knows a path leading to its center."