"A path leading to the center of the blood-red city?
"Yes. She knew about that path from the very beginning. When the Door Pusher was hunting her, she fled straight out of the school scenario." The rag doll didn't seem to be lying, but Chen Ge still wasn't completely convinced.
"The Door Pusher has absolute dominion over the doors he opens. He knows every corner of a scenario, because the entire scenario is woven from his memories." Chen Ge grabbed the rag doll's other leg. "Are you still lying to me?"
"No!" The blood characters on the rag doll deepened in color — he was genuinely afraid of Chen Ge now. "Every half-body Red Dress, or rather every vengeful spirit who qualifies to become a Red Dress, possesses a special ability. Do you know what that woman's special ability is?"
"Don't keep me in suspense." Chen Ge genuinely didn't know what Zhang Ya's special ability was, because he had found that she possessed far too many special abilities — an almost staggering number.
"I don't know exactly what her ability is, but I overheard the Door Pusher say she can acquire other vengeful spirits' abilities through some method." The rag doll's words confirmed several of Chen Ge's earlier suspicions. "It's the most unusual and terrifying ability I've ever seen. To this day, no one actually knows what she can do, because she commands an enormous number of abilities."
Chen Ge read the blood characters on the rag doll and didn't speak immediately.
Zhang Ya was the only vengeful spirit with a dedicated page inside the Black Phone. At first, Chen Ge had assumed only Red Dresses could earn a dedicated page, but after
Even Xu Yin, who was already considered relatively powerful among Red Dresses, only had his name turn blood-red in the Black Phone's employee roster, with the words "Red Dress" added to his description. That was all.
"Zhang Ya is the most exceptional existence among Red Dresses — and the Black Phone itself has strongly acknowledged this."
Chen Ge recalled the scene in Liwan Town where Zhang Ya had fought the Shadow. The Shadow had listed several of Zhang Ya's abilities one after another, and by a strange coincidence, every single one of them was an ability Chen Ge had seen in other vengeful spirits.
"Her true ability must have some kind of limitation as well. That should be her only weakness." Chen Ge murmured to himself. He hoisted the rag doll up by the scruff. "I don't need to tell you how terrifying Zhang Ya is — you already know. Saving you means making an enemy of her. Why would I, for the sake of someone completely unrelated, provoke a top-tier Red Dress who can't even be killed?"
The blood characters on the rag doll didn't change for a long time. Chen Ge's tone shifted subtly. He leaned in close and spoke in a voice only the two of them could hear: "Unless... you tell me her weakness. Give me even a sliver of hope that I might defeat her."
Chen Ge's voice was like the whisper of a demon — he was quite possibly the first living person to try to deceive a vengeful spirit. "You have no other choice now. Either you tell me everything, or I hand you over to Zhang Ya personally."
The rag doll's bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at Chen Ge, as though weighing whether or not to trust him.
"My time is limited. If you can't satisfy me, I won't risk myself for you."
"Her weakness is her heart. I overheard something from the Door Pusher — every Red Dress possesses a heart of their own, condensed from obsession. That's both the key to their becoming a Red Dress and their most vulnerable point." The rag doll didn't realize that Chen Ge's gaze was slowly changing. "Killing that woman outright is nearly impossible — unless you destroy her heart. The Door Pusher initially believed her obsession was with the people who had hurt her at the school, but later realized that wasn't the case. By the time he changed his thinking, the woman had already caught on, and she hid her heart."
"Hidden her heart? A heart can be hidden?" Chen Ge committed every word the rag doll said to memory. If the Black Phone had guided him into contact with another world, then what the rag doll was telling him now would help him understand that world far more deeply.
"A Red Dress's heart is formed from obsession. If she entrusts that obsession to a certain place or a certain person, as long nothing happens to that person, then no matter how grievous the wound she suffers, her soul will never be scattered." The blood threads on the rag doll's body grew increasingly nimble — now that he had left that room, the suppression upon him was steadily weakening.
"The Door Pusher investigated for so long. Did you lot make any progress?" Chen Ge asked casually.
"Two possibilities. First, she hid her heart in the deepest reaches of the blood-red city. But that's unlikely — the center of the blood-red city is far too dangerous, and even she can't control it. The second possibility is that she placed her heart somewhere outside the door — it could be a person, or it could be an object, such as..." The blood characters on the rag doll's clothing stopped abruptly there. He was holding something back. If he told Chen Ge everything at once, his own safety would no longer be guaranteed.
In truth, the moment the rag doll mentioned an object, a specific item had already flashed through Chen Ge's mind — Zhang Ya's love letter.
Zhang Ya had placed her heart on the love letter. In Liwan Town, Chen Ge had torn the love letter apart, and Zhang Ya had moved into his shadow.
"To never part, bound together like form and shadow for all eternity — that was never just a figure of speech. Zhang Ya's current anchor is Chen Ge's shadow. By the rag doll's account, Chen Ge himself was now Zhang Ya's weakness.
"Get me out of here, and I'll tell you everything." The rag doll's eyes were blazing red. "You carry her scent on you. She will never let you go — she will haunt you for lifetimes without end. Only I can help you."
"Let me think about it." Chen Ge smiled as he looked at the rag doll's face, but what he was actually considering was how to make a vengeful spirit's soul scatter completely, leaving not a single trace behind in this world.
"She could wake up at any moment — decide quickly." The rag doll was still pressing him.
"Fine. I'll give you an answer as soon as I can. Until I've made up my mind, I'll keep you with me." Now Chen Ge had something else that was extremely important to him — this rag doll. He thought about it for a long time before ultimately deciding he would personally hand the doll over to Zhang Ya for her to deal with. That woman surely had a better method — after all, the rag doll was her creation.
Before Zhang Ya awakened, Chen Ge would absolutely ensure the rag doll remained intact.
He picked up his backpack, had Xu Yin take hold of the rag doll, and the group walked out of the girls' dormitory together.