With the cloth doll dealt with, no one else would ever learn of Zhang Ya's weakness. A weakness that no one knew about was no weakness at all.
Leaving the girls' dormitory, Chen Ge found that the Ghost School had already undergone dramatic changes outside.
Red blood mist and black malice intertwined—if there truly was a hell in this world, it would probably look something like this.
"Visibility has dropped again. Every breath feels like there's a bloody taste in my throat, as if I swallowed a mouthful of blood." Chen Ge had been inside this door for far too long. His body was reaching its limit—more and more blood-thread veins were forming on his skin. If this continued, he worried he might be assimilated by this door and never be able to leave.
"Staying at any other scene for the longest would be one night." Chen Ge swung his arms hard, trying to shake off the blood threads formed from resentment and negative emotions, but it was no use. What was worse, a small number of threads seemed to have burrowed into his flesh—if you didn't look closely, you'd think tiny cuts had appeared on his arms.
Walking through the black malice and blood-red mist, the number of students following behind Chen Ge had grown once more. "What about Director Lei? Didn't he say I wouldn't make it out alive?"
"The school's outer perimeter suffered serious damage. Director Lei had to leave ahead of us." A female teacher was visibly surprised to see Chen Ge unharmed. "Surviving the forbidden zone is nothing to brag about. On the contrary, you've caused a huge disaster this time, and from now on the school's will is going to target you at every turn."
"You keep talking about the school's will. Do you really think every decision the school's will makes is correct?" Chen Ge wiped the bloodstains on his arm, found they wouldn't come off, and simply gave up on trying.
"I'm not going to argue with you. The school's will isn't necessarily correct, but it represents the collective will of most of the children in this school. Here, they are the true masters." The female teacher sounded somewhat helpless—as a teacher of the Ghost School, even though the students called her teacher, she operated under enormous restrictions. She was more like a low-level manager hired by the Ghost School's will.
"The world behind the door belongs to the person who opened it. Whoever opened this door is the one who should be listened to." Chen Ge said half-jokingly, half-seriously. "Unless someone kills the person who opened the door—then whoever kills them is the one I'll listen to."
"Madman." The female teacher gathered together with several other school teachers. She didn't want to get too close to Chen Ge.
"After I leave, you'd better seal this place off. There's nothing I need in there, but it's genuinely dangerous. If some student snuck inside, that wouldn't be good."
"You don't need to tell us what to do. We know how to handle it."
Without lingering any longer, Chen Ge led the others toward the very center of the school. He had already gained many students as followers, but the number was still far from enough. He needed to win over more students and earn their trust.
"I need to gain enough student support before Chang Wen Yu and the Painter realize what's happening." Chen Ge knew perfectly well that the Painter and Chang Wen Yu were ignoring him for the sole reason that neither considered him a threat. But if they discovered that Chen Ge's true goal was to put the old principal in control of the Ghost School, the two of them would very likely eliminate him first.
"Chen Ge, where are we going now?" Ying Hong's opinion of Chen Ge had shifted dramatically—she even hesitated for a moment before saying his full name.
"The center of the school has the most students. We'll head there first. Also, isn't there another taboo in your school related to the Ghost School's principal? I've heard the principal's office is located at the center—we can pass by and take a look on the way." Chen Ge already had his plan. His time was limited; he couldn't investigate all thirteen forbidden zones one by one, so he had to start with the most critical one.
"The Ghost School principal and the fourth floor of the girls' dormitory are the two most dangerous taboos. You just came out of the dormitory—don't you want to rest for a bit?"
"Speed wins wars." Chen Ge walked at the very front alongside Xu Yin. He leaned close to the cloth doll resting on Xu Yin's shoulder and whispered, "Time for you to prove yourself."
The cloth doll's crimson eyes twitched slightly. He instinctively wanted to get away from Chen Ge. In truth, letting Chen Ge bring him out of the girls' dormitory had been his only option. In his mind, as long as he successfully left the dormitory, there would be plenty of opportunities to escape later.
"Weren't you the one who claimed to be the very first principal of the Ghost School? Tell me the location of the principal's office. I need something that can prove your identity." If time had allowed, Chen Ge would have blazed through every taboo in the Ghost School and then created thirteen new ones inside his haunted house.