"The Painter will undoubtedly become the Ghost School's next Door-Pusher? You seem to have quite a lot of confidence in him."
When you stand in different positions, your approach to solving problems naturally differs.
In Lin Sisi's eyes, the Painter was the only hope—the closest person to surpassing the Red-clothed. But Chen Ge didn't see it that way.
Whether it was the Painter or Chang Wenyu, they were both too extreme.
No one yet knew the true significance of the Door's existence. Even the Door-Pushers themselves couldn't explain it clearly. Under these circumstances, there was no need to force a change to the world beyond the Door.
Existence has its reasons. Chen Ge's thinking was far simpler.
"Step aside. The students are innocent. You have no right to ask them to give up everything they have." Chen Ge stood at the very front of all the Ghost School students. "It was the Ghost School's Door that lured them into the world beyond—it wasn't them who pushed the Door open of their own will. The one doing the asking is the Ghost School's Door, not these children."
Every word Chen Ge spoke resonated with the students. "None of us want to fight the Painter. We just want to stay alive."
The students following Chen Ge grew uneasy the moment they saw Lin Sisi and the blindfolded man. Being coerced by the school's will had already become the norm, and the Painter and his subordinates were, in a sense, the embodiment of the Ghost School's will.
Opposing them meant being abandoned by the Ghost School's will, and in a world beyond the Door filled with peril at every turn, losing that protection was practically a death sentence.
They had never had a choice before. Even when the Ghost School's will went against their own wishes, they had no option but to comply.
But on this day, Chen Ge had arrived.
Surrounded by several Red-clothed ghosts, he had rescued students trapped in crisis. He dared to stand up to the Painter's subordinates and showed no fear of the teachers who represented the school's management. Every single thing he did was genuinely for the sake of the students.
Why wouldn't they follow someone like that?
What reason could they have to refuse him?
The same water that carries the boat can also capsize it.
The Painter's subordinates had blocked off their only path to survival, and their actions thoroughly ignited the resentment that had been building up in the students' hearts.
It was worth noting that not all the Ghost School's students were ghosts. A large portion of them were obsessions that had been lured in by the "Door"—their souls had been drawn into the world beyond while their bodies still lay in hospitals, comatose.
Before Chen Ge had entered the Ghost School to search for Chang Gu, he had seen many parents surrounding and confronting Chang Gu. Those parents' children were precisely the ones whose obsessions had been led beyond the Door.
Releasing a small number of obsessions wouldn't have any impact on the Ghost School, but if all the students' obsessions were released at once, the very foundation of the Ghost School would be shaken.
Neither the Painter nor the Ghost School's will would allow that to happen, which was exactly why they had to block Chen Ge's path.
"Chen Ge, I really don't want to fight you. You can't win." Lin Sisi slowly lowered her head, as though she had let the words slip almost casually. "You don't know how terrifying the Painter truly is—"
"Lin!" Before Lin Sisi could finish, the blindfolded man barked sharply. He turned his head and tore away the black cloth covering his eyes. "Don't forget who pulled you out of the deep water, and who used his paintings to preserve the last of your cherished memories."
Hearing the blindfolded man's words, Lin Sisi's expression gradually turned cold, as though she had sealed away her emotions.
"Chen Ge, neither Lin nor I dislike you. The Painter values you greatly—he even wants you to join us. We shouldn't be killing each other. Take all the students back to the teaching building. The Painter will forgive you for the wrongs you've done."
"Forgive me?" Chen Ge took several steps back. Just as both the blindfolded man and Lin Sisi thought he was about to concede, Chen Ge spoke again: "But I don't believe I've done anything wrong, so I don't need his forgiveness. It's you two who should be doing some serious reflecting."
There were too many students following Chen Ge, and with each passing moment, more of them were dragged away by the monsters within the blood mist, never to return.
At the eye of the storm, the Patient in the hospital gown was deeply worried that Chen Ge might be swayed by the Painter's subordinates. He commanded a massive horde of ghosts to attack the students following Chen Ge.
Every second that passed, large numbers of students vanished.
"You'll regret this." The blindfolded man dropped the black cloth from his hand. His long-closed eyes slowly opened—his left eye was a sea of blood, while his right eye could only see people and ghosts, with no scenery at all. It seemed that apart from blood, the living, and obsessions, there was nothing else visible in his gaze.
"I have already seen what you will look like when you die."
The Painter and the man controlling the blood mist had reached an agreement on how to deal with Chen Ge.
The monsters in the blood mist and the blindfolded man attacked Chen Ge's group simultaneously. The only difference was that the blindfolded man and Lin Sisi targeted only the Red-clothed, while the blood mist monsters attacked indiscriminately.
"Stop!" the old headmaster cried out, having just watched a student be dragged into the blood mist right before his eyes—an obsession dissolving into nothingness.
It was too cruel. Dying beyond the Door meant leaving nothing behind, equivalent to being erased from the world entirely.
The battle between the Painter, Chang Wenyu, and the man controlling the blood mist had already reached a white-hot crescendo.