It took Chen Ge over ten minutes just to digest the new information on the black phone. He held the phone in his hand, sitting in silence.
He knew the Nether Fetus was dangerous. He also knew it would come for him soon. But he hadn't expected it to come this quickly.
"Only nine days. If I don't find him within nine days, I'm dead for sure."
The black phone never lied. All the information it had released before had come true without exception.
"The four-star trial mission of the Nether Fetus has been forcibly triggered. But this trial is different from the Psychic Ghost School, and different from any trial mission I've ever done before. It has no fixed location, no precise information — it only gives a rough scope: the entire city of Hanjiang as its stage."
Chen Ge furrowed his brows. He scrolled through the information on the black phone again and again.
A four-star trial mission, yet the briefing consisted of only a few sparse lines. The mission prompt was a single sentence.
"The time limit is nine nights. The phone specifically highlighted the word 'night' — does that mean only children possessed by the Nether Fetus will reveal openings at night?"
Chen Ge had played hide-and-seek plenty of times before, but this was the first time he'd be gambling his life on it.
"All I know right now is the number of shrines and children. With just this, finding the Nether Fetus across the entirety of Hanjiang is nearly impossible." Chen Ge put away the black phone and took out his own. He opened his contacts: "My own power is limited, and now is not the time for solo heroics. I need to mobilize every resource at my disposal."
Chen Ge first looked at Li Zheng and Captain Yan. After their many collaborations, the Hanjiang police had become a solid backbone he could rely on.
"Tracking people down is best left to the police. What I need to do is figure out the characteristics of those children, and the dangers we might encounter during the search."
The game had already begun. After the mission was forcibly triggered, an hourglass had appeared on the black phone's task interface. Once it flipped nine times, the Nether Fetus would presumably come looking for Chen Ge of its own accord.
"The black phone said I'm dead for sure, which means the Nether Fetus is probably also a malevolent spirit. It stole nine shrines and usurped their seats. The original owners of those shrines may have already been killed. Any ghost powerful enough to possess a shrine is terrifying in its own right — and yet they were still no match for the Nether Fetus. By that measure, the Nether Fetus might be among the more formidable of the malevolent spirits."
With no leads to work with, Chen Ge could only speculate based on his own experience.
"These nine days might be the last stretch of my life."
Chen Ge didn't return Zhang Yi to the comic album. Instead, he had Doctor Wei and Red High Heels treat him.
Calling it treatment was generous — really, Red High Heels was simply extracting thread after thread of black, curse-infused filaments from Zhang Yi's body.
The Nether Fetus had planted countless curses inside Zhang Yi. To keep his soul from scattering into nothing, this was the only way.
"I'm entrusting him to you."
With his backpack in hand, Chen Ge returned to the ground floor. Passing by the props room, he casually stuffed the Skull Crusher into his bag.
"For the next nine days, this thing stays on me at all times."
To avoid ruining the horror atmosphere of his haunted house scenes, Chen Ge then had Xiao Gu — the actor playing the Skull Crusher doctor — fitted with a custom wooden replica of the "Skull Crusher."
By the time he finished all of this, it was already three in the morning. He returned to the staff break room and lay down on the bed, but sleep would not come no matter what.
"Hard to imagine — a four-star trial mission has already started, and here I am on my very first night, still sleeping in my own haunted house."