No one in the room could understand the little girl's words. Making a powerful ghost become a living person's shadow — anyone who would make such a request was genuinely very sick.
Including
"Is this some kind of unusual trade? You become his shadow, and he becomes your puppet."
The red-clothed girl shook her head when she heard this.
Behind her, blood threads wove together and in the blink of an eye spread across the entire room, completely isolating it from the outside world.
Feihong's strength was formidable — everyone else present combined wouldn't be her match — but Feihong truly didn't seem to have any ill intent.
After sealing off her room from the outside, she walked over to Chen Ge's shadow, her hands dissolving into countless blood threads that poured into Chen Ge's shadow, as if searching for something.
After a full half hour of searching, Feihong furrowed her delicate brows, and lines of blood text appeared on the walls surrounding Chen Ge.
"I vaguely remember a ghost living in your shadow. Where did she go? Why can't I find her? Did you lose her?"
Faced with Feihong's barrage of three questions, Chen Ge looked bewildered. "There was originally a ghost living in my shadow?"
"Mm." Feihong wove characters from blood threads to communicate with Chen Ge. "A person without a shadow doesn't live long — that's what Patient Number Two said."
"But my shadow is fine and right beside me." Chen Ge was confused.
"Every person and object on Liwan Street has a crooked shadow. Only you and Patient Number Two have normal shadows, which means both your shadows are fabricated by the world — they don't exist. Neither of you has a real shadow." The blood text appeared rapidly. Feihong's emotions had begun to fluctuate upon seeing Chen Ge. "You're very similar to Patient Number Two. He helped me recover memories of my mother. In return, I can help you once, but I can't become your shadow for now."
Hearing that Feihong had volunteered to help him once, Chen Ge was delighted. But after a moment's thought, something didn't sit right. "Feihong, what does Patient Number Two look like? Why do I get the feeling he knows me?"
Just from Feihong's description, Chen Ge felt that Patient Number Two seemed very familiar with him — probably an old friend.
"He never told me his name. It seems like all information about him is taboo in this city — anyone who goes looking for it meets with accidents and misfortune. He knows this too, so he didn't tell me anything." The blood text appeared on the ground and then vanished, erasing every trace of its existence. "If you're really curious, you can go find him in the hospital's underground. His true body seems to be imprisoned deep beneath the hospital. The one who came to me that day was only a remnant of his thoughts."
"The hospital's underground?" Chen Ge had just come from that very hospital — he had no idea it even had underground structures.
"The most dangerous parts of that hospital are all underground. Patient Number Two seems to be locked on the seventeenth sublevel. Of course, I wouldn't recommend going to find him now. The underground is far too dangerous." The world Feihong described was different from what Chen Ge had imagined. If the hospital had a massive underground complex, then he would need to reassess its true power.
But then again, Chen Ge thought, the fact that he'd managed to make such a terrifying hospital slip up was pretty impressive in its own right.
The more he thought about it, the more desperate he became to recover his memory.
The blood-colored surroundings began to recede. The characters woven from blood threads all vanished, and everything was as though it had never happened.
After giving Chen Ge her promise, Feihong disappeared into the residential building. She and One-Eyed were both among the most terrifying ghosts, yet even they never dared show themselves casually, always hiding in some hidden corner.
"You really are something else. I thought convincing Feihong would be incredibly difficult, but it was settled so easily. I almost get the feeling she was throwing herself at you." Men Nan spoke in his greasy middle-aged-man tone. After enjoying the wisecrack, he finally remembered he was still on Liwan Street. Apparently worried Feihong might have overheard, he quickly glanced around.
"More and more people are willing to join us. When the calamity arrives, we might actually stand a chance at one last desperate fight." Zuo Han wasn't as optimistic as Men Nan. In his view, everyone giving everything they had, concentrating all their strength, would merely earn them one chance to risk their lives.
"Chen Ge, you should stay put in the amusement park for now — keep the hospital off guard, buy us time, and whatever you do, don't let the hospital realize you're mixed up with us." Zuo Han's mind was perfectly clear; he knew Chen Ge was the key. "Leave finding allies to us."
"Tomorrow night we'll go together to meet the Curse Woman. Once the three most powerful ghosts in this city have all agreed to help, I'll cut contact with you for a while." Chen Ge had his own concerns.
"The Curse Woman is the most dangerous and the most mysterious of the three powerful ghosts. No one knows her exact location. But I once heard from the Writer that a man named Zhang Wenyu had seen her in an abandoned hospital." Old
"No. Feihong only agreed to help us once, and that was on account of Patient Number Two's favor. We can't waste such a precious opportunity so casually." Chen Ge refused decisively. In his mind, he repeated the words Curse Woman over and over. Somewhere deep in the intangible darkness, a black-red thread seemed to connect their two bodies. "The Curse Woman — I'll persuade her."
They agreed to meet at the entrance of an abandoned hospital in the eastern suburbs at midnight tomorrow night, after which everyone departed in different directions — even if someone wanted to track them, it would be extremely troublesome.
As dawn approached, Chen Ge returned to the haunted house.
Although Xinhai Amusement Park's haunted house had suspended operations, he still went through his usual routine — organizing props, cleaning up, always ready for business. These things seemed engraved into his very bones; even with his memory gone, his body still followed instinct.
At eight-thirty in the morning,
"Why haven't your parents shown up?" Chen Ge asked between mouthfuls of hot food, Zhang Ya sitting right beside him.
"My dad's stomach problems flared up again. My mom's taking care of him."
"Is it serious?"
"Just the usual." Zhang Ya tried to put on a lighthearted expression, but her eyes were filled with worry and unease.
"Zhang Ya, did you have that dream again last night?" Chen Ge set down his chopsticks and looked straight into Zhang Ya's eyes, not letting her look away.
"Mm." Zhang Ya spoke with a hint of pain. "The same dream again. I dreamed my parents were in a car accident. The gift they'd prepared for me was soaked in blood. And I dreamed of myself in red clothes, holding the blood-stained gift they'd given me, standing alone at an intersection in the dead of night."
Chen Ge didn't know how to comfort Zhang Ya. Based on his deductions, he was gradually coming to understand something incredibly cruel.
It was possible that everything Zhang Ya dreamed had actually happened. In other words, when they shattered the dream world, Zhang Ya would lose her parents all over again. Despair would once more coil around the girl and drag her into a bottomless abyss.
Chen Ge knew clearly that Zhang Ya liked him — yet the person she loved most would be the one to tear apart her beautiful dream. That was a cruelty beyond measure for anyone.