The girl's face appeared even more ethereal and otherworldly, accentuated by the vivid crimson of her outfit that seemed to glow faintly against the surrounding darkness. Her long black hair floated and fluttered around her as though stirred by an unseen wind that existed only for her. Zhang Ya stood directly in front of Chen Ge, so close that less than thirty centimeters separated their faces. The cold radiating from her body seeped through his clothes and skin like icy water poured directly into his veins. His lips quickly turned purple, and small clouds of breath escaped with every shallow exhale as the temperature around him plummeted.
Even the man who claimed he feared nothing felt genuine fear coil tightly around his heart in that moment. Instinctively, every fiber of his being urged him to lean backward, to put distance between himself and the red-dressed specter. But he found himself completely unable to move. The crying-face candy he had swallowed seemed to have melted into a flowing river of ice inside his bloodstream, freezing his blood vessels, locking his muscles, and rooting him in place as though his body had turned to stone.
A spirit's desperate cry for help surged through his veins like a second heartbeat. Waves of negative energy gathered and pressed around his heart, constricting it like a pair of invisible hands squeezing with merciless force. The candy was impossible to swallow now; it lodged in his throat, choking him. Chen Ge felt the air being squeezed from his lungs, darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision as though he might faint from lack of oxygen.
Zhang Ya moved toward him with agonizing slowness, her presence radiating pure, unrelenting cold. She finally stopped directly in front of him. That face—beautiful yet utterly without warmth—hovered so close that Chen Ge could feel the chill radiating from her skin. Her beauty was overwhelming, breathtaking, the kind that could stop the breath in a person's throat and leave them frozen in awe and terror.
His throat refused to produce any sound. The candy had fully melted now, its bitter-sweet taste spreading across his tongue like poison. Chen Ge could feel a powerful spirit surging and coiling within his own body, fighting for control. Looking at Zhang Ya—now only six centimeters away—his calves began to quiver involuntarily, small tremors that spread upward through his legs despite his best efforts to stay steady.
This is not what I had in mind at all! Someone stop her! The thought screamed inside his skull, raw and panicked.
Perhaps the title of "Specter's Favored" finally activated in that desperate moment, because the blind, wounded monster—still reeling from the Pen Spirit's attack—suddenly surged forward at full speed. Its thin, serpentine body slithered and writhed across the floor like a giant snake desperate to reclaim its prey. Its bony, shriveled hands clamped onto Chen Ge's shoulders with bruising force. The lower half of its elongated body arced upward, coiling and preparing to leap onto his back and claim him completely.
The sharp pain exploding from his shoulders snapped Chen Ge out of his fear-induced trance. He whipped his head around to look at the monster—and, in that split second, gave it an appreciative nod. A small, grim acknowledgment of gratitude.
Appreciation?
The gesture seemed to offend the monster deeply. The head that hung high above suddenly went mad with rage. It abandoned any intention of confronting Zhang Ya directly and instead chose a vulnerable spot on Chen Ge's neck to bite. The twisted human head opened its jaws impossibly wide—but stopped abruptly half a meter from its target.
It wasn't that the monster wanted to stop. It was forced to.
In the darkness, long strings of bloody hair had whipped out like living ropes and bound its body tightly, wrapping around its thin limbs and elongated torso. The monster screamed in fury and glared resentfully at Zhang Ya. It had not attacked her earlier—not out of fear—but that did not mean it respected her power.
The three monsters quickly communicated in some silent, unspoken way. Their focus shifted instantly to Zhang Ya. Chen Ge did not know exactly what she intended to do, but he saw her beautiful face suddenly drop into an expression of pure, murderous intent. Her black hair drilled forward like thousands of needles, piercing directly into the monster's body. Her slender arms reached out, gripped the creature's head with terrifying strength, and slammed it violently against the nearest wall.
The monster wailed for the second time that night. The first had come when Chen Ge drove the Pen Spirit's pen into its eye. This second scream was deeper, more guttural, filled with genuine agony.
This is so cruel, Chen Ge thought, watching in stunned silence.
As Zhang Ya began her brutal assault on the monster, the suffocating chill that had paralyzed Chen Ge finally eased enough for him to move. He quickly stepped backward, putting distance between himself and the fight. The screaming spirit inside his body weakened as the crying-face candy continued to dissolve completely on his tongue. The cold around his eyes receded slightly, and his vision sharpened once more. He could see clearly in the darkness again, every detail of the corridor and the battle standing out in sharp relief.
The three monsters now fought desperately against Zhang Ya. Her red outfit blazed like fresh blood in the darkness, a vivid signal of her burning anger and bottomless resentment. It looked as though she intended to tear the creatures apart piece by piece and consume whatever remained.
Ten minutes later, the corridor had become a scene of absolute slaughter. The monsters were increasingly wounded—limbs torn, bodies shredded, their once-cohesive forms fraying at the edges. When they remained joined to their human hosts, these thin monsters were at their strongest. Detached from their anchors, however, their power weakened dramatically. Even with the advantage of numbers, they could do almost nothing against Zhang Ya's overwhelming force.
The difference in power is so huge? Chen Ge stared in disbelief. The thin monster had been the most terrifying ghost he had ever personally encountered—until now. He had initially assumed it would be a near-equal match for Zhang Ya. Clearly, he had underestimated her strength by an enormous margin.
She is definitely unique, he realized. To have earned her own dedicated page inside the black phone, she must be far beyond ordinary ghosts.
Chen Ge tightened his grip on the cleaver, refusing to let his guard down even for a second. At most, Western Jiujiang Private Academy had been a three-star scenario—but after witnessing Zhang Ya's dominance here, he now suspected it had only truly been a two-star threat. As a ghost born from that academy, she was effortlessly handling monsters from the genuine three-star Third Sick Hall. This could only mean one thing: something far scarier than the thin monster still hid somewhere deeper inside this wing. Something that had yet to reveal itself.
There has to be a compelling reason why the black phone officially evaluates the Third Sick Hall as a three-star scenario. Chen Ge's mind raced as he considered the implications. A three-star rating was never assigned lightly; it signified a location of extreme danger, where even the most experienced explorers could lose their lives. Beyond the possessed patients and lingering spirits he had already encountered, there almost certainly existed at least one genuine Red Specter within these walls—perhaps more than one. The presence of such a powerful entity would explain the hospital's persistent, almost living malevolence even after five years of abandonment.
The more Chen Ge thought about it, the deeper his confusion grew. The blood door had been left open for so many years—decades, perhaps—that the entire hospital should theoretically have become a complete monster's den by now. Every corridor, every room should have been thoroughly corrupted and overrun. Yet the building still retained some semblance of its original structure. Had all the ghosts and entities eventually left through the door? Or had something catastrophic happened to them after they crossed into the world beyond? The absence of overwhelming numbers of spirits suggested the door's influence was not simply a one-way flood; something was actively containing or redirecting it.
Chen Ge swept his flashlight around the fourth-floor corridor and immediately noticed the same disturbing change that had appeared on the first floor: thin, vein-like blood vessels had begun to emerge on the walls here as well. They pulsed faintly, almost imperceptibly, creeping silently toward Zhang Ya like capillaries feeding a wound. The sight sent a fresh wave of alarm through him. The corruption was spreading upward, drawn irresistibly to her overwhelming presence.
This is bad. Chen Ge had finally regained full control of his body after the crying-face candy's paralyzing effect wore off. The candy—crafted from a human soul—had frozen him from the inside out, turning his blood to ice and locking every joint. Now that it had completely melted and been absorbed, the Yin Yang Vision within him seemed to have neutralized its lingering chill. Zhang Ya had not intended to harm him with the candy; it had been a desperate measure to awaken her own power through him. But the side effect had nearly cost him his life in the critical moment.
There is something else—something far worse—hiding deep inside the Third Sick Hall! Perhaps the real monster isn't any single entity at all. Perhaps the entire hall itself has become the monster, awakened and feeding on the resentment and blood that has soaked into its walls over decades. Chen Ge broke into a run, legs pumping as he tried to put distance between himself and the spreading veins. But he had barely taken a few steps when Doctor Gao's voice suddenly burst from the phone still clutched in his pocket.
"Chen Ge! I've found Men Nan!" The call had never disconnected; Doctor Gao had clearly heard every crash, every shout, every desperate breath. He understood the urgency without needing further explanation.
"Okay—give him the phone right now," Chen Ge ordered, skidding to a halt. Men Nan was the key to this entire nightmare—the only person who had ever successfully closed the blood door before. If anyone could help seal it again, it was him.
"This is Men Nan," came the hesitant, familiar voice after a brief shuffle. "Thank you again for helping me last time…"
"Skip the formalities," Chen Ge cut in sharply, his voice low and urgent. "I know there's a child persona hiding deep inside your mind—you should know how to wake him up!"
"You must be mistaken," Men Nan replied, sounding genuinely confused. "What different persona are you talking about?"
"He's inside you!" Chen Ge raised his voice slightly, careful not to shout and give away his position. "You were raised inside a mental hospital. I don't know exactly how that shaped your growth, but perhaps you've been trying to avoid remembering it. Some things can't be avoided forever, even if you pretend they never happened!"
"What are you talking about?" Men Nan's tone remained uncertain, almost defensive. "Perhaps I did grow up in a mental hospital, but who can remember anything from when they were a baby?"
"A baby's synapses form and grow at an incredible rate," Doctor Gao interjected from the background, his voice calm and objective even through the phone's static. "That rapid development can cause instability in how early memories are recorded. That's why most people cannot consciously recall anything from infancy. But that doesn't mean those experiences are truly forgotten. They're buried deep inside the mind—sometimes manifesting as separate personas or latent abilities. By deliberately evoking those buried memories, we might be able to awaken that childhood self."
"Evoking the memory?" Chen Ge repeated. He quickly rummaged through his pocket and pulled out the photograph he had taken from the director's dresser. It showed the woman—Men Nan's mother—leaning against the hospital bed with her young son beside her. Chen Ge snapped a quick picture of the photo with his phone and sent it directly to Doctor Gao. "Men Nan, take a good look at this picture right now. This is the sickroom your mother once stayed in—Room 3 of the Third Sick Hall. Focus on the door between you and her. Focus on that door!"