Xiao Jia was so scared that she covered her face tightly with both hands, as if that would make the female ghost disappear.
So only Xin Meng and the female ghost were left staring at each other.
Fortunately, Xin Meng had gained some courage and didn’t run away immediately. Instead, he took two steps forward and asked, “What do you want us to do for you before you leave?”
The female ghost looked at him gloomily, then glanced at Xiao Jia, who was covering her ears, and said coldly, “I want… her to help me with something. If she fails, I will eat her. Don’t think about running away; I will follow you for a lifetime. You can’t escape.”
“What if we complete it?” Xin Meng asked. “Will you let her go then?”
The female ghost shot him a cold glance and didn’t respond.
“If we’re going to die anyway, why should we help you? Isn’t that pointless?” Xin Meng, ignoring Xiao Jia’s anxious tugging, calmly bargained, “You must give a promise, and then she will help you.”
“You’re quite clever,” the female ghost sneered. “Not only do you want a promise from me, but you also want to exclude yourself. Dream on! A promise can be made, but don’t think you can run away. If you fail, you will die together with her!”
Xin Meng remained noncommittal. “Just tell me your request.”
This was a necessary process in the game. Regardless of whether he agreed or not, the outcome would be the same; refusing would only lead to a quicker death.
“Happy Street… No. 99, kill that man!” The female ghost’s expression grew darker, and the flames of hatred almost burst from her eyes!
Xin Meng almost thought she would leap out of the mirror, but she didn’t. Instead, she gradually faded away, leaving behind two hoarse warnings: “I will always be watching you. Remember, always!”
The bathroom fell silent again, and even the light seemed to brighten a bit. When the female ghost appeared, the candlelight had dimmed suddenly, but both of them were so focused on the ghost that no one paid attention.
Xiao Jia was still sitting on the floor. Seeing that the ghost had indeed not reappeared, her supporting arms went limp, and she fell back, lying on the ground, gasping in fear.
She looked at Xin Meng and said in a panic, “You… you still dare to bargain with her? What if she gets angry and kills us?”
Xin Meng couldn’t explain to her what the game and players meant, so he just replied casually, “I still have vermilion powder, so I’m not afraid.”
Xiao Jia immediately believed him, sitting up from the ground, and said proudly, “I told you, we have foresight! We only dared to play after checking the information!”
Xin Meng: “…” She had completely forgotten the fear; if the vermilion powder really worked, what was that situation just now?
He realized that this game was not satisfied with the players having troublesome teammates; it even assigned them a hindering NPC!
One for each, no one gets less!
Xiao Jia was still chattering about the supernatural events they encountered while playing the pen spirit game and how they “bravely and heroically” resolved them. Xin Meng, however, tuned her out, looking down to search his body and pulled out a card.
[You and she are grasshoppers on the same rope, living and dying together.]
See!
It was indeed bound!
Xin Meng was speechless. He called out to Xiao Jia, who hadn’t gotten up yet, and turned to leave the bathroom, intending to find You Yi in another dorm room.
“Hey! Wait! Don’t leave me alone!” Xiao Jia hurriedly scrambled up, flustered, and followed closely behind Xin Meng. After being so frightened, she was still a bit scared and didn’t dare to stay alone.
Xin Meng ignored her. After opening the dorm room door, a long corridor appeared before him, and he stopped in his tracks.
It was midnight, so all the ceiling lights were off. Looking to the sides, it was pitch black, with only a safety exit sign a distance away emitting a faint green glow, which looked even scarier.
Like the underworld.
However, Xin Meng was not troubled by that; he was worried about how many rooms there were, all with closed doors. He couldn’t possibly check them one by one, could he?
At that moment, Xiao Jia finally proved useful. Xin Meng asked her, “Which dorm room are the others in?”
Xiao Jia honestly replied, “Big sister is in 103, Xiao Li is in 202, Xiao Tong is in 308, Mao Mao is in 309, and Fei Fei is in 511.” After finishing, she added, “We are in 404.”
Xin Meng thought for a moment and decided to check the upper floor first, starting with 511. If they weren’t there, he would go down, which would be quicker.
“Are you going to find them?” Xiao Jia immediately grabbed Xin Meng’s arm, “Don’t go! Just don’t!”
Her originally delicate fingers suddenly felt like iron hoops, and Xin Meng found himself unable to move. He looked at Xiao Jia in surprise, only to see the girl’s face filled with panic. “What if there are ghosts there too? What if we get entangled again? Isn’t that just asking for trouble? Let’s just wait in the activity room on the first floor! We agreed to meet there earlier!”
Xin Meng tugged at his arm again, but when he couldn’t pull free, he realized this was probably a requirement of the game: the six players had the same starting point and couldn’t help each other.
“Alright, then we won’t go find them. Let’s go to the first floor.” Xin Meng relaxed his body, and sure enough, Xiao Jia’s grip loosened.
The two of them walked down the stairs together and arrived on the first floor.
Although it was a holiday, the dormitory supervisor was still on duty. At that moment, warm yellow light spilled from the small window of the entrance booth, and they could hear the lively sounds of a crosstalk performance on the television, along with the sharp laughter of the dormitory supervisor, which was even scarier than a ghost’s laugh.
Xiao Jia pulled Xin Meng, and the two of them crouched low, tiptoeing past, sneaking into the corridor on the other side, where there was a double door with a sign that read: Activity Room.
The door to the activity room was not locked; it opened with a gentle push. Afraid of startling the dormitory supervisor, they didn’t dare to open it too wide, just creating a small gap to slip inside.
It was very dark inside, and they couldn’t see anything clearly, but Xiao Jia surprisingly pulled out a mini flashlight from her pocket and handed it to Xin Meng. Although it wasn’t very bright, it was enough to roughly see the situation inside.
Xin Meng didn’t know what the so-called activity room was supposed to look like. He thought it would have some fitness equipment or something, but upon entering, he was a bit disappointed. It was just a smaller meeting room, with a long conference table in the middle and many chairs scattered messily on both sides. In one corner of the room, a large television hung from the ceiling, with a water dispenser below it and a potted plant beside it.
On the walls on both sides of the entrance, several large whiteboards were nailed up, covered with messy black marker writings, including abbreviated party regulations, the time and classroom for an upcoming lecture, and records of dormitory head meetings.
Xiao Jia was the first to pull out a chair and sit down, then beckoned Xin Meng, “Sit down first; they should be here soon.”
Seeing Xin Meng sit down, Xiao Jia leaned back in her chair and sighed, “I wonder how they are doing. If I had known this mirror spirit was more powerful than the plate spirit and pen spirit, I wouldn’t have played. I thought it would just show some supernatural phenomena; who knew I’d almost lose my life!”
Xin Meng remained silent, and Xiao Jia continued to ramble, “Now it’s fine; although I’m still alive, I’ve ended up with a mysterious task that requires me to kill someone! You say, as a weak girl who has never even killed a chicken in her life, how the hell can I kill someone? It’s a miracle if I’m not killed myself!”
At first, she seemed like a normal gentle girl, but now the more she spoke, the fiercer she became, and she even let out a curse. Xin Meng was taken aback, staring at her in shock.
Xiao Jia noticed his astonishment and awkwardly cleared her throat, “What? You’ve never seen a tough girl before?”
Xin Meng chuckled, then thought to himself that it made sense; every girl who dared to play ghost games must have a tough girl hidden inside.
Xiao Jia bit her lip and quietly asked Xin Meng, “What do you think will happen if we don’t do it? I really don’t want to kill anyone…”
Xin Meng couldn’t say for sure either. Given the current situation, if they didn’t comply, they would definitely be killed, unless there was some turning point…
Before he could speak, the television on the ceiling suddenly emitted static noise, followed by a bright flash.
The television turned on by itself!
The wide screen was filled with noisy snowflakes, but it made both of them feel like they were facing a great enemy. Xiao Jia trembled and immediately hid behind Xin Meng, peeking out with only her eyes visible.
The white light from the screen filled the entire activity room, illuminating the whiteboards on the walls and reflecting the snowflakes.
The female ghost they had seen before appeared on the screen.
She stared intently at Xiao Jia, grinning ominously, her voice echoing through the speakers with a strange eeriness.
“Hehe, don’t want to kill? Of course, you can, as long as you give me your bodies…”
As she spoke, her mouth opened, and a long, blood-red tongue flicked out like a lizard, sensually licking her lips, as if anticipating a delicious meal before her.
“Let me restore my beauty… Hehehe…”
Not only the television, but the whiteboards on both sides also reflected one, two, seven faces, seven long scarlet tongues, and seven pairs of eerie, greedy eyes, all fixated on the two in the middle, as if they had completely surrounded them, leaving no escape!
“Ahhh—” Xiao Jia screamed frantically, hugging her head and crouching down, trembling all over in fear!
The female ghost cackled, “Don’t think about escaping; you can’t! I will always follow you, always follow you!”
“Whoosh—”
The television turned off.
The room fell into darkness again.
The flashlight’s beam had also gone out at some point, and Xin Meng pressed the switch several times but couldn’t turn it back on.
“W-what do we do…” Xiao Jia’s voice was thick with tears as she crouched on the ground, trembling, “She’s following us; she’s following us!”
Due to her overwhelming fear, her voice grew louder, almost shouting, and Xin Meng hurriedly comforted her to keep her voice down so they wouldn’t attract the dormitory supervisor.
But Xiao Jia was losing her sanity. The moment she heard about the dormitory supervisor, her first thought was to call her over; as long as there were outsiders, maybe the ghost wouldn’t appear!
This was the most instinctive thought of a normal person, and Xin Meng could understand, but it was completely a case of desperate measures. According to the rules, even if they called the dormitory supervisor over, the outcome would just be one more person dead. They wouldn’t be in danger until they completed their task, but innocent bystanders would likely die in the blink of an eye.
However, Xiao Jia couldn’t hear Xin Meng’s explanation. She wanted to go to a crowded place, to leave this room, and stood up, stumbling toward the door.
But at that moment, the door was pushed open from the outside.
