It took Chen Ge ten minutes just to digest the new information on the black phone. He had been silent, holding the phone. He knew that the ghost fetus was dangerous, and he knew that their conflict was inevitable, but he did not expect it to be so soon.
“Only nine days. If I can’t find him in nine days, I will die.”
The black phone never lied; all the information it had given had proven to be true.
“The four-star Trial Mission has been forcibly triggered, but this mission is different from the School of the Afterlife or any of the Trial Mission that I’ve done before. It doesn’t have a fixed location and doesn’t provide accurate information. It only gave me a general range—the entire city is the stage.”
Chen Ge frowned as he read the message on the black phone repeatedly. It was a four-star Trial Mission, but the introduction was so small, and the mission hint was only one sentence.
“The time limit is nine nights, and the phone specifically highlighted the nights. Does this mean that the children that are possessed by the ghost fetus will be weakened only at night?”
Chen Ge had played hide and seek many times in his life, but this would be the first time that he had placed his life on the line.
“At the moment, I only know the number of altars and children. Finding the ghost fetus that might be anywhere within Jiujiang with this is too difficult.” Chen Ge put away the black phone and took out his own phone. He opened the contact list. “I have limited resources, and now is not the time to take this on alone. I need to mobilize all the forces that I can.”
Chen Ge first turned to Lee Zheng and Captain Yan. After cooperating multiple times, Jiujiang’s law enforcement could be said to be Chen Ge’s reliable back up support.
“The police are better than me at finding people. Now, I might need to clarify the uniqueness of these children and the possible danger that one might encounter during the search.”
The game had already started. After the black phone triggered the mission, an hourglass appeared on the mission page. After it turned nine times, the ghost fetus would go to find Chen Ge.
“The black phone said that I will definitely die, which means the ghost fetus is probably also a Demon God. He has stolen nine altars and occupied them without the owners’ permission. Perhaps the altars’ owners have all been killed. The owners of the altar should be quite scary, but they were still no match for the ghost fetus. That proved that even among Demon Gods, the ghost fetus is a powerful one.”
Without any clues, Chen Ge could only make his own prediction.
“These nine days might be the only time I have left in my life.”
Chen Ge did not pull Zhang Yi back into the comic but had Doctor Wei and the red high heels cure him. The curing was just the red high heels pulling the black threads that represent curses out from Zhang Yi’s body. It was unknown how many curses the ghost fetus had planted on Zhang Yi’s body. To help him, this was the only way.
“I’ll leave him to you.” Carrying the backpack, Chen Ge returned to the ground. When he passed the Prop Room, he grabbed the hammer and shoved it into his backpack. “For the next nine days, I’ll have to carry this with me.”
To not influence the work at the Haunted House, Chen Ge custom-made a wooden ‘Skull-Cracker’s Hammer’ for Xiao Gu, the actor of Doctor Skull-Cracker. After he was done, it was already 3 am. He returned to the staff breakroom, but he could not sleep no matter what.
“It is hard to imagine that the four-star mission has already started, but I will spend the first night sleeping at home.”
Chen Ge got out some paper to list down all the information that he knew.
“Now I have found three altars. One of them corresponds to Fang Yu. Based on Fang Yu’s current condition, the ghost fetus is most likely not on her, so I can eliminate her. The second altar corresponds to me. There is a decapitated mud statuette with my name inside the altar, and it is covered in the word death. The ghost fetus hates me so much that anger and envy have caused him to lose his sanity.
“The futuristic theme park has two altars. If one is for me, who is the other one for?”
Initially, Chen Ge thought that the futuristic theme park only had one real altar and one fake, but he could not guarantee that to be true.
“The Haunted House at the futuristic theme park was built under the insistence of a Director Jiang. His adopted son, Jiang Ming, is about the same age as me. These are all suspicious points. The pair of father and son definitely know something. Perhaps they have done something to the altar without a mud statuette.”
With that in mind, Chen Ge activated the recorder to summon Xu Yin and then flipped through the comic and summoned all the Specters and spirits that he had found at the cursed Japanese house. Eerie wind gathered in the breakroom. The white cat dragged Xiaoxiao by her dress into the bedsheet. The cat and Xiaoxiao poked their eyes out from the darkness to observe the situation.
The little girl from the windchime and the grandson were the first to appear. They were holding hands like they were afraid of Chen Ge. Then the chair before the table slowly turned, and a sturdy looking old man appeared. He was facing away from Chen Ge, refusing to show Chen Ge his face like in the black and white picture.
The scent of blood thickened. Following a sad and resentful song, the woman in the stage costume appeared.
“Lian…” The man turned his head slightly. The woman’s body was flickering. She looked at the old man and started to move toward him.
“Do you think this is some dating game?” Chen Ge held the hammer and glared viciously at everyone in the room. “I don’t care about what you do in the future, but now I need you to answer a few questions honestly.”
His Yin Yang Vision swept the old man and the woman. He did not let the two children off the hook either. “The scenario that you stayed in had an altar. Tell me everything you know about it.”
With Chen Ge’s interrogation, he gained some important information from the old man. The woman in the costume had met the ghost fetus before. To protect the grandson and the girl, the woman had promised to help the ghost fetus protect the altar. In a way, she was like Zhang Yi; they were both protecting the altar. But the problem was, the woman promised the ghost fetus that she would only protect the altar with Chen Ge’s statuette in it, and she did not need to care about the other altar.
The old man said that the altar with Chen Ge’s statuette was the real altar originally in the cursed house. The altar that Chen Ge later saw inside the house was placed there by a young man named Jiang Ming. The key problem was that the replacement altar also had a mud statuette inside it initially. It had Jiang Ming’s name carved on it, but it disappeared without a trace later. It had probably been taken away by Jiang Ming.
“I am the first, Fang Yu is the second, and from the current clues, it looks like Jiang Ming is the third.”
If he left at that moment, he would arrive in Eastern Jiujiang at dawn. So, Chen Ge did not make his move immediately but chose to rest.
“Tomorrow, I’ll have to visit the futuristic theme park again, but I won’t get past the security with the hammer. That’s a problem.”
