"Blergh..."
A viscous fluid reeking of rot splattered onto her from the corpse. A powerful wave of nausea sent stomach acid surging up Kanagawa Yume's throat, and she retched several times. But that was nothing compared to the human-spider, which was now right in front of her, its cavernous mouth wide open.
A thick, foul stench washed over her.
In that instant, Kanagawa Yume saw a mass of twisted souls within the spider's mouth. They were in agony, their bodies maimed and contorted...
The next second, a loud gunshot echoed from the high window, the bullet accurately hitting the base of Kanagawa Yume's thigh where she was wrapped in a cocoon.
"Fuck!" Kanagawa Yume couldn't help but curse. Did she really have to get shot right before she died? And the sound came from the window? You've got to be kidding. That window was three meters high and locked shut; there was no way to open it.
A few more shots followed, pitch-black bullets streaking out, erratically outlining Kanagawa Yume's body before finally hitting the spiderweb holding her aloft. The moment they made contact, brilliant blue-purple flames erupted, incinerating the web and cocoon together.
Li Mo brutally ripped open the locked window and jumped in. He then flash-stepped to catch the falling Kanagawa Yume and ran swiftly toward the guest rooms in the left corridor, just as the notebook had described.
"..."
He was being watched.
Li Mo didn't look back, but he noticed a gaze from the darkness, accompanied by a creeping, bone-chilling cold. Having died before, Li Mo had a certain level of precognition against ghosts that needed to lock onto a target before killing them according to their rules. A shared origin created a resonance.
"You have a gun, so shoot it! What are you afraid of?" Kanagawa Yume asked, baffled, as she was carried in his arms. She tried to urge Li Mo to use his firearm to take out the disgusting, terrifying thing behind them.
Li Mo ignored her, still single-mindedly running towards the room.
Suddenly, Li Mo lurched forward, nearly tripping. Something had caught his foot. Was it an obstacle?
Or...
Just as he was about to fall, Li Mo tossed Kanagawa Yume upwards, planted a hand on the ground, and spun a full 360 degrees in the air to right himself. He then smoothly caught the falling girl.
"What are you doing? You scared me to death, throwing me like that! And did you hear me? All fear comes from a lack of firepower! Not confident in your aim? Then let me do it! Watch me blow that ghostly thing to bits!" Kanagawa Yume cracked her knuckles, eager to give it a try.
But Li Mo didn't give her the chance.
"There's more than one ghost here. Another one is chasing me. We need to get to a safe place quickly."
"Besides," he added, "this gun is useless against it."
The door-knocking ghost that moved swiftly in the black fog, and the human-spider that had spread throughout the house.
Li Mo was certain that he wouldn't be tripped so easily by a simple obstacle in the dark. Not only could he vaguely see things in the darkness, but even if he missed something, it wouldn't be enough to throw him completely off balance. His constitution was special; the only thing that could make him lose his balance so easily was the inherent rule of a vengeful spirit.
If he had fallen just now, he would have undoubtedly triggered some kind of death rule. But he had only been in the house for a few seconds. If the first floor was like this, he didn't even need to guess about the second, third, fourth, and the top fifth floor—the rules were surely layered one on top of the other.
The Bizarre pistol couldn't suppress the human-spider behind them; he had already confirmed that with his continuous firing. It could burn the spiderweb, but the spreading flames couldn't harm the spider itself. The reason was unknown.
Finally, Li Mo brought Kanagawa Yume to the corridor. He saw nine rooms in total. The one at the far end was chained shut, impossible to enter.
"Into the second room."
Li Mo made a decisive judgment, immediately pushing open the door and rushing inside before shutting it.
Kanagawa Yume collapsed to the floor, panting heavily. "Phew... are we safe now?"
Li Mo glanced at the steadily burning candle on the wall and replied, "We should be safe. Relatively speaking..."
The candle. Did it serve a similar purpose to the incense at a funeral? According to the notebook, if the candle went out, it meant the ghost was right beside them, and all control was lost.
Kanagawa Yume didn't ask who Li Mo was, nor did she ask why his pistol couldn't kill the human-spider outside. Li Mo had already given the answer: the human-spider outside was a ghost.
"I have a signal! I need to contact my classmates!" Kanagawa Yume excitedly opened her phone. She was overjoyed to see two bars of signal, neither strong nor weak.
Li Mo didn't stop her. He hadn't been drawn by her opening her phone, which meant... the candle did indeed have some kind of shielding and suppression ability, rendering the paranormal rules transparent under its light.
"You'd better not call them," Li Mo suggested. "It's better to text or use a chat app."
"Why?" Kanagawa Yume asked.
Li Mo stared at the still-steady flame of the candle on the wall, wanting to try a bold experiment. This girl, like him, must have fulfilled the notebook's prophecy: "disappear from this world."
Li Mo didn't think a high school girl would be brave enough to come here alone.
This forest wasn't that big, so ruling out the possibility of getting lost, she must have come intentionally. She probably had companions, and more than one.
Perhaps someone had come to the haunted manor before and warned the outside world that it was a very dangerous place with ghosts.
But there were always those who didn't believe, who wanted to test the danger for themselves. Before his own encounters with the paranormal Bizarre Entity, Li Mo had also firmly believed that there were no such things as ghosts. He had even thought that things like feng shui and ghost stories were just ridiculous jokes.
"You can try calling your companion. I think the first thing they'll ask is—'Which room are you in?'"
Li Mo was very specific, not even using a general phrase like "Where are you?" but directly stating that the other party already knew she was in a room, they just didn't know which one.
Kanagawa Yume looked puzzled, studying Li Mo thoughtfully for a moment.
"Nonsense. The president may not show it much, but she really cares about the members of the Occult Club. And I've been missing for so long, they must be worried sick."
"So the first thing she'll say has to be a greeting like—'Yume, are you okay? Are you hurt?'"
Kanagawa Yume was certain. She dialed the number in front of Li Mo and put it on speaker. The contact name on the screen was "Occult Club President." Her face was full of confidence, determined to prove this suddenly appeared guy wrong. Although he had saved her, his condescending attitude annoyed her. If he hadn't saved her, she would have definitely made him experience the beauty of the Shenzhou language.
Beep—
The call connected. Kanagawa Yume said excitedly, "Moshi moshi! Prez, it's me, Kanagawa Yume!"
She deliberately walked over to Li Mo. With the speaker on, a rustling sound came from the other end, which Li Mo could also hear. Kanagawa Yume had expected the president to ask if she was safe, as usual. But the cold, eerie voice that came from the other end sent a shiver down her spine.
"Which room are you in? Which room are you in? Which room are you in?"
"Prez... y-you, what's wrong with you? Is it that important which room I'm in?"
"Very important... Which room are you in? Very important... Which room are you in? Very important... Which room are you in?"
"Tell me now!!"
This repetitive, abnormal behavior completely confirmed Li Mo's earlier suspicion.
Just then, the candle on the wall began to flicker, as if its throat were being squeezed by a shadow emerging from the depths of darkness, on the verge of being extinguished at any moment.
"Hang up. Now," Li Mo urged.
Kanagawa Yume didn't hesitate. She immediately hung up, an indescribable feeling rising in her heart.
"Just now..."
"The one who answered you was a ghost. I don't know what kind of ghost."
"In a paranormal event, if you want to survive, you must remain skeptical of everything you see and hear. Including me, and including you."
"The room we're in now is relatively safe, but not absolutely safe. See this candle? Before it goes out, we probably won't have a direct confrontation with a ghost. After it goes out, even if there is a direct confrontation, we must avoid it as much as possible. Of course, I don't think we can survive after the candle goes out, so we must do everything we can to keep it burning until tomorrow morning."
Li Mo patiently explained to Kanagawa Yume, just like... he had explained to Kira Shigure back then.
"But why, why did I call a ghost? I was clearly calling the president. Does that mean the president is already..." Kanagawa Yume suddenly realized the implication. Had the president become a ghost?
At this, Kanagawa Yume looked to Li Mo for help, desperate for an answer. From their brief conversation, Li Mo had learned her real name and identity. It must be a club from the Japan—the Occult Club. And if it's about the occult, it's natural to have club activities related to ghosts.
"She's probably not dead yet. A ghost's disguise doesn't follow human logic. It might have some similarities, but it will never be identical."
"You have to understand, all the ghosts in this house... they watched us disappear down the corridor."
"A ghost's perception is limited."
"They might not know how we disappeared, but they know we're in one of the nine bedrooms. That's why they're so desperate to know which one, and then... try to get in."
"The moment you tell it which room we're in, it will appear at the door."
"When you use a phone or other communication device to contact the outside at a time like this, the signal is fine inside, but once it gets outside, it gets distorted. You never know if the person on the other end is human or a ghost."
"You were lucky this time. The ghost you talked to didn't seem very smart. If it could have perfectly mimicked your 'president,' the moment you told it which room we were in, it would have revealed its identity and then come in to kill us."
Of course, Li Mo wouldn't have let that happen. He would have definitely interrupted Kanagawa Yume before she could give the answer.
Kanagawa Yume swallowed hard. She had never considered any of this. Making a call, and a ghost answers on the other end... Not being able to see the living enter a room, so it wants to know which room they're in, even disguising itself as a living person... Why were there such bizarre things?
Thinking of this, Kanagawa Yume bit her lip and asked a difficult question.
"What about you? How do you prove... that you're human, not a ghost?"
"Suddenly appearing by my side, knowing so much about these ghost-related things... could you be a ghost with human intelligence, trying to use me to find my companions?"
Li Mo didn't answer immediately, but a hint of surprise appeared on his face.
He didn't expect this pretty high school girl not only to have not been scared witless by her earlier ordeal, but to be able to recover so quickly, think critically, and turn around to question the identity of her savior. It showed her rationality was still online.
Li Mo thought for a moment. If it had been someone else... Suddenly finding themselves alone in a haunted house, all their companions gone, with a terrifying human-spider chasing them in the dark. Unable to escape, unable to fight back, then getting tied up and watching a grotesque face and mouth inch closer and closer. Most people would have lost the ability to think long before that, their minds filled with nothing but fear.
This girl was indeed quite something. It was just a shame she was an ordinary person. Being an ordinary person meant her potential was limited. Even with a calm mind and rational judgment, it was very easy to die in a paranormal event.
"First, you don't have to believe me, just as I've never believed you."
"In a paranormal event, being suspicious of everyone but yourself is basic. Sometimes, you even have to doubt whether your own memories are accurate, whether they've been tampered with, whether your perception aligns with reality, or if you're experiencing a cognitive disconnect."
"Second, you can call me Mingyue. It's not my real name, just a codename."
"I'm here to deal with the paranormal event here. In the process, I don't mind keeping the people around me alive as much as possible, provided they don't cause trouble for me. Otherwise, the ghosts outside won't have to kill anyone. I'll do it myself."
Li Mo's face was calm, his expression shifting from time to time. After all, she was just a young girl. Aside from the necessary serious warnings, Li Mo wouldn't be overbearing. He just wanted to point out what she needed to be aware of so they could all survive together.
"..."
Kanagawa Yume thought for a moment. Both her reason and her intuition told her that he was trustworthy. She couldn't say why, she just felt she could trust him.
Was it because he saved her? But she knew she shouldn't trust anyone's word.
"When morning comes, will I be able to see my companions and leave this damn place?"
"I don't want to stay here anymore."
Kanagawa Yume clutched her clipboard tightly, showing a rare moment of vulnerability. She had to tell everyone how terrifying the haunted manor was. If they stayed any longer, everyone would die...
However, Li Mo's next words were like a bucket of cold water poured over her head.