In the dark, Fatty suddenly understood something and slapped his forehead. "I get it! Up until now, the Doctor has never come face-to-face with the ghost!"
Chu Changge glanced at him. "This ghost seems to be intentionally avoiding Zhao Lei. At least before I left the World in the Mirror, it never showed itself in front of Zhao Lei."
Fatty was a bit puzzled. "Isn't the ghost Zhao Lei?"
"No," Chu Changge shook his head. "They may look identical, but they are two separate individuals operating independently. And I have noticed that the ghost is deliberately avoiding Zhao Lei."
Fatty made an effort to recall. "That does seem to be the case... The ghost never revealed itself in front of Zhao Lei until I left. But why is that?"
"It doesn't want Zhao Lei to discover its existence. Zhao Lei has memory lapses and has forgotten some memories. This ghost may be the entity carrying those unpleasant memories."
Chu Changge paused slightly. "To be more precise, this ghost could be considered Zhao Lei's second personality. Have you heard of dissociative identity disorder?"
Fatty nodded. "It's when a person has multiple personalities."
"This ghost likely carries all of Zhao Lei's negative emotions and unwanted memories and has split off to become a separate individual."
"Then why does this ghost want to kill us?" Fatty was slightly confused.
So what if there's a split personality? Why does it result in murder?
"It doesn't want us finding out the truth, like the mystery of Zhao Guanhai's disappearance. As long as we are here, we will search for clues to reconstruct what had happened. This truth might be upsetting for Zhao Lei, so the ghost takes action to stop us."
"Several groups of people have surely been here before, but Zhao Lei doesn't remember any of them at all. It must be the ghost who erased his memories. Every group that comes here looks for clues, and these clues bring back Zhao Lei's unpleasant memories. So, he experiences memory loss each time a new group arrives, forgetting whatever he had recalled."
"So you mean..." Fatty thought of the corpse in the toilet. "Zhao Guanhai's death does have something to do with Zhao Lei, right?"
"Not directly, but there's definitely some roundabout connection. Otherwise, Zhao Lei wouldn't have developed a second personality. And that second personality wouldn't specifically erase his memories. I guess the truth can only be found in the World in the Mirror. By now, only Gu Mian is in there, right?"
Fatty nodded. "The Doctor is all by himself in there... It must be quite dangerous. I wonder if he has found a way out yet..."
At this moment, there was no movement from outside the door or any sign of a ghost emerging in the room. Everything was eerily calm.
"Brother Chu," Fatty spoke up again. "We can't just stay here, can we?"
Chu Changge nodded. "Yeah, you will get sleepy eventually."
Fatty frowned. "So should we rush out now? Break down the door?"
Chu Changge paused before speaking again. "I mentioned earlier that if one has enough energy and strength, one can hold out against the ghost in here for quite some time. But things often turn out differently."
Fatty's brow twitched, a sense of foreboding welling up.
"This ghost is very cunning. While we hide in one room, it can use mirrors to enter other rooms in the real world. Then, it can lock those other rooms from the outside. If it emerges from our room after that, we wouldn't be able to escape into other rooms to buy time."
"It's so quiet outside. The ghost isn't really doing that, is it?"
"Very likely," Chu Changge nodded. "But taking such actions always comes with risks. Constantly traveling through mirrors creates a high chance of encountering Zhao Lei from the World in the Mirror. That's a scene the ghost wouldn't want."
Fatty sighed in relief, but his relief was short-lived as Chu Changge continued, "So, there's an even simpler way. It could simply lock this room's door from the outside. That way, even if it appears in here, we won't be able to get out."
"Damn!" Fatty exclaimed and quickly rushed to the door, twisting the doorknob.
His face turned pale. "Brother Chu... it really won't open."
Chu Changge nodded knowingly. "I figured as much."
Fatty was practically panicking. "So it's coming out soon! It knows we're in this room!"
He started pacing anxiously. "Brother Chu, you said this ghost is actually Zhao Lei's second personality, right? Then it isn't exactly a true ghost, is it?"
"But its behavior is no different from a ghost's." Chu Changge looked at him. "What are you planning?"
"I was thinking, since it's a second personality, it shouldn't be as scary as a real ghost. When it comes out, maybe we could try... physical attacks?"
They hadn't learned how to attack with magic, so crude physical attacks were their only option.
Chu Changge remained silent for a while. "You didn't see Brother Mobile's corpse, did you?"
"His corpse? Where is it?" Fatty widened his eyes.
"It's in his room. He was ripped in half, from the crotch to the shoulder. His intestines were spilled all over the floor. The ghost seems to enjoy killing people this way." This content belongs to novel(ꜰ)ire.net
Upon hearing this brutal description, Fatty nearly retched. He instinctively clutched his crotch, immediately abandoning the idea of using physical attacks.
He reached for the doorknob again, twisting it. "Alright, Brother Chu, I'll try to break the door down. You stay away from the window, in case that thing suddenly crawls out."
The mere thought of how Brother Mobile had died made Fatty shudder with lingering fear.
Hearing this, Chu Changge retreated to one side, keeping a cautious distance from the window—not too close, but not too far either.
Fatty used all his strength to ram against the door, right beside the large wardrobe.
But this door was far sturdier than he imagined. Despite his repeated efforts, it remained unyielding. Since they were in a haunted building, Fatty instinctively tried to minimize the noise from his attempts.
After every few rams, he would glance back at the large, gleaming window, terrified that a ghost might crawl out from it.
Fortunately, everything remained normal; no ghostly figures were visible in the glass.
After desperately ramming the door a dozen more times, Fatty finally grew exhausted. His legs weak, he slid down against the door, facing the glass window.
"This door is damn sturdy; it simply won't budge! If only the Doctor and his Saw were here... If I had known, I would have put all my Attribute Points into strength. Then I wouldn't be trapped in this instance today..."
Just as he was halfway through his sentence, Chu Changge suddenly interrupted him, "Wait."
"What's wrong?" Fatty turned his head to look at him, but then he also realized something was amiss.
This instance required them to act as tourists trapped on a snowy mountain and displayed Zhao Lei's suspicion level towards them.
Fatty's suspicion level had been very stable, consistently at zero. But just now, he noticed that Zhao Lei's suspicion towards him had suddenly risen to 40.
What just happened? Fatty looked unsettled. He seemed to recall mentioning "Attribute Points" and "instance".
But these details weren't important. The important question was, why would discussing these game-like terms raise Zhao Lei's suspicion level when only he and Chu Changge were in the room? Zhao Lei's second personality was also Zhao Lei. That meant... He... was already in the room!
Fatty, his face deathly pale, stared intently at the large window opposite. He pressed himself against the door, trying to get farther away from the window, but there was still no movement from it.
No! I've been watching the window the whole time, and nothing came out of it. So where was he? Had he been hiding here all along?
Fatty shifted his body slightly to the side. Not far from him was a large wardrobe. From this angle, it looked like there might be a hammer or some other tools on top of it.
He slowly began to edge his body towards the wardrobe.
But just as Fatty was almost beside the wardrobe, he suddenly remembered something—The wardrobe! There's a large, covered mirror inside it!
Just then, the wardrobe door nearest to him suddenly CREAKED.
Fatty froze, stiffly turning his head to look in that direction.
The wardrobe door was pushed open a sliver. A pale face, pressed tightly into the gap, offered him a grotesque smile.
Fatty's mouth fell open. He stumbled back, turning to flee, but just as he took his first step, he felt something grab his leg.
He looked down and saw two unnaturally long hands that had somehow taken hold of his ankles.
Now, these two hands were dragging him towards the wardrobe!
Fatty struggled fiercely, but he simply couldn't break free.
As he was dragged closer, the smile on that pale face grew wider and more grotesque, stretching almost to its ears.
But just as that smile reached its widest, Fatty, struggling for his life, suddenly heard another voice from inside the wardrobe.
He looked up in surprise.
From that pitch-black crevice, another pale face suddenly emerged.
Gu Mian's sinister face appeared above the ghost face, staring intently at its scalp with a menacing expression.