There was nothing… behind him. That did nothing to squelch the fear in Fatty’s heart. He followed Jiang Cheng’s gaze and saw a shadow on the wall. He didn’t know how to describe it. It was very, very tall. It looked like it was being strung up by something to hang in the air. The shadow swayed.
Fatty’s eyes trembled as epiphany dawned on him. It was… a hanging person!
However, there was nothing next to the shadow.
Chen Yao left the dance studio ten years ago to reach this room… through a mirror. The scariest thing was they couldn’t see her with their naked eyes.
The shadow moved again. Strangely enough, it had moved closer to them. Under such extreme conditions, Fatty couldn’t tell whether the movement was his own imagination or was it reality. In any case, Chen Yao’s appearance portended the ending of this mission.
The shadow moved faster and faster. Fatty was covered in a cold sweat. He didn’t dare to blink. He could confirm that the shadow was moving towards them in an inscrutable manner to kill them. They’d end up like the corpses inside the mirror.
Venomous, twisted, crazy… They were like hands trying to grab him. Fatty was so scared that he wanted to scream. However, with Jiang Cheng’s hand over his mouth, he could only make some muffled noises. Jiang Cheng clearly had noticed the anomaly behind him as well. His gaze scanned the surroundings. Based on the other players’ introduction and their understanding of the nightmare, the mission would not send them to a dead-end. There had to be a way out. However, as the time progressed, that exit would become narrower.
The shadow reached less than three metres from them and it was picking up speed. In less than half a minute, no, at most 20 seconds, the shadow could touch them.
Fatty couldn’t stand it anymore. His survival instinct overwhelmed everything. He shot pleading gazes at Jiang Cheng. The shadow was opposite the door. If they moved fast enough, they could rush out of the room in time. However, Jiang Cheng was unfazed. He didn’t seem to care about the others. He was extremely self-centred. This would lead to his death… at least, that was what Fatty thought.
Jiang Cheng looked around until he suddenly stopped.
It was a big, red wooden box. The lid that he had closed earlier was open, and Zhen Jianren, who was supposed to be inside… was gone. A thick pool of blood remained on the ground. There was a blood trail that started from the box and ended at the front of the mirror. It was as if… something had dragged Zhen Jianren into the mirror.
A glint flashed in Jiang Cheng’s eyes.
The palpable friction sound began again. It was extremely close. Fatty struggled loose from Jiang Cheng’s grip. He grabbed Jiang Cheng’s wrist and tried to push him out of the room. However, to his consternation, he failed to budge Jiang Cheng. The latter appeared to be rooted to the ground. If anything, Fatty was pulled along by Jiang Cheng. He was shoved backwards and fell onto the mirror. The mirror did not shatter. Nothing scary came to snap his jaw. He opened his eyes in nervousness and realised that he was outdoors. Underneath his feet was the sandpit. He pushed his palms against the sand and quickly got up.
Fatty was confused. He slowly lowered his head to look at his palms. Other than sand, they were also covered in… sticky blood. He looked around him dumbly. He almost yelped, spotting a bloody corpse beside him. His first reaction was that the Doctor had been killed for saving him. Just as he wanted to kneel down to try to save Jiang Cheng, the latter’s voice came from behind him, “That’s Zhen Jianren…”
“Doctor!” Fatty was overjoyed. By then, he knew that the doctor was right. The mirror looked scary, but it was the real exit. If they had gone towards the door, they would have lost their lives. After figuring that out, Fatty stared at Zhen Jianren on the ground. He asked, “Doctor, how did he die here?”
Jiang Cheng was silent before adding, “He crawled out on his own.”
Fatty was shocked. “How did he manage that in his state?”
“It was because of his unique state,” Jiang Cheng uttered calmly, “That he was able to escape.”
Slowly, Fatty got it. “Doctor, do you mean… it was exactly because he lost his eyes that he was not affected by those images and managed to crawl out?”
Jiang Cheng nodded and turned back to look at the room they had just escaped from. Fatty did the same. He realised with a shock that the door was wide open and… the dark red curtain inside the room was still closed. His large body shivered. Fatty took a lot of time to process this. “Therefore… what we saw earlier was all an illusion?”
A blood trail was evident outside the door. Zhen Jianren left it behind when he crawled out.
It hit Fatty. Luo Yi was a ghost. Zhen Jianren followed Luo Yi into his trap and somehow managed to survive the trap and get out.
The way the ghost murdered people was to use mirrors to cause people to see illusions. In the end, they would be killed inside the illusion. He thought back to the earlier victims. The hostel room where the woman in the qipao died had a blurry mirror; Long Tao died in front of the male toilet’s sink and mirror; Luo Yi died in the files room… which had a rectangular mirror on the wall.
Mirrors… were the real taboo of this mission.
“Doctor,” Fatty said with fear. “Then, does this mean we also have to…” He looked at the dead Zhen Jianren with his missing eyes.
“If you want to dig out your eyes, go ahead.” Jiang Cheng shrugged, “I’m not doing that.” A few seconds later, he added, “I have such beautiful eyes. So many ladies were captivated by my eyes. They said I have miraculous eyes. They saw me in their dreams…”
“Doctor…” Fatty wished to sew the man’s lips together, “Brother Zhen is right here. Can you please show him some respect?”