C4 Chapter 4

“This is the haunted legend I was talking about. I think the most likely place Chen Xin went is there,” Shi Dian said, glancing at the old dorm building not far away.

“Why? What would she go to that creepy place for?” Chen Rui couldn’t wrap his head around it.

“To prove there are no ghosts in this world,” Shi Dian replied, dead serious.

A wall had already been built around the old dorms. Inside were buildings waiting to be torn down. There was a guard at the main gate, and without approval from whoever was in charge, nobody was getting in.

Shi Dian and Chen Rui found a spot with no one around and climbed over, one after the other. For Chen Rui, it was no big deal, but Shi Dian only made it with Chen Rui’s help.

“Now what? Which building is supposed to be haunted? It’s daytime— even if there really are ghost lights, we won’t see anything!” Chen Rui stared at the five dorm buildings lined up in messy rows, completely at a loss.

“Either way, we’ll have to check them one by one,” Shi Dian said. He couldn’t think of a better plan—though, deep down, he kind of hoped he’d actually see the ghost.

So they started with the closest dorm. If Chen Xin really disappeared here, she had to have left something behind.

Shi Dian couldn’t help feeling tense. She’d been missing all night, and her phone went straight to nothing. No one knew what had happened. All he could do was hope she was okay.

“This is going to take forever. Why don’t we split up? You’ll be fine, right, Shi Dian?” Chen Rui suggested.

“Yeah. Don’t worry. It’s daytime—nothing’s going to happen,” Shi Dian said, though even he couldn’t stop himself from adding it.

“Good. If anything happens, yell. I’ll hear you from the next building,” Chen Rui said, giving him a thumbs-up before heading into the dorm next door.

After Chen Rui left, Shi Dian began checking floor by floor. The abandoned rooms were empty—nothing left inside. Even the plumbing had been stripped out.

He ran through several floors without finding a thing, but he still pushed on to the roof. Up there, all he saw were rows of rusted railings. He walked over, instinctively leaned in, and looked down.

The sight stopped him cold. Down on the ground between the five buildings, strange lines connected across the pavement—hard to notice from street level, but from up here they formed something that looked eerily like a spider.

Ten Hall stared at the unsettling pattern, and a sudden, inexplicable headache hit him. For a split second, it felt like a massive spider flashed before his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. The pain faded. When he opened his eyes again, there was nothing there.

“Weird… was that just my imagination?” he thought.

“Hey! Ten Hall—look what I found!” Chen Rui’s shout suddenly came from nearby.

Ten Hall whipped his head around. Chen Rui was standing on the roof of the dorm building next to his, waving his arm like he was holding something up.

“It’s too far—I can’t see!” Ten Hall yelled back. “Hang on, I’m coming over.”

With that, Ten Hall sprinted toward Chen Rui’s building. But when he reached the rooftop where Chen Rui had been, Chen Rui was gone.

“Chen Rui! Chen Rui!” Ten Hall called out again and again, but there was no answer.

A bad feeling crept in. He paced across the roof, growing more anxious by the second. It was so quiet—if Chen Rui was still here, there was no way he wouldn’t hear him.

After a moment, Ten Hall stopped. Something on the ground caught his eye. He bent down and carefully picked it up.

Yesterday’s image of Chen Xin flashed through his mind—she’d been wearing a clip just like this. And this had to be what Chen Rui had been trying to show him.

So Chen Xin really had been here… and she’d most likely vanished from this very spot. Ten Hall understood that much now. But Chen Rui was missing too. Where had they gone?

As he stood there thinking, the sky dimmed for no clear reason. A cold gust swept over the rooftop, and he shivered. He looked up.

In the split second of confusion, Shidian froze. He stared blankly in one direction, where a ball of flame was drifting slowly toward him.

Shidian swallowed hard. Wasn’t this the will-o’-the-wisp people always talked about? What the hell was it? He locked his eyes on the flame, not sure whether to run or wait for it to come closer.

As the flame drew nearer, Shidian clenched his jaw. If he was going to find Chen Rui and his sister, he had to figure out what this thing really was.

And the closer it got, the clearer it became. The people online hadn’t been exaggerating—this really was just a flame. No fuel. Nothing burning. And somehow it was floating.

People are always afraid of what they don’t understand. Shidian was no exception. Sweat beaded across his forehead, his breathing turned ragged, and even his heartbeat—

“Wait… that’s not my heartbeat!” Shidian pressed a hand to his chest, jolted by the realization. The pounding—thump, thump—wasn’t coming from him. It was coming from beneath his feet.

He looked down. The ground, which had been normal just moments ago, was now laced with thin, blood-red veins, like the surface of some living organ. Shidian yelped and bolted backward. But before he could make it even six feet, something unseen slammed into him, and everything went black.

Inside a room drenched in crimson, three people were bound to three of the walls—Chen Xin, Chen Rui, and Shidian.

“Heh-heh-heh… three more pieces of prey. I can finally have a full meal today,” a voice suddenly said. The eerie laughter made the entire room tremble.