Chapter 0655 – Shadow’s True Strength
The faint smell of blood wafted through the air, it wasn’t raining outside, but the red raincoat the woman was wearing was dripping wet.
Black hair plastered to her face, beads of water sliding down her collar, the woman entered the restaurant with her head down, she didn’t bother to look at anyone and found a seat alone.
”Let’s stay away from her.” Jamin spoke in a small voice, getting up and moving directly towards the other side of the table.
He hadn’t consulted with Li Zheng beforehand, and as he stood up and crossed paths with Li Zheng, onlookers could clearly see a gun in Li Zheng’s hand.
”Sit down honestly for me!” Li Zheng pressed Jia Ming back to his original position and quietly swept the red raincoat with his afterglow, then lowered his voice and asked Jia Ming, “You know this woman?”
”She’s a lunatic, all the people wearing red clothes in this place are lunatics, don’t get close, it’s best to hide as far away as possible.” Jia Ming’s body was trembling gently, “This is what the shadow told me, you want to die, but don’t drag me along!”
”The color red has a special meaning here?” There were many more things that Li Zheng wanted to ask, he had noticed that something was wrong ever since he entered the town, but because the information he had in his hands was too little, it caused him to not be able to tell if Jia Ming was lying or not.
”The color red represents danger, absolutely do not approach, this is the iron rule inside the door.” Jia Ming’s voice was getting smaller and smaller, “The shadow isn’t in me right now, but he’s done a lot of things with this body, that’s why I know some of the hidden secrets.”
”Inside the door?” Li Zheng memorized every word Jia Ming said, “Is there anything else to watch out for here?”
Perhaps sensing that he couldn’t escape, or perhaps he was ready to change his plan because he saw Chen Ge, Jia Ming became much more honest: “All buildings with closed doors should never enter, don’t pass in front of buildings with open doors, gray means safe, red means dangerous, if you see black don’t waste time escaping, and use the only time you have left to think about your last words. ”
As Jamin and Li Zheng were talking, footsteps sounded again at the front door of the hotel, and several people looked there at the same time.
”What a crowd tonight.” A man wearing a black jacket and dragging a large suitcase entered the room, the heads of five blood-red women tattooed on his arms and a white bone whistle in his mouth.
No one in the restaurant paid any attention to him, but he acted enthusiastically, greeting the customers in the store in turn, until his body froze when he saw the red raincoat, and he quickly walked past it to the counter, “Boss, staying at the store.”
His voice was much lower, as if he was afraid of disturbing Red Raincoat.
”Why is someone here again?” Chen Ge pushed the food cart out of the back kitchen, they had searched the kitchen for half a day, and apart from some cut up meat that didn’t know what animal it belonged to, there were only some cakes left.
The store owner didn’t prepare the cakes for the sake of the customers, and from the kitchen’s menu, it could be seen that all the dishes prepared by the restaurant were those favored by the Tyrannical Eating Female Ghost.
In other words, the menu here was actually only for the Tyrannical Eating Female Ghost alone, that cake still needed to be post-processed, to take a very simple example, there was no ketchup or strawberry sauce prepared in the kitchen, but there was a part of the cake that was red in color.
”A red ghost with a sweet tooth? That’s a pretty good gimmick.” Chen Ge pushed the food cart as he prepared to transform this restaurant into a food-related horror scene when the mission was completed.
It only took a few minutes to enter the kitchen, and Chen Ge came out to find that there were surprisingly many more people in the hall, with the appearance of the red raincoat being the most surprising to him.
To put it in perspective, Liwan Town had indeed turned into a special place under the influence of the Runaway Door, and living people were actually able to sit together with Red Raincoat.
”Maybe that’s how it is behind the door, with ghosts transformed by obsessions and people caught in nightmares.” Chen Ge placed the undyed cake on the table, “Feel free to eat, I won’t charge you, I just need you to answer a few questions for me later.”
”Are you sure? Don’t you want to open it and take a look? Maybe you’ll be moved?” The woman was dressed tightly, she dragged the box and walked to Chen Ge, straightening her body, her fingers took away from the box and placed them on the hem of her clothes, what she said about opening seemed to contain two meanings at the same time.
”No need, I’ll do it myself if I need to.” Chen Ge was carrying the heavy backpack in a single hand, the skull-crushing hammer had just hammered through the veins and the long tongue, and the strong smell of blood on it had yet to dissipate.
”Okay.” The woman dragged the case back a few steps, the flirtatiousness on her face was gone, changing her face faster than turning over a book.
”Hey, where’s the store owner? I’ve already asked for him what he asked me to inquire about last time.” The man with a tattoo of a woman’s head dragged his suitcase close to Chen Ge.
”He went out and temporarily left the restaurant in my care, I’m in charge here now.” Chen Ge wore a smile on his face, in terms of service attitude, he definitely surpassed the original store owner.
”The store owner went out?” The tattooed man was very shrewd, he immediately realized that something had gone wrong, and smiled shyly towards Chen Ge, “Then I can only come back another day, sorry for the extra disturbance.”
After saying that, he didn’t want the case anymore and twisted his head and was ready to walk outside.
”Wait, did you not understand what I just said?” Chen Ge let the scissors stop the tattooed man, “Right now in this place, I have the final say, what the store owner asked you to inquire about, just tell me.”
The tattooed man stood still, his eyes unconsciously glancing towards the kitchen side, the more he looked, the more flustered he became, “This isn’t good, is it?”
”Then what should I do to make it okay?” Chen Ge slightly turned sideways, allowing the tattooed man to see the collapsed wall inside the kitchen.
”Since you’re the store owner’s friend, then you’re also my friend, we’re all friends, so of course there’s no problem.” The tattooed man immediately changed his words, his naive face contrasting with the five hideous tattoos of women’s heads on his arms, “It’s crowded here, let’s take a step to talk.”
He turned back towards the second floor, looking like he was familiar with the restaurant, he seemed to be a regular here.
”Scissors, come with me.” Chen Ge named Scissors to follow him over, not treating Scissors as an outsider at all.
”Me?” Scissors froze, he didn’t expect Chen Ge to still bring himself even when he was listening to secrets, what kind of trust was this?
”Hurry up and come over.” Chen Ge and Scissors followed the tattooed man to the second floor.
”Just now, I saw the secret room in the kitchen collapsed, but that female monster wasn’t inside.” The tattooed man sucked in a breath of cool air, “There’s no way for her to leave the hotel, and the fact that she’s not where she’s supposed to be at this time means that she’s probably already disappeared.”
”You’re smart.” Chen Ge said coldly, “I don’t like to deal with people who are too smart, unless he is useful to me.”
”Big brother, don’t say it so directly! I guarantee that I’ll be useful to you, and in a big way.” The tattooed man took the bone whistle in his hand and paused for a long time before speaking, “I know the way out of this hellhole, and it has to do with a door.”
”It’s not a secret, you guys came in from outside the door, so as long as you find the door, you’ll naturally be able to get out.” Chen Ge choked the tattooed man half to death with a single sentence, “Don’t be metaphysical, I know a lot more than you think, I advise you to say something real.”
”I also know the location of that door.” The tattooed man gripped the bone whistle tightly, “All the people who were gotten in by the Underworld Fetus had their heads covered with a black cloth, and by the time they woke up they were already on the street, and I’ve asked a lot of people about it, and everyone was in a different place after removing their headgear.”
”You’re saying that you guys got in here by the Stygian Fetus? Is that Stygian Tire a black shadow? Why do you call him that?” Chen Ge didn’t seem to care about how to get out, instead he was interested in some of the finer details.
”Big brother, this is a strange focus for you, you guys would have run here surely you’ve seen that shadow, when the Underworld Building made its choice ……” The tattooed man suddenly stopped in the middle of his sentence and looked incredulously at Chen Ge and the scissors, “Wait! ! You guys didn’t come in by yourselves, did you? Without going through that door?”
”Answer my question first if you don’t want to die.” Chen Ge directly took out the skull crushing hammer.
”Calm down, I’m just a little surprised, sometimes there are indeed some unlucky people who enter the blood mist for various reasons, but such people usually don’t survive here for more than an hour.” The tattooed man looked at Chen Ge, who was holding the skull crushing hammer, and Scissors, who had a grimace on his face, “Situations like yours are really rare.”
”Can you tell me about the Underworld Building and the Underworld Tire?” Chen Ge’s voice was low and his eyes were a bit scary.
”At ease, since you guys are outsiders, I’ll tell you about the rules of this place. Trust me, I’m doing this for your own good.” The tattooed man glanced outside and saw that no one was paying attention to this side before he spoke, “Unfortunate things happen every day in this world, and unfortunate people keep appearing, some people grab the only ray of sunshine and carry through the saddest time, but there are also some people who sink in despair.”
”I’ve come into contact with a dozen or so people from the outside who met the Shadow when they were breaking down in despair.”
”The initial voice came from their own shadows, and guided by the shadows, they took the last train on 104 to Liwan Township and entered the Underworld Building, wanting to be saved.”
”The owner of the Underworld Building is also a shadow, no one has ever seen his true face, he is just a shadow in our eyes, a shadow that may appear beside you at any time and change into your own likeness, he is like a monster generated by that touch of malice deep inside our hearts, and understands the weaknesses and needs of each one of us.”
”The shadow called itself the Undertaker’s Fetus, and according to the shopkeeper, the shadow was actually the shadow of a living person, only to be abandoned by that living person.”
”I know it sounds unbelievable, but that’s just the way it is… Liwan Town, the Underworld Building, and a lot of things that happened in the Eastern Suburbs were actually the work of that shadow, who went out of his way to destroy everything just to do one thing – to turn himself into a human being, and then make that living person who had abandoned him into a shadow. ”
”Malice is contagious, and the shadow started out as that man’s shadow, but as he absorbed more and more malice and despair, he’s turned into a …… ” The tattooed man thought for half a second and didn’t know how to describe it, “Anyway It’s just a very scary thing, he planted most of his body and negativity in an unborn child, that’s the body of the Underworld Fetus, and the remaining small remnant is secretly protecting the Underworld Fetus and pushing the whole plan forward.”
”How do you know these things?” Shadow was cautious and dripping, in Chen Ge’s opinion it was impossible for him to reveal these things to an outsider, unless these were things that Shadow deliberately wanted himself to know.
”The hotel owner and I were the first living people to enter behind the door, and have lived here for a long time, so we can probably piece together the truth from Shadow’s mere words.” The man took off his jacket and he had black and red rope tied around the small of his back.
The rope seemed to have been bound on a long time ago and never seemed to have been removed, all of it had now grown into the flesh.
What was even stranger was that with the rope as the boundary, the tattooed man’s upper body was normal, while his lower body had completely turned dark gray.
”This rope was made from the blood threads from the shopkeeper’s mother, without it, I would have died long ago.”
”But that’s no way to prove that what you’re saying is the truth.” Chen Ge had his own judgment on everything and didn’t just listen to what others said, which was one of the reasons why he had survived so many trial missions.
”I can’t prove that it’s true, I’m just telling you all that I know, I hope you can feel my sincerity, and you can cooperate with me next, and we can all escape together.” The tattooed man put on his clothes, he understood Chen Ge, in a place like this, if Chen Ge immediately believed what he said, that would only make him unsure: “Continuing on what I was saying earlier, I questioned a lot of people, and I finally found out one of Shadow’s secrets.”
”All the people who entered here were put in black hoods in the Underworld Building, followed by a period of time before they passed through the door and entered inside.” The tattooed man’s eyes slowly narrowed, as if what he was about to say was very important: “The location of the Underworld Building is next to Liwan Town, a piece of rotten buildings that have been shut down, called the Ming Yang District.”
”Many of the people who were sent in were unwilling and wanted to escape, they would grope towards the outskirts of Liwan Town, but they never came back.”
”I also thought that the door was in the Underworld Building at first, but after questioning many people I suddenly realized that the door might be in the middle of Liwan Town.” The tattooed man felt that he had discovered a heavenly secret: “After everyone enters the Underworld Building, their subjective consciousness becomes blurred, and their innermost malice is tickled out, but there are a few strong-willed fellows who aren’t lost, and they clearly remember that they weren’t pushed directly into the door, but instead, they moved towards a certain place again for a long time. After several years of groping, without attracting the attention of The Shadow, I finally found the location of that door.”
”Wasn’t it in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Liwan Town? If I remember correctly, it should be some room on the first floor of Building One.” Under the tattooed man’s shocked gaze, Chen Ge said the location he wanted to talk about, “Never mind, it’s not all for naught, at least I know that the Underworld Building is in the Mingyang neighborhood, and I also know that Shadow placed most of his ‘body’ on an unborn baby. ”
Chen Ge questioned the tattooed man a few more times, and found that this man wasn’t simple either, he was naturally close to ghosts and monsters, a bit like a weakened version of Fan Yu.