This answer caught Chi You off guard.
But soon after, Jiang Luo continued, “To be honest, I don’t really want to play this game with you anymore.”
Jiang Luo leaned against the sink, playing with a lighter. The crisp clack of the metal rang out as the flame lit and extinguished. “Thinking it over, I’m not that interested in the secret you’re offering either.”
He was lying.
No one wanted to know Chi You’s secret more than Jiang Luo.
There was a cat’s paw scratching inside his heart, driving him to strip away Chi You’s layers of mystery—just like peeling off the polite, refined disguise of a malevolent spirit to reveal his grotesque form, crawling with ghostly markings.
But he played the part perfectly. “Chi You, the initiative is mine. I’ll play if I want, and stop if I don’t. Especially since, let’s be real, you’re not even being sincere.”
The malicious ghost raised his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”
Jiang Luo replied, “You want me to find you, but there’s more than one of you.”
“Ah, you noticed,” the malicious ghost said with a tone of regret.
Jiang Luo sneered. “Your puppets are you. The ones you possess are also you… If the game’s rule was that I could grab any one of those versions, I’d be happy to keep playing.”
The malicious ghost said, “No, the one you need to find is the real me.”
After a pause, he added considerately, “The one possessing a human.”
Jiang Luo hung up the call with a blank expression.
Ten seconds later, the phone rang again—and answered itself.
The malicious ghost sighed. “Fine then, I’ll give you one last clue.”
Jiang Luo received a photo.
It was a close-up of a smiling mouth.
The man’s lips were curved upward, full and red, glowing with vitality.
The malicious ghost said, “One minute.”
Jiang Luo stared intently at the photo.
He quickly compared the lips to every face he’d seen here, but Chi You’s smile made it harder to narrow down. Although Jiang Luo had a good memory, recognizing someone based on just their lips was too much.
After thirty seconds, he sensibly gave up the idea of identifying Chi You tonight. Instead, he began thinking about what Chi You’s punishment might be, whether it could be avoided—or turned back on him.
Jiang Luo lowered his gaze, deep in thought. The minute soon passed. The malicious ghost’s voice lifted slightly, “Time to give your answer.”
Jiang Luo was extremely calm—the total opposite of Chi You’s mood. He probed, “If I guess wrong, what will you do?”
“A small punishment,” Chi You said deliberately. “Who knows?”
It was like a mystery box gift. Even knowing it couldn’t be anything good, people couldn’t help but wonder just how bad it could be. Jiang Luo draped a towel around his neck and directly said the name of someone he suspected.
“Xi Si.”
Second place in Next Stop, Idol—a gentle, good-natured guy. Because of Chi You, Jiang Luo now found people like that fake and hypocritical. After all, Chi You just loved to play that kind of role.
The malicious ghost mused, “Hmm…”
Jiang Luo’s heartbeat quickened slightly.
In the next moment, the malicious ghost regretfully gave him the answer. “What a pity—you only got half of it right.”
Ah. Xi Si was just his puppet, but not the person he had possessed.
Jiang Luo had already mentally prepared for failure, but hearing the malicious ghost admit it out loud still made his face darken.
“Why is it always you?” Jiang Luo sneered. “Chi You, don’t tell me every trainee has your shadow behind them.”
Chi You drawled lazily, “Now that’s actually a pretty good idea.”
He then added in a mock-serious tone, “I didn’t expect you to get it wrong. As much as I hate to, I’ll have to be a little cruel and give you a small punishment.”
“After all, I take my games very seriously,” he said.
Though his words sounded reluctant, Chi You’s tone grew increasingly excited. The suppressed madness within him cracked open slightly, revealing a twisted glee—it carried the sinister undertone of a psychopathic killer.
Jiang Luo’s eyelid twitched, and he ended the call.
The bathtub was still filling with water, and the bathroom was utterly quiet. Jiang Luo stayed tense, waiting for a few minutes—yet nothing happened. So he stepped out of the bathroom, but the moment he crossed the threshold, the clean, tidy bedroom abruptly transformed into a dilapidated, eerie, unfinished building.
Rats scurried across the floor. Yellowed curtains and old fabrics were piled everywhere. Jiang Luo looked down—beside his foot, a spider crawled past.
He crushed it underfoot and scanned the surroundings.
This place was like a textbook haunted building scene from a horror film—if captured on screen, it would create a perfect horror atmosphere.
Jiang Luo closed his eyes and, following the layout of the bedroom from memory, stepped toward where the bed should be.
Three meters from the bathroom door—exit, then turn right. Once he covered the distance, Jiang Luo opened his eyes.
In front of him was a puddle filled with writhing, tangled snakes.
Densely packed like knotted ropes, easily numbering in the hundreds.
Jiang Luo was certain this was an illusion conjured by the malicious ghost.
Most vengeful spirits killed by invoking hallucinations—stoking terror in their victims and using fear to push them over the edge.
Jiang Luo wasn’t afraid of snakes.
But he was disgusted by them.
The mass of snakes slithered and hissed, flicking their tongues. Jiang Luo stood by the puddle for a moment, then turned around, spread his arms wide, and fell backward into it.
Wind lifted his hair. In the next second, Jiang Luo landed not in cold water—but in the soft comfort of a bed.
As expected.
He rubbed against the silky smooth pillow, a smile tugging at his lips. It was just an illusion—if he didn’t open his eyes, it couldn’t touch him.
As long as he refused to look, to believe, and treated everything as fleeting smoke, the illusion would have no power over him.
In contrast, if he tried to fight it or gave in to fear, he would step right into the trap laid by the malicious ghost.
Jiang Luo kept reminding himself: ignore everything.
The next moment, he felt a cold hand grip his ankle.
Jiang Luo didn’t react at all—treated it as though it didn’t exist.
But more ghostly hands reached out and seized both his arms and legs. The dark-haired young man was now restrained in a spread-eagle position on the bed—like a human sacrifice. Something felt off.
Jiang Luo’s eyelids twitched several times. He finally couldn’t hold back and opened his eyes.
On either side of his bed, hundreds of bluish ghostly hands had emerged. As though waiting for him to open his eyes, they all reached for him the moment he did, smothering the young man from head to toe—leaving only his eyes exposed.
One final hand descended slowly from above, reaching toward Jiang Luo’s eyes. He heard Chi You’s soft laugh.
“I’m such a kind person—how could I bear to punish my lover?”
Chi You said lazily, “After much thought, I’ve decided to give you another chance to find me.”
“Among these hundreds of ghost hands, guess—”
“Which one is mine?”
“Is it this one?” A ghostly hand slid teasingly along Jiang Luo’s waist.
“Or this one?” Another icy-cold hand brushed slowly down his thigh.
On the enormous bed, the black-haired youth was gripped tightly by countless ghost hands, firmly restrained. He struggled fiercely, but it did little good.
The scene was terrifying and grotesque. Only a few strands of his black hair dangled past the edge of the bed under the weight of the ghost hands. One after another, they clawed at Jiang Luo’s clothes, and his bathrobe had already been shredded into scraps.
“F*** your mother,” Jiang Luo cursed through gritted teeth, struggling to speak between the fingers. “Chi You.”
A punishing squeeze landed on the back of his neck. Chi You’s voice followed, “No profanity.”
***
As night grew deeper, Lu Youyi and Dead Ghost didn’t stay long in Ye Xun’s room before heading back to their own dorm.
Ye Xun, meanwhile, was still waiting for Zhang Feng. He kept grooming Little Pink, wiping her fur over and over. When Little Pink was finally dry, Zhang Feng returned.
Hearing the door open, Ye Xun looked up. But when he saw Zhang Feng clearly, his pupils shrank sharply.
“Back already?” a roommate greeted casually. “Zhang Feng, where’d you run off to in this pouring rain?”
Zhang Feng replied with a cheerful tone, “Just went out for a walk—got soaked. I’ll take a shower first.”
He strolled over to the wardrobe to grab a change of clothes, humming the theme song of Next Stop: Idol.
Zhang Feng was completely different from before. The previous gloom, fear, and ferocity had all vanished. It was as if a burden had been lifted—his mood was obviously great.
A cold sweat slowly appeared at the tip of Ye Xun’s nose.
Zhang Feng turned with his clothes and headed toward the bathroom. When he noticed Ye Xun staring at him, he turned and asked, now devoid of his earlier hostility and sharpness, and instead sounding almost warm:
“Ye Nan, why are you looking at me?”
“Do I have something on my face?” he asked, lifting a hand to touch it.
Ye Nan was Ye Xun’s alias.
Ye Xun swallowed hard, a chill shooting up his spine.
Zhang Feng’s face was completely blank—spotless.
Smooth and delicate skin. No acne marks, no pits or bumps.
And no facial features.
It was a face with nothing on it.
***
But Zhang Feng and their roommate didn’t seem to notice anything strange.
Zhang Feng picked up a mirror, brought his featureless face close to it, and muttered, “No filth or anything.”
He looked at himself from different angles, carefully touching the face without eyes, nose, or mouth. Ye Xun’s scalp slowly started to tingle. He struggled to keep a straight face as he watched Zhang Feng put down the mirror and head into the bathroom.
Only after Zhang Feng closed the door did Ye Xun let out a shaky breath. He walked over to the roommate studying at the desk and said quietly, “Is Zhang Feng running a fever? His eyes looked a bit red.”
“Really?” The roommate blinked, confused. “He looked the same as he did this morning. I didn’t notice anything red about his eyes.”
Ye Xun stood there for a moment, shook his head, then returned to his bed and hugged Little Pink, pulling out his phone to message Jiang Luo and the others.
But before he could send a single message, someone knocked on the door.
Ye Xun froze. Hugging Little Pink, he crept toward the door. Just as he was about to open it, he paused and drew his hand back. “Who is it?”
Inside the bathroom, Zhang Feng heard the voice and raised his own, “Ye Nan, who is it?”
A moment later, he added, “If it’s someone looking for me, just say I’m not here.”
Ye Xun figured Zhang Feng was probably afraid someone had come to ask about what happened during the recording that morning—how Zhang Cheng pointed at him and said there was a ghost nearby, and they almost got into a fight.
Ye Xun replied, “Okay.”
Their roommate had put on headphones and was focused on writing lyrics, unaware of the conversation.
The knocking continued, rhythmic and insistent, as if knocking directly on Ye Xun’s heart. He pressed his lips together, dragged over a chair, and cautiously peeked through the glass panel above the door.
His movement was careful and hidden—he wouldn’t be seen, but he could get a good look at whoever was outside. The person knocking stood silently, head lowered. Ye Xun could only see the crown of his head and the back of it. There was something oddly familiar about him.
Just as that thought formed, the person suddenly looked up—meeting Ye Xun’s gaze.
He smiled stiffly, revealing Zhang Feng’s face. “I forgot my key. Could you… open the door for me?”
