The ghostly face, long shrouded in black mist, finally revealed itself to everyone.
And that face shocked them all.
Because it was clearly two people—or rather, two ghosts—fused together, and it looked like one ghost was devouring the other.
Just one glance at this sight made their scalps crawl.
"What's going on..."
Even Jiang Rou's expression changed instantly, and Chen Mo, Su Mu, and the others found it unbelievable.
This flashlight ghost was undoubtedly Chen Mingyuan's spirit, so what was the other ghost? No wonder they had never been able to see its face clearly—inside its body, another ghost was hidden.
Then, Lin Tianheng's eyes widened, and he pointed at the other half of the ghostly face, as if he recognized it.
"This... this face... is Chen Jingyue!"
"No... how could Chen Jingyue's face be attached to Chen Mingyuan's ghost?"
"Could it be..."
In that instant, a terrifying thought flashed through Chen Mo's mind—a thought that would render all their previous efforts meaningless.
They had always believed that Chen Mingyuan, unwilling to accept his failed life of betrayal and isolation, had dragged the entire senior three class three, and even the whole campus, into the supernatural world with his intense resentment. But actually... actually...
Could it be that the one harboring even deeper resentment than Chen Mingyuan was Chen Jingyue?
Beneath her obedient and quiet exterior, who could have glimpsed the darkness in her heart?
When her mother left in anger over her father's incompetence, she could only accept it in fear and helplessness.
When these two people, under the banner of love, forcibly imposed all their life's regrets onto her, she could only accept it in fear and helplessness.
No one had ever cared about her inner self, what she truly wanted.
Like so many ordinary children, she could only stay in this cage, like a quail, following the path they had laid out for her, step by step.
Beneath her calm exterior, her heart was gradually consumed by darkness.
If it had only been that, Chen Jingyue's life would have been just like many others—ordinary and dull. But then, another incident occurred.
Chen Mingyuan, out of selfish motives, tampered with Xu Meiqian's exam scores.
This might not have seemed like a serious matter, but here, and only here, it was enough to ignite the malice in people's hearts.
Chen Mingyuan never imagined that Xu Meiqian would harbor such immense hatred over the score tampering, enough to conspire with Jiang Xiaohui to kill Chen Jingyue.
From another perspective, when Chen Jingyue felt Xu Meiqian's malice and was held under the water to drown, how desperate and dark must her heart have been?
None of this was what she wanted.
She had been enduring, enduring, enduring everything she disliked just to make them happy. From start to finish, she had done nothing wrong.
Why, in the end, did she still have to suffer such harm?
Why did everyone have to hurt her?
At that moment, the darkness hidden deep in her heart finally surfaced, and the ghost within her finally revealed itself.
When the truth of her murder was concealed and brushed off as an accident, Chen Jingyue's malice began to linger over the campus.
Perhaps it turned into even more brutal rage in Xu Meiqian's heart, unleashing her darker side, leading her to lock Sun Jingyan in the storage room and burn him alive.
Perhaps it became the gloom and despair in Jiang Xiaohui's heart, driving him to ultimately choose to end his own life.
And as for Chen Mingyuan, in Chen Jingyue's heart, he was undoubtedly the instigator of everything. Her malice would naturally not let him off, and it might even have possessed him directly, taking revenge by killing Xu Meiqian.
In other words, Xu Meiqian's death might not have been Chen Mingyuan's impulsive act, but Chen Jingyue's retaliation.
Transformed into a ghost, unleashing her malice, all those who oppressed her and harmed her would face the ghost's revenge! As one person after another died, the resentment lingering over the entire school grew stronger. Within the school enclosed by a giant iron cage, starting with senior three class three, one by one, they were dragged into the supernatural world, until the entire campus was swallowed up, becoming a magnificent stage for a campus ghost story on the radio.
"No wonder..."
No wonder, when they walked out of the "principal's office," the campus before them was shrouded in a massive black iron cage, and what fell from the sky was not rain, but rolled-up blank exam papers.
This campus, like an inner world filled with supernatural phenomena, was actually the embodiment of Chen Jingyue's inner darkness.
She herself, like one of those monsters, was trapped within this realm.
Unable to find release even in death.
Those who died from resentment were bound by it. Though the story was subtle, it still gave participants some clues.
From the beginning, this story had three paths to different endings.
The first path was to leave through the main gate at the start of the mission—the simplest path, but also the one with the lowest completion rate.
The second path was to go directly to the staff room without triggering any hidden storylines, change the ghost teacher's staff card from "active" to "resigned," lift the flashlight ghost's pursuit, and wait until dawn to complete the mission.
Using the second path to clear the mission, without triggering hidden storylines, the flashlight ghost's identity remained that of the ghost teacher, Chen Mingyuan.
The third path, also known as the hard mode, was to find the four ghost students, solve the puzzles tied to each of their spirits, obtain their four student cards, and uncover the hidden story behind the "cursed class," senior three class three. When all puzzles were solved and the participants encountered Chen Jingyue's ghost, the Chen Jingyue ghost attached to Chen Mingyuan would awaken, replacing him as the ultimate threat!
That was why the flashlight ghost's true face had always been hidden in a shroud of black mist—its identity was not fixed from the start but changed based on how deeply the participants delved into the hidden storylines.
Using the staff card to restrain the ghost teacher Chen Mingyuan was relatively simple but yielded a low mission completion rate. Conversely, taking the third path, though fraught with danger and difficulty, offered the highest story completion rate and, naturally, the full reward for this horror story!
In that instant, Chen Mo fully understood: the three different paths corresponded to different outcomes upon mission completion.
The only question was...
When Chen Jingyue's ghost appeared, how should they deal with it!
-- PS: I struggled a bit writing this volume—four groups of sixteen people, plus the three escape routes in the story. Though I've gotten stronger, I've also lost quite a bit of hair. I hope you can support me with recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. Thank you.