Chapter 683: Chapter 535: "Bad"_3
Just after he had hidden himself, the very next second brought a terrifying moment. A "ding" sounded, and to his horror, the elevator actually stopped on his floor. With the elevator doors slowly opening, there was no one inside.
Even as the elevator doors closed, there was no sign of anything unusual, and the elevator remained stationary on the third floor.
Yang Xiao instinctively felt uneasy. He suspected that something had come out of the elevator... something he couldn’t see. That was what terrified him the most.
He didn’t dare to move an inch, staying hidden behind the door, continuing to watch and listen intently, not letting even the slightest sound escape him.
About half a minute later, his ears twitched; Yang Xiao really did catch a sound. It was very faint, like someone tiptoeing, hugging the wall, taking one step at a time.
This discovery sent shivers down Yang Xiao’s spine. He was certain a ghost had exited the elevator, and worse yet, it was an Invisible Ghost. Now, he was in big trouble!
Because the sound was too faint—it could be drowned out by the beating of his own heart—Yang Xiao couldn’t use the footsteps to pinpoint the ghost’s location. But his intuition told him that the ghost was getting closer.
Now, Yang Xiao faced a difficult choice: either make a break for it, gambling that he could escape, or stay put and continue hiding, betting that the ghost hadn’t discovered him.
Truth be told, neither option was particularly appealing. If he ran, he would certainly be pursued by the ghost. Furthermore, Yang Xiao was ignorant of whether this ghost had other abilities besides invisibility. If it decided to use "Ghost Hitting the Wall" on him, things would get messy.
Staying put was leaving his fate to the heavens. The room was so small, with nowhere to hide, and there was only one door. If the door was blocked, he would be a sitting duck.
"What’s wrong?"
"Are you alright?"
The mobile phone relayed inquiries; it seemed the rag doll had also sensed something odd, as Yang Xiao hadn’t spoken to it for quite a while.
With the ghost nearby, Yang Xiao couldn’t afford to text back and forth. He could only manage a brief response: "Ghost’s outside."
Due to the urgency of the situation, he hadn’t had time to consider avoiding the word "ghost," but it seemed to have scared the rag doll anyway, as the screen went dark immediately.
"Aren’t you going to give me some advice?" Yang Xiao was dumbfounded. What happened to sticking together through life and death? They had just encountered a ghost, and now it had powered off and run away?
But it was too late for any of that now. The footsteps were drawing very close. Even if he wanted to run, it was no longer an option. Yang Xiao briefly reflected on the first half of his life, confirming that he had been a well-rounded and good kid. Surely he didn’t deserve such a tragic fate. He bet that the ghost hadn’t noticed him—that it was purely a coincidence, and that the ghost was merely passing by.
"Crunch—"
"Crunch—"
With each tiptoed step sounding like it was crushing right on his heart, Yang Xiao felt so breathless that the pressure was driving him insane. Worst of all, the footsteps were now mere inches away, and he still couldn’t see a thing. This oppressive feeling was enough to make one go mad.
However, the next second, a chill surged from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. He widened his eyes in horror, only to see that less than three meters away from his door, near the wall across from him, there used to be a pot with a withered plant. But just now, in an instant, that pot had disappeared.
It simply vanished in the blink of an eye.
However, Yang Xiao quickly realized it wasn’t the pot that had vanished, but... something was blocking it. The ghost!!
The ghost was right there in the corridor, opposite him!!
In that moment, Yang Xiao’s heart went cold. Without a Magic Artifact at hand, facing a ghost, he was as vulnerable as any ordinary person. Being discovered meant only death.
"Crunch—"
"Crunch—"
But to Yang Xiao’s astonishment, the ghost didn’t come in to kill him. Instead, after pausing outside his door for about ten seconds, it continued on until the sound of footsteps completely vanished.
"Whew—"
"Whew—"
Yang Xiao’s legs turned to jelly, and he gasped for air. He had just skirted the edge of death at Ghost Gate. He had won his bet—the ghost hadn’t noticed him after all. It was just passing by.
But there was still something he couldn’t figure out. After the ghost left, the withered plant also disappeared, never to reappear.
Had the ghost taken the plant with it?
But... what would a ghost do with a withered plant?
Yang Xiao was stumped. Meanwhile, the rag doll seemed to have recovered, and the phone’s screen lit up again, "Are you okay?"
"Not really." Yang Xiao didn’t give the rag doll any pleasant face. "I was considering throwing you out just now."
Hearing this, the rag doll panicked, typing out a lengthy message at breakneck speed: "Don’t be mad, it wasn’t intentional, I forgot what you told me earlier. You scared me... I truly didn’t mean it. Please forgive me and don’t abandon me!"
"What was that thing outside just now?" Yang Xiao didn’t bother to argue with it since there was no point in sending the rag doll back now.
"I can’t see or hear it, tell me," the rag doll said eagerly, trying to prove its value to Yang Xiao.
Yang Xiao quickly recounted the situation to the rag doll, including the detail that the ghost could become invisible, its footsteps were very light, and it had taken a pot with a plant. These strong clues led Yang Xiao to speculate that this ghost, like the "Frog" the rotten-eyed ghost, was one of the remaining two: either "Hai Hai" or "Hu."
But to Yang Xiao’s shock, after considering this, the rag doll suggested another possibility: it resembled "bad."
"Bad?" Yang Xiao was hearing this term for the first time.
"Yes, ’bad’ is a traitor hidden among us. The reason we have repeatedly failed to escape is that we have ’bad’ among us, guiding our location for Frog, Hai Hai, and Hu, three dreadful creatures. It’s also because of ’bad’s presence that we don’t trust each other, and during our escape, we remain invisible to each other," the rag doll said, spilling more words than Yang Xiao had ever heard from it before.
"So you’re saying even if we encounter other dolls or people helping the dolls escape, we won’t be able to see them, right?" Yang Xiao pressed.
"Exactly, because we don’t trust each other. We fear the one opposite might be ’bad’ in disguise," the rag doll confirmed.
"Hiss—"
At this revelation, Yang Xiao gasped. Now things were seriously complicated. Since everyone was invisible to one another, who could know if the one they met was a person or a ghost?
Since they couldn’t distinguish, there was no need to bother. To be safe, just treat them all as "bad."
Flipping his hand, Yang Xiao pulled out a kitchen knife and quietly slipped out, following the direction the "bad" had gone.
