According to the record, this perfect woman before him had once tried to chop off her finger because the nails on both hands were not symmetrical. She had the most perfect appearance, but her heart was twisted beyond recognition. Instead of saying that she was a beautiful woman, it was more accurate to describe her as a monster who had the most beautiful human skin.
Since her appearance, the atmosphere in the room changed, and all the lights were switched off. In the dark, malnourished children climbed out from behind her, and they were all connected to her through faded red lines.
"These are your ghosts?" Chen Ge took a step back. He scanned the room, and after realizing there was no Red Specter, his heart relaxed. "There are so many of them. It must have been hard trying to rear so many young ghosts."
"They were once my children, and only I can make them listen to me." This sentence from Han Bao'er seemed to mean a lot to her. Her eyes that looked at the ghost kids on the floor and on Lee Zheng were filled with pain.
"Children?" Chen Ge looked at these ghosts, and a few of them looked rather similar to Han Bao'er. He seemed to understand something, and a wave of disgust washed over him. "Looks like you're quite sick."
"Of course. If I wasn't sick, why would I stay with these dirty things, and why would I talk to you guys that are filled with that disgusting stench?" Han Bao'er used her nail to claw at her arm to form even-looking wounds. Blood dripped out, and it looked beautiful in all the wrong ways. "I hate dirty things, but the world itself is dirty. The only solution I have is to use these dirty things to ruin this dirty world."
The blood fell, and the red lines between her and the ghosts became more obvious.
"I have no idea what you've been through, so I have no right to critique your decision. Perhaps you have your own reasons for doing these things, but that doesn't mean you're correct." Chen Ge pressed the play button on the recorder and grabbed the handle of the hammer. "The members of this ghost stories society are all insane. You chose to treat yourself to alleviate the pain in your heart, but the choice of method is wrong."
"Treatment method?" Han Bao'er moved the red lines in her grasp.
"Life has been unfair to you, but it's time to let go."
"You sure sound calm, but I'm sure you must be very afraid. You're only pretending to be calm, waiting for the police to come save you, right?" Han Bao'er thought she had seen through Chen Ge's ploy, so she did not waste time discussing this with Chen Ge. She ordered her ghosts to rush at him. At the same time, Qiu Meng picked up the fruit knife on the coffee table, but he knew not to get close to Han Bao'er. Like a slave, he moved to the other side of the room.
"Other than the ghost on the police officer's shoulder, you can do whatever you want to the others." Chen Ge leaned against the wall. He had nowhere to run, but he did not look afraid. He talked to the air like he was mad.
The ghost children crawled on the ground. There were many of them, and they moved fast. When they had almost surrounded Chen Ge, a blood red shadow appeared and slammed the children into wisps of smoke with one stomp. Xu Yin appeared with his arms lowered. His wounds were dripping with blood, dying his shirt red.
"A Red Specter‽ Isn't your Red Specter hibernating?" The lines between Han Bao'er and the children started to tremble. Her children were afraid. That fear channeled into her body, and she blurted that out without thinking.
"Looks like you recognized me a long time ago." Chen Ge was quite surprised. After all, this was his first time meeting Han Bao'er. Then again, there were only two people left in the society, so the chairperson would definitely inform Han Bao'er of Chen Ge.
"You've had two Red Specters with you all this time‽" The blood lines that Han Bao'er controlled shook even harder, like the ghost children were trying to escape.
"Yes, I never did say I only have one Red Specter." Chen Ge let Xu Yin deal with Han Bao'er while he took out the hammer from his backpack. "This small space is quite limiting to such a big hammer. Oh well, so be it."
Chen Ge did not dare let his guard down while facing a fitness trainer that was much larger than he was. Flipping through the comic, he summoned the English Teacher, the real estate agent, and the gambler.
The battle shifted in a second. Qiu Ming gripped the fruit knife the size of a palm, and he asked in a shaking voice, "Who are you?"
"I'm just the boss of a Haunted House." Chen Ge glanced at the corridor. "We have no time to waste. We need to settle this before the police arrive."
Chen Ge and the three ghosts attacked at once. It did not take long for the man to scream for mercy and the sound of bone snapping. There were sounds of other doors opening; it sounded like concerned neighbors. Chen Ge ran to the door, and with Qiu Meng watching on with despair, Chen Ge locked the door. "Now, no one is coming to save you before the police arrive."
Chen Ge used Yan Danian's power to drag the phone spirit into the comic and allowed Xu Yin to do whatever he wanted. Xu Yin no longer needed to feed on normal ghosts. He followed Chen Ge's order and massacred the group of ghost children. The ghost children were connected to Han Bao'er, so whenever one died, a baby handprint would appear on her body.
Even through the distance, Chen Ge could feel the heavy resentment in those handprints. The person Han Bao'er's children hated the most in the world was her.
"They are your children, so you shouldn't have weighed them down with your own misfortune."
Chen Ge looked at Han Bao'er and realized that beauty was indeed a sin at times. In this world, there were many places where sunlight could not reach and places where selfishness and ugliness fester. Chen Ge did not know why Han Bao'er snapped mentally, but he knew that every mental patient had their own sorry and painful past. It was also due to that past that they used even crazier and crueler methods to seek salvation.
The baby handprints on Han Bao'er's body increased; the dead ghost babies seemed to want to drag their mother down into hell with them. The blood lines snapped one by one. When the last ghost child was vanquished by Xu Yin, Han Bao'er finally collapsed. Tiny baby handprints surfaced on her flawless face.