Feng Bujue had obviously underestimated this ghost’s power. Since he had violated the rule of not looking at the mirror in the song, the enemy before him naturally would not be taken down so easily.
The monster’s reaction speed was fast. It grabbed Feng Bujue’s arm that was holding the wrench, and with a squeeze of the claw, Feng Bujue felt the bones in his right arm snapping. If not for his superhuman resistance to pain, the wrench would have slipped from his fingers.
The shadow’s other claw quickly wound around Feng Bujue’s neck. The latter had to drop the flashlight and phone to pull the clamp around his neck open. Even so, Feng Bujue could sense the air being slowly cut off from his lungs.
The phone and flashlight that fell to the ground were soon consumed by the pool of blood. The only source of light in the room became the lamp inside the last cubicle.
Passing Rain stopped hiding. With one hand over her injury and the other holding the blade, she snuck behind the shadow. Even though her injury was still open, meaning that she would bleed whenever she moved, after ten minutes of rest, her Life Points had recovered slightly, and she knew that if she did not do something, Feng Bujue would die.
Passing Rain raised the sword and slashed it vertically at the shadow’s head. Perhaps behind the shadow’s eyes on the back of its head were all covered by hair, or perhaps because Feng Bujue had attracted the monster’s full aggression by looking in the mirror, the monster ignored the attack that came from behind it. The neck was sliced off, and the head toppled to the ground. The eyeballs crumbled like a bunch of round wooden blocks as if the power holding them together had disappeared.
However, that was merely a temporary respite. Feng Bujue’s legs were still pinned to the ground, and once the rolling eyeballs smeared the blood on the ground, they started to group up again.
Feng Bujue and Passing Rain were standing next to each other, but they could not speak. After delivering that slash, Passing Rain’s wound on her waist reopened. She winced in pain as she held the wound. The blood that leaked through her fingers was more than enough of an explanation.
Feng Bujue had come to save the lady, but he was instead had been saved by Passing Rain. Furthermore, his action had triggered the group haunting. If they did not do something to escape from this situation, the only result would be a wipe.
Under that situation, Feng Bujue had an idea in his mind. He turned around again to look at the mirror. Right then, the only light source was on the other side of the room, so the area that was closer to the entrance was shrouded in darkness.
Feng Bujue took out his gun and fired three shots at the mirror. The gunfire lit up the space temporarily. Strangely enough, even after taking three bullet shots, the mirror did not break but merely groaned dully three times.
Obviously, the mirror was not bullet-proof, but it was protected by some mysterious power. Feng Bujue’s bullets failed to break the mirror, but the pool of blood on the ground was affected. Every time the bullet landed on the mirror, the pool would ripple like someone had tossed a large object into it.
The blood claws that clamped around Feng Bujue’s ankle were shaken loose. Without any hesitation, Feng Bujue took out the baseball bat and charged at the mirror. When he started to whack the mirror, the whole toilet seemed to be shaking like there was an earthquake. The headless blood shadow and the eyeballs that were regrouping disintegrated, the power that bound them disappearing into the void.
Feng Bujue did not hold back with his attacks, and his attacks were relentless. It only took ten seconds for his arms to feel sore. If the bat was made from wood and not metal, it would have snapped already.
Finally, at the moment that the glass was about to shatter, the evil spirit attempted its last struggle. From the cracked mirror, a ghost with unruly hair crawled out. Her eye sockets were empty, and her body was covered in blood. However, compared to the blood shadow, this ghost was much less scary.
Feng Bujue was surprised by this sudden attack. Before he could pull out his wrench, the spirit had already come at him with her jaws wide open. Thankfully, Passing Rain was once again there to save the day. This time, the blade went down the middle of the skull, splitting it in two. All the mirage disappeared instantly. However, Passing Rain also knelt to the ground, and the large red stain on her wound signaled that she was too weak to do anything else.
“Main Quest progress updated. Explore Ye Jie Elite Academy to resolve the seven supernatural phenomena. Current progress, 5/7”
They had resolved one phenomenon, but there was no time for the two to rest. With the passing of this ghost, it meant that some kind of barrier was broken. Outside in the corridor, there was a heavy cloud of shadows, and they were shuffling closer and closer.
Feng Bujue and Passing Rain still could not speak. He rushed forward to help get Passing Rain off the ground and led her to the last cubicle. She picked up the lamp, and Feng Bujue made a simple hand gesture. She understood his meaning and easily handed the lamp to him. After the item changed hands, Feng Bujue had Passing Rain place her left arm over his shoulder while he placed his hand around her waist. He held the lamp in his other hand, and they exited the toilet.
Since Feng Bujue’s phone and flashlight had disappeared, Passing Rain’s phone had lost its purpose too. Furthermore, they probably would not split up until the end of the scenario, so she decided to leave her phone behind.
The situation in the corridor was not optimistic. Looking to the right, in the darkened corridor, there were many floating globular objects slowly approaching. There was a long string like substance dangling from the globes.
“F*ck! Hanging Balloons!” Feng Bujue had read the eponymous comic before; it was a depressing story. He hurried Passing Rain in the other direction even though that was not where the staircase was located. Feng Bujue knew this because the layout was still in his mind. He was forced to go this way because if they ran toward the Hanging Balloons, they would be killed and dangled up in the air like balloons in less than ten seconds.
They hobbled to the end of the corridor. Feng Bujue opened the window and then signaled for Passing Rain to put her sword away. Interestingly enough, the girl understood him.
Right then, from the other end of the corridor shuffled in several headless zombies; they made their way toward the two either by crawling on the ground or holding the wall. The two were surrounded, and the only way out was the window. Feng Bujue put the lamp into his backpack and tilted his head toward the window while looking at Passing Rain. From the looks of it, he planned to leave first.
Then, without warning, he jumped out the window. After all, the place was only two floors up. In the game, Feng Bujue was level thirteen, and while there was no actual attribute numbers in Thriller Paradise, as the player’s level increased, so would their physical ability. If level one represented a normal person, then level thirty and above meant the players could walk on walls like the main character in Assassin Creed. For level thirteen, generally speaking, jumping from a two-story building would not cause any injuries.
When Feng Bujue landed on the ground, he was quite surprised himself. He had thought that he would be at least minimally injured, but when he sailed through the air, all he could feel was a lightness of his body, and the landing impact was not that serious. He had lost more Life Points from breaking down the door.
He stood up, clapped his hands, opened his arms, and looked up to prepare to catch Passing Rain. The moon was bright, and Feng Bujue noticed that there were no ghosts around. He planned to lead Passing Rain directly to the canteen after she jumped. With his experience in the toilet, Feng Bujue believed that once they were inside the dimension of a ghost story, some kind of barrier would be formed to prevent them from being attacked by the horde. However, once the ghost story was resolved, the haunting would continue. In a way, this also meant that the two of them could never stop to rest.
Passing Rain did not hesitate for long. Using the moonlight, she aimed for Feng Bujue as she jumped. If she was in a better condition, she would not have needed Feng Bujue to catch her. In fact, she might have been able to jump down from a higher floor just fine, but for now, she needed the aid of her teammate.
After catching Passing Rain, the two shared a look. Both of them thought that the scene was quite awkward. Thankfully, the inability to speak helped naturalize some of the awkwardness.
Since they were already caught in that posture, Feng Bujue decided to just start running without putting Passing Rain on the ground. This choice was more effective than Feng Bujue supporting Passing Rain, which would have been slower. Furthermore, this way, he would be able to enjoy the extra benefit from the Jazz Shoes, albeit with a little bit more exhaustion on the man’s Stamina Points. On top of that, this saved Feng Bujue the trouble of needing to converse using sign language. He carried her directly to the canteen.
After entering the canteen, Feng Bujue placed Passing Rain down on one of the benches. He took out the lamp and placed it on the table before turning swiftly to close the door and using his baseball bat to jam it.
After doing all that, he collapsed across from Passing Rain and released a long sigh. Then, he pointed at himself and flashed two and then three fingers before pointing at Passing Rain, coupling it with an inquisitive gaze.
Passing Rain opened her menu to look at her status. Her wound was still bleeding and only ten percent of her Life Points remained. If she kept moving, she would die from bleeding out. She showed one and two fingers, lowered her head to look at her wound, and then matched Feng Bujue’s gaze again before shaking his head.
Feng Bujue took a deep breath, and a conflicted expression appeared on his face. He could only pray that the last remaining two ghost stories would be like the one in the music room, solvable without combat.
Something suddenly slammed into the canteen’s door, and ear-splitting wails came from outside the door. Shadows flashed through the windows, and soon, there was the sound of glass shattering. It seemed like the haunting really was constantly on their heels, giving them not even a minute to rest.