Chapter 15 One Percent

Before the people inside could react, footsteps rushed to the door. A fist pounded, "Bang, bang, bang!" "Hao-ge, it's me! Open the door!" Pang Xiaofeng's voice was unusually urgent, as if a ghost was chasing him.

Inside, they exchanged glances. Finally, Chen Hao walked over, but didn't immediately open the door. Instead, he stood behind it, warily watching Pang Xiaofeng's shadow on the door.

It was the kind of double door often seen in historical dramas, antique and fragrant, with a layer of paper pasted over the latticed openings. The shadow cast on the paper was very realistic.

"Hao-ge, Mingyu-ge, Du Moyu!" Pang Xiaofeng's cries grew more frantic, like a death knell. "Are you even in there? Open the door! The spirit hall...there's a ghost in the spirit hall! I barely escaped!"

"Xiaofeng, why didn't you ring the bell?" Chen Hao's voice was unusually calm.

"Didn't I tell you? The spirit hall...there's a ghost in the spirit hall! How could I dare stay there and ring the bell? My incense went out, and as soon as the time was up, I ran! Oh, and the candle...the candle went out too!" Pang Xiaofeng sounded terrified, his voice trembling.

This act might fool a newbie, but it was too clumsy for Chen Hao, Du Moyu, and the others. As far as they were concerned, from the moment Pang Xiaofeng failed to ring the bell on time, they knew he was dead.

Lei Mingyu clenched his fists. The arrival of this fake Pang Xiaofeng shattered the last shred of hope in his heart. Pang Xiaofeng...was never coming back.

"Get lost!" The hot-tempered Lei Mingyu finally couldn't hold back and cursed at the "Pang Xiaofeng" outside the door. "Still acting, huh? Just you wait. I'll definitely get my revenge. When the time comes, I'll fucking kill you!"

Du Moyu quickly stepped forward to hold Lei Mingyu back. The door was having a big impact on the latter, and Du Moyu was worried he'd lose his mind. Of all of them, he and Pang Xiaofeng were the closest.

Even so, the Pang Xiaofeng outside the door persisted, growing more pitiful and even displaying a hint of helpless grievance. Annoyed, Du Moyu took out his phone and called Pang Xiaofeng.

To their surprise, the phone rang from outside the door.

Soon, the Pang Xiaofeng outside answered the phone, wailing, "Du Moyu, you son of a bitch! What kind of drug did you give Hao-ge and Mingyu-ge? I'm a person, not a ghost! What's with all this suspicion? You're learning all the wrong things, writing horror novels until your brain rots! I'm telling you, if I die out here today, I'll become a ghost tomorrow and come find you to settle the score! You hear me?!"

Du Moyu, who had answered the phone, was also bewildered. What was going on? They'd encountered situations before where ghosts killed people and then impersonated teammates to deceive the others.

But after being exposed, those ghosts had tactfully left. They'd never seen such a persistent, relentless scene.

More importantly, based on their experience, ghosts usually didn't bother taking the dead person's phone.

Although they were 99 percent sure that the person standing outside was a ghost in disguise, and that it was determined to get in and kill them, none of them dared to gamble on that last one percent.

Because that one percent was Pang Xiaofeng's only chance of survival.

"Could it be that the ghost didn't actually kill him, but let him come back to trick us into opening the door?" Lei Mingyu lowered his voice, offering his opinion.

Chen Hao pondered briefly and nodded. "Although the possibility is low, we can't rule it out. The ghost might be right behind him."

"The spirit hall is the primary task location. The night watchman clearly stated that no matter what happens in the spirit hall before the incense goes out, the person on guard duty must not leave." Du Moyu emphasized, "I still believe the Pang Xiaofeng outside is a ghost. The real Pang Xiaofeng is already dead."

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The flimsy-looking door was about to be smashed to pieces by Pang Xiaofeng. At least, Pang Xiaofeng seemed terrified. Judging from his shadow on the door, he kept looking back, as if checking if something was chasing him.

"Let's test him again." Lei Mingyu glared menacingly at the door, then walked over and pulled the door bolt out slightly, just enough that the wind wouldn't open it, but someone on the outside could force it open by slamming against the door.

Chen Hao and Du Moyu didn't stop him. Lei Mingyu's method was decent, relatively safe. In missions, ghosts in disguise couldn't break down or force their way into a room occupied by people.

Just after Lei Mingyu loosened the bolt, the door burst open with a "thud." At that moment, the hearts of the three men in the room leaped into their throats.

Lei Mingyu stood in front of the other two, staring at Pang Xiaofeng with a wary expression.

Seeing the door open, Pang Xiaofeng immediately darted inside, then turned and closed the door in one smooth motion. Then, he turned around, looking wronged, his voice tinged with a sob. "Are you heartless bastards really going to abandon me? Do you know how scary it is out there?"

If it were a ghost, it would have pounced on them immediately, tearing them to shreds and stuffing them into its mouth to chew.

Hearing this, Lei Mingyu's expression shifted from wariness to confusion, and finally to joy. "Pang Xiaofeng, it's really you? You're not dead?"

Pang Xiaofeng was trembling all over, partly from excitement, but mostly from fear. "Mingyu-ge, don't worry. As long as that heartless Du Moyu is still alive, I can't die!"

Du Moyu: "..."

It was clear that Lei Mingyu was genuinely happy to confirm that Pang Xiaofeng was still alive, after all, they were the closest. Taking the warm tea Lei Mingyu offered, Pang Xiaofeng cupped it in his hands, as if trying to absorb its warmth.

When his pale complexion improved slightly, Pang Xiaofeng took a deep breath and began to tell them what had happened in the spirit hall.

"Those corpses really came to life! They were surrounding the candle, actually...actually licking the candle and eating it!" Pang Xiaofeng's face still twitched violently as he recalled the scene.

"How did you escape?" Du Moyu was more concerned about this question.

Pang Xiaofeng glared at him fiercely and said impolitely, "Luckily, I was quick-witted. I threw that thing the night watchman gave me at them, which slowed them down a bit, and then I ran."

"I was also lucky that the incense went out at that time, otherwise I definitely wouldn't have been able to outrun them." Pang Xiaofeng leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath, and added, "The candle also went out."

Seeing that the situation had stabilized, Chen Hao comforted Pang Xiaofeng while secretly observing him. Everything about Pang Xiaofeng seemed normal, but he just didn't feel secure.

He pieced together Pang Xiaofeng's experience in his mind, and objectively speaking, he didn't believe the latter could have survived such a scene. Maybe he or the other two would have had a chance.

But if he assumed that the Pang Xiaofeng in front of him was a ghost in disguise, then the fact that the ghost hadn't directly attacked them meant only one thing: the conditions for killing them hadn't been met yet.

So, the next question became...what were the ghost's killing conditions?

"Oh, right, Mingyu-ge." Pang Xiaofeng took a sip of warm tea, put down the cup, and casually scanned the room, seemingly unintentionally. "I remember the night watchman gave us two small things. Where did you put the other one?"

Chen Hao's pupils suddenly contracted.