More despairingly, Jiang Lei stood right in front of him, holding the phone in his hand, positioned perfectly so that Zhou Ze could see the call screen.

It was their call.

Jiang Lei slowly raised his head, his face icy cold. The corners of his mouth stretched wider and wider, revealing his ugly gums. At that moment, Zhou Ze felt as though his heart was turning to ash.

"Hee hee hee…"

Behind Zhou Ze, a woman’s laughter echoed, a laughter that seemed to possess a magical power, churning his stomach upside down.

Without turning around, he knew Xue Jia had caught up.

Simple fear could no longer describe Zhou Ze's feelings; it was despair, unwillingness. He could clearly see a door less than half a meter behind Jiang Lei.

If he could just open that door! If he could just open it, he could rush out, he could survive. He was so close… just a little bit closer!

He averted his gaze from Jiang Lei, staring intently at the door, wishing for a miracle to occur.

Like in the movies, when the protagonist is in danger, reinforcements would descend from the sky, and then…

"Bang!"

The door suddenly trembled.

"Is anyone there? Can someone open the door?" A child's voice, grating and annoying, came from outside, accompanied by pounding on the door.

Zhou Ze's eyes widened.

Jiang Lei, who was standing in front of the door, seemed to have just noticed the presence outside. He slowly turned around, his shadow on the wall distorted and frightening.

Hearing the child's voice, Zhou Ze felt a pang of guilt. He knew he couldn't escape today, but he didn't want an innocent child to be dragged into this. He strained his voice and shouted, "Run! There are ghosts here! Run!"

Jiang Lei, seemingly worried about losing his prey, immediately moved closer to the door, as if intending to open it and grab whoever was outside. But in the next moment, the door crashed open with a "boom!"

No, it wasn't just crashed open, the hinges had broken, and the entire door fell straight down, pinning Jiang Lei underneath.

Zhou Ze's jaw dropped wide enough to fit an apple.

Then, to his astonishment, a man wearing a cowboy hat, leading a child, swaggered in, stepping right over the fallen door.

Yes, Jiang Lei was still pinned underneath.

"Ghosts?" the child-like figure said with a grin. "That's perfect! We wouldn't have come if there weren't any!"

The door began to tremble, indicating that Jiang Lei was trying to crawl out. Zhou Ze shouted, "Watch out! There's a ghost under there! He's going to…"

"Bang!"

The cowboy hat man stomped down hard, and the area under the door went silent. Zhou Ze saw Jiang Lei's hand, which had been halfway out, twitch violently, then go still.

Zhou Ze: "!!!"

"Number 13," the boy said, staring behind Zhou Ze and smacking his lips. "What did I tell you? You have to take me with you when you go out. See? Our luck is amazing. We opened the door and found a ghost!"

Xue Jia, seeing the odd duo, wasn't frightened at all. Instead, she became even more excited. Her eyes rolled upward in a disturbing manner, revealing large patches of white. "Hee hee hee…"

Xue Jia didn't move, but her shadow on the wall did. Her head detached and flew toward the cowboy hat man's shadow, just like how she had killed Jiang Lei.

But Number 2 wasn't Jiang Lei. He calmly reached out, and while Xue Jia's attention was focused on his hand, he kicked out, hitting the shadow head flying towards him.

An unbelievable scene unfolded. The shadow head exploded like a watermelon, and Xue Jia's body swayed before collapsing to the ground with a "thud." Corpse spots quickly appeared on her face and exposed skin.

Number 13 put his hands on his hips and asked Xue Jia’s corpse with a grin, "Are you going to hee hee hee at us again?"

Zhou Ze was dumbfounded until he realized that the man who kicked the ghost's head was now looking at him. "Big brother, don't kill me! I don't know anything! Please, let me go! You take your ghost road, and I'll take my human road. We don't need to cross paths, big brother!" Zhou Ze cried his eyes out. "I promise I'll bury what happened today in my stomach and never tell a soul. Please, I beg you, sob sob…."

The more Zhou Ze thought about it, the more wronged he felt. How could his life be so miserable? He had lost his soul as a child and had been bullied since he grew up. He thought he could escape, but then two even more powerful ghosts showed up.

"We are humans," Number 2 said. "Look at our shadows."

Hearing this, Zhou Ze looked at the shadows on the wall. They were indeed different from Xue Jia and Jiang Lei's; they were… normal human shadows!

Only then did Zhou Ze breathe a sigh of relief and thank the two profusely. Under Number 13's questioning, Zhou Ze recounted his experiences, focusing on the important parts.

"So, this is the place," Number 13 said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. He turned to the cowboy hat man and said, "Number 2, it seems the situation inside is worse than we expected. There shouldn't be any living people inside now. This kid said the hall is the center of this paranormal event. Whatever caused all of this is there."

"Paranormal event…" Zhou Ze's eyes flickered. "That's right, something like that must have happened inside. I still have three classmates in there!"

Hearing this, Number 13 became wary and scrutinized him up and down. "Three classmates? Didn't you say five of you came here together in the car? Besides you, there should be four!"

Zhou Ze pointed at the fallen door. "Well, the fourth one is under there."

Number 2, Number 13: "...."

"You're saying you received a call before being attacked by the ghost, and the call was from the guy pinned underneath." As soon as Number 2's gaze landed on Zhou Ze, the latter couldn't help but feel uneasy, even though he was telling the truth.

"That's right, that's how it was." Zhou Ze now had time to think about what had happened and frowned slightly. "Actually, I found it strange too. Xue Jia should have found me, discovered I was hiding in the women's restroom, but she ignored me and only killed Jiang Lei before leaving."

For Number 2 and Number 13, this wasn't hard to understand. First, ghosts rarely kill continuously. Second, it seemed Zhou Ze didn't meet the ghost's killing conditions at the time. Evidence suggests that ghosts need to use the phone as a medium for killing.

After a moment of contemplation, Number 13 nodded and said to Zhou Ze, "I don't think you should leave. Come with us and take a look inside. Maybe your good brothers are still alive."

"They aren't my brothers," Zhou Ze said with a straight face. "I only have you two benefactors."