Chapter 602: Death Invitation

The newly arrived young man was very timid; I could clearly see his calves and shoulders trembling.

The flashlight beam swept erratically around the lobby. The young man was in a state of high tension, pausing for a moment after every step. He was being extremely cautious, but only relative to an ordinary person. To my eyes, his movements were full of openings.

If I wanted to, I could easily approach him and launch a surprise attack.

'He probably isn't a live show streamer either.' I didn't understand why people with no connection to the Live Show's games were gathering here. Tonight's broadcast was becoming as tangled and confusing as running hares.

Failing to find what he was looking for on the first floor, the young man headed up toward the second with his flashlight. The Writer and I were currently hiding at the landing of the stairs. We were less than five meters apart, yet even so, the "cautious" young man remained completely oblivious to our presence.

A hand patted my shoulder. The Writer gestured to me. "You go out and talk to him. I look a bit different from normal people; I'm afraid I'll scare him."

"How considerate of you." As he drew closer, I slowly stepped out from our hiding spot to avoid any unnecessary misunderstandings. Lowering my voice, I called out to the young man, "Stop! Restricted hospital area. No unauthorized personnel allowed."

Completely caught off guard by a figure suddenly stepping into a corridor he thought was empty, the young man dropped his flashlight and let out a scream.

The light flickered a few times in the pitch-black building before coming to rest at my feet. The young man scrambled frantically to grab the flashlight, but he didn't dare get close. He stumbled backward several steps until his back hit the wall. His chest heaved as he gasped for air, taking quite a while to calm down.

"Don't panic, we mean you no harm." My voice wasn't loud, and I deliberately spoke slowly. But even so, the young man was still terrified.

"Don't come any closer!" Leaning against the wall, he tugged at his backpack two or three times before finally getting it off. He hurriedly unzipped it, pulled out a paring knife, and waved it around in his hand with a passable show of menace.

This clumsy display actually made me drop my guard. I raised my hands to show they were empty. "Put the knife down before you hurt yourself."

I picked up the flashlight and walked slowly toward him. Every muscle in his body was pulled taut. He gripped the paring knife tight, his pupils twitching with my every step.

"Hold onto this, and don't drop it again." I held the flashlight out to him. Only then did he dare to look me straight in the face.

"Y-You're not a ghost, are you?"

"Drop the 'are you.' How could I be a ghost? Look, I even have a shadow." I tried my best to look friendly.

The young man didn't dare take the flashlight, maintaining a safe distance from me. I suspected that if he hadn't backed himself into a corner, he would have bolted a long time ago.

"You're really not a ghost? Then why are you here in the middle of the night? And why are you wearing such a terrifying mask?" His voice trembled; he still seemed to think I was lying.

I reached up and touched my face. I had been wearing the Good and Evil Asura Mask for so long that I was used to it. I had almost forgotten I still had it on.

"I'm a paranormal streamer. The mask is just for show." I repeated the same story I'd given the Writer. The young man was extremely suspicious; I practically had to talk my jaw off before he finally believed me.

"Oh, I see." He looked as if a sudden realization had hit him. He took the flashlight from my hand but didn't put the paring knife away. "I thought you were like me—coerced into coming here."

"Coerced?" The Writer, who had been hiding behind me, stepped out of the darkness. "Who would coerce you to come to this godforsaken place? You can't even make up a decent lie."

"Who is this?" Seeing the Writer, the young man involuntarily tightened his grip on the paring knife. From his angle, the Writer's appearance was indeed quite frightening.

I coughed dryly and made the introductions. "This is the renowned number-one author of suspense and horror novels—Corpse Body Human Face."

"Corpse Body Human Face..." The young man repeated the name a few times and shook his head. "Never heard of him. Sorry, I don't read horror novels. I'm very timid; I hate that sort of thing."

"You've never read Wife-Killing Diary? You must have heard people around you talking about it, right?" The Writer had fully immersed himself in the identity of Wang Shi. If I hadn't met the real Wang Shi, I definitely would have been fooled by his superb acting.

"No. And don't come too close." The young man frowned, staring at the Writer and me with an awful expression on his face. He suddenly pointed the knife at me and demanded without warning, "Take off the mask! Let me see your face!"

"Take off the mask? Didn't I just tell you, this is for the stream?"

To earn his trust, I casually pulled the mask off. To my complete surprise, the kid suddenly whipped a phone out of his pocket, pointed it at the Writer and me, and snapped a photo.

"I've taken a picture of your faces! Don't even try anything funny. If something happens to me, my friend will immediately take this photo to the police!" He held his phone up, projecting an aggressive front.

A flash of blood-red passed through the depths of my eyes, but I kept my tone casual. "Do you have persecution paranoia or something?"

"Listen here, kid, I'm warning you not to share that photo around. A writer has to maintain an air of mystery. If you don't want a lawsuit on your hands, you'd better behave."

Unlike me, the Writer went straight to threatening him. However, the young man didn't care in the slightest. "If I make it through tonight alive, I'll definitely delete the picture. But if something happens to me tonight, you two won't get off easy either!"

There was a trace of hostility in the young man's words. It wasn't directed at anyone in particular; his intense anxiety and fear had simply built up too much pressure, making him defensive against everyone.

The atmosphere was turning sour. Worried that the young man's earlier screaming might have attracted attention, I waved at the two of them. "Let's head into a ward first. It's not safe out here; there are others hiding in the hospital."

Since it involved their own safety, the Writer and the young man stopped arguing and followed me back into the first ward on the second floor.

I closed the door, turned on the emergency lamp, and draped a towel over it to dim the light.

The three of us stood in three different corners of the room, completely distrustful of one another.

"There's still a long time before dawn. We might run into any number of dangers here. Cooperating is in everyone's best interest."

"I agree."

The Writer stood on my side. The young man thought it over for a moment before silently putting away his paring knife. "I agree too."

By the dim light in the room, I studied the young man closely. He was around twenty years old, right about the age for college, but his mental state was terrible. His hair was a mess, and his eyes were bloodshot.

'Did this kid suffer some kind of shock before coming here?' I withdrew my gaze and put my mask back on before speaking. "I'm Xia Chi, and you can call him the Writer. You already know why we're here. Since we're cooperating now, isn't it time you told us why you're here?"

The young man hesitated for a minute or two before finally making up his mind to speak. "My name is Chen Mo. I'm a student at Jiangcheng Medical College."

"Jiangcheng Medical College?" I froze for a moment. My sixth live stream had taken place there, and it was where I had acquired the Heavenly Doctor Divine Fiends. "That school didn't leave a very good impression on me."

The young man ignored me. The memory seemed to have deepened his fear. He grabbed his hair unconsciously, his voice turning hoarse. "The specific reason I came here started two days ago. An old professor in our department collapsed during class. My roommate and I carried him out of the anatomy room. It was nothing out of the ordinary at first, but after we got back to the dorm, my roommate mysteriously pulled out a slip of paper. He said it had fallen out of the old professor's pocket and looked like some student's practical joke. I was curious, so I read the note with him."

Having said that, the young man pulled a crumpled, pale yellow slip of paper from an inner compartment of his backpack. "Do you want to see it? I'll warn you right now, it's a curse."

The paper was yellowed and even had spots of mildew on it, as if it were incredibly old.

The Writer and I exchanged a glance and leaned in. Crooked, incredibly ugly characters were scrawled across the paper like ghost talismans.

"Your lifespan is running out. Go now to the border between Jiangcheng's Western Suburbs and Xinhu City. There is an abandoned hospital there called Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital. I need you to go to the Central Operating Room on the seventh floor of the Diagnostic and Treatment Building and the morgue in the basement of the Third Ward to retrieve my death certificate and birth certificate. If you do not go, bear the consequences yourself."