He arrived at Jiujiang Medical University. Chen Ge gave a call to Gao Ru Xue on her phone, but no one picked up. Chen Ge entered the school and found a free lecturer. After asking him, Chen Ge only found out that Gao Ru Xue had applied to defer. She had not appeared at the school for a very long time. “Her mother was killed by that hospital, and now her father has disappeared after committing such a serious crime. It is hard to imagine the pressure and pain that Gao Ru Xue must be feeling.”

Since Gao Ru Xue refused to answer Chen Ge’s calls, he had no choice but to personally go to her place. He knocked on her door for several minutes before Gao Ru Xue opened the door. She looked so much more haggard, and she had lost quite a bit of weight. “Chen Ge?”

“Do you mind if I come in to talk with you?” Chen Ge carried his backpack. He had not slept that night. His eyes were bloodshot, and he did not look much better than Gao Ru Xue. “I have something that I have to discuss with your father, but I need your help to be able to find him.”

With a small nod, Gao Ru Xue opened the door and allowed Chen Ge to enter the room. The room was covered with a thin layer of dust. It was clear that the place had not been properly cleaned for quite some time, but at least overall the place still looked rather passable. Everything was neat, if a little bit dusty.

“I also would like to talk to him, but I have no idea where he is.” Gao Ru Xue sat on the couch. Even though a decent amount of time had passed since the incident at the underground morgue, Gao Ru Xue could not stop the change in her expression whenever she talked about her father.

“I need some of your blood.” Chen Ge did not wish to go into detail. He stated his reason for being there directly.

“My blood?” Gao Ru Xue slowly lifted her head that was previously lowered. She looked at Chen Ge with open confusion before she stretched out her arm toward Chen Ge. “Using my blood, you will be able to find out where my dad currently is, right?”

“It might not be successful, but it is worth a try.” Hearing that, the light in Gao Ru Xue’s eyes slowly dimmed, but she still did not pull her arm back. Instead, she said, “If you really do succeed in meeting him, remember to tell him that I miss him a lot.”

“Of course.” Chen Ge had Gao Ru Xue close her eyes, and then he summoned out the red high heels. A black curse like an iron needle pierced into Gao Ru Xue’s body and sucked out a drop of blood right from her heart.

“You can open your eyes now.” Chen Ge looked at Gao Ru Xue’s pale face, and he gave her a serious promise. “I will relay your words to Doctor Gao personally, and I will try my best to help your family if it is within my power.”

After he left Gao Ru Xue’s home, before Chen Ge moved that far away, Chen Ge got some good news. By applying a curse on both the blood vessels inside the white cat’s body and the blood from Gao Ru Xue’s heart, the red high heels had successfully sensed a very scary presence. Based on Chen Ge’s prediction, the monster that was giving off this scary presence should be none other than Doctor Gao

“It is a good thing that we can sense his presence. After we enter the world behind the door, perhaps the intensity of this presence will become much stronger.”

After he walked out from the apartment, Chen Ge rushed to Jiujiang Children’s home and retrieved a drop of blood from Fan Yu. After he was done with everything, Chen Ge silently returned to New Century Park and woke up Ol’ Wu before theme park opened for business. “Brother Wu, it is time to wake up. We should prepare to return to Xin Hai already.”

Ol’ Wu, who was fast asleep, was shaken awake. He looked at Chen Ge blurrily. There were so many questions on his face.

Chen Ge tried his best to help ‘recover’ his memory. “Last night, I asked you for a favor to drive me back to Jiujiang to get something. Did you forget about that?”

“Yes, I think I do remember that.” Ol’ Wu rubbed his head.

“So, let’s return to Xin Hai. I have already gotten everything that I needed.” Chen Ge placed the white cat on the backseat. He had already done everything that he could. What he needed to do next was focus all his energy against that cursed hospital and get to the bottom of the mystery behind his parent’s disappearance. The car left New Century Park in the morning, and they arrived in Xin Hai when the sun was at its peak.

“Brother Wu, if possible, stop using this car. Other than that, I need you to remind Mr. Wang not to go out late at night. It will also be best if the two of you are staying somewhere with a lot of people.” Chen Ge was worried that the car might be targeted by the cursed hospital, so he gave Ol’ Wu a kind reminder.

“Okay.” Ol’ Wu dropped Chen Ge at the Nightmare Academy and then left in a hurry.

Chen Ge carried his backpack and hugged the white cat as he pushed open the front door to the Nightmare Academy. Once he stepped into the building, he felt something was not quite right. Because they had not yet prepared to open for business, the central air con was not on, but at that moment it was curiously cold inside the haunted house. “Xiao Die? Zhang Jingjiu?”

With a bad feeling in his heart, Chen Ge flipped through the comic to summon out several Red Specter employees.

“Search the entire building!” Chen Ge ordered in a serious tone. He did move away from the entrance. He stood right at the front door. If there was a trap, he would turn and run at the first notice. Half a minute later, Men Nan appeared before Chen Ge. “There is no one inside the haunted house.”

“Did something or someone come here last night?” Chen Ge was very worried about the safety of his haunted house employees.

“We cannot sense the trace of the presence of any other baleful Specters, but I can say for sure that something indeed infiltrated this place last night.” Men Nan pointed at the entrance to one of the scenarios. “Come and take a look at this.”

Being escorted in the middle of several Red Specters, Chen Ge walked to the entrance of the scenario. The wooden doors that led into every scenario were covered in paper notes, and every single note had that familiar statement on it.

“This is a sickened world. Why have you not discovered that fact? I swear to cure you!”

The paper notes with different handwriting covered the many wooden doors, and it looked intensely creepy.

“This has to be the doing of that cursed hospital.” Chen Ge was reminded of a detail. The previous morning, when he returned to the Nightmare Academy from his Red Specter hunting, he had felt a sharp gaze that was watching him from Shi Li Xiang eatery. Perhaps from then on, he had already been targeted. “Time to go to Shi Li Xiang eatery.”

It was just past the lunch time, so there were not that many people inside the eatery. Chen Ge burst through the door with several Red Specters behind him.

“Welcome to Shi Li Xiang. How can I help you today?” The waiter very passionately walked toward Chen Ge, but the latter ignored him directly. He walked toward the counter and strode toward the door that was meant for employees only.

“Hey!” This was the first time the waiter had encountered a customer so rude and unreasonable. He was about to reach forward to stop Chen Ge when his body was suddenly drained of power, and he collapsed onto the chair behind him. Chen Ge did not want to waste time on meaningless actions. Without wasting any time, he rushed into the kitchen at the back, and he saw the boss of the shop who was pouring something into a big vat of sauce. The boss was Chi Longtou.

“Zhang Yi!”

Wasting no time for a single pleasantry, when Chi Longtou saw Chen Ge, Zhang Yi had already crawled into his body. About ten seconds later, Zhang Yi crawled out from the back of Chi Longtou’s head, and he reported with a disappointed expression. “The enemy appears to have realized that I can look through people’s memories, so this man’s memory has already been tampered with. I cannot find any useful information.”

The cursed hospital had realized that Chen Ge had a Specter who could look through people’s memories, so they had sent someone over to deal with Chi Longtou’s memory. Chen Ge had already predicted that the Demon God with the surname Chi would be able to look through a living individual’s memory, so he did not reveal the presence of Chi Ren to any of his living employees. He had kept Chi Ren hidden inside the headmaster’s office. The devil was always in the detail.

“Even if the cursed hospital has taken away my employees, they won’t be able to obtain any useful information from my living employees, but with how the cursed hospital approaches things, if I am unable to find Zhang Jingjiu and Xiao Die soon, I am afraid they will be in mortal danger.”

Be it living employees or ghost workers, Chen Ge treated them like they were his family. Now that his family had been kidnapped, he was naturally not going to sit idle.

After he returned to the Nightmare Academy, Chen Ge summoned out all the Specters from the comic. He started a carpet search, not letting go of a single detail. After about half an hour, Chen Ge was rewarded with a new discovery. He found a cursed letter inside Xiao Die’s room. The content of the letter was pieced together from newspaper cuttings. The letters of different size were stuck to the paper, and it looked like a ransom letter.

“Is this some kind of cursed game? I held the hands of seven friends to come to the hospital. My mother said that the patient is among us. If any of us are not smiling, then that person is the patient. My good friends, my bad friends, they all smiled.

“I held the hands of seven friends to come to the hospital. Father told us that mother is sick and told me to wait outside the sickroom. My good friends, my bad friends, they all turned to look at mother. They told me that none of us would leave the hospital alive.

“I held the hands of seven friends to come to the hospital. The doctor told us my father and mother had both died at the hospital. My good friends, my bad friends, they heard what the doctor said. They said that they would not come to play with me at the hospital at midnight anymore.”

Even after reading the letter, Chen Ge had no idea what the content of the letter was trying to express at all.

“Was this left behind by a non-smiler?” He turned the letter over to the other side. Chen Ge discovered the picture of a human face blurrily drawn on the back of the letter. When he looked closer, he was able to see the following words written not that clearly along the human face—’You are my seventh friend.’

“I am the seventh friend? So, there are seven people who received this letter last night, huh. Is this some kind of an invitation to a cursed game?” Chen Ge put the cursed letter away. After he ensured that there was nothing else to discover, he pulled out his phone and called the police immediately. “Captain Cai! I have been assaulted by the criminals! Three of my employees were kidnapped last night!”

After hearing the call from Chen Ge, the police did not even know how to react. From their perspective, no matter how rampant the criminal activity might be, they would not go to the biggest business area in Xin Hai to conduct their crimes, much less commit something as serious as kidnapping three people at the same time.

“We will be there in a minute! You’d better look after your own safety until we get there!”

In just ten minutes, two patrol cars had arrived at the entrance to the Nightmare Academy. “Captain Cai, come and look at this door!”

Chen Ge dragged Captain Cai by his arm and ran to the entrance to the haunted house scenario. The paper notes that covered the wooden door gave the police quite a shock.

“When did you discover that your employees had disappeared?”

“I returned to the haunted house around noon today. Once I walked through the front door, I realized that the employee on duty was not at reception. It was then that I realized something was wrong because my employees were still living at the haunted house. After that, I called them on their phones, but there was no answer. When I walked in deeper into the haunted house, I encountered this door,” Chen Ge said urgently. “These employees followed me from Jiujiang because I wanted to expand my haunted house to Xin Hai. We were supposed to open a second branch here, but before we could even open for business, they have already been targeted by the criminals. This is all my fault! The criminal must know that I’ve been investigating him, so he used this kind of method to take revenge on me!”

“Please do not blame yourself too much. By the way, were you not at the haunted house yourself last night?” Captain Cai felt like there were too many loopholes regarding this case.

“Initially, I planned to reopen this place for business in three days, so last night, I went back to Jiujiang to gather some necessary props. Ol’ Wu from Jiujiang Police Station can attest to that. He gave me the ride back to Jiujiang. You can probably see us on the traffic cameras as well.” Chen Ge was very sad. “The criminals’ real target is me! If I had not involved myself in this case, then my employees would have been safe!”

“Mr. Chen, you must not think that way. It is already very impressive that you dared step forward to expose the evilness of the criminals. Technically speaking, it is our responsibility for the failure to protect the safety of your employees.” Captain Cai wanted to console Chen Ge, but he really did not know what to say.

“Captain Cai, there must be more than one criminal at work here. They were able to kidnap all three of my employees at the same time, so they should be working in a group!”

“Yes, that is what we are thinking as well, and our investigation is heading in this direction.”

“I am afraid that there might be more than just my three employees who disappeared last night. They should have been planning this for a long time.” Chen Ge’s basis for saying something like that was because of that cursed letter. The letter said that he was the seventh friend, so it was highly probable that there were seven cursed letters in total. “Captain Cai, the criminals have actively targeted me and my people. They must have done more than that behind the scenes. You are the only people who I can rely on now.”

“Please do not worry. I will assign people to guard around your haunted house. If they dare return, I will ensure that they are apprehended.”

“They have just caused such a big disturbance here. I doubt they will return to this place any time soon. This case is related to the safety of my three employees. Is it possible for me to join the investigation?” The cursed hospital had existed in Xin Hai for more than twenty years. The police must have collected some cases related to the cursed hospital. Chen Ge wanted to make use of the police force’s information and try to get to know that hospital as best as he could. He knew the truth behind certain things, so the perspective that he held would be different from the Xin Hai police. Therefore, he might come to a different conclusion regarding the same case.

“I am afraid I cannot make the decision regarding something like that.” Captain Cai rejected him in a roundabout way.

“That’s okay.” Chen Ge did not press further. “The criminals have kidnapped three people, so it must have caused them some trouble. They will make their next move tonight. You guys need to be careful.”

When Captain Cai heard that from Chen Ge, he felt weirded out. Normally, when a person encountered this kind of situation, they would plead the police to capture the culprit as soon as possible, but Chen Ge had been consciously reminding the police officer to mind their own safety.

Both parties exchanged information for an hour. Chen Ge linked the clues of all the cases together, and some of the clues could be directly or indirectly linked to an abandoned hospital in Xin Hai’s countryside. Xin Hai had always been a city with very good security. The cases that had happened in the past few days were extremely rare serious crimes. With the stern order from above, the police force all over the city had mobilized. More than one case was being investigated at the same time. When the whole city was brought under control, the police even prepared to conduct a deep investigation into the hospital in Xin Hai’s countryside.

The peace and silence on the surface of Xin Hai had been completely shattered. The tides were raging violently under the surface. At 3 pm, Chen Ge had just sent the police off when he received a call from Ol’ Wu. He brought Chen Ge more bad new—Mr. Wang had disappeared.

Chen Ge did not even have time to finish his meal. He hurried to where Mr. Wang was staying. He did not encounter Mr. Wang there, but he did come across Mr. Wang’s student, Zuo Han. “Why are you here?”

“Last night, I gave my lecturer a call because I wanted to ask him something. When we were halfway through the phone call, he said that someone had entered his room.” Zuo Han looked very serious. “He hung up on me to give it a check. After that, he did not answer any of my calls. I was worried about him, so first thing this morning, I got on the earliest train to come to Xin Hai.”

“Did you find anything special inside Mr. Wang’s room? Like a note or a letter…”

Before Chen Ge finished, he saw Zou Han pick up a letter from the small coffee table. The letter was similar to the letter that Chen Ge found inside Xiao Die’s room. The only thing that was different was on the back of the letter. On the human face on the back of the letter, it was written—’You are my first friend.’

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