The restroom door creaked open, and a ghastly pale hand extended from the darkness. Everyone was too terrified to make a sound, their hearts racing as they stood frozen in fear.
At that moment, Yang Jian never expected that his classmate, Fang Jing, would suddenly grab him in a fit of madness and push him towards the ghostly hand.
"Fang Jing, are you trying to kill me?" Yang Jian gritted his teeth. Realizing something was wrong, he quickly reacted and grabbed Fang Jing's arm.
They both stopped in their tracks, momentarily frozen.
"Yang Jian, as long as you're alive, I'll never be at peace. Did you really think I was joking earlier? You're too naive. Knowing that I have it out for you, yet still letting your guard down around me... But I expected that. After all, you're just a clueless student right now, unaware of the harsh realities of this world. Today, I'll teach you a lesson."
Fang Jing shouted, "Why are you just standing there? We need to push him into the restroom to hold off that ghost! If we don't, the ghost will come out, and you'll all be dead. If you want to survive, we have to sacrifice someone—there's no other way!"
Appealing to the greater good worked. Under the threat of the ghost, people will do anything to survive, especially when given a seemingly justifiable reason.
Three male classmates, their faces filled with terror, rushed forward and grabbed Yang Jian.
With four of them pushing together, it was impossible for Yang Jian to resist.
He was quickly forced backward, soon reaching the restroom door.
In the next instant, the pale hand from the darkness landed on his shoulder, its fingers tightening, cold and rigid, gripping him firmly.
A horrifying force began pulling Yang Jian backward, dragging him into the dark, abyssal restroom.
"Yang Jian, get in there! You're dead this time. Maybe you'll be smarter in your next life," Fang Jing shouted, giving him a heavy shove.
Yang Jian was overwhelmed with anger. He could already feel his shoulder going numb, as if it had been crushed by the icy, pale hand. At the same time, a bone-chilling cold enveloped his entire body, as though his blood was freezing solid.
"You scumbags, trying to kill me after being classmates. If I'm going to die, I'll make sure to take a few of you with me."
He stopped resisting and gripped the arms of two of his classmates tightly.
The terrifying force from behind continued pulling them forward, dragging the group along.
Fang Jing, sensing something was wrong, quickly stepped back to avoid being grabbed by Yang Jian.
"No, don't! Let go of me, Yang Jian, let go!"
"Please, I don't want to die! Grab someone else!"
The two classmates, now in Yang Jian's grasp, pleaded with him in panic, their voices trembling with fear.
Yang Jian, believing he was doomed, felt surprisingly calm. As the darkness closed in around him, he coldly said, "Stop screaming. If you wanted to kill me, then you can die with me. Fang Jing, don't get too smug. If I die and become a ghost, I won't let you off…"
"Bang!"
With a loud bang, the pale hand retracted into the darkness, and the restroom door slammed shut.
Yang Jian and the two classmates who had betrayed him disappeared from sight.
The door was tightly shut, with no further sound or movement.
Seeing this, Fang Jing finally breathed a sigh of relief. With his heart still pounding, he forced a smile onto his face.
Yang Jian, you're finally done for.
"Fang Jing, you… you really killed Yang Jian and the others…" someone stammered, trembling as they witnessed the scene.
Fang Jing's face twisted with malice as he snapped, "Shut up! Without me, that ghost would have come out and killed everyone. Why are you standing around? If you want to live, follow me. They can't hold the ghost off for long. Once it kills them, it'll come after us. If that happens, we're all dead."
Without another word, he turned and headed back upstairs.
"Fang Jing, why are we going back?"
"Going down is a dead end. Who knows what else we might run into? If we go back, we might run into Zhou Zheng. If he's still alive, he might be able to save us," Fang Jing explained, though fear still gnawed at him.
The longer they stayed in the ghost's domain, the more dangerous it became. Their time to escape was running out.
In the cold, dark restroom, accompanied by the faint dripping of water as if a faucet hadn't been turned off properly, Yang Jian and his two classmates were pulled into a lightless void.
"Get out, we have to get out of here!"
Duan Peng and Zheng Fei broke free from Yang Jian, panic-stricken, and began frantically feeling along the walls, trying to find the door and escape.
The cold walls were mottled and pitted, exuding a rotting stench.
The restroom wasn't large; normally, they could find the door with their eyes closed. But no matter how hard they searched, they found only wall after wall.
To the left, a wall. To the right, another wall… an endless wall blocked their way.
The door was gone.
"The door, where is the door? It was just here! Zheng Fei, have you found it?" Duan Peng cried out, his voice shaking.
"I don't have it here either," Zheng Fei replied, his voice filled with terror.
They frantically searched the walls, not missing an inch, desperately trying to find the familiar restroom door.
But no matter how much they searched, the door was nowhere to be found. All they felt was the mottled, cold wall.
Or perhaps, the door had never been there.
While they searched frantically for a way out, Yang Jian's situation was even more dire.
He could feel the icy hand still gripping his shoulder, and what started as numbness in his shoulder had now spread to his entire arm. As time passed, the numbness spread further, and he knew that if it reached his whole body, he would become a lifeless corpse.
Sweating coldly, Yang Jian struggled with all his might.
But it was no use. The part of him that was held felt as if it was nailed in place, unable to move an inch.
No matter what he tried, he couldn't break free.
"Am I really going to die here?" was the only thought in his mind.
Finally, perhaps accepting his fate, he felt a strange calmness wash over him. He only wished to call his family and leave a final message before he died.
With a bitter smile, he fought against the cold and numbness in his body and took out his phone, attempting to make a last call to his family.
But when he turned on his phone, the screen flickered, displaying the forum story he had read earlier.
The story was on the last page.
On the forum, there was an audio file.
Yang Jian stared at the audio file, frozen in place, suddenly remembering the knocking sound that had come from the old man outside the classroom.
"Wait, if that old man really used the knocking sound to kill people, then this sound shouldn't just work on humans. It should also work on ghosts. Zhou Zheng said it himself: the only thing that can fight a ghost is another ghost."
This realization sparked a glimmer of hope in Yang Jian's eyes.
Without hesitation, he used his other, still-functioning arm to play the audio file.
"Thud, thud thud—"
The heavy knocking sound echoed once more, reverberating in the darkness.
But something unexpected happened.
The pale hand gripping Yang Jian's shoulder recoiled as if scalded, quickly retreating into the darkness.
The cold, rigid sensation swiftly dissipated from his body.
4o