Chapter Seventy-Five: Facing the Red Gate (4000 words)
“According to you, if you encounter that girl with the lantern, you will die?”
“No one who has seen her true face has survived… except for you, you bastard.”
The Black Book had always felt that Liu Haoyu was in a “beyond saving, wait for death” situation.
But looking at it now, it seemed like things were turning around, and there was an opportunity to operate again.
Since Qin Liu didn’t take him away, he could definitely survive for a while longer.
However, he couldn’t let his guard down. He had narrowly escaped this time, but who knew what the next situation would be?
So, to survive, he had to do something.
The Black Book found a blank page and continued to write on it.
“You are still alive, though I don’t know why that fierce ghost spared your life,”
“But you can’t stop here,”
“Instead of waiting for the Red Gate to find you again, it’s better to take the initiative,”
“Overcome the most primitive fear in your heart and face the threat of that blood-red iron gate.”
“The Red Gate identifies enemies by name. You need to find the tombstone engraved with your name and erase it, then you will be completely safe.”
“This requires you to go to Longshan Vocational High School and investigate the fire accident of ten years ago.”
“The evil spirits there have a way to help you avoid the Red Gate.”
“Remember, don’t let them escape.”
The Black Book’s long page of words was like issuing a mission request.
Liu Haoyu frowned as he looked at Longshan Vocational High School on it.
He remembered that when he first got into the line of ghost exorcists, he had also heard about this fire accident from his seniors.
However, due to the severity of the accident, the authorities had almost blocked all news, and the information dissemination speed over ten years was definitely not good.
So, under such a blockade, even the name Longshan Vocational High School had permanently disappeared from the public’s view.
When Liu Haoyu first became a ghost exorcist, he had tried to uncover the truth of the incident.
His intuition told him that the fire was definitely not as simple as it appeared on the surface.
It was just that when Liu Haoyu investigated, many years had passed since the accident, and many clues had become blurred.
After multiple failed attempts to investigate, Liu Haoyu could only give up.
He didn’t expect the Black Book to bring up this matter again.
“It looks like I’ll be busy again.”
Liu Haoyu closed his eyes.
The Red Gate, which haunted him like a nightmare, now seemed a little further away.
Was it because of Qin Liu?
Thinking of this, Liu Haoyu bit his index finger again and wrote on the Black Book.
“According to you, is the Qin Liu I dreamed of and the Qin Liu in reality the same person?”
“Yes.”
Although the Black Book couldn’t see Qin Liu’s fate clearly, it knew that there was only one Qin Liu.
As for why the Qin Liu with the lantern that Liu Haoyu dreamed of looked that way, the Black Book was also unclear.
Perhaps, as Liu Haoyu guessed, that Qin Liu was the former Qin Liu?
“If it’s the same person… why don’t I feel any oppressive feeling from Qin Liu?”
Liu Haoyu clearly remembered the suffocating and uneasy fear he felt when he encountered the Qin Liu with the lantern.
Coupled with her vacant eyes, it was no exaggeration to say that the Qin Liu in his dream was no different from other fierce ghosts.
In contrast, the Qin Liu in reality…
The gluttonous ghost should also be considered a ghost.
“I don’t know.”
The Black Book gave its high-quality answer.
Seeing that there was not much blank space left, Liu Haoyu couldn’t help but ask something he had always been hesitant to confirm.
“By the way, isn’t Qin Liu wearing socks?”
“…”
Seeing this question, the Black Book remained silent for a full ten seconds.
Then it spat the blood on the book onto the ground.
And drew a sweating emoji.
“Just say it if you want me to die.”
With that, the Black Book closed itself.
Seeing this, Liu Haoyu could only reluctantly put the Black Book away.
“What’s there to be afraid of? She’s just a girl who looks a bit cute and naive.”
— — —
Meanwhile, inside the haunted house.
The four members of the Special Task Force looked at the ominous house and couldn’t help but swallow their saliva.
Wang Wenqi, as the leader, felt a bad omen in his heart as he looked at the dense resentment.
“Leader, are we going in?”
One of the police officers already had thoughts of retreating.
Although they were not afraid of death, there was no doubt that the resentment in this haunted house was something they could not handle.
Wang Wenqi looked at the dilapidated door and was very conflicted.
He was not afraid of death, but he could not let his brothers die in vain.
Finally, he gritted his teeth and said,
“Feiying, Sunying, you two provide support outside. I’ll go in with Xiong Ying.”
“Roger that!”
Wang Wenqi recalled Deng Lao’s account of his own experiences and knew very well that this trip was likely to be a life-or-death situation, but he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.
Judging by the concentration of resentment, the seal of the Red Gate should have leaked. If no measures were taken, it would only lead to more deaths.
Gathering his courage, Wang Wenqi and Xiong Ying entered the haunted house.
As soon as they entered, the door behind them immediately closed.
Everything within their sight was pitch black.
Wang Wenqi turned on his flashlight and said to Xiong Ying,
“Are you scared?”
“If I were scared, I wouldn’t have joined this line of work.”
Xiong Ying was a man with a square face and a resolute demeanor.
Looking at the traces inside the house, he said,
“Strange…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Leader, there are clear signs that someone has been living here.”
Xiong Ying pointed to the footprints on the ground.
Wang Wenqi followed the direction Xiong Ying pointed.
Indeed, they were human footprints. Judging by the size of the footprints,
These should be a man’s footprints, and he should be quite tall.
“Wasn’t this house sealed off long ago? How are there footprints?”
“It wasn’t sealed off.”
Xiong Ying answered Wang Wenqi’s question, which almost made the team leader curse.
“What are those people doing?”
Even with footprints, it didn’t stop the two from exploring further.
The haunted house was pitch black. Even with police flashlights, they could only faintly see its dilapidated state.
After walking a long distance along the first-floor corridor, Wang Wenqi suddenly felt something was wrong.
“Wait… where’s the staircase to the second floor?”
Not only could Wang Wenqi not see the end of the corridor, but he also couldn’t find the stairs to the second floor.
Could this be a ghost wall?
Wang Wenqi muttered, then took out a bowl of black dog blood and dripped it along the corridor.
This method could help people get out of the ghost wall.
However, to Wang Wenqi’s surprise, this method did not work at all in this place.
As soon as the black dog blood dripped onto the ground, it immediately boiled as if it had touched a red-hot iron plate and evaporated into steam.
Not even an imprint could be seen on the ground.
“Damn it…”
A layer of fear began to spread through Wang Wenqi’s heart. In all his years of work, this was the first time he had seen such terrifying resentment.
Dogs are inherently yang creatures.
Black dog’s yang energy is even purer, and its ability to ward off evil is stronger.
Under the theory of “using yang to control yin,” it could indeed counter supernatural events.
But…
It was useless now.
The yin energy had far surpassed the yang energy, and even black dog blood had no effect in such a place.
“How did Deng Lao manage to get out of this place alive?”
Wang Wenqi’s nerves were highly strung. He held the spiritual beads used for ghost exorcism in his hand.
If any fierce ghosts appeared, he would have a chance to fight.
But the surroundings were dark, and the cold wind outside kept blowing, the “whoosh” of the wind sounding like the roar of a fierce ghost.
At this moment, Wang Wenqi had a false impression.
It was as if someone was following him from behind.
And the deeper he went inside, the stronger this feeling became.
The wind outside stopped.
All that remained in the corridor was the dull sound of footsteps on the old floorboards.
Wang Wenqi’s flashlight could not illuminate the darkness ahead, nor could he see anything behind him.
It was as if he were in an endless corridor.
At this moment, he suddenly felt a strong gaze behind him.
So, the police officer immediately turned his head to look.
It was dark, and there was nothing.
“An illusion?”
Although Wang Wenqi hoped it was an illusion, in supernatural events, any carelessness could lead to death.
He dared not neglect, so he prepared to continue forward.
However, when he turned around again, he found that Xiong Ying, who should have been in front of him, had vanished without a trace.
There wasn’t even the slightest sign.
At this point, Wang Wenqi felt that something bad was going to happen.
“Xiong Ying?!”
He called out experimentally, but only the hollow echo responded in the corridor, and there was no reply from Xiong Ying.
It was as if the person had disappeared into thin air.
What should I do?
Even with Wang Wenqi’s rich experience in dealing with supernatural events, this was the first time he had encountered such a situation.
The situation here was indeed beyond his ability to handle.
But he couldn’t just leave. At least he had to find Xiong Ying.
Wang Wenqi poured black dog blood on himself and called out to Xiong Ying as he walked.
Finally, he heard a rapid sound of footsteps.
Could it be Xiong Ying?
Following the sound, he saw that it was indeed Xiong Ying, just as Wang Wenqi had guessed!
“Leader, run!”
The man with the square face had lost his previous composure, and his face was now filled with fear and panic.
“There are ghosts! Lots and lots of ghosts!”
Wang Wenqi confirmed it was Xiong Ying, then breathed a sigh of relief and said,
“Run towards me!”
“The exit is this way, Leader, hurry and follow me!”
Xiong Ying suddenly turned right, and Wang Wenqi was stunned for a moment.
He didn’t remember there being a fork in the road here?
But now there was no time to think, he had to hurry and follow.
After running for three minutes, the two finally saw the familiar door.
The door was not locked, and the two successfully escaped from this place.
“Phew… phew…”
Looking at the police car outside, the taut string in Wang Wenqi’s heart finally relaxed.
“We escaped alive… we actually escaped alive…”
Wang Wenqi didn’t want to experience that suffocating oppression and fear again.
He yanked open the driver’s door of the police car and got in.
Xiong Ying also immediately sat in the co-pilot’s seat.
With the roar of the engine, the police car sped away from this place at an extremely fast speed.
The evening breeze blew into the car through the window, dispelling the fear in Wang Wenqi’s heart.
This car was fitted with many formations, and ordinary fierce ghosts could not get close.
So, he breathed a sigh of relief, and then heard his teammate behind him say,
“Leader, did you save a survivor from the haunted house? We were just about to go in and save you?”
Save me?
Wang Wenqi was a bit confused, and he said,
“I didn’t save anyone! Didn’t Xiong Ying and I come out together?”
As soon as he said this, the atmosphere in the entire car instantly dropped to freezing point.
No one spoke, and an eerie silence spread through the car.
Finally, Feiying in the back row spoke up,
“But Xiong Ying was sitting in the back row with us!”
They had come as four people, but on the way back, there was an extra person in the car…
Hearing this, Wang Wenqi’s scalp tingled, and he quickly looked at the co-pilot’s seat.
He saw that the “Xiong Ying” who had gotten into the car with him had long since vanished.
But the seatbelt on the co-pilot’s side was still buckled.
As a police officer of the Special Task Force, facing such a situation, even Wang Wenqi couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread.
At this moment, something even more terrifying happened.
There was a sharp turn ahead, but the police car’s braking system was completely out of Wang Wenqi’s control.
“Bang!!”
The police car crashed through the guardrail and flew out.
When it stopped, the vehicle was already overturned and wrecked. Wang Wenqi lay in the driver’s seat. Before he lost consciousness, his blurry vision looked upwards.
He saw a strange red shadow holding a lantern sitting on the guardrail that had been knocked open.
Upon seeing this red shadow, Wang Wenqi felt his heart almost stop, and a terrifying chill shot straight to his head.
Before losing consciousness, Wang Wenqi vaguely saw that as the lantern lit up, the distorted black shadow in the police car was directly pulled into the lantern.
After retracting this black shadow, Hong Yu slowly turned into nothingness and disappeared before Wang Wenqi’s eyes.
— — —
Time came to the morning of the next day.
Deng Xiaolin’s home had a peaceful night.
Except for Qin Liu’s strange recurring dream of Liu Haoyu helping her put on stockings, everything was fine.
It was just that for some reason, the dream felt very real, even with tactile sensations.
If Qin Liu hadn’t been sleeping inside Hong Yu, she would have really suspected if Liu Haoyu had touched her feet while she was sleeping at night.
“Good morning, Hao-ge…”
Deng Xiaolin woke up from Liu Haoyu’s bed.
And this man was currently packing his luggage, preparing to return to the haunted house.
“Going back so soon?”
Seeing this, Deng Xiaolin immediately came forward and said,
“Why don’t you stay for breakfast before you go?”
“No, I have to go back and get ready. I have to go to Longshan Vocational High School tonight.”
“Ah? That place? Hao-ge, you have to be careful.”
Hearing that Liu Haoyu wanted to go to such a place, Deng Xiaolin showed obvious worry.
She had heard from lonely spirits about that vocational high school.
However, it had been a long time, and all she remembered was that the place was haunted, and very seriously so, with many ghosts.
“Then I’ll be going now.”
Liu Haoyu put on his backpack and then left Deng Xiaolin’s house.
Afterward, he started his motorcycle and embarked on the road home.
On the road, Liu Haoyu drove intently, but when he reached the outskirts, he noticed that a guardrail on a sharp turn had been knocked open by something.
“Car accident?”
Liu Haoyu stopped the car on the side of the road and then saw a police car lying overturned below the road.
Seeing this, Liu Haoyu dared not delay. He hurried down the mountain to the police car and shouted into it,
“Officer, are you alright?”
