Striding over from the distance, Leng Yeting let out a sigh of relief upon seeing that Ruan Zhizhi was unhurt. Glancing back at the hidden door behind her, he asked:
“Well? Did you find anything in there?”
Ruan Zhizhi shook her head.
“Just a bunch of dust and ashes. I didn’t see anything unusual.”
Frowning deeply, Leng Yeting muttered:
“Looks like we’ll have to keep searching elsewhere.”
According to their intel documents, a single dose of the serum originally used to suppress the experimental subjects had been left behind somewhere within the fog-shrouded world. Even if the records turned out to be inaccurate, Leng Yeting had no choice but to cling to this lone lifeline.
Continuing to grope their way forward, Leng Yeting led Ruan Zhizhi up a flight of stairs. The moment they rounded the corner of the corridor, Leng Yeting—who was leading the way—abruptly froze in his tracks.
Perplexed, Ruan Zhizhi asked:
“What’s wrong?”
A rhythmic drip, drip echoing through the silent dark sounded jarringly conspicuous.
Lowering her gaze, Ruan Zhizhi spotted a pool of crimson water blooming from fresh blood dripping onto the floor. Following the trail upward, she saw that Leng Yeting had been stabbed straight through the chest.
A pale, blood-stained hand casually wrenched the blade free.
Leng Yeting’s frame swayed unsteadily as a sluggish wave of pain and sheer panic crashed over him. Clutching his bleeding wound, he collapsed hard to the floor. Yet he stubbornly clung to his last breath, because the blade had missed his heart by a hair’s breadth—as if deliberately denying him a quick, merciful end, leaving him to writhe and linger in agony.
Emerging slowly from the shadows, the boy’s slouching, insolent silhouette stepped into view.
With one hand shoved casually into his pocket, he twirled the cold, glittering blade in his other hand, flicking the fresh gore off the steel against the wall. His dead, glassy eyes held a mocking, mirthless glint; the young man and woman before him were currently no more significant than ants.
Ruan Zhizhi stood rooted to the spot, paralyzed by terror at the sudden turn of events.
In her mind, Leng Yeting had always seemed invincible—a master strategist born to lead, which was precisely why so many students in the academy naturally gravitated toward him as their pillar.
Yet, without a single shred of foreshadowing, Leng Yeting had been run through with a blade and left at death’s door.
Watching the terrifying figure march steadily closer, Ruan Zhizhi instinctively backed away step-by-step, her heart hammering wildly against her throat. She knew full well that relying on her own speed, she stood zero chance of escaping the murder ghost’s blade.
Though her complexion was drained of all color, she forced herself to stand tall, mustering every ounce of backbone to keep her knees from buckling in a humiliating collapse.
She was just a delicate, fragile girl; the fact that she wasn’t wailing, crying, or losing control of her bladder like most people surely had to earn her a sliver of respect.
Suddenly, her thoughts drifted to Xia Miao.
With her eyes rimmed in red like a startled white rabbit, Ruan Zhizhi bit down on her soft, pink lip. Letting her voice dip into a trembling, fragile lilt, she pleaded softly:
“P-P-Please… can you spare me? I just want to survive. Whatever… whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it.”
The boy abruptly halted his advance.
Ruan Zhizhi knew she had played her hand right!
That night, she had caught a glimpse of Xia Miao using her own body to appease the murder ghost. Since the monster was willing to accept that kind of offering, it proved he still harbored primal, male desires toward women.
If Xia Miao could do it, why couldn’t she?
Yet a hot wave of shame still flushed through Ruan Zhizhi’s cheeks; if not for the desperate need to stay alive, she would never have swallowed her pride to utter such words!
The dark silhouette spoke:
“Whatever I want you to do, you’ll do it?”
Ruan Zhizhi bit her lip hard.
“Yes.”
“Alright.”
Watching the monster close in step by step, Ruan Zhizhi couldn’t help lifting a hand to tightly clutch the collar of her shirt. Acts of this nature were something she had only ever shared with Leng Yeting. Considering herself a traditionally conservative girl, she never imagined she would ever entangle herself physically with anyone other than him.
Yet now, this blood-soaked, monster of a boy whom everyone feared had set his sights on her. What other choice did she possibly have left?
Flat on the floor and breathing his last, Leng Yeting watched the scene unfold before him. Amidst the searing waves of pain, a strange swell of emotion stirred in his chest.
Ruan Zhizhi was a naturally timid, cowardly girl—obedient and soft-spoken. For her to resort to such a measure now, she must be doing it entirely to save his life.
Leng Yeting had never anticipated that Ruan Zhizhi would sacrifice herself to this extent for his sake. At the same time, relying on his own woman to trade her body just to keep him alive felt like a profound humiliation for any man.
Even so, Leng Yeting forced himself to swallow his pride, using his remaining sliver of reason to stay silent. If he dragged himself over to stop the murder ghost, wouldn’t he just be spitting on Ruan Zhizhi’s painful sacrifice and throwing her efforts away for nothing?
Struggling to keep his turbulent emotions under control, Leng Yeting swore to himself that once he found the suppression serum, he would slaughter this monster. And the moment they escaped this hellish world, he would cherish Ruan Zhizhi and treat her right for the rest of her life.
As the “murder ghost” drew closer and closer, the boy—labeled a monster and burdened with such a terrifying title—finally stepped into the light. Up close, Ruan Zhizhi realized he didn’t look all that different from an ordinary teenage boy, save for his eccentric getup. Wrapping his face entirely in white bandages lent him a bizarre, eerie sort of mystery.
Yet his physique was exceptionally striking; that underlying aura of mystery only amplified an ineffable, magnetic pull that made people want to strip away his secrets and explore what lay beneath.
A sudden, unbidden flutter spiked through Ruan Zhizhi’s pulse. Her fingers, which had been clutching frantically at her collar, unconsciously loosened their grip. She was hopelessly nervous.
The boy’s eyes curved into a subtle crescent:
“Your breathing’s all out of whack.”
Her lashes trembling, Ruan Zhizhi’s innate timidity took over. Lowering her gaze to avoid meeting his eyes, she let her voice soften into a fragile, trembling lilt:
“I’m just… just a little nervous.”
“No need to be nervous. It’ll only hurt for a second, it’ll be over before you know it.”
A bright flush bloomed across Ruan Zhizhi’s cheeks.
In the very next instant, a hand clamped brutally around her throat. Her body was violently slammed backward against the stone wall, the impact rattling her bones as if they were about to shatter into dust.
Ruan Zhizhi choked out a gasp, but the iron grip crushing her windpipe choked off her oxygen, turning the cough into a silent, suffocating wheeze. The romantic, inviting flush that had just painted her soft cheeks vanished entirely, replaced by the stark, ghostly pallor of sheer terror.
Horrified by the sudden shift, Leng Yeting let out a weak, desperate cry:
“Zhizhi—!”
It sounded remarkably like a trapped rodent’s squeak.
The boy let out a light laugh, slowly raising the blade in his free hand. The cold tip rested in a lethally dangerous position right against her eyeball, freezing Ruan Zhizhi’s breath in her lungs and blowing her pupils wide with panic.
“Didn’t you say you’d do whatever I wanted? Awesome, then let’s play a little game!” Lu Yan giggled cheerfully. “I’ll give you a choice: you die, or he dies?”
Hearing those words, both Ruan Zhizhi—shrouded in the shadow of death—and Leng Yeting sprawled out on the floor had the color drain entirely from their faces.
When Lu Yan waited for a beat and received no answer, his smile turned vicious and cruel:
“My girlfriend taught me a golden rule: ladies first. That’s why I’m letting you choose first. If you don’t feel like making a choice, I suppose I’ll just have to let that piece of garbage on the floor make the call instead.”
A monster would always be a monster. No matter how human they looked on the outside, their innate, rot-deep malice meant they would forever view humans as nothing more than pathetic crawling pests to be toyed with for amusement.
Ruan Zhizhi finally realized what a catastrophic mistake she had made.