Chapter 56: A Mere Plaything?

“You heard it too, didn’t you?!” Xu Dan’s grip tightened on Qi Yan’s clothes, her face draining of all color in an instant.

Qi Yan nodded. “Louder than thunder... but it proves we’re on the right track. Dong Ye must be somewhere here, together with that ‘little girl’ you saw.”

“Where? Where is she? I didn’t see anything... aside from that singing just now, there’s nothing.”

“Isn’t it obvious? She sang it outright. Dong Ye is being hidden nearby, and we have to find him ourselves. But the red string has run out — we know the area, but from here we’ll have to search in the dark. Check if your phone still works.”

With some frustration, Xu Dan pulled out her phone. The screen lit up, but there was no signal.

Qi Yan let out a long sigh, praying inwardly as he took out his own, the battery nearly dead. The result was identical. “Ha… Ghosts really love their mazes. Come on, let’s head back to the entrance of the cement plant and see what we find.”

By now, even the long red string they’d been following had vanished without a trace.

Qi Yan and Xu Dan hurried back the way they’d come, but worse awaited them. Both let out involuntary cries of terror.

The situation was even bleaker than at the villa — not only had they lost all means of communication, but even the well-lit bridge they’d crossed to get here was gone.

They couldn’t have taken a wrong turn. The cement plant was sprawling, but its layout wasn’t complicated.

But there was no bridge now. Ahead lay only a muddy, unfamiliar path, the highway nowhere in sight, the surroundings as dark and silent as the rest.

Qi Yan cursed in frustration. “Damn… this is serious. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have brought you here. Now we’re trapped!”

Xu Dan was on the verge of panic. “You mean… we didn’t lose our way, this is some ghost’s doing? It changed the road?”

“No, there really are ghosts in this world, but none powerful enough to do this. My guess is… our eyes are being deceived. You know what I mean? Like those haunted mists or ghostly barriers in movies — we’ve stumbled into its trap and we’re lost.”

The more Xu Dan heard, the more agitated she became, her breath coming in shocked gasps, fear twisting with the uncanny scene before her. “What do we do now? A ghost maze… how do we break out? Oh, right, I read online that children’s urine can break a ghost maze…”

Qi Yan rolled his eyes. “Sure, great idea — but which of us is still a child? Anyway, I doubt it’s that simple.”

Indeed, even if it was a ghost maze, one had to consider the level of the ghost behind it.

Qi Yan still had a protective talisman with him, yet even he’d fallen into the trap. That was what worried and shocked him most... Who was this red-dressed little girl ghost? Even he was lost inside her curse.

She was clever, too — sensing that he carried something dangerous, she hadn’t targeted him directly, but instead set her sights on Dong Ye.

Even though Qi Yan was trapped, he was only being contained; so far, no harm had come to him.

After a long moment of indecision, Qi Yan shook his head, stuck a cigarette between his lips to clear his mind, and pulled Xu Dan back into the cement plant.

“There’s no other way. We have to find Dong Ye first. Stay close, don’t stray from me. We don’t have much time — move!”

Xu Dan blinked in confusion. “What time? Is she… really going to kill us?”

“I’ll say it one more time. Didn’t you hear her song? Should I repeat it for you? ‘No way back in the pitch black’ — that’s our situation, there’s no way out. Then, ‘Where is your friend hiding? When the sun rises, eyes will be sewn shut’ — that’s the time limit. It’s half past four now. There’s just over an hour until sunrise. If we haven’t found Dong Ye by then, she’ll come to sew our eyes shut. And I doubt that’s just a metaphor.”

“Sew… whose eyes?!”

“Come on, no one’s eyes are getting sewn shut, all right? Are you losing it?”

Xu Dan was perilously close to breaking down. “Oh God, why? What’s her purpose?”

Qi Yan had no answer for that. Who could guess a ghost’s mind? “She’s an evil spirit, she’ll kill. As for why, the only answer I can think of is... she’s playing with us, toying with us like mice. Don’t forget, she has the appearance of a little girl.”

With their phones useless, there was no way to call for help. Besides, Qi Yan wouldn’t know whom to turn to. Li Ruoke knew a bit about the supernatural, but she wasn’t some real exorcist.

Who would believe them if they spoke of ghosts, anyway?

Qi Yan dragged Xu Dan through the night-shrouded cement plant, running without any real direction, desperate for a clue, searching at random.

They reached the front of a factory building, but the huge rolling door was tightly shut. Qi Yan rushed forward and kicked it hard. The crash of metal rang out loudly, echoing even louder in the silent night.

Xu Dan, already terrified, nearly screamed at the sound. “Ah! Why are you kicking the door? These doors are probably locked!”

“I know! But if Dong Ye is hidden somewhere and still conscious, this noise might reach him. It’s worth a try,” Qi Yan explained, then ran to another building and kicked its door just as hard.

Bang— the metallic reverberation was piercing. Qi Yan was frantic. These were large, arch-roofed warehouses; if Dong Ye was locked inside and still alive, maybe the noise would wake him, and he’d cry out for help. That would reveal his location.

Come on… Dong Ye, are you dead or alive? If you’re still alive, scream your lungs out and let us find you! Otherwise, in this huge, unlit plant, how are the two of us supposed to find you before sunrise?

After each kick, Qi Yan paused to listen, but aside from the fading clang of metal, there was only silence.

The more desperate one is, the faster time slips away.

Bang— he’d already kicked four warehouse doors. He had no idea how much time had passed; their phones were frozen, so there was no way to check.

The two of them ran back and forth across the site, their fear sapping their strength, their pace slowing. Neither had rested all night, and everything had happened at once.

Tonight was the longest night Qi Yan had ever endured, filled with reversals.

Xu Dan was gasping for breath, a stitch stabbing her side, but she gritted her teeth and kept up with Qi Yan.

But as they tried to go deeper into the plant, a sudden, childlike giggle echoed behind them, distant at first but rapidly swelling, magnified beneath the empty night sky, curling around their ears.

“La la la, la la la la la— hee hee... ha ha ha ha…”

The trembling, echoing laughter was like maggots on bone, starting and never stopping.

“Qi Yan! Is she behind us? Is she chasing us… is she going to kill us?!”

Qi Yan pulled her along, running. He’d heard it too, but shouted, “Don’t look back! Just keep running and searching!”

But how could Xu Dan stay calm in such a moment? The girl’s laughter never ceased, rising and falling, sometimes distant, sometimes so close it seemed to brush their ears — but always from behind.

“Hee hee hee hee hee— ha ha ha ha…”

That childish, innocent laughter was terrifying, the very cackle of a demon.

It was one-sided torment, psychological torture.

Qi Yan and Xu Dan were like prey in the little girl’s hands, toyed with like mice by a cat, their terror magnified little by little, until, once their resolve broke entirely, she would devour them whole.

They ran forward another thirty or forty meters before Xu Dan couldn’t take it anymore. She squeezed her eyes shut, afraid something might appear before her.

The ground was uneven and the night black as pitch. Even with Qi Yan pulling her, Xu Dan tripped over something like a steel pipe and went sprawling with a thud, nearly dragging Qi Yan down with her…