Thriller Zone: From the Mental Hospital to the Ghostly World

crossroads.

It was as if I had stepped into a black and white movie, with no color in the surroundings.

Even Liu Zi's yellow hair looked as dull and lifeless as withered grass.

The only bright spot in this bleak world was the vermilion porcelain bowl in his and Bai Shaohua's hands.

There wasn't a trace of paper ash left in the bowl.

The two huddled under the lamppost, staring blankly at the gray fog in the distance.

In the thick fog, indistinct figures could be vaguely seen, silently staring back at them.

As the previous red light went out, the ghosts retreated back into the fog once again.

Now is what is called a safe time.

But nobody knows how long it will last...

Liu Zi numbly lowered his head, glanced at the empty bottom of the bowl, and then turned on his phone.

"What time is it?"

Someone nearby murmured, their voice devoid of any vitality.

"12:40 sharp."

Liu Zi threw his phone on the ground and looked at Bai Shaohua, who was huddled to one side. Bai Shaohua's spirit had collapsed, and he looked ashen-faced, with only his green eyes still fixed on the mist.

"There's no more ashes," Liu Zi said.

"Oh."

Bai Shaohua didn't even budge his head.

Twenty minutes left.

The safe period can't last that long; there will be at least one more red light appearance...

But what can be done?

Liu Zi forced a smile; he wanted to give a bitter laugh, but he felt no emotion at all.

Only a deep weariness, almost branded into the soul.

This is an inevitable numbness that occurs when a person's nerves experience high-intensity fluctuations.

In the past forty minutes, the traffic lights have turned red three times.

Just like opening a floodgate, when the red light comes on, ghosts from all directions immediately emerge from the fog to hunt for food.

There are only two kinds of food.

First, Bai Shaohua and Liu Zi themselves.

Second, there's the ash from the paper in the red bowl.

The ashes from the paper offerings burned for the dead have an irresistible allure for ghosts.

Knowing this, Liu Zi and Bai Shaohua scattered the ashes around them to create a temporary barrier.

But the two bowls were only so big. Even though the calculations were very meticulous, there were just too many ghosts. After three waves of ghosts, the paper ash was used up.

"It's less a way to break the curse and more the final stage of the curse itself." Liu Zi already understood.

Because this is practically a dead end!

The so-called "ghost-summoning ritual" doesn't focus on the "ritual" at all, but rather on "summoning ghosts".

The red bowl forcibly attracts the ghost tide, but the ashes provided by the red bowl can only last for forty minutes at most.

Without paper ash as a substitute, the ghosts feed on the cursed ones who eat from the red bowls.

When a person dies, the curse ends naturally.

Remembering how all the ghosts around him were staring at him after the last bit of ashes were licked away, Liu Zi felt a chill run down his spine and was filled with dread.

He suspected that when he was starving, he looked at his teammates with the same eyes, as if they were not people, but a pot of fragrant meat.

Fortunately, the red light went out in less than two seconds.

But what happens next?

There won't be any paper ash in the next wave.

Just then, Bai Shaohua suddenly moved.

He threw the red bowl to the ground with a bang, then pulled a black billiard ball from his pocket and turned to look at Liu Zi:

"Less than twenty minutes left."

As the game progressed, Bai Shaohua spoke less and less. He simply said, "Your friend can't possibly come."

His tone remained unchanged, as if he had never harbored any illusions from the beginning.

"Chen Ji threw you a card, what's that? A strange object?"

He was clearly referring to the substitution method, Chen Ji's life-saving trick, but Bai Shaohua was unaware of it.

Liu Zi immediately became alert.

Faced with the ghost tide, they could only use strange objects to withstand it, making any one of them extremely valuable.

"how?"

Bai Shaohua shifted his gaze from ball number eight and gave him a strange look.

"You think I want to steal your strange artifact?"

Liu Zi didn't speak; the answer was obvious.

Being afflicted by the same curse does not automatically make them friends, let alone in such a life-or-death situation, where the desire to survive can distort one's nature.