Ex-Girlfriend – Chapter 13

Breaking the Cage

Escape 13

Legal Hunting

“Shen Shuiyan!”

            

Seeing this, Xin Lan rushed forward and yanked at the female ghost clinging to Shen Shuiyan.

The collision sent a sharp pain through Shen Shuiyan’s back, and her head was left slightly dizzy. Even worse was the weight of the female ghost pressing down on her—an eerie, terrifying face, sharp, pointed teeth, and a wave of sickening stench of blood that assaulted her senses.

She held the creature back with her hands, her palms slick with sweat.

            

Xin Lan grabbed the ghost’s clothes and ripped her off Shen Shuiyan by sheer force.

Shen Shuiyan’s clothes tore, but the pressure on her body vanished. Sighing in relief, she quickly sat up.

Xin Lan slammed the female ghost against the wall. Her movements were vicious, her eyes freezing cold and carrying a sharp, fierce look.

            

The ghost let out a piercing shriek, her head lolling at a twisted angle. Xin Lan wasn’t frightened; she simply continued to slam her against the wall.

Smears of dark, grimy blood stained the off-white wall. Only then did Xin Lan let go.

The moment she released her grip, Zhou Liwen, her head now partially caved in, approached again.

            

Xin Lan was a bit impatient.

Since she had already died once, she didn’t mind making her die again.

Grabbing the ghost by her hair with one hand, she swung her out again. A stomach-churning crack of splintering bone echoed in the air.

            

The ghost’s head hung limply, yet her limbs continued to thrash and struggle.

“What do we do now? Go inside, or…?”

Shen Shuiyan knit her brows. They couldn’t find the stairs anywhere; other than going inside, they could only remain at a standstill here.

            

“Go in. I want to see exactly why she keeps forcing us to go inside.”

Xin Lan let out a cold sneer and stepped into the area illuminated by the light.

Shen Shuiyan followed behind her, observing the environment inside.

            

The restroom consisted of individual cubicles—ten in total, all with their doors slightly ajar.

The ghost outside had vanished at some point, leaving the air dead and silent.

Xin Lan tied up her hair, which had been messed up just now, and looked at Shen Shuiyan, who was still observing the surroundings.

            

“Why did you push me out of the way just now?”

“It was just… instinct.”

Hearing the question, Shen Shuiyan was startled for a moment and replied with some confusion.

            

“Do you know that if I hadn’t managed to pull her off in time, you would have died? Do you realize that?”

“But you grabbed her,”

Shen Shuiyan blinked her eyes, curving them into crescent moons.

            

“I can handle it. There’s no need to do that next time.”

As soon as the words left Xin Lan’s mouth, she felt her words weren’t very good. She opened her mouth, but ultimately didn’t supplement anything.

She had clearly wanted to express that her physical fitness was better than Shen Shuiyan’s; even if a ghost pounced down, she could immediately counterattack and kill it, whereas Shen Shuiyan could only wait to die. But saying it like this made her sound too cold, as if she wasn’t showing appreciation.

            

“And what if you couldn’t handle it? I don’t think I did anything wrong. If there’s a next time, I’ll do the exact same thing.”

Shen Shuiyan didn’t understand why Xin Lan would say such a thing. That her good intentions would meet with this kind of reaction made her a little angry.

“Xin Lan, are you omnipotent?”

            

Looking at Shen Shuiyan’s serious eyes, Xin Lan knit her brows.

Obviously, she wasn’t.

“Then are you unable to die?”

            

Xin Lan remained silent.

“Humans get hurt, they feel pain, and they die. See? You aren’t made of steel either. Stop pushing yourself so hard.”

“I’m not pushing myself.”

            

Xin Lan retorted, only to see Shen Shuiyan’s smiling face.

She just smiled like that, quietly looking at her. Xin Lan turned her head away, but the corners of her mouth gently curved upward.

In the past, Xin Lan had been omnipotent, only to wait to be defeated. After all, playing the villain in a harmonious society meant she was destined to meet a tragic end.

            

Sometimes Xin Lan would also give up on herself. If she had to watch herself die anyway, why couldn’t she at least choose how she went?

Xin Lan had tried many ways of dying. Although those memories had faded, she had completed so many missions that her perception of death had become incredibly detached.

She indeed wasn’t omnipotent, but there were moments when she had believed she was.

            

The moment Shen Shuiyan told her not to push herself, she suddenly thought of the past.

In her original world, as an excellent Alpha, she was expected to do everything to the best of her ability. Yet her mother would always look with worry at her as she came out of the recovery pod, telling her not to push herself so hard.

— “Mom, once I lie down in the healing pod, all the wounds will disappear, so don’t worry.”

            

— “But you felt the pain.”

Xin Lan masked the expression in her eyes and pretended to look elsewhere.

Zero Nine remained silent. This was truly a sisterly affection with quite a scent.

            

“Should we push open these stalls and look? There doesn’t seem to be anything here.”

Shen Shuiyan pointed at the red doors, always feeling that the red color on the restroom doors looked a bit strange.

“Let’s open them. Either way, the exit definitely isn’t in a place like this.”

            

If the exit really turned out to be inside a toilet, that feeling would really be hard to describe.

Xin Lan and Shen Shuiyan pulled open the cubicle doors one by one. Fortunately, no stomach-turning sights appeared inside.

The complete lack of anomalies was actually the greatest anomaly of all. There was no way that female ghost insisted on forcing them to come in here without a reason.

            

Suddenly, a flushing sound rang out in the restroom. Xin Lan saw the rolling crimson water inside, looking like the color of blood.

The red on the door panels also seemed to be dripping down, looking like flowing blood.

Shen Shuiyan felt some discomfort in her stomach, and her nose also seemed to smell a thick bloody scent.

            

Suddenly, all the doors slammed shut with a loud ‘bang’.

From under the doors crawled out a large patch of hair-like things, rapidly growing and gathering on the ground.

The originally somewhat dirty white floor was suddenly occupied by the writhing black hair strands.

            

Xin Lan immediately pulled Shen Shuiyan’s hand and ran outside. The moment they stepped out of the restroom, the female ghost with her drooping head appeared again on the outside of the wall.

Shen Shuiyan looked inside; it was filled with writhing black hair.

Xin Lan knew why this female ghost had insisted on making them go inside; it was to put them in a dilemma.

            

Compared to that pile of hair in the restroom which had unknown dangers, Xin Lan preferred to stand outside to deal with this female ghost.

“What’s the point of this game anyway? Isn’t it supposed to let us find the exit? But now it’s forcing us onto a path of death.”

In this situation, even Shen Shuiyan couldn’t help but want to curse.

            

If those who entered had been ordinary students, they would’ve been bitten to death by the female ghost long ago, or killed by the things inside.

Xin Lan remembered the words of Teng Lin, who had gone who-knows-where:

— “This is a punishment. It’s already good enough if we can survive.”

            

Xin Lan cursed in her heart. If she could get out of here, she’d definitely go beat up Zou Yunfei again.

He was clearly the one who had thrown a chair at her first. Seriously, fucking hell¹.

Zero Nine could only fret helplessly inside the system space. This kind of supernatural phenomenon was something they didn’t know how to help with. In her structural analysis blueprint, this spatial dimension was clear at a glance, but it didn’t show where the stairs were at all.

            

“Stand back a bit.”

Xin Lan turned her head and whispered. Shen Shuiyan nodded, her back pressed tightly against the wall.

Xin Lan moved her wrists and became tangled in a fight with the female ghost.

            

The female ghost’s body wasn’t as agile as before. Her head hung powerlessly on her neck at a twisted angle, her mouth still moving. Because her vision was restricted, her left side became a blind spot, and Xin Lan attacked directly there.

“Tell me where the exit is.”

The female ghost merely gurgled something, and it was unknown if she actually understood.

            

Xin Lan stepped on the female ghost on the ground, her hand gripping her hair.

During the struggle, half of the ghost’s face had been smashed flat. Covered in blood, craters, and with her caved-in head dangling uselessly, she looked exceptionally pathetic.

“If you don’t speak, I’ll simply twist your head off, and then crush your limbs bit by bit to make you a ghost that can only crawl on the ground forever!”

            

Xin Lan’s patience had reached its absolute limit.

Hearing this, Shen Shuiyan silently swallowed her saliva, quietly watching the person and ghost not far away.

She now highly believed that Xin Lan had cleaned up Zou Yunfei.

            

That female ghost’s body stiffened for an instant, making a rattling wheeze from her throat.

“It seems you can understand. If you’re willing, nod your head. If you aren’t… what do you think that pile of hair will do to you if I throw you inside the restroom?”

Xin Lan caught a glimpse of black out of the corner of eye and asked with narrowed eyes.

            

The female ghost quickly nodded her tilted head.

Xin Lan let out a cold laugh and released her grip. The female ghost instantly disappeared from in front of her. At the same time, the lights in the corridor began to flicker as they lit up, illuminating the stairs.

The female ghost was lying on the ceiling, pointing out the direction for Xin Lan.

            

It was mentioned earlier that this was the second floor, so the stairs went both up and down.

“Let’s go down first to see if there’s an exit. Maybe the exit will be the main door, you never know.”

Xin Lan made a conventional guess. Although in this strange place, the most normal thing might be the most impossible, they still had to try.

            

“Okay.”

Shen Shuiyan nodded; she had no objections.

Xin Lan again gripped Shen Shuiyan’s hand tightly.

            

“I’ll take you out.”

If she hadn’t cared very much before, Xin Lan had now firmed up her resolve.

She would take Shen Shuiyan out, whether it was this strange punishment game or that clue game outside.

            

“I believe you. To avoid the previous situation from happening, hold me like this.”

Shen Shuiyan pulled down the sleeve of her long-sleeved sweater, letting Xin Lan hold her hand through the layer of wool.

It also couldn’t be guaranteed that in this game, the same trick wouldn’t appear twice.

            

If she was swapped with someone else, Xin Lan could very quickly detect that the feel in her hand was wrong.

“Then what if I’m the one who gets replaced?”

Xin Lan held her hand, pulling Shen Shuiyan along as they walked down.

            

“I remember the warmth of your palm.”

The hands of the living and the dead were different. Shen Shuiyan thought it might be because of Xin Lan’s excellent physical condition, as whenever she held her hand, her palm was always warm, making her feel exceptionally secure.

The two of them reached the first floor, and Xin Lan saw the main door. She didn’t step forward rashly, but stared at a spot not far away.

            

Shen Shuiyan looked along her gaze, and her eyes also widened.

A youth with a shattered skull and a twisted body, brain matter oozing out, grinned at them.

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The author has something to say:

            

Top Student: “Do you think you’re omnipotent? Can you give yourself head?!”

Xin Lan: “???”

Zero Nine: “What a savage!”

            

↑ The above is not (or is it?) the real Top Student.

This world simply has some supernatural elements mixed in; they won’t be in every instance. Each instance will be tagged when the time comes. I might also write supernatural, suspense, death game, survival, or escape room instances in the future.

If you’re easily scared, don’t be afraid and don’t leave (clinging to your legs to stop you from going)! Just read during the daytime when your Yang energy² is high. Besides, the next few instances aren’t scary at all; I won’t write them too close together. Don’t abandon me!

            

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