Lin Chen's creation, a figure meant to embody the man she psychologically depended on, had actually stepped out of the painting and into the real world.

The impact of this on the woman before him was unimaginable.

"Look," Hua Luo said cautiously, pointing at the painting, specifically at the easel in the painting.

The woman's posture was strange, giving the impression that she was terrified and didn't want to continue painting, but the man who appeared was coercing her.

The style of the entire painting had completely changed after the man appeared, becoming even darker than before, and this feeling became more and more obvious the longer everyone looked at the painting.

Jiang Cheng took the painting and quickly turned it face down on the table. He had a bad feeling, as if something bad would happen if he looked at it for too long.

As soon as the painting was out of sight, the people around him suddenly breathed a sigh of relief. Hua Luo and Wan Yuanning even started panting.

"Now you know there's something wrong with this painting, right?" Li Zumei's voice had changed. She took out another bottle of mineral water and gulped down several mouthfuls. "I suspect that the remaining bizarre tales weren't written by Lin Chen, but by this man, the man who came out of the painting!"

Li Zumei had obviously discovered something. She looked very nervous, and since entering the house, she had drunk three whole bottles of mineral water, casually throwing the empty bottles on the floor.

Large beads of sweat covered the woman's forehead, trickling down her cheeks.

Her face was flushed, an abnormal kind of red, as if she were in a sauna, which caught Jiang Cheng's attention.

"Are you alright?" Wan Yuanning asked sensitively.

"I...I'm fine." The woman wiped away the sweat and continued, "Don't think I'm being alarmist. I'm also in the creative industry, and I can say with certainty that Lin Chen's later works were definitely not created by her alone!"

She turned and walked back to the bookshelf, found a stack of papers from a messy pile, and gave them to Jiang Cheng. "These are Lin Chen's creations from a while ago."

Jiang Cheng also understood art. These paintings were very different in style from Lin Chen's previous works, and her initial focus was on campus life, depicting innocent love stories in school, which was very different from her later supernatural direction.

"And do you know what's the weirdest thing?" The woman lowered her voice and said mysteriously, "After receiving Lin Chen's manuscripts, some very strange things happened in our company."

"What things?"

Swallowing, the woman said softly, "The night watchman heard footsteps in the corridor at night, but when he shone his flashlight around, he couldn't see anyone."

"What's even weirder is that the footsteps were initially above his head, but when the watchman went upstairs, the footsteps suddenly appeared downstairs, as if playing hide-and-seek with him."

"He searched twice and couldn't find anyone, so the watchman panicked. He was new and young, and spoke his mind. He probably had read a lot of horror stories before, so he came up and asked our boss if anything had happened here before, and our boss scolded him."

"Later, things got too strange, and the watchman insisted on quitting. The whole company knew about it, and the boss had no choice but to keep a few people, plus the watchman and him, four or five grown men waited in the security room all night."

"As a result, just after midnight, the footsteps really appeared, right above the security room."

"The boss took people out to search, and to prevent the person from running away, he left two people in the security room downstairs to block the exits."

"But when they finally rushed upstairs, there was no one there. While they were searching everywhere, the footsteps appeared above their heads again."

"So they rushed up again."

Hearing this, Fatty, who was listening intently, couldn't help but sigh that the boss was too young. It was so quiet at night, how could a normal person move so fast without making any noise?

There was obviously something wrong here.

The woman continued, "After repeating this several times, the boss got scared, and before they could go downstairs, they heard screams from downstairs, from the two people who were left behind."

"The boss immediately took people down, but as soon as he reached the door, he was stunned. The 9th-floor office was a mess, with bloodstains everywhere, looking like a murder scene."

"Someone even wrote a few words on the security room door in blood." The woman seemed to want to relieve her tension and took another gulp of water.

"What words?" Hua Luo couldn't help but urge.

The woman lowered her voice and looked at the people in front of her, saying, "Save me."

Hearing these words, Jiang Cheng's eyes suddenly changed. He had also heard these words before, from the ghost on the ghost call.

Judging by the voice, it was a female ghost.

The room was a mess, which could be interpreted as this ghost looking for something, and the only thing that could be found here was Lin Chen's manuscript.

That ghost... was probably Lin Chen!

She was here to find her manuscript.

From the current situation, Lin Chen didn't seem to get along with the black-clothed man she created. She was being coerced by the black-clothed man, which was why she repeatedly asked for help.

If we follow this line of thinking, then the manuscript Lin Chen wanted to find was something that could deal with the black-clothed man.

Which was the key to their survival in this mission.

Hua Luo and Wan Yuanning's eyes flickered with understanding, it seemed they also realized this.

"Are all of Lin Chen's manuscripts here?" Jiang Cheng asked immediately.

"Except... except for the one you took away, the rest of what she sent over is here." The woman said, "There's some here, but it's all messed up." She pointed to the messy pile of paper and said, "It will probably take some time to find."

"There's also some upstairs, locked in the storage room."

After a moment of silence, Jiang Cheng turned and said, "Fatty, you and I will go upstairs to find the remaining manuscripts. The rest of you stay here and continue searching."

"Okay."

"I'll go with you too," Chu Jiu said.

"Chu Jiu, you stay here and search," Jiao Tailang persuaded, then looked at Jiang Cheng, nodded, "I'll go with you."

Separating at this time was obviously not a wise choice, especially since the ghost who made the video call had not yet appeared, but Jiang Cheng had his reasons.

He felt that this man who came with them, claiming to be Qiao Yu's brother, was a bit strange.

He was being too docile.

But Jiang Cheng hadn't found any more flaws in him yet.

Before leaving, he took the opportunity while sitting next to Hua Luo to put his hand under Hua Luo's skirt and wrote the character "older brother" on her thigh.

He clearly felt Hua Luo flinch, and then nodded almost imperceptibly.