Chapter 17 How Did They Find Us?

“Doctor!” The sight of Jiang Cheng made Fatty’s eyes light up.

Shen Mengyun, clinging to Fatty’s back, anxiously shouted towards Jiang Cheng, “Run! Mr. Jiang, there’s danger behind us!”

Huai Yi thought to himself, “I nearly got caught by those ghosts several times, and you didn’t get this excited. Besides, Jiang-ge isn’t stupid. Does he need you to remind him there are ghosts chasing us?”

After the two groups met, they ran to a fork in the road ahead.

“This way!” Led by Jiang Cheng, the group immediately took the stairs and ran upstairs.

Based on Jiang Cheng’s observation, the movements of these statue ghosts became noticeably stiffer when climbing stairs.

After creating some distance, Huai Yi, panting, quickly said, “Running like this isn’t a solution. We can’t outrun them while carrying someone.”

“You guys keep running and draw them away,” Jiang Cheng said, taking Shen Mengyun off Fatty’s back. “I’ll take Miss Shen and find a place to settle her down.”

“Okay!”

The group sped up to get out of the statue ghosts’ sight, then separated at a corner.

Wang Qi led Fatty and Huai Yi up the stairs, intentionally making loud footsteps to attract the statue ghosts’ attention.

Jiang Cheng quietly led Shen Mengyun into a small room in the corridor on the right and closed the door.

Inside the room, the two held their breath.

Soon, the chaotic sounds of the statue ghosts echoed closer, their clumsy movements obvious from the sounds.

But the next moment, the expressions on Shen Mengyun’s and Jiang Cheng’s faces changed drastically.

The statue ghosts stopped at the corner, paused for a few seconds, then split into two groups. One group continued to chase Wang Qi and the others, while the other headed straight for the room where they were hiding.

How could this be?!

Jiang Cheng thought these things shouldn’t have the ability to sense where people were, that they were only hunting on instinct.

Shen Mengyun had been clinging to a faint hope, thinking it might be a coincidence, that they were just passing by.

But when the chaotic footsteps stopped outside their door, all hope vanished.

They had been discovered!

*Thump!*

The door rattled violently.

The statue ghosts were ramming the door from outside.

*Thump!*

*Thump!*

Two more hits.

The wooden door frame cracked, and dust filled the air.

The door had an old-fashioned latch, and now, the screws holding it in place were starting to come loose.

It was clear it wouldn’t hold for long.

There were at least five or six statue ghosts outside. If they all rushed in at once, Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have room to maneuver in the cramped space.

“Mr. Jiang,” Shen Mengyun said quickly, grabbing Jiang Cheng’s arm, “When the door breaks open, I’ll rush out and hold them back. You take the chance to escape.”

Seeing that Jiang Cheng didn’t answer, Shen Mengyun’s voice grew more urgent and she gripped his arm tighter. “You have to listen to me this time, Mr. Jiang. I know my body. My leg is injured, and I can’t run. I can’t keep dragging you down!”

Jiang Cheng glanced at her. “I have a plan, we can try it, but it might not be pleasant for Miss Shen.”

“You… you have a plan?” Shen Mengyun looked at Jiang Cheng with suspicion. She didn’t believe there was any way out of this situation.

She suspected Jiang Cheng was just trying to comfort her.

But then, Jiang Cheng leaned close to her ear and whispered a few words. Slowly, Shen Mengyun’s eyes widened…

*Bang!*

With a final crash, the door finally gave way. The hinges broke, and the entire door fell backward, landing on the floor with a cloud of dust.

Before the dust could settle, several statue ghosts of various shapes rushed in, but they stopped when they saw the scene inside.

“Ah…! Aaaah…!”

*Riiiip—*

“No…!”

“Ah! …Glug glug…”

*Thump!*

Accompanied by a heart-wrenching scream, struggling, and kicking, the statue ghosts saw one of their own kind on top of a woman, tearing and biting at her.

The woman struggled and wailed in agony, but to no avail. Her clothes were torn to shreds, and she looked utterly hopeless and helpless.

Her voice grew fainter, accompanied by gurgling sounds from her throat, indicating that she was about to die.

The first two statue ghosts that had rushed in stared blankly, their limited minds filled with question marks. They seemed unable to understand why, even though they had rushed in first and broken down the door, everything had suddenly become irrelevant to them.

But despite their confusion, and their limited mental capacity, the important thing for them was to kill all the living.

A moment later, the statue ghosts left with their stiff, unconcerned gait, to hunt down the remaining people.

Only when the footsteps outside faded away did Jiang Cheng get off of Shen Mengyun.

Shen Mengyun stopped struggling, her face flushed, glancing at Jiang Cheng from the corner of her eye as she gathered her torn clothes.

When she noticed Jiang Cheng staring at her, her face turned even redder.

Jiang Cheng stood up, seemingly reluctant, but when he noticed Shen Mengyun glancing at him, he immediately adopted an embarrassed expression and explained, “Miss Shen, I apologize. I only did it to…”

“I understand,” Shen Mengyun said softly, her head lowered.

“Miss Shen, why don’t… why don’t you get up first? We need to leave. Although we fooled them for now, there’s no guarantee they won’t come back to check,” Jiang Cheng said.

Shen Mengyun was even more embarrassed to hear that. She tried to stand up, but she couldn’t muster any strength. She had exerted herself too much just now, and her body felt like it was falling apart.

Jiang Cheng helpfully assisted her.

“Mr. Jiang, how did they find us?” Shen Mengyun asked curiously.

Jiang Cheng went to the door, looked around, and, seeing that it was safe, helped Shen Mengyun leave and head towards the fork where they had separated from Fatty and the others. “I’ve been wondering about that too. It’s like someone was guiding them.”

Before he finished speaking, Jiang Cheng seemed to suddenly realize something. He stopped and looked at Shen Mengyun. “Miss Shen, I think I have an idea, but I need your cooperation.”

Shen Mengyun’s face flushed red. “A-are you going to… are we going to do what we just did? H-here?”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes lit up, but thinking of the situation, he put on the appearance of a righteous gentleman and said seriously, “You misunderstand, Miss Shen. This time, I need you to go down the stairs alone, along the path we just came from.”

After a pause, Jiang Cheng continued, “Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you.”

Although Shen Mengyun didn’t understand what he meant, she habitually agreed.

Because of her injured leg, Shen Mengyun held onto the railing and walked slowly down the stairs, while Jiang Cheng followed far behind, imitating the statue ghosts’ stiff, unconcerned gait.

With the statue ghosts gone, the area was temporarily safe.

When they had been running, there had been several statues on the landings between each floor, but they were all ordinary statues that didn’t move.

But now Jiang Cheng suspected that one of them had betrayed them.

After Shen Mengyun disappeared from the landing between the second and third floors, Jiang Cheng reached the corner and noticed that a statue beside him had moved.

It was a bust, hidden between two larger statues, easily overlooked.

Looking closer, it had shifty eyes, wore round glasses, and had a parted hairstyle.

The statue raised its arm, pointing towards the direction Shen Mengyun had gone, and looked at Jiang Cheng with a fawning expression, its mouth moving constantly.

Without guessing, it was treating Jiang Cheng as a companion and reporting Shen Mengyun’s location.

But the next moment, the statue’s eyes widened in shock.

It saw Jiang Cheng slowly remove his mask, revealing a face twisted into a malicious grin, his eyes glowing with a frightening light. “So it was you who ratted us out!”

……

When Shen Mengyun heard the noise and rushed back, she saw Jiang Cheng raise his scythe and slam it down on the back of the statue’s head, which was trembling in fear. “Take this!”

With a *thump*, the statue’s head shattered into countless pieces.

Jiang Cheng put away his scythe, still seeming unsatisfied. He kicked the statue a few times, saying that a ghost like it couldn’t have been a good person in life, and probably even led the Japanese invaders during the war.

“Let’s go, Mr. Jiang,” Shen Mengyun urged.

Jiang Cheng looked at the statue on the ground, then at the empty space where it had been, and turned to Shen Mengyun. “Send a message to Huai Yi and the others, tell them to come here. I know how to get rid of those statue ghosts.”

“Mr. Jiang, I lost my phone in the library,” Shen Mengyun said sheepishly.

Jiang Cheng pulled out his phone and quickly sent a message to Fatty and Huai Yi, telling them to run here.

Then he had the incapacitated Shen Mengyun hide in the shadows behind some statues.

He himself stood in the place where the bust had been.

The bust had been placed on a wooden stand. Jiang Cheng tried to squeeze into it. The size was just right, and it covered his lower body, leaving only his upper body exposed.

Judging from the fact that the statue ghosts hadn’t recognized him before, they didn’t have any memory of their own kind, only the ability to distinguish whether someone was one of them.

And the work uniform Jiang Cheng had found came in handy.

In less than a minute, they heard footsteps overhead, getting closer and closer. Soon, Fatty and the others came running, panting for breath.

Shen Mengyun quickly came out and waved to signal them. When the statue ghosts caught up, the others had already hidden behind the statues.

Jiang Cheng imitated the previous statue ghost’s gestures and waved the pursuers away.

Fatty looked at Shen Mengyun, whose clothes had obviously been violently torn, with many areas no longer covered, and one shoulder exposed.

“What happened to you…” Fatty’s eyes widened.

“It was Mr. Jiang, he… he did it to save me…” Shen Mengyun stammered, her ears turning red as if they were about to melt.

“Y-you’re telling me… are you sure he did it to save you?” Fatty raised his voice, feeling like he had wasted the first 30 years of his life.