Save Me

Translator: CinderTL

The man created by Lin Chen, a figure she relied on psychologically, had actually stepped out of the painting and appeared in the real world.

One could only imagine the impact this had on the woman before them.

"Look," Hua Luo cautiously pointed at the painting, specifically at the easel within it.

The woman's posture was peculiar, giving the impression that she was terrified and reluctant to continue painting, but the man who had appeared was coercing her.

The entire style of the painting had completely changed after the man's appearance, becoming even darker than before. This sensation grew more pronounced the longer they looked at the painting.

Jiang Cheng took the painting and quickly flipped it face down on the table. He had a bad feeling, as if something would go wrong if they stared at it for too long.

Once the painting was out of sight, the people around him suddenly relaxed. Hua Luo and Wan Yuanning even began to catch their breath.

"Now you see that there's something wrong with this painting, don't you?" Li Zumei's voice had changed. She took out a bottle of mineral water and gulped down several large mouthfuls. "I suspect that the remaining Urban Legends weren't created by Lin Chen, but by this man, the one who appeared from the painting!"

Li Zumei had clearly discovered something. She looked very tense, and since entering the room, she had already consumed three full bottles of mineral water, with the empty bottles casually discarded on the floor.

Beads of sweat dotted her forehead, streaming down her cheeks.

Her face was flushed, an unusual redness, as if she were in a sauna, which naturally caught Jiang Cheng's attention.

"Are you okay?" the sensitive Wan Yuanning asked, looking at her.

"I-I'm fine," the woman wiped the sweat from her face with the back of her hand and continued, "Don't think I'm exaggerating. I'm also a creator, and I can responsibly say that Lin Chen's later works were definitely not created by her alone!"

She turned and walked back to the bookshelf, rummaging through a pile of disorganized papers to find a portion, which she then showed to Jiang Cheng. "These are Lin Chen's creations from a while back."

Jiang Cheng himself understood painting. These works were drastically different in style from Lin Chen's previous pieces. Initially, her focus had been on campus life, depicting the innocent love stories within schools, which was a far cry from the supernatural direction she later took.

"And do you know what's the strangest part?" the woman lowered her voice, speaking mysteriously. "After receiving Lin Chen's manuscripts, some very eerie things started happening at our company."

"What kind of things?"

After swallowing hard, the woman whispered, "The night shift security guard heard footsteps in the hallway at night, but when he turned on his flashlight and searched around, he couldn't find anyone."

"Even more bizarre, the footsteps were initially above him, but when the guard went upstairs, the sound suddenly appeared downstairs, as if playing hide and seek with him."

"After searching twice and finding no one, the guard panicked. He was new, young, and straightforward. He probably had read a lot of horror Urban Legends before, and he bluntly asked our boss if something had happened here in the past, earning him a scolding from our boss."

"Later, the situation became too eerie, and even the security guards were clamoring to resign. The whole company knew about it, and the boss had no choice but to keep a few people, along with the security guards and himself—four or five men—waiting in the security room at night."

"Just after midnight, the sound of footsteps really appeared, right above the security room."

"The boss led the men out to investigate, leaving two people downstairs in the security room to block any escape."

"But when they finally rushed upstairs, there was no one there. Just as they were searching around, the footsteps appeared again, right above them."

"So they rushed up again."

Hearing this, Fatty couldn't help but sigh, thinking the boss was still too young. In the quiet of the night, how could a normal person move so quickly without making a sound?

There was clearly something wrong here.

The woman continued, "After repeating this several times, the boss also started to feel uneasy. Before they could even go downstairs, they heard screams from the two people left behind."

"The boss immediately led the men down, but as soon as they reached the entrance, he was stunned. The room on the ninth floor was completely ransacked, with bloody handprints everywhere, looking like a crime scene."

"On the door of the security room, someone had written a few words in blood." The woman seemed to ease her tension by taking another sip of water.

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

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

Upon hearing these words, Jiang Cheng's expression changed abruptly. He had heard these words before—in a ghost call, spoken by a ghost to him.

From the voice, it was a female ghost.

The room being ransacked—could it be understood that this ghost was looking for something? And the only thing that could be found here was Lin Chen's manuscript.

That ghost... it must be Lin Chen!

She was here to find her manuscript.

From the current situation, it seemed that Lin Chen was not in sync with the black-clothed man she had created. She was being coerced by him, which is why she kept calling out for help.

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

In other words, it was the key to their survival in this mission.

Hua Luo, Wan Yuanning, and the others had flashes of realization in their eyes—it seemed they had also grasped this point.

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

"Except... except for the one you took, the rest she mailed over are all here," the woman said. "There are some here, but they're all mixed up," she pointed to the messy pile of papers. "It might take some time to sort through them."

"There's another part 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 rest of the manuscripts. The rest of you stay here and keep searching."

"Alright."

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

"Chu Jiu, you stay here and keep searching," Banana Wolf advised, then looked at Jiang Cheng and nodded. "I'll go with you."

Splitting up at this point was clearly not a wise choice, especially since the ghost who had made the video call had yet to appear. But Jiang Cheng had his reasons.

He felt that the man who had come with them, claiming to be Qiao Yu's brother, was acting suspiciously.

He was being too docile.

Jiang Cheng had not yet found any more flaws in him.

Before leaving, he took advantage of sitting next to Hua Luo to slip his hand under Hua Luo's skirt and wrote the character for "brother" on his thigh.

He clearly felt Hua Luo tremble for a moment, then subtly nod in acknowledgment.

(End of the Chapter)

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