I have a ghost diary

......

After a two-hour drive, Chujiang arrived at Luozhou City.

During that time, he kept recalling the haunting incident that occurred at Luoxi No. 7 Middle School.

Chu Jiang felt that the thin, elongated ghost might not be a ghost that indiscriminately killed people; it's just that he didn't know any patterns at the time and hadn't thought about it in that direction.

Don't forget, besides Chu Jiang and the other three, Zhang Haoran also survived to the end. Although he developed mental problems, it didn't seem to be caused by a ghost attack.

So Chu Jiang wondered if Zhang Haoran had just managed to avoid the Ghost Shadow's killing patterns.

But then I thought about it and realized something was wrong. Avoiding the patterns might ensure you wouldn't be killed for the time being, but it didn't mean you could freely escape Slender Man's ghostly domain.

The term "ghost realm" generally refers to places where ghosts roam. Li Zhi of the Ming Dynasty wrote in his "Eulogy for Those Without Sacrifices": "Those without heirs are called ghosts without sacrifices, and those with heirs are called ghosts with sacrifices. They are all within the ghost realm."

In the newcomer's handbook provided by the research institute, this term was used to refer generally to the special abilities of certain powerful demons, such as Slender Man, who possessed a demonic domain.

The most common form of being trapped in a maze is the lowest level of the ghost realm, which can trap ordinary people in one place and prevent them from getting out.

The common phenomenon of being trapped in a maze is not actually a particularly rare ability.

However, the formation of ghost realms above is different. For example, the Giraffe is a powerful and abnormal ghost realm, and trapping people is just one of its simplest variations.

In the ghost realm, everything can be real or fake; ghostly figures can even alter the physical laws of reality.

For example, the spatial misalignment that Chu Jiang and his group saw back then was that the first-floor bathroom and the eighth-floor rooftop of another building were pieced together.

Even Chu Jiang went to great lengths, relying on the special nature of Ghost Diary, to lead everyone out of the ghost realm.

Zhang Haoran's escape remains a complete mystery.

Not to mention, Zhang Haoran wasn't on the survival list of the Ghost Diary. Sometimes Chu Jiang would feel scared just thinking about it; was the person who emerged really his classmate of several years...?

Putting Zhang Haoran aside for now, if the Slender Man really does have a pattern of killing, Chu Jiang thinks it must be related to that eerie bell sound.

The answer is definitely not that the ghost kills someone as soon as the bell rings; this has already been analyzed.

Chu Jiang guessed that it was possible that everyone who heard the bell would be killed, in any order.

His classmates, like him, heard the bell; the ghost also heard the bell, and at the same time, the ghost kept searching for the bell.

Following this line of reasoning, Slender Man might have some kind of possessiveness towards the bell, which is why he would kill anyone who hears it.

Of course, all of this is speculation, and Chu Jiang has no way of confirming it now. He is simply preparing for the worst, thinking about how to deal with the possibility of being approached by the Slender Man again.

By the way, why would the ghost appear at the school? It can't just randomly choose a location each time it appears, right? Are the people at our own school really that unlucky?

Wait a minute, a school bell that was etched into Chu Jiang's DNA suddenly rang in his mind, "Deng deng deng? ~deng deng deng deng? ~".

This ringtone is used in many schools across the country. It's nothing special or strange, but it is a ringtone in itself.

Assuming the eerie ringing is a supernatural force, or even a ghost, it must have its own inherent patterns.

Will it habitually run to places where bells often ring?

If this conjecture is true, then Chu Jiang should stay away from all places where the bell rings frequently.

To avoid a chain reaction that would result in him being killed by Slender Man again, he wasn't sure he could revive this time.

......

After leaving the station, Chu Jiang called a ride-hailing service on his phone, intending to stay at a budget hotel nearby.

If Li Bu Huo hadn't transferred 50,000 yuan to him beforehand, he would most likely have gone to find a shared bicycle nearby.

A driver accepted the order quickly. As soon as Chu Jiang sat in the passenger seat, he buried his head in his phone, which made the driver, who was eager to chat, wisely shut up.

He's an experienced driver and understands that some passengers don't like chatting.

Chu Jiang was fine; he was just browsing a forum that came with the paranormal website. Newcomers could post and reply to posts, but some advanced sub-forums were inaccessible.

[Great Wind City! Three-person team forming, those of you near death please don't come and harm others, thank you]

[Oh no! I feel like ants are gnawing at my flesh all over my body. I want to die!!]

[Important Reminder: Do not travel to Liantian City recently, as there are suspected sightings of a Class B vengeful ghost.]

I'm a newbie, is there anyone who can mentor me?

"I am Ip Man, and I'm ready to fight ten of them. Anyone want to challenge me?"

I'm willing to sell my labor; I'll take any job that's legal and doesn't require risking my life.

[Shocking! A Class A vengeful ghost has allegedly appeared in Luoxi City, completely wiping out an entire school, leaving nothing behind!]

......

Chu Jiang casually browsed through the posts and found that most of the titles were rather unreliable. For example, the guy who challenged someone to a fight had even had his post locked by the administrator.

The guy below him was smarter; he clearly valued money over life and didn't care about breaking the law.

However, not adding keywords might result in the post being locked, so this guy decisively added them. As long as he could negotiate privately with the sponsor, there was nothing to worry about.

Finally, the story of the haunted Luoxi No. 7 Middle School was quickly spread online.

Chu Jiang clicked into the trending post and saw that many people were discussing it, but none of them had actually been inside the school; it was mostly just speculation and conjecture.

One useful aspect for Chu Jiang is that outsiders seem unaware of the survivors and believe that everyone at the school has perished.

This is a good thing; otherwise, some interested people might have approached the survivors.

......

In general, the main page of this paranormal forum may occasionally show some valuable information; however, most of the time, you can only get junk information or information that has been passed around several times.

Therefore, Chu Jiang did not intend to waste too much time on this. If he could hire someone, he might be able to find someone to help him spend every day searching for valuable information on the forum.

The problem is that he only has this one account, and he has to verify his face at all times to prevent the account owner from transferring it to others, so he'll have to give up on it for now.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Ghost Peeks Out

After browsing around for a while, Chu Jiang discovered that the forum also allowed users to switch city locations, which allowed them to filter posts from cities with the same location.

So he became interested and positioned it as "Luozhou City" from "National".

This significantly reduced the number of posts, and there were still quite a few dead posts, but the top few new posts caught Chu Jiang's attention.

The first post highlighted in red appears to have been posted by the local manager, with the title simply stating "Temporary Task".

Clicking into the post, the content is also very brief:

Anyone who can provide the complete pattern of the three paranormal events—"Ghost Peeking Out," "Ghost Chess Game," and "Ghost Crying"—will receive a reward.

The reward will be doubled for anyone who can solve these three paranormal events.

There is also a line of contact information at the very bottom.

This temporary task post didn't specify what the reward would be, and there were only a few scattered replies.

Moreover, none of the people replying asked about the reward; most of them were complaining about the lack of detailed information, only an event code name. Some even said that they didn't know the danger level, so how could they accept the job?

Chu Jiang then read two other new posts. One person was frantically cursing the ghost in the ghost story, apparently because he encountered it while taking a taxi and almost died in a car accident.

This immediately caught Chu Jiang's attention, and he subconsciously looked up, because he was also taking a ride.

Of course, nothing happened at the moment. Chu Jiang felt that he was being a bit too sensitive. How could he be so unlucky as to encounter a ghost right after seeing the relevant information?

In Chu Jiang's understanding, the so-called "ghost peek" should be considered a type of traffic accident.

The reason for using the word "ghost" is simply to describe how this situation is unpredictable and can easily lead to accidents that result in people being hit and killed.

To put it simply, there is a blind spot when a normal person is driving.

However, in some situations, a person might suddenly dart out from a blind spot, or an electric scooter might rush out.

In a situation where there is no warning or warning, the driver's car can easily crash directly into it, without even having time to apply the brakes.

Since these people usually stick their entire upper body out when they cross the road, the first thing the driver sees is their head sticking out.

Another type of "ghost peek" is when a head sticks out of a car window.

Imagine you're driving a truck, and there's a bus driving normally a short distance ahead.

If the bus is moving slowly, you naturally won't move slowly either; instead, you'll pass it normally.

But at that moment, a passenger stuck his head out of the window, either to spit or to look back.

In such a situation, it's difficult for a driver to react in time, so the truck sped past, and the passenger's head was directly thrown off...

In short, a sudden, unexpected pedestrian appearance can easily lead to car accidents and fatalities, making it one of the scenarios that all drivers least want to see.

Sometimes, even if the driver is unharmed, even if the car can be claimed by insurance, even if the deceased is fully at fault, some of the deceased's family members will still go and cause trouble for the driver.

The "ghost peeking out" incident that is currently happening in Luozhou City involves, of course, a real ghost.

According to the netizen whose ID consists of a bunch of letters and numbers, the taxi he was riding in suddenly had a terrifying and hideous ghost head appear out of the windshield without any warning while it was driving normally.

Even if the driver were just a normal person, or even if this netizen possessed a little bit of supernatural power, he would still be scared half to death.

If a real ghost were to appear and perform a ghost peeking out, the destructive power would be terrifying.

Although the ghost did not directly attack the two people in the car, under those circumstances, even though the taxi driver slammed on the brakes, the car still inevitably hit the ghost's head.

The car was unharmed by the collision, but the entire vehicle seemed to have hit a large obstacle, causing it to flip over completely 360 degrees.

The incident resulted in the vehicle exploding and catching fire, and the driver dying.

This netizen was lucky and only suffered minor injuries, but this experience will be one he will remember for a lifetime.

This incident reveals the pattern of the "ghost peek" murders: they specifically target drivers.

Avoiding this ghost is simple: don't take a car, and preferably not any form of transportation.

This made Chu Jiang, who was in the car, feel a little uncomfortable. But after checking the navigation, he realized the hotel wasn't that close yet, so he decided not to get off the bus early.

Moreover, if the frequency of "ghost peeking out" incidents is too high, it will be difficult to suppress the problem, since there are so many drivers in a city these days.

Furthermore, the netizen who posted this information has likely already sold the pattern to the local supervisor. However, the supervisor is still collecting relevant information, indicating that the deduced pattern may not be complete.

Of course, even if it's a complete case, the paranormal event must be resolved before it can be fully confirmed; no reward will be given directly.

Chu Jiang could understand why the person in charge would issue temporary tasks. These people in charge weren't stupid; the more supernatural power they used, the faster they would die, so they naturally preferred to outsource the work to temporary workers.

In any case, the credit will ultimately go to the person in charge, and all that's needed is to give them a small reward.