Mission Complete

After narrowly escaping death, Chen Ge was still shaken. His chest heaved, his lips had turned purple, and he was still gripping the kitchen knife tightly.

It took a minute or two for him to calm down. The dizziness in his head gradually subsided.

He wiped the sweat from his face and staggered to his feet in the bathtub.

In the candlelight, the room seemed unchanged.

"I must have hit something when I swung the knife. I even heard a sharp crack." Chen Ge followed the angle of his swing and saw a mark on the edge of the bathtub.

"Did I hit the tub? That can't be right. I clearly felt someone holding my head down. That slash should have hit him." Desperate to know the truth, Chen Ge climbed out of the tub and picked up the phone, which was still recording.

He stopped the recording and played the video from the beginning.

"I got into the bathtub at 3:30, and nothing unusual happened until 3:43." Leaning against the wall, Chen Ge stared at the screen. At 3:44, he lay down in the tub.

"Watching it like this, it does look a little strange." It hadn't seemed so frightening when he was the one doing it, but watching the video as an outsider sent chills down his spine.

Chen Ge checked the timing. For the first twenty seconds after he lay down in the tub, everything in the bathroom seemed normal. Occasionally, he could hear water dripping.

Ten seconds later, Chen Ge frowned. He noticed that what was in the video didn't match what he had experienced in the bathtub!

Going by his own count, footsteps should have sounded in the hallway at that point, but the recording was still completely quiet. Not a single strange sound could be heard.

Five or six more seconds passed, but the banging on the door that Chen Ge remembered also failed to appear in the recording. The screen showed only the dark, murky water and the flickering candlelight.

Could the footsteps in the hallway and the banging on the door have been hallucinations?

A full fifty seconds passed. Chen Ge, who had been calm in the video, now had veins bulging across his arms, and his face had turned an unnatural shade of purple.

The Chen Ge in the bathtub was close to his limit.

Then something happened that made his scalp crawl.

A palm-sized shard of mirror beside the bathtub slowly darkened. A shadow crawled out of it and crouched beside the tub. The scene was utterly bizarre.

Judging by its silhouette, the figure looked a lot like He Feng.

The most crucial moment came next.

In the video, Chen Ge's body and will had reached their limits. He simply couldn't hold on any longer. Bracing his hands against the bottom of the tub, he prepared to give up.

But just as he was about to give up, the shadow beside the bathtub suddenly reached out with both hands, pinning his head down and covering his mouth!

Unable to breathe, Chen Ge struggled frantically and swung the kitchen knife wildly. The shadow swayed and drifted. The knife seemed to affect it, but only slightly.

At this critical moment, the Ragdolls around the bathtub seemed to be moved by a gust of wind. The smallest Mannequin pressed its body against the palm-sized shard of mirror.

With the mirror covered, the shadow grew much less distinct. Then, by chance, Chen Ge struck its head with the knife. The monster immediately vanished.

The blade kept going and finally hit the edge of the bathtub, leaving a shallow mark. The moment the force holding Chen Ge down disappeared, he got to his feet.

The recording ended there. Now that he understood what had happened, Chen Ge felt an even stronger urge to get rid of the Mirror Monster.

"I can't let it live!"

Chen Ge carefully saved the video, then picked up the Ragdoll that had been lying over the mirror. Its back had been cut by the edge of the glass, and its body was soaked.

"They're all beings from another world, but their natures are very different. Some are fundamentally kind, while others are full of malice." Chen Ge dried himself off, got dressed, and stuffed all the Ragdolls into his pockets. Only then did he feel at ease.

"Smashing the mirror doesn't help. It can still appear in the shards. How am I supposed to deal with this monster?" It appeared and disappeared without a trace. He couldn't see it, and he couldn't find it. In a fight against something like that, he was at an inherent disadvantage.

Chen Ge picked up the palm-sized shard of mirror from the floor. He hadn't meant to do anything, but he happened to see droplets of water roll across its surface, leaving a faint Arabic numeral: "3."

"Did the Mirror Monster leave this? Is it trying to threaten me? Does three stand for He Shan, He Feng, and me, or does it plan to kill me within three days?" Chen Ge didn't understand what the number meant, but he was sure it couldn't mean anything good. "You really think I'm afraid of you? One day, I'll drag you out of that mirror and roast you alive under the midday sun!"

Chen Ge hurled the most vicious curse he could think of. He had been a hair's breadth from death just now. It had been terrifying.

After taking several deep breaths of fresh air, Chen Ge leaned against the sink and rested for a while. Then he picked up the Black Phone. He hadn't expected much, but when he swiped the screen and saw the notification, his eyes lit up. "I completed the mission?!"

"Lucky Ghost Favored, you held your breath underwater for sixty-two seconds. Congratulations on completing the daily Nightmare-level mission! Mission reward: Yin Pupil."

"Yin Pupil: Seeing it brings ill fortune; passing through it reaches the netherworld. With a living body, see the Yin God. (Vision greatly enhanced; other functions unknown.)"

"After completing two daily Nightmare-level missions, a trial mission for a randomly selected horror scenario will unlock upon completion of the third Nightmare-level mission."

"Complete three consecutive missions with a completion rate of at least 95% to unlock a new feature: Vengeful Spirit Affinity!"

After reading through the messages, Chen Ge was left with complicated feelings. The daily Nightmare-level mission required him to hold his breath for sixty seconds. Because of his nerves and other emotions, he had been ready to give up after only fifty-some seconds. He shouldn't have been able to complete the mission this time. But the monster in the mirror had tried to kill him, forcing him to hold on for a few more seconds, and he had only just managed to finish the mission.

A loss in one place could be a gain in another. Although he'd been on the brink of death, the outcome was good overall.

Chen Ge scrolled through the Black Phone. This Nightmare-level mission seemed extremely important to him.

If he failed, he wouldn't just miss out on the reward; the new scenario would also take longer to unlock. Most importantly, he wouldn't be able to unlock the new feature on his phone.

Curious, he found the newly added Vengeful Spirit Affinity section and tapped it.

The phone's interface changed. Five completely unfamiliar names appeared on the screen.