Chapter 11: The Death of Chu Jiang
Chu Jiang began to experience pain, fear, and a racing heart.
When he realized what was happening, he found himself being held high in Slender Man's hand.
The end of Slender Man's ghostly hand, sharp like a cone, passed effortlessly through Chu Jiang's chest as if cutting through butter.
In his dying moments, Chu Jiang's pupils dilated, blood trickled from his mouth. He desperately raised his right hand, intending to strike Slender Man's hand with his diary cover.
But with a gentle flick, Slender Man sent Chu Jiang flying meters away, leaving a long trail on the ground.
Chu Jiang coughed up blood, his consciousness quickly fading, everything in front of him becoming blurry.
Slender Man, moving at unimaginable speed, flickered in front of Chu Jiang. Its eyes were emotionless voids, filled only with silence and indifference.
The sharp tip at the end of its arm quickly transformed into a palm, as if the ghostly figure wanted to scoop up Chu Jiang and devour him.
But just at that moment, a miracle that only existed in Chu Jiang's imagination happened!
When Chu Jiang fell, the black diary that he had already let go of suddenly flew back on its own.
The bloody handprint on the cover became even more glaring, with fresh blood dripping down, as if something wanted to crawl out of the diary.
The ghostly hand descended, and the black diary hovered in the air, blocking the ghost's path.
Somehow, when Slender Man's hand was about to touch the diary, it eerily stopped.
Next, it seemed like both sides were locked in a standoff.
But Chu Jiang was already reaching his limit, if it weren't for him seeing the black diary showing its power in a daze, his spirits suddenly revitalizing as if he had taken a dose of excitement enhancer, he would have now lost consciousness.
After about two or three seconds of standoff, it seemed like Slender Man gave up, it turned around, took a few steps, and disappeared.
Great, great, Chu Jiang on the brink of death felt genuine joy.
Wait, no, as Chu Jiang struggled on the ground, he saw a black diary fall in front of him and he turned over.
He had been fatally wounded now, if the wound didn't stop bleeding soon, he would die. Could this diary help heal him?
Just as he thought that, Chu Jiang was horrified to see a large amount of fresh blood flowing out from his body and into the black diary.
This situation was like... like the diary was devouring his life force, greedily and hungrily, wanting to consume everything.
At the same time, the diary cover opened by itself, and the first page was actually blank.
But soon, Chu Jiang's warm blood began to write two lines of messy handwriting on it:
[September 17th, cloudy weather]
[Today the school is haunted, everyone is dead, me included]
"Haha, cough... Chu Jiang laughed and coughed, is this the truth of "predicting the future"?
Looking at the completed black diary and closing it by himself, Chu Jiang finally understood why the diary had saved him on its own.
This was not about saving people at all, it was the black diary that didn't allow Slender Man to steal its prey.
Since Chu Jiang had already opened the diary, a curse fell upon him, and his fate had been predetermined by the diary.
Slender Man and the black diary confronted each other briefly, but eventually gave up. This indicated that the black diary might be a ghost even scarier than a shadow.
Chu Jiang's decision was wrong from the beginning, and he had unleashed a nightmare upon himself...
His consciousness shattered, Chu Jiang felt so tired, very tired, he really wanted to just fall asleep...
Looking at the diary in front of him that was already showing double images, Chu Jiang had an unpleasant smile on his face. His right hand weakly rested on the diary, over the Blood Handprint that was continuously oozing fresh blood.
His only wish before dying was to bury this diary that brought disaster once and for all.
Unfortunately, Chu Jiang had no strength left, he had just placed his hand on it and fell into death.
However, at this time, something very interesting happened, unclear if it was a coincidence or something else.
On the cover of the black diary, there was actually something trying to crawl out, that thing was struggling madly, as if it wanted to escape from some kind of confinement.
But unfortunately, Chu Jiang was being swallowed by the black diary. As he died completely, the speed of this swallowing suddenly increased by more than ten times, as if it wanted to swallow the whole body into the diary.
One came up with an idea, one got swallowed up, and the two happened to collide.
Unsure how long it took, Chu Jiang, whose upper body had been swallowed into the diary, was somehow spat out again.
There was another strange thing, the Blood Handprint on the cover of the black diary was gone.
It disappeared completely, the whole diary cover was spotless, not a drop of blood, as if it was originally a simple diary with a plain cover.
......
A little earlier, Li Yan and his group fled from the cobblestone road in a very messy way.
They didn't encounter any ghost obstacles this time, maybe because they didn't walk along the road. Everyone managed to escape.
Of course, it was mainly Chu Jiang who delayed Slender Man's footsteps, otherwise none of them would have survived.
However, there was some unfortunate news. The remaining eight people split up into two groups.
Li Yan, Cheng Jie, Gao Yifei, and Liu Mingming ran out, but the other four people disappeared.
But now was clearly not the time to think about that. Li Yan and the others were frantically running away without any destination.
Li Yan had a pale face and was trembling. He kept repeating Chu Jiang's name. He only saw Chu Jiang running in the opposite direction, but in that situation, Chu Jiang was probably...
Cheng Jie was so frightened that she had bitten her lip, and tears and blood were falling from her face.
The other two people didn't fare well either.
"Bang!" Cheng Jie accidentally kicked something and fell to the ground.
The other three people hesitated for a moment, but then stopped, turned around and helped her up.
Cheng Jie's hands and feet were scratched, but she didn't say it hurt, she just shivered uncontrollably.
"Where should we go?" Liu Mingming looked at the other three with despair.
Gao Yifei was sweating profusely, "Go, go find another team."
"But Chu Jiang is dead!" Li Yan grabbed onto Gao Yifei's clothes tightly, with a fierce expression, "Who will lead us to find the other team, and are they really still alive?"
"You tell me, can that Zhang Haoran survive in front of this terrifying ghost?"
Only those who had truly faced it knew how terrifying Slender Man was. Even if they survived this time, the ghostly figure would become a lifelong nightmare for all of them.
Gao Yifei couldn't say a word, but Cheng Jie choked out, "Don't fight amongst ourselves."
Li Yan gasped heavily, as if only by doing so could he slightly ease the uneasiness in his heart.
After a while, he lowered his head and put his hand down, "I'm sorry."
Gao Yifei shook his head and didn't say anything. Now everyone's spirits were on the edge of collapsing. One familiar classmate after another died in front of them, and no one could calm down.
After a moment of silence, Gao Yifei spoke again, "The hope of finding another group of people is very slim, and even if we find them, we may not be able to escape from this school."
"Forget it, let's go back. Let's go back to the boys' dormitory and wait for death."
Even Gao Yifei lost hope, "At least I still recognize the way here. If we don't encounter any obstacles, we should have no problem going back behind the dormitory."
No one objected, so Gao Yifei took Chu Jiang's place silently and led the three of them back.
