Chapter 9: A Difficult Decision
This question from Chu Jiang was also a concern for Li Yan, Cheng Jie, and Gao Yifei.
In their impression, Zhang Haoran was a typical excellent student, good grades, good character, besides being a bit stubborn, everything else was fine.
But they never heard anything about Zhang Haoran knowing martial arts or anything like that, his performance in PE class could at most be considered average or below.
But this "gentleman" somehow gained everyone's trust in a short time, even Teacher Yu said, let Chu Jiang and Zhang Haoran lead everyone to survive.
After Chu Jiang asked, no one else uttered a word, they all looked at each other.
So he looked at Liu Mingming, who didn't go with Zhang Haoran and had been following Chu Jiang closely.
Liu Mingming was a bit nervous, "Actually, we're not really sure."
"When the incident happened before, Teacher Yu led us to evacuate the classroom and the school building. Later, the vice class leader went into the office and brought out a fruit knife."
"Originally, we were the first group to evacuate, but unfortunately bumped into the security guard."
"When we saw him in the classroom, he was still half-human, half-ghost. But when we got downstairs, we discovered that he had turned into a black ghost with a hole in his head."
"Then came a tragic and bloody event, several people died."
"It was at that time that the people in the class got scared and scattered, only about half of them stayed with the teacher."
"The five of us were separated back then, so we didn't know what Teacher Yu and the vice class leader went through."
"They were able to reunite with us later because when they were running towards the library, they were shouting for the students from Class 12-2 to gather."
"We were scared to death at that time, so when we heard someone from our group shouting, we ran out from our hiding spot to join them. Oh, by the way, Zhang Haoran was the one holding the knife at that time."
"Just as we ran into the library, we encountered a new ghost, which was attached to the librarian's body." Liu Mingming's face looked sad as he said this.
"It appeared so suddenly and killed several of our classmates in one breath. The vice class leader also died while trying to protect us during the retreat."
"Then I saw Zhang Haoran, holding a fruit knife, screaming and stabbing the body of the librarian."
"But we could tell that his attacks didn't seem to have much effect. We could only take advantage of the time he held the ghost back to escape the library under the guidance of the teacher."
"You all know what happened later, Teacher Yu also died." Liu Mingming lowered his head sadly as he said this.
Everyone fell silent after hearing this. Although Zhang Haoran might have some small secrets, at this moment, he couldn't become the savior and save everyone; otherwise, Teacher Yu and the vice class leader wouldn't have died.
Chu Jiang took a deep breath and said, "Let's not study this for now, it's time to make a choice."
"Should we stay here and wait until dawn, or should we go find the other team?"
"If we choose to stay here, let's not go into the dormitory, nobody knows if there are ghosts inside. It seems like people who die at school turn into ghosts, as long as their bodies are still mostly intact."
"But staying here is a cautious choice, it all depends on luck. If we're lucky, we'll survive until dawn; if we're unlucky and get found by the ghosts, we'll all be wiped out."
"If we choose to find the other team, we can gather the living forces from both sides. Teacher Yu must have a reason for mentioning Zhang Haoran."
"But we can't contact them on our phones right now, we have no idea where they went."
"And if we actively go find them, the chances of encountering ghosts will increase. Besides, we don't know if the ghost tree is with the other team."
After listening to Chu Jiang's analysis, everyone hesitated. To be honest, it was a difficult decision, and if chosen wrongly, everyone would die.
"I'll follow your lead," Li Yan spoke up first, looking up to Chu Jiang as their leader.
Gao Yifei hesitated for a moment, then said, "I think it would be better to find another team. I really don't have the confidence to stay here until dawn."
"There are two problems here. One is that it's not even four o'clock in the afternoon, so there's a long time until tomorrow."
"The other problem is that we can't guarantee it will be safe after dawn. Who knows, we might still be trapped here. You know, it's not like ghost stories where ghosts only come out at night."
After Gao Yifei finished speaking, two people immediately said they wanted to stay.
Their idea was very simple. At the moment, everyone seemed quite lucky. At least they hadn't encountered any danger ever since they managed to escape from the haunting of the Ghost Tree. If they were to leave this place, it would be uncertain what would happen next.
Chu Jiang didn't immediately reveal his choice. He looked at the others and asked, "What about you?"
Cheng Jie leaned a bit closer to Chu Jiang and whispered, "I'll go with whatever you decide."
The rest of the group expressed their opinions one by one, but they weren't very unanimous. Half of them were more cautious, while the other half were more adventurous.
During this process, Chu Jiang noticed that one or two classmates kept staring at his diary.
This was very normal, more than just Liu Mingming saw Chu Jiang breaking the ghost tree's branches.
In this life-and-death situation, where human nature was tested, naturally some people were attracted to the mysterious diary in Chu Jiang's hand.
But at least for now, everyone had been honest, as those one or two who were attracted to it were also afraid of being beaten to death by Chu Jiang's diary.
"Chu, Chu Jiang, is there more and more blood flowing from your diary? Will it attract ghosts?" Liu Mingming swallowed, pointing to Chu Jiang's right hand placed against the wall.
The blood flowing from the blood handprint on the cover was increasing, already staining a large area of the wall red, and it had already gathered into a bloody puddle on the ground.
After speaking, Liu Mingming was afraid that Chu Jiang would misunderstand, so he quickly said, "I don't mean anything else, just a reminder."
Chu Jiang nodded, "I know, as for this diary... there's no way, I can't throw it away for now."
"In that case, we still need to leave this place."
"I don't believe that joining another team is the absolute right choice, but the risk of staying here is too great, so we have to choose the lesser of two evils."
Besides the diary bleeding continuously, a lot of fresh blood piled up, which might attract sensitive ghosts.
There was one more thing, Chu Jiang was really worried that Slender Man was looking for this diary at the school. Otherwise, how could such a normal middle school attract such scary ghosts, maybe even more than one ghost.
If the ghost's target was the diary, their behavior of staying in one place without moving was very dangerous.
Since Chu Jiang had already made a decision, in this case, the side that chose to stay had nothing to say and could only leave together. If they stayed, they would only die faster without Chu Jiang.
