Tunnel Woman

Tunnel Woman is the Red Specter who haunts White Dragon Cave Tunnel, waving to passing drivers in an endless reenactment of the moment no one stopped to save her and her son.

Biography

The waving woman

During Chen Ge's nightmare mission, the Tunnel Woman follows him through the dark in a red dress, her body repeating the catastrophic injuries from a traffic accident. She asks for help because passersby ignored her before death. Chen answers each remembered wound with a concrete offer—stopping the blood, supporting her body, and carrying her out—until her resentment begins to recede. She ultimately returns to the tunnel rather than leave her son, but the encounter establishes that compassion can reach her and later explains why she protects Chen instead of treating him like another driver to punish. (Chapters 396–400)

Alliance against the Shadow

When Chen returns, he learns that the Tunnel Woman had gone back to accompany her trapped child during the fire that killed them. Her son has since become a spider-shaped Red Specter bearing a distorted door, while she remains the one presence capable of tempering his hatred. She stops his lethal thread from closing around Chen's neck and allows an exchange of information about the Shadow. During Li Wan City she later helps Chen climb the ghost apartment, buys time against the Shadow, and retreats into Yan Danian's comic when the curse erupts. (Chapters 611–613, 670–671, and 676)

Appearance and personality

She first appears in a normal red dress with tangled hair, one white sandal, cut legs, shattered limbs, and a head caved in by the crash. In a calmer manifestation her skull and face are restored. Grief and resentment make her dangerous, but she is less indiscriminately cruel than her son and remains responsive to kindness, maternal loyalty, and remembered debts. (Chapters 396–400, 611–613)

Skills and supernatural abilities

As a Red Specter, the Tunnel Woman can haunt moving vehicles, follow targets through White Dragon Cave Tunnel, and fight the powerful spirits inside the Li Wan ghost apartment. She can shield Chen from her son's thread and support him beyond floors that lesser allies cannot cross. Her strength is substantial but not presented as equal to her son's tunnel-bound dream domain or the door embedded in his body. (Chapters 396–400, 611–613, 670–671)

Relationships

• Son: She died after returning to remain with him and continues restraining the worst effects of his resentment. (Chapters 611–613)
• Chen Ge: His willingness to answer her plea earns her intervention and later battlefield support. (Chapters 396–400, 611–613, 670–676)
• Zhang Ya: The Tunnel Woman is intimidated by the stronger Red Specter's presence and takes shelter in Yan Danian's comic during the final Li Wan conflict. (Chapters 671, 676)

Items

Her red dress and single white sandal are part of her recurring death-image, not separately established supernatural artifacts. (Chapters 396–400)