Xiao Bu

Xiao Bu is the child who pushed open Li Wan City's blood door and became trapped inside the disaster that followed. Chen Ge first learns her history through a game built from the city's murders, then finds her dismembered body in an orphanage refuge. Reclaiming her identity and strength, she becomes one of his most formidable allies under the hospital-given name Scarlet.

Biography

A life reconstructed through the game

Fan Chong introduces Chen Ge to a horror game whose player character is a girl named Xiao Bu. Its branching routes repeatedly lead that avatar through Li Wan City's apartments, school, hospital, and other murder scenes, with each route revealing another victim who bears her name. The repetition gradually shows that the game is not a literal account of one child's movements, but a reconstruction that maps the city's violence onto Xiao Bu's search for her mother. (Chapters 501–525)

Chen follows the game's clues through increasingly personal choices, eventually refusing the easy ending and choosing to remain until Xiao Bu's mother is found. The recovered history connects her mother to a rag doll, Jiang Long's crimes, and Jiang Xiaohu's fragmentary warning. For Chen, the game changes from entertainment into a promise: the child behind it deserves justice, and the door that consumed Li Wan City must be confronted rather than merely escaped. (Chapters 525–532)

Door-pusher of Li Wan City

Chen finally meets Xiao Bu inside an orphanage refuge prepared by his parents. She looks about eight years old, but her pale body has been mutilated: both arms and legs are missing, and a cavity gapes near her heart. Even in that state, she detects the shadow impostor beside Fan Chong and drags Fan away from it. Blood-written messages explain that Chen's parents had hoped she might replace his missing shadow, a role she had never freely accepted. (Chapters 667–668)

Instead of claiming her as protection, Chen tells Xiao Bu that she does not owe him her freedom. He promises to destroy the shadow that harmed her and, once the danger is over, let her see the world beyond the door. Xiao Bu responds by identifying curses, opening a path through them, and warning him about the shadowless intruder. Their alliance begins with a choice offered to a child whom other people had repeatedly treated as a tool. (Chapters 667–669)

As the struggle for Li Wan City intensifies, Xiao Bu recovers most of her scattered body and reveals power comparable to the strongest figures behind the door. The uncontrolled blood door continually strengthens her, and she can impede enemies and influence the city's red environment. Her restoration remains incomplete, however: missing pieces prevent her from fully controlling or closing the door, leaving her both the city's nominal door-pusher and one of its longest-held prisoners. (Chapters 676–679)

Guarding Chen Ge against the Ghost Fetus

During the confrontation surrounding the Ghost Fetus, Xiao Bu joins the red high heels in guarding Chen while Zhang Ya faces the most dangerous opponent. She repeatedly blocks attempts to reach him and helps preserve the narrow space in which his other employees can act. This is no longer the passive endurance represented in the game: Xiao Bu knowingly places her recovered spectral body between an ally and a creature built from curses and stolen lives. (Chapters 1103–1107)

The battle also exposes the limits of her development. The red high heels becomes more frightening after absorbing enormous quantities of the Ghost Fetus's curse, eventually surpassing Xiao Bu in that particular confrontation. Xiao Bu nevertheless remains an indispensable defender through the aftermath, demonstrating that her value lies not only in raw rank but in judgment, loyalty, and the willingness to hold position when Chen is most vulnerable. (Chapters 1107–1110)

Scarlet in the false Xin Hai

Inside the hospital's false Xin Hai, Xiao Bu lives under the name Scarlet in an abandoned version of Li Wan Street. Her memories and identity have been obscured, yet she still communicates through blood writing and recognizes the significance of Chen's shadow. She remembers that Patient Number 2 once helped her recover memories of her mother, and she offers Chen one favor while searching his false shadow for signs of Zhang Ya. (Chapters 1188–1191)

Chen answers the old demand that she become someone else's shadow with the same principle he offered in Li Wan City: Xiao Bu exists for her own reason. His blood enters the cavity at her heart, restoring her connection to her name and domain. Blood-red buildings of Li Wan City rise around her, and she joins the march on the hospital rather than remaining within the identity its fabricated world assigned her. (Chapters 1194–1195)

When the hospital director attacks at Demon God scale, Xiao Bu stands with three other Top Red Specters. She projects an entire blood-red Li Wan City for several seconds, intercepting a strike that would otherwise overwhelm the group and buying the other allies time to counterattack. The projection is quickly broken by the stronger enemy, but the act completes her reversal: the city that once imprisoned and dismembered her becomes a domain she deliberately uses to protect others. (Chapter 1197)

Appearance and personality

At the orphanage, Xiao Bu resembles a pale girl of about eight in a flowing red dress. Her arms and legs have been removed, and a dark gap near her heart marks the most serious missing piece. She communicates with blood on walls rather than ordinary speech and often appears expressionless or guarded. After recovering most of her body, she retains the red-clad childlike form associated with her power. (Chapters 667–679)

Xiao Bu is observant, cautious, and fiercely sensitive to coercion. She identifies impostors and curses before stronger adults understand the danger, but she does not grant trust quickly. Chen's refusal to make her a substitute shadow earns a loyalty grounded in autonomy rather than ownership. As Scarlet she remains quiet and severe, yet her decision to reclaim Li Wan City and face the hospital director shows courage, gratitude, and a protective instinct stronger than her fear. (Chapters 667–669, 1188–1197)

Skills and supernatural abilities

Spectral strength and regeneration

Even while dismembered, Xiao Bu can overpower a shadow impostor and move Fan Chong to safety. Recovering most of her missing body restores speed, resilience, and force on a Greater Red scale. By the final battle she is explicitly among the Top Red Specters able to resist a Demon God's assault, though the director can still tear through her strongest projection within seconds. (Chapters 667–679, 1197)

Li Wan City domain

Xiao Bu's bond with the uncontrolled blood door continuously feeds her power. She can influence the blood-red city behind it and later materialize a vast Li Wan City projection as a defensive domain. Missing body pieces initially stop her from fully controlling or closing the door, and even her completed projection cannot match the sustained power of a Demon God. (Chapters 676–679, 1194–1197)

Blood writing and curse perception

Xiao Bu communicates by forming words from blood and can extend blood vessels through walls, streets, and shadows. She recognizes curses, warns others about their contaminating effects, clears a route through concentrated malice, and searches Chen's shadow for another presence. These techniques favor warning, detection, and battlefield control as much as direct violence. (Chapters 667–669, 1188–1195)

Power progression

Relationships

• Chen Ge: Refuses to turn Xiao Bu into a replacement shadow, promises to confront the being that mutilated her, and later helps restore her identity as Scarlet. She repays that respect by guarding him and joining the assault on the hospital. (Chapters 667–669, 1103–1110, 1190–1197)
• Fan Chong: Plays the game that preserves Xiao Bu's story and is present when Chen finds her. Xiao Bu saves him from the shadow impostor at the orphanage. (Chapters 501–525, 667)
• Her mother: The emotional center of the game's reconstruction. Clues suggest her consciousness or remains were bound to a rag doll, making Xiao Bu's search inseparable from the crimes that destroyed her family. (Chapters 525–532)
• Men Nan: Another child door-pusher trapped by adult designs. He participates in the Li Wan conflict while Xiao Bu's incomplete control of her own door shapes the battlefield. (Chapters 668–679)
• Red Raincoat Woman: A fellow red-clad presence whose search for family intersects with the struggle over Li Wan City and its door. (Chapters 642–679)
• Ghost Fetus: The evolved form of Chen's escaped shadow and the enemy whose curses threaten Xiao Bu and Chen. She helps guard Chen during the decisive confrontation. (Chapters 667–679, 1103–1110)

Items

• Xiao Bu's horror game: A branching digital reconstruction of Li Wan City's murders, Xiao Bu's search for her mother, and possible choices around the blood door. Fan Chong and Chen use it to recover her history; its player avatar is not Xiao Bu's literal body. (Chapters 501–532)
• Li Wan City blood door: The door Xiao Bu pushed and the source of her continuing power. Its uncontrolled state also binds her to the city, while her missing pieces initially keep her from completely governing it. (Chapters 525, 588, 662, 676–679)