Zhao Mingyue had watched Lu Liangting enter with her own eyes. Hearing Bai Yu’s words, she snapped back to attention, though her expression was full of confusion.
“Will there be danger?”
“Danger, certainly. Whether this person can make it out… I can’t be sure either. In any case, whether he succeeds or fails, the quest is nearly over. Start figuring out how to handle the aftermath.”
Bai Yu narrowed her eyes. Just a door’s width away, the female ghost was standing right behind it.
Lu Liangting was unlucky, having been chosen by the female ghost and dragged into her memories. Now, there were only two outcomes: either Lu Liangting successfully resolved the female ghost’s resentment within the memory, or he died in this very room.
“Then what should we do now?”
“We go inside. We definitely can’t stay out there. Inside the room will actually be safer.” Bai Yu touched a finger to the rusty keyhole. After Lu Liangting had entered, the key had inexplicably snapped.
A thread of blood hooked the broken key piece and twisted it gently. Click. The door popped open.
The instant it opened, Bai Yu threw a straight punch, blasting the female ghost behind the door away.
The female ghost slammed into the sofa inside the room. Black smoke and countless tiny threads of blood spread outward, and the female ghost vanished into the room.
She had to admit, this female ghost did possess some power. In a one-on-one fight, killing it would likely come at a cost.
Bai Yu walked into the room, Zhao Mingyue right behind her.
Lu Liangting was sprawled by the entrance. Bai Yu ignored him completely. Zhao Mingyue went over to check his breathing. Confirming he was still alive, she breathed a small sigh of relief.
“This place… it feels different from what I imagined.” Zhao Mingyue stood up, surveying the room’s layout.
The room was immaculately clean. If not for the red filter affecting her vision, she might have believed someone still lived here. Everything was spotless—furniture neatly arranged, the hardwood floors covered with some kind of rug. The curtains were drawn tightly shut.
On the coffee table before the television sat two plates of pastries, along with melon seeds and peanuts. Even the paintings hanging on the walls were wiped perfectly clean.
The furniture style was old-fashioned, stuck twenty or thirty years in the past.
Normally, a home so perfectly maintained, its objects so meticulously placed, would feel somewhat warm and inviting. But here, Zhao Mingyue felt none of that. Instead, a chill ran down her spine.
Even if she hadn’t known the room’s history beforehand, she would have been frightened. Not to mention anything else, just the paper-burning basin sitting in the center of the living room was eerie enough.
Yes, a paper-burning basin. No different from the ones set up in mourning halls.
The room already lacked any sense of life; adding this funerary object in the middle made it look less and less like a place for the living.
There wasn’t a single trace of daily life to be seen.
The air was also problematic. A faint musty smell mixed with a scorched odor, blended with some unidentifiable, strange stench. The immediate, instinctive reaction was “decay.”
Back in that man’s room downstairs, when the fire had started and the room was a chaotic mess reminiscent of a post-fire scene, she could even see the black, human-shaped outlines on the floor where bodies had melted from the heat.
Even in that environment, Zhao Mingyue had steeled herself and rushed into the man’s bedroom. She’d rummaged through the nearly carbonized furniture and found the key to Room 506.
Yet here, in this pristine, orderly room, she hardly dared to move.
An intense sense of unease flooded her senses. She constantly felt like something was staring at her, watching her.
After everything she’d experienced tonight, Zhao Mingyue felt her courage should have grown. But arriving here, her fear seemed magnified, though she couldn’t even articulate what she was afraid of.
Especially when she remembered what Bai Yu had said to her before the quest began.
Back then, she’d discovered blood inside the wall. Bai Yu told her it was very likely the female ghost’s blood, and that the female ghost’s corpse was probably soaking in a room on the fifth floor right now.
Perhaps she was afraid of that female ghost’s body, its human form long lost, submerged in some vessel. Or perhaps she was afraid of the person who had submerged the female ghost and used the putrid fluid from her body to paint the walls.
“Bai Yu…” Zhao Mingyue whispered.
Bai Yu had been examining the paper-burning basin on the floor. Hearing Zhao Mingyue’s voice, she looked back at her. “What is it?”
“I… I’m a little scared.”
“Fear is normal. The master of this room isn’t comparable to those ghosts carved into the walls outside or that man on the fourth floor. But if you’re truly scared, don’t go into the other rooms. Wait for me here.”
Bai Yu’s words warmed Zhao Mingyue’s heart. While seeking a sense of security from a fierce ghost might seem strange, the feeling in her heart didn’t lie.
Just then, Zhao Mingyue instinctively wanted to grab Bai Yu’s hand. But her reaching hand paused mid-air for a split second. After a moment of hesitation, instead of taking Bai Yu’s hand, she reached into her backpack, pulled out the bloodstained rabbit plush inside, and held it tightly to her chest.
As if this Miss Rabbit could somehow grant her immense courage.
“I’ll still go with you,” Zhao Mingyue said, her smile stiff, but her tone resolute.
Bai Yu looked deeply at the girl, her gaze lingering for a moment on the plush toy in her arms.
“Alright.”
Not letting Zhao Mingyue take the lead, Bai Yu entered the bathroom first. She could sense that the female ghost’s corpse was there.
Opening the door, an indescribable stench assaulted them. Unlike the tidy exterior, the bathroom’s condition could only be described as a nightmare.
The white tiles were stained red. Black handprints and drag marks covered the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling.
“This place…” Zhao Mingyue, hugging her plush, also entered the bathroom. The first thing she saw was the female corpse in the bathtub, long since unrecognizable as human.
The corpse’s hands, feet, and head were bound and suspended by chains. The other ends of the chains were connected to the ceiling. The bathtub, besides the corpse, was filled with a red-black sludge that covered the body. As a result, only the suspended limbs and head were visible—the rest of the body was buried beneath the sludge.
Seeing the female corpse, Zhao Mingyue’s stomach churned. She suddenly understood what that reddish-black mud beneath the white plaster in the corridor was.
Inside the room, a third figure slowly began to materialize.
Zhao Mingyue hadn’t yet noticed the female ghost’s appearance. A question had surfaced in her mind.
“They said the female ghost was burned alive with her children. If the mother is here… then where did the two children go?”
·
