"C-Constable Chen!"
Zheng Wenxuan crossed his arms and stared warily at the dog, baring his teeth. "Something is wrong with this thing."
What kind of dog had human eyes? It was definitely an evil entity.
Seeing Zheng Wenxuan blocking its way, the dog grew even more anxious. Its claws scraped against the floor as it crawled forward, pulling the iron chain taut until it clattered loudly.
"Whoa! What an ugly dog! Stay away!"
Frightened, Li Yafei hid behind Chen Xi, poking her head out. "Is-Isn't this Sister Lan's dog? Why is it here?"
Just as she finished speaking, a woman's voice drifted softly from inside the door:
"Ah Kun, quiet down. You're scaring the kids."
The voice was very pleasant, yet it carried an indescribable chill.
The curtain of the tailor shop was lifted, and a woman stepped out.
She looked to be in her thirties, wearing an old-fashioned white dress with a white cloth covering her face, only faintly revealing the outline of the lower half of her face.
It was the female ghost who lived on the twenty-second floor and called herself "Sister Lan."
Didn't she live on the twenty-second floor? Why was she here at the seventh-floor tailor shop?
Did the supernatural entities in this building not stay fixed in a single room?
Chen Xi's heart tightened, her hand quietly reaching for the gun behind her waist.
In the next second, the surrounding air suddenly changed.
The temperature in the already gloomy corridor plummeted, making it feel like they had dropped into an ice cellar.
A heavy, musty odor appeared out of thin air—fishy, foul, and mixed with the smell of rotting paper—rushing over them.
Sister Lan's white dress fluttered gently without any wind.
The gentleness on her face faded, replaced by an undisguised malice in her eyes. It was like a poisoned blade stabbing straight into Chen Xi.
"The new security guards."
She spoke, her voice still soft and gentle, but it sent shivers down their spines. "My dog seems to recognize you, being so excited... Young lady, is your surname Lu?"
The pressure in the air grew heavier and heavier, as if an invisible hand were squeezing their throats.
Li Yafei's face turned pale, struggling to breathe. Zheng Wenxuan's eyes rolled upward as he fought desperately.
Chen Xi's muscles tensed, preparing herself for a fight.
—She could feel that this Sister Lan was far more troublesome than the scalded ghost or the water ghost.
"My surname isn't Lu, it's Chen. I'm Uncle Biao's new security guard."
Chen Xi's tone was steady, trying her best not to provoke the other party. "We came to borrow a few sets of clothes from Sister Fang to go outside. We don't know the rules, so please forgive any offense."
She deliberately stated her surname.
For some reason, she felt that Sister Lan's malice toward her was completely unprovoked.
Also, why did she ask if her surname was "Lu"?
Sure enough, in the next second, upon hearing the name "Chen," Sister Lan froze. She stared intently at Chen Xi's face for several seconds, as if trying to confirm something.
"Chen? Your surname is Chen? Who is your mother? And who is your grandmother?"
Chen Xi did not answer, but a guess was already forming in her mind.
A name with "Lan" in it, a grudge against the Lu family, highly attentive to the surname Chen, and a dog named "Ah Kun."
Not to mention that the dog looked at her as if seeing a relative—the answer was practically being shoved down her throat.
The malice in Sister Lan's eyes receded like the tide, and the heavy, musty odor gradually dispersed.
Her face returned to a gentle expression, and there was even... an indescribable emotion in her eyes.
Like a senior looking at a junior.
"So it's Miss Chen."
Sister Lan smiled, pursing her lips. "I wondered who it was. Sister Fang is busy inside. If you want to borrow clothes, just go right in and find her."
The shift in her attitude was so drastic she seemed like a completely different person.
"Cough, cough, cough, cough!"
"Cough, cough, cough!"
Zheng Wenxuan and Li Yafei both knelt on the floor, clutching the choke marks on their necks and gasping for air, their faces filled with shock and suspicion.
What on earth was wrong with Sister Lan?
Just because her dog barked, she suddenly flipped her lid and almost killed them.
How did she become so affectionate the moment she heard the surname "Chen"?
Even a magician couldn't change that fast.
...
Fine beads of sweat broke out on Chen Xi's forehead. She was certain she had never met this Sister Lan before, nor did she have any relatives surnamed Chen in Hong Kong.
The other party's attitude was clearly a bit abrupt.
Sister Lan did not explain further. She simply crouched down and patted the stitched dog's head.
The dog named Ah Kun quieted down immediately. As if by reflex, it lay obediently on the ground, nuzzling her palm and wagging its tail frantically, looking just like a gentle, big dog.
However, its pair of human eyes remained glued to Chen Xi, filled with despair and pleading.
"Ah Kun is very good. He doesn't bite."
Sister Lan stroked the dog's ears, her tone soft. "He was probably just a bit excited to see Miss Chen. I'll discipline him when we get back."
With that, she picked up the thick iron chain nearby, clipped it to the dog's collar, and stood up.
"I'll head off first. You can go in. Sai Mui, come back early from playing. Don't make your grandmother worry."
The last sentence was directed at Li Yafei.
"U-Understood, Sister Lan," Li Yafei nodded quickly, her eyes wide with fear, clearly still shaken from nearly dying.
Sister Lan held the dog's leash and walked slowly toward the stairwell.
The stitched dog turned back with every step, looking at Chen Xi with a mix of resentment and pleading. Only when Sister Lan yanked the chain did it turn away, shivering, and leave.
The way the dog walked looked incredibly awkward to everyone.
—It was like watching a human try to walk on all fours like a dog.
It was too bizarre.
...
"Constable, don't you think..." Zheng Wenxuan's voice was a bit dry. "That dog's eyes are completely human eyes."
"Yes." Chen Xi's expression was grave. Those eyes and the name "Ah Kun" kept flashing through her mind.
Ah Kun.
Lu Bingkun.
When this thought crossed her mind, she startled herself.
Lu Bingkun was supposed to have been confirmed dead long ago.
The Lu family had died in droves, all in extremely bizarre ways, and their relatives were still in the process of identifying the bodies.
Unless it was a ghost.
A ghost that had been stitched into a dog's skin by another vengeful fierce ghost, turning into a monster.
Then "Sister Lan's" true identity was glaringly obvious.
Chen Shulan.
So was she a resident of the building, or... a player like them?
The sense of absurdity in Chen Xi's heart grew stronger, but she said no more, only gesturing for the two behind her to follow. Since they were already here, they had to venture into the tailor shop.
She cautiously lifted the cloth curtain, and an even thicker stench of blood mixed with leather rushed over her.
...
Behind the curtain was a completely different world.
The shop wasn't large, only about five or six square meters, but it was packed to the brim.
Solid wood clothing racks stood all around, hanging with neatly folded human skin clothes.
Every piece of clothing was categorized by color and style—qipaos, long gowns, suits, children's clothes... even shrouds, all arranged in perfect order.
That qipao embroidered with golden phoenix threads still hung neatly in the room.
Of course, if one ignored the piles of human skin material in the corner, and the various sizes of needles, spools of thread, scissors, scrapers, and rolling pins of all sizes arranged on the wooden shelf nearby—
It actually looked like a decent tailor shop.
Even during the day, the shop had thick black curtains drawn, letting in no light at all.
A few tallow candles were lit, their flames flickering and casting distorted, swaying shadows across the shop.
...
Right in the center of the room stood a long, narrow wooden table resembling a slaughterhouse butcher block. Sister Fang was standing there.
A man lay on the block.
He was naked, middle-aged and obese with a bloated, round belly. His face was a bruised purple, clearly dead as a doornail.
Sister Fang had her back to the door. Her flat, featureless white face looked exceptionally eerie under the candlelight.
She gripped a jujube wood rolling pin, slowly rolling it upward from the corpse's ankles.
Her movements were very even, like a pastry chef rolling dough, or a butcher rolling pig skin.
"Creak... creak..."
The rolling pin ground over the flesh with a squelching sound that set their teeth on edge.
As the rolling pin pushed upward, the corpse's legs deflated bit by bit.
Muscle, fat, and blood vessels were all ground into a pulp, surging upward along the fascia.
The corpse's belly grew more and more bloated, swelling like a fully inflated ball.
Sister Fang applied force with her wrist, pressing the rolling pin down hard:
Gurgle—
The corpse's mouth suddenly flew open.
Red and white internal organs mixed with black blood and bone fragments poured out of its throat, clattering into a copper basin at its feet.
Heart, liver, lungs, and intestines coiled and piled up, filling the basin to the brim.
They were even steaming, covered in mucus, the stark red and white exceptionally jarring to the eyes.
Li Yafei and Zheng Wenxuan didn't even dare to step inside. With just one look, they ran out to the corridor and began vomiting violently.
Chen Xi's face turned pale, her throat itching, but she forced down the urge to vomit through sheer willpower.
Sister Fang didn't stop. After rolling the front, she skillfully flipped the corpse over and continued rolling from the back. Her movements were highly practiced, as if she had been a pastry chef for decades.
And the corpse on the block slowly became flat.
The skin and flesh were rolled so evenly thin they looked like a sheet of leather being processed.
What was even more bizarre was that the corpse could actually still speak.
A voice as faint as gossamer squeezed out of its throat, slurring:
"Sister Fang... sew it beautifully..."
"When I was alive... I never wore good clothes... Now that I'm dead... make me the most expensive one..."
"I want a mulberry silk lining... and frogs made of gold thread..."
The corpse babbled on, as if custom-ordering clothes from a tailor, completely unbothered by the fact that it was being rolled into a sheet of skin.
Chen Xi finally couldn't hold it in any longer.
Clutching her mouth, she bolted out the door and squatted in the corridor, vomiting her guts out alongside Li Yafei and Zheng Wenxuan.
Rate on N.U.
