Nan Yue woke up that night around the same time the supernatural events had occurred on previous nights, before any of the strange changes had even begun.
She waited quietly.
After a while, some faint, scuffling sounds emerged from beneath the bed.
Li Hui's home had a wooden bed with a gap between the bedboard and the floor, which Li Hui always kept meticulously clean whenever she tidied up.
Something was under the bed.
"Boom!"
A crack of thunder roared, and a torrential rain began to fall outside.
Raindrops pelted the windows and the corridor like scattered beads, masking all other sounds.
Nan Yue thought of the rainy day Zhang Xiaotian had mentioned.
The day Li Hui had brought a kitten home to shelter from the rain.
The subtle movements under the bed continued. Nan Yue could almost picture the furry little creature hiding there, trembling with fear at the sound of thunder.
"Meow..."
A faint cat's cry drifted through the sound of the downpour, indistinct and intermittent.
Nan Yue hesitated for a moment. She suspected that the cat under her bed might not be a living one.
It was more likely dead.
But Nan Yue wasn't afraid of a ghost cat; cats were innocent.
Even if it had been dead for a long time, she wasn't afraid to give it a pat.
Nan Yue sighed and lowered her hand. The small animal under the bed slowly crawled toward her.
She felt a furry texture and gave it a gentle stroke, but in the next second, her gaze sharpened and she pulled her hand back.
That texture...
It wasn't a cat.
It was human hair!
The thing under the bed wasn't a dead kitten, but...
Xiang Guang.
Nan Yue wasn't frightened. She just didn't know how a man as sturdy as Xiang Guang could possibly squeeze into such a narrow gap under the bed.
His limbs were likely contorted beyond recognition.
She hadn't sorted out all the clues yet; otherwise, she wouldn't have waited another second to disperse Xiang Guang's vengeful spirit.
Although absorbing pollution was important, this man was an exception.
He disgusted her.
...
Jiang Siyan had slept quite well all night, with no more strange dreams or unusual reactions.
Until...
He was awakened by a sound.
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
A rhythmic sound, occurring once every few minutes, made him open his eyes.
He lay in bed and listened for a while. It sounded like a heavy object hitting the ground.
Listening closely, he could even hear the sound of a wet, sticky impact.
It was the sound of someone falling from the building.
Jiang Siyan stepped out of his room. His roommate was, unsurprisingly, sleeping like the dead. He stood by the window to look out.
A red figure plummeted from above, ending in a silent "thud."
Jiang Siyan pushed open the window and looked down.
The mangled figure lying in a pool of blood was Nan Yue.
Nan Yue lay there with broken limbs. Her neck was bent at an unnatural angle, her head twisted almost parallel to her shoulders.
The tragically killed woman lay motionless.
Suddenly, the woman's thick eyelashes fluttered. She blinked and, from that distorted position, rolled her eyes to the very corners of their sockets.
She was looking up at the man leaning out of the window.
Then, she flashed a deformed smile.
Such an eerie scene would have been enough to drive anyone mad, but not Jiang Siyan.
He felt no fear at all.
His heart burned like a fire. He realized that this mission was the most disgusting one he had ever undertaken.
Without exception.
He coldly closed the window, walked back to his room, and picked up the ring of keys by his bedside.
A "pop" sounded in the quiet room, like a balloon being punctured.
Jiang Siyan raised his hand and violently thrust the sharp keys into his own eye sockets.
Or rather, Tang Yu's eye sockets.
...
Gu Xiang Kai didn't enter any illusion tonight. He lay in his room while his roommate slept soundly.
But he couldn't sleep.
Someone was knocking on the door.
The knocking was heavy, slow, and lacked any rhythm.
It sounded like a dying person feebly grasping for a final hope.
Gu Xiang Kai didn't even have to think to know who was outside.
It was the woman who had died in the pile of steel pipes in the abandoned workshop.
Dragging her broken body, she was slowly knocking on his door.
One by one, bloody and foul-smelling handprints were being pressed onto the door. He suspected that no one else in the entire building could hear it but him.
This wasn't an illusion anymore; it was reality.
Gu Xiang Kai could use Steel Thorns to protect himself or even attack the entity. He could even just open the door and drive the thing back with his fists.
But he didn't.
Although Li Wang was worse than a beast, Gu Xiang Kai was currently wearing his skin, which made him Li Wang in the eyes of the world.
It was a cycle of karmic retribution. Was the woman wrong to seek out Li Wang?
No.
He deserved it.
It was just a pity that, according to Nan Yue's current deduction, this woman had come for Li Wang's life because he had killed her, yet the real Li Wang hadn't actually died from that.
It was a bit of a shame.
Gu Xiang Kai had no intention of attacking. As long as his life wasn't directly threatened, he would endure whatever vengeful haunting he had to.
After all, he was currently Li Wang.
"How unlucky," Gu Xiang Kai cursed under his breath. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the headboard, quietly listening to the noise outside.
The woman was still there. Although she couldn't get in, it would be too disrespectful to her if he just went to sleep.
Or rather, disrespectful to the ghost.
Regardless of whether this woman had other karmic debts or had harmed others, as long as he wore Li Wang's face, he would keep her company for a while.
...
Zhu Xi Ning had found out that afternoon who the woman scaring her was.
Song Chunhua.
The girl who stitched insoles.
It seemed the person Zhao Mingming had harmed was her, and it had nothing to do with Yang Xufen.
Therefore, the ghost haunting Zhao Mingming was also hers.
Based on the clues gathered over the past two days, it was likely that Song Chunhua had been scared to death by Zhao Mingming pretending to be a ghost.
She had learned that Song Chunhua was easily frightened and rarely dared to go out at night.
Many people laughed at her for having feudal superstitions, but in reality, she was afraid of the dark because she had been locked inside her house for long periods as a child.
Zhao Mingming was quite the piece of work to have come up with such a scheme.
Now, Song Chunhua's ghost had come for revenge, using the exact same tactic.
Zhu Xi Ning wasn't afraid of ghosts. She had even tried to find Song Chunhua that afternoon.
The other girl was also a scavenger. Since their roles were linked by cause and effect, it was a form of fate, and there was no harm in sharing clues.
However, Zhu Xi Ning couldn't find Song Chunhua all evening. She heard the girl had left the factory.
This surprised Zhu Xi Ning. It turned out the map for this mission wasn't limited to the factory; they could go outside if necessary.
But for them, the clues inside the factory were already numerous and complex enough. They didn't have the time to explore the outside world.
Song Chunhua must have discovered a clue related to herself that was worth the risk of leaving the factory.
Zhu Xi Ning never found her.
That night, Zhu Xi Ning waited for Song Chunhua's ghost to appear.
She wanted to see if she could communicate with it, but everything remained calm. She accidentally fell asleep.
She woke up around three in the morning, roused by the sound of Zhao's mother coughing. Zhu Xi Ning went to get her some water and busied herself for a while before returning to her room.
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