The Real Awakening

Zhou Yue was dead.

That strange song seemed to continue echoing through their ears. However, the singer had already died.

Zhou Yue had died in the exact same manner as Yang Wen Jie. It was as though she was an empty husk tightly crumpled into a ball after all the flesh and blood had been extracted. Aside from her bizarrely multicoloured short hair and the seven earrings on her left ear, there was no other way to identify this person as the flamboyant, nameless singer: Zhou Yue.

At the crime scene, the wooden guitar had been thrown aside. The deceased lay face upwards, complexion ashen and limbs stiffly resting on the bedroom floor. The mouth was open, eye sockets cracked.

This was the second victim of a bizarre death in this house tonight.

Upon hearing the commotion, every person except for Xue Qing ran out of their own rooms. When they saw the eerie yet disgusting corpse, Feng Jing Jing automatically let out a shrill scream and fainted on the spot. Duo Duo was shocked into tears; Yuan Meng Yu was supporting Feng Jing Jing while scrambling to placate Duo Duo.

The Shao sisters stood far away. They shot panicked looks at the crime scene then left without a word. 

“Fucking hell, I told you her song was inauspicious! And you guys wouldn’t believe me!”

Zhao Fei Peng indignantly stamped his feet. Zhang Xiao Long timidly glanced at him but remained silent.

Yan Kai took out his camera to begin taking photos for material again.

Ye Xiao put on gloves once again and squatted next to the corpse. He silently stared at the completely disfigured Zhou Yu for half a beat, then reached out to gently shift her hair away. He tilted her face to the side and used two fingers to slowly flatten out the wrinkles at her neck. Once he did, he found an inconspicuous red dot on her powdered, pale neck.

“Another blood spot.”

Ye Xiao raised his head to stare at Su Mu.

Su Mu stood off to the side, quietly studying the corpse.

“Blood spot? What blood spot?” Yan Kai lowered his camera and suspiciously inquired, “What are you guys talking about?”

Ye Xiao turned to look at him, then at the curious crowd surrounding the door. He shook his head and replied, “Nothing. You should all return instead of crowding around here. Try your best to protect yourselves.”

As he spoke, he stood to close the room door.

After all, this was a crime scene; the more random people there were, the more likely it would be for the scene to be damaged. Before the police arrived, it was best to prevent more people from getting involved. However, like Feng Jing Jing had previously asked, when exactly would the police arrive? And just how many more would die before then?

Ye Xiao couldn’t help but sigh. This entire riddle-like incident was an endless vortex; the moment one was sucked in, it was impossible to break free. Originally, he and Su Mu had only boarded the train to capture that one criminal per their orders. They had not imagined such an unexpected turn of events would drag them into this situation. What amazingly bad luck.

At this point, he reflexively shot Su Mu a sideways look. Before he could voice a complaint, Su Mu beat him to it and said, “Shut your mouth. I haven’t even said yet that running into you is bad luck!”

“Pfft, you guessed what I was going to say?”

Ye Xiao chuckled dryly and rubbed his head.

Su Mu snorted and huffed back, “How could that mouth of yours spit out anything meaningful?”

Ye Xiao rolled his eyes and muttered, “You damn Dead Fish-Eyes. Do you have to say something derisive to me to feel better?”

“Hah, you’re the one asking for it.”

“I…”

Ye Xiao’s eyes widened. Before he could defend himself, he saw Su Mu bend over and pick up a cellphone from the floor.

It was Zhou Yue’s cellphone. The back had shining purple crystals stuck onto it; it was a very unique Japanese flip phone. 

“Oh, I noticed that cellphone earlier.” Ye Xiao pointed at the screen and said, “Look, there are some cracks on the screen.”

Su Mu studied it and commented, “The phone’s cover was flipped open when it fell next to the deceased. I’m afraid that during the homicide, it’s very likely that the victim was using her cellphone.”

“Using her cellphone?” Ye Xiao shook his head. “That can’t be. There’s no signal here, so calls and texts won’t go through. Don’t tell me she was playing games on her phone?”

He pondered this for a moment, but quickly rejected it.

“That’s not right either. Wasn’t Zhou Yue playing guitar at the time? The reason we came up to check her room was because we heard the guitar falling to the ground and a long period of silence. In the end, we found her dead on the ground. There were at most only five minutes in between. What could she have been using her phone to do in such a brief period of time?”

Ye Xiao mumbled this to himself as he scratched his head, feeling quite puzzled.

Su Mu gripped the phone in his hands and carefully inspected the outer shell. Then he randomly pressed a few buttons and found that the cellphone was powered off. However, even after holding the power button, it did not turn on.

“Hm? Did it break when it fell? Here, let me take a look.”

Ye Xiao grabbed the phone from Su Mu’s hands and then began knocking it in various places.

Su Mu’s expression was dark as he asked, “Oi, what are you doing? Do you think this is an old-fashioned TV with poor reception?”

“Hehe, you just don’t get it.”

Ye Xiao’s lips quirked up in a somewhat sly smile. His eyes formed crescents as he beamed and said, “My broken cellphone has experienced going through fire and water with me. It’s been burned in flames, drowned in water, and smashed on the ground. The worst instance was when I had thrown it in a moment of desperation to knock out a gangster, hehe. So I have a good idea of which parts of the phone can break. Long illness makes the patient into a good doctor, after all.”

As he spoke, he expertly withdrew the battery from the back of the phone and reinstalled it with a speed that was even faster than him replacing bullets.

Su Mu watched him with a dumbfounded expression and laughed mockingly. “Congratulations. If you don’t end up staying as a police officer, you can become someone with a stand alongside the road that fixes people’s cellphones.”

“Heh, that doesn’t sound bad.”

Ye Xiao seemed to completely miss Su Mu’s sarcasm as he happily pressed the power button. This time, the screen flashed with a ring, and actually lit up.

Su Mu took the phone and dryly smirked. “Finally, you have something you’re skilled at.”

“Tch, as I’m only skilled in one area. I’m skilled in multiple areas!”

Ye Xiao grumbled this protest, but watched Su Mu flipping through the cellphone’s contexts with a string of beeps.

After a while, he asked, “Does your cellphone have any signal right now?”

“Signal?” Ye Xiao fished out his phone from his pocket and checked before answering, “Not a single bar. Why?”

Su Mu was silent for a moment. “Zhou Yue’s cellphone indicates that she received five new texts in succession about fifteen minutes ago.”

“About fifteen minutes ago?” Ye Xiao frowned as he asked in astonishment, “Isn’t that when we heard her singing? But how did she receive a text if there’s no signal here? Who sent it?”

“The other party did not have a caller ID.” Su Mu shook his head.

Ye Xiao went over and curiously said, “Check the contents of the texts.”

Before he had even finished speaking, Su Mu had already pressed the button to look.

The five texts jumped onto the screen one after another. However, there were no words, just five eerie photos.

He opened each one in order of the times they were sent.

The first photo was nothing except for pitch-black.

Ye Xiao and Su Mu exchanged a bewildered look.

When they sequentially opened the second photo, it was still nothing but black.

“Huh, what the hell is this? Could the screen have broken from being dropped?”

Ye Xiao murmured this. Su Mu did not utter a sound and continued onto the third photo.

Finally, there was a layer of faint light atop the originally pure black base. However, it was still a complete enigma. There was no knowing what exactly was being taken in the photo.

Until in the fourth photo, a grid-like object appeared in the top left corner with light passing through a small gap.

“Huh, what is this?” Ye Xiao pointed at the spaces in the grid-like object. “This thing seems to be the source of light in the previous photo.”

Su Mu did not speak. He peered at the grid-like object for a brief moment, then opened the final photo.

This time, the light-emitting grid took up the entire photo.

For some reason, the photo looked like it had been magnified. Behind the grid seemed to be a…a person? That person…looks like Zhou Yue?

An “ah” blurted from Ye Xiao’s mouth as his jaw dropped in astonishment.

Because the image was actually from an angle above that was pointed downwards…

After pausing for a tenth of a second, Ye Xiao and Su Mu raised their heads in unplanned unison.

To their shock, there was a neat, rectangular grid above them!

“Heavens! Someone was secretly taking these pictures?” Ye Xiao stared at the grid in stunned amazement.

It was an air vent. This house did not have air-conditioning, yet there were air ducts meticulously installed for each room to have ventilation. The vents were all sealed with metal grids.

Judging by the last photo, there had clearly been someone hiding in the grid to take the picture. But what kind of person was it? And why were they secretly snapping photos? Could it have been a pervert? Although Zhou Yue looks like a crossdressing man, she’s technically still a girl at her prime of youth. Unless…

For a moment, various ridiculous and laughable thoughts flashed through his mind.

Su Mu slowly stated, “No, this wasn’t taken secretly. The five photos texted indicate that this was the course of one continuous action.”

“Huh? What? The course of one continuous action?” Ye Xiao stared at him in confusion.

Su Mu flipped back through the photos to return to the first one. He pointed at the black screen and said, “Look here. There isn’t anything in the darkness in the first and second pictures. Starting from the third one, light gradually formed. In the fourth one, the light source appeared, and in the fifth one, the light source was magnified. Think about this sequence of changing angles. What kind of scenario could it be?”

Ye Xiao involuntarily looked up at these words to peer intently at the gridded vent. After staring at it for a while, he suddenly felt a faint chill travel through his body as he said with uncertainty, “You-you mean to say that someone, or something, was crawling through the air duct above? The first and second pictures were just darkness because it had not yet reached the light source. Starting from the third picture, it had gradually neared the room. The light from the room reflected through the gridded vent, so the duct slowly gained illumination. And in the last photo, this thing had already climbed to the area right above Zhou Yue’s room and was staring down at her…”

Ye Xiao paused for a moment to consider this. Then he continued, “This guy crawling through the air ducts to watch other people is very likely to be the perpetrator that killed Zhou Yue. Even Yang Wen Jie might have been killed by him too, since the air ducts connect to every single room of the house.”

“Yes.” Su Mu nodded and added, “Moreover, if the deceased’s needle-like blood spot really is related to the cause of death, then I’m afraid that it is very difficult to imagine the perpetrator to be a human.”

“Er, the perpetrator…the perpetrator isn’t human after all…”

Ye Xiao warily scanned the surroundings and then forced a laugh. “Why are we always dragged into some bizarre cases for no reason? Feels like I need to go to a shrine and burn some incense to pray to Buddha if I walk out of this house alive. That way, I can dispel some bad luck.”

Su Mu wordlessly glanced at him.

He bitterly smiled and scratched his head as he admitted to his misfortune. “Alright, then in your opinion, what is the perpetrator this time? Is it a ghost, a demon, or a monster?”

“I don’t know,” Su Mu bluntly replied.

Ye Xiao sighed. “I just can’t understand; if your previous conjecture is correct, then who exactly are they and what is their goal behind sending these five pictures to Zhou Yue?”

Su Mu stared at the phone without responding.

Ye Xiao murmured to himself, “Could the killer have sent them himself? But why? As a threat? Or a warning?”

He could not come up with an answer even after contemplating it for a while. Thus, he could only frown in frustration.

At this moment, Su Mu suddenly ordered, “Oi, bend down.”

“Huh? What?”

“I told you to bend down.”

“Wh-why?”

Ye Xiao was taken aback.

Su Mu lifted his head to glance at the vent on the ceiling. “If our conjecture is accurate, then that murderer should only have two conclusions. One: it’s already exited the ducts; two: it’s still crawling inside, searching for a chance to commit a crime again.”

Comprehension dawned on Ye Xiao. “Only a few minutes passed between Zhou Yue’s death and our arrival. The murderer probably didn’t have the time to flee from the room, so it’s very likely it is still in the air ducts.”

With this, he and Su Mu exchanged a look.

After two seconds of silence, they spoke in a bizarre unison. “You bend down.”

They were stunned for a moment, then chorused together again, “You bend down, I’ll go up.”

Then they glared at each other.

The room’s ceiling was too high. While there was a bed to climb, it was still not enough to reach the vent. One of them had to stand atop the other’s shoulders to crawl up and search for a result. The issue was, neither of them were willing to be the one that was stepped on.

Ye Xiao thought this over and then raised a fist to suggest, “Alright, let’s play rock-paper-scissors. Whoever wins goes up.”

Su Mu looked exasperated as he rolled his eyes and said, “Do you think you’re still in kindergarten?”

“I…”

Ye Xiao scratched his head and stared at his aloof partner.

The victim was still lying on the ground, the corpse not yet cold. There was a chance that the perpetrator would murder again. The two couldn’t continue wasting time in this meaningless “cold war”. 

Hence, after a moment of silence, Ye Xiao decided to compromise. He rubbed his shoulder as he mumbled, “Ok, you’re probably more skilled at matters related to subduing monsters and stuff, so you go up and take a look. But just be a bit gentler when you step up; my shoulder injury from the village hasn’t completely healed yet.”

Right as he was about to bend down, he saw Su Mu already crouched with his back facing Ye Xiao. Su Mu coldly stated, “Be careful when you remove the metal grid on the vent. Don’t wipe off any fingerprints that might have been left on top.”

Ye Xiao was dumbstruck for a beat, unable to process the current situation.

Su Mu frowned impatiently and urged, “Tch, are you going up or not?”

Ye Xiao blinked and couldn’t help but smile faintly as he muttered to himself, “You really are a softhearted guy despite your sharp mouth.”

He stepped onto Su Mu’s shoulders and stretched out his arms to just barely reach the ceiling vent. With his gloves on, he cautiously removed the external metal grid and passed it down to Su Mu. Su Mu took the grid and placed it aside.

Ye Xiao stuck his head through the air duct to scan the inside. It was completely dark and impossible to see anything. He gripped the sides of the rectangular space and pulled himself up with all his strength to slip inside.

The duct was not a large space. It could easily fit a person, but it was a bit narrow.

Ye Xiao lay sprawled in the long and narrow duct and expended a tremendous effort to turn completely around. Then he poked half his body out the vent again to reach out towards Su Mu below. With a smile, he said, “Come on, I’ll pull you up.”

Su Mu raised a brow. Then he grabbed hold of Ye Xiao and Ye Xiao yanked him up to bring him into the air duct as well.

In the narrow and crowded space, only an impenetrable darkness stretched in front of the two people in single file. Could the perpetrator that had killed two people in a row still be hiding inside?

It was all unknown.

Meanwhile, Shao Yue Ting was wordlessly sitting on the bed in a lit-up room. Her head was lowered as she quietly stared at the corner of her clothes. Her complexion seemed even more ashen than before.

Her older twin sister, Shao Yue Hua, had her arms crossed as she paced back and forth inside the room like a beast irritated by being locked in a metal cage. She repeatedly muttered, “Another one dead, now another one’s dead. What to do, what to do…”

Shao Yue Ting watched her sister with an undetectable trace of ridicule behind her serene gaze. 

“Sis, can you just sit quietly for a moment? You’re making me dizzy.”

Shao Yue Hua let out a scoff and stared at her younger sister in amazement as she agitatedly asked, “Sit? With the current situation, how do you expect me to be in the mood to sit quietly?”

“But no matter how anxious or scared you are, it won’t remedy anything. In the end, what should happen will happen. No one can escape.”

Shao Yue Ting laughed weakly after quietly saying these words.

“Huh? What do you mean? Why did you say no one can escape?”

Shao Yue Hua warily shifted her gaze to lock onto her younger sister’s eyes. In a questioning tone, she said, “Yue Ting, tell me honestly. Do you know something?”

Shao Yue Ting shook her head and replied, “How could I possibly know something? You’re overthinking.”

“Oh, is that so?”

Shao Yue Hua stared at her sister suspiciously for a brief pause, then said, “Yue Ting, don’t think I have no idea that you’ve always loved hiding secrets behind my back since we were young. You always like keeping things from my knowledge and you enjoy teasing me to humiliate myself in public. In fact, you regard it as amusement—”

“Sis, I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Shao Yue Ting interrupted in annoyance.

“Heh, quit acting dumb.” Shao Yue Hua’s rage went over her head, her fury rushing forth. “You think I don’t know about those little damn tricks of yours? When we were little, Mom would often give you more chocolate. You would pretend to accidentally let slip this fact in front of me, intentionally leading me to arguing with Mom. In our third year of elementary, you secretly broke my handicraft homework so that I ended up being scolded by the teacher in front of the class. In the first year of junior high, you sneakily ripped apart the certificate I earned from a painting competition, then said it was a cat that had destroyed it instead. In the second year of senior high, you secretly sent out my love letter to the class leader, resulting in me being mocked by all of our classmates for an entire two years. In university—”

“Enough. Are you finished yet?”

Shao Yue Ting broke off her older sister’s words once more. She shrugged nonchalantly and commented, “Those are all things of the past. Why are you still flipping through old grudges? Besides, the things you just said are merely your guesses, aren’t they? On what basis are you claiming I did those? Do you have any proof?”

“Proof? Hehe.” Shao Yue Hua snorted and shot back, “If you do something bad, it will inevitably be found out.”

“That’s it, I don’t want to hear your lies any longer.” Shao Yue Ting waved her hand.

“Lies? Every word I’ve said is the truth!” Shao Yue Hua’s anger did not end as she furiously demanded, “Just give me an honest answer: is this time another one of your damn games?”

“Don’t make false accusations against others.” Shao Yue Ting rolled her eyes and replied, “I’ve been together with you from beginning to end this time. I’ve seen everything you’ve seen, I know everything you know. And the things you don’t understand, I also don’t understand—”

“That’s a lie! You must know something, right?”

Shao Yue Hua stalked over to the bed and glared at her younger sister. “Answer me. Was that weird invitation letter actually sent by you?”

“What a joke!” Shao Yue Ting furrowed her brows. “Didn’t I receive that invitation letter too?”

“You did that on purpose! You intentionally sent one to yourself so that I wouldn’t be suspicious!”

“Sis, what exactly are you talking about? Isn’t your imagination running too wild?”

Shao Yue Ting stared at her, clearly thinking her as unreasonable. With an inexplicable expression, she asked, “Why would I do that? Why would I send you that so-called invitation letter and then draw you to this remote place?”

“Because you want to kill me!” Shao Yue Hua roared.

Shao Yue Ting quieted down and stared at her older sister in silence for a beat. Then she used an apathetic tone to slowly ask, “I want to kill you? Why?”

“Because, because…” Shao Yue Hua took a step back and tore at her own hair in anguish as she muttered, “Because you…you’ve always hated me for causing Ah Wei’s death…”

Shao Yue Ting remained seated on the bed, her face void of emotion. She calmly stared straight at her sister without saying a word.

Shao Yue Hua shook her head and she suddenly lost control of her emotions. She uttered in a low voice, “Yue Ting, I really did not cause Ah Wei’s death. I truly did not know the French window was unlocked that day. I swear, he fell from the edge of the window by himself…”

Shao Yue Ting serenely observed her older sister’s anguished manner and indifferently commented, “That’s right, Ah Wei fell down himself, and you are innocent. Isn’t that what the court later determined? Heh, who would’ve thought that Dad could request a lawyer that was good enough to actually turn something black into white.”

“No! That’s not it!” Shao Yue Hua ran over and held her sister’s shoulders. While she forcefully shook them, she agitatedly said, “Trust me, I didn’t kill anyone, I really didn’t kill anyone. Ah Wei and I just got into a little fight that day. I-I just…gently pushed him. I didn’t think…I didn’t think he’d just fall over the window’s edge like that…I…I don’t know how it happened either…it wasn’t on purpose…”

After stammering these words, Shao Yue Hua choked with a sob.

Shap Yue Ting motionlessly watched her. After a moment of resistance, she shook herself free from her sister’s hands.

As she watched the tears flowing from her older sister’s eyes, a trace of cold amusement slowly spilled out from behind her gaze.

“Oi, Dead Fish-Eyes, don’t-don’t push me.”

Ye Xiao crawled through the narrow and dark air duct on all fours while turning his head to complain every so often.

A scoff sounded from behind him.

“Heh, push you? If I had a whip, I’d love to whip you instead. You crawl even slower than a turtle. You’re bringing shame to the ancestors of humankind.”

“The ancestors of humankind, as in orangutans? Please, orangutans climb trees, not air ducts, alright? Besides, humans originally walked on two legs. Doesn’t that mean you crawl faster because you never finished your evolution?”

“I think it’s more like your evolution failed so that your arm and leg coordination is far from good.”

“Tch, you think I crawl slowly? Fine then, if you have the skills, then crawl in front of me.”

The two grown men continued exchanging pointless and very immature comments to insult each other in the darkness. Just then, an unexpected thud rang out.

“Ugh, that really hurts…”

Ye Xiao cradles his head as he groaned in pain and instantly leaned down. He seemed to have bumped into something in the dark. When he touched his forehead with his hand, he felt a swollen lump.

“Damn it…”

He furiously hissed a curse as he fished out his cellphone to shine it in front. It turned out that the end was right in front of them.

This house’s air ducts were strangely designed, twisting in every direction without any order. While it certainly connected to every room, there were multiple splits in the middle that made it exactly like a maze. In addition, the darkness made it easy to lose sense of direction. Honestly speaking, they had no idea where they were right now.

Ye Xiao rubbed his throbbing forehead and sighed. “Oi, Dead Fish-Eyes, do you really think the perpetrator is inside these ducts? We’ve been crawling for so long yet we haven’t even seen a mouse.”

Su Mu pondered this for a beat before replying, “There are currently three possibilities: first, the perpetrator has already escaped; second, the perpetrator is still in the air ducts but we just haven’t found them; third…”

“There’s a third?” Ye Xiao laughed in spite of himself. “I can’t imagine what a third possibility would be.”

“The third possibility is that—” Su Mu paused. “We’ve actually already encountered the perpetrator but we couldn’t see it.”

“What? Couldn’t see it?” Ye Xiao was astonished by this and immediately questioned, “But considering how small this duct is, had we run into the perpetrator, we would have bumped into its body even if we couldn’t see it.”

“What if that thing doesn’t have a physical body? Even if you passed through it, you wouldn’t feel it.”

Su Mu’s voice was very level, as though he was commenting on how good the weather was. However, Ye Xiao was shocked, and after staring dumbly for a moment, murmured, “Doesn’t have a physical body? You-you mean to say…a ghost?”

For some reason, when he said the word “ghost”, he felt like the air around them immediately turned terrifyingly sinister. The sound of wind that blew past his ears now seemed to carry a mournful hint.

Ye Xiao gulped and turned his head to scan their surroundings. It was completely peaceful, though the darkness was very thick.

After a few quiet seconds, he struggled to turn around and said, “This is already the end, so let’s start crawling back and find a place with light. I don’t want to stay in this cursed air duct any longer.”

A cold chuckle rang out from the darkness.

“What, afraid of ghosts?” Su Mu mocked.

Ye Xiao hurriedly defended himself. “No duh, what kind of living person isn’t afraid of ghosts? Do you think everyone is as oblivious as you?”

“Heh, if we’re talking about obliviousness, there isn’t anyone in the world that could beat you, is there?”

“You…”

Ye Xiao rolled his eyes. After a moment, he spoke again, “Hey, seriously though, you think there’s a ghost here?”

Su Mu was silent for a while. “Right now, I cannot assert if there is a ghost here or not. But I think that the perpetrator that killed two people in a row is more likely to not be a ghost.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because I’ve never seen a ghost use a needle to kill someone.”

With this reminder, Ye Xiao recalled the needle-type blood spots on the two deceased’s necks. It was quite strange; identical blood spots had appeared in the same location on both victims. That…can’t be a coincidence, right? Plus it looks like the corpses were completely sucked dry of their blood and flesh. Don’t tell me the perpetrator is…a vampire?

Ye Xiao wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh or cry at his own wild thoughts. He shook his head and dismissed the ridiculous idea.

The very long, dark, and narrow air duct carried an unbearable smell that gave an extremely stifling feeling.

Ye Xiao and Su Mu had already changed direction and swapped spots. This time, Su Mu was the one in front to lead the way, with Ye Xiao behind. However, Su Mu’s speed was seriously too fast. Moreover, he had a highly accurate sense of direction. Ye Xiao was starting to fall behind, so he stopped caring about exchanging nonsense with his partner and just blindly kept his head down to crawl forwards.

As he crawled and crawled some more, he suddenly felt a wave of freezing air rush from behind him. It brushed against his back like a chilly breeze, but made his blood run colder than normal.

He swallowed hard and raised his head to look ahead. Su Mu was quite a distance away, so he scrambled to increase his pace and crawl after. However, the moment he raised his leg, he was instantly frozen in place.

He felt something grabbing onto his ankle. It had a very strong grip; like a pair of powerful talons, the five fingers hooked around him firmly.

What-what is it?

Ye Xiao started in alarm. He whipped his head to suddenly see a pair of eyes staring at him!

A pair of unblinking, bloodred eyes that were extremely close to him!

Ye Xiao was dumbstruck for a few seconds, then suddenly let out a shout.

“AHHHHH…Ghost!”

He threw his body forwards and grabbed hold of Su Mu’s pant leg like was his last hope.

Su Mu lost balance and fell down into a sprawl in the duct. He furiously turned his head and roared, “Oi, have you lost your mind? Let go!”

Ye Xiao tightly held onto Su Mu’s pants for his life, unwilling to comply. He kept kicking his leg with all his strength to shake off the thing on his ankle while he stammered, “Th-There’s a ghost here…”

“A ghost? Where?”

“Ri-Right behind me…”

“Behind you?” 

Su Mu frowned and doubtfully shone his cellphone light behind Ye Xiao. Then he coldly said, “Is your vision deteriorating? There’s nothing behind you.”

“Huh? Nothing?”

Ye Xiao blinked and turned his head around to take another look.

Indeed, the space behind him under the dim light was empty. Aside from some dust granules floating in the air, there was nothing to be seen. The grip on his ankle instantly vanished without a trace as well.

But-But I clearly just saw a pair of eyes!

Ye Xiao remained in a blank daze for a while as he suddenly remembered Yuan Meng Yu previously mentioning that she had seen a pair of bloodred eyes too. At the time, he had not paid it any mind, but now, he had literally seen it himself.

What in the world is going on? Did I really run into a ghost?

Ye Xiao continued spacing out in place. Su Mu, who had crawled way in front, had no choice but to look back and call, “Oi, are you done spacing out? Look, there’s light in front.”

Ye Xiao snapped out of his daze and frantically lifted his head to look forwards.

Ahead of them was a fuzzy warm light. It appeared that they had finally gone the right way this time; they must have reached a point above some room. They moved towards the light bit by bit. Before they could climb out the vent though, they faintly heard an intense argument.

Evidently, someone was fighting inside this room.

“What? You were the one that unlocked the French window?”

Shao Yue Hua’s eyes widened in disbelief at her younger sister, unable to react for a beat. She stared blankly for a few solid seconds before understanding the entire sequence of events.

With a trembling voice, she stammered, “You…you were the one that hired a private investigator to find and send me proof of Ah Wei having an affair, weren’t you? You had those photos delivered to me, leading me to fight with Ah Wei…and-and then you unlocked all the French windows in my room ahead of time with a good chance of me pushing Ah Wei off, then-then…you shifted the crime of murder onto me…isn’t that right?”

After Shao Yue Hua emotionally said all this, Shao Yue Ting remained serenely sitting in bed, her face collected as she stared straight at her older sister. Then she slowly and faintly smiled.

“Answer me!”

At the end of her patience, Shao Yue Hua let out a roar and stretched out her arms to forcefully shove her younger sister backwards.

Shao Yue Hua was pushed down onto the bed. A second later, she instead burst out into delighted laughter. As she laughed, she lazily said, “That’s right, you’re correct. That is exactly what happened. Heh, Sis, your bad habit of haphazardly pushing people when your emotions are stirred still hasn’t changed. Hahaha. I just wanted to try it and see that day; I didn’t think it would succeed so easily. But, Sis, if you trace everything back to the root, I’m afraid that the reason your fiance was pushed off the building is still because of your bad habit of loving to push people, don’t you think?”

Shao Yue Hua froze at this and slowly lifted her arms to stare at her own hands. Warm tears gradually spilled out from her eyes, dropping one after another onto her palms.

“W-Why did you do it…if I’m not wrong, doesn’t that mean you were always secretly in love with Ah Wei…? Why kill him?”

Shao Yue Ting sat up on the bed and apathetically looked at her older sister. With a dry chuckle, she viciously squeezed out five words between clenched teeth, “Because he deserved to die!”

As she said this, she gently caressed her own stomach and a sorrowful expression of despair formed on her face.

Shao Yue Hua locked her eyes on her younger sister’s slightly protruding abdomen, and her face paled as she shakily asked, “Wh-What did you and Ah Wei do? W-What did you do with my fiance?!”

“What did I do?” Shao Yue Ting snorted and shot back a look while asking, “I now have his child in my stomach. What do you think we did?”

“You-you slut! Prostitute! Shameless witch!”

Shao Yue Hua lashed out angrily and lunged forwards in rage to yank on her younger sister’s hair.

Not to be overpowered, Shao Yue Ting grabbed her older sister’s collar and said, “What a joke. Even though that man is a womanizer that constantly betrays others, you still hold him in your hands like a treasure. Exactly who is the slut here, me or you?” 

“Shut up! You should just die! Die!”

Shao Yue Hua cried as she pushed her younger sister down onto the floor.

Shao Yue Ting resisted and flipped over to restrain her older sister underneath instead, firmly holding onto her clothes.

The two sisters continued to wrestle, their eyes red with fury as they fumingly tore each other apart. It was like two vixens brawling in the middle of the street. Their previous images as gentle and virtuous ladies were completely wiped out.

After rolling back and forth on the ground, Shao Yue Hua finally got a death’s grip around her younger sister’s neck.

“You should just diediediediedie…”

She knelt on the ground, her hair and clothes a chaotic mess. Her red eyes were wide with hate as she repeatedly muttered these words. Each time she said “die”, she would exert more force. Shao Yue Ting lay facing upwards, her hands clutching her sister’s. She weakly kicked her legs as her face gradually turned green, then white as she was choked.

C-Can’t die, can’t die, can’t die…

As she internally screamed this over and over, she gathered the strength to snap her eyes open and fiercely glare at her older sister. A trace of a malevolent smile formed on her lips.

Shao Yue Hua reeled in alarm as she suddenly noticed a pair of white, sinister fangs slowly peek out from the corners of her sister’s mouth. They gradually lengthened while turning sharper, silently extending outwards from her mouth like that of a bloodthirsty demon.

“Wh-what is that…”

Shao Yue Hua loosened her hold and crashed onto her butt as she stared in shock at her younger sister.

Shao Yue Ting pulled herself up from the ground and opened her mouth bit by bit. Sticky saliva dripped down onto the floor.

A shudder ran through Shao Yue Hua’s entire body. In an attempt to flee, she hurriedly scrambled to turn around. But before she could reach the door, Shao Yue Ting knocked her over from behind to press her against the floor. Then she opened her mouth and a sharp, thin needle emerged from her throat to stab itself into the side of Shao Yue Hua’s neck.

Shao Yue Hua’s mouth opened wide in horror, but she could not utter a shout.

Then, a terrifying scene unfolded.

Shao Yue Hua’s full and well-rounded body began to turn skinnier and flatter, like a plastic juice box being sucked dry and instantly deflating.

Her entire body became shriveled up and wrinkled as it stiffly fell down. A pair of dead grey eyes lay bare and exposed outside the sockets, staring up at the ceiling. It seemed to carry over a million reluctances; however, her breathing had long since died off.

Her sinister and frightening state of death was just like Zhou Yue’s and Yang Wen Jie’s when they had died.

As Ye Xiao lay above the vent and watched this hair-raising scene play out before his eyes, a fearful shudder ran through him. Before he could shout, his mouth was covered from behind by Su Mu.

“Shh, don’t alert the enemy.”