It was the time of day when residents of the complex were out taking walks.
The old residential complex had a high occupancy rate, and people passed by along the road from time to time.
The four of them walked around the complex once before finally finding Building 9 in a corner at the far western end.
Perhaps because the streetlight in front of Building 9 was broken, hardly any residents passed by nearby. The entrance to the building was wide open, with an incandescent bulb hanging above the doorway that barely illuminated a small area around it.
The four of them entered one after another.
Fortunately, the motion-sensor lights in the stairwell were quite bright, and they immediately spotted Room 101.
“I don’t see anything unusual.”
Yan He was holding a metal compass that was only about half the size of his palm. Its three needles were pointing steadily due north.
He had taken the compass out as soon as they entered the residential complex, and it had not changed at all along the way.
If there were ghosts or evil spirits causing trouble, the surrounding yin energy would increase dramatically, interfering with the compass needles and causing them to swing toward the direction where the yin energy was strongest.
“We can only knock on the door and see what happens,” Yan He said.
He motioned for the other three to step back, put away the compass, and stepped forward.
Knock, knock, knock.
Someone inside quickly answered.
The door opened a crack, and a middle-aged woman poked her head out. Her eyes swept up and down over Yan He and the others.
“Who are you looking for?”
Yan He smiled, trying his best to make himself appear friendly.
“Excuse me, is this He Jiaqi’s home? We’re her classmates. She hasn’t been coming to school for quite some time, so we’re worried about her and came to visit. We wanted to see if there’s anything we can help with.”
“Oh, you’re her classmates.”
The middle-aged woman kept a stern expression as she called toward the back.
“Old He, Jiaqi’s classmates are here to see her.”
After calling out, she turned back and said, “She’s fine. Her younger brother is sick, and her father and I can’t manage taking care of him on our own, so we had her take leave from school.”
At that moment, a middle-aged man with a square-shaped face appeared from behind the woman. He was presumably He Jiaqi’s father.
Speaking with a heavy local accent, he waved his hand and said, “She’s in her room looking after her brother. She doesn’t have time. You don’t need to worry. Go back.”
As he spoke, he started closing the door.
Since they had come all this way without even seeing He Jiaqi herself, there was no way they would simply leave.
Xu Muchan reacted quickly and stretched out a hand to hold the door open.
“Uncle, Auntie, wait.”
“What else is there?” He Jiaqi’s father was clearly becoming impatient.
Xu Muchan said, “He Jiaqi hasn’t been to school for a week. She previously asked me to bring her class assignments and notes over. Could you call her out? I can give them to her while I’m here.”
Xu Muchan was carrying a shoulder bag, and it happened to contain today’s assignments and exam papers, so he wasn’t worried about being exposed if she actually came out.
Old He frowned and looked him over, clearly reluctant. In the end, he relented, opened the door again, and said to his wife, “Go call her out.”
Once the door was fully open, the interior of the apartment was almost completely visible.
The Xu family’s apartment wasn’t very large. The living room and dining area together seemed to be only a little over thirty square meters. It was a two-bedroom, one-living-room layout.
Immediately to the left of the entrance were, in order, the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. To the right of the bedroom were the living and dining areas and the balcony.
The other bedroom was on the right side of the entrance. Its door was closed, so they couldn’t see inside.
He Jiaqi should have been staying in the bedroom farther inside. Xu Muchan saw He Jiaqi’s mother push open the door and walk in.
A moment later, He Jiaqi came out.
She was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt with black school uniform pants. Her expression was slightly haggard, but at first glance, there didn’t seem to be anything particularly unusual about her.
Until she walked up to Xu Muchan and asked,
“Where are the assignments and notes?”
The moment she said this, the expressions of everyone present except Yan He changed.
He Jiaqi had never asked Xu Muchan to bring her any assignments or notes.
After all, Xu Muchan hadn’t been able to see before. Even now that he could barely see, he relied more heavily on voice assistance to take notes and do his assignments. Previously, their teacher had even given him special permission not to turn in homework.
It was obvious that this was an excuse Xu Muchan had just made up on the spot.
Wen Dajiang and Wei Yao secretly sucked in a breath of cold air, their backs practically wanting to flatten themselves against the hallway wall.
Xu Muchan, however, remained perfectly calm. There wasn’t the slightest trace of anything unusual on his face.
He took his own notebook and exam papers out of his shoulder bag and handed them to her.
“Here. They’re all here.”
He Jiaqi accepted them without even looking through them. She thanked him and was about to return to her room.
But Xu Muchan called out to her again.
“Wait. I suddenly remembered that math problem we discussed before. I still couldn’t solve it. Didn’t you say you knew how to do it? Could you explain it to me while you’re at it?”
Xu Muchan took out his phone, opened the electronic exercise book saved on it, found a difficult math problem he had only done that afternoon, and held it out in front of He Jiaqi.
He Jiaqi, whose body had already turned away, turned back again.
She stared at Xu Muchan’s phone.
The faint light from the phone screen illuminated her face with a pale, eerie glow.
She remained in that position, motionless, staring at the screen for a full five minutes.
Anyone could tell by then that something was wrong.
Yan He’s hand had already quietly moved toward his copper coin sword.
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang, standing behind them, had gone pale and were beginning to look around, mentally planning their escape route.
Xu Muchan asked her,
“Can you solve it?”
He Jiaqi raised her head.
Her face gradually became hideously twisted, while her skin took on an unnatural corpse-like pallor.
“Not good. Fall back first!”
Daoist Yan He grabbed the copper coin sword, seized Xu Muchan, and shoved him backward. He then stepped forward with the sword in hand to meet her head-on.
“Go! Get out of here first!”
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang immediately turned and ran, sprinting away at full speed.
Xu Muchan was a step slower. Before leaving, he looked back one last time and saw He Jiaqi’s mouth stretching all the way back toward her ears. She suddenly lunged forward and opened her mouth, biting down on Daoist Yan He’s copper coin sword.
Yan He held the sword horizontally with one hand, confronting her. His other hand reached into his bag, searching for talismans…
Xu Muchan did not look back again. He turned and ran after Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang.
After leaving Building 9, Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang ran another dozen meters before finally stopping. They rose onto their toes and stared anxiously back toward Building 9 from a distance.
When they saw Xu Muchan running toward them, they hurriedly asked, “Has Daoist Yan He come out yet?”
Xu Muchan shook his head. “When I left, he was fighting He Jiaqi.”
“Should we wait here, or get out first?” Even though this was already the second time Wen Dajiang had experienced something this bizarre, his legs were still trembling.
Wei Yao said, “How about we wait at the entrance of the residential complex? If we stay here and Daoist Yan can’t hold her off, what if He Jiaqi gets brought out with him? We’d better not stay here and become deadweight.”
Wen Dajiang thought that made perfect sense. The two of them grabbed Xu Muchan and prepared to leave first.
Xu Muchan, however, remained where he was. His expression grew solemn.
“Didn’t you notice?”
The two stopped and looked at him blankly.
“Notice what?”
Xu Muchan met their four clear eyes in silence for a moment. Then he walked toward the building behind them and told Wei Yao, “Take a look. What building number does it say?”
It was already dark, and the lighting throughout the residential complex was inadequate. With Xu Muchan’s eyesight, he could not make out the number clearly.
Wei Yao widened his eyes and stared.
“Holy shit!”
“Why does it say Building 9?”
He turned his head and looked back. He was absolutely certain that he had just run out of the building across from them.
So why was the building standing in front of them also Building 9?
Xu Muchan said, “When we entered Building 9 earlier, I noticed several small advertisements posted on the unit door. Their positions and colors were exactly the same as the ones on this unit door.”
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang were both numb with shock.
“So what does that mean? There are two Buildings 9 in this complex?” Wen Dajiang’s legs had already started shaking. He slapped his thigh hard, trying to make the useless leg stop trembling.
Clinging to a shred of hope, Wei Yao said, “Maybe there are two units in Building 9?”
Xu Muchan settled the matter decisively.
“Go inside and take a look. There were also small advertisements on He Jiaqi’s door. We’ll know as soon as we check.”
Wei Yao turned around with a deathly pale face.
“Why don’t we wait until Daoist Yan comes out first, then go…”
He was genuinely terrified that after going inside, Xu Muchan would once again casually say, “This is He Jiaqi’s house.”
If that happened, he really might wet himself from fright.
Seeing that they still were not moving, Xu Muchan simply walked toward the unit entrance himself.
After entering the unit door, they walked straight down the hallway and turned right. Room 101 was there.
Xu Muchan stared at the small advertisements on the unit door, his brows furrowing.
Sure enough, they were positioned exactly the same way as the advertisements on He Jiaqi’s door.
At that moment, Wen Dajiang and Wei Yao finally gathered enough courage to come inside.
Daoist Yan He also caught up with them, panting as he asked, “What’s going on?”
Xu Muchan gestured for him to look at the door. His gaze casually swept over the other apartments farther down the hallway, then suddenly stopped.
He said to the others, “Take another look at those rooms over there. What are the room numbers?”
Wen Dajiang stomped his foot to activate the motion-sensor light.
The moment the light came on, he let out a short cry of alarm.
Wei Yao followed his gaze, feeling the hair on his scalp tighten.
“Fuck! Why are they all 101?”
This building had a two-elevator, four-unit layout. All four units were lined up side by side along the left side of the hallway, while the elevators and emergency exit were on the right.
At this moment, the blue number plates hanging above all four doors were exactly the same.
Xu Muchan’s suspicion had been confirmed.
He slowly let out a breath and looked at Yan He.
“I think we’ve already entered a haunted domain.”
Obviously, something this bizarre could never happen in reality.
“I’m afraid this entire residential complex only has one Building 9, and Building 9 only has one Room 101.”
Yan He’s expression turned grave as he took out his compass.
No one knew when it had started, but the three needles on the compass had begun spinning wildly, veering left and right without any pattern whatsoever.
Wei Yao leaned over to take a look.
He thought to himself that this compass looked so impressive, yet it was ridiculously unreliable.
“So what do we do now?” Wei Yao asked.
“Why don’t we go outside and walk around again? Maybe only this building has a problem.” Wen Dajiang still refused to give up.
Yan He said, “This compass can detect yin energy as well as fortune and misfortune. Now that all three needles are spinning chaotically, it means that not only have we entered a haunted domain, but this haunted domain is also extremely dangerous. It can even deceive and confuse my compass.”
This was the latest model of compass he had spent a fortune buying!
“That female ghost is no weakling. I used two Five-Thunder Talismans and only barely managed to force her back. I’m no match for her alone. It would be best not to encounter her again. Let’s go outside first and see if we can find another way out. We should avoid staying inside the building as much as possible.”
After all, who knew whether some door might suddenly open and a female ghost crawl out of it?
Yan He’s words made sense. Xu Muchan did not argue. The four of them headed outside, two in front and two behind.
However, just as they stepped out of the building, a faint rustling sound suddenly came from nearby.
“What was that?”
All four of them heard it. They turned their heads in every direction, searching for the source of the sound.
But it was too dark inside the residential complex. They could not see anything clearly more than five steps away.
Xu Muchan tilted his head and listened for a moment.
Then he suddenly said, “Go back! Run upstairs!”
With that, he immediately turned around and ran back toward the building, moving quickly toward the stairwell.
Wen Dajiang and Wei Yao had no idea what was happening, but when they saw him running, they instinctively followed.
“What’s wrong? Why are you suddenly running?” they asked as they ran.
His voice was too loud, echoing throughout the hallway.
Yan He, who was bringing up the rear, immediately covered his mouth with one hand and lowered his voice.
“Keep your voice down. They’re coming after us.”
Xu Muchan ran up the stairwell for five or six floors before finally slowing down.
The “rustling” sound below had not stopped. It was getting closer and closer to them.
But if they listened carefully, they could also hear the same sound coming from above.
Because it was farther away, however, the noise from below had drowned it out.
Xu Muchan suddenly stopped and blocked the others.
In a barely audible voice, he said to Yan He, “There are some above us too.”
Yan He’s hearing was not as sharp as his, but when he had entered the building last, he had looked back.
Outside, in the grass, he had seen countless small children crawling around.
Those children looked about two or three years old. Their skin was bluish-white, their bodies thin and emaciated. They crawled on all fours like animals.
The “rustling” sound was the noise they made as they crawled.
“We can only take a gamble. Knock on a door and get inside,” Yan He said through gritted teeth.
Xu Muchan had reached the same conclusion.
Without hesitation, he raised his hand and knocked on the door.
Knock, knock, knock.
The sound echoed endlessly through the stairwell, mixing with the “rustling” noises from above and below and making the atmosphere even more terrifying.
But the door remained stubbornly closed.
Instead, the “rustling” sounds above and below drew closer and closer, becoming denser and more numerous.
Everyone’s heart rate shot up.
Wei Yao finally could not stand it anymore. Summoning his courage, he walked over to the stairwell and cautiously stuck his head out to look downstairs.
The instant the motion-sensor light in the stairwell came on, he saw the staircase one floor below completely packed with countless small children.
They were naked, piled one on top of another, surging upward like a swarm of ants.
There were even some crawling along the walls.
Wei Yao’s scream caught in his throat.
He could only keep himself from collapsing by gripping the wall tightly with one hand.
He closed his eyes and desperately adjusted his breathing before trembling as he turned around and headed back.
But suddenly, something fell from the staircase above.
Bang!
It landed right in front of him.
It was one of those children.
Its body had been smashed into a horribly distorted shape, yet its protruding, pitch-black eyes were still staring fixedly at Wei Yao.
Its gaping black mouth curved upward into an arc, as if it were smiling.
Wei Yao felt his neck stiffen.
His body was no longer under his control.
His chin slowly tilted upward.
On the stair railing above, countless children were packed together.
Their bluish-white faces were piled on top of one another, all of them looking down in perfect unison.
Their gaping black mouths looked like some kind of black hole, sucking Wei Yao’s mind into them.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang…
A series of continuous thuds rang out.
The babies upstairs had discovered Wei Yao and began fighting one another to jump down.
“Wei Yao, are you an idiot? The door is open! Get inside!”
After Xu Muchan relentlessly pounded on the door, the door to 101 finally opened.
Wen Dajiang was just about to go inside when he noticed Wei Yao pressed against the wall of the stairwell, standing there in a daze.
He had no time to worry about anything else. He rushed over in one stride, grabbed Wei Yao by the collar, and dragged him inside.
Yan He, who was standing beside the door, slammed it shut.
Bang!
Wei Yao collapsed onto the floor, drenched in cold sweat.
His voice was weak.
“Outside… there are children everywhere outside. They’re like bugs…”
Just listening to him made Wen Dajiang’s scalp crawl.
Exhausted, he sat down beside Wei Yao.
When he looked up, he saw the He couple standing grimly in the entryway, their four eyes fixed coldly on them.
“…”
The two sides fell into an eerie silence for several moments.
Then He Jiaqi’s mother spoke ominously.
“Who are you looking for?”
Xu Muchan said, “We’re He Jiaqi’s classmates. She hasn’t come to school for several days, and we were worried about her, so we came to see if there’s anything we can do to help.”
He Jiaqi’s mother did not move her eyes at all.
“She’s fine. Her younger brother is sick, so she’s staying home to take care of him.”
Xu Muchan said, “Oh,” as though he had not noticed the murderous expressions on the couple’s faces at all.
He continued, “Since we’re already here, can we go see her?”
Behind him, Wen Dajiang and Wei Yao frantically tugged at his pants.
Holy shit!
He Jiaqi had already turned into a female ghost, and they were still asking to see her?
Weren’t they practically volunteering to be killed?
He Jiaqi’s mother stared at them for several more seconds.
Then she stiffly turned around.
Her arm stretched straight out as she pointed toward the room inside.
“She’s in her room. Go ahead.”
“Thank you.”
Xu Muchan turned back to look at the two unfortunate companions sitting on the floor.
“Let’s go see He Jiaqi.”
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang were scared to death, but seeing that Daoist Yan He had not objected, they could only help each other up and follow behind Xu Muchan, taking one slow step at a time.
Yan He walked at the back to cover their retreat. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that He Jiaqi’s mother was still standing there with her arm stretched straight out, pointing toward the bedroom. Her father stood silently behind her.
All four of their eyes remained fixed on them without blinking.
Xu Muchan did not knock. He simply pushed the door open and walked inside.
The room was not large, perhaps a little over ten square meters. As soon as they entered, they could see He Jiaqi sitting at the desk with her back to the door, her head lowered and her body completely motionless. No one knew what she was looking at.
Once all four had entered, Yan He gently closed the door, cutting off the view from outside.
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang pressed themselves against the door, afraid to move.
Yan He had originally intended to go over and take a look himself, but Xu Muchan got there first, leaving him no choice but to remain alert, gripping the copper coin sword inside his backpack in case anything happened.
Xu Muchan walked over to the desk.
He Jiaqi showed no reaction.
She sat upright in the chair, her head lowered. A test paper lay in front of her, and she held a pen in her hand, appearing to be doing her homework.
Xu Muchan vaguely felt that the test paper looked familiar.
He narrowed his eyes and took a closer look.
He realized it was the very same paper he had given her earlier.
It was a mathematics test.
He struggled to see it more clearly and discovered that He Jiaqi was not actually doing the test at all.
Instead, with the red pen in her hand, she was drawing crosses over the paper stroke by stroke.
She made each one very small, pressing down heavily with the pen. The entire test paper was crammed full of red crosses.
Fortunately, Xu Muchan’s eyesight was so poor that it took him a long time to see what she was doing. Otherwise, if it had been Wei Yao or Wen Dajiang who suddenly saw this, they probably would have transformed into screaming banshees again.
Xu Muchan thought for a moment before asking softly, “He Jiaqi, what are you doing?”
He Jiaqi did not raise her head. The hand holding the pen did not stop either.
She said eerily, “Doing my homework. The homework is so hard. I don’t know how to do it.”
“…”
Seeing that she seemed to be completely hung up on mathematics, Xu Muchan thought for a moment and said, “Actually, I remembered it wrong earlier. You already taught me how to solve that math problem before. Here, this is the answer.”
He took some scratch paper and a pen from his shoulder bag and quickly wrote down the problem from earlier, followed by the solution steps and answer.
Because he could not see clearly, he wrote the characters extremely large. One problem nearly filled an entire sheet of A4 paper.
He Jiaqi’s movements finally stopped.
She threw down her pen and picked up the scratch paper, looking at it from one side and then the other.
She finally became happy.
“So that’s how you do it.”
She put the scratch paper away, then looked at Xu Muchan before turning toward the three people by the door, seeming surprised to see them for the first time.
“Why did you all come to my house?”
Xu Muchan said, “You haven’t been to school for several days. We were worried about you, so we came to check on you.”
“Oh, so that’s why.”
He Jiaqi nodded, then looked troubled.
“Actually, I’m fine. My younger brother got sick, and his illness just wouldn’t get better. My grandmother is a very superstitious person, so she went around praying to gods and Buddha and somehow got some things for him to eat. And then he got better—but my little brother turned into a monster and ate her. My parents were scared out of their minds and have been hiding at home all day, suspecting everything around them. It’s made it impossible for me to go to school too.”
When she talked about her younger brother turning into a monster and eating their grandmother, there was not the slightest trace of sadness or grief on her face.
All she showed was irritation at being unable to go outside to attend school.
Wen Dajiang was completely dumbfounded.
Wei Yao remembered the countless ghost children filling the stairwell and cautiously asked, “Your younger brother… how old is he?”
He Jiaqi frowned.
“A little over two, I guess. But he’s been sick for a long time, so he’s as skinny as a skeleton. He looks just like a little baby.”
Then she suddenly changed the subject and smiled.
“Didn’t you see him in the hallway when you came? He’s been crawling around in the hallway. My parents are so frightened that they don’t even dare leave the house.”
Wei Yao said weakly, “But you only have one younger brother, right? There were countless…”
He Jiaqi looked at him as though he were an idiot.
“Didn’t I already tell you? He turned into a monster.”
Yan He cut in.
“Your younger brother has been chasing us. We’re trapped here now and can’t get out. Could we stay at your place temporarily?”
He Jiaqi seemed very easygoing.
“Sure, stay as long as you want. But my parents haven’t gone outside for several days, and now we’re running out of food. Did you bring anything to eat?”
As she spoke, her eyes swept back and forth over the four of them.
Xu Muchan shook his head.
“We came straight from school. We didn’t bring anything.”
The moment she heard that they had no food, the cheerful smile on He Jiaqi’s face disappeared.
After a brief pause, she said, “If you don’t have any, then forget it.”
That was what she said, but her eyes remained fixed greedily on the four of them, unwilling to move away.
Just as the atmosphere in the room grew increasingly tense, there was suddenly a knock on the door.
He Jiaqi’s mother’s voice came from outside.
“Dinner’s ready.”
The moment He Jiaqi heard the word “dinner,” her expression changed.
She immediately got up and walked out with light, quick steps.
Wen Dajiang and Wei Yao were still slumped by the doorway and had no time to move aside. She simply stepped over their heads.
The two of them:
“…”
Weakly, they climbed up from the floor.
Wei Yao poked his head outside and looked around.
“Should we go take a look?”
Xu Muchan nodded, and the group headed toward the living room.
The He family’s dining table was right beside the sofa.
The small square table was covered with bloody pieces of meat whose origins were impossible to identify.
The three members of the He family sat around the table, eating without even lifting their heads.
It was not until the four of them came closer that He Jiaqi finally raised her head from her bowl.
Her expression darkened.
“Are you eating too?”
Xu Muchan shook his head.
“Go ahead and eat. We already had dinner at school.”
The moment she heard that he was not going to eat, He Jiaqi’s expression immediately brightened.
She buried her face back into her bowl and began devouring the food hungrily.