The little boy probably never imagined playing with the ball like this. He watched helplessly as his ball rolled all the way into the bathroom and vanished without a sound. His pitch-black pupils, devoid of any whites, showed a hint of unimaginable grievance.
A dim red light illuminated his pale gray face. His lips began to quiver, and it seemed like he would burst into tears any second.
Meng Yuhan panicked immediately. “Hey, don’t cry! Want some candy?”
She quickly pulled out a handful of fruit candies from her pocket, a gift from Grandma Qiu’s stall earlier in the afternoon. This was her usual trick. Back when she used to dominate the neighborhood, she’d console the crying kids she bullied with candy, making them promise not to tell their parents after eating it.
Now, seeing the boy on the verge of tears, her instincts kicked in, and she tried the same move.
Li Zhi didn’t stop her.
Since Meng Yuhan joined her in this instance, she hadn’t done anything remarkable so far, and her popularity points were probably still low. Li Zhi was worried about her safety and didn’t dare let her tackle tasks alone. Now, with this child ghost in front of them, if Meng Yuhan could resolve it by herself, she might earn a boost in popularity.
And even if there were real danger, Li Zhi could step in and diffuse the situation.
To their surprise, the candy trick worked just as well here as it did in the real world.
The boy in the overalls didn’t cry after all. His dark pupils widened, and he stared longingly at the colorful fruit candies in her hand. After a moment, he hesitantly said, “Mom and Dad don’t let me eat candy…”
Meng Yuhan responded skillfully, “But your mom and dad aren’t here right now, so they won’t know if you eat it!”
A smile broke out on the boy’s face, his mouth stretching wide with happiness. “Oh, that’s true…”
He stepped forward, walking slowly toward them, treading on the red light cast on the floor.
Meng Yuhan bit her lip, her outstretched hand trembling slightly, her eyes filled with fear. But she didn’t back away. Instead, she straightened her back and took two steps forward. The boy approached her, grinning, and carefully picked through the candies in her palm.
Then, he looked up and asked, “Are these all for me?”
Meng Yuhan nodded. “They’re all for you!”
The boy beamed and pulled open the small front pocket of his overalls. Meng Yuhan emptied the candies into it. The boy patted the now-bulging pocket and smiled with satisfaction. “Thank you, big sister.”
Meng Yuhan, quick-witted as always, took the opportunity to ask, “When will your mom and dad come back? You need to eat all the candy before they return, okay?”
The boy’s expression turned sad, and he pouted. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen them in a long time. They left me here and never came back.”
After he spoke, he picked out a peach-flavored candy from his pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth, looking quite content.
“When your mom and dad aren’t around, don’t open the door and come out to play by yourself!” Meng Yuhan warned. “It’s dangerous out here!”
“I woke up, and no one knocked on my door to ask me to play, so I came out to find someone to play with.” The boy’s cheeks puffed out as he spoke, his voice muffled by the candy, making him seem less eerie. “The uncles and aunties in the building don’t want to play with me.”
At this point, Li Zhi squatted down, acting like a gentle big sister, and asked with a smile, “Which uncles and aunties won’t play with you?”
The boy turned and pointed. “The ones living over there.”
He was pointing at the rooms with the lanterns hanging outside.
Li Zhi had a rough idea now. Smiling, she gently coaxed him, “Why don’t you find your ball and go back to your room to hide? If the uncles and aunties see you, they might try to steal your candy.”
The boy immediately covered the front pocket of his overalls, his dark eyes widening in alarm. “No, they can’t!”
Li Zhi said, “So hurry back and hide. Don’t come out again.”
The child nodded emphatically, clutching the front pocket of his overalls as he ran towards the bathroom. The ball hadn’t rolled too far; it had simply stopped on the floor of the men’s restroom. He picked it up, hurriedly ran back without looking back, and disappeared into the room with the open door.
The door silently closed, and the hallway returned to its usual quiet.
Li Zhi stood up, her expression calm as she looked at the swaying red lanterns. She held Meng Yuhan’s cold, sweat-soaked hand and said, “Let’s go. Time to head back.”
Back in room 205, the sense of fear dissipated considerably.
Meng Yuhan retrieved the bouquet of perfume lilies wrapped in newspaper from the bed and placed them in a vase. The strong fragrance of the lilies immediately masked the damp, musty smell of the room, filling the air with a sweet floral scent.
Just as she was about to crumple the newspaper and toss it into the trash, Li Zhi suddenly stopped her. “Wait.”
Her attention was drawn to the newspaper, specifically to a bold black headline and the black-and-white photo beneath it. The photo showed a slender figure standing on the edge of a rooftop.
Li Zhi brought the newspaper closer to the light to read the headline: Girl Attempts Suicide by Jumping Off Building Due to Parental Pressure to Marry.
The article detailed a tragic event. A 23-year-old girl, referred to by the pseudonym “Xiao Qin,” had climbed to the rooftop of her home with the intention of ending her life, unable to cope with the constant pressure from her parents to marry. Fortunately, firefighters managed to persuade her to abandon her suicide attempt and rescued her.
The article described Xiao Qin as a writer who was introverted, shy, and seldom social. She had never been in a relationship by the age of 23, which worried her parents, leading them to repeatedly push her into arranged dates and pressure her to marry. Unable to bear the stress, she considered ending her life.
The article concluded with a message encouraging parents to be more mindful of their children’s mental well-being and urging young people to protect their mental health, reminding them that suicide is never the answer.
It was an uplifting and hopeful news report.
As Li Zhi looked at the fragile figure in the newspaper photo, the image of Xiao Ke, whom she had met earlier that day, surfaced in her mind.
There was a strong chance that Xiao Qin from the article was Xiao Ke.
The report mentioned that the girl had been saved by firefighters, and the rooftop in the picture didn’t seem to be part of the South Street Apartments. Could it be that after her suicide attempt, Xiao Ke moved away to live on her own? Young people often move out to avoid conflicts with their parents.
While Li Zhi was deep in thought, Meng Yuhan finished reading the article. She suddenly asked, “Sister Zhi, after Xiao Qin was rescued, do you think her parents will stop pressuring her to get married?”
Would parents who pushed their daughter to the brink of suicide really stop after such an incident?
The article didn’t mention what Xiao Qin’s parents did during the time she was on the rooftop. It was the firefighters who persuaded her, and it was the firefighters who saved her. What about her parents? How did they react before and after the event?
But the newspaper didn’t provide any more details.
Li Zhi folded the newspaper and put it away. “We’ll investigate tomorrow and find out.”
The two of them tidied up the room, turned off the lights, and lay down on the bed. Recalling the creature that appeared the night before, neither of them intended to sleep just yet. From what they had seen, the monster only appeared once and wouldn’t return again, and during its appearance, holding their breath was enough to keep them safe.
The other players were likely thinking the same thing. Although they had all gone to bed early, none of them had closed their eyes.
The night deepened, and both the inside and outside of the building grew quiet.
In one of the rooms on the first floor, a tall, thin man wearing glasses nervously asked his fully dressed companion, “Are we really going through with this?”
“If we don’t take the risk now, we’re dead when this instance ends!” replied the other man, named Cao Xun. He had been a livestream seller before, and when the instances began, his large following had led the system to select him as a player.
He barely scraped through the last instance, and just thinking about it now filled him with dread.
This time, when Cao Xun glanced at his teammates, he knew he was in trouble. They were all more famous than he was, and both the men and women were better looking. Cao Xun could almost foresee his fate. Even if the pros managed to handle the situation and he did nothing but survive, his popularity rating would still be a noose around his neck.
So he had to make a bold move! He needed to boost his popularity!
The man sharing the room with him, a bespectacled player named Shen Zhijian, was slightly better off, being someone in the entertainment industry. But he wasn’t particularly famous either, and there was a chance his popularity score might not even be higher than Cao Xun’s, despite Cao Xun being a former livestream seller.
“We’ve got props. What’s there to be afraid of? We already know how to deal with the monster—just hold your breath when you see it,” Cao Xun continued persuading Shen Zhijian while hyping himself up for his livestream. “To all my viewers, get ready! Tonight, I’m going to face the monster head-on. Let’s find out what it really is together!”
Shen Zhijian gritted his teeth, finally making up his mind. “Alright! We’ll go together! That monster must have some kind of clue on it. Maybe the key to completing the mission lies with it!”
The two of them prepared their props and discussed their plan before cautiously opening the door.
The first-floor hallway was the darkest.
They didn’t dare make any noise, so the motion-activated lights stayed off. Only a faint glow from the streetlights outside seeped in, just enough to make out the shapes in the dark.
They quickened their steps and hid in the small triangular space behind the emergency stairwell, just as they had planned.
Based on the discussions earlier in the day, they knew the monster came from the first floor. By hiding here, they would be able to see it clearly when it passed by.
The stairwell was coated with cobwebs and dust, indicating it hadn’t been cleaned in ages. The two men squatted in the cramped space, covering their noses and mouths, their bodies tense as they waited. The minutes ticked by, and in the stillness, their heartbeats seemed unnaturally loud.
The eerie silence of the South Street Apartments at night amplified every tiny sound. The slightest rustle could be heard with alarming clarity.
After what felt like an eternity, they heard footsteps coming from the first floor.
Cao Xun and Shen Zhijian immediately straightened up, their bodies rigid with anticipation.
But the footsteps merely made their way to the bathroom. Moments later, they heard the sound of running water, as though someone was washing their hands. The bathroom was right above them, so the water sounded as if it were flowing directly above their heads.
They waited nervously for a while, but nothing else happened, and they slowly began to relax.
Shen Zhijian rubbed his numbed legs and shifted his position slightly.
The spot they were hiding in wasn’t directly facing the hallway, so to see outside, they would have to step forward a bit. But since they hadn’t heard any footsteps heading downstairs, just the continuous sound of running water, they didn’t bother to check outside.
In the deep darkness, Shen Zhijian suddenly sniffed.
He thought he smelled blood.
The metallic scent grew stronger, filling the air around them, carried closer by the wind that blew through the hallway.
Realizing something was off, Shen Zhijian nudged Cao Xun and whispered, “Do you smell that…?”
A shadow slowly stretched across the stairwell, blocking out the faint light from outside.
It was tilted at an unnatural angle, its head stretching down from above, grinning as it said, “Found you…”