No one in the rental apartment noticed that Chen Ge's shadow, after absorbing the bloodstains from the clay sculpture, had begun to slowly change shape — as if a sleeping woman were gently turning over in her dreams.
"Get some rest early. See you tomorrow." Chen Ge glanced at the clock on the wall. It was two in the morning.
He left the rental apartment without returning to New Century Paradise, hailing a taxi straight for the old city district.
The dim yellow glow of the streetlights filtered through the car window and fell on his body as Chen Ge gazed at the silent city, pulling his collar tighter.
The old city district at night was vastly different from during the day. There were no lights to be seen, no sounds to be heard. As Hanjiang continued to develop, fewer and fewer people lived here — most had moved to the new district.
Passing through the pitch-black streets, it took Chen Ge only a little over ten minutes to find the place where Wu Jinpeng had previously rented.
The rental apartment was two streets away from Fan Yu's home. The conditions here were even worse, and the stench in the air was far more pungent.
"How have they been living here all this time? Am I the only one who can smell this?" Chen Ge remembered that during the daytime when he had come looking for Jiang Ming's mother, the neighborhood committee lady and Jiang Ming's mother hadn't seemed to notice. Whether they had grown accustomed to it or something else was going on, they appeared completely unaware of the strange stench in the air.
Stepping out of the alley, Chen Ge gripped a rusty railing and climbed to the second floor of an old building. He looked off into the distance — this still wasn't the most remote, dilapidated part of the old city district.
"204… Found it. This is the one." Chen Ge stopped. Before him was a wooden door painted red, with a rusted iron chain looped through the handle. "After Wu Jinpeng moved out, this room was never rented again?"
He opened his comic book and summoned Men Nan. "Brother Nan, do me a favor. Check inside this room, and whatever you do, don't go into the one next to it."
Room 205, the furthest on the second floor, was the room Wu Kun had once said was haunted — and the tenant of that room was the one who had given Wu Jinpeng the shrine and the clay sculpture. To be safe, Chen Ge only had Men Nan enter Room 204 first. If they found nothing, he would summon several more Red Dresses to enter Room 205 together.
Blood seeped through the crack beneath the door. Men Nan vanished for less than a minute before reappearing. "Everything looks normal inside. No signs of anything wrong. But I did feel a little uncomfortable while I was in there."
"Take Xu Yin with you, bring this red high-heeled shoe, and go check the room next door — 205."
Three Red Dresses entered Room 205. A few seconds later, a sudden noise erupted from within — like a knife puncturing a water balloon filled to bursting. Then Chen Ge heard the sound of bones dislocating and being torn apart.
"What happened?"
Blood-red threads spread across the surface of the door, and a heavy stench of blood drifted uncontrollably outward in all directions. Chen Ge knew Men Nan and the others had encountered something. He decisively flipped through his comic book, ready to release Xiao Bu and the Red Raincoat as well.
This side of the corridor was a living hell, yet five or six meters away on the other side of the hallway, a light flickered on, accompanied by a man's disgruntled cursing and footsteps.
Just as that neighbor was about to come out, the door to Room 205 swung open from the inside.
"Chen Ge, come look at this!"
Chen Ge slipped inside and instinctively covered his mouth and nose. The room was filled with a thick, overpowering stench.
Gently closing the door behind him, Chen Ge used his Yin Eye to examine the rental apartment.
The room was small — only a little over thirty square meters. Yellowed newspapers covered the walls, and dust lay everywhere. No one had lived here for a long time.
"What were you fighting just now?" Chen Ge asked with some curiosity.
"It wasn't a thing. It was a curse." Men Nan tore the newspapers off the wall. On their backs and on the apartment wall itself were scattered clumps of fine hair and small patches of black bloodstains — deeply unsettling to look at.
"This is the curse?"
"Yes. The hair fragments and bloodstains come from different people. When we first entered, we saw black threads of the curse intertwined and covering the entire room. Anyone who accidentally wanders in would fall victim to it — cursing them without their knowledge." Men Nan gestured for Chen Ge to step back, not to stand too close to the walls.
"Is the curse in this apartment the same as the one in Liwan Town?"
"No." Men Nan, who barely reached Chen Ge's knee, held the red high-heeled shoe and spoke with a serious expression. "According to this sister, the curse in this apartment is merely negative emotions that leaked out from another curse during its completion."
"Meaning someone once completed a truly terrifying curse in this apartment?"
"You could put it that way. After all, the leaked negative emotions are only an extremely tiny fraction." Men Nan nodded. He was naturally that kind of meticulous, rigorous person.
"An extremely tiny fraction of negative emotions is enough to turn a room into this. How vicious, how terrifying must the actual curse have been?"
"Impossible to imagine. At the very least, this sister has never encountered a curse this horrifying." Men Nan held up the red high-heeled shoe. "Could you hold this for me? I want to be clear — I'm absolutely not afraid of her. I just find it inconvenient to carry her shoe around."
"Can you tell from what's left in this room what the curse was connected to? Or can you figure out who the curse was targeting?" Chen Ge ignored Men Nan's request.
"We don't know who the curse was meant to target either. But we did find some information on the wall. The curse was composed of nine parts." Men Nan tore away all the newspapers on the innermost wall of the apartment.
On the wall, covered with hair fragments and bloodstains, was a small figure drawn in a crude hand. Words were scrawled crookedly across its body.
"What is a person?"
"How can a person be assembled?"
"Eyes that see the world. Ears that hear sound. A mouth that can communicate. A body that contains the soul…"
"A person must also have memories — layers upon layers of the past."
"What is light?"
"Warmth. Yes, a person has warmth."
"They say a person should also have love. What is love?"
"It seems something crucial is still missing. Think carefully — what else does he have that I do not?"
Line after line of text divided the small figure's body into nine sections, each a different color.
"Is this painting the curse?" Chen Ge asked, somewhat confused.
"Rather than calling it a curse, it would be more accurate to call it the room owner's delirious rambling. These were probably the thoughts that occupied his mind most while he was casting the curse." After a moment, Men Nan added, "This curse gives us a very peculiar feeling — as if, within a thick aura of death, a seedling is quietly growing."
"Nine parts, corresponding to nine children. The one who left this curse is most likely the Nether Embryo. Did he also once live in the old city district?"