"So… is the culprit that ragdoll again? Is everyone in this building being killed by that ragdoll?" Wen Qing had also seen what was written on the yellow paper. "Why would that monster do this?"
"Why?"
Wen Qing had no idea that the monster she was talking about was actually connected to Xiang Nuan.
As the three of them stood by the bed talking, changes slowly began to occur in the bedroom.
The human-shaped outline on the bedsheet was gradually sinking downward, as though someone had lain down on the bed.
The stain was moving. A child's handprint appeared on the sheet, and it inched along the fabric, getting closer and closer to Wen Qing.
All three of them were standing by the bed, yet the handprint seemed to have eyes only for Wen Qing.
"Don't move."
The handprint finally stopped right in front of Wen Qing. The room was so quiet it was terrifying — everyone held their breath.
"I feel like there's someone standing in front of me," Wen Qing said after a dozen seconds or so. Her eyes were filled with terror. "I'm telling you, something is standing right in front of me!"
"Ahh!"
Without any warning, Wen Qing let out a piercing scream and stumbled backward, her body slamming into the wall.
At the same moment, the child's handprint on the sheet began moving again, scrambling rapidly toward the window.
"Just now someone touched my face — their hand was ice cold!" Wen Qing's expression wasn't the kind someone wore when lying.
"You can feel its presence?"
"Yes. I can't see it, I can't hear it, and I don't smell anything strange, but I just know there's someone standing in front of me!" It was a horrifying experience that very few people had ever endured, and Wen Qing was thoroughly terrified. "None of you can feel it? Why is it targeting me? Did it mistake me for its mother? Like those two women who were just killed?"
"To it, you are one of a kind."
"Xiao Sun saw something too, didn't he? He said there was someone following behind our group?" Wen Qing was slowly calming down. She gently touched her face, pressing the spot where she had felt the anomaly.
"He's a tenant from behind the door — it's perfectly normal for him to see strange things. But you're from outside the door, and yet you've seen far more than he or I have. That's a little odd."
The world behind the door was woven from the door-opener's memories, and that weaving process was not something the door-opener could consciously control. The more deeply a person was etched in their memory, the more likely they were to appear.
All of those neighbors from Jinhua Residential Complex had appeared. As Xiang Nuan's mother, there was no reason for Wen Qing not to appear in the world behind the door.
Had Xiang Nuan sent the Wen Qing behind the door out into the real world? Or had the Nether Fetus, in order to achieve its own goals, killed or controlled the Wen Qing who existed behind the door?
"What are you thinking about?" Wen Qing asked when she noticed
"If one day you discovered that your child was nothing like what you had imagined, would you still love him?"
"Of course. No matter what he becomes, he is still my child." Wen Qing's answer was resolute, without a shred of hesitation.
"Even if he became the kind of monster you were just terrified of?" As
"Even if he became a monster, that wouldn't change the fact that he is my child." Wen Qing looked at him with some confusion. "Why do you keep asking these strange questions? Are you suspecting that Xiang Nuan is the monster in this building? That's impossible! You've never interacted with him — but honestly, he really is a very good boy."
"Mm, I believe he's a very good boy."
In the beginning, the Shadow had been pure. But after leaving
"Let's go to the next room. Finding the ragdoll's remaining limbs early will be a big help for our escape."
"Don't just change the subject like that! What did you mean by that question?" Wen Qing chased after
The incense burners placed in all four corners of the living room had been knocked over. The copper basin had been flipped too, and the ashes of burnt paper money were scattered everywhere.
"Someone has been in here — it followed right behind us."
"I think it's more likely to be a ghost. Let's get out of this building quickly."
"What appeared on the bed was a child's handprint, but the ones outside are blood handprints. Are those two different ghosts? Are there two child ghosts in the building? Or does every household have one?"
Behind the door, Jiuhong Residential Complex was full of the dead. They were the native inhabitants of this world. As for how many there were, probably only the Nether Fetus knew.
The blood handprints hovered around the third floor before scurrying up to the fourth. It was as though the monster were playing hide-and-seek with
"Do we really have to keep chasing it?" Xiao Sun's face was a mask of misery. He was genuinely afraid.
On the stairs between the third and fourth floors lay many dismantled toys and a large number of insect carcasses. Most of the insects were so crushed that even
Ash from the paper money stuck to the soles of their shoes. The air was stuffy, and faintly, the sound of something rolling across the floor could be heard in their ears.
The three of them reached the fourth floor. This level wasn't much different from the ones before — it just looked even more dilapidated.
The upside-down fu characters posted on the corridor walls had been torn halfway off. More importantly, there were bowls of white rice sitting on the ground.
The white rice outside the doors on the fourth floor had been eaten. Chopsticks were haphazardly jammed into the bowls, and grains of rice were scattered everywhere.
"So someone really did go and eat this stuff."