"The landlord is highly suspicious, but other possibilities can't be ruled out either."
Since entering the apartment building, he had seen a total of four people: the woman hiding behind her door crack, Wang Qi who was posting missing-person flyers, the foul-tempered landlord, and the old man in the wheelchair.
"The old man lives with the landlord, so I'll set that aside for now. The woman on the first floor gave me a strange feeling, which leaves only Wang Qi, who seems relatively normal. He should know something about the building." Chen Ge set the thermos inside the room, locked the door, and headed downstairs.
The motion-activated lights flickered on. The moment Chen Ge reached the first floor, he spotted Wang Qi clutching a stack of missing-person flyers and weaving through the corridor, sliding one flyer after another under the doors of the rental units — without any regard for whether anyone actually lived inside.
This odd behavior caught Chen Ge's attention. Most people who posted missing-person flyers went where the crowds were. Wang Qi, on the other hand, deliberately targeted vacant units.
Chen Ge quietly trailed behind Wang Qi. Only after Wang Qi had slipped the last flyer under a door did he speak up: "Brother, I understand how it feels to have a family member go missing. But you need to stay strong — don't keep torturing yourself with this meaningless routine."
Hearing the voice, Wang Qi slowly turned around. His cloudy eyes seemed perpetually out of focus: "Understand? You people will never understand. And I've never expected you to…"
Chen Ge didn't waste time with pleasantries. He pulled out his phone and pulled up the missing-person report he had filed at the police station a few months back. "I'm not lying to you. Both of my parents disappeared suddenly half a year ago. At first, I completely broke down too."
When Wang Qi saw the photo saved on the phone, he fell silent. It was a long while before he spoke again: "I sympathize with what you've been through, but our situations are different. My fiancée will definitely come back — I can feel it. She hasn't gone very far."
"Can you tell me about it? We're both lost souls drifting through the same storm. Maybe I can help." Chen Ge's tone was earnest, and he meant every word.
Wang Qi hesitated for a moment — perhaps remembering that Chen Ge had picked up his fallen flyers earlier. His gaze softened slightly. "You can't help me. You seem like a decent person, so let me give you some advice: leave. Quickly. And whatever you do, don't spend the night here!"
"I've already paid. If you want me to leave, you at least owe me a reason." Chen Ge had come here to complete his trial mission. Leaving now would mean abandoning it halfway, and the Midnight Slaughter horror scenario would remain locked forever.
"Is money more important, or is your life?" Wang Qi glanced left and right. Once he was sure no one else was around, he lowered his voice: "Something terrible happened in this apartment building once — a family wiped out. Everyone in the neighborhood knows about it."
"I've heard this is a haunted house too, but I couldn't find anything about the case online. It's probably just a rumor, right?" Chen Ge voiced the question that had been on his mind.
"Before, this building was called Fu'an Apartment. After the incident, it was renamed Ping'an Apartment. The case was a huge deal back then, and the killer still hasn't been caught to this day. The restless spirits of the dead can't find peace, so they appear in the old building every night." Wang Qi's expression was grave, and he spoke as though every word were gospel truth.
"We're living in the modern age, and you still believe in that stuff?" Chen Ge's lips twitched into a stiff smile. In truth, he was more rattled than anyone — the mirror monster, the love-letter ghost. The last thing he wanted was to get entangled with even more spirits.
"I didn't believe it at first either. Until my fiancée vanished without a trace right around here." He tugged at his hair in anguish, the exhaustion on his body impossible to hide.
"Why did your fiancée come to this place?" Chen Ge's attention sharpened at once. The speaker might have been casual, but the listener seized on every word — Wang Qi's fiancée bore a striking resemblance to his own parents' situation.
"I have no idea. The truth is, I'd never even heard of this apartment building before. It was the police who told me — they said every lead ended right here." Wang Qi released his hair. A few strands remained caught between his fingers. "I was desperate. This was the only place I had left to look."
"And did you find anything?" Chen Ge was deeply curious.
Wang Qi opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. He didn't dare say it aloud. Instead, he pulled his phone from his pocket and typed a line on the screen.
"My fiancée seems to have been kidnapped by someone in this apartment building!"
Reading the words on the screen, Chen Ge was somewhat taken aback. Things were developing differently from what he had imagined. "Brother, there's a big difference between a disappearance and a kidnapping."
Wang Qi signaled for Chen Ge to keep his voice down. He blocked the corridor with his back, opened his phone's inbox, and held it out for Chen Ge to see.
Chen Ge had only meant to glance at it, but once he read the text message in the inbox, his eyes slowly widened.
There was a text message from Wang Qi's fiancée in his phone's inbox!
The message contained just two words — *help me*. Strangely, the timestamp showed it had been sent at approximately two in the morning yesterday.
"Someone who's supposed to be missing sends you a distress text in the dead of night?" After the initial shock, Chen Ge quickly composed himself. "If you received the message, why didn't you call the police right away? Your fiancée is clearly still alive."
"You may not believe this, but every night after midnight I receive a text from my fiancée. Every single one says the same two words. And here's the thing — the moment I wake up, the message van, as though it never existed." Wang Qi pointed to the bloodshot veins in his eyes. "I haven't slept in twenty-four hours trying to keep this message from disappearing."
"The text disappears when you fall asleep?" It was the first time Chen Ge had heard of anything like it.
"I know you probably think I've lost my mind, but everything I'm telling you is the truth." Wang Qi leaned against the wall and put his phone away. "Even stranger things happen around me. For instance, my fiancée's belongings randomly appear in my room — without any warning. It's as though she's constantly reminding me to come find her."
After hearing Wang Qi's last words, Chen Ge's eyelid twitched.
Judging by his own experiences over the past few days, Wang Qi's fiancée hadn't gone missing — she had already been killed and turned into a ghost, and had come back to haunt him. That was the only explanation that made sense. Of course, all of this hinged on the assumption that Wang Qi wasn't lying.
"My fiancée disappeared inside this apartment building. My entire life changed because of this building. It's a haunted house, filled with the restless spirits of those who died unjust deaths. Anyone who tries to get close will be cursed with misfortune. Please — leave while you still can." Perhaps because he hadn't spoken this much in a long time, Wang Qi's face had gone pale.