The vermilion courtyard gates were pushed open. Two children with blood-red painted faces skipped inside, hopping along merrily.
They sang a nursery rhyme, blood trickling down their cheeks. Only up close could you see that the crimson face paint wasn't painted on their skin—it was carved into the flesh.
"Stay back!" Brother Wang slumped to the ground, fumbling behind him for something to shield himself with. His fingertips touched something ice-cold. Without thinking, he glanced behind him—the corpse prop that had been half-buried in the dirt was gone from where it had been. At some point, it had wriggled free and crawled right up beside him!
"Ah!"
Brother Wang screamed for Sister Cat, crying out desperately for help.
But Sister Cat was in no position to save anyone. The pale, bloated ghost figure that had been soaking in the water vat had climbed out too. Droplets of water fell to the ground with a tick-tick sound, and its swollen face was turned straight toward the two visitors in the courtyard.
A piercing female scream nearly ruptured eardrums. Sister Cat lost all reason from terror, abandoned Brother Wang, and bolted out of the estate like a madwoman.
The lanterns lining both sides of the street glowed with a lurid red light. The village that had looked merely a bit eerie moments ago had completely transformed in the span of just a few minutes—it was practically the underworld itself!
The two painted-face children chased after them from the compound, that unsettling nursery rhyme echoing in their ears. Sister Cat scrambled on all fours, fleeing in blind panic.
"Help!"
A haunted house reviewer—screaming for her life inside a haunted house. This was something Sister Cat had never imagined possible before coming here. She ran slower and slower, the sedan-chair ghost behind her steadily closing the gap. Despair and fear threatened to swallow her whole.
"Why won't this road ever end? Someone, please save me!"
Around a corner, Sister Cat suddenly spotted a bright red burial shroud standing in the middle of the road.
The garment stood bolt upright in the path. The moment it spotted Sister Cat, it charged at her without a word.
Her voice had gone hoarse from screaming. Sister Cat could only run with everything she had.
Those who try hard rarely have the worst luck—amid her deepest despair, Sister Cat glimpsed a sliver of hope!
At the far end of another street, several dim yellow oil lamps flickered. The flames were feeble, but they pushed back the darkness.
"That must be the exit!"
Sister Cat poured every last ounce of strength into sprinting toward the lamps. But as she ran, something struck her as odd—the oil lamps didn't seem to be fixed to any wall or room. They appeared to be moving on their own!
"Are these oil lamps… floating in the air?"
With monsters chasing her from behind, Sister Cat had no time to think about it further. She ran another dozen meters forward before finally making out what those oil lamps really were!
Pale human faces floated behind each lamp. Every single one was clenched between a pair of teeth—each oil lamp was being held in the mouth of a severed head.
Sister Cat sprinted at full speed. Her brain had shut down entirely, and her body, carried by momentum, kept propelling her forward.
Just as she was about to crash straight into the ring of head-lamps, a hand grabbed her.
"Come with me!" The voice was cold and sharp. He seized Sister Cat and pulled her into an old house nearby, then jumped out through a window at the back of the estate.
"Who are you?"
"Don't talk. It's dangerous here."
The voice sounded vaguely familiar. Sister Cat let the stranger drag her through two streets. After they had shaken off the monsters, the two of them finally stopped.
Hiding behind a door, Sister Cat quietly studied the person who had saved her in her hour of need.