Although this old Japanese-style mansion had only a handful of rooms, the layout felt like a labyrinth. Some rooms were connected to each other, and what appeared to be dividing walls in the middle were actually sliding wooden doors.
The entire floor plan was deeply unsettling. The five bedrooms corresponded to the five internal organs of the human body, and Chen Ge had found incomplete scrolls of scripture in each one.
Despite the overall Japanese architectural style, the scrolls were written in traditional Chinese characters, most of which were obscure. Chen Ge could only recognize the characters for metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
"Five bedrooms, five organs, five elements…" The sound of wind chimes drifted past his ears. Chen Ge turned around, still curious about where the sound was coming from. This was the second time he had heard it.
"Have you noticed? This mansion looks like a person lying face down on the ground." The police officer's attitude toward Chen Ge had improved considerably. He was like a shadow, trailing right behind Chen Ge—wherever Chen Ge went, he followed.
"A person?"
"Think about it. The room we came in through is the head, the side wings are the arms, the lower section is the legs, and this central corridor is the torso. The shrine at the end of the hallway—it's like someone is standing on top of it." The officer's observation actually gave Chen Ge a spark of inspiration.
"If the entire building is a person, then this layout is like a living person pinning the shrine down."
"A person standing on a god?" A gleam flashed in the officer's eyes, and he suddenly shouted at Chen Ge: "I get it now! A person standing on a god! That's why a pair of red high heels appeared inside the shrine!"
The first half of the reasoning was passable, but the rest went completely off the rails. Chen Ge wanted to correct him, but the officer was far too excited, loudly sharing his discovery with the other visitors.
While the others engaged in animated discussion, Chen Ge stood quietly in the corridor. "The theme of this place is curses, and a curse can be a cycle. It starts spreading from the first act of malice. To clear this place, we need to figure out exactly what happened here first."
"I found a camcorder in the first bedroom. It recorded footage of seven young people spending the night in the old mansion. The tape doesn't show what happened to them in the end, but their chances of survival were basically zero. That's seven lives."
"In the second bedroom, there was a huge pile of clothing, all caked with mud, as if freshly pulled from a mire. Comparing that with what the mansion's owner said—her parents were caught in a mudslide, and the entire family perished outside. The clothes they were wearing at the time of death would have been drenched in mud."
"So the clothing piled in the second bedroom likely belonged to the mansion owner's parents. As for why they got into the car accident, it was probably connected to the shrine as well."
Chen Ge rubbed his chin, quietly organizing the clues in his mind. "According to the mansion's owner, it was raining heavily the day her parents left. The roads in this small mountain village are terrible. Judging by the villagers' reactions, mudslides and other natural disasters are common in the area. The homeowners were local residents—they knew all of this. So why did they insist on leaving?"
The answer was self-evident. Chen Ge turned to look at the shrine. "They may have opened the shrine too. Even if they didn't open it, they must have discovered something extremely dangerous, which forced them to flee! But they didn't expect that even after leaving the mansion, they still couldn't escape the shadow of death. That must be the power of the curse."
"Then there's the third bedroom. I found an overturned offering table with a black-and-white photograph of an old man on it. Creepily, the old man in the photo was photographed from behind, so his face was invisible. Besides that, I also saw many children's toys in the third bedroom, all hidden underneath the offering table."
"The items in the third bedroom reminded me of the story the man on the camcorder told. On the day of the old man's burial, his grandson opened the shrine and then disappeared. If the grandson is also dead, that's two more lives."
"There's a common thread running through all these events—the people involved may have all opened the shrine."
The first three bedrooms contained the belongings of the dead. Starting from the fourth bedroom, things were different.
"In the fourth bedroom, I found signs of a massive fire. The walls were blackened with soot, and everything inside had been burned. Who set the fire? And why did they destroy everything in the bedroom?"
Unable to make sense of it, Chen Ge skipped over the problem for now. "Leaving the fourth bedroom aside, the fifth bedroom is also very strange. It appears to be a woman's room—there's a mirror against the wall, the closet is filled with various beautiful traditional garments, and there are makeup boxes scattered about. The room's owner was likely a young woman, so why is there a black-and-white photo of an old woman displayed on the other side?"
"The fifth bedroom creates a sense of dissonance, and what's even more unsettling is that the old woman's photo is facing into the room, giving the impression that she's smiling at the new clothes inside."
"The old man's photo in the third bedroom was taken with his back to the camera, while the old woman's photo was taken facing the camera. Why is that? What exactly happened to this family?"
While Chen Ge was thinking, the child's voice suddenly appeared again: "Butterflies feel pain when they lose their wings, but why do they still tear off a butterfly's wings?"
The ethereal voice cut through the silence without warning, startling Chen Ge. "Maybe because they're jealous of the butterfly's beauty. Some ugly people just love destroying things more beautiful than themselves—it makes them feel prettier by comparison."
"Ugly people? Grandma isn't an ugly person…" The child seemed to be murmuring to himself.
"Grandma? She tore off the butterfly's wings?"
"Mm." The child sounded unhappy.
"You must be lonely here by yourself. Would you like to be friends?" Chen Ge deliberately slowed his speech.
"I'm with Grandpa. He doesn't let me run around. He's afraid Grandma will find out I exist, so he always makes me hide in the room." The child's voice carried a trace of innocence—he was like a blank sheet of paper.
"So the most terrifying person in this mansion is Grandma?" Chen Ge slowly raised his hand, wanting to verify one thing.
A chill touched his fingertips. Something was indeed standing right beside him—it wasn't a projection!
"Can you take me to see your grandfather?" Before Chen Ge could wait for the child's reply, he heard the wind chimes again. This was the third time.
"Grandma's here. I have to go back." The boy's voice gradually faded. Chen Ge activated his Yin Eyes and looked behind him, catching sight of a four- or five-year-old child darting into the third bedroom.
He was about to chase after the child when he suddenly felt the wooden partitions along both sides of the corridor vibrating. A monstrous spider—larger than a full-grown adult—crawled out of the room plastered with talismans.
Screams erupted as the spider scuttled rapidly along the walls and ceiling. Its arms were human, and atop its body sat a withered human head.
"A projection?" The creature was far too realistic—looking at it made Chen Ge's scalp tingle. "This is a nightmare-level difficulty, all right. This thing isn't just terrifying—it induces genuine physical revulsion."
The spider seemed to have locked onto Chen Ge specifically, and it skittered toward him at full speed.
Seeing things were going south fast, Chen Ge led the spider straight toward the rest of his team.