It was as if everything had returned to where it all began, but this time, the surrounding atmosphere felt entirely different.
The malevolent wraiths in the darkness no longer hid. They revealed their hideous visages. The surrounding temperature rapidly dropped, chilling to the bone, as if he had been plunged into a massive glacial lake.
An indescribable stench of rotting corpses permeated the air. The odour was so overwhelming that it was practically suffocating.
Jiang Ming felt as if an invisible, crushing weight was suppressing his very soul. His mind reeled with intense vertigo, and a nauseating urge to vomit washed over him.
He fought to steady his footing, yet his body trembled uncontrollably.
The surrounding malevolent wraiths unleashed an array of ear-piercing shrieks. These sounds were no longer the mere disguises and threats from before; they brimmed with undisguised malice and cruelty.
It was as if these shrieks could pierce straight through Jiang Ming's eardrums to reach the deepest depths of his soul, filling him with endless terror and despair.
Jiang Ming clamped his hands tightly over his ears in an attempt to block out the noise, but it was completely futile.
The voices seemed to possess a demonic property, bypassing all physical barriers to act directly upon his psyche.
He could feel his Sanity plummeting at an astonishing rate. The speed of this drain was even faster than when he had faced ‘Mother' in the corridor!
Jiang Ming understood that his current situation was critical.
If he lingered any longer in this darkness, he would not even need the malevolent wraiths to strike. He would simply go mad from his depleted Sanity and ultimately march toward his own demise!
What should he do? What could he do?!
Jiang Ming's brain worked on overdrive. Should he summon another vending machine?
No!
Even if he summoned another vending machine, they would just topple it again. It would end exactly the same way as before, merely a futile waste of his Sanity.
They were forcing his hand like this for no other reason than to make him open Mother's room. But in this kind of situation, did he really have to open that door?
But even if he opened it, he probably still wouldn't escape death!
…
Standing in the pitch-black darkness, Jiang Ming fought to maintain his composure.
Suddenly, a hand reached out from the gloom, gently stroking his head. The sensation plunged him into an icy abyss, stiffening his entire body.
The hand hovered over Jiang Ming's crown as if searching for something.
When it touched a specific spot on the back of his head, it suddenly stopped. As though having discovered some hidden treasure, it gave a satisfied, gentle pinch to that patch of scalp. Immediately after, the hand viciously yanked.
Riiiip.
Accompanied by the sound of his scalp being torn away, Jiang Ming instantly experienced an agonising spike of pain. He let out a miserable wail, his voice echoing through the desolate room.
Following that, a myriad of bizarre and eerie chuckles echoed from all directions. They sounded like a collective mockery, yet also an impatient urging.
“Caw caw caw…”
“Squeak squeak squeak…”
“Heh heh heh…”
These piercing, grating laughs made Jiang Ming's head throb even more violently.
The eerie voices rang incessantly in his ears, ultimately converging into a single, unified demand within his mind.
“Open the room! Open the room!”
“Open the room! Open the room!”
“…”
They were battering him, threatening him, forcing him to make a choice.
The excruciating pain stabbed into his nerves like a sharp blade. Unable to endure it, he involuntarily crouched down onto the floor.
Extending a trembling right hand, he arduously felt around for his wound in the dark.
Every touch intensified his dread. Finally, his fingers brushed against a remarkably cold and rigid surface: an exposed patch of his own skull!
Jiang Ming's brain felt as though all coherent thought had been completely siphoned away, leaving nothing behind but a blank void of sheer terror.
He sensed something resting on his forehead. Reaching up with quivering fingers, he found a bloody flap of his own scalp plastered tightly against his brow.
The other end of the flesh was still connected to the rest of his scalp, as if deliberately displaying the gruesome aftermath of this savage atrocity.
Jiang Ming darted his tongue out for a taste. He tasted the blood; it was warm, slightly salty, and laced with an unbearably pungent metallic tang.
At this very moment, an utterly absurd thought popped into his head: “So the blood from the head is no different from the blood anywhere else in the body.”
In the darkness, the mocking laughter of the malevolent wraiths acted as grating scalpels, constantly slicing away at Jiang Ming's frayed nerves.
The bizarre, eerie laughter was unabashedly rampant, continuously challenging his Sanity…
Ultimately, Jiang Ming's internal reasoning reached a critical breaking point, igniting an undercurrent of extreme, tyrannical wrath from the absolute depths of his being!
Adrenaline flooded his system, roaring to find a cathartic release for this endless ridicule and torment.
Yet simultaneously, his heart became abnormally tranquil, akin to a pool of stagnant water without a single ripple.
Expressionless, Jiang Ming touched the exposed bone of his skull. The area that should have been covered by skin and hair was now laid bare to the air, freezing and piercingly cold.
His fingertips gently traced the cranial bone. With a placid face and a hint of sheer madness glinting in his bloodshot eyes, he muttered, “It doesn't actually hurt that much.”
The laughter in the shadows persisted. As Jiang Ming silently stood up, a malevolent wraith noticed his movement and once again gently caressed his head to find a suitable grip.
Jiang Ming ignored the repulsive touch. Allowing the blood to seep freely into his eyes, he calmly retrieved the Vodka he had drawn earlier, unscrewed the cap, and poured a mouthful down his throat.
At that exact moment, the spectral hand found its mark. With the same gentle pinch upon his scalp, it violently wrenched backward.
Riiiip.
Another chunk of his scalp was ripped clean off, left to flop limply against the opposite side of his forehead.
But this time, Jiang Ming merely let out a muffled grunt. He raised the Vodka to chug another mouthful.
The warm blood mixing with the icy Vodka, the stabbing pain of his torn scalp, the fiery burn down his throat, and the underlying madness brought on by his plummeting Sanity: all of these factors coalesced to give Jiang Ming an incredibly peculiar sensation!
But this blatant disregard seemed to infuriate the malevolent wraith. It removed its hand from his head, shifted its corporeal form to stand directly in front of him, grabbed the bottle, and squeezed lightly.
Crash!
Shattered glass shards and alcohol spilled onto the black carpet below. Jiang Ming gave the remaining broken half of the bottle in his hand a slight shake before casually dropping it.
They appeared immensely satisfied with this outcome. All around him, a cacophony of clamorous, aggravating laughter erupted in undulating waves.
The laughter emanating from the malevolent wraith right in front of him, the very one that had torn off his scalp twice, was especially grating.
Completely annoyed, Jiang Ming retrieved the windproof Zippo Lighter he had drawn earlier. The moment the flame flickered to life, however faint, it caused the surrounding laughter to abruptly cease.
The fire brought light, a presence they utterly despised.
Jiang Ming could not care less about their preferences. He moved the lighter forward, intent on seeing exactly what this malevolent wraith looked like.
The feeble flame illuminated a severely limited radius. Fortunately, Jiang Ming still managed to catch a glimpse of it; more accurately, he saw a face.
It was a visage devoid of eyes, lacking a nose, and absent of any normal sensory organs. Its face possessed only dozens of unevenly distributed, grotesque maws.
These mouths revealed overlapping, densely packed rows of serrated compound teeth, dripping with nauseating green slime.
Just this fleeting glance seemingly inflicted an immense humiliation upon the malevolent wraith.
It thrust out its putrid, reeking palm, complete with squirming white maggots, launching a heavy strike directly at Jiang Ming's hand holding the lighter.
The blow carried a tremendous, crushing momentum. The resulting gust of wind sent the two flaps of scalp on his forehead fluttering wildly. If this strike connected, Jiang Ming's hand would be instantly crippled!
Yet, as if he had anticipated this all along, Jiang Ming took a swift step back the precise moment the wraith lashed out.
The wraith's attack was as swift and fierce as a thunderbolt, but it whiffed through empty air just before reaching its target.
In that split second, Jiang Ming abruptly released his grip on the lighter, allowing the creature's revolting face to be swallowed by the darkness once more.
Then, Jiang Ming executed a manoeuvre that completely defied the expectations of every malevolent wraith present.
After dropping the lighter, instead of retreating, he surged forward. With a single explosive lunge, his hands locked onto the wraith's arm like a pair of iron vice grips!
At this moment, Jiang Ming resembled a mad demon crawled straight out of hell. His face was mottled with blood, his scalp dangling over his brow. Crimson streams coursed down his cheeks, dyeing his eyes a demonic red.
To pin the malevolent wraith down, he did not hesitate to open his mouth and savagely bite into that rotting, stinking arm.
His teeth sank deeply into the necrotic flesh. Green cadaveric fluids oozed out from between his teeth, intermingling with fresh blood to paint a truly horrifying tableau.
The malevolent wraith felt an unprecedented surge of fury and humiliation. It had never expected to suffer such a brazen provocation.
It flailed its arm, trying to shake Jiang Ming off, but he clung on like a festering curse, his jaws locked shut in a death grip.
Jiang Ming was hoisted into the air by that terrifying strength, thrashing wildly. Yet even suspended midair, he maintained his iron embrace around the wraith's arm, his teeth burrowing ever deeper into the rotting skin and muscle.
Just as the malevolent wraith prepared to exert even more force to completely fling Jiang Ming away, a magnificent burst of light suddenly descended!
Boom!
The highly flammable plush carpet, thoroughly soaked in Vodka, was ignited by the dropped windproof Zippo Lighter. It erupted into instantaneous combustion, the roaring inferno instantly enveloping all the malevolent wraiths in its blazing wrath!
The initially feeble spark expanded in a heartbeat, transforming into a raging conflagration that forced the encroaching darkness into a rapid, retreating rout.
The malevolent wraiths lurking in the shadows clearly had not anticipated this development. Caught in a state of panic, they were unable to evade in time and were wantonly licked by the vicious flames.
Broiled by the blazing inferno, they let out even more mournful and desperate shrieks!
Their former strength, capable of easily toppling a vending machine and blotting out light sources, now seemed so incredibly pale and impotent before this roaring inferno.
The flames resembled an enraged behemoth, madly devouring the ambient darkness. Every leap of the fire brought forth a far more scorching radiance.
The malevolent wraiths trembled within the brilliance. Their silhouettes contorted and warped in the firelight, as if they would be fully consumed by the blaze at any given second.
They bellowed in rage, attempting to use their voices to resist the boundless flames, but their cries merely echoed through the sea of fire, ultimately dissolving into faint, lingering whispers.
They tried to struggle, tried to fight back, yet beneath this grand illumination, their resistance proved miserably futile.
They were forced to retreat step by agonising step, moving further and further away from Jiang Ming until they finally vanished at the very edge of the firelight!
…
Meanwhile, the malevolent wraith whose arm was locked in Jiang Ming's vice-like grip was undoubtedly the very first target to be directly irradiated by the blaze.
It felt an unprecedented, searing heat. Stricken with terror, it tried to wrench itself free and flee. However, due to Jiang Ming's ironclad restraint, it simply could not escape back into the shadows.
The fiery brilliance pierced into its corporeal form like sharp swords, eliciting excruciating howls of pain.
Its wretched shrieks, filled with sheer despair and bitter unwillingness, reverberated through every corner of the living room.
Under the cremation of the flames, its body began to exude a bizarre black miasma. These misty tendrils acted as its final internal defence, attempting to ward off the lethal blaze.
But it was entirely useless. The radiant fire ruthlessly continued to scorch its flesh.
Realising it had no immediate avenue of escape, the malevolent wraith instantly made a decisive choice: sever its own arm!
Fresh blood geysered from the severed stump. Green cadaveric fluids, mixed with a few writhing insects, splattered outward, catching Jiang Ming off guard and spraying directly across his face.
Losing the wraith's support, Jiang Ming's body abruptly lost its balance, and he plummeted from midair.
The moment these insects made contact with Jiang Ming's skin, they let out shrill hisses, desperately seeking a chance to flee. However, Jiang Ming swiftly swatted his arm, flinging them to the ground.
The insects were instantly roasted by the flames, black smoke rising from their bodies. In the blink of an eye, nothing remained of them but a cluster of blackened stains.
Having broken free from Jiang Ming's restraint, the malevolent wraith's figure immediately twisted and blurred in the firelight, ultimately vanishing entirely. It left behind only agonised shrieks that continued to echo through the expansive living room.
Jiang Ming struggled to prop himself up against the floor, gritting his teeth through the pain as he climbed to his feet.
Looking up, he saw that the fire-illuminated room was now completely devoid of any entities.
Jiang Ming stared at the severed arm in his hand, which was continuously emitting plumes of black smoke. A smile curled at the corners of his lips; unbridled, rampant, and utterly mad. This time, it was his turn to laugh!
“Hahahaha! Hahahaha!”
“Hahahahahaha!!!”
Green cadaveric fluids slipped from the corners of his mouth and dripped onto the floorboards. The sound intertwined with the crackling of the roaring flames, almost as if providing a musical accompaniment to his maniacal laughter.
The firelight danced upon the walls, illuminating the entire living room as brightly as the middle of the day.
Jiang Ming swept his bloodshot eyes across the entire scene before him, as if seeking to carve this memory deeply into his very soul.
…
Jiang Ming was currently still standing in front of Mother's room. Before him lay two vending machine units toppled on the ground. One was battered and ruined; it was the very machine Jiang Ming had dismantled earlier.
The other lay face-down, its LED light tube crushed beneath its chassis; it was the one that the anomalies had pushed over.
And past these two vending machine units, the bedroom awaited right ahead. Clutching the malevolent wraith's rotting arm, Jiang Ming stepped through the raging inferno and made his way toward the bedroom.
Creaaak.
Twisting the handle, Jiang Ming opened the door and used the illuminating firelight to peer inside the bedroom.
The blazing fire stretched Jiang Ming's shadow to an exaggerated length, projecting it deep into the bedroom, right onto the bed, and perfectly over the half-bald yellow Labrador resting upon it!
The living room's firelight could not entirely illuminate the bedroom. Consequently, the darkness within the room draped over the Labrador like a pitch-black cloak. The two elements intermingled, yet remained distinctly separate.
It lay quietly on the bed, licking its remaining patches of yellow fur. Upon seeing the door open, it stretched its body and turned its gaze, brimming with rampant greed and base desire, squarely onto Jiang Ming.
The two locked eyes in utter silence.
Right at that moment, the electricity returned.