“Are you sure that woman was pregnant?” Shao Lan asked.
Uncle Bing nervously twitched his fingers, seemingly wanting to nod, but hesitating greatly.
“I think so,” he wrote, “but it was dark in the room, so I’m not really sure.”
Shao Lan understood. The process of Uncle Bing being killed had been too fast, and the lighting was dim; even though he had seen it, he couldn’t be certain.
“Tell us about the second time.”
During the second time, Uncle Bing never left the bedroom at all.
“Scared, hiding.”
Uncle Bing wrote, pointing at Shao Lan, then with a trembling pen tip: “Making a phone call, died.”
…
When Uncle Bing woke up in this bed for the second time, he had been scared out of his wits.
He couldn’t understand anything that was happening and felt as though he had run into some kind of evil spirit. Following a method he’d heard about in his village during childhood, he wrapped himself entirely in the quilt while continuously chanting Buddhist prayers in his heart.
After chanting for a long time, everything outside was completely silent.
He poked his head out from the quilt, only to find that he was still in this bizarre bedroom.
He wanted to escape, but remembering that he had been killed by that woman the moment he stepped out last time, he didn’t dare to.
After hesitating for who knows how long, Uncle Bing suddenly heard a soft phone call coming from outside.
“Building 7, Xingfu Residential Area.”
He hurriedly crept over to the door seam, peering out through the crack.
He saw a young man in a white shirt and black trousers, with a refined appearance and a pair of silver-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.
The young man was leaning close to the landline telephone, holding the receiver in one hand and making a call.
“Building 7, Xingfu Residential Area. Right now, threatened with a knife.”
Was he calling the police?
Uncle Bing wanted to push the door open, but the next second, his eyes widened in horror.
Dim light illuminated the living room, and not far behind the young man, a monster was crawling on all fours.
She was hugging the floor on her belly, and in the darkness, she looked like a spider with a gigantic abdomen.
It was that woman! The same woman who had just killed him earlier! Having heard the young man’s voice, she had crawled all the way out from the kitchen!
Uncle Bing wanted to scream, but terror tightly gripped his throat; he couldn’t make a single sound.
The woman silently crawled up behind the young man, then stood up.
Her messy black hair draped over her face, blending seamlessly with her black padded jacket.
Then, she thrust her arm straight into the young man’s chest!
Blood sprayed everywhere.
Uncle Bing collapsed backward onto the floor.
He closed his eyes and trembled all over.
After an unknown length of time, Uncle Bing opened his eyes again.
The living room had returned to silence, save for the large patch of bright red bloodstains on the wall, reminding Uncle Bing that everything that had just happened was no hallucination.
From the kitchen came the music played by the radio and the sound of a cleaver chopping bone by bone.
Shivering violently, Uncle Bing sat hunched against the base of the wall, biting down hard on his teeth.
He was someone who had been cowardly his entire life; at this moment, he didn’t dare to step out, didn’t dare to fight, and didn’t dare to do anything at all.
He felt as though he was going to die right here.
Time ticked by second by second, and suddenly, the sound of police sirens pierced through the silence of the night.
Uncle Bing suddenly widened his eyes!
He lunged toward the window. The misty rain made it difficult to see clearly outside, but tiny vehicle headlights were indeed flashing deep within the fog.
The police had arrived!
As expected, moments later, the security door not far away began to ring.
“Police, open the door!”
“Is anyone inside? Open the door!!!”
Calls echoed out one after another, yet no one opened the door.
Seeing the frequency of the knocking gradually fade away, Uncle Bing grew anxious.
He stumbled and rushed out of the bedroom.
He was only a single door away from the police; as long as he opened it, he would be saved.
However, after running a few steps, Uncle Bing was heavily tripped by something and fell crashing to the ground.
“Ah!!!”
He let out a heartbreaking scream.
The woman was lying on the ground.
She lay flat on the floor, splayed out like a corpse.
But she wasn’t a corpse. The instant Uncle Bing let out his scream, an eerie smile appeared on her face.
Rising abruptly, the woman grabbed Uncle Bing and slammed him entirely onto the ground.
She was blind and unable to find her “prey,” but as long as the “prey” ran across the living room, they would step right on top of her.
Uncle Bing’s final memory was the woman pinching his neck and forcing him to lock eyes with her.
Those eyes, completely filled with whites and covered in bloodshot veins, were wide open, staring straight at Uncle Bing.
“It’s so bitter,” she said with a weird smile, “it’s really so bitter.”
The next second, the sound of cracking bones echoed through the air, and Uncle Bing’s vision violently spun, facing the wall.
His head had been twisted a full hundred and eighty degrees, snapping his cervical vertebrae.
Not far from Uncle Bing lay Jiang Mingran, who had collapsed on the floor, and Shao Lan, who had already been dragged into the kitchen and hacked to pieces.
Everyone was dead once again.
The second loop came to an end right here.
…
The little goldfish in the fishbowl blew bubbles.
Having asked Uncle Bing everything they could, Shao Lan stood up and fell into deep thought.
Jiang Mingran sidled up to Shao Lan and held up a small slip of paper: “Uncle Bing is a good person, right?”
Shao Lan nodded slightly.
In fact, even before the interrogation, he knew that Jiang Mingran’s death last time most likely had nothing to do with Uncle Bing.
But it was only a probability; in this bizarre place, anything was possible, so he had to thoroughly question him.
From the looks of it, Uncle Bing hadn’t lied.
He was very timid, lacking in courage and judgment alike.
Yet his existence was not without meaning.
During the previous loop, although he hid in the bedroom the whole time, he helped Shao Lan and Jiang Mingran confirm a very important detail.
That was: “After calling the police, the police will actually come.”
This was extremely critical information, indicating that this path was heading in the right direction—they had simply all been killed before they could wait for the police to enter the door.
So, what needed to be done next was…
“Tell us,” Shao Lan looked toward Jiang Mingran, “how exactly were you killed?”