Ning Qiushui:
"I do not save a beast certain to die—it wastes my strength."
"I do not save a beast on the verge of death—it costs me years of my life."
"I do not save a beast riddled with disease—it infects me with stubborn ills."
Hearing this, Liu Chengfeng nearly laughed out loud.
"Bro, you're pulling my leg. You're a vet—if you won't save this and won't save that, wouldn't you starve to death?"
Ning Qiushui said, with a smile that wasn't quite a smile:
"I'm a veterinarian—but not only a veterinarian... Who told you I make my living treating people's pets?"
Liu Chengfeng spread his hands:
"Fine... then what kind of beast would you save, bro?"
Ning Qiushui's answer was thoroughly casual:
"If one catches my eye, I save it."
"...Even knowing it can't be saved, I'd still give it everything I have."
"Whatever the cost."
Liu Chengfeng shot him a rather startled look, then broke into a laugh.
This guy... what a fascinating character.
When the laughter passed, Liu Chengfeng thought of something else. He suddenly began scribbling away in the study, then tied the notebook he'd written in to a curtain and started swinging it against the window below theirs, again and again!
If his voice couldn't reach the second floor, then a sound made against the second floor itself... surely that would get their attention?
But he'd barely knocked it twice when the curtain—sturdy as it was—snapped!
Liu Chengfeng hauled the remaining half of the curtain back in, gave it a few hard test pulls, and muttered:
"That's not right... this thing's tough. How could it snap that easily..."
He tried several more times. It snapped every single time, without exception.
The eerie phenomenon sent a chill down Liu Chengfeng's back. He dimly felt an ominous sense of being watched, and gave up on passing messages downstairs.
"What is it?"
Seeing him finally quiet down, Ning Qiushui asked offhandedly.
Cold sweat seeped from Liu Chengfeng's forehead:
"I feel like something's watching me. Like, if I keep doing this..."
He didn't finish.
But Ning Qiushui already understood perfectly.
Clearly, within the villa's rules, the third floor was cut off from the other floors.
If they tried to force a message from the third floor down to the second or the first... that would be breaking the rules of the world behind the Blood Door, and something terrible would come of it!
"Hah... now they really are in fate's hands..."
With a sigh, he sat down against the skeleton by the window, took the diary from its hands again, leafed through it for a while, and said:
"Bro... what do you figure that monster outside actually is?"
Ning Qiushui thought about it.
"Going by the diary, the horrifying woman out there must have something to do with the little girl's grandmother—and the girl's parents clearly knew something."
"But what exactly happened, we have no way of knowing now."
"Maybe once this is over, we can ask that suited man when we get back."
Liu Chengfeng nodded.
***
For the three days that followed, they ate, drank, and slept in that room.
Fortunately, food and water were plentiful enough; keeping themselves alive was no great problem.
As for the two survivors downstairs, in the end they didn't make it through those last three days.
On the third night, after Xue Guize too was killed and eaten by the villa's ghost-woman, the last one left, Yan Youping, broke under the extremity of her terror.
She ran out of the villa and fled into the rain. Her fate needed no telling.
Liu Chengfeng felt wretched about it.
They'd all spent time together, after all—and none of them had been bad people.
But the wretchedness faded soon enough with time.
In the small hours of the fifth day, the two sleeping men were startled awake by a car horn blaring outside the window.
They shot up and stood at the window, peering out into the curtain of rain.
A bus had stopped outside the villa, honking its horn.
They knew this bus very well.
It was the very one that had carried them into the fog that day!
"Hey! The bus is here! The bus is here!"
"But... bro, how are we supposed to get out there?!"
Liu Chengfeng had barely gotten two joyful shouts out at the sight of the battered old bus—then he turned his head, and the joy in his chest was doused in ice!
He saw the horrifying, spindle-limbed woman in red standing right at their doorway, watching them with drool-dripping hunger!
It seemed the red-clothed woman also knew the two of them wanted out.
"We have to think of something, fast!"
"That bus is not going to wait for us long!"
Ning Qiushui's eyes darted around, hunting for tools.
Just as he was considering tearing the steel bars off the window, the old lady, who had lain there silent all this time, actually spoke.
Her voice was faint indeed, but they were close, and they heard what she said.
"Young folks... push me out there..."
The two of them slowly looked down at her.
The expression on the old lady's face was unexpectedly calm, and for a brief moment, clarity had returned to her eyes.
It seemed that after her long torment, she wanted this to end.
"When it... is eating... it cannot do anything else..."
"Push me out... and while it eats me... you two run... and never come back..."
Liu Chengfeng's eyes bulged:
"How can we do that... Holy shit, bro, you're really going to push the old lady out there?!"
Ning Qiushui replied:
"Push her—one of us dies."
"Don't—all three of us die."
The old lady smiled too:
"He's right..."
"I... won't... blame you... Living... for me... is nothing but... agony now..."
"Consider it a good deed... helping me... find release..."
At that, Liu Chengfeng abandoned his soft-heartedness. Gritting his teeth, he and Ning Qiushui together pushed the old lady out to the red-clothed ghost-woman waiting beyond the door!
The red-clothed ghost hadn't intended to eat the old lady—she still needed her to keep fishing.
But having gone two days without feeding... it simply could not resist this fresh meat delivered to its lips!
It plunged the knife and fork in its hand savagely into the old lady's chest and belly—and what followed was a scene of such brutality that Liu Chengfeng's stomach heaved...
"Run!"
Ning Qiushui snatched the blood jade off the windowsill, and he and Liu Chengfeng bolted past the gorging ghost-woman!
Bone-piercing cold radiated from the venomous glare she threw after them, turning their legs to water!
But thankfully, the old lady hadn't lied to them.
While the ghost-woman fed, she could do nothing else!
"Faster!"
Ning Qiushui glanced back and shouted.
"She eats fast!"
Running ahead, Liu Chengfeng's back streamed with cold sweat as he gritted his teeth and sprinted headlong for the stairs!
Bang!
He practically crashed through the villa's front door!
Ahead, the bus's yellow headlights were like salvation's holy light shining down from heaven, drawing the two of them on.
The moment Ning Qiushui burst out the front door as well, an utterly horrific roar erupted from the third floor—followed by a thunderous rumbling from inside the villa!
The red-clothed ghost-woman... was coming after them!
"Bro, hurry!"
"HURRY!!"
Liu Chengfeng hadn't boarded the bus. He stood planted in the doorway of the bus, bellowing at Ning Qiushui.
As Ning Qiushui reached the door, he stretched out a hand and hauled him bodily into the bus!
Behind him, the horrifying ghost-woman, crawling and contorting across the ground like a spider, was barely three, four steps from Ning Qiushui!
But the moment Ning Qiushui was aboard, the ghost-woman abruptly stopped her pursuit, howling madly, hatefully, at the two men inside!
Yet howl was all she could do; she dared not actually approach the bus.
Savage as she was, the red-clothed ghost-woman seemed to hold a deep dread of this bus.
In the end, she could only turn slowly away and vanish into the villa beyond the curtain of rain...