The room lay in an eerie, dead hush.
Together with that foul odor curling between their nostrils, the two men felt cold air rising off every inch of their skin.
Drip—
A drop of liquid fell beside them and struck the floor.
The sound should have been faint, but in the utterly silent room it was amplified beyond measure...
Ning Qiushui could even feel Liu Chengfeng flinch violently beside him as that drop of unknown liquid landed.
"B-bro..."
Liu Chengfeng's voice shook. He slowly raised his hand, as if to reach for something.
Ning Qiushui drew a deep breath and said:
"Don't turn on the light."
"Not if you want to live."
Liu Chengfeng froze.
"Wh-why?"
Ning Qiushui shook his head.
"I can't say yet."
"...All you need to know is this: where there's wind, don't turn on a light."
"And if a light is on, stay away from it."
Only then did Liu Chengfeng suddenly remember—every time Ning Qiushui passed a window, he always ended by sealing it shut!
An inexplicable chill swept over his entire body!
Then Liu Chengfeng's gaze fell on the gap beneath the door, and he couldn't help cursing inwardly.
Which bastard had been the last one into his room without turning off the corridor light?!
After what had just happened, neither of them could sleep. Setting aside the mutual squeamishness of two grown men, they squeezed onto one bed, as if each other's body heat could offer some small comfort.
They drifted in a haze for who knew how long. Outside the window, the sky gradually brightened, and the rain eased off.
Liu Chengfeng checked the time: eight in the morning.
Dim light filtered in through the window. Outside was still one vast expanse of gray, but at least they could see now.
His gaze fell on the floor to his left.
The ceaseless dripping of last night had come from there.
Liu Chengfeng got out of bed, examined the stain on the floor carefully, and got down on his front to smell it.
"Urk—"
The stabbing stench nearly made him vomit.
Ning Qiushui noticed and came over to look for himself.
He crouched down, sniffed, and his expression shifted slightly.
"This is..."
Liu Chengfeng leaned in:
"What is it?"
Ning Qiushui was silent a good while, then said slowly:
"Corpse water... or rather, corpse oil."
"Generally, when an animal reaches an advanced state of decomposition, its fat seeps out in an oily form..."
Liu Chengfeng couldn't take it and cut him off hurriedly:
"Okay, okay, bro, stop! I... I get the picture."
His face was ghastly as he looked up at the space above the stain.
The patch of wooden ceiling soaked through with corpse oil had grown from the size of a fist... to the size of a human head!
God only knew what was up there... above their room!
Just as Liu Chengfeng was wondering, two shrill female screams suddenly rang out beyond the door!
"Aaah!!!"
The two men exchanged a look.
Something had happened!
"Let's go!"
Ning Qiushui opened the door first and led Liu Chengfeng out of the room.
The moment he stepped out, Ning Qiushui's brow furrowed.
The stench of blood was overpowering!
Along the corridor, a trail of scarlet ran from the doorway of the room at the far end all the way... to the stairs.
The screaming was coming from over by the shutter window at the corridor's end.
A knot of people had gathered there.
Ning Qiushui and Liu Chengfeng went over and pushed through. Ya Mo and Yan Youping sat collapsed on the floor by the door, shaking like sieves, their faces drained of all color.
Beside them, along with the great pool of blood, was vomit...
"What happened?"
Ning Qiushui asked gravely.
The two women looked up at him, eyes brimming with violent terror, as if they had been through something unspeakable!
Their lips trembled; they couldn't get out a single whole sentence. They pointed at their room, tears streaming down.
Ning Qiushui looked toward the room and was about to open the door when Xue Guize stopped him.
His face was ugly in the extreme.
"It's... not pretty in there."
Ning Qiushui glanced at him, brushed his hand aside, first shut the drafty shutter window nearby, and only then opened the door.
When they saw the scene inside, the people outside stopped breathing!
On the bed nearest the door lay a corpse soaked in blood!
The corpse... was none other than Wang Yuning of the gold earrings!
Someone had died!
Enduring the nauseating reek of blood, Ning Qiushui entered the room, and only as he moved further in did he truly see the mangled body!
The sight nearly made even him throw up!
The corpse on the bed still had its head perfectly intact, the neck pale and slender—but below the neck, the skin had been ruthlessly ripped open. Scarlet muscle lay bared everywhere; hideous wounds gaped everywhere!
The internal organs had vanished. Great masses of muscle had been torn away, missing, scattered...
More terrifying still was Wang Yuning's expression...
Her eyes were closed, and there was no trace of pain on her face. Instead... the remnant of an eerie smile lingered there.
"Fuck me..."
Liu Chengfeng, who had followed him in, went round-eyed, legs splayed; if he hadn't clenched hard, he might well have pissed himself on the spot!
"This, this, this..."
Only now did he finally understand why the two girls outside had been reduced to that state!
Never mind women—even for him, it was all he could do to hold himself together!
Suppressing his revulsion, Ning Qiushui approached the corpse.
The others stayed outside, unwilling to set even one foot in the room.
It was simply... too horrific in there!
After examining the body, Ning Qiushui suddenly thought of something. His face changed abruptly, and he spun and ran for the door!
"Bro, what is it?"
With Ning Qiushui gone, how would Liu Chengfeng dare stay in the room alone?
None of the others dared remain on the second floor either. They followed Ning Qiushui all the way down to the first floor, into the kitchen.
Ning Qiushui stared at the cutlery hanging on the wall for a long moment, then murmured:
"A set is missing..."
Bei Dao, already scared witless, blurted:
"A set of what?"
Ning Qiushui slowly pronounced the words:
"A steak knife and fork."
The first to be struck rigid was Liu Chengfeng.
Last night, hearing the scrape of metal in the corridor, he had thought at once of a knife and fork!
Could it be...
Liu Chengfeng seemed to arrive at something terrible, and his whole body began to shake!
"What's a missing knife and fork got to do with the body upstairs?"
Bei Dao was still pressing.
Most of the group hadn't understood yet.
Ning Qiushui turned around slowly, looked at them, and enunciated, word by word, the sentence that turned their blood to ice:
"The wounds on Wang Yuning's corpse... were left by a knife and fork!"
As his voice fell, their faces went ashen.
"Ning Qiushui, wh-what did you say?"
"Are you sure?"
Ning Qiushui didn't answer Bei Dao. He asked the two women instead:
"Last night—did either of you hear Wang Yuning cry for help?"
Both shook their heads, terror in their eyes.
"No. We were exhausted last night. We both fell asleep fast..."
Then Xue Guize, his expression strange, gritted out:
"I... I heard something last night..."
"Heard what?"
"...The sound of metal scraping. Now that I think about it—it was exactly like a knife and fork!"
Ning Qiushui and Liu Chengfeng exchanged a glance, and he said to him:
"Go start the congee."
"Put in plenty of meat."
"I'll go look in on... the old woman upstairs."
Liu Chengfeng nodded.
"Bro—be careful!"
"And us?"
"You lot, come with me."
Yan Youping and Liu Chengfeng stayed in the kitchen to cook the congee, while Ning Qiushui led the rest hurrying upstairs, into the paralyzed old woman's room.
The moment they entered, everyone froze.
Because on the table beside the paralyzed old woman... lay a gleaming knife and fork!
The very pair missing from the kitchen!
As if sensing their arrival, the old woman lying in bed slowly turned her head and gave them a kindly smile.
"Aaah!!"
Ya Mo shrieked and fled downstairs, half falling, half crawling.
Bei Dao and Xue Guize beside her fared little better. Their faces were ghastly; if not for Ning Qiushui standing there steady as iron, they would probably have bolted after Ya Mo on the spot!
After the horrors of that morning, Ning Qiushui faced the old woman not only without fear—he actually... walked right in!
"Fuck! Ning Qiushui, have you lost your mind?!"
Xue Guize's face was ugly.
Anyone with eyes could see that the old woman lying on that bed was the one who had killed Wang Yuning!
And... in all likelihood, she wasn't even human!
Ning Qiushui ignored Xue Guize, went straight to the old woman's side, picked up the knife and fork, and examined them closely.
Very clean.
He held them under his nose.
No smell.
Ning Qiushui frowned.
He looked at the old woman on the bed, thoughtful.
He bent down close to her ear and said softly:
"Ma'am... is it usually just you, alone, in this house?"
The old woman's lips worked.
"Meat..."
"The meat's... not..."
There seemed to be something wrong with her mind; she just kept repeating it.
Ning Qiushui narrowed his eyes.
The meat's not... what?
The meat's not tasty?
He listened intently for a long time, but never once caught the old woman's third word.
At that point, Liu Chengfeng came up with the bowl of congee.
"Cooled it in water. It's not hot—she can drink it straight."
It had to be said: the congee smelled delicious.
The rich fragrance of beef.
Garnished with chopped scallions.
Ning Qiushui personally held it to the old woman's mouth, scooped up a little of the meat congee, and brought the spoon to her lips.
Everyone watched anxiously from the side, breath slowed, as if terrified the old woman would suddenly open a maw of blood and swallow Ning Qiushui whole.
But the horror they imagined never came.
The old woman quietly took the congee into her mouth.
Then, when she chewed down onto something, her brows suddenly knitted, and she spat it out in evident disgust.
It was a piece of beef.
Then the old woman went on spitting, until she had spat out every last bit of the meat congee in her mouth. Only then did she quiet down.
"The meat... the meat's not..."
She began repeating those words again.
Ning Qiushui leaned his ear right down to the old woman's lips.
In everyone's eyes, that motion was extremely dangerous!
If the old woman truly was last night's killer, then what Ning Qiushui was doing now was nothing short of courting death!
Fortunately, the old woman did not bite off his ear.
And it was precisely this risky move that won Ning Qiushui a piece of... crucial information!
"The meat's... not... cooked..."
The third word wasn't "tasty." It was "cooked"!
But... why would the meat not be cooked?
Ning Qiushui ate a spoonful of the beef congee himself.
Cooked.
Thoroughly cooked.
He stood in place thinking for a long moment, then suddenly seemed to hit on something, and said to Liu Chengfeng:
"Big Beard—quick, go make a bowl of congee with no meat in it!"
Standing outside, Liu Chengfeng found the request odd, but did as Ning Qiushui said.
Soon, he came in carrying a bowl of plain rice congee.
This time... the old woman ate it.
And didn't spit it out.