He turned around, and a dark shadow was suddenly standing before him. “Ah — !!!”
The massive shock caused him to collapse to the ground instantly. His phone flipped over, the light illuminating only the ceiling, unable to reveal that pitch-black shadow.
“You—you—you!”
His voice was incoherent, but he soon realized that the other party didn’t seem to be attacking him. It was just standing there.
‘Is it a ghost?’
He didn’t know. He swallowed hard and slowly stood up. Hearing the other person’s voice, his legs went weak again.
“Who—who exactly are you? A person or a ghost?!”
Unfortunately, he didn’t have a handy weapon nearby to use for self-defense.
“Brother… I’m so hungry…”
“Hungry? Hungry?”
He was somewhat stunned.
‘A ghost that says it’s hungry?’
But if the other party was a ghost, why didn’t it just eat him? Was it a person? But what kind of person was so pitch-black that their appearance couldn’t be discerned?
After thinking for a moment, he fumbled in his pocket and eventually pulled out a single milk candy, tossing it toward the figure.
“This… is candy. See if you can eat it?”
Hearing Hao Ren’s words, the dark shadow paused. It looked at the milk candy by its feet, crouched down, picked it up, and popped it into its mouth.
Hearing the sound of the candy being crunched and shattered, he swallowed the words he was about to say. He watched the figure crouch on the ground, chewing the candy.
Somehow… it didn’t seem quite so terrifying anymore?
For that reason, he spoke tentatively, “Um, may I ask who you are?”
The dark shadow tilted its head as if in confusion, then shook it. “… I don’t know…”
“You don’t know? Don’t you have a name?”
This time, the dark shadow fell silent. Then, its uncertain voice drifted out. “I… I only remember my name is Sui…”
“The Sui from ‘peaceful years’.”
“Sui?”
Hao Ren repeated the name and gave a forced smile. “It sounds quite nice.”
But Sui didn’t answer. She just kept chewing the candy.
Gradually, Hao Ren’s fear faded. He stood up and grabbed his phone, only to find that the live stream room had been banned long ago.
It seemed the panic from earlier had caused it.
He scratched his head and looked at the black mass on the floor. “Sui, how did you get here?”
“I’ve always been here…”
“… You live here?”
“Yes.”
‘Living in the ruins? Is she a homeless child?’
He instinctively neutralized the entity, assigning it an identity he could understand rather than a supernatural phenomenon. This was also a form of self-protection.
“I’m still so hungry…”
Hearing this, Hao Ren felt his pockets. “I’m out of candy.”
“But I’m so hungry… I want to eat something…”
The dark shadow stood up.
“How about… I order some takeout?”
“Take—out?”
“Yes, they can deliver delicious food… but they can’t get into this place. I’d have to order it for outside and then go out to get it.”
“But I’m hungry right now… Brother… can you let me eat you?”
Finally, he saw it clearly. That dark shadow was a mass of densely growing hair, and beneath the hair were countless splitting mouths — human mouths, beastly fangs, and bird beaks…
They were opening silently, revealing chambers of raw flesh.
‘Run.’
Hao Ren’s brain immediately issued the command. This wasn’t some neighbor’s little sister he could chat with; this was a man-eating monster!
But he had underestimated the creature. Before he could move, a cutting pain shot through his body.
He turned his head and saw strands of hair stabbing into his flesh as if they were growing inside him, wriggling constantly.
‘It hurts!’
Seeing the dark shadow walking toward him step by step, he didn’t have time to think. He reached out and yanked the hair, tearing it out along with chunks of his own skin.
The scent of blood instantly triggered Sui’s hunger. She crouched down, picked up the fallen flesh, and stuffed it into her mouth, chewing with a wet, crunching sound.
Hao Ren seized the opportunity to bolt past her and run toward the door! He grabbed a wooden stick from the floor as he rushed into the stairwell.
*Thud, thud, thud.*
He jumped down a large set of steps, stabilized himself, and ran toward the exit of the teaching building. But he stopped in his tracks almost instantly.
A rotting apple was sitting right in front of him.
Then, the apple began to undergo a bizarre transformation. The rotted and missing flesh grew back naturally, restoring it to a plump, round red apple.
Afterward, all the redness vanished as if by magic, turning green before gradually shrinking and withering into a tiny seed.
Immediately, the seed cracked open.
What grew out wasn’t a plant, but small, white bones. The bones grew upward, and countless arms intertwined and knotted together.
In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a white bone withered tree. Then the branches embraced each other and shrank, finally bearing a single white fruit in the center.
*Crack —*
Without a second thought, Hao Ren turned and ran.
But behind him, the black hairball had already stopped at the top of the stairs, looking down at him from above. He was trapped.
*Click, click.*
At that moment, the fruit hatched. A small, curled-up skeleton, hugging itself, was born from within. All the branches transformed into a nest to hold it.
“Hehe… so hungry… eat up…”
“Wuuu… so hungry…”
Two different voices came from either side, making Hao Ren’s head throb with pain.
‘Am I going to die here today?’
He absolutely could not die. He still had many things left unfinished.
Perhaps it was his intense will to live that made him forget the pain. He changed direction and ran straight toward the crying, black Sui. After all, in his eyes, the white bone creature was much more terrifying and gruesome.
*Thud, thud.*
Back up the stairs.
‘I must be crazy.’
But it didn’t matter if he was crazy this one time.
“Brother… I’m so hungry… I’m really so hungry…”
As the black Sui spoke, the hair on her body suddenly erupted like a barrage of needles.
Although he dodged in time, several strands still stabbed into his arms and thighs. He didn’t stop, enduring the pain as he tore them out.
He continued forward, taking advantage of the moment the black Sui was eating to run upstairs.
*Thud, thud.*
*Thud!*
He slammed the door shut. He gasped for air. As the adrenaline receded, the pain surged back, making him grimace.
But he endured it. He pressed his ear against the door, listening to the movements outside.
No sound?
‘Are those two monsters working together?’
If they really were together, he would rather be eaten by the black Sui. At least he had spoken a few words to her, so there was some shred of connection…
But he still didn’t want to die. If he went up…
The rooftop was a dead end, and with his injured leg, going up was a death trap.
‘The heavens want me dead.’
He was going to die before he could even uncover the truth… At the very least, he wanted to know what had really happened back then.
Time passed. There was still no sound outside. Only the moonlight shone through the small window of the confinement room, casting a layer of frost on the floor.
Hao Ren opened the door. The hallway outside remained empty and silent.
‘Go? Or stay?’
He definitely had to go. If he stayed, he would just be a buffet for them.
Gritting his teeth and relying on sheer willpower, he leaned against the wall and limped to the stairwell. He looked down; there was nothing.
He went downstairs.
*Tap — tap —*
All the way to the bottom floor, nothing unusual happened.
‘Did they leave?’
He thought for a moment, picked up a chain from the ground to use as a weapon, and continued forward, limping toward the entrance.
“Hehe… it’s not your fault? It is your fault… hehe…”
“Wuuu… I didn’t…”
“It’s you! It’s you! It’s all your fault… Why did no one speak up for you? Why didn’t anyone come out to clear your name?”
He turned his head, and a giant bone palm slammed down in front of him, blocking his path. Looking past the hand, he saw a black monster and a white monster wrestling with each other.
Calling it wrestling was being generous; it was a one-sided suppression.
The white bone monster used its hands to tear at the black Sui’s hair, prying her mouths open and ripping her apart piece by piece.
The latter’s hair attacks were useless against the bones, and those countless mouths couldn’t bite through the constantly regenerating bone matter.
“Eat you, eat you… hehe… you useless thing…”
‘Are they having an internal fight?’
But the path ahead was blocked by the bone palm, and Hao Ren was running out of time. Once the black Sui was eaten by the white bone monster, he would be next. Or should he take the chance to find another way?
As long as he could get out.
“Don’t lock me in… I’m afraid… I was wrong… I don’t want to starve to death…”
He paused.
All the past clues, the buried truth, and the suppressed grief were all triggered by those words.
‘Should I just run? And after I run? Leave the truth buried… let injustice remain injustice, let evil continue to run rampant, and let all the souls longing for the truth to be revealed dissipate in endless suffering, never to enter reincarnation…’
Next time — there wouldn’t be a next time. Once the bone monster finished off the black Sui, coming back here would be a death sentence.
“Mother… Mother…”
“Suisui… Suisui really isn’t a bad child…”