“Hello, please remain calm. We have remotely located you via your phone and have dispatched the nearest personnel to assist. May I ask what kind of situation you are encountering?”
Li Wen leaned his back against the cold interior wall of the wardrobe.
His fingertips trembled under the cold light of the screen, and the sound of his breathing was amplified in the cramped space, carrying the scent of damp mold and dust.
“I… I accidentally played a Psychic Game…”
Perhaps because he was overly tense, he repeatedly deleted and edited such a simple sentence several times.
“Which one specifically?”
“One-Man Hide and Seek…”
There was a brief silence…
“What stage is it at now?”
“It’s already looking for me!”
Almost the instant he pressed the send button…
Screeech… screeech…
The sound of metal scratching against a hard object drifted in from the direction of the living room, sounding like some kind of sharp claw casually raking across the wall.
He covered his mouth tightly, stifling a short gasp back into his chest.
His fingers shook uncontrollably, causing him to mistype several more words.
“I, I also accidentally swallowed the Salt Water meant to protect me… please, come save me quickly!”
“Received. Please stay calm, sir. Our people are on their way. Now, I need you to answer a question: Can you still hear sounds from outside the window normally?”
Sounds outside the window?
Li Wen forced himself to divert a sliver of his attention.
In the distance, there was the faint roar of late-returning vehicles, and even further away, there seemed to be the muffled sound of a siren… ‘No, that might be a hallucination.’
But overall, the sounds were still there.
“I can.”
“Have you experienced a momentary sensation of dizziness?”
“No… is asking this useful for anything?”
“Of course it is, sir. If possible, could you try to break the room’s window and escape from there?”
“I can’t! My home is on the seventh floor, and there are no support points outside to climb. There is even an anti-theft mesh on the balcony side that I can’t climb out of.”
Although the gaps in the anti-theft mesh weren’t small, it was… ‘It’s absolutely impossible for an adult to squeeze through.’
“Then can you continue to hide? Rescue will arrive very soon.”
Hide?
Li Wen looked around.
The entire space was so narrow that his knees were beginning to ache.
At the same time, the scalp-tingling scratching sound in the living room… stopped.
A silence more terrifying than the sound itself descended…
‘Where did it stop? Is it listening? Or is it… discerning my location?’
“It’s a bit difficult… my apartment isn’t large. It seems to be searching the living room now. I expect it will come to my bedroom soon…”
He could almost imagine that thing dragging a blade, approaching the bedroom door step by step.
“In that case, perhaps you can try to leave through the front door. We have checked, and the Guiyi summoned by One-Man Hide and Seek has its perceptual abilities restricted during the game. You only need to throw something out to attract its attention, then try to quietly creep to the door. You should have a chance.”
“Above all, do not attempt to fight the Guiyi.”
Throw something?
But… what else was in the wardrobe besides layers of clothing?
His gaze searched upward and touched several cold, curved outlines.
That’s right—clothes hangers.
He tremblingly took one down, then pressed his fingernails against the wardrobe door, pushing it open a crack at the slowest possible speed.
By the sliver of white light, he looked toward the living room.
That thing wasn’t there; as far as his vision could reach, it was empty.
‘Is it… in the entryway?’
He gripped the hanger tightly, took a deep breath of air filled with dust and fear, held the hanger vertically, and threw it with all his might toward the bathroom diagonally opposite him.
Ding!
Clatter, clatter…
The thing located at the entryway indeed seemed to have its attention drawn.
Before Li Wen’s eyes, it walked step by step toward the bathroom.
Now was the time!
Li Wen slammed the wardrobe door open, not even caring about the dull thud of the impact, and scrambled out.
He rushed toward the door on all fours, all caution crushed by the instinct to survive.
However, just as his fingers touched the cold doorknob and he pulled with force… it wouldn’t open.
Li Wen tried several more times, but the doorknob held its position stubbornly, and the door remained as solid as a rock.
‘Locked? From the outside? How is that possible!’
There was no time to think, because…
Thud.
Thud.
The sound of footsteps came from the direction of the bathroom—unhurried, as if it already knew Li Wen’s exact position, carrying a sense of calm that suggested victory was already in its grasp.
Li Wen whipped his head around, his gaze locking onto a narrow utility closet built into the wall next to the entryway.
There was no time to hesitate; he practically “stuffed” himself inside and closed the cabinet door behind him.
The space was incredibly cramped.
He huddled there with his knees pressed against his chest and his chin resting on his knees, finding it extremely difficult even to turn his neck.
The footsteps outside stopped at the entryway.
It was close—so close that only a thin wooden board separated them.
Li Wen held his breath, the sound of his heartbeat thundering in his skull.
He could feel that something… was standing just outside the cabinet door.
There was no movement, no sound; it was just… “looking”? Or listening?
Time flowed slowly in the darkness and the feeling of suffocation.
After an unknown amount of time, the footsteps sounded again.
Thud… thud…
It slowly left, heading toward the bedroom.
Only when that sound was completely replaced by the creak of wardrobe doors being opened one by one and the bang of them being slammed shut did Li Wen dare to extremely slowly adjust his almost numb posture and fish his phone out of his pocket.
“I… I don’t know how the door to my house got locked. When can you guys get here?”
Message failed to send.
Failed?
How? The signal was clearly…
Refusing to believe it, he pressed again.
Once, twice… on the fifth time, it sent successfully.
“Received. The rescue team we dispatched was delayed on the road for some reasons. Now, it may be necessary for you to resolve that Guiyi yourself, sir.”
Resolve it himself?! ‘What is this guy saying?!’
“What? But didn’t you just say that no matter what, I shouldn’t fight the Guiyi?”
“We have conducted another careful search. This Guiyi’s strength is not high. If you can obtain a handy weapon, you can still defeat it.”
Defeat it? With a weapon? ‘He wants me to go against that kind of thing…’
But… he couldn’t get out the door, and rescue wasn’t coming.
That thing was in the bedroom, searching inch by inch.
This utility closet would be opened sooner or later. ‘Instead of waiting here to die, I might as well…’
He quietly pushed the cabinet door open a crack.
In the direction of the bedroom, the sound of wardrobe doors opening and closing continued.
He slipped silently out of the cabinet and quickly snatched up the heavy coat rack.
He swallowed hard, stood on his tiptoes, and moved to the bedroom door, his hands death-gripped around the long handle of the coat rack.
He listened intently…
Thud.
Thud.
The footsteps came from deep within the bedroom, unhurriedly walking toward the door.
Closer and closer.
Then, it appeared.
The doll—the doll that he had personally stuffed with rice and fingernails, sewn up with red thread, and submerged in the ice-cold water of the bathtub.
At this moment, it stood soaking wet at the bedroom door.
The coarse fabric had turned a deep, dark color from being drenched, and its split cotton-thread mouth wore a chilling smile.
Its eyes, made of glass beads, reflected a terrifying light under the faint red glow of the living room.
In that instant, its head snapped 180 degrees to face Li Wen directly.
“Found you…”
“To hell with you!!”
Li Wen let out a roar.
Using every ounce of his strength, he swung the coat rack in his hands like a baseball bat, putting his full power into a horizontal strike.
BAM!!!
A dull thud connected solidly with the doll’s body.
Then, like a baseball hit with full force, it flew through the air, tracing a short arc.
Accompanied by the clattering sound of knocking over potted plants on the balcony, it fell straight through the gap in the anti-theft mesh, over the seventh-floor balcony railing, and vanished into the bottomless darkness below.
“Ha… ha… ha…”
Li Wen leaned on the coat rack with both hands, panting heavily.
His eyes were wide as he stared intently at the thick darkness outside the balcony.
‘It fell… from the seventh floor… it should be… dead, right?’
He tried to convince himself, and his nerves, which had been stretched to the limit, relaxed slightly.
He loosened his grip, and the coat rack fell onto the balcony tiles with a clang.
‘What a load of crap, this Youxun Sentry Post. They’re useless when it counts… Once I’ve recovered tomorrow, I’m definitely going to post a thread and scold them severely! My phone… I think I left it…’
Thud.
Thud.
At that moment, the clear sound of footsteps rang out again.
It came from behind him, from the direction of the living room, unhurried…
And… this time, it was right next to him.
As if it were right at the bedroom door, or… right behind his back.
‘Impossible…’
‘That thing… didn’t it already…’
“Found… you…”
***
Bang!
Accompanied by a heavy thud, the tightly closed door was kicked open.
Immediately after, three fully armed Youxun sentries rushed into the house, using head-mounted scanners to confirm the situation inside.
“No Guiyi detected. No. 2, report the results from the Bole Detector.”
“No direct Nether Breath reaction found. Based on the purity and concentration of the residual Nether Breath, the Guiyi is at the Baoshou level.”
“Has it already left? Mr. Li! We are the rescue team sent by the Youxun Sentry Post! If you are still here, please respond!”
The house was deathly silent… which meant the worst-case scenario might have already occurred.
The leading Youxun sentry’s expression darkened.
He signaled to the two team members behind him, and they proceeded to search the bedroom, living room, and bathroom respectively.
However, unfortunately, no trace related to Li Wen was found.
Only on the balcony did they see a shattered flowerpot and the fallen coat rack.
These two signs indicated that Mr. Li should have fought with the Guiyi here…
But the problem was… the final advice given by the Youxun Sentry Post’s operator was clearly for him to never attempt to fight the Guiyi…
From the time the operator sent that message until they arrived, only five or six minutes had passed.
He could have completely hidden until then.
Was Mr. Li discovered by the Guiyi when he tried to open the door, or… did something prompt him to face the Guiyi…?