In the living room, Lin Wushui saw him come out and pointed toward the kitchen: “There’s hangover soup in the kitchen. Also some porridge in the rice cooker.”
Only after being reminded did Zhang Xianyu abruptly realize something was off.
His gaze slowly swept over the clean, tidy living room until he finally figured out what was wrong.
Looking panicked, he rushed into the kitchen.
First, he checked if the gas was turned off—seeing it properly shut, he finally sighed in relief.
Then he lifted the lid on the soup pot and rice cooker.
Everything was perfectly fine.
The rice porridge inside the cooker even let off a rich, fragrant aroma.
Everything seemed normal.
And that was precisely the most abnormal thing.
Clutching the kitchen doorway, Zhang Xianyu poked half his body out and looked at Lin Wushui in confusion: “You did all this?”
Lin Wushui nodded, looking proud: “I did. Try it and see if you like the taste.”
Zhang Xianyu still found it unbelievable.
How could a kitchen disaster suddenly unlock cooking skills?
He took a bowl from the cupboard, scooped up some porridge, and cautiously tasted it—the soft, fragrant porridge slid down his throat, perfectly soothing his slightly uncomfortable stomach.
All of this felt far too unreal.
Zhang Xianyu thought, This is practically a fake Wu Shui.
Could something dirty have possessed him?
But doubts were just doubts.
Zhang Xianyu still earnestly said: “Thank you. It’s really good.”
Lin Wushui, who was sideways on the sofa playing games, had a flicker in his eyes.
Zhang Xianyu had never spoken to him in such a tone before.
As expected, his assistant was the most trustworthy.
He modestly nodded, indicating it was no problem.
Then he sent his assistant a WeChat message, telling him he’d worked hard recently and that his year-end bonus would be doubled.
At lunch he had drunk without eating much, so now Zhang Xianyu gulped down two bowls of porridge, finally burping contentedly.
Then he started thinking about the bonus again.
Zhang Shaoying had said that any clues that helped solve the case could get him a bonus, though the amount would depend on how important they were.
So he only needed to find the souls of that family and learn what the murderer looked like.
Based on Zhang Xianyu’s deductions, at least the soul of the seven-year-old child from that family was still lingering in this apartment.
On the first day they moved in, Wu Shui had already heard a child crying, so the neighbors’ stories probably weren’t baseless.
Zhang Xianyu noted all the key points in a notebook, planning to try summoning souls that night.
He glanced at Wu Shui playing games on the sofa and thought he’d have to avoid him somehow.
Late at night, when the electronic clock on the wall ticked to 11:50, Zhang Xianyu quietly emerged from his room.
He knocked lightly on the door of the room next door—there was no response.
Wu Shui should already be asleep.
He stuck a pre-prepared calming talisman on Wu Shui’s door, then cautiously set up a temporary barrier in the living room.
Only then did Zhang Xianyu begin preparing for the summoning.
He used the coffee table as a makeshift altar.
A bronze incense burner was placed on top, with a soul-summoning banner in front of it and white candles on either side.
Once everything was ready, Zhang Xianyu waited for midnight to strike.
Then he lit the pre-drawn summoning talisman and placed it into the incense burner, chanting the summoning spell under his breath.
The talisman paper slowly burned to ash in the incense burner, but the smoke did not immediately disperse.
Instead, white smoke hovered above the burner in slow spirals.
The candle flames on both sides flickered gently…
He waited like that for a long time, yet still no summoned soul appeared.
“Could the souls already be gone?”
Zhang Xianyu muttered to himself.
He had never failed a summoning before, but now more than ten minutes had passed, and not to mention the murdered family—he hadn’t even seen a single stray ghost.
What he didn’t know was that in the room behind him, a ghostly pale little child was trembling in terror, hiding inside the closet.
Every time he was affected by the summoning formation—
When the little ghost in the closet wanted to come out, he saw Lin Wushui by the door and immediately shrank back inside in terror.
Before he died, his grandmother had hidden him in the wardrobe.
Although he was eventually found, when left alone he still instinctively hid in the place his grandma told him about.
It gave him a bit of a sense of security.
The very first step of summoning souls had already failed, which meant this bonus wouldn’t be so easy to get.
Zhang Xianyu felt thoroughly dejected as he packed up the altar, then tore down the calming talisman on Wushui’s door and went back to bed with a heart full of complaints.
“Lock your door, close your window. Pull up your blanket, don’t fall asleep.”
“Shh…he’s coming.”
A faint childish voice hummed an eerie little song, sometimes near, sometimes far, making Zhang Xianyu’s heart tighten with unease.
He cautiously looked around.
He clearly remembered lying down to rest in his room, but somehow he was now in this strange place.
He pinched himself — it didn’t hurt, so this had to be a dream.
The lighting in the dream was very dim, and that sharp childish voice kept humming the creepy tune.
Zhang Xianyu calmed his mind and, by straining his eyes in the darkness for a long while, finally managed to get a faint sense of familiarity.
It was a room — laid out exactly like apartment 204 — only much darker.
“Lock your door, close your window…”
The child’s voice suddenly came from right behind him.
Zhang Xianyu whipped around to see a little boy covered in blood standing there.
His neck seemed to have been sliced by something sharp, leaving only some skin and flesh barely holding it together.
His head wobbled, ready to fall off at any moment.
“Don’t fall asleep…he’s coming…”
The little boy showed a strange smile, then ran toward the secondary bedroom.
A realization struck Zhang Xianyu.
He rushed after him, but just as he reached the door, it slammed shut right in front of him.
No matter how hard he pushed, it wouldn’t open.
The house fell silent again, as if everyone inside had hidden away in terror of something that was about to arrive.
This must be the dream of that little boy who still lingered in the house.
Zhang Xianyu hadn’t been able to summon his soul earlier — he hadn’t expected to be pulled into the boy’s dream unprepared.
He instinctively looked at the digital clock on the wall.
Its numbers weren’t moving, frozen at 02:00:00.
Was this the time when the family was murdered?
Or…the time when “he” would arrive?
Zhang Xianyu’s mind raced.
He felt that creepy little song was trying to hint at something, but he couldn’t figure it out.
As he was lost in thought, the clock’s numbers suddenly shifted, then began to tick normally.
At the same time, Zhang Xianyu sensed that this eerily quiet house had somehow come alive.
The doors and windows started to creak and shake, making a grating sound that set his teeth on edge, as if something outside was trying to get in.
Then whispers began to murmur around the room.
Zhang Xianyu’s heartbeat sped up rapidly.
He felt more and more agitated, until he was truly afraid.
He quickly began silently reciting a calming mantra, breaking free of the dream’s influence and forcing himself to keep observing.
At some point, the rattling of the doors and windows stopped.
But the heavy air of anxiety and fear in the house only grew thicker.
Zhang Xianyu had to continuously chant the calming mantra to maintain his composure.
The surroundings fell dead silent again.
Zhang Xianyu keenly sensed a sinister aura seeping into the house from outside.
“He’s…here…”
Suddenly, shrill, chaotic screams rang out inside the room.
Right after, the master bedroom door burst open.
Blood dripped, pattering onto the wooden floor, trailing all the way toward the main entrance — as if the people inside had panicked and fled toward the door.
A cold chill crawled up Zhang Xianyu’s spine from his tailbone.
He started chanting the calming mantra even faster, but then —
A gaze, cold and poisonous like a snake, suddenly fell upon him.
Zhang Xianyu’s heart lurched.
He snapped his head toward the master bedroom — and met that unseen yet palpably real stare…