chapter 5
Sure enough, her hand passed straight through the man, who looked no different from a living person.
The scene in the room must depict the days Liu Xue’s parents had spent drowning in grief after her disappearance. Cheng Miao might as well have been stroking empty air. Her touch caused no reaction at all.
She must have activated some kind of illusion.
Cheng Miao sighed. After waiting long enough to confirm that the couple only repeated the same events, she tucked the diary into her bag and prepared to investigate Apartment 401.
Without warning, Liu Xue’s parents, who had seemed so real, vanished from the room.
Cheng Miao’s first instinct was to look behind her. Once she had confirmed that no classic horror-movie surprise had appeared at her back, she frowned and considered why the illusion had suddenly disappeared.
Her fingertips brushed the diary’s cover inside her bag. A thought struck her. Could it be…?
Sure enough, the moment Cheng Miao took out the diary again, Liu Xue’s parents reappeared.
She would try the diary at the clinic later. Thoughtfully, Cheng Miao put it away, found a small paring knife in the kitchen, and carefully concealed it inside her clothes.
She knew a knife probably could not hurt a ghost, but she felt safer with a weapon in hand.
Just as she was about to leave, Cheng Miao’s sixth sense screamed an intense warning. Her head snapped toward the photograph on the dining table.
At some point, Liu Xue, who had been smiling innocently with two fingers raised like bunny ears, had lowered one hand. Her other arm now reached straight upward as if she meant to crawl out of the frame, the tips of her fingers ghastly pale.
Liu Xue’s head hung low in the photograph, her eyes hidden behind thick bangs. Her mouth stretched into a wide, impossibly eerie smile.
Cheng Miao stared at the photograph in silence. Then, expressionless, she walked out and thoughtfully closed the door behind her.
Fuck this stupid Game and everything it stands for!
Silently fighting back tears, Cheng Miao subjected the Game to an eighteen-part attack on its entire family tree.
Numerous curses had been carved into the door of Apartment 401. Cheng Miao stared thoughtfully at the three characters painted across it: CHILD TRAFFICKER.
Just as Liu Xue’s diary had recorded, everyone here firmly believed that Aunt Li was the culprit.
The moment Cheng Miao opened the door, she could tell the apartment belonged to a woman who lived alone. The few photographs in the home showed only the same slightly plump woman.
Aunt Li, the resident of Apartment 401, must have been extremely poor. She owned only a few pieces of furniture, while her small wardrobe contained no more than a handful of garments, all faded from repeated washing.
Poverty, compounded by the contempt an unmarried woman faced in that era, made it easy for Cheng Miao to picture the middle-aged woman living here in daily solitude.
The only thing that might count as a discovery was a stack of curled drawings tucked inside the bedroom wardrobe. All bore a child’s clumsy hand, depicting crooked families and animals of every kind.
Cheng Miao noticed that every drawing included the artist’s name. Someone had deliberately collected and preserved these kindergarten assignments.
Many of them had been drawn by Liu Xue. Cheng Miao shook out the papers and considered what that meant.
An unmarried woman keeping a large collection of children’s schoolwork at home made certain unpleasant suspicions difficult to avoid.
Apartment 401 was practically bare. After several fruitless searches, Cheng Miao chose a position from which she could either attack or retreat: beside the front door, with her back against the wall. Then she took out Liu Xue’s diary.
The moment the diary appeared, the figure of a plump, graying woman materialized in the sparse apartment.
There was none of the brutality Cheng Miao had imagined. The illusion in Apartment 401 was almost tediously ordinary.
Aunt Li cleaned the apartment, then changed into a faded dark-brown blouse. Carefully, she took a palm-sized cake from a cabinet and placed it on the coffee table.
There was no telling how long Aunt Li had waited that day. She repeatedly glanced at a small metal alarm clock. Finally, weighed down by worry, she pocketed her keys and left the apartment.
Leaning against the wall, Cheng Miao watched the illusion begin its cycle again. She had assumed each room would reveal its most important clue. Now it seemed to show the moment when the owner had experienced their strongest emotions instead.
Aunt Li probably had little contact with other people. Liu Xue, despite the difference in their ages, was likely her only real friend.
According to Liu Xue’s diary, Aunt Li had planned to celebrate the girl’s birthday with her. But Liu Xue never arrived. Knowing Liu Xue would not break a promise, Aunt Li grew anxious and went out to look for her.
Everything connected. Whatever the reason for Liu Xue’s disappearance, it was now almost certain that something had happened to her in the perfectly ordinary clinic on the second floor.
As for whether Aunt Li or Brother Xu was responsible, Cheng Miao would have to search the clinic again before reaching a verdict.
As she considered the possibilities, a girlish giggle suddenly sounded outside the door. “Hee-hee…”
Cheng Miao spun around without hesitation, but caught only a glimpse of a red-clad figure flashing past the doorway.
It was another red shadow, but far clearer than the one she had seen upon entering the instance. Cheng Miao was certain that something had appeared just now.
That eerie, coquettish giggle had sounded close enough to come from someone pressed against her back.
Cheng Miao pinched herself hard and forced herself to calm down. She analyzed the two kinds of supernatural phenomena that had appeared so far.
The illusions inside the apartments were triggered by Liu Xue’s diary and existed to provide the player with clues.
The other phenomenon was Liu Xue herself. First Cheng Miao had seen a blurry shape. Then she began to hear sounds. Next, the Liu Xue in the photograph changed. Now Liu Xue was gradually becoming corporeal…
The latter was obviously nowhere near as harmless as the illusions. Like a countdown, it warned Cheng Miao in unmistakable terms: when Liu Xue truly appeared before her, the most dangerous moment would have arrived.
The dead did not care whether someone had been kind or cruel to them. Once the time limit expired, the slaughter would begin.
There was not much time left. Cheng Miao had to race against the clock if she wanted to survive.
Burdened with worry, she returned to the second floor. If Doctor Xu was the culprit… Cheng Miao curled her lip in disgust. Was he a pedophile wearing the saintly mask of a benevolent healer?
The three children were still seated on the treatment bed. They had been looking utterly miserable, but their eyes lit up when Cheng Miao finally appeared.
“Sister Miaomiao, you’re finally back! Was there anything upstairs?” Er Gou jumped off the bed, hurried over, and tugged at the hem of her shirt.
Without betraying herself, Cheng Miao pushed the diary deeper into her clothes. “Nothing. The rooms were covered in dust. It looks like no one’s been there in a long time.”
Hu Zi curled his lip and muttered, “Almost everyone moved away after something happened to Uncle Liu’s family in Minsheng Lane. Of course no one comes here anymore.”
Cheng Miao immediately caught the key phrase. “Hu Zi, what else do you know? Tell me.”
Faced with Cheng Miao’s sudden warmth, Hu Zi scratched his head in confusion. For some reason, Sister Miaomiao’s smile did not look entirely sincere.
“It happened a really long time ago. I overheard my parents talking about it.”
“Dad said children went missing all the time in Minsheng Lane more than ten years ago. He wondered if the criminal from back then had come back.”
“Mom remembered that the last child to disappear was Uncle Liu’s little girl. She had a really cute smile. Uncle and Aunt Liu searched for more than half a year. Then Aunt Liu’s health collapsed, so Uncle Liu sold their apartment and took her away for treatment.”
“After that, Minsheng Lane was never peaceful again. People said they could hear a little girl jumping rope and laughing. Everyone got scared and moved away, until the whole building stood empty.”