Inside the room, there was an eerie, dead silence.
Combined with the unpleasant stench lingering around their nostrils, both men felt a chill creeping over their entire bodies.
Drip—
A drop of liquid fell beside them, hitting the floor with a soft plop.
It wasn’t a loud sound, but in the unnaturally quiet room, it seemed to echo endlessly…
Ning Qiushui could even feel Liu Chengfeng, next to him, suddenly shudder as the unidentified liquid hit the floor.
“B-Brother Ning…”
Liu Chengfeng’s voice trembled as he slowly raised his hand, as if trying to touch something.
Ning Qiushui took a deep breath and said,
“Don’t turn on the light.”
“If you want to stay alive.”
Liu Chengfeng froze.
“W-Why…?”
Ning Qiushui shook his head.
“I can’t explain just yet.”
“…You just need to know, in places where there’s wind—
you’d better not turn on the light.”
“And if the light is on… stay far away from it.”
Upon hearing this, Liu Chengfeng suddenly remembered—every time Ning Qiushui passed by a window, he always made sure it was tightly shut!
He shivered uncontrollably, an icy dread creeping through him.
His eyes then fell on the gap under the door, and he couldn’t help but curse inwardly.
Who the hell had entered the room last and didn’t turn off the hallway light?
After what just happened, the two of them couldn’t sleep—nor did they care anymore about any awkwardness from sharing the same bed. They squeezed together, finding comfort in the warmth of each other’s presence.
Some time passed in a daze. Eventually, the rain outside began to lighten, and the sky grew a bit brighter.
Liu Chengfeng checked the time—it was already 8 a.m.
The weak light filtering through the window wasn’t exactly bright, and everything outside was still shrouded in gray, but at least they could finally see clearly again.
His eyes fell on the floor to his left.
The dripping sound from last night had come from there.
Liu Chengfeng got out of bed and examined the stains on the floor closely. He bent down to sniff.
“Ugh—”
The pungent, rotten stench nearly made him vomit.
Ning Qiushui noticed his reaction and walked over to take a look.
He also bent down and sniffed it. His expression shifted slightly.
“This is…”
Liu Chengfeng leaned in, asking:
“What is it?”
After a long pause, Ning Qiushui said quietly:
“Body fluid… or corpse oil.”
“It usually seeps out when an animal’s body is severely decomposed. The fat liquefies and leaks…”
Liu Chengfeng couldn’t take it anymore and quickly interrupted:
“Okay, okay, stop! I get it, Brother Ning, just—please stop.”
His face was pale as he looked up at the ceiling.
The spot on the wooden ceiling where the liquid had soaked through had grown from the size of a fist… to the size of a human head!
God knows what the hell was up there…
Just as Liu Chengfeng was deep in thought, two sudden, piercing female screams rang out from outside the room!
“AHHH!!!”
The two men exchanged a glance.
Something had happened.
“Let’s go check it out!”
Ning Qiushui opened the door first and led Liu Chengfeng out.
The moment they stepped into the hallway, Ning Qiushui frowned.
The air reeked heavily of blood.
A long, crimson bloodstain trailed from the doorway at the end of the hallway… all the way to the staircase.
The screams had come from the direction of the louvered window at the end of the hall.
A crowd had already gathered there.
Ning Qiushui and Liu Chengfeng walked over and pushed their way through, spotting Ya Mo and Yan Youping collapsed on the floor, trembling violently, faces pale as paper.
Beside them, a large pool of blood—and vomit.
“What happened?”
Ning Qiushui asked sternly.
The two girls looked up at him, their eyes wide with overwhelming fear, as though they’d seen something truly nightmarish.
Their lips trembled as they pointed toward the room they had been staying in. Tears streamed down their faces.
Ning Qiushui looked toward their room and stepped forward to open the door, only to be stopped by Xue Guize, who stood to the side with a grim expression.
“What’s inside… is not a pretty sight.”
Ning Qiushui gave him a glance, brushed his hand aside, and first closed the nearby louvered window to stop the wind from blowing in.
Only then… did he open the door.
When they saw what was inside the room, everyone outside froze, their breath caught in their throats.
Lying on the bed closest to the door… was a blood-soaked corpse!
And that corpse—was unmistakably Wang Yuning, the girl with the gold earrings!
Someone was dead!
Ning Qiushui forced himself to endure the nauseating stench of blood and stepped into the room. Only after walking a bit farther in did he truly see the mutilated body clearly.
The sight almost made him vomit on the spot!
The body lying on the bed still had an intact head and a pale, elegant neck—but below the neck, the skin had been viciously torn open. Crimson muscle was exposed everywhere, the body riddled with terrifying wounds!
Her internal organs were completely gone, and large chunks of flesh had been ripped off, scattered, and torn apart…
But what was even more horrifying—was Wang Yuning’s expression.
Her eyes were closed, her face showing no sign of pain. Instead… she wore an eerily peaceful smile.
“What the actual f*…”**
Liu Chengfeng, who had followed him in, stared wide-eyed, his legs trembling. If he hadn’t clenched tightly, he probably would’ve wet himself right there!
“Th-this is…”
Only now did he finally understand why the two girls outside had reacted the way they did.
Forget women—even if it had been him, he wouldn’t have handled it any better!
Ning Qiushui suppressed the nausea in his gut and approached the body.
Everyone else remained outside, none of them daring to take a single step into the room.
The scene inside… was just too terrifying.
After checking over the corpse, Ning Qiushui suddenly seemed to realize something. His expression shifted dramatically, and he turned and ran outside.
“Brother Ning, what’s wrong?”
The moment Liu Chengfeng saw Ning Qiushui bolt, there was no way he was staying in that room alone.
The rest of the group, just as spooked, followed Ning Qiushui down to the first floor—straight into the kitchen.
Ning Qiushui stared at the utensils hanging on the wall for a long time before muttering:
“A pair is missing…”
Beidao, who had been completely spooked for a while now, immediately asked,
“What do you mean, what’s missing?”
Ning Qiushui slowly spoke the words:
“The steak knife and fork.”
The first to react in horror was Liu Chengfeng.
Last night, when he’d heard the metallic scraping outside the room, he thought it had sounded like knives and forks clashing!
Could it be…
The realization hit him, and he began trembling uncontrollably.
“A missing knife and fork—what’s that got to do with the corpse upstairs?”
Beidao was still trying to make sense of it.
Most of the others were still clueless too.
Ning Qiushui slowly turned to them, looked each one in the eye, and said something that chilled them all to the bone:
“The wounds on Wang Yuning’s body… were made by that knife and fork.”
The moment those words landed, everyone’s face turned ashen.
“Ning Qiushui… what… what did you say?”
“Are you sure?”
Ning Qiushui didn’t answer Beidao. Instead, he turned to the two terrified girls and asked:
“Last night, did either of you hear Wang Yuning call for help?”
The two girls shook their heads, eyes filled with fear.
“No… we were so tired last night, we fell asleep right away…”
At that moment, Xue Guize suddenly spoke up, his expression strange and conflicted:
“I… I heard something last night…”
“What did you hear?”
“…Metal scraping sounds. Now that I think about it… they really did sound like a knife and fork.”
Ning Qiushui and Liu Chengfeng exchanged a glance before turning to him and saying:
“Go make some porridge.”
“Put in a lot of meat.”
“I’m going to check… on the old woman upstairs.”
Liu Chengfeng nodded.
“Brother Ning, be careful!”
“And what about us?”
“Come with me.”
Yan Youping and Liu Chengfeng stayed in the kitchen to cook the porridge, while Ning Qiushui hurried upstairs with the others, heading to the room where the paralyzed old woman was staying.
The moment they entered the room, everyone froze.
Because—on the table beside the paralyzed old woman… was the missing knife and fork from the kitchen, gleaming under the light.
As if sensing their arrival, the old woman on the bed slowly turned her head and gave them a kind, gentle smile.
“Ahhh!!”
Ya Mo screamed and stumbled backward, scrambling downstairs in a panic.
Beidao and Xue Guize weren’t faring much better. Their faces were pale, and if not for Ning Qiushui standing there as calm as stone, they probably would’ve bolted right after Ya Mo.
After everything they had just witnessed, facing this old woman should’ve been terrifying—but Ning Qiushui didn’t flinch. He didn’t just stay… he actually stepped further inside!
“Are you insane, Ning Qiushui?!”
Xue Guize shouted, his face contorted.
Anyone with eyes could tell—the elderly woman lying on the bed was the one who killed Wang Yuning.
And more than that… she probably wasn’t even human.
But Ning Qiushui ignored him. He walked straight up to the old woman and picked up the knife and fork, examining them closely.
They were very clean.
He held them up to his nose.
No strange smell.
Ning Qiushui furrowed his brows.
Then he looked down at the old woman in bed, clearly deep in thought.
He leaned in close and whispered in her ear:
“Granny… is it usually just you alone in this house?”
The old woman moved her lips, murmuring faintly:
“Meat…”
“No… meat…”
She seemed mentally disturbed, repeating the same words over and over.
Ning Qiushui narrowed his eyes.
“No meat?”
What did she mean?
No taste?
He listened carefully for a long time, but she never said the third word.
Just then, Liu Chengfeng came up the stairs holding a bowl of porridge.
“I cooled it with water, it’s not hot—you can drink it right away.”
Truth be told, the porridge smelled really good.
Rich with the aroma of beef, garnished with scallions.
Ning Qiushui took the bowl himself, brought it to the old woman’s mouth, and spooned a bit of meat porridge toward her.
Everyone watched tensely from the side. Their breathing quieted, as if afraid that at any moment, the old woman might open her jaws wide and bite off Ning Qiushui’s head.
But the terrifying scene they feared… didn’t happen.
The old woman quietly took the porridge into her mouth.
However, when she chewed a certain bite, her brows suddenly furrowed, and she spat it out with disgust.
It was a piece of beef.
Then she started spitting more—until she had spat out all the meat and porridge in her mouth, finally falling silent again.
“Meat… no…”
She started repeating those two words once more.
Ning Qiushui leaned in close to her ear.
To the others, this action looked extremely risky.
If this old woman truly had been the one to kill Wang Yuning last night… then right now, Ning Qiushui was practically asking to die.
Thankfully, she didn’t bite his ear off.
And it was exactly this bold move that led Ning Qiushui to discover a critical clue.
“Meat… not… cooked…”
The third word—it wasn’t “tasty”, but “cooked”!
“Not cooked?”
But… why?
Ning Qiushui took a bite of the beef porridge himself.
It was cooked.
Definitely cooked.
He stood there thinking for a long time, then suddenly turned to Liu Chengfeng and said:
“Beardo, quick—go make a bowl of plain porridge, no meat!”
Liu Chengfeng, though a bit confused, still did as Ning Qiushui said.
Soon, he returned with a bowl of plain rice porridge.
This time… the old woman ate it.
And she didn’t spit it out.
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