The two of them arrived at the staircase.
They saw that the iron door leading to the third floor had already been opened.
A foul stench wafted down from above.
That smell was exactly the same as the corpse water that had been dripping down from the ceiling above their room!
It was the scent of decaying flesh!
Liu Chengfeng couldn’t stand the stench, so he covered his mouth and nose, frowning deeply.
Fighting the urge to vomit, he followed Ning Qiushui up to the third floor.
Once they reached it, the smell of rotting flesh became even more intense, to the point where Liu Chengfeng couldn’t hold it in anymore. His stomach cramped violently, and he eventually squatted down and threw up!
“Urgh—!”
Liu Chengfeng dry-heaved, his face pale and twisted in discomfort.
Ning Qiushui gently patted him on the back.
After vomiting up his dinner, Liu Chengfeng felt a little better.
The two of them continued down the pitch-black corridor. The floor beneath their feet was sticky and viscous. Liu Chengfeng’s face turned deathly pale—even without light, he could already guess what was on the floor…
It was… corpse water.
It covered the entire floor of the third level.
Both of them were horrified.
Just how many corpses must have decomposed here to produce enough corpse water to coat an entire floor?
“As expected…”
Ning Qiushui narrowed his eyes.
Though the stench in the air was nearly unbearable, it didn’t make him feel nauseous. He had already guessed what the third floor would be like before even coming up.
Stepping through the sticky, putrid corpse water, the two of them finally arrived at the first room from which the foul smell emanated. Slowly, they turned the doorknob, and the scene that met them sent a shiver through their entire bodies!
The terrifying sight was one they would never forget for the rest of their lives…
Under the pale moonlight streaming through the window, the room was filled wall to wall with countless decaying corpses!
Among them were some relatively fresh, with flesh still bloody and torn, while others had long rotted away into dried bones, leaving only skeletal remains and hair.
But without exception, every one of the corpses had their heads preserved almost perfectly. The ones that hadn’t fully decayed wore chilling smiles on their faces, grinning eerily at the two men standing in the doorway—as if silently inviting them in…
Thump—
Liu Chengfeng covered his mouth, terrified, and stumbled back a step, his whole body trembling uncontrollably.
He glanced at the other rooms, seeming to realize something, and with a trembling hand, began pushing open the other doors as well.
“Holy shit…!”
Liu Chengfeng nearly screamed.
Just as expected—
Every room was filled with rotting corpses!
All of these corpses were missing their internal organs, and their flesh was covered in knife and fork marks, a horrifying sign that something had once feasted on them!
And among them—
The bodies of Wang Yuning and Yamou were also clearly present!
Liu Chengfeng’s legs went weak. He leaned against the wall and slowly crouched down, his face even paler than the moonlight.
“So that’s…”
“That’s where the corpse water on our ceiling came from…”
“But where did all these bodies come from?”
“Could it be…”
Ning Qiushui’s gaze passed through the window and looked toward the distant, pitch-black row of villas.
“I’m afraid… every original resident of this entire villa complex is now in these few rooms.”
Liu Chengfeng swallowed hard, cold sweat pouring from his forehead.
That ghostly thing hiding on the third floor of the villa… had eaten everyone in the entire neighborhood?
“I’m guessing we’re not the first batch of caregivers to come here either. The rooms downstairs, all with their own bathrooms—they must’ve been set up for those hired to take care of the elderly in these villas…”
With each sentence Ning Qiushui spoke, Liu Chengfeng felt his heart pound harder and harder.
“Bro… how about we just head back right now…”
“If it comes back, aren’t we…”
Liu Chengfeng was ready to give up, but Ning Qiushui had no intention of leaving.
“We’re so close to the truth now…”
“Big Beard…”
“Aren’t you curious—what exactly is the thing that devoured everyone in this villa complex?”
Hearing this, Liu Chengfeng was stunned for a moment, then twitched the corner of his mouth.
“Man, you’re really not afraid of dying, are you…”
“You think the truth… is more important than life?”
Ning Qiushui asked in return:
“Even if you leave this floor—can you leave the villa? Can you leave the entire complex?”
“Who knows what other killing rules it has?”
“Maybe from the moment we stepped into this place, we already triggered one of its rules. It’s just that we’ve been lucky so far, and it hasn’t been our turn yet…”
“Besides, it’s already gone downstairs to hunt. It might be feasting in the room right next to ours… and as more people die, the fewer of us are left—the more dangerous it becomes for those who remain!”
Liu Chengfeng’s expression shifted between hesitation and fear. In the end, he gritted his teeth and said:
“Alright!”
“Alright, I’m trusting you this time, bro!”
They passed by all the other rooms and arrived at the one farthest inside.
It was a study.
There were no bloodstains at the door—so clean, it seemed like it didn’t even belong to this floor.
The two of them exchanged a glance, eyes lighting up.
“This must be it!”
They carefully pushed the door open, and a dense cloud of dust greeted them.
Judging by the furnishings, it was indeed a study.
Not too big, not too small. Inside, there was a decayed skeleton that had been there for a long time. From the size and features of the bones, it looked like it belonged to a girl around fourteen or fifteen years old.
In her hands, she still clutched a teddy bear.
The teddy bear’s eyes were pitch black, as if silently watching them.
Ning Qiushui carefully approached the skeleton and examined it, then spoke:
“…This person wasn’t eaten.”
“There are no knife or fork marks on the ribs, sternum, or throat bones.”
He had examined the bodies of Wang Yuning and Yamou earlier—although what had been eaten were their internal organs and some muscle tissue, their bones were also covered in knife and fork wounds.
But this skeleton had none.
“She wasn’t eaten?”
“Then how did she die?” Liu Chengfeng asked, more confused than ever.
Ning Qiushui studied the body for a while.
“Most likely starvation or dehydration.”
“That ghostly thing outside probably couldn’t enter this room. But she couldn’t get out either—trapped here… Without water or food, most people would die in three to five days.”
“Look, the window has steel bars nailed over it. The bars are heavily rusted, unlike the ones in the old lady’s room on the second floor. That means these were nailed in a long time ago—probably when she was little. Her family might’ve been worried she’d fall out of the window, since this is the third floor, so they barred it for safety.”
“But back then, her family probably never imagined that those same bars… would cut off her last hope of escape.”
As Ning Qiushui spoke, a cold chill spread through Liu Chengfeng’s heart.
He could imagine the despair this girl must have felt before dying.
With a man-eating monster right outside and no way to escape the room, she had been trapped here, dying slowly in hopeless isolation.
“Hey, bro, look—behind the corpse, near her backside… there’s something there!”
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