343 Room 4144

 

Han Fei’s action was so smooth that before the woman and the middle-aged man could react, the situation had switched completely. They thought they were cornered but Han Fei turned the tables around on the ghost. First there was a slash to the mask and then a neck lock, followed by a shove of the paper doll into the ghost’s mouth, which stopped the thing from making too much noise.

Just seeing this caused the middle-aged man to shiver. He suspected Han Fei was in some shady business in real life. The ghost who controlled the youngest daughter clearly hadn’t faced an adversary like Han Fei before. Before it knew what happened, it was already inside the bedroom.

Others thought Han Fei shoved the paper doll into the ghost’s mouth to stop it from talking but the reason Han Fei did that was for the paper doll to crawl into the ghost’s heart. That way he would have full control of everything.

The cracks on its face spread through the body. Initially the wounds leaked with black blood but soon they were replaced by paper pieces. Noticing the strange behavior of its body, the ghost’s eyes widened. It shook its head, trying to tell Han Fei that it won’t make any noise, it just wanted to cough the paper doll out. But the more it struggled, the more Han Fei refused to let go. He even added a few stabs. 10 minutes later, the ghost stopped struggling. Its skin turned as fragile as paper.

With the middle-aged man and the woman watching in shock, a red paper doll crawled out from the ghost’s heart. The blood on its paper body became more crimson.

“No way, I just wanted it to be silent.” Han Fei pulled back the hand that closed over the ghost’s mouth. The ghost’s face had turned black, courtesy of the Soul Poison. ‘Wait, I was using the hand where Big Sin is?’ Han Fei was acting on full instinct earlier. He didn’t expect the paper doll would directly consume the ghost.

“Don’t stay so far away from me.” Han Fei glanced at the woman and middle-aged man. He put the ghost down and once he did, the ghost shattered against the ground in a pile of shredded paper. He accidentally destroyed the ghost’s body.

“That ghost wasn’t that strong… It was most likely just a small Lingering Spirit.” Han Fei tried to explain.

“Of course, as a security guard, you have to do what you have to do.” The middle-aged man saw the security guard uniform Han Fei was wearing and understood many things. Even though he was scared and wanted to escape, he still needed to rely on Han Fei. So he chose to go along with everything Han Fei said, anything to make Han Fei happy.

“What are we to do with the girl?” The woman changed the subject. She stared at the girl who appeared to be sleeping.

“We should drop her back in her room. We should take the opportunity to examine that figurine we saw earlier.” Han Fei picked up Zhuang Ren’s youngest daughter. He slunk across the living room and pushed open the door of her bedroom. The room looked clean and neat. There was nothing that was related to ritual and occultism. ‘The most common looking thing can often be the most dangerous.’ Han Fei placed the girl on the bed and searched the room.

He looked under the bed and saw a broken religious figurine. The figurine resembled the ghost that they encountered earlier. “That was not some kind of holy spirit, it was a ghost masquerading as one.” Han Fei reached for the broken figurine but as he did, the landlord’s ring shot him with chills.

“There is something else under the bed?” He looked around and noticed there was a black cloth near the wall. He slowly pulled the black cloth back and his body shivered. The wall had been dug out and the hole was filled with various religious idols!

The carved faces looked at Han Fei. The workmanship was amateurish but it made Han Fei feel like he was being stared at, as if each figurine contained one ghost. With the amount of figurines stashed there, Han Fei couldn’t imagine how many ‘Gods’ Zhuang Ren’s youngest daughter was in the company of.

“This is not the first time her mother brought back the figurines. They have repeated this loop many times after their deaths, they just can’t remember it.” With Rest in Peace and the paper doll, Han Fei could deal with Small Lingering Spirit and could escape from a Medium Lingering Spirit but he definitely couldn’t take on an army of them.

“This room is far more dangerous than I thought.” Han Fei looked at the figurines and wondered, ‘What are the purposes of these figurines? Why has the mother placed them here? Is it for them to absorb humanity from Zhuang Ren’s family?’ Other than that, there were also questions like, ‘Why would Butterfly entrap Zhuang Ren’s family and make them summon Zhuang Ren in the cryptic world?’ Butterfly had the power to pull people into the cryptic world, it would have been easy for him to do that to Zhuang Ren, so why make his family go through all these things? ‘Either Butterfly’s power has greater limitations than I thought or there is something unique about Zhuang Ren.’

Han Fei pondered these questions. Zhuang Ren was a normal ex-horror film director. His only connection to the cryptic world was that he was the former neighbor to Immortal Pharma’s Director. The man had said something to Zhuang Ren when he was young and gave Zhuang Ren the Ziggurat game.

‘Wait, the Ziggurat game?!’ The thought popped up in Han Fei’s mind, ‘The Director made the game himself and his older brother, Fu Sheng had the black box. Could the brothers have hidden some secrets inside the game as well?’ So far, Han Fei treated Zhuang Ren as a normal civilian who was accidentally dragged into this mess but now his opinion changed.

‘After I leave the game, I’ll have to question Zhuang Ren. If he’s willing, I’ll make him play Perfect Life and I’ll use Spirit Farer on him.’ Zhuang Ren wanted to meet his family and Han Fei could make that happen. With the plan forming, Han Fei’s fingers let go of the black cloth. But the moment the cloth dropped, all the figurines turned towards Han Fei and opened their wooden eyes. A few seconds later, faces surfaced on the black cloth and the figurines became more ‘alive’.

“Run!” Han Fei dragged the middle-aged man and the woman out of the bedroom. He pushed open the anti-theft door and raced down the corridor. As he made his escape, Han Fei turned to check the room number.

‘Room 4144?’ Han Fei knew what that meant. The jumper woman’s room at Building 1 only had two 4’s. Even though the jumper woman had been split into different parts, she was still a Lingering Hatred. ‘Doesn’t that mean there is a Pure Hatred residing inside Room 4144? Is it Zhuang Ren’s family or one of the ‘Gods’?”