640 First Venture

 

Unlucky children were all living in this Happiness Neighborhood. Every building in the night sang their favorite song, lulling them to sleep. Han Fei stopped for a long time before Building One. His heart entered the dark building. ‘This should be my home, but why is every light turned off?’

Han Fei’s eyes scanned every room. Happiness Neighborhood Building One, those words were enough to cause waves in Han Fei’s mind.

“We need to move! We can’t stay here!” Worm approached Han Fei and reminded him. He had a good impression of Han Fei like they were friends.

“I…” Han Fei shook his head. He walked towards Building One but was held back by Worm. “Have you lost your mind?” Worm couldn’t understand Han Fei’s behavior. He was looking at the old apartment with longing.

“Be careful. Don’t stray from the team!” F uttered coldly. After leaving Perfect Life Hotel, he became very serious. He was alert towards everything. F made every decision after much contemplation. After he made a choice, he would complete it no matter the sacrifice. This kind of person was very scary.

Building Eleven was located in the deepest part of the neighborhood. The layout of the building here was very strange. Buildings one to ten were arranged like the wall of a well, surrounding Building Eleven in the middle. In other words, to reach Building Eleven, one had to pass through the narrow passages between the other buildings.

The alley looked normal from the outside. But when one was inside it, one would realize the alley appeared to be a bridge connecting the living and the dead. The city was shrouded in darkness, but the sky at the end of the alley was deep red in color. Walking down the alley, it felt like the buildings on the side would fall at any moment. Strange screams echoed in the air. It was like a warning from another self to stop moving. The strangest thing was the alley wasn’t that long, but once you looked back, the mouth of the alley appeared to have moved so far away.

“The entrance will move on its own. This is an endless path!” A thin woman took her hand out of her pocket. A small ghost was painted on her palm. She appeared to be a not-so-professional medium.

“Since we can’t turn back, we need to speed up.” F was very calm. His eyes were calculative.

“It wasn’t like this when I was here this morning. There were people playing chess in the alley, and children running around.” Lee Guo Er walked at the front. She was the most afraid. She could feel the change clearly. It was more than the change to one building, but the whole neighborhood had fallen into hell.

Han Fei looked up into the sky. The sky was dark red. The cloud layers were peeled open like a gaping wound.

“I believe that this place is haunted but are we able to capture the ghost?” A man who followed behind the bald Inmate asked. He was Inmate’s lackey. He looked tough, but he was very cowardly.

“If we don’t try anything, we’ll never succeed.” F scanned the man. “I hope that you understand that to accomplish certain things, sacrifices have to be made. The sacrifice might be you or me.”

“Stop arguing. Be quiet.” Lee Guo Er dragged Han Fei to her side. Other than Han Fei, she didn’t trust the rest. With a creak, the rusted door opened. All the participants entered Happiness Neighborhood.

‘This place is so different from how it is described in the script.’ Standing in the crowd, Han Fei’s paranoia acted up again. However, this time, it was more intense than the others. He could feel his heart jumping out of his chest.

“Do you not feel well?” The only female player asked. She had painted ghosts on both her palms. Her eyes under the mask danced nervously.

Han Fei didn’t answer. His eyes scanned the red banister, the yellowed wall, and the steps covered in small advertisements. The fear grew, but he didn’t know why he was so afraid. He knew that he’d die if he stayed here long enough, but he didn’t know what would kill him. ‘There’s some problem with my death prediction ability.’

Lee Guo Er had already reached the second floor. The mask covered her face so no one could see her expression. However, everyone could sense her anxiety from her hesitating steps. She would consider a long time before making her move like the wrong step would cause her death. The players behind her took out flashlights and stun guns. They came well prepared. However, as they took out these things, Lee Guo Er stopped them. “Strong lights will attract the ghosts from the other buildings. Be careful.”

“Then, how do you expect us to proceed without lights? Candles?” Inmate grumbled and saw Lee Guo Er take out candles from her backpack.

“This is ridiculous.” Some of the players used candles, while others used flashlights on their phones. They slowly found their way to the fourth floor.

“Did you realize the problems with the advertisements on the steps?” Thousand Nights at the back suddenly spoke. He was dressed flamboyantly, but his tone was very serious, “Other than normal ads like opening locks and cleaning pipes, there are a lot of missing people flyers. But all the children’s faces on those flyers are gone.”

“Is there a madman living here? They go around scratching off the faces of the flyers to ensure that the children wouldn’t be found?” Worm immediately grasped Thousand Nights’ meaning.

“Perhaps the missing children are right here.” Lee Guo Er stopped on the fifth floor. She looked at the room door left slightly ajar, and she was extremely nervous. “I saw the ghost here in the morning. Be careful because I don’t know what will happen next.” Lee Guo Er edged the door opened. The stench of disinfectant floated out. F dragged Worm to follow Lee Guo Er. The three were the first to enter the room.

Worm placed the lit candles in the corner of the living room. He was about to call the others in when he heard a munching sound. It sounded like the person had ground down their teeth from all the chomping. Worm turned to the sound and realized the bedroom door was open a gap. Half a face was looking at him.

“Bedroom! There’s someone inside the bedroom!” Worm pointed. Then, his world spun as a hand grabbed his ankles. “Help me!” His body flew towards the bedroom. Worm saw a bald human face. Her body was twisted with muscular limbs. She held a medicine bottle, and she wanted to shove the whole bottle into Worm’s mouth.

“Move out of the way!” F grabbed Worm’s collar. He used a black blade to cut at the woman behind the door. The bottle fell to the ground. The things inside weren’t pills but children’s teeth.

The woman was spooked. She used her thick limbs to climb on the pipes outside the window and escaped.

“What monster was that?” Worm fell to the ground. He stuttered. If F were one step later, he’d be eating those teeth already.

“No idea.” F shook his head and turned to Lee Guo Er, “Is she the ghost?”

“You can’t touch ghosts. So she should be something in between human and ghost.” Lee Guo Er wasn’t sure, “But that was my first time seeing something like that.” Everyone was nervous. At that moment, Han Fei walked towards F. His eyes were fixed on F’s black blade.

“What are you looking at?”

“The blade…” Han Fei thought the man’s blade looked very familiar, especially the hilt. His fingers tightened involuntarily like there was a connection between them.

F sensed this, and his gaze turned strange. However, he didn’t say anything and put the black blade away. “Don’t hunger after something that’s not yours.”

“Is that so?” Han Fei didn’t get into a conflict with F. He started to examine the house.

Various pills were scattered around the small house. There were many notes on the dining table, fridge, television, and so on. The notes contained time and warnings for taking pills.

Han Fei felt an echo in his heart seeing these things. He faced the same thing back in his strange home. The woman who identified as his mother brought a large bag of medicine back from the hospital and kept feeding him pills.

‘No. 11 has the same experience as I did. What does the number mean? If we’re the same kind of people, what is my number?’ Han Fei walked to the window and looked out. Building Eleven was surrounded by other buildings. The people who lived here were trapped inside a well. They couldn’t escape no matter how hard they struggled.

“Quick! Come and look at this!” Worm screamed. The players gathered towards him. The storeroom close to the bedroom was stuffed with many handmade human heads.

All the heads came in pairs, male and female. There were 22 heads in total.

“No. 11 has made human head models out of everyone who has adopted him?”

“No. 11 has turned everyone who has adopted him into dolls?”

Lee Guo Er and Han Fei looked at each other. They were shocked by the other’s first thought.