Fang Qian’an’s mind went blank for a moment.

What was that? Bloody flesh? When had he ever eaten something like this…..

The boy stared down at the contents of the toilet and blinked. When he looked again, he found that the contents had changed into something else.

It was the bite of burger he hadn’t chewed at all, along with…..

Some small white particles?

They looked like undigested, uncooked rice. What the hell was this?!

Before Fang Qian’an could identify what he had vomited, the toilet made a whirring sound as the automatic flush activated, sluicing away his vomit.

The moment the flush sounded, Fang Qian’an’s nerves reflexively tensed. He took a big, uncontrolled step back and hit the door hard.

Very soon, the whirlpool in the toilet vanished, leaving only a puddle of clear water inside.

In the bathroom, the only sounds left were the boy’s heavy gasps and the sound of the toilet tank filling with water.

The white light on the ceiling flickered.

After a while, the cubicle door opened roughly and a stiff Fang Qian’an walked out with a tense face.

Turning on the faucet, Fang Qian’an splashed cold water on his face. It took him a long time to calm down. After doing this, the boy braced his hands on the sink and took a deep breath, staring at himself in the mirror.

The mirror reflected a boy with a pale face and empty eyes, and even Fang Qian’an himself had to admit that this guy looked as if he was at death’s door.

Fang Qian’an was instantly filled with an uncontrollable rage.

“Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium…..it was just an illusion, are you fucking scared?!”

He cursed himself viciously in the mirror, as if in this way, he could ignore the remaining fear inside him.

The reflection in the mirror still looked dark and gloomy, like an animal that had fallen into a trap, helpless and in dire straits. And for some reason, when Fang Qian’an looked at “himself,” he felt that his face looked a little strange.

Did his expression usually look so ghastly?

Fang Qian’an unconsciously leaned forward a bit, as if to inspect the reflection in the mirror more clearly.

It was at this moment that he saw the scene behind him in the mirror—behind his back, a cubicle door silently opened.

Through the crack in the door, Fang Qian’an directly met a prying eye.

His heart nearly jumped out of his throat. 

“Who is it?! Who’s pretending to be a ghost?! Get out!”

The boy’s voice was hoarse as he blurted out the angry rebuke.

“Y-Young Master Fang…..i-it’s me, ah.”

Behind Fang Qian’an, the toilet door was pushed open slowly. With a timid and uneasy mutter, a face slowly poked out from behind the toilet cubicle door.

“Sorry, Young Master Fang. I saw you weren’t feeling well, so I didn’t dare come out and disturb you.”

“Song Cheng, how is it you?”

Fang Qian’an couldn’t believe his good luck, because the person slowly walking out of the cubicle was just the person he was looking for.

Song Cheng, who had just been taken away by ambulance the day before, was now standing in front of Fang Qian’an.

In just one short day, the boy who was aggressive and looking for trouble the day before was now as ill-looking as a drug-addled smoker, the color of his lips and face blending into one. His eyes were also a bloodshot red with pupils that were dilated very wide. This made his eyes seem very dark, but his gaze was vacant.

This person was like a zombie wrapped in a school uniform, disturbingly thin and sallow.

Even someone like Fang Qian’an who didn’t care about the little shrimps around him at all was shocked when he saw Song Cheng’s current frail appearance. He couldn’t help but ask: “When were you discharged from the hospital? Why did you come to school all of a sudden?”

Song Cheng hesitated where he stood, then spoke in a dry voice.

“I-I didn’t dare stay in the hospital. Other than school, I…..I don’t want to stay anywhere else.” His throat rolled, and his voice was extremely slurred.

Seeing his appearance, Fang Qian’an suddenly understood.

The school bully crossed his arms over his chest and lowered his voice unconsciously.

“Have you encountered something too?” he asked.

Sure enough, even though Fang Qian’an hadn’t said much, Song Cheng’s entire body began to tremble.

“Y-Young Master Fang…..” The boy’s breathing was rapid, fear gradually leaking into his voice. “How do you know that…..that I…..”

How do you know that I met a ghost?

In fact, Song Cheng’s memory of the previous morning was rather vague.

Thinking about it carefully, it seemed he had gone to cause trouble for that cripple in the morning. The cripple ran away, and he…..

He couldn’t remember much after that.

When he regained consciousness, Song Cheng was already in the hospital.

He didn’t know at that time what he had vomited out at school, only that he was lying in the emergency room rest area at the hospital and his whole body was limp. There was an indescribable plastic taste in his throat, and it was when the nurse came to change the intravenous drip and dressings that Song Cheng realized he’d just had his stomach pumped.

Accompanying him was his mother’s life assistant — his mother had been keen on spiritual practices lately, and was currently studying the so-called theory of cosmology on a small island abroad. The well-maintained woman sighed on the cell phone screen and first asked Song Cheng what he had done. Song Cheng himself was still confused, so he naturally couldn’t answer. His mother’s expression changed. She muttered several curses, and Song Cheng was so annoyed that he just hung up the phone.

Song Cheng’s father had taken some time out of his busy day to have a look at his son. After all, he managed the hospital Song Cheng was sent to. It was a pity that the director of the Central Hospital was too busy now and had very important luncheons at noon and in the afternoon.

Once he learned that his son had suffered from food poisoning and was fine now, Father Song didn’t examine him carefully. Simply leaving his son to his subordinates, he hurried to catch his lunch meeting.

Of course, even though his parents weren’t around, Song Cheng didn’t have to worry about having no one to take care of him. As the director’s son, even if he only needed some water to balance his electrolytes and protect his stomach, he didn’t have to crowd into the infusion room with normal people. Somebody had organized an inpatient department ward for Song Cheng to lie down in. That ward was originally a senior ward, and was located at the end of a special hallway.

It was very quiet in the separate room. The furnishings were also quite comfortable, more like a suite in a high-end resort than a ward.

Lying on the comfortable hospital bed, Song Cheng could vaguely feel the nurses giving him strange looks every time they came in to change his dressings. But if he had to say what was wrong, he couldn’t.

He could only prick up his ears and listen to the occasional chatter of the nurses outside the door, only able to hear fragments of words he didn’t understand.

“Wow, you’re saying he really vomited…..”

“A plate full of maggots, many of them with wings…..I don’t know what children are thinking these days. It’s probably some sort of novelty challenge…..”

“I heard the nurses there all threw up.”

“It’s so crazy…..”

“It’s nothing surprising. Weren’t there people who were shoving eels into their stomachs before? Now it’s these people, ah. Tsk, tsk.”

What on earth were these nurses talking about?

Song Cheng didn’t understand, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt that his mind was a ball of paste. Thinking and thinking, Song Cheng lay in bed and unknowingly fell asleep.

What woke him up again was the pain in his abdomen.

In the beginning, the pain was within a tolerable range, but it didn’t take long for it to become completely unbearable.

It hurts.

Song Cheng screamed in pain on the hospital bed.

In a daze, he tried to prop himself up with his arms and ring the call bell.

However, his body was so heavy that he couldn’t get up at all.

Was the quilt the nurse had put on him this heavy? Why…..why was it so heavy?

Enduring the pain, Song Cheng opened his eyes.

A dark shadow was reflected in them.

Song Cheng’s eyes widened in shock. Looking ahead in disbelief, he finally understood why his body was so heavy — an elderly person in a hospital gown was huddled on his stomach, crouching there steadily.

The person was so old that their age and gender could not be discerned, with only a thin layer of white hair.

The skin on their face was loose and folded together, facial features sunk deep into the wrinkles. The only part Song Cheng could see was the person’s grinning mouth.

Dry lips exposed crimson gums with a few yellow teeth, several pieces of sticky, dark red meat hanging from them.

Further down, Song Cheng saw the old person’s hands.

The old person’s nails were so long that they had curled up. Right now, those yellow-nailed hands were being used to carefully press Song Cheng’s belly.

Song Cheng saw that on his belly, a long incision had been made at some point.

And the old person…..was dragging something soft and red from that incision.

It was Song Cheng’s intestines.

As if noticing Song Cheng’s gaze, the old person suddenly turned their head and muttered illogically: “Hehe, delicious. This is delicious.”

“The noodles are delicious.”

“Hu….hu…..help…..help…..”

Song Cheng tried to call for help, but the extreme pain and fear utterly blocked his vocal cords, and he couldn’t shout a word.

He could feel his warm blood continuously gushing out.

The blood soaked through the bedding and even the mattress.

Drip, drip, drip, it fell to the floor, forming a small pool.

And at this moment, the old person suddenly moved closer to Song Cheng’s face.

Drool tripped continuously from the corners of their mouth.

“Sweet dumplings.” The old person’s turbid eyes stared straight into Song Cheng’s. “Sweet dumplings are also delicious…..they don’t let me eat…..sweet dumplings…..”

With a childishness completely inconsistent with their age, the old person shouted and rushed forward.

“I want to eat sweet dumplings!”

Only at this moment did Song Cheng suddenly remember that in the wards on this floor, there were actually many people who had completely lost the ability to take care of themselves. Even the elderly whose minds had been severely degraded by Alzheimer’s disease.

. . . . . . . 

“Ah, so you dreamed that your intestines were eaten like noodles, and your eyeballs were eaten as sweet dumplings? Fuck, that dream of yours is so disgusting.”

Inside the boys’ bathroom, Fang Qian’an was already a little impatient as he listened to Song Cheng retell his nightmare in detail.

After confirming that the other party had also begun to have nightmares because of the haunted house, what Fang Qian’an wanted to inquire about was “that incident” they had experienced together in the haunted house.

“About that day in the haunted house, when we…..we bullied Li Xiu together…..how much do you remember?” Fang Qian’an frowned, his expression extremely ugly. “Oh, right, the cell phone. You turned on the camera to record back then, right? Give me your phone.”

Fang Qian’an stretched his hand out toward Song Cheng.

After everything he had experienced in the past few days, Fang Qian’an was nearly driven crazy by hallucinations and nightmares. He no longer dared to trust his own memories, so the only thing that was credible now was probably the video Song Cheng took at that time. Fang Qian’an was determined to figure out how many people, or things, were in the haunted house that night.

When he heard Fang Qian’an’s urging, Song Cheng returned to his senses. He lowered his head and began to rummage through his pockets. “The phone, right. I took pictures and videos.”

“I remember my phone was just here.”

After a moment, Song Cheng’s voice grew panicked.

“It’s so strange, why can’t I find my cell phone? Didn’t I keep it in my pocket all this time, ah?”

“Why, why can’t I find it?”

While desperately searching for his phone, Song Cheng lowered his head and spoke to Fang Qian’an in a plaintive voice.

“Young Master Fang, please turn on the light a little brighter, I can’t see clearly…..”

Fang Qian’an silently raised his head to peer at the bright light in the bathroom.

His nerves were beginning to fray.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop suddenly, a moist chill seeping into Fang Qian’an’s skin little by little. He looked stiffly at the boy in front of him, whose head went lower and lower, his movements growing increasingly strange.

“W-why can’t you see clearly?” Fang Qian’an asked in an extremely dry voice.

Shlick, shlick.

There was a sound of bones rubbing against skin and flesh, making a wet and muffled sound.

As soon as Fang Qian’an finished speaking, he saw Song Cheng raise his head straight up in a very bizarre fashion.

He stared at Fang Qian’an, his voice becoming unfamiliar and hollow.

“Young Master Fang, it’s so weird, why can’t I see anything—”

On the boy’s face, where there should have been eyes, there were now only two holes gurgling blood.

*

At the same time, City A Police Department.

A stack of photos was placed on the desk.

“That Qiming student case?”

The young policeman in charge of the case unpreparedly picked up the photos and opened them while eating. In the next second, he couldn’t swallow the takeaway in his mouth.

“Damn, what is this……a perverted murderer?”

The policeman could be considered the experienced sort, but his tone was a little unstable at this moment.

The photos were a graphic report of the student’s body found in the abandoned Xiao Family Gardens. In the photos, this boy from a well-off family had hollow eye sockets, the eyes having long disappeared. There was a very crude incision in the abdominal cavity, where the skin collapsed inward because the internal organs that should have filled that entire cavity were gone.

“Forget it, I’d rather that there was a perverted murderer.”

The policeman to the side was slightly pale, and unconsciously lowered his voice.

“This case is particularly nefarious. The boy had food poisoning and was sent to the hospital. Isn’t his dad that, that Song Yidao? So the boy was sent to the senior ward, and guess what – an elderly person who had been in a vegetative state for over a decade suddenly regained consciousness and somehow entered the boy’s ward…..by the time anyone found out, the elderly person had already dug out the child’s eyes and eaten them.”

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Chapter 24 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 26