The Terrifying Truth

"Zhang Chen, were you even listening to me?" Seeing that Zhang Chen was not listening at all, homeroom teacher Lu Ba's anger flared.

Zhang Chen could no longer hear any sounds from the outside world. He paid no attention to Lu Ba raging beside him.

"Xie Wen, haha!" Zhang Chen suddenly burst out laughing, calmed himself, and leaped straight down from the second floor of the teaching building, frightening the homeroom teacher beside him senseless. By the time Lu Ba reacted and ran to the railing, Zhang Chen had already vanished from below.

"Damn it, damn it! The moment I relaxed even a little, I got bitten immediately." Zhang Chen got on his bicycle and rode toward the white house where Xie Wen lived.

Zhang Chen took out his phone and called his older sister, who was studying in the city.

"Sis, did you find anything about the people I asked you to investigate?" Zhang Chen's tone was extremely serious.

"My dear little brother, it's only been half a day. But luckily, your sister is amazing. I've done my best and found one person for now—the one named Yang Zi. As for Xie Wen, Mom said she's harder to investigate. It seems the police station sealed that file very tightly. Still, your big sister paid a huge price, and Mom finally agreed to help me look into it, though it'll take some time."

Wei Na seemed to realize how important this matter was to her younger brother, so she stopped teasing him.

"Then tell me about Yang Zi first," Zhang Chen urged.

"Wait a second, let me find the file Mom sent me."

Before long—

"Found it. Listen carefully, okay? I don't want to read it twice. Yang Zi was born in Yutian Village, Jinxi County. Even before he was born, his father had accumulated a huge debt from drug use. He took most of the family's money and fled to another province, never to be heard from again. His mother worked as a manicurist in the county town and struggled to raise him until he was six. Then the people his father owed usury loans to found her. They took turns assaulting her and drowned her in the pond behind their home. Six-year-old Yang Zi hid in an underground wine cellar at home and escaped disaster."

"Yang Zi, with neither father nor mother, had a withdrawn and strange personality. He was raised by his grandparents in the countryside. When he grew up, he learned his mother's trade as a manicurist and began doing manicures in the county town. He was quite skilled. His strange personality seemed to improve."

"Later, Yang Zi was brought into the city by his mentor. After working for several years, he achieved excellent results, and his boss thought highly of him. After earning a good amount of money, he bought his own home in the city. But he never married, which his coworkers found very strange."

"He never went to college?" Zhang Chen suddenly asked.

"What do you think? He dropped out before even finishing middle school," Wei Na said.

"Sis, continue."

"But at that time, something major happened in the city. Over two years, thirteen women disappeared, ranging in age from seventeen to twenty-eight. The police reviewed surveillance footage from transportation and railway departments but found no clues. Then, at the end of the year, another twenty-one-year-old woman disappeared—and she happened to be the niece of the municipal Party secretary."

"The police began using every possible means to investigate, but then suddenly discovered that all fourteen missing people shared one thing in common. Every one of them had visited the nail salon where Yang Zi worked, had been Yang Zi's client, and disappeared two to three months after entering that nail salon."

"After obtaining this important information, the police did not approach the suspect in order not to alert him. Instead, they tracked Yang Zi day and night. Sure enough, not long afterward, while monitoring Yang Zi's residence, they saw him turn on the lights at two in the morning. He walked around outside the house, checked that no one was there, returned inside, and pulled shut every curtain in the room."

"This strange behavior immediately caught the police's attention. The two officers conducting surveillance notified headquarters for backup before breaking into Yang Zi's home on their own. Strangely, there was no sign of Yang Zi inside. But just as they were about to leave after finding nothing, one officer seemed to hear a sound coming from beneath his feet."

"At that point, the backup team arrived at Yang Zi's residence. After hearing the surveillance officers' report, they began a thorough search of the room. Sure enough, beneath the carpet in one bedroom, they found an entrance resembling a basement accessway. After fully arming themselves, the police threw open the passage leading underground, and the stench of blood rushed into their nostrils."

"More than ten officers entered the basement together. Dim lights illuminated the entire space, which was as large as the rooms above. In the center stood a huge operating table. A naked ** woman was tied to it, her right arm already cut off and her mouth sealed tightly with tape. She did not react even when she saw the officers arrive. Her eyes were wide open, as though she were dead."

"After rescuing the woman, they discovered that she was indeed the municipal Party secretary's niece. The basement was already empty, and the police knew Yang Zi had only just left. They immediately contacted headquarters and sealed off every transportation route in and out of the city. After carefully searching the basement, the officers found many sacks in a huge wall cabinet. When they opened them, they found the missing women, long dead."

"Many had decayed so badly that their bones were faintly visible. Apart from a few seasoned veterans, most of the officers at the scene could not help vomiting up everything they had eaten that day."

"At the same time, the police captured Yang Zi on a small road leading to Jinxi County, where he had been preparing to flee. The next day, he was directly sentenced to death with immediate execution for unlawful imprisonment, **, and intentional homicide. Due to pressure from the Party secretary, Yang Zi was executed that very day. Because the case was too vile and in order not to affect the city's image, it was never made public."

"The rescued niece of the Party secretary was diagnosed with schizophrenia and hanged herself less than two days later. After Yang Zi's execution, Article 348 of the Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Criminal Procedure Law stated that, following an execution, the people's court responsible for carrying it out must handle the following matters. The second item was: notify the criminal's family to collect the body within a specified period; where cremation facilities are available, notify them to collect the ashes. If they failed to collect them after the deadline, the people's court would notify the relevant departments to handle them. The handling of a death-row criminal's body or ashes must be recorded in the case file."

"However, Yang Zi's parents were both dead, and while he had been working in the city, his grandparents back home had also passed away. The personnel carrying out the sentence had no choice but to cremate him and place his ashes in the unclaimed property storage room."

"Last year, a woman claiming to be Yang Zi's wife collected his urn from the storage room. Because the registration clerk did not pay much attention, she did not record the woman's name. That's all there is. Little brother, why is everyone you ask me to investigate such a complete **? Are you planning to learn from him?" After finishing, Wei Na took the chance to tease her younger brother again.

"Sis, hurry up and investigate Xie Wen too. Call or text me as soon as you find anything. It has to be the first thing you do. All right, I'm hanging up." After hearing about Yang Zi, Zhang Chen could no longer remain calm and immediately ended the call.

"Damn it, she's not some student from an art academy at all. She's just a ** murderer. Xie Wen... heh, you played me." Zhang Chen pedaled furiously until he reached the white house.

"The basement, the basement... Without my sister's information, I never would have thought of it. The first time I entered Xie Wen's house, I noticed that the atmosphere was different in certain places, but I didn't carefully investigate where those traces came from. Thinking about it now, those traces really did seem to be rising from beneath my feet."

"If I'm not mistaken, the more than twenty Ghosts were innocent people murdered in this basement. After seeing that I could deal with that thing, they were willing to become my food just for a chance to seize and kill it."

Zhang Chen stopped his bicycle and walked straight to Xie Wen's door. Seeing that there was another house next door, an idea suddenly came to him.

Zhang Chen walked to the neighboring door and knocked, hoping no one would answer so things would be much easier for him.

However, even after knocking for a long time, there was still no movement. Once he confirmed no one was home, Zhang Chen used Telekinesis to manipulate the lock.

With a click, the door opened. The moment he stepped inside, Zhang Chen realized his knocking had been a complete waste of time. This house had apparently been abandoned for who knew how long. Each step he took stirred up visible dust, while the furniture and appliances inside were covered with white sheets. Clearly, no one had lived here for a long time.

"If Xie Wen's house has a basement, then this place must have one too." It was only Zhang Chen's guess. If there was none, he had no other option.

Because there was too much dust in the room, Zhang Chen directly gathered all of it together with Telekinesis. The pile was actually half a meter high.

"Basement, where would the basement be?" Zhang Chen searched the kitchen, the study, and the bedrooms, but found nothing. "Could there really be none?"

Zhang Chen pulled off the white sheet covering the sofa and dropped onto it. Looking at the uninhabited house, he grew increasingly anxious. Wang Yizhi had already been missing for over two hours.

"Wait. This house is uninhabited. Maybe the family never used the basement in the first place." Zhang Chen stood up and shoved the sofa behind him aside.

"Sure enough. Damn it, after searching everywhere, it was right under where I was sitting." Zhang Chen looked at the floor beneath the sofa as a section of flooring, different in size from those around it, slowly opened. Below was complete darkness, but Zhang Chen could not sense any traces of presence, so he descended step by step.

His pupils gradually dilated. Once they adapted to the darkness, he used the light shining down from the entrance above to see the entire basement clearly. As expected, it was completely empty. No one had ever used it.

At that moment, lights suddenly came on in the middle of the dark basement. Zhang Chen instantly became alert and swept his gaze around. He saw three legless Ghosts floating out from a corner: a man, a woman, and a little girl less than a meter tall. If he was right, they should have been the family of three who had once lived in this house. The parents held the little girl's hands, their eyes filled with endless hatred and sorrow. The girl standing between them had had her eyes gouged out, and her mouth had been sewn shut.

Yet Zhang Chen immediately relaxed, because he could not sense any dangerous aura from them. Instead, the feeling was extremely similar to when the twenty-three Ghosts had surrounded him last time. The little girl's right hand moved and slowly lifted, pointing toward one wall—the wall adjoining Xie Wen's basement.

There was no layout to this basement at all; it was simply a rectangle. After memorizing its dimensions, Zhang Chen walked toward the wall the little girl had indicated. His steps gradually slowed, because he sensed a faintly unsettling aura coming from that very wall.

Step by step, when he finally drew close to the wall, Zhang Chen felt that it was extraordinary, as though it possessed life. With a thought, Zhang Chen tilted his head and pressed his ear against the wall.

Thump. Thump. A steady heartbeat entered Zhang Chen's ears...