Entering the Basement

Ten minutes earlier, Zhang Chen was riding his bicycle to Xie Wen's place. A vintage van was tailing him.

"Boss, where's this kid going? Didn't we agree to off him after school this afternoon?" the driver, a hulking man, asked the sunglasses-wearing man with a gold chain beside him.

"Just follow him. It'll be even better if he goes somewhere deserted. Also, that 'Little Stone' guy said this kid is incredibly strange, so I brought a real weapon this time. If there are too many people around, it'll be inconvenient to do anything," the man in sunglasses replied. The "Little Stone" he mentioned was one of the people who had tried to surround and beat up Zhang Chen at the school gate last time.

"Look, he's just an ordinary kid. His bike's just a bit fast. With Brother Yuan bringing a van full of brothers this time, what are we afraid of? Those guys like Little Stone are just a bunch of brats. Haven't our brothers shed blood before?" a muscular man with a large saber said from the back of the van.

After Zhang Chen entered the building next to Xie Wen's, the group slowly drove in. They parked the van, and nine men, all armed with large sabers and around 25 years old, emerged. They exuded a faint aura of blood, indicating they were not novices who had just entered the underworld.

"What is this kid up to, coming here alone and skipping class?" the man in sunglasses seemed to sense something was amiss.

"Brother Yuan, this kid really seems to be asking for death. Should we go in?"

"Let's go. We'll deal with things quickly after it's done," the man in sunglasses thought it was his imagination. In his mind, a middle schooler couldn't cause much trouble.

The nine men, carrying their sabers, entered the room on the first floor that Zhang Chen had opened. Seeing the room that hadn't been used in a long time, even Brother Yuan, who had been in the underworld for years, didn't understand why Zhang Chen had come here.

"Eight of you, split up and search. Find out where that kid is," Brother Yuan instructed.

The eight men turned the entire house upside down but couldn't find Zhang Chen. However, as they gathered in the hall, they seemed to hear a sound from beneath their feet. Looking at the moved sofa, they approached it and discovered the entrance to the basement.

Inside the basement

Zhang Chen was startled by the sound of heartbeats coming from within the walls. It wasn't the heartbeat of a person inside the wall, but the heartbeat of the wall itself. To put it directly, the wall seemed alive.

At this moment, Zhang Chen gradually calmed down. He recalled the events of the past few days and began to re-analyze the entire situation.

"Wait, did things happen too quickly? From the very beginning, I feel like I've been led by the nose. When Xie Wen first came to teach in our class, the ten red nails made me mark her as a dangerous person. Coupled with her being Wang Yizhi's cousin, I started to focus my actions and speculations around Xie Wen."

"On the first day, after Xie Wen learned about my unusual relationship with Wang Yizhi, Wang Yizhi, who had stayed at Xie Wen's house overnight, had her fingernails turn red. This forced me to delve deeper into the matter, meaning I had to come to this house again."

"Then there was that night. I invited Xie Wen for tea at 'Shang Yin Island.' Back then, she had no reason to dress so well, looking like she was going to a banquet. She used a lot of words to mislead me, and even made me display quite a bit of my strength in front of her. She also managed to make me see her as a victim."

"The second night, due to my entry, the entire house underwent a transformation. However, something unexpected happened that even that thing didn't anticipate: not only did I not get hurt by its hand, but I also injured myself."

"Because of the turn of events, that guy had to have Xie Wen take Wang Yizhi away the next day, even if it meant exposing Xie Wen's true identity. They used Wang Yizhi as bait to lure me back here again."

"From the beginning, the entire event wasn't centered around Wang Yizhi, but me. Because this guy can obtain something or some kind of power from me through some method."

"So now, even though I know this is a huge trap set for me, I still have to jump into it? I have two advantages now. First, I can launch a surprise attack and kill him here. Second, I know his true identity and the location of his main body." Zhang Chen felt immense guilt towards Wang Yizhi. If it weren't for his desire to come here, Wang Yizhi wouldn't have been implicated.

Just as Zhang Chen was contemplating his next move, there was a creak as the basement door was opened. The people who came down were the nine desperadoes from upstairs.

"I knew you little flies couldn't fly far. Why don't you come over and kowtow to Brother Yuan? Maybe we'll just cripple you, and you can spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair," the first youth to descend said.

No matter how fast Zhang Chen's thoughts were, he instantly knew these people were related to the group he had crippled a few days ago. With a major battle imminent, Zhang Chen didn't want to waste energy on these minor characters. So, he said, "If you don't want to die, get out of here quickly. This is not a place you should be."

"Damn it, you won't shed tears until you see the coffin!" The first two underlings raised their large sabers and charged at Zhang Chen. The man in the lead swung his saber down. Zhang Chen easily dodged it, but something unexpected happened.

Because Zhang Chen dodged the blow, the saber blade plunged into the wall. The wall that was struck by the saber actually left behind traces of blood.

This made Zhang Chen even more certain that the wall was alive. The man behind the attacker also stopped in his tracks upon seeing this.

The man, seeing that his attack missed, tried to pull out the saber stuck in the wall, but he couldn't budge it. Suddenly, dozens of long fingernails grew from both sides of the wall where the saber had pierced, instantly impaling the man's body and pulling him into the wall. Then, everything returned to normal.

The moment the fingernails grew, Zhang Chen had already dodged far away. The other subordinate behind the man who was killed was splattered with his companion's blood. He dropped his saber and ran towards the exit.

Brother Yuan and his group, standing at the entrance, naturally saw this scene. Although they were all underworld figures who had seen death before, this was their first time encountering something like this. Many of them began to have second thoughts.

Brother Yuan, seeing his subordinates' reaction, felt indignant. He had been in the underworld for so long, only to be played like this by a middle schooler. He suddenly pulled out a pistol from his waist, aiming the dark muzzle at Zhang Chen.

"Bang!" A gunshot rang out, and the bullet flew directly towards Zhang Chen's forehead. Seeing that the man fired without a word, Zhang Chen knew that even though he was far superior to ordinary people, being shot in the head would still be fatal.

There was no other choice. Zhang Chen had to use his precious telekinesis. The bullet was small and fast. Zhang Chen's telekinesis couldn't completely stop it, only change its trajectory.

The bullet, which was about to hit Zhang Chen, plunged into the wall to his right. The wall left behind traces of blood and slowly healed like a soft-bodied creature. In response, a fingernail shot out from the place where the bullet had entered. It was so fast that it directly pierced the head of Brother Yuan, who was surprised that he had missed Zhang Chen.

Thick yellow fluid flowed out of Brother Yuan's head. He was undeniably dead. His subordinates immediately dropped their sabers and fled outside, leaving Zhang Chen alone.

"I didn't expect these guys to help me out so much. I wonder what would have happened if I had just cut open the wall directly. Also, this wall only seems to retaliate against those who damage it. It doesn't have self-awareness. Could it be that the Nail Man isn't inside right now?" Zhang Chen wasn't entirely sure of his thoughts, as he had been tricked by the other party until he finally understood the whole story.

"Let's take a gamble. I'll gamble that the guy isn't in the basement." Zhang Chen made up his mind. He controlled a saber with his mind and slashed it heavily at the wall about 2 meters away. Three seconds later, several fingernails grew from the wall and shattered the saber.

"Three seconds? Recalling the previous situation, it seemed to be the same." Zhang Chen had a plan in mind.

With a thought, five knives flew around Zhang Chen and slashed horizontally and vertically at the wall in front of him, creating a doorway. The wall that was cut open was visibly growing rapidly, trying to fill the gap.

Zhang Chen leaped forward, entering the other side of the wall just as it was about to heal.

He looked up. It was pitch black inside. Due to the lack of light, Zhang Chen could only see vaguely. What he stepped on was not the floor, but fingernails. Moreover, the entire room had a strong smell of decay.

"This place is as disgusting as it gets." Zhang Chen stood up and seemed to have bumped his head on something. He looked up and saw a foot. The owner of the foot was hanging by their back with a large iron hook, suspended above Zhang Chen. Their stomach was distended, appearing to be a man in his forties. Apart from this foot, the rest of him was gone.

Due to the limited visibility, Zhang Chen had to spread out his telekinesis. Within his senses, there were as many as forty corpses hanging like this.

"Damn it, is this a basement? It's clearly a slaughterhouse. The only difference in this slaughterhouse is that it's not pigs hanging on the hooks, but people." Recalling the two mother-son ghosts in his own bathroom, they were nothing compared to this.

Zhang Chen used his telekinesis to sense each person one by one, praying in his heart that Wang Yizhi wasn't among them. Upon sensing the last person, Zhang Chen finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Just as Zhang Chen was struggling with the visibility issue, the lights in the room slowly flickered on.

"I lost the gamble!" Zhang Chen looked at the gradually illuminating light tubes, and the glimmer of hope in his heart instantly sank into the abyss. As the light spread, the walls of the room were made of red fingernails. In the center was a huge operating table made of bones. Zhang Chen could feel waves of torment and despair emanating from it.

"Wang Yizhi!!!" Zhang Chen saw Wang Yizhi tied to the operating table. However, her clothes were still intact, and there were no injuries on her body. Zhang Chen could also feel Wang Yizhi breathing, which immediately relieved him. It seemed she had merely fainted.

However, Zhang Chen noticed that except for the thumbs on both his hands, all of Wang Yizhi's other fingernails had turned red.

Just then, the nails in the entire room began to gather slowly. Beside the operating table, the Nail Man grew and stared at Zhang Chen, suddenly bursting into laughter. It reached out its hand towards Wang Yizhi.

"You're asking for death!" Zhang Chen was furious. His Telekinesis locked onto the Nail Man completely. His fingernails grew to half a meter long, and he charged towards the locked-on Nail Man. Along the way, the nails growing from the ground were cut down one by one by Zhang Chen. The distance between them wasn't far. Zhang Chen cut a path, leaped forward, crossed his hands, and directly sliced the locked-on Nail Man into dozens of pieces.

"Is it dead?" Zhang Chen looked at the Nail Man he had cut into mush. Zhang Chen sensed something was wrong because, just as he was killing the Nail Man, it was still laughing, as if mocking his ignorance.

Suddenly, the entire basement began to shake