Click.
The lock turned, and the door slowly opened.
Inside Room 801, the temperature was terrifyingly low, like stepping into an ice cellar.
Ji Yan shivered from the cold.
"Hello, is anyone there?"
He tried calling out, but received no response.
Ji Yan could only walk into the living room. He found a recliner there. No one was lying on it, yet it swayed gently.
Beside the television, an old-fashioned radio played melodious music.
"An invisible eerie?"
Ji Yan's expression shifted slightly. He tried calling out to the chair twice, but there was no reaction.
The next moment, he felt a glow at his back, followed by a pleasant yet chilling voice beside his ear.
"Where did the key in your hand come from?"
The voice made every hair on Ji Yan's body stand on end. The fingers of his right hand involuntarily opened, and the key floated in midair.
Then, Ji Yan's five fingers were forced farther and farther apart.
The intense pain made cold sweat seep from his skin.
"You only have one chance to answer."
Looking at his five fingers, which were about to be broken, Ji Yan could not help cursing inwardly.
"Fuck, do all the eeries on the Eighth Floor have something wrong with them?"
"Every single one starts attacking after barely saying two words!"
His lips trembled as Ji Yan said, "Huang Sheng from Room 102 gave it to me."
"Oh, I see."
"But unfortunately, time's up."
Crack—
A crisp snapping sound rang out as all five fingers bent back toward the back of his hand, their bones breaking.
Looking at his completely distorted palm, Ji Yan's breathing stopped, and his mind went blank for an instant.
Only one thought remained.
His hand was ruined!
Yet after a few seconds of panic, Ji Yan's head swam.
When he focused again, his right hand was completely intact, still tightly gripping the key.
A woman's giggling sounded by his ear. "I was just teasing you."
"Look how scared you are. You didn't wet yourself down there, did you?"
Ji Yan desperately wanted to curse her out, but the words stuck in his throat.
The chill beside him vanished, and the recliner over there continued rocking.
"Huang Sheng? Wasn't he driven out of the Apartment?"
"How could he still give you a key?"
Ji Yan could only recount the entire matter again.
After the invisible female eerie finished listening, she somehow seemed to have had her funny bone struck. She laughed so hard she could barely close her mouth. "Knocking down a wall? You really are bold. That old Landlord must have been furious, huh? And you're still alive and kicking? That's a miracle!"
Ji Yan said quietly, "I'm not dead because I'm still useful."
"Otherwise, I wouldn't be staying awake in the middle of the night, running around to get myself killed in a dangerous place like the Eighth Floor."
The recliner continued to sway, its creaking grating on the ears. "Go on, what mess have you gotten yourself into?"
Ji Yan rubbed his nose. "Just a small problem."
"I have a bit of a grudge with the family in Room 804."
As soon as he said that, the invisible female eerie on the recliner appeared within Ji Yan's line of sight. She wore a soft, pure white dress, with ink-black hair cascading down her back and a face as flawless as white jade.
Ji Yan froze for a moment.
The resident of Room 801 was no less beautiful than the Bewitching Eerie on the first floor. Her complexion was simply far too pale.
"Room 804?"
"That family is vicious, especially that auntie. She's like a shrew."
"The favor Huang Sheng did for me was just lending me a little money back when I couldn't afford the rent."
"When I paid him back, that bastard even added interest. That hardly even counts as a favor!"
"That key was merely collateral I gave him back then. I just forgot to take it back."
The White-skirt female eerie raised her eyes slightly and explained plainly.
Hearing that, Ji Yan's hope dimmed considerably.
Damn.
That favor really was cheap!
And Huang Sheng had the nerve to call it repayment!
"Still, I used to be fairly close with her daughter in the Apartment. I liked that girl quite a bit."
"It's just a pity she had such a miserable father. He sealed his own daughter inside the wall, leaving her unable to go anywhere. Huang Sheng thought that keeping his daughter in the Apartment meant he was protecting her."
"What he didn't know was that this self-righteous greatness was merely tormenting his daughter in another way."
Ji Yan listened without offering any comment.
Back at that wall, he really had sensed that that eerie sealed inside it was in terrible pain...
Thinking of the blood that had seeped from the wall when he broke it open, he had once made a bold guess.
Could the entire Crimson Apartment have been built from eerie flesh and blood?
That might have been why the Apartment stood firm in the Eerie World.
But Ji Yan did not think too deeply about it. This most likely involved the main storyline, and he did not want to get entangled in it.
"So Huang Sheng's favor is useless."
"But for the sake of his daughter, I can help you. However, you need to agree to one condition."
Ji Yan did not agree immediately. "What condition?"
"I haven't thought of it yet. Once I do, I'll come find you."
"..."
Ji Yan pondered for a moment, then decisively shook his head. "Then I'll figure it out myself. Sorry to disturb you."
He could not agree.
Not one eerie on the Eighth Floor was harmless.
Tonight's mission was already about cleaning up the mess he had made by breaking through a wall for Old Landlord.
If he agreed to another eerie's request now, he would only be tearing down one wall to patch another, endlessly!
"It's already too late."
"The Dead-eye eerie has already seen through your little trick of luring the tiger from the mountain. He's coming upstairs."
"In five minutes, someone will knock on my door."
"So now, only I can save you."
The White-skirt female eerie propped her cheek on her jade-like hand and looked at Ji Yan with a half-smile.
Ji Yan frowned, sharply catching something. "You've been watching me in secret all along?"
"You've been wandering around the Eighth Floor for so long, and that auntie was screaming so loudly. Even if I were deaf, I would have heard it."
"That eerie in the Rooftop water tank is their daughter."
"They know their daughter is trapped inside, turned into an ugly Grudge Eerie, yet they refuse to save her. They even want to kill people like you who are trying to help."
"Do you know why?"
Ji Yan asked, "Why?"
"Their daughter got contaminated by something unclean. You can think of it as catching a serious illness. If she continued staying in Room 804, not only would they be expelled, they would also be infected by their daughter and turn into those neither-human-nor-ghost forms."
"Besides, that daughter wasn't even biologically theirs. She was only fostered with them."
"That couple came up with this brilliant plan. Since they couldn't get rid of her, they tricked her into the water tank."
"Not only did they avoid infection, they also escaped Old Landlord and the Apartment rules' inspection. But they still underestimated their daughter's 'illness.' She could even infect the Apartment's water supply."
"So once they learned you came for their daughter, they would kill you no matter what!"
"First, they were afraid their innocent daughter would learn the truth, crawl out of the water tank, and keep haunting them."
"Second, they were afraid that if Old Landlord, who could not reach the Rooftop, learned that they were the culprits behind the water contamination, the two of them would definitely be expelled from the Apartment."
The White-skirt female eerie lightly smoothed her black hair and tilted her head toward Ji Yan. "Do you understand now?"
Ji Yan was utterly stunned.
After taking a deep breath, he finally asked, "You... how do you know all this so clearly?"
"How could I not know such minor gossip?"
"I love listening to gossip most of all."
"It's just that I usually keep silent. I don't want to stir up trouble."
"Every resident on the Eighth Floor has some melodramatic gossip!"
The White-skirt female eerie giggled. Under the moonlight, her exquisite face left Ji Yan staring blankly.
Thinking of how she never left her room yet knew every movement he made between the seventh and eighth floors, Ji Yan's scalp prickled. Just what was this eerie?
Before you continue