Peeping Begins

"Exactly, exactly!"

Yu Guo clapped his hands and grinned as he darted over to Fang Shenyan, casually draping an arm over his shoulder as if they were old friends.

Ji Li wrapped his windbreaker tighter around himself and lowered his head as he walked toward the Master Bedroom. As he walked, he said:

"The owner of this room should be male—and perhaps a rather unique one at that!"

Hearing this, the others exchanged puzzled glances, unable to understand what he meant. A flicker of light passed through Fang Shenyan's eyes.

Ji Li looked at the bedroom, which gave off a peculiar fragrance, and frowned. His nose felt somewhat uncomfortable.

The scent was so sweet that it was cloying.

He gently opened the wardrobe door. Various clothes lay scattered inside, both men's and women's.

Ji Li said nothing. He quietly put on his gloves, gathered all the clothes from the wardrobe, and laid them out piece by piece on the bed.

Several sets of clothing in different colors and styles lay across the bed. One corner drooped onto the floor, making them look like limp corpses.

The men's clothes were on the left, and the women's on the right.

Ji Li rubbed his nose, pointed to each item in turn, and asked softly, "Did you notice?"

Cao Yuan poked his head out from the very back and said blankly, "There are only half as many women's clothes as men's... and most of them are undergarments!"

Fang Shenyan nodded and said apologetically, "The clothes were piled and tangled together in the wardrobe, which interfered with my thinking. I didn't analyze them carefully enough."

Ji Li waved his hand to indicate that it was fine, then walked several circles around the clothing.

"We can be almost certain now. The owner of the house is a man—and a psychologically twisted pervert!"

Everyone glanced again at the messy women's clothes.

Ding Miaoxin's face flushed even redder. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand and retched faintly.

She said shakily, "Then... these women's clothes..."

Ji Li stopped walking and nodded. "They were probably stolen!"

Yu Guo swaggered around the room several times, then dropped himself onto the head of the bed. The entire bed frame shook.

With a creak, the sound interrupted Ji Li and the others' discussion.

Yu Guo froze. Seeing Ji Li's pale face, he quickly stood up. "I only sat down for a moment. Why is this bed so flimsy?"

He felt around beneath him and touched the pillow. It seemed he had found something hard inside, so he tore the pillow open.

A black notebook appeared in his palm.

Ji Li and Fang Shenyan stepped forward several paces, while Cao Yuan and Ding Miaoxin stayed where they were, not daring to act rashly.

Yu Guo flipped through it casually. At first, he did not pay much attention, but the farther he read, the worse his expression became!

Fang Shenyan approached in confusion and asked, "What's wrong?"

Yu Guo handed him the notebook and said grimly, "This belonged to that perverted man... It's his Peeping Diary!"

Their conversation reached Ji Li's ears, but he did not ask any questions.

Instead, he began walking around the head of the bed. Then his eyes narrowed, as if he had discovered something.

Ji Li waved for Fang Shenyan and Yu Guo to move aside, then pushed the bed with all his strength.

A gap appeared between the headboard and the wall.

To his astonishment, he discovered a faint sliver of light seeping through from the other side of the wall.

Yu Guo raised his head and asked Ji Li, "We got a breakthrough this quickly?"

Ji Li had no time to deal with him. He called over Fang Shenyan and Cao Yuan, and the four of them lifted the entire bed and moved it to the other side.

The section of the eastern wall that had been covered by the headboard was now completely exposed.

"Ding Miaoxin, go turn off the bedroom light."

Ji Li did not dare touch anything recklessly. He did not know where the strange beam of light was coming from, nor what lay behind the wall. He could only proceed cautiously.

Ding Miaoxin answered, "Oh," then walked to the doorway and switched off the light. Afterward, she leaned against the door, afraid to move.

All five living people in Room 701 were plunged into darkness.

But the beam of light on the eastern wall appeared even brighter!

"This is a hole, right..."

Cao Yuan rubbed his forehead and could not help taking a step forward, but Ji Li immediately stopped him.

"Judging from the layout of the corridor, the Master Bedroom in Room 701 should connect to the other side of Room 702."

Ji Li's gloomy voice slowly rang out as he explained the situation.

"I paid attention to Room 702 earlier. There was a pink doll on the door. Presumably, a young woman lives inside.

"If we also take into account the women's clothing stolen by that perverted man in Room 701..."

The light reflected off Fang Shenyan's glasses, turning them a cold white. He quietly continued:

"A psychologically twisted pervert lives in Room 701. His Master Bedroom is separated from Room 702 by only one wall.

"So he hollowed out the wall behind the bed in order to spy on that young woman at midnight—watching her come home from work, wash up, and sleep..."

Fang Shenyan's voice remained steady as he spoke, but everyone else felt a chill creep up their necks.

Ji Li stared intently at the hole from a short distance away and said to Fang Shenyan, "Read the diary."

Fang Shenyan took a deep breath. In a low, lingering voice, he slowly recited the evil and filthy words filling the notebook.

"From the moment that person moved in next door, I completely fell.

"I have a disease. If I can't see that person for even a moment, my entire body burns with desire, and my internal organs sear!

"I want to see everything that person does every day, at every moment, so I carved a hole in the eastern wall.

"I sleep in Room 701, and that person sleeps in Room 702.

"I watch that person. Can that person sense me?"

Perhaps the woman in that room had never noticed any of this. She continued living alone as usual, assuming that the missing clothes had simply been misplaced.

She had no idea that a murky, greasy eyeball was spying on her life every day, every moment!

"Ah!!"

Just as the five people's feet began moving unnaturally toward the hole, a vague yet shrill scream suddenly rang out!

It had come from Room 702, separated from them by only one wall!

Ji Li hesitated, then lowered his head and glanced at his watch. It was already 8:32 p.m.

In theory, the ghost could appear at any moment.

"Go, go, go! What are you afraid of? Fortune favors the bold. Something must be happening next door!" Second Personality urged Ji Li restlessly inside his mind.

No. I've long felt that something was wrong with Room 702. Judging from the current situation, these two adjoining rooms are clearly the focus of this mission. We absolutely cannot charge in recklessly! Third Personality desperately tried to stop Ji Li.

Fang Shenyan cleared his throat in a muffled voice. Sweat had already appeared on his forehead, but he continued flipping through the notebook, searching for useful information beyond the love-struck passages and reading it aloud.

"That person comes home at exactly 6:34 every day. The pink doll on the door matches the phone case, but unfortunately, I searched everywhere online and couldn't find another one like it.

"I've watched that person live for a very, very long time.

"That person has a habit of opening the bedroom window before going to work every day. This has made things convenient for me.

"It lets me... sleep peacefully in that person's bed, hold that person's clothes, and take whatever I want to take..."

The perverted acts recorded in the diary had grown increasingly vile.

At the same time, the argument next door grew louder and louder.

It sounded as though a man and a woman were engaged in a violent confrontation. The woman's sobs and screams and the man's roars pushed the five workers' nerves to the breaking point!

Just as everyone was caught in a dilemma, Ji Li suddenly spoke.

"Yu Guo, block the hole with your phone!"

Yu Guo froze at first, but immediately understood. He hurried toward the eastern wall.

He activated the phone used for the livestream and aimed its camera at the gap.

Inside the cylindrical black rim was a cold-white scene, blurred and indistinct, like a black-and-white recording.

Ji Li crouched on the floor, holding his breath as he stared without blinking at what was happening next door. The longer he watched, the more his scalp prickled!

It was another bedroom...

A woman in a long dress lay sprawled on the bed, her hair loose and covering her face. Her features could not be seen clearly, but her head was twisted at an exaggerated angle, making it unmistakable that she was dead!

"This..." Ding Miaoxin's limbs went weak, and she dropped onto the floor. She opened her mouth to scream, but fortunately, Fang Shenyan covered it in time.

Cold sweat broke out on Cao Yuan and Yu Guo. They were ordinary people. Instead of seeing a ghost, they had first witnessed a murder. How could they not be terrified?

Fang Shenyan fell silent for a long, long time. He did not continue reading, and all of Room 701 sank into deathly silence.

That breath remained trapped in Ji Li's chest. He did not dare inhale, nor exhale.

The incident had happened too suddenly. Although he had been sufficiently alert, he was still one step too late.

The woman was already dead. He had missed both the process of the murder and the killer!

He could be one hundred percent certain that this was no simple murder. Everything was connected to the ghost that had yet to appear!

Yu Guo's arm had already begun to ache, but Ji Li still wanted to wait and see whether anything else would happen.

After all, the murder and the disposal of the body should be connected.

One minute, two minutes...

Five minutes passed. Ji Li could no longer hold his breath, but as time went by, nothing else moved on the other side of the hole except the woman's freshly dead body!

After waiting long enough, the other four finally let out a long breath.

After all, what they had to face was not a murderer, but a ghost.

Only Ji Li licked his dry lips. Missing the clues left him feeling helpless.

Fang Shenyan looked up at everyone's varied expressions, closed the notebook, and turned toward the hole connecting to Room 702.

He read the contents of the final page, word by word.

"That person discovered me.

"I'm dead. I'm going to find that person..."

"Bang!"

A muffled impact suddenly sounded from the wall next door!

Yu Guo's arm jerked in fright, causing the phone pressed against the hole to shake.

But in the darkness, Ji Li still saw the scene that made his soul tremble!

An eyeball covered in blood vessels, murky and vacant yet filled with boundless malice, stared straight through the peeping hole and met his gaze!