Making Way for Them

Tianming Mountain Cemetery, Branch No. 9.

The top-floor corridor was deathly quiet, with only the emergency lights flickering in the darkness.

Following the glow of the indicator lights led all the way to the innermost room.

A plaque hung on the tightly locked door, bearing the number "501."

Branch No. 9's layout differed slightly from the other branches. Though it was the first room on the fifth floor, it had been placed at the very end of the hall.

Behind the locked door was the same darkness.

Thick, broad black curtains covered every window in the room, leaving not a trace of light exposed.

This small apartment was spotless, its furnishings neatly arranged. It was clear that someone who cared greatly about cleanliness lived here.

Every door in the apartment had been locked from the inside, as if afraid someone might enter.

Only the door to the second bedroom had been left slightly ajar, yet the darkness within remained impenetrable.

Gu Xingjian stood barefoot on the soft carpet, leaning forward slightly with an oil-painting brush in hand as he carefully applied paint to something.

His hand was steady as he dipped the brush into pigment and moved it across his work.

His ordinary face held nothing but seriousness and concentration.

A sliver of moonlight desperately squeezed in beneath the thick curtains, faintly illuminating what he was painting.

It was, astonishingly, a corpse sitting cross-legged on the carpet.

It was called a corpse, but aside from the lack of breathing, its limbs and complexion appeared perfectly normal.

Only its left eye was wide open, filled with a milky-white murkiness.

Compared to a human eye, it resembled an artificial eye more closely.

Its right eye was even stranger—nothing but a pitch-black hollow.

Apart from those eerie eyes, every other feature of the