An Extra Bowl

"It's just a pity for this opera singer." Under the child's gloomy gaze, Yu Xing shrugged. "This orphan needs the little rabbit's comfort more than I do."

"... Is that so?" The child, seemingly oblivious to the underlying meaning in Yu Xing's tone, remained unhappy. He glanced at Yu Xing one last time before burying his head in folding his paper.

The Lingren seemed quite pleased. "Then I'll accept it."

Yu Xing didn't want to talk to him, so she went to knock on Zhao Yijiu's door.

In this short time, everything in the room should have been found by now.

With a creak, Zhao Yijiu's door opened. He silently let Yu Xing into the room, then closed the door behind him. "You guessed right, the person who stayed overnight earlier must have died in the well."

Before Yu Xing reply, he took out a tray of wet clothes from the bed. "This room belongs to Song the Scholar. The previous guest wrote words in blood under the bed, saying that he had nightmares every day, dreaming that he was drowning."

Yu Xing glanced at the clothes. "Where did you find these?"

"On the bed," Zhao Yijiu said with a strange expression, "Hidden under the covers. Even if I don't look for it, I can't sleep at night because the covers are always wet."

Yu Xing lay on the ground to see the blood-written words Zhao Yijiu had written under the bed, but saw no trace of them.

Zhao Yijiu could tell from his expression, "You can't see it?"

"Hmm," Yu Xing said, "It's probably targeting you."

Zhao Yijiu narrowed his eyes. "The blood-written words say that every night he dreams of drowning, with faint voices around him, and then he wakes up gasping for breath, feeling someone sleeping next to him."

"Even though there's no one around, I just have this feeling." He put the tray of wet clothes on the table with a look of disgust. "Then I hid under the bed to sleep."

The only thing related to water that can be seen in the abandoned house is the well.

"How is this related to Song the Scholar?" Yu Xing. Even though the words in blood mentioned nightmares and drowning, they didn't mention Song the Scholar at all.

"There's some dregs of medicine in the room. The last person to stay here was a doctor." Zhao Yijiu opened the cabinet in the room again, picked out a note, the handwriting on it was crooked and looked like a child's, and it said--

[Brother Song is very interested in medicine. He asked me to pass him a note saying he wanted to have a long talk with you late into the night, discussing medical books.]

"Oh, that kid at the door." Yu Xing clicked her tongue twice. "The little guy really likes to help others, doesn't he? One minute he's passing notes to people staying at the hotel for 'Brother Song,' and the next he's bringing me a little rabbit for 'Brother Singing Opera.'"

Zhao Yijiu: "...?"

Zhao Yijiu: "Mind your own business, you deserve a beating."

"Ha, it seems this child played a significant role; he won't fare well." Yu Xing took the note and pondered, "The person who wrote this note is a doctor... so his time of death must have been before the person who stayed in my room."

The person in Yu Xing's room was a scholar. In the scholar's eyes, Song was originally a physician, but their interactions became increasingly strange, and he seemed to gradually assimilate into the scholar's identity.

Song's ability may be to steal the identity of a lodger, from a temporarily unknown identity to a doctor, then to a scholar, and now he lives in the deserted house as Song the Scholar.

He shared his guess with Zhao Yijiu, and then asked, "Did you see any embroidery in the room?"

Since Miss Yun and Song the Scholar appeared in the diary, the previous guest in Zhao Yijiu's room might have also had dealings with them.

"No," Zhao Yijiu replied negatively, "There's no embroidery."

There are no written records in the room mentioning embroidery, nor are any embroidered pieces found.

Yu Xing thought that the scholar in his room who was pursuing his wife said that "Miss Li" had given him a white embroidery, but he hadn't seen it in his room.

Did it go into the well with the corpse, or did it go somewhere else?

The embroidery given by Miss Yun was white, but the room was filled with red embroidery. Could it be...?

Suddenly, a chilling sensation surged forth without warning, as if something had shattered into pieces. Invisible ripples spread out from a certain point, causing the soul to feel suffocated. Zhao Yijiu let out a muffled groan and covered her forehead.

"I feel dizzy." He gave a brief response, squinting at Yu Xing, Yu Xing seemed unaffected and even had one hand free to support him.

"Something's happened," Yu Xing said.

A child screamed from the courtyard, followed by the sound of a burly Woodcutter cursing and rushing out of the door.

"What happened?" The woman's question could still be faintly heard.

Yu Xing and Zhao Yijiu exchanged a glance, turned around and opened the door, only to see the child's basket overturned on the ground, and the child lying on the ground convulsing, his eyes rolling back.

Across from them, a woman in red and a sickly young scholar also pushed open the door and looked out. Both of them had worries and doubts on their faces, but no one came to help the child on the ground.

The Lingren seemed to have never returned to his room, stood beside the child, admired the pitiful state for a while, and then feigned concern by helping the child up and sitting down next to him.

The Woodcutter, carrying an axe, hurried towards the row of uninhabited houses, his face contorted with anger. "Which blind fool ran off like that, trying to kill—"

He was stunned when he saw Yu Xing and Zhao Yijiu come out.

What are you two doing here?

Yu Xing looked completely innocent. "If not here, then where?"

The Woodcutter had already reached the door of the row of rooms, but suddenly seemed hesitant to go in, staring at them in disbelief.

What's going on?

Everyone was there. The three people who came to stay today, along with the four who originally lived in the abandoned house, were all standing in the yard, staring at each other.

He initially thought it was either Yu Xing or Zhao Yijiu who had been misbehaving and had secretly gone to another room as soon as they arrived, but it turned out it wasn't them!

Who... smashed things inside?

Is this some kind of ghost?!

This realization made the Woodcutter tremble. He fearfully placed his hand on the door, but dared not open it.

The Lingren smiled meaningfully, "Look how tense you all are. Is there someone important living inside? Or is there something valuable?"

"No, no." The Woodcutter swallowed hard, lowered his hand, and took a step back. "Never mind, I'll go in and check again tonight."

As he spoke, he surprisingly decided not to open the door to check.

Yu Xing thought that the commotion was definitely caused by Yi Qing.

Ke Yiqing's ghostly form is mostly untouchable. What could have happened to cause such a commotion from a ghost that is so ethereal and elusive?

And as a result... Miss Yun and Song the Scholar, who had locked themselves in their rooms from the beginning, also came out.

Song the Scholar leaned against the door frame, as if even moving was difficult. His face was as pale as paper, his eyes were dark and bluish, and his fingers were so thin that they looked like nothing but skin and bones.

Miss Yun was dressed in a blood-red ruqun (a type of traditional Chinese dress), with bright red lipstick. Her hair was not styled in an updo; her long, black hair was simply draped over her shoulders and disappeared into the darkness behind the crack in the door.

As Yu Xing was observing, Miss Yun's eyes flickered, and she looked directly at him.

Their eyes met, and Miss Yun smiled, her expression pitiful and forlorn, as if she had suffered some injustice and grievance, yet could only force a smile.

In short, she was a woman with a story to tell at first glance, and the entries in her diary added a layer of danger and horror to her image.

"Look," Song the Scholar coughed twice, uttering his first words of the day, "The food is ready."

As soon as he finished speaking, everyone looked at the dining table in the courtyard.

Before anyone knew it, plates of exquisite dishes appeared on the table, and glutinous rice was neatly served in separate bowls—one, two, and so on—eight bowls in total, arranged in front of eight small stools.

"Let's eat first." The Woodcutter tossed his axe aside, scratching his head somewhat awkwardly. "No matter when the food comes, we have to finish it, or things will get messy."

"What could possibly go wrong?" Yu Xing leaned closer to chime in.

"Injuries, deaths... it's terrible! If you don't want anything to happen, you'd better eat quickly!" The Woodcutter's eyes still held a hint of ferocity, but he forced himself to put on a friendly demeanor.

Miss Yun emerged completely from the room, meticulously closing the door behind her. She went to the table, intending to speak, but then she noticed something, and her eyes welled up with tears. "There's... an extra bowl of rice."

In an instant, the faces of the four guests in the abandoned house turned gloomy.

.