My vision went black, but quickly returned. Afterward, though, my soul seemed to be floating in the sky. I no longer had that grounded, tangible sense of reality.
I quickly made out the scene before me. Xu Tiancheng was sitting on the sofa in the living room.
He had returned to his own home. In his hand was the vacuum-sealed lotus specimen, and his expression was indifferent.
He raised his eyes toward the master bedroom door.
I felt a chill in the room. The heating was off, and the cold, damp air outside was seeping straight indoors.
My senses had grown incredibly dull.
After noticing the chill in the room, I suddenly came to my senses and realized there was a sound coming from the master bedroom.
Something was moving behind the door, scratching at it. The harder it tried, the more forceful its movements became.
I already knew what was behind it.
Bodies, piled high...
The door couldn't be opened from the outside, and there shouldn't have been any way to open it from the inside, either. The bodies in there couldn't possibly move around and make such a racket.
Unless there was a ghost.
The souls of the dead had finally left their bodies and become ghosts.
Xu Tiancheng rose abruptly and walked toward the bedroom door.
He took hold of the doorknob, then froze.
The scratching stopped. The doorknob trembled. Someone inside was trying to open the door, twisting the knob.
Xu Tiancheng tightened his grip until the veins stood out on his hand.
He clutched the doorknob tightly, keeping the door shut.
His expression had changed. With his other hand, he held the lotus up to his mouth and bit open the packaging.
The lotus fell out.
Still gripping the doorknob with one hand, Xu Tiancheng