A Certain Victim

Due to the lack of lighting, it took Li Sanli a great deal of effort to reopen the door, and then he stood in the doorway and said to Zhou You.

"I haven't touched anything in the room, and that haunted table is right inside the bedroom, though I wouldn't recommend you go in and look; after all, that thing is truly bizarre..."

Li Sanli was still rambling on about something, but Zhou You had already stepped toward the room.

"Hey, hey, I haven't finished yet, wait a second..."

However, before Li Sanli could finish, behind the two of them, that iron door suddenly slammed shut with a "bang."

...Did you do that?

The emaciated fat man slowly turned his gaze, hoping beyond hope to get an affirmative answer from Zhou You.

Yet, the man in question merely shrugged, looking completely innocent.

"..."

And so, Li Sanli rolled his eyes back and fainted on the spot.

Zhou You walked over to him, gently pinched his philtrum, and after discovering that he was fine, he raised his hand and looked at the Brass Bell on his wrist once more.

Even now, the bell was still ringing, but the problem was...

The sound was extremely faint, to the point where one would ignore it if they weren't paying close attention.

Zhou You had never encountered a situation like this.

In previous Night Watchman scenarios, even when facing the weakest Corridor Face, the bell's chime had never been this weak.

However, before Zhou You could process this, the curtains nearby suddenly fell.

Following that, the entire room plunged into darkness.

For an ordinary person, seeing such a scene would likely have them screaming in terror, but as for Zhou You...

Having experienced so many horror scenarios, his heart was now as steady as a rock; he could even watch Sadako crawl out of a television and calmly walk over to ask, "Shall we?", so did they really think a mere curtain could scare him?

What a joke.

But the entity clearly knew this was just an appetizer, as a faint murmuring sound began to echo throughout the room. The sound felt as if it were right beside his ear, yet simultaneously as distant as the horizon. Just as one might try to listen closely, suddenly—

With a "slap."

A bright red bloody handprint appeared on the wall.

Then, the red color grew increasingly dense, quickly covering the entire wall. The whole room seemed to be dyed a deep crimson, and the murmurs turned into wails, piercing straight into his ears!

But the problem remained: the bell's chime was still just as weak.

In fact, Zhou You himself didn't feel any chill or malevolent aura at all.

So, he simply ignored the anomalies around him and walked straight to the bedroom door, pushing it open slowly.

There wasn't much furniture inside; one could only see a bed, a wardrobe, and a projection television.

However, there were unexpectedly many things other than furniture.

Skulls, tarot cards, strange folk decorations, divination tools commonly used by gypsies...

Although he didn't see anything as disgusting as a Kuman Thong, this many "occult" related collectibles were not something an average person could afford to keep.

"How thick-skinned are Li Sanli and his girlfriend to be able to sleep in a ghost trap like this..."

Zhou You carefully moved an Ultraman Buddha aside and then looked toward the center of the room.

A table was sitting right there.

Compared to the outrageous items surrounding it, this table looked rather ordinary, appearing like a mass-produced piece from IKEA worth two or three hundred. The only thing that could be called different was that the table was covered in yellow talismans.

Zhou You took out the yellow paper from his pocket to compare, finding them to be identical.

So, he took two steps forward.

But the next moment, everything in the bedroom began to tremble. A black shadow vaguely emerged on the table, gathering like smoke to reveal the face of a young girl.

She looked to be about eleven or twelve, an age where she should still be in middle school, yet her face held only deep terror and madness.

Then, a shriek rang out.

"Get out!"

The piercing scream instantly swept through everything. Zhou You frowned, but he still took another step forward.

"Don't come near me!!!!"

The ghost's face became increasingly distorted, and as a result, the entire room began to scream. The deafening sound echoed in his ears, a violent noise that nearly drove his brain to madness.

But at that very moment, an incredibly clear sound rang out.

"Om."

In an instant, the entire scene shattered into pieces.

The ghost widened its eyes, but there was no color left within its pupils—though it quickly regained its senses and tried to scream once more, someone had already fought through the exhaustion brought on by the True Word and closed the distance to its side.

A sharp blade sliced through the air, flashing with a chilling, cold light—the edge of a blood-stained knife—but just as Zhou You pinned the spirit down and was about to plunge it in, he suddenly furrowed his brows.

--A certain talent had activated at a most inopportune moment.

Under the influence of the Eye of Insight, a multitude of images suddenly flashed before his eyes.

He saw an ordinary and warm daily life, saw laughter and joy with friends during school, but at the same time, he saw the crying and begging during a kidnapping, and the despair and screaming while being dismembered.

Finally, all the scenes froze at a single point.

It was the ghost's already fragmented corpse, and a strangely shaped altar.

The next moment, everything vanished abruptly.

When Zhou You raised his knife again, he saw an unexpected sight—

The ghost had not taken advantage of the gap to attack; instead, it had curled into a ball, as if terrified, hiding in the corner and sobbing incessantly.

...No, what the hell, how am I supposed to strike now?

Given his personality, if the opponent had attacked with lethal intent the moment they met, or had already caused any deaths or injuries, then even if the opponent had a thousand reasons, he would have finished this guy off without hesitation.

Just like Liu Shang and the security captain among the Night Watchers; evil begets evil, and good begets good. This was the most simple and basic moral value his grandfather had instilled in him since he was a child.

But the problem was that this ghost had truly never committed any murder; it had merely instinctively regarded this room as its territory, driving away all outsiders and objects, and it had now lost all hostility—of course, the main thing was...

Zhou You gently poked the entity with the hilt of his knife.

--The sobbing instantly grew louder.

"I'm telling you, don't be like this, it's like I'm bullying a child..."

Zhou You slumped his shoulders in resignation.

--There was absolutely no way he could strike now. But the problem was that this thing couldn't stay here either; if nothing else, Li Sanli and his girlfriend certainly wouldn't be able to handle it...

"So what do I do... I can't exactly sell this thing to someone else to harm people..."

Zhou You scratched his chin, then suddenly had a thought.

"Wait, I have to stay in that Weird Game all the time lately anyway, and since my house is empty, and the security around the neighborhood isn't great, I'm worried about burglars. How about..."

"I just move this table to my place?"