In the room on the right side of the second floor, Qiu Xin stood before the window like a statue, staring at the corpse hanging outside it.
The corpse's bloodshot eyes stared back at her just as intently, as though it wanted to see through her inside and out, then pierce through her body to peer into the entire room.
"Drip, drip..."
Thick blood flowed together from the gash in the corpse's neck and its wrists, cascading over the windowsill like a waterfall and pooling across the floor.
A few drops seemed to have been blown by some invisible entity with a twisted sense of humor, flinging themselves against the laws of physics onto Qiu Xin's toes. Even through her cloth shoes, they conveyed threads of chillness, sucking at her skin as though alive.
Something was going on outside. Going out would likely mean danger—but if she stayed inside, how was she supposed to complete her killing mission?
If midnight passed and she still had not killed anyone, then according to the scholar and the requirements of her identity's effect, she would die...
Qiu Xin silently weighed the pros and cons, caught in a dilemma.
Holding her breath, she backed away step by step and retrieved a curved blade from her inventory, gripping it in her right hand.
"Scratch, scratch..."
The sound of fingers rubbing against the paper window came from outside, light and delicate, like claws scratching at a person's heart.
Even from this distance, with the dim light making it impossible to see outside clearly, Qiu Xin could still imagine how the unknown ghostly creature pressed its body against the paper window, feeling about tentatively for a point of leverage to break in.
The terrifying image triggered a physical reaction. Qiu Xin felt as though countless vines had