Don't Spend the Night Here

"The Landlord is highly suspicious, but we can't rule out other possibilities." Chen Ge scratched his head. "If only I could find a tenant to ask."

Since entering the Apartment Building, he had seen four people in all: a woman hiding behind a door, Wang Qi putting up Missing Person Notices, the short-tempered Landlord, and an Old Man sitting in a wheelchair.

"The Old Man lives with the Landlord, so I'll set them aside for now. That woman on the first floor gave me a strange feeling. That leaves Wang Qi, who seems relatively normal. He probably knows something about this apartment." Chen Ge carried the thermos into his room, locked the door, and headed downstairs.

The Voice-activated Light came on. As soon as Chen Ge reached the first floor, he saw Wang Qi walking through the hallway with a stack of Missing Person Notices in his arms. He was sliding them one by one through the doors of the rental units, whether anyone lived inside or not.

The strange behavior caught Chen Ge's attention. People usually put up Missing Person Notices in crowded places, but Wang Qi was doing the opposite, choosing only empty rental units.

Chen Ge quietly followed him. Only after Wang Qi had slipped the last Missing Person Notice through a door did Chen Ge speak. "Brother, I understand how it feels to have a family member go missing, but you have to stay strong. Don't keep torturing yourself with these pointless actions."

At the sound of his voice, Wang Qi slowly turned around. His cloudy eyes seemed forever unable to focus. "Understand? You people will never understand. I've never expected you to..."

Chen Ge didn't waste time arguing. He took out his phone and opened the missing-person report he had filed at the police station a few months ago. "I'm not lying to you. My parents suddenly went missing six months ago. At first, I was devastated and desperate too."

After seeing the photos saved on the phone, Wang Qi fell silent. Only after a long while did he speak. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, but our situations are different. My fiancée will come back. I can feel it. She hasn't gone far."

"Could you tell me what happened? We're both in the same boat. Maybe I can help you." Chen Ge was sincere; he meant every word.

Wang Qi hesitated. Perhaps he remembered that Chen Ge had helped him pick up some Missing Person Notices earlier. His gaze softened a little. "You can't help me. You seem like a decent person, so take my advice and leave as soon as you can. Whatever you do, don't spend the night here!"

"I've already paid. If you want me to leave, you should at least tell me why." Chen Ge had come here to complete a trial mission. Leaving now would mean giving up halfway, and the Midnight Escape horror scenario would remain locked forever.

"Which matters more, money or your life?" Wang Qi glanced around. After making sure no one was nearby, he lowered his voice. "There was a Massacre Case in this Apartment Building. Everyone around here knows about it."

"I've heard this is a haunted house, but I couldn't find any record of a case online. It must be a rumor, right?" Chen Ge voiced the question on his mind.

"This place used to be called Fu An Apartment. It was renamed Ping An Apartment after the incident. The case caused a huge stir back then, but the Killer was never caught. The spirits of the victims died with too much resentment to rest, so they appear in the Old Mansion late at night." Wang Qi spoke with a grave expression, as if every word were true.

"What age are we living in, and you still believe in that?" Chen Ge forced a stiff smile. In truth, he was more frightened than anyone. He'd dealt with the Mirror Monster and the Love Letter Ghost; he really didn't want to get involved with any more ghosts.

"I didn't believe it at first either. Not until my fiancée mysteriously disappeared nearby." He clutched at his hair in anguish, unable to hide how exhausted he was.

"Why did your fiancée come here?" Chen Ge's attention sharpened at once. Wang Qi might have said it without thinking, but Chen Ge picked up on it. His fiancée's situation sounded somewhat like his parents'.

"I don't know. In fact, I'd never even heard of this Apartment Building before. The police told me about it. They said all the clues ended here." Wang Qi let go of his hair, a few strands still caught between his fingers. "I had no other choice, so I came here to look for her."

"Have you found anything?" Chen Ge asked, curious.

Wang Qi opened his mouth, as if he'd thought of something, but didn't dare say it aloud. He took out his phone and typed a line on the screen.

"My fiancée seems to have been kidnapped by someone in this apartment!"

Chen Ge was startled by what he saw on the screen. Things weren't developing the way he'd expected. "Brother, a disappearance and a kidnapping are two different things."

Wang Qi gestured for Chen Ge to keep his voice down. He blocked the passage with his back, opened his text messages, and showed them to Chen Ge.

Chen Ge had only meant to glance at them, but when he saw the messages in Wang Qi's inbox, his eyes slowly widened.

There was a text message from Wang Qi's fiancée in his inbox!

It contained only two words: "Help me." Stranger still, it had been sent around two in the morning the previous day.

"Someone who was supposed to be missing sent you a plea for help in the middle of the night?" After the initial shock, Chen Ge quickly composed himself. "Since you got the message, why didn't you call the police? Your fiancée is clearly still alive."

"You probably won't believe me, but I get a text from my fiancée every night after midnight. They always contain those same two words. And the strangest part is, whenever I wake up, the messages have disappeared, as if they never existed." Wang Qi pointed to the bloodshot veins in his eyes. "I haven't slept in twenty-four hours because I wanted to keep this message."

"The messages disappear when you fall asleep?" Chen Ge had never heard of anything like that.

"I know you probably think I'm crazy too, but everything I've said is true." Wang Qi leaned against the wall and put his phone away. "Even stranger things happen around me all the time. For example, my fiancée's belongings mysteriously appear in my room without warning. It's as if she's constantly reminding me to go find her."

When he heard Wang Qi's last words, Chen Ge's eyelid twitched.

Based on what he'd been through over the past few days, Wang Qi's fiancée hadn't gone missing—she'd been killed and turned into a ghost, and now she was haunting him again. That was the only way it made sense. Of course, that was assuming he wasn't lying.

"My fiancée disappeared in this Apartment Building, and this place changed my life. It's haunted. The restless spirits of the dead live here, and anyone who dares come near will be touched by Omen. You should leave as soon as you can." Perhaps because he hadn't spoken so much in a long time, Wang Qi's face had gone pale.