One person? Several people?

The dilapidated, narrow room exuded a thick, musty odor. The top floor seemed to leak, and the interior was damp and airtight, making one feel extremely uncomfortable.

The windows had all been sealed shut with wooden boards. After inspecting them, Chen Ge discovered that the boards were quite new, installed only recently.

"This is just a very ordinary guest room." The incinerated furniture had long since been discarded, leaving the room empty and devoid of anything of value.

"That makes sense. Five years have passed; even if there were evidence, I doubt it could have been preserved intact."

He walked out of the room and strolled down the pitch-black corridor. Most of the guest rooms had been cleared out, with debris and household trash mixed together, leaving not even a spot to step.

"Household trash usually reflects a person's lifestyle and personality. Perhaps I can find something here." Changing his target, Chen Ge endured the stench and searched carefully. After more than an hour, he actually found some strange items.

"Why would there be so many ragdolls in an apartment building? There are no children living here. Whose toys could these be?" He spent nearly two hours rummaging through all the trash, finding a total of four plush toys. Compared to the clutter filling the corridor, these four toys were inconspicuous. Had Chen Ge not majored in toy design and remained sensitive to such things, he might have overlooked them as well.

The four toys had been lying there for who knows how long; their surfaces were covered in stains, some parts were moldy, and a light touch of the finger would cause a large clump of fuzz to fall off.

Chen Ge examined them repeatedly, and his suspicions grew. The dolls were different in shape, yet they all came from the same manufacturer.

"Could they have been left behind by tenants who lived here after Ping An Apartment was renovated?" Chen Ge quickly shook his head and dismissed this thought. "Not to mention the likelihood of someone bringing a child to live in a haunted apartment, even if they had, it's unlikely they would have brought four ragdolls at once. After all, these four share the same manufacturer, and judging by the craftsmanship and style, they must be several years old."

The toy market updated rapidly. Before taking over the Haunted House, he had been an employee at a toy company, so he was quite familiar with the trends.

"If they weren't left by tenants but remained in this haunted house, then it's highly likely these items belonged to the apartment originally." He made a bold guess. "The original owner of the apartment building had two daughters. If my hunch is correct, these dolls must have been theirs."

Thinking of this, another question surfaced in Chen Ge's mind: "Fire is merciless. The house and furniture were all burned down, so how did these four dolls escape the disaster?"

"Was it a coincidence? Or... did someone intentionally place them in a safe spot?" Chen Ge felt he had grasped a very important clue. "The only person who could have moved items during the fire was the killer himself! But why would he risk his life to protect four dolls? Are these dolls that important to him?"

The zipper on the back of one doll was rusted and broken. Chen Ge tore it open directly. Inside the foul-smelling, decomposed cotton, he found a card the size of a palm. The lines were filled with affection, giving Chen Ge goosebumps. "Stuffing love letters into dolls? Isn't this way of confessing a bit too subtle?"

He began to imagine the killer's personality. The man must have been shy and introverted, too embarrassed to speak his mind in person, so he gave the dolls in the hope that the recipient would open them after returning home.

Driven by curiosity, Chen Ge tore open two more dolls. Each contained a card with roughly the same content.

But when he tore open the fourth doll, a chill quietly crept up his spine.

The last doll contained no love letter. The moldy cotton was stuffed with shredded scraps of paper, and every single scrap bore only three words: "Go die!"

How intense love had turned into the most vicious curse, Chen Ge had no way of knowing.

"The writing on the scraps must have been left by the killer. This is key evidence." He picked out a few scraps and put them in his pocket. Just as he was preparing to investigate deeper, the voice-activated light at the corner of the stairs suddenly flickered on!

"Someone's coming!" Chen Ge panicked. He quickly turned off his phone flashlight and, clutching the few ragdolls, hid in a nearby guest room.

Not daring to breathe, Chen Ge hid behind the door, peeking through the crack to watch the outside.

Footsteps echoed, and the voices of a man and a woman drifted through the pitch-black corridor.

"We have to get that thing out of here immediately. We can't delay any longer."

"That new tenant went to the third floor earlier. He walked to the stairs and suddenly went back down. He almost discovered me."

"I know. There are more and more outsiders coming to the apartment lately. We need to dispose of this thing quickly."

"Yeah."

"Call the others. We'll do it together. We'll dig it out tonight and bury it in the back mountain."

The newcomers were carrying an old-fashioned miner's lamp. By its light, Chen Ge finally saw clearly. The two people speaking in the corridor were the Landlord and the woman from the first floor.

"Why are they on the third floor in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?" Chen Ge adjusted his angle to ensure he wouldn't be spotted, his body pressed against the door.

Before long, the Tattooed Man and the Short Fat Man he had seen in the apartment building walked up. They were not only bundled up tightly but also carried tools like iron bars, burlap sacks, and kitchen knives.

"What are they planning to do?"

The group stood in the corridor, seemingly having an argument.

The Short Fat Man walking at the back was in a foul mood. "Do we really have to do this? Once we dig it out, our fingerprints will be left behind. By then, nothing will be clear."

"You think things are clear now?" The Landlord glared at the fat man. "Don't dawdle, hurry up and help."

"I think we should just call the police," the Short Fat Man said, standing his ground.

Hearing this, the Tattooed Man walked over and grabbed him by the collar. "Are you crazy? Walking straight into the line of fire? The first thing the police will do is investigate us. By then, your hit-and-run drunk driving case and our illegal occupation of the old man's apartment will all be exposed!"

"Honey, don't be angry." The woman from the first floor, who lived across from the Tattooed Man, walked over. "We're all in this together, no one can escape. Let's just get to work."

"None of us are clean. We finally found a place to stay. If any of you have other ideas, don't blame me for turning on you." The Landlord shoved the iron bar into the Short Fat Man's hands. "You take the first swing."

"Me?" Sweat immediately poured down the fat man's forehead. His face turned pale and then green, and he moved slowly while clutching the iron bar.

Watching the abnormal behavior of the group outside, Chen Ge felt more and more that something was wrong. "What exactly are they preparing to dig up?"

The Short Fat Man walked to the deepest part of the corridor. He pushed the debris to both sides and, under the gaze of the other tenants, tremblingly pulled back the curtain hidden behind the pile of junk.

It was a thickened concrete wall, and embedded within the wall was a female corpse, facing away from the crowd.