An ordinary, unremarkable, cozy night

"Happy birthday!"

The living room lights shone on the pale yellow tablecloth, bathing it in warmth as Dad and Mom carried a cake inside.

They never brought their bad moods from work home. Their faces were full of smiles, and despite having worked all day, they showed no sign of fatigue.

Lifting the kitchen curtain, Gao Ming came out carrying the dishes he had just prepared. Without speaking to Dad or Mom, he sat alone at one side of the dining table.

"That boy..." Dad shook his head helplessly, took off his raincoat and rubber boots, and placed a pair of slippers at Mom's feet.

Dad looked every inch a gentleman in his immaculate suit, tall and handsome. Mom, gentle and capable in her white shirt and jeans, praised Gao Ming's cooking before tossing her dirty clothes into the bathroom.

Water began to run. After Mom washed her hands, a few dark red stains remained on the sink.

"It's your birthday today. No matter how busy we are at work, we'll always hurry home to spend it with you."

Gao Ming seemed not to hear his parents. He kept his head lowered, listening carefully to the news on television.

"The Rainy Night Killer strikes again! A third murder has occurred in our city's old district!"

"Police have identified the suspect! Residents are urged not to panic. Lock your doors and windows, and avoid going out late at night!"

Torrential rain battered the windowpanes. The howling wind outside stood in stark contrast to the steaming dishes inside.

"Why are you always watching news like this?" Dad picked up the remote, looking a little worried. "Some media outlets just love using fear and misery to get attention."

Gao Ming did not answer. Quietly shifting his gaze, he surveyed the cozy little home.

All the walls had been fitted with soundproofing and coated with sound-absorbing paint. Unless a particularly violent struggle broke out, the neighbors would have no idea what happened inside.

A brand-new frost-free refrigerator had been installed in the living room. This type used fans to circulate cold air inside, keeping stored meat from stinking and leaving no unpleasant odors.

The kitchen had plenty of food storage bags, just large enough to hold fist-sized chunks of meat and convenient to carry. Beneath the counter were heating agents, which could accelerate the decomposition of meat when mixed with water. So... some of the meat went into the refrigerator, while the rest was carried outside and buried in scattered locations?

Behind the bathroom door was enough waterproof plastic sheeting to cover the entire bathroom. Apparently, this was where the "meat" had been processed.

Of course, any meat that needed processing in the bathroom was certainly not ordinary meat.

Merely looking at the clean, tidy floor was enough to bring some unpleasant scenes to Gao Ming's mind.

The home's overall decor was cozy, but his hands were trembling slightly.

"Come on, have some cake. Your dad and I picked it up in the pouring rain." After washing her hands, Mom unpacked the cake and carefully inserted eighteen candles.

"Eighteen already..." Gao Ming was twenty-six that year. The number of candles was wrong.

"Make a wish?" Dad lit the candles, and Mom switched off the lights.

Darkness enveloped the living room. The flickering flames illuminated Dad's and Mom's faces as they stared at Gao Ming in the dark, wearing identical smiles.

They were truly, completely identical, down to the precise curve of their lips.

Gao Ming could feel Dad and Mom drawing closer. Their bodies seemed to be mutating in the places the candlelight could not reach.

"I wish Dad and Mom could stay with me forever." It was the first time Gao Ming had spoken since his parents came home. In truth, Gao Ming loved his dad and mom very much, and they loved him very much too. No matter how busy they were, they came home to see him every night.

The lights came back on. Gao Ming's back was already soaked with cold sweat. He removed the candles one by one, wiped them clean, and put them into a metal box that already held many candles.

"A wish won't come true if you say it out loud. Next time, just make it silently." Dad seemed ravenous and began wolfing down the food. Mom watched Gao Ming affectionately, picking up her chopsticks to serve him some dishes.

Gao Ming did not touch the food he had prepared. He set a slice of cake in front of himself, silently counted his heartbeats, and gently rubbed the calluses on his fingertips.

"An urgent news update! The Rainy Night Killer is highly likely to have fled into a residential neighborhood! Once again, residents of the old district are reminded to secure their doors and windows. Under no circumstances should you open your door to strangers!"

"According to information provided by police, the Rainy Night Killer is between twenty and thirty years old and between 175 and 185 centimeters tall..."

After about fifteen minutes of observing Dad's and Mom's condition, Gao Ming scooped up a little cream with a small spoon and put it in his mouth.

Rich with milky flavor, the cloying sweetness melted on his tongue, as though he had swallowed an entire fairy tale in one bite.

Thud!

Mom, who had been about to get up and serve some soup, collapsed onto the floor. Her arms moved involuntarily, and she slowly became unable to keep her eyes open.

Seeing his wife fall, Dad tried to help her, but his body felt as though it had been filled with molten lead. Even moving his feet was difficult.

"The dose was a little too high. This wasn't my first time doing something like this, but I still get nervous."

Gao Ming's hands stopped trembling. He looked at Dad and Mom lying on the floor, an odd expression on his face.

"I still can't understand why this is happening. Have I gone mad, or has the world?" Gao Ming opened the wardrobe and took out restraints used to bind psychiatric patients, then expertly secured Dad and Mom.

The television continued reporting on the Rainy Night Killer, and the torrential rain continued to fall, but none of it seemed to have anything to do with Gao Ming.

With considerable effort, he dragged his unconscious dad and mom to the bedroom door.

Gao Ming loved his dad and mom very much, and they loved him very much too. No matter how busy they were, they came home to see him every night, but...

He shoved the bedroom door open. Chains rattled, and one unfamiliar yet familiar face after another stared straight at Gao Ming with chilling smiles!

The bedroom was piled full of dads and moms!

Their bodies were tangled and intertwined!

The expressions on their faces were nothing a human could make!

Gao Ming's dad and mom came home every night, but the ones who returned seemed not to be his dad and mom at all. Even if he tied them up, new dads and moms would still come home at night!

"Are they people? Monsters? Or monsters that look like people?"

Their mouths slowly opened wide. At the sight of Gao Ming, blood vessels crept across the eyes of the dads and moms bound inside the bedroom. Like fish tossed onto shore, they thrashed desperately. As they struggled violently, a hoarse voice began to emerge from their throats—stay here!

Stay here!!!

Lighting a cigarette, Gao Ming leaned against the doorframe and silently watched it all.

He had been trapped in this home for three days now. The cause of all this probably went back to three days earlier.

On the night of the Ghost Festival, he had quit his job as a psychological counselor at Henshan Maximum-Security Prison, planning to devote himself full-time to game design and development.

At exactly eleven that night, he caught the last bus from Hanjiang City back to Hanhai City. On board, he had been designing a little game to strengthen family bonds and improve familial relationships. To support himself, he had also worked in an advertisement for his landlord's family cake shop.

Its basic message was that parents should spend more time with their children, come home every night to talk to them, and never neglect their feelings, however busy they were. Providing care was a responsibility; spending time together was love.

The passengers gradually dwindled. Around one in the morning, the bus inexplicably stopped inside a tunnel. Gao Ming took off his headphones and got up to investigate, only to discover that he was the sole person left aboard. Even the driver had vanished.

He got off with his luggage, heard someone speaking up ahead, and quietly followed them.

A crucial stretch of his memories after that was missing. Gao Ming did not even know how he had gotten home. He only vaguely remembered seeing something utterly terrifying.

Frightened and uneasy, he locked himself inside his home. But at three in the morning, knocking woke him again. When he opened the door, he found his parents standing outside with a cake.

Gao Ming invited them in and went to fetch slippers, only to receive a call from his mom at that very moment.

Mom said heavy rain was forecast in Hanhai for the next few days and hoped Gao Ming would take care of himself and stay safe.

A chill instantly crawled up Gao Ming's spine. He turned around to find Dad and Mom standing side by side behind him, their heads lowered.

A birthday cake, companionship, Dad and Mom...

The scenes from his little game about improving family relationships had become reality, with a few "minor" changes!

He had tried escaping, but beyond the security door was nothing but pitch-black darkness and a sinister chill, as though it connected to another, abnormal world.

With no other choice, Gao Ming could only try to clear the game he had designed.

How difficult could a little game about strengthening family bonds be, even if it had become twisted? Wasn't it just that Dad and Mom turned into monsters after the lights went out? That Dad and Mom came over every night? That he had to hunker down in a home turned slaughterhouse and survive until eighteen, letting Dad and Mom finish spending time with him?

Remembering what he had gone through over the past three days, even Gao Ming's eyelids trembled. Whatever else happened, he never wanted to eat cake again for the rest of his life.

He stubbed out his cigarette and shoved the last two "parents" into the bedroom. Every dad's and mom's face began to contort. They seemed unwilling to let Gao Ming leave.

"Every time Dad and Mom come home, there are more candles on the cake. Eighteen marks coming of age. When eighteen candles appear, that's when I clear the game."

"I'm very grateful for your company. But if you really were my dad and mom, you wouldn't make me stay here. You'd want me to take you out of here with me."

When Gao Ming had locked Dad and Mom in the bedroom before, they had never reacted this violently. That happened to confirm that he was close to clearing the little game he had designed.

After closing the bedroom door, Gao Ming felt the temperature inside begin to rise. The news broadcast on television grew clearer, and even the downpour outside seemed a little more real.

"Three whole days. I can finally leave this hellhole."

He hurried to the security door in the living room and looked through the peephole. The hallway was no longer pitch-black. Dim yellow lights flickered, seemingly signaling that Gao Ming was leaving some other place behind.

"My memories of that tunnel are a little hazy. My game becoming reality must have something to do with it!"

Gao Ming felt he had to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. He was an obsessive mystery fan, with more dead people in his head than there were bodies buried in a public cemetery. If all of that became real, the entire city would be in danger.

The hallway lights gradually dispelled the darkness. Just as Gao Ming was about to try opening the door, hurried footsteps suddenly sounded outside.

His heartbeat quickened. He stared through the peephole, intensely nervous, veins bulging along his arms.

"I should have cleared it!"

Holding his breath, Gao Ming watched the turn in the stairs.

A moment later, a man in a raincoat appeared outside his door. He was in his twenties and about 180 centimeters tall. His expression was dark as he scanned the surrounding doors.

Gao Ming narrowed his eyes slightly. The raincoat-clad man looked almost exactly like the figure in the surveillance footage released by police. His heart settled back into place.

"Scared me for a second. It's just the Rainy Night Killer. I thought my parents had come back."

He glanced back at the bedroom. There should have been a reward for clearing the game, but Gao Ming did not dare retrieve it himself. He found some bandages and wrapped them around his leg, pretending to be injured. Carrying a garbage bag, he opened the security door.

Fresh, damp air flooded inside, and Gao Ming drew a deep breath.

The man in the raincoat had been about to leave when he heard the door open. Rain slid from the brim of his hood. Doing his utmost to conceal the excitement in his eyes, he turned and grabbed the door.

"It's pouring out there, and your clothes are soaked. Come in and warm up for a while."

Before the man in the raincoat could even speak, Gao Ming invited him inside, then limped over to heat up the food on the dining table.

Seeing how completely unguarded Gao Ming was, the man in the raincoat entered. He scanned Gao Ming's "injured" left leg, then looked at the half-eaten cake. The cozy atmosphere inside only further aroused his destructive urges, bringing an exceptionally cruel smile to his face.

This might be the last ordinary, unremarkable, cozy night you ever spend.

(End of chapter)