"You go first." Zhi Ge gave Xu Deyi a shove in the back.
"Why should I?" Xu Deyi looked at the iron railing that had been smashed open and the stinking fish flesh scattered across the floor. Nausea washed over him.
"Cut the crap!" Zhi Ge raised his axe. "I have to watch Rao Rao, and Fool is carrying the owner. You're the only one with nothing to do."
Reluctantly lifting the oil lamp, Xu Deyi passed through the gap in the railing with a conflicted expression and officially entered the Fourth Floor.
Just as the owner had said, none of the rooms on the Fourth Floor had doors. All they could see were pitch-black doorways.
"Don't get too far away from me." Xu Deyi felt along the wall and cried out after only a few steps.
"What now?"
"My hand—I touched something slimy." Xu Deyi swung the oil lamp toward the other side, then sucked in a breath when he looked into the room.
Fine, soft hair covered the bedsheets, floor, and walls. On closer inspection, the bricked-up window seemed to have cracked open a sliver, with mucus seeping out like an underdeveloped eye.
They continued forward. Every room on the Fourth Floor exuded a chilling strangeness. Some were covered in fish scales, some were piled with fish bones, and some were soaked through with water from East Lake, with withered aquatic weeds beneath the beds.
"I'm not going any farther! Which of you is taking the lead?" Xu Deyi only entered nightmares to make money, but now he felt he wasn't all that greedy. "Every room is like a person! What the hell is this place?"
As though it had heard him, the cold wind in the corridor sounded like a soft chuckle, and the hair on the