Bo Yi slowly raised his head.
Above him, on the stairwell ceiling, he saw an enormous mass of shadow:
It was a gigantic lump of flesh-or rather, a monster made of countless chunks of flesh forcibly kneaded together. It had no fixed shape. Bright red chunks were joined together haphazardly, writhing very slowly. Occasionally, when it shifted to a certain angle, he could make out limbs and organs embedded inside, their individual parts barely recognizable, along with the maggots and maggot eggs hidden among them.
The surface of the mass looked unnaturally wet and slippery, giving off an unsettling sheen. Layers upon layers of fleshy folds covered it like twisted deep-sea coral. Dark red, translucent fluid seeped slowly from between the folds from time to time, mingling with the unidentified mucus it secreted and leaving a long, disgustingly slick trail across the ceiling.
Several swollen, rotting eyeballs were piled haphazardly together to form the monster's eye. Red veins covered their yellowed whites. There was not a glimmer of light in their already dilated pupils, yet they still turned occasionally, as though observing their surroundings.
Beneath that "eye" was an abyssal maw formed from countless tiny tendrils of flesh. Sharp, uneven teeth were packed densely inside it, with still-wet blood and unidentifiable fragments clinging to them. Judging by their sizes and shapes, the teeth had probably been pulled from different people's mouths and assembled together. Every time the mass moved, the two rows of teeth knocked against each other, producing the extra "click..." Bo Yi had heard.
It kept drawing closer to Bo Yi. As the distance narrowed, its shadow merged with his, casting a grotesque shape onto the wall. When it noticed him looking up, its "eye" shifted slowly, then turned downward at a leisurely pace and met his gaze.