Xu Zhi had decorated the living room all by himself, filling it with streamers, balloons, and other ornaments. But the nine gruesome severed heads on the TV cabinet made the whole scene utterly eerie.
"Mom" counted the flowers they had brought up, one by one.
Ning Zhuangzhuang stood nervously to one side. From the look of things, "Mom" would not stop until it found something to criticize.
After all, it had not personally killed a single player today.
Lu Mi, on the other hand, was quite at ease. These flowers had been nourished by corpses, making them eerily alluring. Every single one was perfect.
Once "Mom" finished inspecting them, it smiled and said, "You children all did wonderfully today."
Despite those words, Lu Mi still detected a trace of disappointment.
Ning Zhuangzhuang let out a breath. "That should be it for today, right? I'm exhausted, and I stink of corpses. I need a shower..."
Lu Mi hoped so too. He still needed to go over everything that had happened today.
"Mom" buried its face in a flower and inhaled deeply. The red pigment on the petals stained its lips, making them look smeared with blood.
"There's one last thing everyone needs to prepare today."
It raised its eyes to the four remaining people and narrowed them.
"After all, tomorrow is my wedding anniversary."
All four of their hearts lurched at those words.
Apart from Lu Mi, none of them were beginners. They all knew perfectly well that they had less than a day left to clear the scenario.
Ignoring their uneasy expressions, "Mom" smiled as it handed each of them an envelope and a pen.
Lu Mi picked up the one in front of him and saw the words on the envelope: To Uncle.
"Let's write invitations to our relatives," "Mom" said. "Your maternal uncle and aunt, and your paternal aunt and uncle. One letter each."
"Remember to sincerely invite them to prepare a performance."
Lu Mi gently bit the end of his pen as he thought, then wrote on the paper, "Dear Uncle, tomorrow is Mom's wedding anniversary. You are cordially invited to attend. Please also prepare a performance..."
He was keenly aware that he was no good at writing letters. Every sentence lacked both feeling and finesse.
The thought made him chuckle to himself, but he happened to notice Xu Zhi's small eyes fixed on him.
It was a gaze full of suspicion. It reminded him of a rat in a gutter.
Once they finished, they folded their letters, put them into the envelopes, and handed them to "Mom."
Ning Zhuangzhuang seized a chance to speak to him alone and whispered, "What did you ask your relative to perform? I asked my aunt to play the piano. Hopefully that'll keep its hands too busy to hurt us."
"You'll find out tomorrow," Lu Mi said, keeping her in suspense. "We should look for clues as soon as possible. We're running out of time. Who knows what'll happen at the anniversary tomorrow?"
Ning Zhuangzhuang leaned closer. "You've already got a plan, haven't you?"
Lu Mi nodded. Before he could say anything, Ning Zhuangzhuang cut in, "I'm coming too. I can help."
"No," Lu Mi refused outright. "That place is too dangerous."
"Last I checked, you're the beginner here, aren't you?" Ning Zhuangzhuang poked his head. "I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning and find you gone."
Nothing she said could make Lu Mi agree. Ning Zhuangzhuang stared at him darkly for a while, then said, "Just you wait."
That evening, he returned to his room early. The room inspection might be moved up again tonight, so he figured he had better get into bed as soon as possible.
Yet when he switched on the light, the person he had expected to see was nowhere in the room.
Lu Mi stared at the empty bed, standing dazed in the doorway for a moment.
"Ah, right," he murmured as realization dawned. "He already knows I won't turn into a cat until midnight. Of course he wouldn't come this early."
After washing up, he found an alarm clock in the bedside cabinet, set the alarm time and volume, and climbed onto the bed.
It was only seven thirty in the evening. Lu Mi figured the inspection would not happen quite so soon.
He took everything out of his coat pocket: the letters and old photographs he had brought back from the Ghost Infant. Then he sat cross-legged and examined them carefully.
In one photograph, a woman wore a cheongsam and makeup from the previous century, her smile radiant as a flower. One edge of the photograph had been torn unevenly.
Lu Mi found the other half of the photograph at the bottom of the pile.
Looking at the square-faced man in the photograph, he unconsciously touched his fingers.
Could the frozen bones and scraps of flesh in the kitchen refrigerator belong to this man?
Almost all the other photographs were pictures of the couple together, torn in half. The only intact one showed the woman sitting on a swing with a swaddled baby in her arms, smiling.
Yet there was an indescribable sorrow in that smile.
Lu Mi looked closely and noticed a jade ornament around the woman's neck-the same kind worn by "Mom" and the Ghost Infant.
Her husband was nowhere to be seen in this photograph.
He turned to the letters. Some of those had been torn up too. Unwilling to overlook any potential clues, Lu Mi painstakingly pieced them together.
In the end, he concluded that every torn letter was a love letter the man had written to a woman named Xiao Lei.
They progressed from tentative overtures to flirtation, then to unabashed sweet talk.
Lines like "Love is missing you over and over again" and "Nothing captivates me more than your embrace" made the tips of Lu Mi's ears flush. He even wondered whether he had ever loved anyone deeply himself.
He checked the time again, then read the two remaining intact letters.
The recipient was still Xiao Lei, but the handwriting was elegant, and the signature had changed to "Your friend, Xiao Fang."
"Xiao Lei, I received your letter.
I've learned most of what happened between you and A Jun. But men are all the same. When their wives are pregnant, they can't restrain themselves. There's nothing to be done about it.
You're about to give birth now. Getting angry and making a fuss will only do you harm. For your child's sake, just put up with it for the time being."
A Jun was probably Xiao Lei's husband, and he had apparently cheated on her during her pregnancy.
Lu Mi curled his lip. The handwriting in the last letter was rather messy. It seemed "Big Sister" had been in a bad state when she wrote it.
"Lei, it breaks my heart to hear that you got angry at A Jun because the baby's eyes were scalded blind, and that he broke your leg over it. You're still recovering from childbirth, so you must take care of yourself. Men are clumsy by nature. When it comes to looking after children, you have to do it yourself.
Also, I understand your wish for a change of surroundings. But as you know, all my rooms have already been rented out. There are no vacancies. I'm truly sorry."
Lu Mi recalled the Ghost Infant's hollow eyes and the way "Mom" limped when it walked. He began to suspect that this was a story about an abusive, unfaithful husband and a desperate housewife.
He skimmed the letters a few more times to commit them to memory. This time, he noticed that many parts of the letters were wrinkled, as though tears had fallen on them and slowly dried.
"She was a poor soul too." Lu Mi sighed, though the players who had been killed were also pitiful.
He checked the time. It was nearly eight in the evening. Remembering that "Mom" had moved the inspection two hours earlier last night, Lu Mi hurriedly hid the letters and photographs, turned off the light, and went to sleep.
As the clock struck eight, he hazily heard the door open.
A thin, elongated figure with trailing hair stood motionless at his bedside, staring at him.
"Mom" had come to inspect his room.
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