A Wave of Nausea Rose Within the Mirror Ghost

Soon, the door opened.

A woman wearing an apron stood inside. She was around forty, with freckles on her face. She seemed to have been cooking, and her hands were greasy.

Wiping her hands on her apron, the woman gave a wry smile. "Please, come in, both of you. Things haven't been peaceful in the building lately, so everyone's being careful."

"That's all right." Chen Xue gave her a professional smile, and the two of them went inside.

The woman brought two cups of hot water and set them on the coffee table. "Has something happened? It's just my son and me here. Surely it has nothing to do with us?"

"Your son? Could you call him out?" Chen Xue seemed to have thought of something.

"My son's only eight. Surely you don't think he's done anything wrong?" The woman's expression soured.

"Please don't misunderstand, ma'am. We're doing this with every household. We need to register everyone living here to check whether there are any outsiders." Chen Xue casually made up an excuse.

Only then did the woman nod and head into a side bedroom.

Once she had left, Chen Xue looked at Jiang Chen with a strange expression. "Earlier, I used my Public Security Office credentials to question the residents. I found out that besides Zhang Meimei, there's another strange person in this building."

"A lot of people have seen a little boy crouching in the shadows of the stairwell, eating with his back to everyone."

Jiang Chen's gaze shifted. He remembered the "friend" the little girl had mentioned earlier.

"And I also learned from the nearby Public Security Office that the three previous victims were missing hands, feet, internal organs, and other body parts to varying degrees," Chen Xue added.

At that, Jiang Chen narrowed his eyes.

The victim in Room 502 had only suffered facial injuries; the rest of the body had been intact. The disfiguring ghost's signature was that it only slashed faces.

That meant something else had cut body parts off those corpses.

"I'm sorry, Yangyang is too shy. Could you go to his room and ask him instead?" The woman emerged from the side bedroom, looking apologetic.

"All right." Chen Xue nodded.

"I'll get back to cooking, then. Thank you both for your hard work. Why don't you stay for dinner?" The woman headed toward the kitchen.

Jiang Chen and Chen Xue went into the side bedroom.

A little boy was hunched over a desk, writing and drawing. His face was very pale, as though he hadn't seen sunlight in a long time, and a faint, foul stench came from his mouth.

Chen Xue gave Jiang Chen a look, warning him to be careful. She was almost certain that the boy was the ghost that had ambushed her.

Jiang Chen concentrated demonic power in his eyes. He could indeed see wisps of black resentment rising from the boy.

However, he had already tried this outside. Almost every part of the building's fifth and sixth floors contained the same resentment. When he turned to look at Chen Xue, he saw the same thing.

Demonic power couldn't directly help him identify a ghost trying to disguise itself.

"Have you been in your room this whole time?" Chen Xue asked tentatively. She still had no way to identify the ghost either; she could only try to coax it into slipping up.

But the boy merely looked up at her once, then lowered his head without saying a word.

"We're your mother's friends. You don't need to be afraid," Jiang Chen said with a smile.

Unexpectedly, the moment he said that, the boy looked up and stared at him. "Do you mean that woman outside? She's not my mom," he said earnestly.

Both Jiang Chen and Chen Xue froze.

"That's not right. There's a family photo of three people outside, and it's clearly that woman and this child in it. Is he trying to confuse us?" Chen Xue whispered.

Jiang Chen nodded. He had seen the family photo too, but his gaze had grown inscrutable. He deliberately asked, "Are you only saying that because you had an argument with your mom?"

"No. She used to be my mom." The boy's expression was unusually serious. "One night, Mom was washing her hair in front of the bathroom mirror. When Dad went over, she suddenly raised her head and asked him to peel an apple for her."

"Dad went to get a knife and an apple. I was watching TV on the sofa."

"I didn't dare tell Dad that only the Mom in the mirror had raised her head. The real Mom hadn't raised her head or said she wanted an apple."

"What?" Chen Xue froze.

Jiang Chen's gaze flickered. The woman's earlier behavior had actually been very abnormal. There had been sounds of fighting downstairs, yet she hadn't asked about them after the two of them came in. She hadn't seemed curious at all.

"Dad had a habit of peeling apples in one continuous strip. He managed it that night too," the boy continued.

"Once he'd peeled the apple, he handed it over. This time, the Mom outside the mirror turned and took it, but the Mom inside the mirror kept washing her hair."

At this, Chen Xue's expression changed.

"I didn't dare say anything, because Dad didn't seem to notice anything wrong. Then, two days later, Dad disappeared. Mom cooked lots of meat dishes that afternoon, but I didn't dare eat a single bite."

"After that, Mom would sometimes go out and buy lots of meat, but I never dared eat her cooking again."

"When I got hungry, I'd pick food out of the trash cans downstairs and secretly finish it in the stairwell before coming home. Sometimes Liu Xiaoyao from Room 402 would share some food with me too."

"Mom seemed to know what I was doing, but she never cared. She still cooked lots of meat dishes every time."

After hearing the boy out, Chen Xue pulled Jiang Chen aside.

"What do you think?"

"He probably isn't lying," Jiang Chen said gravely. "I've heard an urban legend. If you peel an entire apple in front of a mirror at midnight without breaking the peel, you can see a Mirror Ghost."

"And if you do it wrong, the Mirror Ghost will take over your body and steal your life!"

"Your soul will be sealed inside the mirror forever."

"I've heard that story too." Chen Xue nodded.

"But we still need to check." Jiang Chen led her out of the room and into the bathroom. Both their pupils contracted at what they saw. Faint traces of the adhesive that had once held a mirror remained on the wall, but the mirror was gone.

Their suspicions were instantly confirmed.

Because this was also part of the Mirror Ghost urban legend.

To prevent the soul of the person whose body it had possessed from returning, it would smash the mirror that had summoned it!

"Dinner's ready, Yangyang! You two from the Public Security Office, come and eat." The woman carried plates out of the kitchen. There were five or six dishes, all meat, and just looking at them was enough to make someone feel queasy.

Jiang Chen and Chen Xue walked over, and the little boy came out too, but nobody picked up their chopsticks.

"Heh, is the food not to your liking?" The woman smiled, looking very hospitable. "Why isn't anyone eating? Go on, eat."

Jiang Chen looked at the table full of food and sighed. "Sorry, I'm rather particular about my food."

The woman paused, then forced a smile. "What would you like to eat, young man? I'll make something else for you."

"The finest ingredients often call for the simplest preparation. Ma'am, do you know how to make large intestine sashimi?" Jiang Chen asked.

The woman's mouth opened and closed.

Large intestine... sashimi?

"A wave of nausea rose within the Mirror Ghost. Ghost Qi +20."