Chapter Summaries

Chen Mo agreed to spend two nights in an apartment after its buyers claimed it was haunted and demanded that the agency reverse the sale. Before entering, he learned from a longtime resident that the apartment had been sold once before and had remained empty ever since.

• The buyers continued to demand a reversal and compensation, so Chen Mo proposed staying in the apartment to test their claims.
• Meng Yifan gave Chen Mo cameras to record his two-night stay, and Chen Mo drove to the apartment complex.
• An elderly resident recognized the apartment and said it had been sold fifteen years earlier, but nobody had lived there since.
• The elderly woman warned Chen Mo that there was nothing worth staying for in the apartment, then left for her building as Chen Mo entered his.

The narrator spent the night in an apartment he was monitoring, where a woman in red high heels knocked after midnight asking for Li Xiumei. He woke on the living-room sofa beside strange wet footprints and fled the apartment, calling Meng Yifan for help.

• The narrator installed cameras in every room and went to sleep in the master bedroom.
• A woman in black and red high heels knocked after midnight and asked for Li Xiumei, but the narrator told her she had the wrong apartment.
• The narrator checked the door later and saw that the woman had disappeared.
• The narrator woke on the living-room sofa with the TV on and wet, high-heeled footprints leading to the master bedroom.
• The narrator ran from the apartment complex and called Meng Yifan for help.

After strange cement footprints appeared in his apartment, the narrator called Meng Yifan for help, but the footprints had vanished by the time they returned. The two checked the surveillance footage, which revealed a disturbing scene.

• The narrator called Meng Yifan after finding cement footprints in his apartment, and Meng rushed over despite being woken in the night.
• The narrator told Meng what had happened, but Meng doubted the footprints had been real.
• The two returned to the apartment and found the floor clean, with no trace of cement.
• Meng suggested checking the surveillance footage, and the narrator played it back at twenty times speed.
• A scene on the footage made the narrator's skin crawl.

After surveillance footage showed him sleepwalking and no cement shoeprints, the narrator returned to the apartment with Meng Yifan to investigate. At midnight, knocking woke them again, and the narrator feared someone was looking for Li Xiumei.

• The narrator watched footage of himself sleepwalking and saw no cement shoeprints, while Meng Yifan suspected stress had caused hallucinations.
• Meng Yifan offered to stay with the narrator at the apartment so they could watch for the shoeprints together.
• After leaving for breakfast, the narrator returned to work, then met Meng Yifan that evening and went back to the apartment.
• The two friends ate, drank, and fell asleep despite agreeing to stay awake and investigate.
• At midnight, knocking woke the narrator, who feared someone was looking for Li Xiumei.

A strange girl returned to ask for Li Xiumei and pointed toward the master bedroom before Meng Yifan shut the door. Later, the narrator woke to find the TV on and the cement footprints restored, while Meng Yifan sat upright with his eyes closed, holding the remote.

• The strange girl knocked again and repeated her request to see Li Xiumei.
• When Meng Yifan tried to close the door, the girl stopped him and pointed toward the master bedroom.
• The narrator urged Meng Yifan to sleep elsewhere, but Meng Yifan insisted they stay in the master bedroom to prove nothing was wrong.
• The narrator locked the bedroom door and eventually fell asleep beside Meng Yifan.
• The narrator woke in the living room to find the TV playing and the cement footprints back in place.
• The narrator saw Meng Yifan sitting upright with his eyes closed and the TV remote in his hand.

After both he and Meng Yifan sleepwalked and saw frightening cement footprints, the narrator fled the apartment with him and returned at daybreak with two employees to investigate. Reviewing the surveillance footage, they discovered that the girl who had knocked on the door was not visible outside it.

• The narrator woke Meng Yifan, and the two men fled the apartment after seeing cement footprints and realizing they had both sleepwalked.
• Outside the complex, the narrator and Meng Yifan recalled that the seller had left the apartment vacant for over a decade and worried the buyers would cancel or sue them.
• The narrator noticed that the footprints now pointed away from the master bedroom, suggesting their owner had left the apartment.
• At daybreak, the narrator called Xie Peng and Li Xingyang, and the four men returned to inspect the apartment.
• When the footprints had vanished, the four watched the surveillance footage, where Meng Yifan opened the door to find no one visible outside.

After discovering that security footage showed the narrator and Meng Yifan but not the girl who had knocked, they investigated the apartment’s disturbing nighttime events. Their suspicions focused on a possible undiscovered death in the master bedroom, where the narrator found evidence that a section of the room might have been concealed.

• Xie Peng and Li Xingyang watched footage that showed the narrator and Meng Yifan reacting to an unseen girl who had come looking for Li Xiumei.
• The footage showed the narrator and Meng Yifan sleepwalking at two o’clock and turning on the television, leaving Meng Yifan and the others terrified.
• The narrator suspected someone had died in the apartment without anyone knowing, possibly in the master bedroom, which the shoe prints and the girl’s gesture had indicated.
• The narrator told Meng Yifan that he had heard someone plastering a wall with cement, then reasoned that the master bedroom seemed too small compared with the second bedroom.
• The narrator and the others considered whether someone had hidden part of the master bedroom behind the wardrobe wall.

Chen Mo and Meng Yifan discovered a hidden space behind a wardrobe in the master bedroom and found evidence of a body sealed inside the wall. The chapter ended with Chen Mo calling the police.

• Chen Mo and Meng Yifan noticed that the wall between the master bedroom and study was nearly a meter thick.
• Chen Mo pressed the wardrobe’s back panel and found that it had rotted away from something seeping through the wall.
• Meng Yifan called Mr. Hu, the house’s buyer, and asked him to come discuss reversing the purchase.
• Chen Mo warned Mr. Hu that a body might be hidden behind the wardrobe, then he and the others broke through its back panel.
• Chen Mo and the others saw a human-shaped bulge in the wall, and Chen Mo called the police at Meng Yifan’s urging.

After a woman’s corpse was discovered hidden in the house, Mr. Hu demanded that Meng Yifan and the narrator reverse the sale and pay damages, threatening to sue. The narrator returned home believing the haunting was over, but midnight knocking began again, and the voice outside asked for Li Xiumei.

• The police tore down the wall and found a woman’s corpse dressed in a black dress and red high heels, matching the clothes worn by the woman who had knocked on the door.
• Mr. Hu blamed the agents and demanded that they reverse the sale and pay him two hundred thousand yuan in damages.
• The police ruled out Mr. Hu, Meng Yifan, and the narrator as suspects in the concealed-body case, while the dispute over the sale remained unresolved.
• Mr. Hu threatened to sue, and Meng Yifan worried that a lawsuit could damage the agency’s reputation and force him to close a branch.
• The narrator went home, showered, and fell asleep, but woke at midnight to knocking on the front door.
• The narrator called out to ask who was there, and a voice asked whether Li Xiumei was home.

Chen Mo endured a night of relentless knocking from the mysterious girl, who appeared both at his door and below his apartment building while his phone signal vanished. After dawn, Meng Yifan urgently called him over, and Chen Mo found an old photograph outside his door showing a woman dressed like the girl.

• The girl knocked at Chen Mo’s door, and his phone lost its signal whenever she appeared.
• Chen Mo called for help from his window, but the building was dark and silent; he then saw the girl standing below while the knocking continued upstairs.
• The knocking stopped at dawn, and Chen Mo’s phone signal returned.
• Meng Yifan called Chen Mo and urgently told him to come to an address, saying they were in trouble.
• Chen Mo found an old photograph outside his door and recognized the young woman’s black dress and red heels as the girl’s clothing.

Chen Mo and Meng Yifan received a photograph and a red high heel after hearing knocking that only they could hear, and feared the ghost was connected to the mummified corpse. They bribed Brother Liu for information, who revealed that the corpse was Li Xiumei, a fugitive linked to a family murder fifteen years earlier.

• Meng Yifan showed Chen Mo a red high heel left at his doorstep after someone knocked through the night asking for Li Xiumei.
• Chen Mo and Meng Yifan discovered that they alone could hear the knocking, and compared the high heel with a photograph left at Chen Mo’s door.
• Chen Mo decided they needed to identify the mummified corpse and contacted Brother Liu, a police officer who had bought a house from him.
• Chen Mo and Meng Yifan treated Brother Liu to dinner and gave him expensive cigarettes in exchange for information.
• Brother Liu revealed that the dead woman was Li Xiumei, a perpetrator in a family murder case from fifteen years earlier who had been presumed to be at large.

Liu told the narrator and Meng Yifan that the mummified Li Xiumei had once been Li Yujiao, a fugitive who helped massacre a family on Qin Island. The first owner of the house where her body was found was named Chen Guowen, the same name as the narrator’s father.

• Liu recounted how a young couple killed the landlord, his wife, and their eldest son after months of refusing to pay rent, while the landlord’s five-year-old daughter disappeared.
• Liu explained that Li Xiumei had committed the massacre under the name Li Yujiao before fleeing with her husband and changing her name.
• Liu said investigators were focusing on the house’s first owner, Chen Guowen, but had no concrete evidence against him.
• The narrator and Meng Yifan recognized Chen Guowen as the narrator’s father’s name and reacted in shock.

Chen Mo feared his father, Chen Guowen, was connected to Li Xiumei’s murder after learning the first owner of the property shared his name and description. He asked Liu to follow the cases, and Liu began recounting how a supernatural encounter had helped him solve another murder.

• Chen Mo realized Liu’s description of the property’s first owner matched his father, Chen Guowen, and panicked.
• Chen Mo called his father but found his phone switched off, then called his grandfather, who said Chen Guowen had just returned home after working overtime.
• Chen Mo returned to the private dining room and asked Liu to keep an eye on the two cases involving Li Xiumei and the family massacre.
• Chen Mo and Meng Yifan told Liu they believed Li Xiumei’s ghost was haunting them, and Liu said he believed them because he had encountered something similar.
• Liu began telling Chen Mo and Meng Yifan about a murder case from early in his police career in which officers could not find the victim’s body.

Liu recounted how a murdered man's mother dreamed of where his body was buried, leading Liu and his mentor to recover the remains and catch the killer. He directed Meng Yifan and Chen Mo to Seventh Master Zhao for help with their own dangerous supernatural troubles, while Chen Mo left to question his father about Li Xiumei.

• Liu told Meng Yifan and Chen Mo that a mother had dreamed her missing son was murdered and later dreamed of where his body was buried.
• Liu and his mentor followed the mother's dream to another province, found her son's body, and used the clues from her dream to catch the killer.
• Liu warned Meng Yifan and Chen Mo that their condition looked serious and introduced them to Seventh Master Zhao, an expert who had helped his old unit with similar cases.
• Liu said he would try to obtain a photograph of Li Xiumei, though her family had none.
• Chen Mo and Meng Yifan suspected that Chen Guowen, the house's first registered owner, was Chen Mo's father and agreed not to tell Liu.
• Chen Mo and Meng Yifan planned to visit Seventh Master Zhao the next day, and Chen Mo went home to ask his father about Li Xiumei.

The narrator saw a ghostly woman in his car and found a red high heel in the trunk, then confronted Meng Yifan, who denied putting it there. At home, his father explained why a house had once been registered in his name, and the narrator learned his father had known the dead woman, Li Xiumei.

• The narrator saw a woman in a black dress in the back seat, fled the car, and found a red high heel in the trunk.
• Meng Yifan denied putting the shoe there and invited the narrator to stay with him before they visited Seventh Master Zhao.
• The narrator confronted his father about the property registered in his name, and his father said a young couple had paid him to hold it for them.
• The narrator asked his father about Li Xiumei, and his father admitted knowing her but denied killing her.

The narrator learned that his father had helped Li Xiumei and Lü Zhengxian sell their house, then left home to avoid the haunting. While sleeping at a bathhouse, he dreamed of someone sealing Li Xiumei’s body inside a wall and saw that the killer looked exactly like his father.

• The narrator’s father explained that Li Xiumei and Lü Zhengxian had paid him to sell their house, and he had passed the sale money to Lü Zhengxian.
• The narrator told his father and grandfather that the couple had been involved in a massacre and that Lü Zhengxian was suspected of killing Li Xiumei.
• The narrator reassured his frightened father, then left home for a bathhouse so his family would not be endangered by the ghost haunting him.
• The narrator fell asleep during a massage and dreamed of a man plastering the wall where Li Xiumei’s body had been hidden.
• The man turned toward the narrator, revealing that he looked exactly like the narrator’s father years earlier.

The narrator and Meng Yifan went to Huangshikou to find Seventh Master Zhao, hoping he would help them with the unclean thing threatening their lives. They discovered Zhao was the same old man Meng Yifan had argued with over a parking spot, but Zhao eventually invited them inside.

• The narrator woke up troubled by a dream in which the person who killed Li Xiumei had his father's face, but dismissed it as a nightmare.
• The narrator and Meng Yifan went to Huangshikou to seek out Seventh Master Zhao.
• Meng Yifan argued with an old man over a parking spot, and the narrator persuaded him to walk away.
• They found Zhao's residence outside Huangshikou and recognized the old man in the yard as the man from the parking dispute.
• The narrator apologized and pleaded for help, but Zhao told them he would not save them.
• As the narrator and Meng Yifan turned to leave, Zhao said he had been joking and invited them inside.

Seventh Master Zhao identified the two spirits haunting Meng Yifan and the narrator, concluding that the girl who knocked on their door was the missing child from a fifteen-year-old family massacre. The chapter ended with the narrator wondering how the girl had died and whether she or Li Xiumei meant them harm.

• Seventh Master Zhao warned Meng Yifan and the narrator that they had crossed paths with multiple dangerous spirits, including one dead for at least a decade.
• The narrator told Seventh Master Zhao about Li Xiumei’s body being sealed inside a wall, and he explained that her spirit had been trapped in the apartment and could not have knocked on their door.
• Seventh Master Zhao examined the old photograph and reasoned that the girl pictured with Li Xiumei and Lü Zhengxian was probably the five-year-old survivor of the family massacre.
• Seventh Master Zhao connected the missing girl’s age to the young woman who had knocked on the narrator’s door and concluded that they were the same person.
• The narrator and Meng Yifan realized the girl was dead, while Seventh Master Zhao theorized that she had lived with Li Xiumei and witnessed her murder.

Meng Yifan and the narrator asked Seventh Master Zhao how to survive the two vicious ghosts haunting them, and he proposed summoning Li Xiumei’s spirit to learn what she wanted. They agreed to proceed with his help, but learned they needed a woman to serve as the medium and had no idea where to find one.

• Meng Yifan questioned why the ghosts were targeting them, and Seventh Master Zhao explained that vicious ghosts acted to kill and might be leaving clues because they wanted something.
• The narrator wondered whether Li Xiumei’s dream message implicated his father in her death, but could not imagine why his father would have killed her.
• Seventh Master Zhao warned that the ghosts and the murder of an entire family made the case difficult, and said the narrator and Meng Yifan would have to uncover the truth to survive.
• Seventh Master Zhao proposed summoning Li Xiumei’s spirit and agreed to guide them, while declining to take payment until the matter was settled.
• The narrator and Meng Yifan learned that a woman had to serve as the medium for the summoning, but they did not know where to find someone willing.

The narrator and Meng Yifan struggled to find a spirit medium to summon Li Xiumei’s ghost, then hired the professional medium Xiao Qing through the Seventh Master. As they prepared to enter the apartment, Xiao Qing gave them jade plaques and warned that they might not survive the night without them.

• The narrator suggested Tao Xiaoyu as a spirit medium, but Meng Yifan said she would refuse, and Fang Man was away at her grandmother’s funeral.
• The narrator and Meng Yifan failed to find anyone and called the Seventh Master, who offered to arrange a professional spirit medium for ten thousand yuan.
• While waiting at the residential complex, Meng Yifan told the narrator that Mr. Hu had sued their shop and demanded two hundred thousand yuan in compensation.
• The Seventh Master arrived with Xiao Qing and warned the narrator and Meng Yifan not to use anyone’s real name when they entered the apartment.
• The Seventh Master explained that Xiao Qing was a professional spirit medium with a short life expectancy, so the narrator and Meng Yifan paid her fifteen thousand yuan.
• Xiao Qing gave the narrator and Meng Yifan jade plaques and warned them to wear them if they hoped to survive the night.