Black Jacket, Red Shoes

Shao Lan tried to whirl around, but it was already too late.

Red flooded his vision in an instant. Blood spurted from his chest, splashing across the living room's old, yellowed walls. The massive blood loss drained the life out of him almost immediately.

His head drooped helplessly.

His vision blurred. He could not even make out what had pierced his chest, only a length of vivid red.

Whatever it was had pierced him from behind, passing straight through his body.

While he was on the phone, the killer had circled the sofa and silently come up behind him.

But... why?

He had not heard a single sound.

Even if the killer had taken off her shoes like they had and made no noise, what about Jiang Mingran, who had been watching the kitchen doorway?

At the very least, Jiang Mingran should have signaled a warning!

Shao Lan tried to look back, but an icy hand clamped around his neck, holding him firmly in place.

Then the thing piercing his chest was pulled out, and more blood sprayed from the wound.

Shao Lan no longer had the strength to think. He collapsed to the floor, all his thoughts and awareness draining from his body along with his blood.

He felt someone dragging him toward the kitchen.

Shao Lan stared ahead with vacant eyes. The living room furniture drifted slowly past him, and then the pile of clutter came into view.

Shao Lan saw Jiang Mingran.

He finally understood why Jiang Mingran had not warned him when the person in the kitchen came out.

Blood snaked across the floor. All those dingy yellow paper bags were soaked through.

Jiang Mingran's bloodless face lay in a gap amid the clutter. His lifeless eyes were open, meeting the gaze of Shao Lan, who lay on the floor as well.

Jiang Mingran was dead.

He had died before he could signal Shao Lan.

The lack of any sound meant that, despite Jiang Mingran's fighting ability and physical fitness, he had not even had a chance to resist or struggle. He had been killed instantly.

This should never have happened.

This should never have happened...

Shao Lan could no longer think. He was dragged into the kitchen, and after a burst of crackling static, a golden oldie from the eighties floated melodiously from the radio.

A heavy, cold bone cleaver chopped down into the back of his neck. Blood sprayed into the bubbling clay pot.

That was Shao Lan's last memory.

"Tick, tock. Tick, tock."

Shao Lan jolted awake.

Cold sweat soaked his clothes as though he had just stepped out of the shower. His face was deathly pale, his mouth wide open as he gasped like a fish out of water.

Everything that followed was familiar.

The living room, the sofa, the mourning altar.

Of course, only two little red goldfish remained in the tank.

At four o'clock sharp, the owl popped out again. Then came the sound of the door, and someone entered.

Driven by a will to survive that had already become muscle memory, Shao Lan rolled over and hid beneath the sofa.

This time, the inscription was more complicated than before. Shao Lan felt along it for a long time before he made it out:

"Rule: owls are birds skilled at camouflage. Do not trust the owl."

The owl? The only thing related to an owl in this house was the clock in the corner.

It had only two functions: announcing the start of the game and telling the time.

Could the time be false?

His headache seemed to worsen again. A sheen of cold sweat seeped down Shao Lan's back as he lay beneath the sofa, watching mechanically as the red embroidered shoes slowly crossed the living room and entered the kitchen.

Taking a deep breath, Shao Lan braced himself against the sofa and stood.

The bedroom door opened again, and the dark figure darted out once more.

In the dim light, Jiang Mingran looked frighteningly ill, as though he had just woken from a truly horrific nightmare.

He looked at Shao Lan, trembling all over.

Shao Lan thought for a moment, then suddenly rushed toward the other bedroom.

He pushed open the bedroom door and yanked back the covers, revealing the old man huddled beneath them.

Before the old man could scream, Shao Lan clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Bro..." Jiang Mingran followed him in and jumped in fright. Not daring to make a sound either, he quickly shut the bedroom door and stood beside Shao Lan, gesturing frantically. "What are you doing?"

Shao Lan mouthed a question to the old man: "Which time is this?"

The old man could not make it out. He shook his head wildly and struggled.

Seeing this, Jiang Mingran hurried to find a pen and paper and wrote down Shao Lan's question.

He wrote in large letters and held the paper in front of the old man.

"Which time is this?"

This time, the old man understood.

Trembling all over, tears in his eyes, he shakily held up three fingers.

Shao Lan quickly swept his peripheral vision around the bedroom.

This bedroom was a little larger than Jiang Mingran's. It was probably the master bedroom.

Like Shao Lan's and Jiang Mingran's rooms, this bedroom also contained a mourning altar, a fish tank, and an owl clock.

Shao Lan gestured to Jiang Mingran. "Tell him not to make a sound."

After two loops, Jiang Mingran and Shao Lan had already developed an unspoken understanding.

He quickly wrote on the paper: "Pancake Uncle, I'm Jiang, the guy who bought egg-stuffed pancakes from your stall. We were kidnapped and brought here with you. Making noise will let the killer find us. We're going to let go of you now, so don't make a sound. Understand?"

Pancake Uncle nodded hurriedly.

Shao Lan cautiously released Pancake Uncle, who indeed made no sound.

He merely huddled there trembling, clearly terrified.

Shao Lan rubbed his temples.

Although his body was now completely unharmed, the sensation of being murdered still lingered in his mind like a nightmare he could not shake.

"Write down what happened to you the last time and the time before that." Shao Lan pressed the pen into Pancake Uncle's hand. "Everything you saw, heard, and did. Write it all down."

"Bro, you..." Jiang Mingran started to say something, but Shao Lan silenced him with a look.

Pancake Uncle picked up the pen with a trembling hand.

"I was killed," he wrote in shaky letters.

"Which time?" Shao Lan's expression was cold and stern.

Pancake Uncle stared at Shao Lan blankly.

"How many times were you killed?" Shao Lan rephrased the question.

Pancake Uncle wrote "2."

"Then let's take them one at a time," Shao Lan said. "How were you killed the first time? Write it down in detail."

Pancake Uncle was on the verge of tears. Recalling his murder clearly plunged him back into overwhelming terror.

"I was minding the shop. Dozed off. Woke up here."

Pancake Uncle's account was disjointed, and his handwriting was so messy that it took careful reading to decipher.

He owned a small shop selling egg-stuffed pancakes. He had dozed off behind the counter toward evening and, like them, had been moved into this room while unconscious.

"Heard someone talking outside the room. A man. Went out and saw a woman. Wanted to ask her. She suddenly killed me."

This had happened during the first loop. The old man had been the first to die, and Shao Lan and Jiang Mingran had witnessed it from their hiding place in the bedroom.

What the old man wrote largely matched what they had seen. He was not lying.

The "man talking" was Jiang Mingran, who had held up his student ID and apologized to Shao Lan. The old man had gone into the living room after hearing Jiang Mingran speak, only to encounter the woman, who had also come from the kitchen at the sound. She had killed him on the spot.

Shao Lan tapped the words "a woman" with his finger and asked, "What did she look like?"

The old man's hand trembled.

"Black jacket. Red shoes. Hair covering her face. Tall."

The old man put down the pen and gestured. He raised his hand beside Jiang Mingran, then lifted it a little higher.

Shao Lan understood the gesture, his pupils jolting. "Taller than him?"

Jiang Mingran was at least six foot one. Did that mean the woman in the kitchen was over six foot three?

Seeing that Shao Lan understood, the old man nodded hurriedly. Then he remembered something else and wrote three more words on the paper.

"A big belly."

Shao Lan and Jiang Mingran's eyes widened again.

A pregnant woman?