It Hurts So Much

"Are you sure that woman was pregnant?" Shao Lan asked.

The old man picked at his hands nervously. He seemed to want to nod, but hesitated.

"I think so," he wrote. "But the room was dark. I'm not sure."

Shao Lan understood. The old man had been killed too quickly, and the light had been dim. Although he had seen her, he couldn't be certain.

"Tell me about the second time."

The second time, the old man had never left the bedroom.

"Scared. Hid."

The old man wrote, then pointed at Shao Lan. His pen trembled. "Made a call. Died."

When Pancake Uncle woke up in that bed for the second time, he was almost out of his mind with fear.

He couldn't understand anything that was happening. All he knew was that he had encountered something evil. Following a method he had heard about in his village as a child, he wrapped himself entirely in the quilt and silently recited Buddhist prayers over and over.

He prayed for a long time. Outside, everything remained quiet.

He poked his head out of the quilt and found himself still in that strange bedroom.

He wanted to escape, but remembering how the woman had killed him the moment he left the bedroom last time, he lost his nerve.

After hesitating for who knew how long, Pancake Uncle suddenly heard someone speaking softly on the phone outside.

"Building 7, Happiness Residential Community."

He hurried to the door and peered out through the gap.

He saw a young man in a white shirt and black trousers, with handsome, refined features and silver-framed glasses perched on his nose.

The young man leaned over the landline, holding the receiver in one hand as he made a call.

"Building 7, Happiness Residential Community. Right now. Someone is threatening us with a knife."

Was he calling the police?

Pancake Uncle was about to push the door open when his eyes widened.

Dim light spilled into the living room. Not far behind the young man, a monster crawled on all fours.

She lay low, her belly pressed against the floor. In the darkness, she looked like a spider with an enormous abdomen.

It was that woman! The woman who had just killed him! She had heard the young man's voice and crawled all the way over from the kitchen!

Pancake Uncle wanted to shout, but terror gripped his throat so tightly that he couldn't make a sound.

The woman crawled silently up behind the young man, then rose to her feet.

Her tangled black hair hung over her face, blending into her black padded jacket.

Then she thrust her arm straight into the young man's chest!

Blood sprayed out.

Pancake Uncle fell backward onto the floor.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trembling all over.

After who knew how long, Pancake Uncle opened his eyes again.

The living room had fallen silent once more. Only the broad splashes of bright red blood on the wall remained, reminding him that what had just happened was no hallucination.

Music from a radio drifted out of the kitchen, accompanied by the sound of a knife chopping through bone, over and over.

Shaking all over, Pancake Uncle sat down against the wall and clenched his teeth.

He had been a coward his entire life. Now, he didn't dare go outside, didn't dare fight, didn't dare do anything.

He felt certain he would die here.

Time ticked by. Suddenly, a police siren pierced the silence of the night.

Pancake Uncle's eyes flew wide open!

He lunged toward the window. The rain and mist obscured his view, but tiny headlights were unmistakably flickering deep in the fog.

The police were here!

Sure enough, moments later, knocking came from the security door nearby.

"Police! Open the door!"

"Is anyone in there? Open the door!!!"

They called out again and again, but no one opened the door.

As the knocking gradually grew less frequent, Pancake Uncle panicked.

He stumbled out of the bedroom.

Only a door stood between him and the police. If he could open it, he would be saved.

But after just a few steps, Pancake Uncle tripped hard over something and crashed to the floor.

"Aah!!!"

He let out an agonized scream.

The woman was lying on the floor.

Like a corpse, she lay flat on her back with her arms and legs spread wide.

But she was no corpse. The instant Pancake Uncle screamed, an eerie smile appeared on her face.

The woman sprang up, grabbed Pancake Uncle, and slammed him to the floor.

She couldn't see and had no way to locate her "prey," but any "prey" running through the living room would step on her.

Pancake Uncle's last memory was of the woman gripping his neck, forcing him to meet her gaze.

Those bloodshot eyes, nothing but whites, opened wide and stared at him.

"It hurts so much," she said with an eerie smile. "It really hurts."

The next second, the sound of snapping bone filled the air. Pancake Uncle's view spun violently until he faced the wall.

His head had been twisted a hundred and eighty degrees, breaking his neck.

Not far from Pancake Uncle lay Jiang Mingran, while Shao Lan had already been dragged into the kitchen and hacked to pieces.

Everyone was dead again.

The second loop came to an end.

The little goldfish in the tank blew bubbles.

Having asked Pancake Uncle everything he could, Shao Lan stood up and sank into thought.

Jiang Mingran sidled up to Shao Lan and raised a little slip of paper. "Pancake Uncle's a good person, right?"

Shao Lan gave a slight nod.

Even before the interrogation, he had known that Jiang Mingran's death last time most likely had nothing to do with Pancake Uncle.

But "most likely" wasn't enough. In this bizarre place, anything was possible, so he had to question him thoroughly.

So far, Pancake Uncle didn't appear to have lied.

He was timid, lacking both courage and judgment.

But that didn't mean his presence served no purpose.

During the previous loop, although he had hidden in the bedroom the entire time, he had helped Shao Lan and Jiang Mingran confirm something extremely important.

The police would come if they called.

That was crucial information. It meant they were on the right track; they had simply all died before the police could get inside.

So what they needed to do next was...

"Tell me," Shao Lan said, looking at Jiang Mingran. "How exactly were you killed?"