The moment I touched that cold thing, the PTSD that No. 29 had given me over these past two months instantly woke me up.

I sat up abruptly, only to discover scattered on the bedside table was a plastic wrapper I used to package chocolate peachwood swords, with dried petals from the shop’s decorative roses stuck to it, along with a half-length black hair.

How was this thing here?

My head was instantly confused, trying to recall if I had snuck any of the shop’s inventory last night, but I quickly dismissed my own suspicion.

After all, to help me quit the habit of sneaking food, Han Sha had once taken photos of me stealing peachwood sword chocolates and hung them behind the cash register, telling every customer that Huangliang Yimeng’s chocolate quality was guaranteed—it was the boss’s personal reserve. This caused me to think of those humiliating days whenever I opened the refrigerator, and I never again touched a single chocolate peachwood sword after closing time.

However, if I hadn’t eaten this thing, why would it appear here?

Suddenly, I thought of the shop’s mysteriously decreasing inventory these past few days. An uncomfortable feeling of rats having a party at my bedside in the middle of the night rushed to my head. I quickly jumped out of bed for a shower, then immediately planned to find a more reliable pest control team on 58.com.

After all, an entire pickle factory had been dug out beneath No. 29. Though the police had now sealed the passages, just because people couldn’t get in didn’t mean rats couldn’t.

After Hu Wei’s arrest, the wild dogs he kept next to the hot pot place to prevent people from accidentally entering had also been taken away. Plus with Yu Jiang’s continuous rain lately, who could say whether damp places like air-raid shelters might breed whole nests of big rats without natural predators?

The more I thought about it, the more disgusted I felt. Thinking that even chocolate I hadn’t been willing to eat had ended up benefiting these little beasts, I was too angry to wait for the pest control team and simply ordered fifteen sticky rat traps for delivery.

No matter what, today I had to eliminate at least the bold rat that dared party at my bedside, to make an example of it.

Seeing the delivery would take forty more minutes, I connected my computer to the surveillance He Jian had given me last night, wanting to determine the rats’ location on the second floor. But before I could finish operating it, He Jian’s call came through.

“Boss, are you still at No. 29 right now!”

He Jian’s opening line startled me. His background was noisy, like he’d just come out of some meeting.

I awkwardly operated the computer with one hand: “The shop’s closed today, of course I’m here sleeping in.”

“Boss, get out of No. 29 immediately!”

He Jian’s voice instantly rose: “We found out that Hu Wei’s mother Lin Xiufen’s death certificate was forged! Because they were worried Hu Lin’s death was retaliation from real estate developers, they didn’t dare keep using Lin Xiufen’s injuries to negotiate with Guan Yinli, so in the final negotiation, the Hu family forged a death certificate for Guan Yinli after receiving a large compensation payment.”

I was stunned: “What do you mean, so Lin Xiufen isn’t actually dead?”

“Boss, don’t say anything more, get out of that house immediately. We can’t find Lin Xiufen’s whereabouts. Very likely, you’re not the only person in No. 29!”

The moment He Jian finished speaking, my computer successfully connected to the second-floor bedroom surveillance. Due to the camera’s motion tracking function, it had even captured a screenshot of “living thing” movement inside as a cover image.

With just one glance, I realized that the moving thing in the screenshot wasn’t me.

There definitely couldn’t be such a large, pale rat in this world!

Instantly, my back was soaked with cold sweat. I instinctively wanted to turn around, but He Jian’s voice pulled my consciousness back like thunder.

“Boss! Get out of the house immediately! I’m already heading there. Guan Yinli police station will also send people to ensure your safety. I’m dispatching police first—contact me immediately if there are any problems!”

With that, He Jian decisively hung up, and the previously loading video had now started playing slowly.

This was footage from 3 AM last night. The camera recorded the only dynamic image in the room at that time.

First, a pale hand silently pushed open the wardrobe, then a skeletal pale human figure crawled out of the narrow wardrobe in an extremely bizarre posture, slowly creeping toward my bedside table.

This was… the figure Song Nanshi had captured in her video before!

Could it be… this was Lin Xiufen?

“This is skin wax. If there are facial defects, they use this to fill them in. Now some people also use it for nose jobs… but the technology has improved these past two years. More often they use silicone 3D printing. For things like fires and car accidents, if there are many facial defects, we directly print masks and assemble them on.”

I suddenly remembered Song Nanshi’s casual science lesson from before.

If someone was severely burned, they would use skin wax or silicone masks to cover scars on their body. Lin Xiufen had been burned beyond recognition in the Guan Yinli fire back then—that pale face might just be a silicone mask she was wearing!

How could it crawl out from the wardrobe where I kept my suitcase?

Or rather, had she never left?

My brain went blank, then I suddenly remembered that because of all the strange incidents at No. 29, He Jian and I had shared a room, while the room where I kept my luggage had remained empty…

When the police came to search the house, their focus had always been on this house. Though they had carefully examined every floorboard in the room, they hadn’t searched through all our personal luggage item by item, but had briefly moved them out of the room and then put them back unchanged.

If the other party was thin enough to fit inside my suitcase, staying inside during the day and only coming out at night to take my kitchen inventory to eat, using the first-floor bathroom…

Thinking of the chocolate I’d been mysteriously missing these past days, the decorative roses scattered in corners, and the packaging bags, I felt my scalp tingling. But thinking that the wardrobe was right behind me now, not a single muscle in my body could move. I could only stare motionlessly at the screen in front of me like a stone.

The video on the computer continued playing.

After silently crawling out of the wardrobe, that thing actually lay beside my bed staring straight at me. At one point it even extended its branch-like fingers toward me, but stopped very close to me.

The hair on my neck stood up.

Just like how she used to watch Song Nanshi at night before, now it was targeting me.

Finally, that inhuman shadow slowly crawled out of my room. From the surveillance, it wasn’t intentionally leaving packaging paper at my bedside—it was just dropped accidentally.

It seemed the other party wasn’t actually that careful in their actions… and the reason she hadn’t been discovered before, could it be because of Manager Hu…

Before I could figure out the reason, there was suddenly violent door pounding downstairs, with someone shouting: “Mr. Bai! We’re from Guan Yinli Police Station. Are you inside?”

The police He Jian called for me!

I suddenly snapped back to reality, as if someone had pulled me back to the world of the living. A survival instinct prompted me to jump up from my seat. I couldn’t care whether that thing was still in the wardrobe—I almost fled desperately, preparing to dive straight into the warm embrace of the police officers outside. However—

I knew with my luck, things definitely wouldn’t be this easy.

Just as I ran to the stairway, I directly collided with the “pale ghost” crawling up from downstairs!

I don’t know if the sounds downstairs had startled it, but the ghost was now urgently trying to get back to the suitcase in my room, only to bump right into me at the stairway.

“Shit…”

Though I’d been encountering big ghosts at No. 29 for several months now, after all, I’d always had teammates before. This time going solo and directly encountering the boss, looking at the ghost crouched on the stairs, saying I had cardiac arrest wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

Going to die going to die going to die!

There was less than two meters between me and the ghost. Due to the dim lighting, I could only make out dirty, tattered clothes on its body. The proportions of its face and body were clearly mismatched, like it had a huge pale sack over its head, looking extremely eerie.

“Mr. Bai! Are you inside? We’re from Guan Yinli Police Station!”

The pounding at the door continued, but at this moment I couldn’t make a single sound.

The atmosphere throughout No. 29 seemed frozen. The ghost and I were in a standoff on the stairs—I didn’t move, it didn’t move. But if I moved…

I was so nervous my calves were about to cramp, when sounds of officers talking on radio came from the door: “No one’s answering the door. We’re not sure if there’s danger inside. We’re preparing to call the fire department to go in directly…”

Wait, if outsiders suddenly appeared now…

I was alarmed, and at the same moment, a bone-chilling gurgle came from the ghost’s throat, then the next second, it suddenly crawled toward me at extremely high speed!

I knew it I fucking knew it!

My vision went black, but fortunately after this period of training, my body’s reactions were faster than my brain. In a split second I retreated back into the room and pressed firmly against the door!

As the saying goes, if the enemy doesn’t move, I don’t move—but once I move, the enemy flies at my face! I knew it!

I never expected that thing outside could crawl so fast, and most critically, only now did I discover that the bedroom door lock was broken!

Damn, this thing definitely broke the door lock early on for convenient access. But because I’d always stayed in He Jian’s room, I hadn’t discovered this bug until now!

Without a door lock, I had to drag the bedside table and chair to block the door. Just as I was trembling to call He Jian, he called first. At the same time the door was heavily struck, and through the door came an inhuman, agonized howl that chilled half my blood.

This thing wanted to get in!

As the striking continued, I had to use my entire body to brace against the obstacles. Answering the phone, I shouted: “Xiao He! It’s right outside the second-floor door now! It’s trying to break in!”

He Jian’s side was full of wailing sirens. Hearing this, his tone immediately became tense: “Boss, No. 29’s roll-up door can only be opened when the fire department comes. Can you not get downstairs to open the door right now?”

“I…”

Another scalp-numbing howl came from outside the door. It was too late to regret installing such a heavy roll-up door.

Damn, ever since moving into No. 29, what thieves outside could be scarier than the things inside this house? I should have had an “always open door policy” to let those little bastards outside know what I’ve suffered inside.

Seeing the door about to be pushed open a crack, I heard He Jian telling his radio “have them find a way to get inside,” but suddenly a flash of inspiration struck my head.

Fire, Lin Xiufen, doesn’t like renovation, living in the same space as us…

This thing had crept to mine and Song Nanshi’s bedsides without harming us, but when police just knocked at the door outside, it suddenly went crazy. Could it be…

“Wait… tell the police station people to stop first!”

I shouted into the phone: “If it really is Lin Xiufen, we can’t damage the house! Otherwise it will only get more agitated. Tell your people to stop making noise first!”

Hearing this, He Jian immediately repeated my words into his radio, and soon the crying and howling outside stopped, and the door pounding ceased.

It seemed there might still be room for communication…

I gripped the phone tightly with my sweaty hands and asked: “Xiao He, how long until you can get here?”

“At least twenty minutes.”

“Alright, first tell me all the clues from your end… I can’t handle ghosts, but as long as it’s human—”

I took a deep breath and calmed down: “I run a dessert shop. No matter what kind of customer, I always have ways to satisfy them.”