Su Er’s expression did not soften in the slightest. His fingers moved to another edge of the photo, rubbing over the faces of the man and the child. “Who should I start with?”
The woman, disregarding the burning pain in her arm, spat out resentfully, “Threatening me with my family—are you even human?”
Su Er stated matter-of-factly, “Well, you aren’t.”
Not knowing whether anger would awaken hidden potential in the ghost, he decided not to provoke her further with words and instead began a new round of questioning. “What happened here?” He paused, then shook his head. “Never mind. Asking one question at a time is too troublesome.”
Flush!
The sound of the toilet flushing echoed once more as Su Er pressed the button several times in a row. The photo, tied to a string taken down with a broom, dangled precariously, nearly touching the water multiple times.
The culprit, utterly ruthless, muttered to himself, “No need to conserve water here. Also, you just asked me if I’m human… I’ve always suspected that I have a tragic yet absolutely badass backstory.”
“I know,” the woman nearly burst into tears. “You crawled up from the depths of hell.”
If it weren’t for the evil ghosts in the 18 Levels of Hell, how could someone be so terrifying!
Su Er looked down from above at the suspended photo, his gaze carrying the brooding depth of a melancholic poet. “I have a flushing toilet. Do you have a story?”
“…I do.”
Like most people, the woman—Lin Juan—had once led a normal life. She had a good job, a stable marriage with her longtime boyfriend, and everything seemed peaceful until the arrival of their child.
“He was adorable,” she recalled, the resentment in her eyes fading slightly as she sank into memory. “But he was born with severe asthma. We visited several hospitals, but none could cure him completely.”
Every time their child had an attack, gasping for breath like a suffocating goldfish, it felt like their hearts were being torn apart.
“Then one day, on my way home from work, I ran into an old classmate I hadn’t seen in years. She was very enthusiastic, pulling me aside to catch up,” Lin Juan sighed. “But soon, I noticed something was off—she kept bringing up a religious sect called the Nirvana Cult.”
As someone with higher education, her first instinct was to dismiss it as nonsense.
“I tried to excuse myself, saying I had to cook, but she insisted on adding me on WeChat,” Lin Juan continued. “That very night, my child had a severe asthma attack and developed a high fever. There wasn’t a single car on the road willing to stop. In desperation, I was about to call an ambulance when, for some reason, I opened the file my classmate had sent me that afternoon. It contained an image of the Nirvana God… I made a devout wish that if a car stopped at that moment, I would dedicate myself to worshiping it forever.”
Su Er raised an eyebrow. “And let me guess, a car just happened to stop?”
“It wasn’t a coincidence!” The woman was agitated. “It was the Nirvana God watching over me! Ever since I began worshiping it, both my husband and I were promoted at work, my child’s health improved… and then, a relative of ours passed away. He had no children, and unexpectedly, he left us this villa!”
Su Er analyzed rationally, “You found spiritual solace, which restored your confidence in life. As a result, you worked harder and earned your boss’s recognition—makes sense.”
As for the inheritance, if the relative had been close to them, leaving his property behind wasn’t unusual.
“You’re blaspheming! The Nirvana God will punish you!”
“A chemistry teacher loves experiments because ‘practice leads to truth.’” Su Er lowered his arm slightly. “How about we test it? I’ll dunk you in the toilet and see if your god comes to save you.”
Su Er wasn’t just bluffing— he actually dipped half the photo into the water, repeatedly raising and lowering it in an endless cycle.
“Hello? Nirvana God?”
“Are you there?”
“Can you hear me?”
He kept looking up at the ceiling, asking over and over like an emotionless voice assistant.
After exactly fifteen minutes, Su Er finally pulled the photo out and tossed it into the sink, turning on the faucet while continuing to suspend it with the string. “Looks like the Nirvana God isn’t here with you.”
“…” There was a saying: Ghosts know how sinister human hearts can be. She had witnessed it firsthand.
After prolonged torment, the photo’s image had become distorted, as if a layer of mosaic had been smeared over it. The woman’s once hateful, contorted expression had blurred beyond recognition.
It was about time.
Su Er silently observed the photo. The dead were ruled by emotion rather than reason, and in their current state, the answers they gave would be far more truthful.
“How did you die?”
“Mass suicide,” the woman confessed with seething resentment. “Someone reported us to the local authorities. To prove our eternal devotion to the Nirvana God, we chose death.”
Su Er’s gaze turned icy, his patience thinning. “And?”
“But I wasn’t devout enough,” she lamented bitterly. “I wasn’t chosen to be one of the god’s apostles. My unwillingness and jealousy trapped me here.”
“What about the child downstairs?”
The woman’s voice was frigid. “That’s not my child. That’s a demon that took over my baby’s body.” Then, with an expression of bliss, she added, “My child and husband have already been taken to the Nirvana God’s side.”
Su Er shut off the faucet. “So, back then, you took your child with you when you committed suicide?”
The woman fell silent. A few seconds later, she stubbornly said, “The Nirvana God will bless him.”
This soul was clearly beyond saving. Su Er didn’t argue and instead asked, “What was his favorite story when he was alive?”
“Story?” The woman seemed confused. “He didn’t have a particular favorite.”
Su Er wrapped the photo in a thick layer of paper and stuffed it into his pocket, then asked about the location of the storybooks.
The attic, the bedroom, and the basement—he gathered an entire box full, showing that this couple had indeed loved their child. Someone else had the same idea. Zhao He was also holding a few children's books. When he saw the box behind Su Er, he was shocked.
“There were a lot in the attic,” Su Er explained.
Zhao He said, “Li Li found a statue being worshipped in the study. I went to check it out, too. It’s kind of eerie.”
“Worshipping an evil idol in the sea of knowledge?” Su Er mused. “Adults really know how to seek thrills.”
Zhao He hesitated before saying, “You still look like you’re in school.”
That was a sharp remark.
Su Er nodded. “But I’m an adult.”
If he hadn’t taken a leave of absence, he would’ve been in his second year of college by now.
As they walked toward the study, Su Er suddenly asked, “Where’s Xuanyuan Aoyu?”
“His mental state is tense,” Zhao He sighed. “If he fails again, tonight will be dangerous for him.”
They were literally gambling with their lives.
Li Li was staring at the statue, her eyes seemingly glued to it. She wanted to look away but couldn’t help but continue staring. The sudden sound of footsteps made her jolt. When she turned, Su Er had already pushed the door open and entered.
Li Li snapped out of it and warned, “Don’t look into its eyes.”
Still, Su Er looked up at it, though his hand never left the taser in his pocket. Fortunately, the statue’s influence was far weaker than that of the photo. After a moment, he said, “I also found some pamphlets, proving this family was in a cult.”
“Fuck!” Zhao He cursed. “There are actually people who believe in this shit!”
Alive, they harmed people. Dead, they continued to do so.
Su Er turned to Li Li. “Did you find anything else?”
She shook her head. “These fairy tale books… Are you planning to read them to the kid downstairs?”
Su Er hummed in response.
As they headed downstairs, they ran into Xuanyuan Aoyu coming out of a room. His expression was filled with anxiety, and he also mentioned the cult. “They often gathered here to pray.”
The drawers were full of cult propaganda booklets—chilling to look at.
The child lay motionless in the crib. Xuanyuan Aoyu hesitated. “Won’t we wake him up?”
“Unlikely,” Su Er replied.
From what they had observed over the past two days, the child only cried three times a day: morning, noon, and night.
Xuanyuan Aoyu didn’t delay any further. He randomly grabbed a storybook, keeping his voice low as he read. At first, everything seemed fine, but as time passed, his throat became hoarse, and his tone grew harsh.
Li Li handed him a cup of water, but he didn’t drink it. Instead, he murmured, “Does it hurt when a wolf eats a person?”
Li Li didn’t know how to comfort him and simply reassured him repeatedly that there would be a way out.
Xuanyuan Aoyu picked up the storybook again and continued reading, his voice almost numb. A once-heartwarming fairy tale now only carried a sense of despair.
Su Er leaned against the wall, flipping through the cult pamphlets. They mentioned that the difficulty of the beginner-level scenario wasn’t high. Looking at their experience so far, the patterns of death were easy to identify, and the only real threat they had encountered was the photo Su Er had interacted with. That meant they had overlooked something…
His gaze landed on the child lying in bed, eyes shut tightly, trying to discern anything unusual.
As the sun shifted in the sky, the child cried again at noon. Xuanyuan Aoyu, nearly robotic at this point, read the Big Bad Wolf story once more.
The child was forced to close his eyes again.
This time, Su Er noticed a delay of a few seconds before he shut his eyes. During that brief moment, his gaze seemed to flick toward the storybook in Xuanyuan Aoyu’s hand, a trace of mockery in his expression.
That was not the look of a child. Su Er suddenly recalled how the woman had insisted the thing in the living room wasn’t her child. At the time, he had assumed she was just in denial, but now, there might be more to it.
As night fell, the familiar crying sounded again. Xuanyuan Aoyu suddenly threw the book aside. “It’s useless, it’s useless… I have to get out of here!”
Despair gave him surprising strength. Zhao He tried to stop him but was shoved into the corner of a table.
Xuanyuan Aoyu rushed toward the door. Zhao He, despite the pain, grabbed him. “The pamphlet says going out recklessly will get us killed!”
“Who says what’s written in there is true?” Xuanyuan Aoyu shouted. “Maybe the simplest way to break out is to just run!”
As he spoke, the villa’s door was already open. Outside, the sky was a thick, viscous black fog, the clouds gaping open like a mouth ready to swallow everything.
Sensing danger, Li Li turned to Su Er. “Let’s help Zhao He pull him back.”
“Why stop him?” Su Er replied. “What he said isn’t impossible.” Under Li Li’s shocked gaze, Su Er walked up to Xuanyuan Aoyu. “But there’s one thing you haven’t done yet.”
He pointed at the crying child.
Xuanyuan Aoyu let out a bleak smile and stiffly walked toward the crib. “Making use of my final value, huh?”
The child, having not heard the story in time, had already kicked off the blanket, revealing razor-sharp claws that could take a life in an instant.
Xuanyuan Aoyu stood expressionlessly by the bed. “The Big Bad Wolf is coming.”
The child regretfully licked his bloodstained teeth before slowly closing his eyes.
The crying stopped abruptly, and the air fell into a deathly silence.
At that moment, Su Er suddenly dashed forward, reached into the crib, and in the next second— a perfect arc streaked through the air. With a crisp click, Su Er shut the door and locked it in one seamless motion.
He moved so fast that the entire process took no more than three seconds, leaving everyone completely stunned.
Teammates: “……”
Mister Rose: “......”
Xuanyuan Aoyu was the first to snap out of it, swallowing hard. “What… what did you just do?”
“Though the chances are slim, maybe running outside really can save us,” Su Er pointed at the window. “Practical experience leads to true knowledge.”
Just like in <The Mist> —sometimes the ones who leave actually survive.
He had seriously considered it. The child only killed under certain conditions— when he couldn’t hear a bedtime story. But during sleep, he was clearly at his most vulnerable. Attempting to kill him outright was too risky; who knew if he had some kind of self-defense mechanism?
“Don’t just stand there.” Su Er gestured for everyone to move toward the window. “Find a flashlight. Let’s see what’s out there.”
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