The two followed the other person into the room. The furniture inside seemed covered in a layer of dust, somewhat messy and chaotic. Many things were smashed, and the heavy curtains were tightly drawn, not letting in a single ray of light.

"She led the two toward the kitchen inside."

The cutting board in the kitchen was covered in a bloody mess, with several chopped white bones. A small pot in the center of the kitchen kept boiling and steaming, unknown what was cooking inside.

Xiao Gui'an sniffed the air. Although he wasn't quite sure what human meat smelled like when cooked, he could confirm that what was stewing in the pot right now was pork.

Moreover, the quality of that pork wasn't very good, and it had been stewed for too long, making the meat soft and mushy. It wouldn't taste good prepared like this. Xiao Gui'an wouldn't even touch such a dish.

And it's leg bones being stewed too, so nutritious, yet treated like this—what a waste of ingredients.

Probably nothing could be found out here.

The short woman returned to the cutting board and continued chopping meat. The kitchen knife flashed coldly, chop after chop, with blood splattering everywhere.

Xiao Gui'an and Xu Zisheng pretended to check the electrical circuits.

"Forget it, I'm the only one home here. You can't just enter the other rooms randomly..."

The woman's mental state seemed somewhat dazed, her concentration poor, radiating a deep sense of exhaustion.

"We still need to check a bit, otherwise it won't be good if problems arise later. This concerns your husband and child's peace of mind..."

"We'll be very careful, no traces will show we entered. This is for your benefit too..."

Xiao Gui'an detected a somewhat similar vibe from Xu Zisheng's words. However, unlike his own ability to bewitch people, the other's ability seemed more inclined towards soothing and making people let their guard down.

His every word clearly struck a chord with the short woman. Her expression showed she was tempted. She moved her lips slightly and finally compromised, "Alright..."

"By the way, what's Xiao Qiao's full name..."

Xu Zisheng planned to try cutting through the knot quickly, but as soon as he asked the leading question.

The originally seemingly normal short woman twisted her neck 360 degrees to look back at them. The muscles in her neck were all twisted together like braids, veins bulging. Her hand holding the kitchen knife began to tremble slightly, "What did you say?..."

"Nothing, hahaha, we're just chatting!" Xiao Gui'an immediately explained. It seemed taking shortcuts wasn't really feasible.

"Knock knock—"

She went and knocked on one of the tightly closed doors.

No response.

"Maybe she's already asleep..."

"We'll go in quietly, won't disturb your daughter—"

The door opened.

It should have been a cute little girl's room, but now it was completely different. The ceiling was covered with many cobwebs, and the dreamy wallpaper was no longer recognizable in its original color.

Many dolls were placed by the bed, but most were incomplete, patched up, with mismatched limbs sewn onto different dolls.

A row of eerie dolls, some even had button eyes sewn on, while others had round, bulging eyeballs, all staring blankly toward the doorway.

And in the room today, near the desk, a small wheelchair was placed. Rustling sounds came from there, accompanied by faint knocking sounds against leg bones.

"Move, move..."

Xiao Gui'an cautiously approached, passed the bedside, and looked toward the area near the desk.

He saw a short-haired girl in patient clothes surrounded by a pile of building blocks. The small portion of her legs exposed seemed somewhat underdeveloped, slightly twisted, with faintly visible purplish-blue veins.

The faint knocking sound was precisely her hitting her own legs hard with triangular blocks, as if she couldn't feel any pain. She repeated over and over, "Move, move..."

The short-haired girl seemed trapped in a nightmare, completely ignoring Xiao Gui'an and the others who entered the room.

"Xiao Qiao?..."

Xiao Gui'an moved closer, crouched down slightly, and tentatively called out.

But the other seemed completely immersed in her own world, showing no reaction at all, just hitting her legs over and over, not stopping even when her skin broke and bled.

There were other healed scars on her legs, crooked and twisted like centipedes crawling on her atrophied calves, extremely ugly.

The short woman stood at the doorway without entering, her expression again sinking into that dazed, sluggish state.

Xu Zisheng walked to the desk, his gaze sweeping over the homework book in the center full of black chaotic scribbles. Many textbooks were scattered at the corners of the desk, not cherished or cared for by their owner, seemingly unopened for a long time.

He opened the homework book, but the name on it had already been crossed out with black pen.

After flipping through the fairy tale books and fallen textbooks scattered on the desk, he found nothing useful.

In the schoolbag—

Pulling open the schoolbag, a foul, rotting smell came out. A purplish-blue human head with wide-open dead eyes, mouth slightly agape, stared desperately at the ceiling, as if one could still glimpse the terror before its death.

Xu Zisheng's hand remained steady. He took a textbook, wrapped the head with it, removed it from the schoolbag, continued rummaging through the bag, and then pulled out a diary that was placed under the head.

A popular item among elementary school students—a diary that could be locked with a password.

He tried forcing it open with strength—didn't work.

Tried reinforcing with Ghost Power—still didn't work.

"Gui Yi, come over, look for anything that looks like a password number, or a key that could open this."

Recalling that there were no relevant clues on the walls, the two quickly searched the room, dividing the work.

When Xiao Gui'an felt his way to the bedside and just picked up a brown teddy bear, the dead person's eyeball sewn onto it suddenly rotated, directly meeting Xiao Gui'an's eyes.

"Damn, it moved!—" Xiao Gui'an was startled, mercilessly punched the teddy bear, and directly threw it at Xu Zisheng beside him.

The teddy bear drew a perfect arc in the air, then landed in Xu Zisheng's hands.

"This stitching is really ugly," Xiao Gui'an remarked casually, while saying disdainfully, "Can't find the key. It couldn't be stuffed inside these dolls, could it?"

Dolls...

Xu Zisheng lowered his gaze, staring at the brown bear in his hand. It trembled its eyeballs, twisted its body eerily, emitting strange hissing sounds.

Xu Zisheng didn't indulge it, raised his hand and gave it two hard slaps.

Directly knocked the teddy bear's already not very secure head askew.

Then he directly dug out the teddy bear's eyeballs. Among the cotton stuffing, sure enough, lay a small key.

Xu Zisheng raised an eyebrow slightly. Gui Yi seemed to have a strange kind of constant luck about him.

With a "click," the notebook opened, and the stories of the past unfolded before the two.