The boss’s wife could no longer be called human. She was like a pile of shredded flesh, self-sewn into a humanoid shape using nothing but needle and thread. Without her makeup in the dark of night, she had revealed her most horrifying face.
No one knew why she had become like this. Maybe it was because she sensed a threat from the three young men. Her expression suddenly twisted into a ferocious snarl—but instead of attacking them, she lunged toward the sleeping grandmother and child.
Ye Xun instinctively bit his finger and pressed it to the mouth of the bunny doll. A drop of blood dripped in, and a dark glint flashed in the doll’s shiny black eyes. Ye Xun’s expression grew solemn as he placed the doll on the ground. “Little Pink, go devour her.”
Little Pink began moving stiffly toward the woman.
The doll… was actually moving.
Jiang Luo’s usually composed face was blank with shock, staring at Little Pink.
Ye Xun, worried, shoved the last two stragglers out the door. “Get out. Don’t make this harder for me.”
The door slammed shut in front of Jiang Luo and Lu Youyi. They slowly walked out onto the balcony, crouching beside the boss, who was smoking.
In identical poses, Jiang Luo and the boss looked like a scene from a drama vs. real life. But the boss didn’t notice—he was trembling, smoke shaking in his hands, rambling out of nervousness. “How did she become like that? Did I see wrong?”
The drifting smoke blurred Jiang Luo’s features.
He asked casually, “Boss, what’s your and your wife’s Chinese zodiac?”
The boss replied, “I’m a Rat. She’s a Horse.”
Jiang Luo nodded vaguely.
The boss sighed heavily. “After my business failed, I was down every day. It’s all my fault. I didn’t notice what was happening to her,” he choked up, wiping his tears. “She ended up like that… and I didn’t even realize it… I’m such a piece of sh*t.”
He cried messily, a pitiful sight. Lu Youyi’s eyes turned red. Jiang Luo silently lowered his head, the cigarette smoke casting his expression in cold shadows. When the boss finished his smoke, Jiang Luo stood up and looked down at him.
“You really didn’t notice anything?”
The still-crying boss froze.
Jiang Luo said, “It’s not easy to find a place with such excellent feng shui. The fact that you dared to open a hotel here shows you care a lot about feng shui. You were born in the year of the Rat, corresponding to the Earthly Branch Zi, which is Kan Water. Your wife is a Horse, corresponding to Wu, which is Li Fire. The two clash. This room faces south while sitting north, which benefits the male owner but is harmful to the female. You really didn’t know?”
The boss slowly looked up at him from his palms.
Jiang Luo gave a slight smile, lips curling, but his words were cold and cutting: “You just didn’t want to deal with it. You found it troublesome. You ignored it. And that’s what led to such a catastrophe.”
He turned and walked back into the room.
Lu Youyi followed him, conflicted. “Jiang Luo, is what you said true?”
Jiang Luo gave a light “mm.”
Lu Youyi fell silent, dejected.
Jiang Luo glanced at Lu Youyi from the corner of his eye.
Lu Youyi had a strong sense of justice. He’d cry over a fictional story, rage over the tragic deaths of three girls. People like him were like fire—but even a flame like his, could it be extinguished by the darkness and helplessness of reality?
Jiang Luo let his thoughts wander. He and Lu Youyi waited outside the bedroom door. Fifteen minutes later, Ye Xun, drenched in sweat, opened it. “It’s done.”
The boss’s wife was gone from the room. The pink bunny plush in Ye Xun’s arms looked the same as before. The old grandmother on the bed was awake, holding her terrified grandson and trembling.
The boss rushed in from behind. The child burst into sobs upon seeing him, crying, “Daddy, hug!”
The boss hurried to scoop him up, soothed his mother, then walked over to Ye Xun, his expression complicated. “Student Ye, my wife…”
“She’s become a malevolent spirit. We’ll try to help her pass on,” Ye Xun paused, “But her body had at least three different people’s flesh. Your request has been fulfilled.”
The boss’s eyes turned red. He wanted to ask more, but his son clung to him, murmuring sleepily. He held his tongue and went to coax the child back to sleep. “Please stay till tomorrow. I still have questions.”
Ye Xun nodded.
After the boss returned with his son, and the grandmother also left to rest in another room, the three of them went downstairs.
Ye Xun said, “Jiang Luo, what did you say to the boss? He looked like he couldn’t face you.”
Jiang Luo waved a hand. “Who knows.”
Lu Youyi finally came back to his senses and muttered, “Yeah… who knows.”
Back downstairs, Ye Xun and Lu Youyi were ready to return to their rooms, but Jiang Luo stood still. They turned back, puzzled. “Aren’t you coming?”
Jiang Luo looked around, then casually sat on the steps. “I’m waiting.”
“For what?”
Jiang Luo looked upstairs. “A scream. Or a splash of a young boy’s urine.”
Ye Xun tilted his head. “A scream?”
Lu Youyi: “Urine?”
Jiang Luo asked slowly, “You really think the boss’s wife was the killer?”
Ye Xun said matter-of-factly, “Her body had three people’s meat. Little Pink confirmed it.”
Jiang Luo propped his chin, speaking seriously, “But no one just randomly turns from human to ghost. She was human, yet became a stitched-up mess of flesh. Have you thought about why?”
Lu Youyi and Ye Xun stared blankly at him.
They were good guys—too good, too simple. If they weren’t so naïve, they wouldn’t have believed Jiang Luo’s made-up story about Chi You.
Jiang Luo patiently said, “Is it possible… she was a victim too?”
After a pause, he added, “Honestly, she gave me the feeling… like she’d once been swallowed whole, piece by piece, and then she cut herself out from inside the belly, stitching herself back together with bits of other victims to form a human shape.”
Lu Youyi was horrified, stepping forward. “What?!”
“Have you heard of a type of ghost that can disguise itself as a human, sneak into homes, and eat people when no one’s looking?” Jiang Luo mused. “It looks exactly like a person. When it becomes a ghost, we can’t see the difference with the naked eye. But it loves human flesh—eats from head to toe, skin to bone—leaving behind nothing but a few strands of hair stuck to a pillow. Ye Xun, Lu Youyi, does such a ghost exist?”
Lu Youyi began, “That’s impossible—”
But his words halted. He and Ye Xun turned to each other in shock and said in unison: “Ren Mian Ke!”
Ren Mian Ke—a ghost that puts on the clothes of a living person and becomes just like them. It sneaks into homes while the person is away, laughing and chatting with their family during the day, and then at night, reveals its true form—going room by room, devouring everyone.
Not even bones are left behind.
The two of them realized a horrifying possibility. Ye Xun looked uncharacteristically flustered, Lu Youyi speechless. They stared at Jiang Luo, as if deeply shaken.
Jiang Luo pointed at the top floor. “That’s why I’m waiting for a scream—or a splash of a young boy’s urine.”
***
Later that night, his son finally settled, the boss laid down, heavy with complex emotions. After a long time, he drifted off into a restless sleep.
But not long after, he suddenly jerked awake.
His eyes shot open in panic—and saw a dark, eerie figure standing by the bed.
His heart leapt into his throat. He quickly turned on the light—and upon seeing who it was, he exhaled in relief, cold sweat soaking through.
“Mom? Why are you here?”
The old woman smiled. Her deathly pale face twisted into a sinister and eerie expression. She spoke kindly, “Son, go back to sleep.”
She was still chewing on something, so her words came out vaguely. The boss instinctively felt uneasy. “Mom, what are you eating?”
He looked closer and saw fresh red blood at the edges of her pale teeth. A deep sense of dread welled up inside him. He lowered his gaze and saw that the old woman was holding his arm—where a chunk of flesh had already been gnawed off, exposing raw muscle.
The boss’s eyes widened in terror. A chill surged up his spine. The extreme fear made him emit rasping breaths from his throat—he couldn’t even scream.
The old woman kept smiling as she lowered her head and bit down hard, gnawing savagely at his arm. She greedily sucked the blood as though drinking a delicious fruit juice.
The sound of chewing grew louder and louder. Half of her wrinkled face was smeared with blood. The boss’s eyes bulged in horror. His body convulsed, and his free hand trembled uncontrollably as it pressed down on his son’s plump little belly. The child, still asleep and unaware, had wet the bed in silence after holding it in all day.
As the old woman fed, her expression suddenly changed. She recoiled abruptly from the boy’s urine, her eyes filled with hatred as she glared at the boss and the child.
The boss finally managed to scream, “Ah—!”
The three downstairs rushed up instantly.
When they arrived, the boss was huddled in the corner of the bed, trembling as he shielded his son. The blood-soaked “Ren Mian Ke” glared at them with a venomous gaze and turned to leap out the window.
Lu Youyi moved fast. He grabbed the ghost’s clothing and tried to drag it back, but the fabric tore apart. As the clothes disintegrated, the ghost’s skin also seemed to fall away—it transformed into a grotesque, bloodied mass of flesh.
Like a person with no skin.
The boss gasped and fainted, eyes rolling back.
Lu Youyi nearly screamed, but the disembodied head—faster than him—shrieked first, “So scary! So scary!”
Lu Youyi choked on his own scream, glared in disgust, and threw the head to Jiang Luo. “I’ll deal with the Ren Mian Ke! It’s afraid of fire—someone give me fire!”
Jiang Luo pulled a lighter from the boss’s body and tossed it to him. Lu Youyi grabbed a bedsheet and charged at the Ren Mian Ke.
The sheet still reeked of boy’s urine. The ghost let out a shrill, rat-like scream. Ye Xun understood at once and glanced with a smile at the peacefully sleeping child. “Lucky he peed, or that thing would’ve eaten the boss whole by now.”
Jiang Luo shrugged, modestly saying nothing. “Yeah.”
Worried that Lu Youyi wouldn’t be able to handle it alone, Ye Xun bit his finger and summoned Little Pink to assist. The rabbit plushie twitched its paw, stood up, and walked toward the Ren Mian Ke.
Jiang Luo slid over beside Ye Xun, staring intently. “Ye Xun, is that thing really just a plush toy?”
Ye Xun shot him a glance. “It’s a wraith doll.”
Jiang Luo: “…” The nonsense he told the boss earlier… turned out to be true.
Anything with the word “wraith” attached to it is no joke. Ye Xun offered, “Want one too?”
Jiang Luo was pleasantly surprised. “Can I?”
Ye Xun smiled. “No. I just wanted to tempt you.”
Jiang Luo: “…”
Still fighting the ghost, Lu Youyi called out, struggling, “Guys! A little help over here?!”
Before his words even ended, the rabbit plushie had reached the ghost. Despite only being half the size of an adult, it was surprisingly strong. Its soft paw landed on the ghost’s body and ripppp—a huge chunk of decayed flesh was torn off.
The Ren Mian Ke was made of various people it had eaten. Each chunk of meat possibly contained multiple lives. Lu Youyi gagged and stepped aside, letting the rabbit take over. The ghost shrieked furiously at the plushie, sounding like a rat with its tail stepped on.
Lu Youyi, hand covering his mouth, stumbled over to Jiang Luo. “That’s disgusting…”
Jiang Luo thought for a moment, then patted the severed ghost head’s hair and smiled. “Old Brother Ning Xiu, mind giving a hand?”
The ghost head was dazed by his smile, replying dreamily, “Sure, sure!”
Jiang Luo said, “Thanks, Old Brother Ning Xiu.”
Then he extended his arm and, with a spinning motion, hurled the head like a ball straight at the Ren Mian Ke.
With a blood-curdling shriek, the ghost head struck the back of the Ren Mian Ke’s head dead-on.
The Ren Mian Ke collapsed with a scream. Lu Youyi seized the chance, covered it with the sheet, and lit it on fire.
He and the rabbit plushie pinned it down on either side until the flames reached the sheet’s edges. Then Lu Youyi scooped up the plushie and backed away, watching as the inferno engulfed the Ren Mian Ke entirely.
The flames roared higher and higher. Jiang Luo blinked and asked, “So what now?”
Lu Youyi rubbed his sore arm and replied wearily, “No wonder you only have three credits… Call the cops, the ambulance, and oh right, the fire department too.”
Jiang Luo: “…” Got it. Science is useful.
Jiang Luo, inexperienced, obediently followed Lu Youyi and Ye Xun’s lead. Half an hour later, the police and medics arrived at Hotel 129. To Jiang Luo’s surprise, the officials reacted calmly to the bizarre scene. After extinguishing the fire, they bagged the charred ghost remains in a yellow sack and prepared to escort the three of them away.
However, just before leaving, Jiang Luo suddenly remembered something. He turned and walked over to the child’s side, reaching out to touch the ring of black mist.
Countless fragments of memories rushed toward him all at once.
He “saw” the landlady’s memories.
In the middle of the night, the landlady opened her eyes and saw the mother-in-law who had chatted and laughed with her earlier that day standing at the window, biting into her piece by piece.
He saw the landlady’s despair and terror, saw the hatred and fury in her eyes when the “Ren Mian Ke” set its sights on her child.
The greatness of maternal love never failed to astonish. The landlady, dragging her mangled flesh, crawled out from the Ren Mian Ke’s stomach, and stitched herself back together into a human shape with needle and thread.
She had lost human thought, yet her instincts still pushed her to protect her son. Each night, once he fell asleep, she would stiffly stand at the foot of the bed, silently watching her son and the Ren Mian Ke’s every move.
This child… so adorable.
She thought.
I mustn’t scare him.
So she remembered makeup.
And because of her, after killing three girls and the landlady, the Ren Mian Ke never managed to eat another soul.
The landlady’s obsessive need to protect her son surged into Jiang Luo’s mind.
Overwhelmed by this intense emotion, Jiang Luo couldn’t stop his tears. He clenched his teeth, and fat drops of tears fell heavily onto the floor.
Struggling to breathe, Jiang Luo squatted down to steady his emotions.
Could familial love really be this powerful?
This wasn’t a story on television. Nor was it a touching incident reported on the news. It had happened right before Jiang Luo’s eyes, every frame and every emotion—including the landlady’s despair and rage—unbelievably vivid.
So this is what motherly love can be like.
Lowering his head, Jiang Luo lifted his hand to stop others from comforting him. He forced himself to speak in a steady voice: “I’m fine.”
After a long while, he looked up again, casting a complicated glance at the chubby child before following his companions out.
In the car, a police officer uncle handed them each a cup of hot water and spoke gently: “Don’t worry. We’ll handle everything from here. You’ve all had a long day, and the intensity of this case exceeded our expectations. We’ll talk to your school and make sure you get some extra credits.”
Lu Youyi no longer cared about credits at this point. He nodded and kept glancing at Jiang Luo, hesitating. “Jiang Luo, are you really okay?”
Jiang Luo shook his head, clearly not wanting to talk about it. To shift the conversation, he asked, “Do the police actually know about the metaphysical world?”
Ye Xun answered, “The government is aware. There are special police departments dedicated to our field.”
Noticing Jiang Luo’s distracted look, he added more detail: “The metaphysical world cooperates with the country. There are twelve universities across the country with programs in ‘Natural Science and Social Research,’ each with just one class of fewer than ten students.”
“The metaphysical field is in decline. Fewer and fewer people have the talent for this work. Across all twelve universities, there are maybe just a hundred students,” Ye Xun paused, then continued, “When supernatural incidents occur, the government assigns the cases to schools by region. Aside from the schools, there are also six major sects in the metaphysical world.”
Ye Xun looked at Jiang Luo, his dark eyes as cold as carved jade. “Chi You’s family, the Chi family, belongs to the Puppet Soul Refining sect.”
“Puppet Soul Refining?” Jiang Luo repeated.
Ye Xun said, “That’s a sect that can control both the living and the dead. They can refine human souls—alive or dead. That’s what makes the Chi family so terrifying. But this cultivation method is extremely defiant of nature. Of the whole Chi family, only Chi You truly mastered it.”
Which meant that when Chi You was alive, he could turn both humans and ghosts into puppets—marionettes on his strings.
His eyes… could be anywhere.
Jiang Luo suddenly looked up, scanning the people around him. Everyone was busy with their tasks, and those who met his gaze simply smiled politely.
But to Jiang Luo, those smiles seemed laced with ghostly shadows, sinister and distorted, slowly warping into Chi You’s face.
He blinked, then smiled self-deprecatingly, wondering if he was just overthinking things.
In the original story, Chi You was still weak due to an incomplete soul. It was only with the help of the protagonist gong, Feng Li, that he could gradually recover and take revenge.
His earlier appearance in the restroom had only been possible due to a lucky convergence of timing and place.
There’s no way he’s recovered enough to control people yet.
