Officer Wang scanned the petrified crowd but saw no trace of the young man.
Li Ang, turning away with his box of chive pockets, rubbed his chin and muttered, eyes narrowed, "Strange things these days... they really are becoming more and more frequent..."
Indeed, in recent months, various types of urban legends had been emerging incessantly.
For instance, there was the story of an elderly villager who died of illness and suddenly sat up in their coffin during the burial. Their relatives, overjoyed through their tears, reportedly created a scene by dancing on the grave.
Another involved a top male escort from a club, found dismembered into over a hundred pieces in his home; police preliminarily ruled out homicide.
And then there was the archaeologist who supposedly went mad after investigating a large tomb, screaming about seeing ghosts, stripping naked, and rushing into a restroom to do a headstand against the wall, pretending to be a faucet.
These absurd, even somewhat spoof-like tales, were heavily censored and deleted once they began to spread widely. The few that survived, unverified and unable to circulate further, merely became post-meal chatter for idle netizens.
Let the taller guys worry about it if the sky falls.
Li Ang curled his lip and entered Building Three.
Unfortunately, a sign at the elevator entrance read, "Under Maintenance, Out of Service."
Even more unfortunately, Li Ang lived on the twentieth floor.
Damn, can my luck get any worse?
He sighed and reluctantly headed for the stairwell.
Climbing the stairs was a dull and tedious affair. Considering there was no microwave at home and his chive pockets were getting cold, Li Ang decisively snapped apart his chopsticks and ate as he walked.
Chives, supposedly an aphrodisiac, were a good thing. Unfortunately, for a 'single dog' like him, lonely nights still required the "traditional skill passed down for millennia that must not be lost" for self-gratification.
RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE...
Suddenly, a muffled, choked sound came from high up in the stairwell, like an elderly person with phlegm caught in their throat, a suppressed breathing sound, unable to cough it out or swallow it down.
Li Ang paused his eating and looked up through the gaps in the stairwell.
It was night, and the only source of light in the stairwell was the dim, old voice-activated sensor lights installed on each floor.
Judging by the light from the sensor, the coughing noise seemed to be coming from the seventeenth floor.
This was a resettlement housing complex, mostly inhabited by elderly people who had moved here due to demolitions. Perhaps it's one of them, taking out the trash...
Chewing, chewing. Li Ang ate his chive pockets unhurriedly and continued to climb.
Counting the steps: one, two, three... twelve. He reached the eighth floor.
Counting the steps: one, two, three... twelve. He reached the ninth floor.
Counting the steps: one, two, three... twelve. He reached the eighth floor.
Li Ang stopped dead.
He stared intently at the red '8' painted on the stairwell wall—the eighth floor.
RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE...
The indistinct coughing sound came again from the upper levels of the stairwell, seemingly closer than before.
If this is the eighth floor, then the voice-activated sensor light that lit up above should be on the fifteenth floor.
Li Ang took a deep breath and slowly closed the lid on his chive pocket box. He pressed himself against the wall, then abruptly turned and bolted downstairs.
Eighth floor, seventh floor, eighth floor, seventh floor, eighth floor, seventh floor...
Li Ang raced down the stairs, taking them two or three at a time, silently counting the steps. In a matter of minutes, he had descended far more than eight floors.
"Hsss..."
Li Ang sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes fixed on the red number painted on the stairwell wall: 7. Seventh floor.
He unclenched his fists and walked to the stairwell landing, looking down.
Below was a blanket of fog. He couldn't see the distant high-rises, pedestrians on the streets, or even the roadside streetlights. Apart from the solitary moon hanging high above, the world was devoid of any other light.
A ghost wall, huh...
Li Ang lowered his gaze. In his brief seventeen years of life, he had always been a staunch materialist, an atheist, trusting no gods, Buddhas, demons, or monsters, mocking all tales of ghosts and spirits.
Until now, when the cold, hard reality of the supernatural confronted him.
Li Ang forced himself to calm down. He took out his chopsticks and casually tossed the chive pocket box, plastic bag and all, down the stairwell.
He listened intently. There wasn't the slightest chirp of an insect or call of a bird, only that extremely regular "RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE..."
That death-knell whimper grew louder, closer. Li Ang turned and watched as the voice-activated sensor light on the fourteenth floor came on, followed by the thirteenth, then the twelfth...
As the distance shrank, the whimpering grew increasingly shrill. It was like a wild beast roaring in a cage, like fingernails scraping a blackboard, like keys scratching glass. Like... a malevolent spirit come to claim a life.
RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE COUGH COUGH COUGH HEE HEE HEE WHIMPER WHIMPER WAH WAH WAH AAAAH...
Finally, the whimpering transformed completely into a loud, piercing shriek that echoed through the stairwell.
Li Ang clenched his jaw and walked straight to the end of the landing, to the door of Apartment 801. He pulled a key ring from his pocket. With a flick of his fingers, he twisted the metal ring into a crude wire, then inserted it into the lock of Apartment 801's dark-red security door.
His hobbies were numerous, his skills varied, and lock-picking happened to be one of them. To be fair, Li Ang could probably unlock any door in the neighborhood with just half an instant noodle stick.
The thin wire slid into the keyhole. A slow twist caused the inner cylinder to shift slightly relative to the outer cylinder. He manipulated the wire, pushing the pins upwards. Applying torque with the wire, he made the top pins fall into place along the shear line.
Li Ang leaned against the door, his steady hands working the wire. He moved it until all the top pins were aligned, leaving the bottom pins in the inner cylinder, thus separating the inner and outer cylinders.
CLICK. The lock opened.
Li Ang gripped the doorknob firmly and turned it downward without resistance. However, when he tried to pull the door open, he found that no matter how hard he pulled, the security door wouldn't budge, as if glued in place.
Li Ang silently retracted the wire and gave the security door a fierce kick.
THUD!
The steel security door emitted a dull sound. Its dark-red, blood-like color looked even more sinister in the dim light.
The brief outburst was meaningless. As the voice-activated sensor light on the tenth floor flickered on, Li Ang was only two floors away from the whimpering sound.
Sudhana sought out wise teachers, traveling to the city of Kapila in the country of Magadha in Jambudvipa, where he met the night goddess named Vasantī...
Desperate times called for desperate measures. Li Ang recited a passage from the Avatamsaka Sutra, his left hand frantically making the sign of the cross on his chest, his right hand forming a Seven Stars Seal, his feet tracing the steps of an Eight Trigrams pattern.
Unfortunately, these actions, almost like a shamanic dance, did nothing to stop the approaching roar. Through the weak light of the voice-activated sensor, Li Ang saw a huge shadow slowly emerge from the landing above.
"Fuck!"
Li Ang cursed, slapped his chest, and shouted at the shadow, "Cut the crap! I live at Fandou Garden, Fandou Street, Building 2, Apartment 1001! My dad is Hu Yingjun, my mom is Zhang Xiaoli, and my name is Hu Tutu! If you've got the guts, come down here and face me! We'll see who messes with whom, bro!"
Instantly, the roar ceased. The world fell silent.
The voice-activated sensor light slowly dimmed. Li Ang held his breath.
TAP. TAP. TAP.
Extremely faint footsteps approached slowly. By the moonlight filtering in, Li Ang clearly saw the "thing" descending the stairs.
It was an entirely black cat, sleek and graceful, wearing a small, hand-knitted yellow Vest.
But that wasn't the main point.
The crucial detail was that the black cat had no face—or rather, its face was covered with a layer of human skin.
The wrinkled, pale skin from Elderly Zhang's face.
The black cat's delicate pink tongue darted out from the mouth-hole of Elderly Zhang's facial skin, gently licking a paw. The skin on its face didn't shift in the slightest; not even a wrinkle creased.
It was as if that skin had naturally grown on the cat's face.
"KHHH... KHHH..." The human-faced cat let out a muffled, indistinct whimper. Li Ang watched as it shuddered and coughed up a viscous, murky glob from its throat.
SPLAT. The glob landed on the ground. It was a human finger, still attached to a piece of flesh.
"..." Li Ang remained silent, his hand behind his back tightly clutching the wooden chopsticks.