After stepping out, Li Zu realized he couldn’t remember the route he had taken to get there. Asking for directions was pointless; no one would tell you where a tree marked by fingernails was, especially since it was already midnight. He could only try to retrace his steps slowly based on memory. Around four o’clock, Li Zu finally found that alley. He listened at the entrance; it was quiet inside, as if everything had calmed down.

Li Zu cautiously made his way in, going all the way through. The moon at four o’clock was higher than before, and the moonlight was brighter, allowing him to see that everything inside had not changed. The door of the neighbor he had disturbed was tightly closed, showing no signs of the earlier commotion. He reached the iron gate at the end of the alley and immediately noticed that the door was unlocked.

“Impressive,” he thought to himself. “This girl really has her tricks.” But then he realized that if someone was inside, it could be very dangerous, no matter how clever she was.

Li Zu pressed his ear against the door, listening intently. He crouched down, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of what was happening inside through the gap between the door and the ground, even just a bit of light would do.

There was not a glimmer of light.

He stood up and thought for a moment, then steeled himself and pushed open the iron door, crawling into the yard.

It was a yard so clean it was almost incomprehensible, devoid of anything. If it were an abandoned place, there would at least be some debris, but there was none—so clean it was frightening.

This meant that Li Zu had no cover; once he crawled into the yard, if there was someone inside, he would be a complete fool. He felt that in such an empty yard, there was no need to crawl anymore, so he stood up. At that moment, he noticed that the yard was not entirely empty; there were many boards leaning against the walls. The boards resembled the walls, and in the darkness, he mistook them for unfinished walls.

Li Zu leaned against one of the boards and touched it, only to discover that they were not boards but the backs of mirrors. The walls were lined with large mirrors. Looking up, he saw that the tops of these mirrors rose above the walls, and suddenly he was startled, thinking: Could the ghostly face I saw earlier have been my own?

Damn it. Are all the walls covered in mirrors?

He tried to flip one of the mirrors to take a look, but it was too heavy to move. He glanced at the place he might have crawled earlier and cursed inwardly again; it seemed he was not mistaken—what he saw earlier was indeed his own face.

Damn it, when did I become so ugly?

Putting that aside, he turned to look further inside. The main door of the room was also open, and it was pitch black inside. “No,” he cursed under his breath again. Mirrors, an open door—this was a very, very bad omen in a horror movie.

He stealthily moved to the side of the door and listened carefully; there was no sound at all—not a single sound. It couldn’t be this quiet unless there was truly no one there. He took a deep breath, thinking that if someone were inside, in such a silent environment, he would be able to hear their heartbeat.

Hallelujah. There must be no one.

He slipped into the room, which was indeed completely dark. He couldn’t see anything; the moonlight from outside only illuminated part of the doorway, while the rest seemed completely blocked and sealed off, with not a hint of light seeping through.

Li Cu scanned the surroundings and noticed a strange white light flickering in the corner. He moved closer to the wall towards the light and discovered it was a phone, seemingly belonging to Liang Wan. He picked it up and turned it on; the screen was cracked but still lit.

As he flipped the phone around to illuminate the room, he was startled to see that there was actually a person crouching next to him, also looking at him by the light of the phone.

Li Cu’s first reaction was to throw a punch, aiming directly at the face of the figure beside him. He thought that regardless of whether the person was human or ghostly, this punch would at least make them flinch. However, he didn’t expect that as he swung his fist, a loud bang resonated, and the entire space in front of him began to shake, accompanied by a sharp pain in his fist.

Instinctively, Li Cu retracted his hand and took a closer look, only to realize that he had struck a mirror. In the reflection, he saw himself holding the phone, and as the mirror vibrated, his face twisted grotesquely.

The mirror was propped against the wall, very close to him. He exhaled sharply and thought, “What the hell, who put a mirror in a place like this? Is this a mirror warehouse?”

Li Cu rubbed his aching knuckles and shone the phone around, soon realizing something was off: the room was filled with such mirrors. He moved along the wall, shining the phone on each mirror, discovering that they varied in size, with some covered in white cloth and others thickly coated in dust. That’s why he hadn’t noticed the illuminated phone screen reflecting countless points when he first entered. The mirror he had punched, however, had its dust wiped away.

Given the position where the phone fell and the distance to the mirror, it was clear that Liang Wan had wiped the dust off. Li Cu took a deep breath, piecing together the situation—Liang Wan might have brushed the dust away, caught a glimpse of her own face, and was so startled that she instinctively smashed the phone and ran away.

But where did she go?

After circling the room, Li Cu found a staircase leading to the second floor. However, the stairs were piled high with clutter, leaving only a narrow path for him to squeeze through. He shone his phone on the dust on the stairs and noticed there were traces of someone having walked up.

Li Cu thought to himself: This woman actually has quite a lot of courage. Besides her footprints, there were no signs of anyone else’s presence; her high-heeled shoe prints were quite distinctive, but there were only footprints going up, none coming down. Was she still upstairs? Why didn’t she pick up her phone after dropping it?

Li Cu glanced at the phone and then at the room filled with mirrors. There was only one spot that stood out from the rest: beside a pillar, there was a small table that appeared to be covered with various items under a cloth.

He walked over and examined the dust on the cloth. There were many footprints around the table, indicating that Liang Wan had also come to check it out, but she hadn’t lifted the cloth, which was still covered in a thick layer of dust. Clearly, Liang Wan had not lingered in this room for long.

Li Cu began to feel an internal struggle. Liang Wan was likely upstairs, perhaps too frightened to hear anything at all. Maybe this building was very tall; if she was on the third floor, even if she wasn’t scared, she wouldn’t notice the changes below. If she had run upstairs out of fear after being startled by the mirror, she probably would have wet her pants by now.

Li Cu thought carefully and compared various scenarios, ultimately deciding that it was best to find Liang Wan first. It wouldn’t be good to explain if something happened to her.

So he quietly walked upstairs. The second floor had three rooms, but all the doors were locked tightly, with heavy iron locks covered in cobwebs. It seemed that Liang Wan hadn’t touched any of these things, as the dirt on them was undisturbed. He continued up to the third floor. There was only one room on the third floor, and the door was open. As he climbed the stairs, he saw Liang Wan’s footprints leading into a corner of the room.