Chapter 1 Hidden Dead Angle

Police Officer Wang scanned the petrified crowd but couldn't see the boy.

"Strange things are happening more and more these days," murmured Li Ang, rubbing his chin and squinting as he turned to leave with his chive box.

Indeed, in recent months, various urban legends had emerged one after another.

Like the story of a deceased old man who suddenly sat up in his coffin during his funeral, leading his family to erupt in joyous tears and stage an impromptu rave on his grave;

Or the tale of a top gigolo at a certain club who was found dismembered into hundreds of pieces at home, with the police preliminarily ruling out homicide;

Or the case of an archaeological expert who went insane after examining a large tomb, shouting about ghosts, stripping naked, and running into a toilet to stand upside down against the wall, pretending to be a faucet.

These absurd and even somewhat humorous urban legends were quickly censored and deleted once they began to spread widely.

The few that survived were left unconfirmed and uncirculated, relegated to being mere after-dinner conversation topics for idle netizens.

"Whatever, let the tall people worry about it."

Li Ang grimaced and walked into the entrance of Building Three.

Unfortunately, there was a sign in front of the elevator that read "Under Maintenance, Out of Service."

Even more unfortunately, Li Ang lived on the twentieth floor.

"Damn it, am I really that unlucky?"

He sighed and dutifully headed for the stairwell.

The process of climbing the stairs was tedious and boring. Considering that he didn't have a microwave at home and his chive box was getting cold, Li Ang decisively snapped his chopsticks apart and started eating as he walked.

Chives, known for their supposed aphrodisiac properties, were a good thing, but for a single dog like him, lonely nights still required "the traditional skills passed down for thousands of years" to satisfy himself.

"Gurgle, gurgle..."

Suddenly, an indistinct whimper came from the upper reaches of the stairwell, like an old man with phlegm in his throat, struggling to cough it up or swallow it down.

Li Ang paused his chive box consumption, looking up through the gaps in the stairs.

It was nighttime, and the only source of light in the stairwell was the dim, old, voice-activated light on each floor.

Judging by the light from the voice-activated lamp, the coughing sound seemed to be coming from the seventeenth floor.

This residential complex was a resettlement community, and most of the residents were elderly people who had moved in after their homes were demolished. Maybe it was just an old man going to throw out the garbage bag...

Chew, chew. Li Ang ate his chive box at a leisurely pace, continuing to climb.

Counting the steps, one step, two steps, sanji... twelve steps. Reaching the tenth floor.

Counting the steps, one step, two steps, sanji... twelve steps. Reaching the ninth floor.

Counting the steps, one step, two steps, sanji... twelve steps. Reaching the floor.

Li Ang stopped.

He stared intently at the red number 8 painted on the wall at the stairwell entrance.

"Gurgle, gurgle..."

That indistinct coughing sound came again from the upper levels of the stairwell, seemingly closer than before.

If this was the eighth floor, then the floor where the voice-activated light was on should be the fifteenth floor.

Li Ang took a deep breath, slowly closed the chive box, moved to the side of the wall, pressed his body against it, and suddenly turned around to run wildly downstairs.

Eighth floor, seventh floor, eighth floor, seventh floor, eighth floor, seventh floor...

Li Ang ran downstairs, taking three steps at a time, mentally counting the number of steps he took. In a matter of minutes, he had run down far more than eight floors' worth of stairs.

"Hiss..."

Li Ang gasped and looked at the red number 7 sign on the stairwell entrance.

He loosened his clenched fist, walked to the balcony at the stairwell entrance, and looked down.

All he could see below was a hazy mist, obscuring the distant high-rise buildings, pedestrians on the street, and roadside streetlights. Apart from the lonely moon hanging high in the sky, there was no other light between heaven and earth.

"A ghost wall..."

Li Ang lowered his eyes. Throughout his short seventeen years of life, he had been a staunch materialist, an atheist, disbelieving of any immortals, Buddhas, or monsters, and mocking all ghosts and demons.

Until now, when the harsh reality of the supernatural was laid out before him.

Li Ang forced himself to calm down. He took out his chopsticks and casually threw the chive box, plastic bag and all, down the stairs.

He listened carefully, but there was no chirping of insects or singing of birds. Only that extremely regular "gurgle, gurgle..."

That life-threatening whimper became louder and closer. Li Ang turned around and watched as the voice-activated light on the fourteenth floor lit up, followed by the thirteenth floor, the twelfth floor...

As the distance shortened, the whimper became increasingly shrill, like a beast struggling and roaring in a cage, like fingernails scraping a blackboard, like keys scratching glass,

Like...a vengeful ghost demanding his life...

"Gurgle, cough cough, heh heh heh, woo woo woo, wa wa wa, ah ah ah..."

In the end, the whimper completely distorted, becoming loud and piercing, echoing repeatedly in the stairwell.

Li Ang gritted his teeth, walked straight to the end of the corridor, to the door of Room 801, reached into his pocket for his keychain, and with a snap, twisted the iron ring of the keychain into a wire, then poked the wire into the lock core of the dark red security door of Room 801.

He had a wide range of hobbies and many special skills. Lock picking happened to be one of them. To be fair, Li Ang could unlock all the doors in a small neighborhood with half a packet of instant noodles.

The thin wire went deep into the keyhole, slowly twisting to slightly misalign the inner and outer lock cores, forming a support in the pin slot. At the same time, he moved the wire to push the pins up, then used the twisting force of the wire to make the upper pins fall into the pin slots.

Li Ang leaned against the door, his extremely steady hands holding the wire, moving it to make all the upper pins return to their places, while the lower pins remained in the inner lock core, separating the inner and outer lock cores from each other.

Click, the lock opened.

Li Ang steadily gripped the doorknob, and the process of turning it downwards met with no resistance. However, when Li Ang tried to pull the door open, he found that no matter how much force he used, the entire security door remained motionless, as if it were glued shut.

Li Ang silently retracted the wire and kicked the security door violently.

Thud!

The steel security door made a dull sound, and its dark red, blood-like color appeared even more somber in the dim light.

The brief outburst was meaningless. As the voice-activated light on the tenth floor lit up, Li Ang was only two floors away from the whimper.

"Sudhana visited good teachers and advisors, and went to Jambudvipa, Magadha, Kapilavastu, and saw the night-ruling spirit named Vasanta..."

In desperation, Li Ang recited the Avatamsaka Sutra, drew a cross on his chest with his left hand, pinched the Seven Stars Seal with his right hand, and stepped on the Bagua Lianhuan steps.

Unfortunately, these shamanistic movements did nothing to stop the approach of the roar. By the faint light of the voice-activated lamp, Li Ang saw a huge shadow gradually emerging from the upper stairwell.

"Fuck!"

Li Ang cursed, slapped his chest, and shouted at the shadow, "Stop with the useless bullshit! I live in Room 1001, Building 2, Fantou Garden, Fantou Street. My dad is called Hu Yingjun, my mom is called Zhang Xiaoli, and my name is Hu Tutu. I dare you to come down here and see if I won't kick your ass, bro!!!!"

In an instant, the roar stopped abruptly, and the world became silent.

The voice-activated light slowly went out, and Li Ang held his breath.

Step, step, step.

Extremely subtle footsteps slowly approached. By the moonlight, Li Ang clearly saw the "thing" slowly walking down the stairs.

It was a jet-black cat, with an elegant posture and moist fur, wearing a hand-knitted yellow vest.

But none of that was the point.

The most crucial thing was that the black cat had no face. Or rather, its face was covered with a human face skin.

Wrinkled, pale, Grandma Zhang's face skin.

The black cat's

pink tongue stretched out from the mouth area of ​​Grandma Zhang's face skin and gently licked a claw, but it did not change the position of the face skin at all, not even a single wrinkle appeared.

It was as if that face skin had originally grown on the cat's face.

"Heh heh heh..."

The human-faced cat made an indistinct whimper. Li Ang watched as it shook its body and spat out a mass of turbid mucus from its throat.

Plop, the mucus landed on the ground. It was a finger still attached to flesh.

"..." Li Ang was silent, his hand tightly clutching the wooden chopsticks behind his back.