Chapter 2 Apartment Number 2

The young man, using the alias Jiao Tai Lang, stood with his back against the wall in the living room, a gleaming dagger clutched in his hand.

His eyes darted around, wary.

All the lights in the living room were on, and he held a flashlight in his left hand. Though the battery was low, it still worked if he tapped it.

"Screech—"

"Screech—"

He shuddered at the sound.

It was coming.

That sound again!

The story began half an hour earlier when Jiao Tai Lang arrived at his room, apartment 2, room 404.

Unlike most people, he was very happy with the room number.

Having just returned from studying abroad, he liked to read supernatural novels and knew how much the number 404 restrained demons and ghosts.

He even had the illusion that he was already safe.

After inspecting the room, he closed the doors to the bedroom and bathroom, intending to spend the night in the living room.

But as he was about to lie down on the sofa to rest and catch his breath, a slow knock came from the door.

Not just once.

But a series of knocks.

Very slow, yet each one seemed to strike his heart, like a dull knife scraping flesh.

He immediately sat up.

He had observed the hallway when he arrived, noting that it was rather dilapidated and many of the doors had "Vacancy" signs posted on them.

The signs were old, suggesting they had been there for quite some time.

He hadn't seen any neighbors nearby, except for Wan Yuanning in room 409 on the same floor.

She was a taciturn, somewhat wooden girl, who had nodded to him before opening her door and entering her room.

He didn't think she was the one knocking.

He tiptoed to the door and glanced quickly through the peephole. The knocking stopped the moment his eye reached the lens.

There was nothing outside, only the "Vacancy" sign on the opposite door flapping against the door panel in the night breeze, like a dying white butterfly.

No one...

Jiao Tai Lang swallowed hard and backed away from the door. He wasn't foolish enough to open it to see what was outside.

The peephole offered a limited view. Anyone could be hiding on either side or behind the door, in the blind spots.

Or... perhaps the visitor was standing right outside the door.

Only he was a mere mortal and couldn't see them.

Thinking too much was useless; it only made him imagine things. He continued to retreat.

Passing the kitchen, he grabbed a dagger. It might not be effective against those things, but at least it would comfort him.

Just as his breathing returned to normal, the eerie knocking resumed.

Jiao Tai Lang's eyes narrowed to slits.

He didn't look through the peephole again. Instead, he mechanically turned his head to look behind him, toward the bedroom.

The bedroom door was closed, and the knocking... was coming from inside!

Someone was standing behind the bedroom door, knocking.

No, not knocking, but... scraping with something sharp. The sound was piercingly shrill, as if it could puncture eardrums.

"Screech—"

"Screech—"

...

Just like before, slow, with an unsettling lingering sound, extremely eerie.

It was as if someone was standing just one door away, behind the bedroom door, scraping the door with the tip of a rusty knife.

The image that formed in his mind made his face change drastically.

The bedroom door was different from the front door; it looked fragile, and more importantly, it wasn't locked, meaning whatever was in the bedroom could come out at any moment.

Just as he realized this, the scraping sound in the bedroom suddenly stopped. Then, Jiao Tai Lang clearly saw the doorknob turn.

"Click."

His body reacted before his brain. He immediately rushed to the bedroom door, grabbed the doorknob, and pulled it toward himself.

At the same time, he used the key inserted in the bedroom lock to lock the door from the outside.

After doing all this, the air seemed to solidify. He didn't even dare to blink.

Until... the sound in the bedroom finally disappeared.

Gasping for breath, he staggered backward and collapsed onto the sofa.

With trembling hands, he grabbed the bottled water he had taken from the refrigerator and twisted the cap several times before finally opening it.

Just as he was about to take a sip to calm his nerves, the eerie scraping sound rang out again.

Jiao Tai Lang froze.

The sound... was under the sofa.

Slowly, slowly leaning forward, he trembled as he looked down. A bluish-green hand stretched out from under the sofa, its sharp nails scraping the floor, leaving five claw marks.

The next second, it grabbed his foot.

"Ahhh... ah!"

...

"..."

After hearing someone's account, the group gathered in the lobby of Building 1 fell silent. They sat around a dilapidated wooden table.

One leg of the wooden table was broken, propped up by a few stones.

Besides dust, there was nothing else on the table, except for a lone hand lying on it.

"So..." The fatty stared at the hand, swallowed hard, and looked at Jiao Tai Lang, who was still visibly agitated.

"That hand suddenly came out from under the sofa and grabbed my foot. I was so scared that I didn't have time to react, so I hardened my heart," Jiao Tai Lang said, his voice still trembling.

"You hardened your heart, and the ghost's hand just fell off?" Chu Jiu, a student, asked, his voice shaken.

"No, that's not it. I just gave it a stab in a moment of desperation," Jiao Tai Lang explained.

"Where's the knife?" Liu Guo looked more mature than the others and considered things more comprehensively.

"Oh, oh, it's here." Jiao Tai Lang reached into his waistband. "Fat brother," he said to the fatty who was craning his neck to look, "please step back a little."

The fatty retreated a few steps.

Then, to everyone's shock, Jiao Tai Lang pulled a large knife, nearly 30 centimeters long, from his pants. The front end was very sharp.

Probably worried about hurting himself, he had wrapped both sides with cardboard and thick tape, leaving only the handle exposed.

Jiang Cheng glanced at the knife a few times, then looked at Jiao Tai Lang, and said, "Brother, you can really pack things in your pants."

"It's alright," Jiao Tai Lang replied.

After passing the knife around for everyone to examine, their attention returned to the severed hand. It wasn't a human hand, at least not a living human's.

It had the cheap feel of rubber.

The fingernails were very long, with sharp tips like knives, and covered with various patterns, as well as small decorative items like stars and moons glued to them.

"This seems... seems like nail art, right?" Wei Jinting stepped forward, touched it, grinned, and said, raising his head, "Hey, it's actually pretty good-looking."

But after noticing the unfriendly look in the eyes of Jiao Tai Lang, who was holding the knife, he obediently withdrew his paw.