After beginning his "undercover" mission, Pei Cangyu unexpectedly became a very vigilant person. He hadn't been sleeping well. His hand had been burned by fire that evening; although it was simply bandaged, it suddenly began to itch uncontrollably in the middle of the night. He woke up once around three o'clock, the itch so intense that he tore the bandage off.
Baishi’s bandaging technique was actually quite good—very meticulous, with the ointment applied evenly. He was also a good cook. Although they had prepared dinner together, Pei Cangyu had only been acting as an assistant...
Pei Cangyu shook his head and slapped his cheeks.
*Alright, stay sharp!*
He washed his face and suddenly thought he heard a sound from downstairs.
Pei Cangyu turned off the lights and pressed himself against the window to look out. Through the mist, he saw car headlights flashing near the entrance of the Bai estate. The lights flashed for a moment, followed by the sound of an engine starting. Pei Cangyu listened intently; judging by the sound, it was a truck, or at least a large vehicle.
Why would such a vehicle be here?
Pei Cangyu opened his bedroom door with light steps. He glanced toward Baishi’s room, then crept over and pressed his ear against the door to check if Baishi was still inside. He heard nothing.
His throat felt a bit dry. He swallowed, then turned and quietly headed downstairs, wanting to see exactly what kind of vehicle it was.
By the time he reached the ground floor, the vehicle seemed to have already driven away. Pei Cangyu realized belatedly: why hadn't Madala barked?
Speaking of which, where was Madala?
He turned his head and whispered the dog's name. Just then, a sudden gust of wind slammed against the glass, howling and rattling the panes, giving Pei Cangyu a start.
He looked up at the stained glass, where the sacrificial saints stood with eyes closed. In the darkness, only the colored light filtered through, flickering and indistinct, exuding an oppressive sense of religious majesty.
A heavy bell began to toll. Pei Cangyu’s head throbbed with a sudden pain, and his heart nearly leaped out of his chest.
The bell tolled four times. It was four in the morning.
Pei Cangyu finally let out a breath. He hadn't even known there was a clock in this house. Had he really failed to notice it all this time? It seemed he had grown too comfortable before.
Silence returned. Pei Cangyu stood for a moment, then went back upstairs.
He managed to sleep reasonably well for the remainder of the night.
Pei Cangyu had told the others he would consider their proposal carefully, but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a good path. Especially—Pei Cangyu tossed an empty soda can into the trash—if he became a policeman, he wouldn't feel so powerless when dealing with people like Baishi.
Baishi remained as usual, tirelessly playing the role of the gentle host. Occasionally, Pei Cangyu almost believed it, but the memory of that fake confession and the humiliation of being pinned to the floor brought him back to his senses instantly.
Tonight, Baishi retired particularly early, before Pei Cangyu had even finished his late-night snack.
"Even though you eat a midnight snack every day, you're still so thin," Baishi said, turning to him as he stood up to go upstairs.
"No kidding. I'm under a lot of mental stress," Pei Cangyu replied while eating.
"What kind of stress?"
"Like studying, or like you..." Pei Cangyu answered subconsciously before immediately catching himself. "You wouldn't understand."
"Is that so?" Baishi smiled and walked upstairs. "By the way, how is your sleep lately?"
Pei Cangyu gripped his teacup. "Why do you ask?"
"If you aren't sleeping well, you could take some medicine. Something to calm the nerves."
"No need." Pei Cangyu set the cup down. "I sleep quite well."
Baishi nodded, gave him a look, and left.
Pei Cangyu thought: *This is good.* It meant he was looking in the right direction; Baishi was indeed awake in the early hours of the morning.
Thus, that night, Pei Cangyu forced himself to stay awake. Yawning constantly, he crouched by his door, listening intently to the movements outside.
Around three-thirty, he heard voices.
"How many are left?" It was Baishi’s voice.
"Four or five, I think," a deep male voice replied.
"When will they be sent away?"
"Probably tomorrow night. Don't worry, it'll be as soon as possible. After all, the fog is about to lift."
"Mm."
They seemed to be talking as they walked, drawing closer to Pei Cangyu’s door. Pei Cangyu held his breath, not daring to move an inch, his heart rate spiking.
"Is it alright to keep them on the third floor? Should we move them back to the basement?" the man asked Baishi.
"No, no one goes to the third floor," Baishi replied.
Their footsteps passed Pei Cangyu’s room.
"Is it okay to move during this time? Won't that Pei kid find out?"
"It's fine. He never mentioned the bell before; he probably hasn't woken up."
Pei Cangyu furrowed his brows. *Damn you, Baishi. You've been playing me since I moved in, even using a giant clock to test me. Since I wasn't caught, you've been doing your shady business right under my nose every day.*
"Then I'll head back first. You should get some rest too." The man seemed to stop nearby.
"Mm."
The footsteps split into two. One receded, followed by the sound of a door closing. The other headed downstairs; after it vanished, a light shone in from the entrance and quickly faded away.
Pei Cangyu sat on the floor, listening to the ticking of the clock, waiting for the house to return to silence.
The clock struck four. Pei Cangyu watched his phone until the display reached four-thirty. He let out a teary yawn, rubbed his eyes, and gently opened the door.
Baishi should be asleep by now.
He took off his shoes and tiptoed over, once again pressing his ear to Baishi’s door. He heard nothing. Pei Cangyu took several glass cups from his room and placed them in front of Baishi’s door. If Baishi pushed the door open in the dark, he would inevitably hit or step on them, making a noise.
With the trap set, Pei Cangyu took a flashlight and went to the third floor.
The rooms on the third floor were unlocked. Pei Cangyu checked them one by one, never forgetting to glance back at Baishi’s door each time he stepped out. Nothing had changed.
Most of these rooms were conference rooms, containing nothing but large tables. Pei Cangyu searched meticulously with his flashlight, even crawling on the floor to check under the tables. Aside from some documents, he found nothing. He flipped through the papers, but he couldn't really understand them. After a moment's thought, he took photos with his phone, intending to show them to Tu Ziyun and Fei Zuohua later; perhaps they would find something.
After searching three conference rooms, Pei Cangyu reached the media room. To be honest, he still felt a bit of trepidation entering this place. This room was different from the others; it always seemed to carry Baishi’s scent because so few people came here.
Pei Cangyu searched it thoroughly as before, even checking behind the shelves of film reels, but there was nothing.
He didn't understand. What exactly was Baishi hiding in this house?
Pei Cangyu closed the media room door. As he walked toward the final room, a thought suddenly struck him: the basement.
He let go of the handle and turned around. *But the basement is locked,* he mused. He might need to spend some time looking for the key; it hadn't been in any of the rooms he'd searched so far.
He turned back. *Forget it. Finish the third floor first. Tomorrow's goal will be finding the key.*
With that thought, he turned the handle of the last room.
To his surprise, this room was neither a conference room nor a media room. Several rows of transparent plastic curtains hung inside, with large cabinets at the far end. It looked like a storage room. For some reason, the window was open.
Pei Cangyu walked inside and closed the door behind him. Stepping onto the floor with bare feet, he realized the room was very damp. He walked toward the window; the wind outside was strong. He tried to pull the window shut, but it wouldn't budge after several tugs, as if it were jammed. It seemed it hadn't been closed for a long time.
Pei Cangyu looked out from here and saw the back of the house. *Ah, so that's it.* He had never noticed before that this room couldn't be seen from the front.
A gust of wind blew, and a scent in the air made Pei Cangyu frown. It was... a sour, foul stench.
Pei Cangyu gave up on closing the window, fearing the noise would wake Baishi. He switched on his flashlight, dimmed it to the lowest setting, and walked through the room.
The room was large, bigger than the previous ones, but the transparent plastic curtains were in the way. They were hung closely together, making a rattling sound whenever they were moved, which was quite irritating. The flashlight beam reflected and refracted through the plastic, making everything look blurry and indistinct. Where the curtains folded and layered, the color deepened so abruptly that Pei Cangyu mistakenly thought something was behind them.
He reached out to push a curtain aside, but as soon as he let go, it slid back into place. Pei Cangyu looked up. Two hooks were embedded in the ceiling at either end, with a rope strung between them. The curtains were hung by a series of rings. They could be pushed aside, but they were actually quite heavy.
Pei Cangyu decided to ignore them and keep moving; his purpose wasn't to tidy up curtains.
Actually, Pei Cangyu felt he had made a great haul today. He thought excitedly: *According to Tu Ziyun’s suspicions, Baishi is likely involved with the underworld. This move of mine is just... brilliant. I'm a genius.* Even if he didn't understand the photos he'd taken, they might contain gang territories, branch deployments, or—hell—maybe even a list of corrupt cops.
Pei Cangyu’s very toes tingled with excitement. When the time came, wouldn't he be...
A hero?!
He swallowed hard in excitement, wanting to finish searching the last room so he could hand over part of the evidence tomorrow.
If the newspapers wanted to interview him, what should he say? How about "Heroic Youth Outwits Drug Lord"?
*No, no... too cliché. And Baishi might not be a drug dealer...*
Speaking of Baishi, Pei Cangyu paused. His old acquaintance had taken such a path of no return; he wondered whose fault it was. If he were caught, who knew how many years he’d be sentenced to.
Pei Cangyu sighed. Baishi had a terrible relationship with his family... *Fine, I'll just visit him often. As long as Baishi rehabilitates seriously, maybe he can get out early for good behavior...*
Thinking this, he passed the curtains and saw the tall cabinets. They were over two meters high with double doors, all tightly shut.
Pei Cangyu gripped the flashlight between his teeth, grabbed the handles with both hands, and pulled the cabinet open.
With a creak, the cabinet swung wide.
It was empty.
But the sound was a bit loud. Fearing he might wake someone, Pei Cangyu quickly turned to look at the door. Through the curtains swaying in the wind, he saw the door was still firmly closed.
Pei Cangyu breathed a sigh of relief and moved to the next cabinet.
This one was harder to pull. Pei Cangyu bit down on the flashlight for a while; because his mouth was open, he was starting to drool. He had to stop, swallow, and then bite the flashlight again.
The curtains behind him were blown by the wind and brushed against his back, nearly making him jump out of his skin. He spun around quickly, and seeing it was just the curtains, he cursed slurredly, "Dammit, scared the hell out of me."
He turned back, calmed his heart, and pulled open the cabinet.
*Creak—*
Staring into the cabinet, Pei Cangyu froze in place, forgetting even to breathe.
Four people were hanging inside the cabinet—no, four naked corpses. Like pigs in a slaughterhouse, they were suspended by their wrists, which were hooked together and pierced by sharp, curved hooks attached to the top of the cabinet. They faced Pei Cangyu, their feet dangling about half a foot from the bottom. A trough had been placed at the base of the cabinet, collecting a pool of blood and an unidentified yellow fluid that dripped slowly, *drip, drip*, from their toes. These four bodies clearly had little left to leak...
Because he was directly in front of the corpses, the face Pei Cangyu was staring at was Gao Tang’s.
That dead, sallow face was already rotting with livor mortis, but the eyes remained open, staring vacantly into the depths of Pei Cangyu’s own. It was as if a spell had been cast; Pei Cangyu could not move.
He stared straight into Gao Tang’s eyes, motionless for a long time. The wind behind him rose suddenly, whistling past his ears. Pei Cangyu managed a slight movement. His lips trembled, and the flashlight fell from his mouth, hitting the floor and rolling a few times before finally pointing toward the cabinet, illuminating the four corpses with even greater clarity.
Pei Cangyu finally began to shake. He took a step back...
*Dong!*
The bell began to toll...
Pei Cangyu’s hands and feet went cold, as if his soul had been struck. Something in his mind began to scream at the top of its lungs.
His vocal cords finally worked. As the bell thundered around him, Pei Cangyu suddenly realized: the bell... the bell... was located in this very room.
Boundless terror seized him. Pei Cangyu opened his mouth, wanting to scream regardless of the consequences.
Someone grabbed his shoulder.
Pei Cangyu jolted.
The person lunged, pinning him to his knees on the floor. They pressed against his back, covering his mouth firmly with one hand while gently nuzzling the back of Pei Cangyu’s neck with their nose. They extended their tongue to lick him, then gave a soft kiss.
"Didn't you say... you were sleeping very well?"
Pei Cangyu could not react. Tears flowed uncontrollably from his wide eyes, blurring his vision. Before him hung several pairs of pale, blue-tinged feet, their big toes curled in a stiff, grotesque manner—no longer the feet of the living.
In Baishi’s room on the second floor, the door was already open. Among all the bedroom doors that pulled outward, only Baishi’s door opened inward.
***
