“Doesn’t that include you?” Song Lei asked while frowning. “You had just said that there are murderers around here. What makes you think that I’m not one of them? Why did you take me in so easily?”

Xiang Yimu didn’t stop smiling.

“I see… I get where you’re coming from. What should I do to gain your trust then?” Xiang Yimu asked.

“Gain my trust? Why do you have to gain my trust?”

“Having a person to rely on is one of the best things I can wish for,” Xiang Yimu said. That faint smile was still on his face.

“Is that so..?” Song Lei smiled too. “You want to gain my trust right? Here, Drink this,” said Song Lei while passing the glass to Xiang Yimu. Xiang Yimu’s eyes widened.

“Hahaha…” Xiang Yimu held his hand against his face while pushing the cup back to Song Lei with his other hand. “HAHAHAHA!”

Song Lei’s smile turned into a frown.

“Heh. huh… Sorry sorry! I really didn’t think that you would figure it out! Maybe you have an intelligence-related ability? A newbie like you figuring it out should’ve been impossible!”

“So..? Why didn’t you just instantly kill me when I came in?” Song Lei asked.

“Why? There’s no particular reason behind it. I just like killing my prey in their weakest form! I love making newbies like you feel relaxed for some time and suddenly betraying them! Ripping away all their hopes and trampling on them! Seeing the despair in their eyes!”

“What are you gonna do to me?” asked Song Lei calmly.

“I will first incapacitate you without killing you. Then I will torture you until you die! I will dismember your corpse with this katana and eat it bit by it. The only working fridge I have access to is in room 1407. There should still be left some meat from the last stupid newbie. I guess my pet quake demon will have a feast.”

Song Lei stopped frowning.

“I see…” Song Lei took his necktie off. He hadn’t paid attention till now but he was in a business suit all the time. “Take it,” said Lei while holding his necktie out.

“What?” said Xiang Yimu with a dumbfounded expression. “What does this mea-?”

*SPLASH

*sizzle

“UGH..!”

Xiang Yimu started screaming as the skin on his face burned. While Xiang Yimu was distracted by his necktie, Song Lei had poured the scalding hot tea on Xiang Yimu’s face.

“You bastard! You will never get out of this place alive!” Screamed Xiang Yimu while holding his face with one of his hands.

Song Lei started running towards the door without thinking much more. They had made quite a commotion so some things would probably come for them.

‘Shit!’ Song Lei screamed in his mind while dodging to the side. A katana had struck the place he was just a second ago.

“I will kill you!” Screamed Xiang Yimu. He then jumped onto Song Lei who was laying on the ground.

Song Lei struck Xiang Yimu’s face with his fist. Xiang Yimu, seemingly unfazed, struck back at him.

‘Fuck! I will die!’ Song Lei screamed in his mind. He was about the faint from being punched in the face. ‘Fuck it! This is my last chance!’

“AAAAAAH!” Song Lei started shouting at the top of his lungs. Xiang Yimu had said that the apartment was filled with monsters and ghosts. If he kept shouting those things would eventually come to this room. He had to use the chaos to sneak away. Xiang Yimu stopped hitting Song Lei.

“Crazy bastard! What are you doing? The room may be sound isolated but if you keep shouting, we’ll both die!” Said Xiang Yimu. Song Lei disregarded Xiang Yimu’s words and kept screaming. Xiang Yimu got up and quickly grabbed his katana. It was stuck into the wooden wall so he had to spend some time trying to get it out. Song Lei quickly used this small window of opportunity to run to the door of the room and open it wide open.

Back when Song Lei was walking through it, the hallway was filled with an eerie silence but now it was bustling with moving shadows and weird sounds. Song Lei quickly picked up the cursed knife from where he had dropped it. He then threw his phone at Xiang Yimu’s head. Luckily it connected. Xiang Yimu was still trying to get his katana out of the wall. So when the phone connected with his head, he shrieked a little bit. Unfortunately for him, this meant death. His shriek traveled through the hallway and got the attention of countless entities.

“Fuck,” Xiang Yimu swore. All hope lost in his eyes, it was obvious that he would die. Light bulb of the room popped and everything went dark. Song Lei held the cursed knife up and charged out of the room. He couldn’t see anything and his sense of direction was out of control. He ran to his left. He felt his knife tearing through countless things. While doing this, Lei held his hand up to the wall and counted the doors he had passed by.

‘This one!’

Song Lei opened the door and threw himself in while closing it back.

“Huff… Huff… Huff…” With this weak body of his, this much action made him gasp for air.

*Bang!

Something hit the door of the room. Then a few other things came and started banging at the door too. Song Lei held his breath and kept looking at the door with widened eyes. After some time, the banging stopped and the room went back to normal. There were still screams and growls coming from the hallway but none of them were near room 1407.

Song Lei got up and laid on the bed. After he laid down, a shrill scream was heard down the hallway. This was the voice of Xiang Yimu.

‘How could he hold on for so long? Maybe he had something that could keep the enemies at bay. But why didn’t he use it on me? Maybe it’s only usable against the supernatural. Well, his death is surprisingly relieving. Even in this situation, humans are still the biggest danger I guess.’

Song Lei closed his eyes. The room he was in was probably safe. All those talismans were preventing the ghosts from passing through the walls and getting to Song Lei.

*Quake!

The room started shaking.

‘Oh yeah. I forgot this existed,’ Thought Lei while opening his eyes. Xiang Yimu had said that he had a pet quake demon. The one who was causing the quakes in this room was probably the quake demon. After all, the quakes had stopped after he left room 1407.

‘What should I do now?’

Although it had reset after he left the room, the quakes would keep getting stronger with time, eventually killing Song Lei. He could occasionally leave the room but he didn’t want to risk getting ambushed by ghosts right in front of his safe zone.

Song Lei suddenly remembered Xiang Yimu saying that he would feed Song Lei’s flesh to his pet quake demon.

He looked at the fridge.

‘Ugh…’

After slowly getting out of bed, Song Lei walked towards the fridge.

‘Maybe, just maybe, if I start feeding it by myself, the thing will become friendlier…?’