When Nan Yue returned, Zhu Xi Ning was sitting by the door on a small stool, enjoying the breeze. She stepped forward and felt Zhu Xi Ning's forehead.
Her fever had broken.
"I'm fine."
Zhu Xi Ning smiled and pulled Nan Yue's hand away. Nan Yue squatted down, and Zhu Xi Ning leaned in to whisper in her ear.
"Granny Li went down at noon and bought some meat on the bone."
"She hasn't done anything else all day; she's just been stewing bones."
Nan Yue's nostrils flared; there was indeed the scent of meat in the hallway.
"Are you feeling any better?"
Zhu Xi Ning's face was a bit pale, but she gave a weak smile.
"Nan-nan, I saw some things."
"On every single person in this building... there is something."
They didn't continue the conversation in the hallway. Just as Nan Yue was about to help her inside, they heard a rhythmic clicking sound.
Someone was coming.
The sharp clicking of high heels gradually approached as Nan Yue watched the newcomers arrive.
It was Su Xiaoxi and Mu Qing.
The two had bought some cooked food downstairs and were heading home lazily. They gave a greeting when they saw Nan Yue and the others.
Since the weather was so hot, both were dressed lightly. Su Xiaoxi was wearing light makeup, likely to hide the exhaustion of working through the night.
Su Xiaoxi and her companion kicked off their heels at the door, rubbed their shoulders, and closed the door behind them.
Nan Yue looked at the high heels scattered haphazardly on the floor before closing her own door as well.
"I saw black shadows on Su Xiaoxi and the others."
Nan Yue narrowed her eyes. "Only on Su Xiaoxi?"
Zhu Xi Ning shook her head. "Granny Li has them too. The mute and Xie Hui have them as well, though theirs are much heavier."
There were undoubtedly unclean things in the demolition building.
The longer one stayed, the easier it was to become tainted. This matched their previous hypothesis.
As for encountering those things, it seemed to be random; so far, only Nan Yue had run into them.
Zhu Xi Ning had originally planned to test it out tonight, but her physical condition had forced her to shelve the plan.
"What about our people?"
Zhu Xi Ning fell silent for a moment. "They have them too."
"To varying degrees."
A fortune teller cannot read their own fate.
She suspected that the black mist on her own body was likely the heaviest.
Nan Yue massaged her temples. "It should be soon."
The female tenant who died in her room earlier definitely had something to do with Old Wu, though Nan Yue didn't know what method he had used.
Old Wu had a life on his hands.
So, would the people who died afterward be his doing as well?
Zhu Xi Ning leaned against the headboard, frowning slightly. "But the people who died later didn't have any money."
That was true. Old Wu must have killed the sick woman for her money.
But that scoundrel and the workers at the construction site had no money to speak of.
Nan Yue nodded slowly. "I'll go check his clinic tonight."
Zhu Xi Ning wasn't worried about Nan Yue. She nodded, her body feeling incredibly weak—a sensation she had never experienced before.
She even felt a bit lethargic and fell asleep against the pillow moments later.
Nan Yue watched her for a while before stepping out quietly.
The hallway at night was pitch black, and the only thing she could hear was her own heartbeat.
It was currently two in the morning. The lights in the Oasis Community across the street were out, and the city had fallen into a deep slumber.
Nan Yue made her way to Wu's Clinic in the dark. She pulled two wires from her pocket and pushed the door open in no time.
A heavy scent of Chinese medicine filled Wu's Clinic, but a careful sniff revealed a hint of mold mixed in.
Nan Yue closed the door before turning on her flashlight. She was patient, conducting what could be called a carpet search.
The clinic was very clean. She couldn't find any of the sick woman's belongings, but she did find a stack of medical records. They were very detailed.
Looking at these alone, one would truly think Old Wu was a meticulous and serious doctor.
Nan Yue went into another room. It was filled with drying herbs that didn't look very fresh. There were also several medicine jars containing old dregs.
Nan Yue used a pair of nearby chopsticks to poke through the dregs, but found nothing unusual.
However, two things caught her attention.
One was a cabinet in the corner of the room containing two unlabeled bottles of pesticide. The production date stamped on the bottles was six years ago, and one bottle was half empty.
There was a lot of dust on the caps; they hadn't been moved in a long time.
The other was a metal basin in the corner containing ashes from something that had been burned.
The person had burned them very carefully; whatever it was had been reduced almost entirely to ash, leaving no clues behind.
But the act itself was suspicious. Why would a doctor be burning things in their room like a spirit medium?
What exactly had Old Wu been burning here?
Nan Yue looked through the item store. A developer was available for purchase, which fit their identity as reporters.
After all, if a reporter wanted to write a good story, they often had to act much like a detective.
Nan Yue used her points to exchange for the developer and sprayed it on the floor. Initially, she thought the system was being stingy by giving her such a small bottle, fearing it wouldn't be enough.
But after a few sprays, she stopped. The floor was covered in bloodstains.
Even though Old Wu had mopped it very clean, blood was like that; with the right chemical reagents, it would easily reveal itself.
The facts were clear: Old Wu had killed someone.
And it must have been fairly recent.
At the very least, it wasn't the female resident who had died in her room.
That woman had died of illness, and her body's discovery had even made the newspapers.
Regardless of who had died in this room, the scene had been extremely bloody, with blood everywhere.
Why did Old Wu kill?
The previous woman was for money, but what about this one?
Who was it that died here?
Which serial killer was Old Wu?
So, the things burned in the corner earlier must have been the clothes worn during the crime.
With such a large amount of blood, it would have definitely splattered onto him. Throwing them away was too risky, so burning them was better.
He was very practiced; this likely wasn't the first time he had seen blood.
The developer would disappear in half an hour, so Nan Yue didn't bother with it and prepared to leave.
As her flashlight swept across the room, she froze.
At some point, a person had appeared in the previously empty clinic.
The figure stood right by the main door, motionless.
That was the only way out of the clinic. For someone to be there without Nan Yue sensing them, they likely weren't human.
Standing a few paces away from the figure, Nan Yue shone her flashlight on him.
It was a man—tall, thin, and gloomy. Standing there, he looked like a shadow.
He was facing Nan Yue, and the way he looked at her was unsettling, like the gaze of a dead person.
There was nothing in his eyes, only a profound deathliness.
Suddenly, the man broke into a smile that made one's skin crawl.
As Nan Yue looked at the man, she felt he seemed somewhat familiar, yet he didn't match anyone currently living in the demolition area.
While she was thinking, the man's smile grew increasingly sinister.
His head began to lean forward, his eyes widened, and blood started oozing from his head.
Dark red blood poured down from the top of his head like it was being dumped, staining his facial features. All she could see were his pale whites and his wide, grinning mouth.
He raised his hand, and only then did Nan Yue see that he was holding a spoon.
He reached behind his head and, with a squelch, thrust it in.
Squelch, squelch.
Nan Yue heard the sound of him stirring his own brains.
After a moment, he pulled the spoon out. It was filled with white brain matter mixed with fresh blood.
He opened his mouth and ate it.
Rate on N.U.
