His cheek was pressed to the cold, unyielding cement beneath the couch. Zou Kui held his breath so hard his vision spotted. His face contorted as he strained to see through the gap between the floor and the sofa's underside.
A foot in worn cloth shoes stood in the hallway.
And a head, twisted one hundred and eighty degrees.
The body was hunched, its blackened nails scraping against shattered porcelain on the floor, prying, rearranging, forcing the shards back into their "rightful" place.
"Click… click… creak—" The sound of its bones grinding in revolt, a shrill, staccato rhythm quickening with its rage.
Zou Kui bit down on the back of his hand, teeth sinking into flesh, the metallic tang of blood flooding his tongue. The pain was the only thing keeping him from screaming.
His fear had sharpened his senses to a blade's edge. Every detail seared into his mind.
Find a way out. Find the flaw.
The thing's obsession with order was pathological. Some unseen rule compelled it—repair the chaos first. As long as those broken pieces remained, its attention was trapped.
Could he use that?
But this was no gentle restoration. It was violent. Absolute. Any resistance—even from the shards themselves—enraged it further.
This compulsion, warped into something monstrous, was its core. And maybe its fatal flaw.
Crack.
A larger piece shattered into dust under its brutal grip.
The sound snapped something inside the creature.
It stilled.
The silence was worse than the noise.
A silence like death.
Zou Kui's heartbeat roared in his ears. So loud. Too loud.
Then—slowly, unnaturally slow—the creature lifted its head.
Its neck clicked as it swiveled, milky-white eyes sweeping the room—over the couch, the walls, and finally…
Stopping on him.
It had abandoned the fragments.
It was coming.
A new intent thickened the air, a hunter's hunger seeping through the shadows beneath the sofa.
I want to live. The thought roared in Zou Kui's skull.
Thud… thud…
It stood. The cloth shoes shuffled forward, no longer stiff—purposeful.
Each step punched straight through Zou Kui's ribs. He scrambled deeper under the couch, back pressed to the wall. Dust clogged his nose. He clamped a hand over his mouth, desperate not to sneeze.
The footsteps halted beside the sofa.
The stench of damp soil and spoiled medicine rolled over him, thick enough to taste. Then—click, creak—the sound of vertebrae twisting as it craned its neck down.
It was peering behind the couch.
Ice flooded his veins. No way out. No escape.
His scrabbling fingers brushed something fuzzy in the dark—Louqi's forgotten slipper.
Instinct overrode thought.
Just as the grotesque face began to dip into view, Zou Kui hurled the slipper across the room.
It struck a glass on the side table.
The shattering crash was deafening.
The creature whipped toward the sound, its body twisting without moving its feet. For a heartbeat, it was caught between two imperatives—hunt, or fix?
It shuddered, a wet, grinding growl bubbling up from its throat. Then—
"Rule" won.
The thing lunged for the glass, snatching it up, scanning the room for where it belonged.
Zou Kui slithered out the opposite side of the couch, knees and palms scraping raw, and dove under the dining table. He yanked the tablecloth down just as—
THUD.
The glass was slammed into the table's exact center. A violent correction.
Footsteps resumed. The hunt wasn't over.
Beneath the table, Zou Kui curled tighter, pulse crashing. The shadows here were thicker, but the stench was worse—mold, rust, something spoiled. Through the swaying tablecloth, he saw the cloth shoes pacing.
Then—
a new sound.
Something heavy being dragged.
His breath hitched.
What was it moving? Furniture? Or—?
His gaze flicked to the wall.
Oh god.
The scorched claw marks—the ones from Grandfather's room, from the cabinet—were spreading.
Like black veins creeping through the house. The wallpaper peeled where they touched, wood blackening as if burned by an invisible acid.
This place wasn't just haunted.
It was being unmade.
The air reeked of burning wires, rust, and rotting meat.
Death's breath.
He was trapped inside a living nightmare—a fly in a web, waiting to be consumed.
He was going to die here.