"I'm looking for Li Xiumei. Is Li Xiumei home?"
The voice sent a fresh wave of terror crashing over me—anger didn't even register anymore. My legs turned to jelly, refusing to hold my weight. I practically crawled back to the bedroom, slamming the door shut and fumbling with the deadbolt until it slid home with a sickening click.
This was the third time. Third.
And this time, she'd tracked me to my own house.
I scrambled back onto the bed, yanking the covers over my head and burrowing into the sheets until I was wrapped so tight I could barely breathe. But the fear didn't fade. It clung to me, cold and sharp, like a knife at my throat.
Beneath the terror, though, a flicker of confusion burned.
Who was she? Was she the woman we'd pulled out of that wall—the skeleton in the black dress and red heels? Her clothes were identical, down to the scuffs on the shoes and the fray at the dress hem. Meng Yifan and I had tossed that theory around in the police station, our voices low and shaky, as if saying it out loud would make it more real.
But if she was that woman… then who was Li Xiumei?
Was Li Xiumei the one who'd killed her? The one who'd bricked her up behind that wall and hidden her away like trash? Was that why she kept knocking—why she kept asking for Li Xiumei? To find her killer? To make her pay?
But we didn't know Li Xiumei. We'd never even heard the name before that first knock. So why was she here? Why was she haunting me?
My fingers closed around my phone, and I fumbled to turn on the screen, desperate to call Meng Yifan. To hear another human voice. To know I wasn't alone in this nightmare.
But the screen lit up to show no signal. Not a single bar. My apartment had perfect reception—always. I'd never had a problem with dropped calls or dead zones. Not once.
Then it hit me. The first night in that house. When she'd knocked for the first time, I'd taken my phone into the bathroom, and it had been dead then too. No signal. No service. I'd shrugged it off, figured the old building had bad cell reception.
Now I knew better. It wasn't the building. It was her. Wherever she went, signal died. Phones went silent. The world shrank down to just her, and the question she kept asking.
Panic clawed at my throat, hot and sharp. I could barely breathe.
The knocking started again, louder this time. Insistent. Angry. Like she was tired of waiting. Like she was done playing games. She was forcing me to open the door. To face her.
But I couldn't. I couldn't move. I couldn't even scream.
And my phone was useless. I couldn't call Meng Yifan. I couldn't call the cops. I was trapped.
I was going to die tonight. I was sure of it.
Survival instinct kicked in then, raw and desperate. It gave me just enough strength to throw off the covers and stumble to the window. I wrenched it open, cold morning air slapping my face, and leaned out, yelling as loud as I could.
"Help! Somebody help me!"
"Call the police! Please! I'm in 1302!"
It was humiliating. Begging for help like a child. But I didn't care. I just wanted to live.
I waited. Thirty seconds. A minute. Nothing. No lights flicked on in the apartments above or below. No voices called back. No footsteps echoed in the hallway.
I leaned out farther, craning my neck to look at the other windows. All dark. Every single one. It was midnight—midnight. My building was full of college students and night owls. People who stayed up till 2 or 3 a.m. playing games, watching movies, scrolling through their phones.
Not tonight. Tonight, every window was black. Every light was off. Like the entire building was empty. Like everyone had vanished.
I yelled again, my voice cracking with fear.
"Please! Somebody! Anybody!"
Silence. Utter, complete silence. The kind of silence that only happens in horror movies. The kind that means something very bad is about to happen.
I was so desperate, I climbed onto the windowsill, my legs dangling over the edge. Thirteen stories up. If she broke down the door, I'd jump. Better to hit the pavement than let her get me.
I stared down at the street below, my heart hammering. And then I saw her.
She was standing on the sidewalk, right beneath my window. Like she'd been waiting for me to look. Like she'd known I'd climb out here.
A girl in a black dress. Red high heels. Her hair was long and dark, her face pale as a corpse. Even from thirteen floors up, I could see her eyes. Empty. Cold. Hungry.
Our gazes locked.
And then I smelled it. That stench. Rot. Decay. Something dead and forgotten, dragged out into the light. It filled my nose, my mouth, my lungs. I gagged, retching, my stomach heaving.
I almost fell. Almost tumbled over the edge and plummeted to the ground below. But I grabbed the windowsill, my fingers scraping raw against the concrete, and hauled myself back inside. I slammed the window shut, locked it, and yanked the curtains closed, as if fabric could keep her out. As if anything could.
I scrambled back into bed, burrowing under the covers again, and waited for the end.
But the knocking didn't stop. It went on and on, steady and relentless, for hours. Until the sky outside turned gray. Until the first hint of sunlight peeked over the rooftops.
Then, finally, it stopped.
I lay there for a long time, too scared to move, too scared to breathe. When I finally dared to peek out from under the covers, the room was dimly lit with morning light. The knocking was gone. The silence was back—but this time, it was a normal silence. The kind that had birds chirping and cars honking in the distance.
I reached for my phone. Full signal. Four bars, strong and steady.
I fumbled for Meng Yifan's number, my hands shaking so bad I could barely tap the screen. But before I could dial, my phone rang.
It was him.
"Chen Mo," he said, his voice tight with panic, shaking so bad I could barely understand him. "You need to get over here. Now. We're in deep shit. Deeper shit."
I thought he was talking about the lawsuit. About Mr. Hu. About the store going under. I opened my mouth to tell him about the girl, about the knocking, about seeing her standing outside my window. About how I'd almost jumped.
But he cut me off, his voice sharp and urgent.
"This isn't about the lawsuit. Forget the lawsuit. This is worse. Way worse. Just get here. Now."
He rattled off an address—a storage unit on the other side of town—and hung up.
I stared at the phone, my mind spinning. What could be worse than a haunted house? Than a corpse in the wall? Than a ghost who tracked you home and knocked on your door at midnight?
I didn't have time to think. I threw on some clean clothes, splashed water on my face, and stared at my reflection in the mirror. I looked like shit. Pale, gaunt, my eyes sunken and bloodshot. Like I'd seen a ghost.
Because I had.
I hesitated at the front door, my hand hovering over the doorknob. I was a nervous wreck, jumpy, paranoid. Every sound made me flinch. Every shadow looked like her.
I checked the peephole first. Empty hallway. No sign of her.
I unlocked the door and stepped outside.
And that's when I saw it.
A photo. Taped to my door. An old photo, yellowed with age, the edges frayed and worn. Like it had been tucked away in a box for years and years.
I reached up, my fingers trembling, and pulled it off.
It was a family portrait. A man, a woman, a little girl—maybe five or six years old. All smiling, all dressed up like it was a special occasion. The photo was faded, the faces blurred, but I could make out their clothes clearly enough.
The woman was wearing a black dress.
And red high heels.
Identical to the ones the girl was wearing. Identical to the ones on the skeleton we'd pulled out of the wall.
My blood turned to ice. My hands started shaking so bad I almost dropped the photo.
I stared at it, my mind racing, trying to make sense of it. Trying to figure out who these people were. Trying to figure out what it all meant.
Who was the woman in the photo?
Was she the girl who'd been knocking on my door?
Was she Li Xiumei?
And if she was… then who was the little girl?