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310 Auntie Jia

“We shan’t talk about these after midnight!” Brother Hwa glanced at the folded red dress from the corner of his eye. After seeing the red dress hadn’t reacted in any way, he sighed in relief, “We need to continue with our patrol. Turn down the volume of the music. Don’t go looking for trouble yourself.” The girl looked chastened but she agreed to close the music and stop her livestream. When the girl turned to her bedroom to do all that, Han Fei looked through the door. Her Room 1084 was filled with cam recorders and unused surveillance cameras.

“Let’s go and leave her be.” Xiao Fang suddenly urged like he had noticed something. He dragged Brother Hwa by his sleeve and practically pulled him away. Han Fei realized something was off about Xiao Fang. He resisted the urge to investigate the room and left the 8th floor with the 2 guards. The voice-activated lights on the 9th floor came on. When they were on the landing between both floors, Xiao Fang looked at them nervously, his face covered in fear. “Didn’t you notice it?”

“Notice what?”

“That girl has an altar for a dead person inside her toilet but the black and white picture of the deceased was herself!” Xiao Fang was very afraid, “Does that mean she’s dead? Then again, why would a living person be so interested in ghosts?”

“You did remind me of something. There was a water stain on the corner of the girl’s shirt. Before she came to open the door, she wasn’t livestreaming but was inside the toilet.” The more he thought about it, the more Han Fei was confident there was a connection between the woman in Room 1044 and the girl in Room 1084, perhaps they were friends or even family. “Should we go back to check?” Han Fei’s suggestion was vetoed by Brother Hwa and Xiao Fang. Just as the 3 argued about whether to go back, the sound of door opening came from the 9th floor. At the same time, the lights went out and the 3 hugged each other.

“Don’t, don’t worry, there’s an old lady living on the 9th floor, that should be her…” Brother Hwa raised the flashlight and led the way. He pushed open the safety door slowly and an old lady in black jacket and black scarf stood in the black corridor. After seeing the old lady, Brother Hwa sighed in relief, “Auntie Jia, why are you out wandering about so late at night again? It’s not even 4 am yet.”

The old lady frowned, “When you’re old, you wake up earlier than most. Sleep doesn’t come that easily, I just want to come out to take a walk.”

“Auntie Jia, there was a security guard that went missing not too long ago. You better stay at home for now.”

“I can’t sleep and feel unsettled trapped inside the house. I’ll only feel better when I’m outside.” Auntie Jia waved her hands, “Plus I’m already in my 80s, I’ve lived long enough. Just leave me be.” This old lady was rather stubborn. She refused to go back home but didn’t really provide the actual reason. Han Fei believed things were not that simple. “Auntie Jia, is it because you keep having nightmares whenever you try to sleep?” Han Fei tried to make his tone as gentle as possible.

“Are you trying to sell me some kind of sleeping aid? I don’t need things like that.” The old lady had quite a temper. She didn’t have much time for her neighbours and refused to listen to people’s advice. She pushed Brother Hwa away and walked towards the stairwell on the right.

“Aren’t we going to stop her?” Seeing Brother Hwa remain unmoved, Han Fei was confused. That was very unlike him.

“We won’t be able to. The old lady is the earliest tenant here and she can be quite stubborn. She always wakes up punctually at 3.30 am and wanders around the building. She has other strange habits like never taking the elevator, never going to the top floor, never calling people by their names and never smiling.” Brother Hwa was just rambling but Han Fei memorized everything. He believed that the old lady knew something. Perhaps she purposely didn’t do these things to avoid the Death Curse at Ziggurat. Han Fei stared at the old lady who walked away. She held the wall as support. Occasionally she fixed her scarf. When she moved the scarf, Han Fei spotted a small butterfly pattern on the back of her neck. ‘The old lady is Butterfly’s flower pot too?’ Han Fei paid a special note to this. He believed the old lady was doing this patrol of her own because she was looking for something.

‘As long as she keeps wandering about, I might run into her again.’ Han Fei wanted to converse with the lady alone but not now. He had too little information about her. She might cheat him and he’d never know about it.

“Let’s go. Nothing bad ever happened on the 9th floor. We can relax a bit now.” Brother Hwa’s words raised Han Fei’s suspicion again. Why was the 9th floor where the old lady stayed, the safest? Was it because she had already taken care of all the possible dangers here?

The strange old lady appeared to be their lucky star. They finished checking 4 consecutive floors and nothing happened. And then they came to the 14th floor. When Han Fei turned at the landing of the 13th floor, a chill suffused his body. He shivered involuntarily. Han Fei glanced at the number 14 and a bad feeling rose within him.

“A madman lives on the 14th floor, hopefully he’s not acting up tonight.” Brother Hwa also didn’t wish to stay for so long at the 14th floor but as fate would have it, the security devices had some problems on this floor. The surveillance camera in the corridor had been destroyed, the lock on the safety door was removed and various trash scattered the ground. It made the floor sticky.

“When we patrolled this place around midnight, everything was still fine!” Xiao Fang walked through the trash. He wanted to pull Han Fei along with him but realized the latter was staring intently at the trash, “What are you looking at?”

“We can find out a person’s life from their trash.” Han Fei used the rubber baton to sift through the trash. Soon, his arm halted in mid-air.

“Did you find something?” Xiao Fang and Brother Hwa came over. They looked at the thing Han Fei’s rubber baton was pointing at and they didn’t feel too good. Inside an inconspicuous bag, a bleeding chopped finger was hidden.

“My God!” Xiao Fang staggered two steps back. He gripped Han Fei’s clothes. “This has to be a murder, right?!”

Han Fei was stunned as if he couldn’t believe what he saw. It was like he wasn’t used to seeing gore, his face turned green from nausea.

“Both of you calm down! Don’t panic!” Brother Hwa was the only one who could remain calm. He was about to pull Han Fei away when Xiao Fang beside him yelped. “Behind you! Brother Hwa, look behind you!”

Brother Hwa and Han Fei turned around at the same time. One of the doors in the corridor of the 14th floor was open. A face poked out and was staring at them in the dark.

“That’s Room 1144, right?”