Bai Ru’s heart stirred upon hearing this; she would finally learn about the students who had met with "accidental deaths" at the school.

Wu Zhongyou caught his breath. "After I recovered, an involuntary terror of the school took hold of me. I just wanted to stay as far away as possible. I don't know if it was a psychological scar, but I constantly felt like there were hands waiting right behind me to grab me. Following that, my career quickly plummeted, eventually forcing me to use the excuse of being unwell so I could hide at home and not go out."

"You never told anyone about these things?" Bai Ru asked.

Wu Zhongyou shook his head. "Several times I desperately wanted to tell someone what happened that night, but every time, I felt an indescribable, strange sensation, as if someone were constantly telling me, don't say it, absolutely do not say it."

Bai Ru nodded gently, not pressing the matter further.

Wu Zhongyou closed his eyes and continued his narrative.

He strove to keep the secret of that night, to the point where he lost all interest in work, only taking odd jobs. He relied on his elder brother's occasional financial support and an offer to move in with his brother’s family, but he refused, choosing to remain alone in his small, solitary dwelling.

It wasn't until a dinner at his brother's house that he learned his nephew, his brother’s son, had been accepted into Fuxing Middle School.

Predictably, upon hearing this news, Wu Zhongyou was struck with utter shock and horror.

In that moment, he truly wanted to divulge everything that had happened, but despite gathering his courage for a long time, he ultimately could not speak of that incident.

He kept trying to reassure himself: whatever it was, it was down in the sewers. Besides, so much time had passed, and since the school was built, there had been no reports of anything unusual. Perhaps it amounted to nothing, or perhaps that whole night was simply a terrible nightmare.

However, things did not go as he wished. Suddenly one day, his brother appeared at his doorstep, telling him with profound sorrow that his young nephew was gone—discovered dead in the restroom, both hands severed cleanly at the wrist.

Hearing this, Wu Zhongyou was overcome with such intense fear that his mind spun, and he immediately fainted.

His brother was terrified by Wu Zhongyou's reaction, startled that his brother’s response to the news was even more violent than his own. He quickly rushed him to the hospital.

When Wu Zhongyou awoke in the hospital, he burst into inconsolable tears, weeping uncontrollably no matter who tried to comfort him; even he didn't understand why he was crying so hysterically.

This state persisted for a long time, until late that night, when Wu Zhongyou suddenly stopped crying.

He made up his mind to tell his brother about what happened at the school that night.

His brother had already returned home by then. It wasn't that he didn't want to look after Wu Zhongyou, but his wife was utterly devastated by grief at home. Having no choice, he had to entrust Wu Zhongyou to the hospital’s care while he went back to comfort his wife.

Wu Zhongyou secretly slipped out of the hospital and hurried through the night to his brother’s house.

To his surprise, when he reached his brother’s front door, he found all the lights off, as if they were already asleep.

He found this strange, only later realizing that, according to the calendar, today was the "First Seven"—the seventh day following his brother’s son’s death. He guessed his brother and sister-in-law must be mourning their son. It was said that on the seventh day after death, the soul returns home for a visit. Family members usually prepare a final meal for the departed soul before its return, and then they must strictly avoid being seen; the best course of action was to sleep, or at least hide in bed if sleep wouldn't come. If the returning soul saw a family member, it would cause them attachment, hindering their reincarnation.

Realizing this, Wu Zhongyou involuntarily let his hand drop just as he was about to knock. He didn't know if it was appropriate to enter now. Although he desperately wanted to go in immediately and tell them what he knew, now that he was clear-headed, he understood the anguish his brother's family was enduring over the loss of their son. Revealing the secret at this moment would not help them and was likely only to cause them further distress.

As he hesitated, about to turn away, the front door suddenly slid open a crack from the inside, revealing a face through the gap.

Hearing the sound of the door, Wu Zhongyou turned and let out a startled cry when he saw the face. Only when he clearly recognized it as his brother's did he finally relax.

However, because there were no lights on inside, the deep darkness made his brother’s complexion appear sickly pale, almost blue-tinged.

The hallway light had been out when he arrived, and now there was no light inside either. If not for the ambient light filtering in through the window in the stairwell, Wu Zhongyou wouldn't have been able to see anything in the apartment.

His brother, however, showed no outward emotion. Seeing Wu Zhongyou, he merely nodded. "Why are you here?"

It was clearly a question, yet it emerged from his lips devoid of any feeling.

"Brother, I just came to see you. Are you... alright?" Wu Zhongyou looked at his brother with concern.

"I'm fine. We're eating. Why don't you come in and join us," his brother said, turning and walking inside without waiting for a reply.

Seeing the door wasn't closed, Wu Zhongyou had no choice but to push it open and step in.

"Why aren't you turning on a light?" Wu Zhongyou asked casually upon entering.

"We are eating," his brother replied without turning back.

Fortunately, the interior wasn't so dark as to be completely sightless. Wu Zhongyou followed his brother into the living room.

A dining table stood in the center of the room, laden with bowls of rice and various dishes. Seated around the table, besides his brother, were two other figures. When Wu Zhongyou clearly made out who those two were, every nerve in his body instantly went taut.

At the table, his sister-in-law held a bowl of rice in one hand and a spoon in the other, cheerfully feeding spoonfuls to the child seated beside her.

Wu Zhongyou, of course, recognized the child: it was his brother's son, his nephew, Wu Yinglong.

Upon Wu Zhongyou's appearance, his sister-in-law merely glanced up at him before returning to feeding the child. However, his nephew, Wu Yinglong, slowly turned his head and smiled at him.

Wu Zhongyou was thunderstruck, his mind a blank slate. Instinctively, he spun around and fled from his brother’s apartment, nearly tumbling and scrambling all the way back to his own home.

He burst through his door, slammed it shut, locked it from the inside, and collapsed onto the bed, yanking a blanket over his entire body. His eyes squeezed shut, his frame trembling uncontrollably.

But even with his eyes closed, the image of Wu Yinglong kept flashing before him. That was not the innocent, lively little nephew he remembered; it couldn't even be called human. That little face held no life whatsoever—a rigid, pale blue complexion, marred by a faint, sinister grin pulled unnaturally across its features. Most terrifying were the eyes; even in the dim light, he could see them—slightly bulging, with dull, greyish-white irises.

Those were certainly not the eyes of a living person. That was a corpse; his nephew was a dead man.

Yet, he could clearly see his nephew’s mouth moving, with what looked like grains of rice clinging to the corners.

"He's not human, he's not human..." Wu Zhongyou muttered involuntarily from beneath the covers.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Wu Zhongyou heard a slow, rhythmic knocking at the door. Although he was clearly hidden under the covers, the thump-thump-thump sounded as if it were right beside his ear, jarring him so severely he nearly screamed.

He tried to shrink further into the bedding, but the increasingly urgent knocking still pierced his ears clearly, pounding against his heart and leaving his whole body numb with terror.

It was strange, though; such loud knocking in the dead silence of the night seemed audible only to him. Why weren't any neighbors coming out to check?

Wu Zhongyou squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperately to ignore the sound, yet through the knocking, he heard a thin, sharp voice ask in a mechanical tone, "Is anyone in there? Is anyone in there?"

He dared not answer.

But soon, he heard the front door, which he had just locked, creak open. A moment later, there was a series of soft click-clack footsteps slowly entering the room, interspersed with sounds of groping, as if searching for something. Before long, the footsteps headed toward his bedroom.

Cold sweat instantly soaked through his clothes. Wu Zhongyou dared not breathe a single breath.

The footsteps clearly stopped at his bedroom door, and then a knocking began again, slow and deliberate.

"Anyone home? Anyone home?" The thin voice repeated with the knocking, the force of each strike seemingly growing stronger. Wu Zhongyou cautiously peeked half his head out from under the quilt, fixing his gaze on his bedroom door. In a daze, he thought he saw the door tremble slightly, as if it might collapse at any moment.

Amidst his terror, Wu Zhongyou suddenly remembered that the bedroom door wasn't locked. If whatever was outside could easily open the locked front door, it meant it could enter the inner room at any time. He found it bizarre that the entity outside was still showing such "politeness" by knocking.

Hiding under the covers was merely waiting for death, yet Wu Zhongyou could only continue to curl deeper into the bedding, having no other recourse.

Just then, he heard the sound of the door being pushed open, followed by a set of footsteps.

Wu Zhongyou instinctively held his breath, every nerve pulled taut. He could sense something walking directly to the bedside and then stopping. For a long moment, there was no further movement; it felt as if the entity was confronting him.

He secretly clamped a hand over his mouth, struggling to keep from crying out. Suddenly, he felt something poke him through the quilt, and the sharp voice demanded again, "Anyone home? Anyone home?"

Wu Zhongyou felt an icy chill, penetrating straight to the bone, shoot through him from the exact spot he was poked. He couldn't stop a loud scream and violently threw off the covers.

A child stood by the bed. He glanced at the child in horrified recognition. The figure was terribly familiar, yet utterly alien to Wu Zhongyou. The child’s face was indeed his nephew, Wu Yinglong, but the expression—or rather, the lack thereof—was the problem: a stiff, numb, pale-blue countenance. The corners of its mouth were turned up slightly, unnaturally, as if stretched, seeming to smile yet appearing exceptionally sinister and jarring.

"Who are you?" Wu Zhongyou cried out involuntarily in terror.

Wu Yinglong tilted his head and said in that high-pitched voice, "I came to see you."

As he spoke, he raised his left "hand" and waved it. Wu Zhongyou screamed again in fright. Wu Yinglong’s left hand was gone entirely at the wrist, and he was waving only his forearm, allowing Wu Zhongyou to clearly see the mangled, bloody stump from which blood was continuously gushing.

Wu Zhongyou’s eyes rolled back, and he passed out.