Kuang Feifan and Xu Hui stared blankly at the painting in their hands for a long moment, the more they looked, the more the face on the man's back in the painting seemed to be smiling at them. For some unknown reason, they both strongly wanted to turn away and stop looking at the painting, but their eyes simply refused to move away from it. Xu Hui desperately wanted Kuang Feifan to throw the painting away, but that thought could only scream silently in his mind; his body was utterly incapable of responding, remaining fixed in the posture of holding up the flashlight to examine the picture.

Kuang Feifan also found himself completely paralyzed, keenly sensing something was wrong, but agonizingly unable to utter a word. Just then, he felt a searing, flame-like burn on the wrist of his left hand, so sharp that he couldn't help but cry out, instinctively flinging his hand away. The painting immediately shot from his grasp, spinning and fluttering as it fell to the floor.

After the painting vanished from their sight, Xu Hui inexplicably shuddered, and his body instantly regained mobility. He looked at Kuang Feifan, who was still shaking his hand, in astonishment and asked, "Do you know what just happened?"

Kuang Feifan was merely shaking his hand instinctively, noticing that aside from that single painful jolt, there was no lingering ache. His gaze fell upon the string of prayer beads around his wrist.

Hearing Xu Hui’s question, he managed a wry smile. "The painting is strange; I don't know why. If those beads hadn't done something just then, who knows what would have become of us."

"What?" Xu Hui hadn't known about the pain Kuang Feifan had felt on his wrist moments before.

Kuang Feifan couldn't recount the whole incident from the start. He bent down carefully, picked up the painting, and placed it face down on the vanity top, hoping to prevent any further trouble from looking at it.

Xu Hui had only asked casually. Seeing how he dealt with the painting, he inquired again, "What now? Was there any name or anything on that painting?"

Kuang Feifan looked at him. "Did you notice if there was anything when you looked earlier?"

Xu Hui thought for a moment and shook his head. "I didn't pay close attention. That smiling face was just too eerie; I didn't examine the rest closely."

Kuang Feifan let his gaze rest on the painting, hesitated for a moment, but decided against turning it over. "Forget it, I don't want to look anymore. This thing is too sinister."

Saying that, he reached out, grabbed the paper of the painting, and crumpled it forcefully into a ball.

Suddenly, a soft, cold snort sounded near his ear.

Kuang Feifan looked back at Xu Hui, perplexed. "Why did you snort?"

Xu Hui blinked in surprise. "What? Wasn't that you making the noise?"

They both looked around; nothing seemed amiss in the surroundings. The only change was that the light inside the room had grown significantly darker than before, seemingly related to the sky outside the window, which was as black as the bottom of a pot.

Xu Hui stopped questioning and turned to yank the white cloths off the other three pieces of furniture: two chairs stacked on top of each other, a broken wicker chair, and an octagonal table.

These items offered no clues, so they both turned their attention back to the vanity.

Xu Hui pointed. "Was the painting found here?"

Kuang Feifan pulled open a drawer beneath the vanity. "It was in here. The other drawer was empty."

Xu Hui cursed under his breath.

Glancing around the room, he asked Kuang Feifan, "You said there was another room with furniture?"

Kuang Feifan nodded.

Xu Hui shrugged. "Let's go take a look. If we still can't find anything, we'll leave this building."

He had to admit that this small building was utterly unsettling; everything seemed to defy common sense. Xu Hui felt he could face a walking zombie without issue, but he couldn't accept this almost illusory, ethereal kind of haunting, or rather, he didn't believe he could handle such things.

Kuang Feifan murmured an acknowledgement and walked toward the door with him.

At the doorway, Xu Hui looked back at the room one last time. As his gaze swept across the vanity, he felt something was subtly wrong, though he couldn't pinpoint what. After taking a few steps forward, he suddenly jolted, whipping his head back toward the vanity. Finally, he knew.

Although the mirror on the vanity was coated in a layer of dust, the reflection of the room inside was still visible. The vanity was angled somewhat diagonally toward the door. When Xu Hui looked back just now, he had seen the area near the door, but he hadn't seen the reflections of himself or Kuang Feifan in the glass.

The first glance was fleeting, making him only sense that something was off. When he realized the issue and looked back at the mirror again, he still couldn't see himself or Kuang Feifan in it.

Xu Hui couldn't help but startle. Staring at the mirror, he reached out to grab Kuang Feifan, who was ahead of him, but his grasp closed on empty air. He quickly twisted his head around and realized Kuang Feifan wasn't in front of him after all.

"Walking pretty fast," Xu Hui muttered, deciding to stop dwelling on the mirror. He stepped forward, about to walk out the door.

Suddenly, he felt a rush of strong wind strike past his side. He instinctively dodged backward, just as a loud BANG echoed—the door slammed shut heavily.

Xu Hui's face changed. If he hadn't reacted quickly enough, the door would have hit him hard, possibly even slamming him against the doorframe.

He realized that in a short span of time, the situation had escalated dramatically.

He was locked alone inside the room.

Xu Hui took a deep, steadying breath, forcing down the rising nervousness and panic. He pulled out his phone to call Kuang Feifan, but there wasn't a single bar of signal. He tried dialing, but the call wouldn't connect at all.

He shoved the phone back into his pocket and cautiously approached the door, turning the handle and pulling hard. The door didn't budge. He frowned and pulled with all his might for a long time; the door was completely immovable, as if it had been welded shut.

He instinctively raised his hand and began hammering on the door, shouting, "Kuang Feifan, are you outside?"

No answer came from beyond the door.

Xu Hui started to feel the strangeness keenly, pounding on the door relentlessly and yelling, "Is anyone out there?"

After a long while, other than his own shouts and the sound of his increasingly ragged, heavy breathing, there was no other response.

Finally, Xu Hui stopped his futile pounding and shouting, turning around to lean against the door. He absently scanned the room, his gaze immediately locking onto the vanity.

He straightened up, walked quickly to the vanity, and stared intently at his reflection in the mirror, desperately trying to confirm whether the person in the glass was truly him.

It was very dark in the room now, like nighttime. Even standing this close to the mirror, he could barely make out that his reflection's face was unnaturally pale, his expression betraying unconcealed anxiety.

He looked around, picked up the white cloth he had tossed onto the floor, and vigorously wiped the mirror clean.

The now-dust-free mirror reflected much more clearly than before. He gestured wildly in front of the glass for a long time, then shone his flashlight—which he had turned off when leaving—on it for a good while, trying to be absolutely certain the person in the mirror was himself.

Only when a wave of exhaustion washed over him did Xu Hui abandon his seemingly pointless, frantic actions, letting out a futile sigh. He simply placed the flashlight on the vanity surface in front of the mirror and instinctively reached to touch the holster hanging beneath his armpit.

The cool grip of the gun handle exposed outside the holster instantly brought a sense of security, and his emotions calmed considerably. A thought suddenly struck him, and he quickly reached for the horn talisman hanging around his neck.

Although he felt nothing unusual, perhaps just a feeling, Xu Hui's somewhat chaotic mind quickly stabilized. At that moment, he realized his previous actions had been quite abnormal, completely unlike his usual reaction in an emergency.

Kuang Feifan didn't know exactly what had happened, but at least for now, he hadn't discovered anything that threatened his life, unless he suddenly went insane and harmed himself.

He moved a chair over, sat down, intending to relax and rest. First, he needed to maintain his composure; second, though he hated to admit it, he felt somewhat tired after the commotion.

Frankly, given Xu Hui's physique, he shouldn't tire so easily, but a wave of drowsiness was indeed washing over him now, making him desperately want to close his eyes and sleep soundly.

The problem was, this was absolutely not the right time to sleep. Sitting on the chair, holding the horn talisman, he tried to relax every muscle, slowly contemplating how to deal with the current situation.

He meticulously scrutinized every corner of the room, hoping to find some clue that would allow him to leave. Outside the window, lightning flashed again, followed by a crash of thunder so loud the entire house seemed to tremble slightly.

The window!

Xu Hui's gaze landed on it, considering whether he could climb out that way.

He stood up and went to the window for a look. Its size was no obstacle for him to climb through. He reached out and gave it a gentle push; the window wasn't locked and opened easily.

Xu Hui leaned out to glance outside. It was pouring rain heavily now, the sound of the downpour drowning out all other noises. He figured even if he screamed with all his might, no one would hear him.

The old-style small building was much taller than modern structures. Without a rope or anything, jumping from the second floor meant, at best, breaking a limb; this wasn't a movie stunt where one could leap from a dozen stories up unharmed. There was no swimming pool below, not even a pile of cushioning trash or cardboard boxes—the window looked out onto genuine bluestone paving.

Of course, Xu Hui was confident in his own abilities. He braced his hands on the window frame and swung one leg up onto the sill.

Unexpectedly, just as his foot was about to clear the window frame, the window he had just pushed open slammed shut toward him as if caught by a sudden gale.

Xu Hui startled and quickly released his grip, pulling his foot back down from the sill.

With a sharp smack, the open window closed. If he had been a fraction of a second slower, his hand would have been caught and crushed.

Xu Hui sucked in a cold breath. It seemed whatever was causing trouble inside didn't want him to escape, and it had cleverly separated him from Kuang Feifan, planning to trap him alone in this room.

His face turned ashen. He backed away slowly, intending to put distance between himself and the windowsill. To his horror, after taking just two steps back, he suddenly felt a rush of air behind him. He spun around to see a white cloth swooping down to cover him from above.

"Ah..." Xu Hui cried out involuntarily, instinctively raising his hands to shield his head. Darkness instantly enveloped his vision as the white cloth descended from mid-air and completely smothered him.