As Tao Juan drifted into the room, Xu Hui felt the temperature plummet instantly, a chilling aura gradually enveloping him. He could only retreat steadily, trying to maintain a distance from her.

“What exactly do you want?” Xu Hui couldn’t help but ask.

“I want you to stay with me.”

Tao Juan’s voice echoed with a chilling resonance, immediately followed by a strange, escalating giggle. The laughter struck at Xu Hui’s chest, tightening his throat and bringing on waves of suffocation.

“No…” Xu Hui roared, his finger tightening, and he pulled the trigger.

The massive gunshot instantly drowned out the laughter, affording Xu Hui a sudden sense of relief in his chest and allowing his breathing to ease. He let out a long, ragged breath.

Simultaneously, the bullet shot from the muzzle, striking the head Tao Juan held, piercing between her eyebrows before burying itself in her body.

“Whoosh…” A sudden, sharp gust of wind whipped up from the ground. As the bullet tore through her form, Tao Juan’s entire figure abruptly fragmented, scattering into the air before dissolving into countless motes of dust, vanishing like smoke before Xu Hui’s eyes; her head was instantly gone.

As the echo of the gunshot faded, Xu Hui remained frozen, gun aimed straight ahead. The room fell into an abnormal silence, save for the frantic thudding of his own heart in his ears. He gasped for air uncontrollably. This was his first face-to-face confrontation with a female ghost, and it was Tao Juan—the pain that had always been buried deepest within him. The sensation felt as if a piece of flesh had been violently torn from his core, a pain so deep it left him reeling long after.

But the ordeal was far from over. The icy chill in the room still flowed quietly around him. Xu Hui could see his own breath condense into white vapor before him, a coldness that seemed to seep into his very marrow encompassing him.

For a long moment, he stood stock-still in the center of the room, weapon raised, unsure of his next move.

He swallowed hard several times before finally trying to force his body to relax. Only then did he feel his mind begin to regain the capacity to think.

With one hand still gripping the gun, he wiped sweat that was starting to run into his eyes with the other. A glance out of the corner of his eye caught the ajar doorway, causing a fresh jolt of alarm. He immediately lifted his leg, preparing to rush towards the exit.

However, the moment his leg moved, his foot struck something—a round object, like a ball. Xu Hui’s expression changed instantly. He lowered his gaze to his feet and saw Tao Juan’s head resting there, face turned upward. Her expression was grotesque, her lips a distorted, purplish-black, her gaping mouth like a bottomless pit, seemingly screaming at him soundlessly.

Xu Hui felt his heart nearly stop. After enduring this terror twice, his fear began to curdle into sheer frustration. Gritting his teeth, a vicious glint flashing in his eyes, he kicked out, connecting squarely with Tao Juan’s head. The bloody, severed head soared into the air like a football, tracing an arc toward the far side of the room.

Seizing the opportunity, Xu Hui bolted toward the door. Though it was only a dozen paces away, the door slammed shut with a resounding thud right before he reached it.

“No…”

Xu Hui roared, slamming his fist repeatedly against the solid wood.

After countless futile blows, he stopped the pointless exertion, turning sluggishly to lean against the door, sliding down to sit on the floor. Whether due to the room’s cold or exhaustion, an indescribable weakness washed over his entire body.

Not far in front of him, a patch of white mist suddenly coalesced from the air, rapidly solidifying into Tao Juan’s headless body. A rolling sound echoed in the room as her head began to trundle from a corner toward her body, leaving a long, slick streak on the wooden floor behind it.

Xu Hui acted as if he saw nothing, sitting dumbly on the floor, head bowed, the hand holding the gun resting on his drawn-up knee, appearing utterly bereft of spirit.

Tao Juan’s head did not roll to meet her body; instead, it stopped not far from Xu Hui, its face directed squarely at him. The bullet had left no visible entry wound on her skull, but her short hair, plastered to her cheeks with blood, had obscured her features entirely. All that remained distinguishable were two stark white eyes and a black, cavernous mouth.

“You… must… die… too…”

Tao Juan’s voice sounded squeezed through a crack, high-pitched and tremulous, like the speech of someone freezing to death.

“Why? Why…” Xu Hui murmured softly, the question directed perhaps at Tao Juan, perhaps only to himself.

“You… know… why…”

Xu Hui shuddered violently and slowly raised his head, instinctively wary of looking directly at Tao Juan’s face.

But as his gaze swept past the severed head before him, it settled upon her headless torso hanging suspended in the air. A violent chill coursed through him.

The body, clad in its blood-red dress, remained floating. Blood dripped ceaselessly from the hem of the gown and her feet onto the floor, pooling into a dark crimson stain. That, however, was not the most horrifying sight. Xu Hui witnessed the very thing he dreaded most: Tao Juan’s slightly distended abdomen was visibly, slowly, undulating.

Xu Hui lurched upright in terror, but in his haste, his head struck the door with a heavy thunk.

At that moment, Tao Juan’s face contorted into an even more savage grimace. Though her mouth was stretched wide in what resembled a smile, it exuded an aura of profound agony.

As her mouth stretched wider, the protrusion in her abdomen writhed more fiercely, looking increasingly as though something were struggling to force its way out.

Witnessing this, Xu Hui’s terror multiplied. The gun in his hand gripped tighter. He watched as Tao Juan’s belly swelled rapidly, ballooning like an inflatable. Suddenly, a small hand bulged outward from the previously smooth curve of her abdomen. Even through the fabric of the dress, the five short, distinct fingers were clearly visible.

“No… no… this is impossible.” He shook his head frantically, overwhelmed by horror. In his sheer panic, he suddenly remembered that after the case had closed years ago, Tao Juan’s remains, along with the child she carried, had been cremated.

Why, after so many years, had her vengeful spirit lingered, manifesting in this small building?

The thought momentarily stalled him, but the next development allowed no time for rumination. He watched the struggling mass inside Tao Juan’s rapidly expanding stomach intensify its movements. With a final, violent surge, there was a sharp crack—her abdomen exploded outward like a burst watermelon. A spray of blood mixed with internal viscera splattered across the floor, some adhering to the wall not far opposite her. Due to the angle, a small portion sprayed toward Xu Hui. He managed to raise an arm just in time to block the worst of it, but his arm and side were coated with the spat blood and shredded tissue. He was instantly assaulted by a stench of rotten meat.

Xu Hui barely registered the gore. Peering through the arm shielding his face, he could see, just in front of the bloody, gaping hole in Tao Juan’s torso, a mass of tissue slithering on the floor, resembling a blob of rotting mud. Before he could properly discern its shape, the lump of flesh suddenly opened a pair of eyes, fixing them tightly upon Xu Hui.