I had never witnessed a dead body fall from a height to the ground. I was simply stunned, just staring at that mess—barely recognizable as human—not far away. I couldn't scream; I couldn't look away.

At that moment, Pi Hou'er, whom I always saw as timid and jumpy, surprisingly managed to think of calling the police amidst his panic.

Just then, someone bolted out of the building behind me, brushing past me. He glanced over casually, then rushed toward the fallen person. I swear, for a fraction of a second, I saw a flicker of a smile play on his lips—a smile that felt unsettlingly strange. But as he neared the figure on the ground, he suddenly erupted into loud wails.

When Pi Hou'er returned, his eyes snapped wide open. He pointed at the weeping man and shouted, "Wu Qian..."

Wu Qian was Uncle Wu's son. I snapped out of my shock too, looking at Pi Hou'er in disbelief. Could it be such a coincidence that trouble struck his family just as we arrived?

Wu Qian seemed on the verge of collapsing from grief, and what looked like a neighbor instinctively held him back from rushing toward the body.

The police arrived quickly.

The scene became chaotic. Pi Hou'er and I didn't rush to comfort Wu Qian; I don't know why, perhaps it was related to that bizarre smile.

I told Pi Hou'er what I saw. He frowned, silent, his face extremely grim.

We returned to Pi Hou'er’s dilapidated house on the outskirts of the city. To investigate his family's issue, he had sold almost everything; the place was practically bare, yet he hadn't given up.

Deciding to leave Wu Qian alone for the moment, we continued our search for information about that place. It was arduous work. I once asked him why he was doing this. At first, he was evasive, but one time he finally confided in me, telling me that before finding me, he had sought out everyone who claimed to have supernatural abilities—sorcerers, Taoist priests, fortune-tellers, and monks. Looking back, it was then he realized how many frauds there were in the world.

Eventually, one monk seemed to possess some genuine insight and told him that every effect has a cause, and the only way to break this cycle was to find the original cause.

We once visited the location, but only took a single glance from a distance before quickly leaving. For some unknown reason, looking at it involuntarily filled us with dread.

In our investigation, we discovered that the place had been uninhabited ever since, and no one seemed to care about it, not even when we inquired with relevant departments—no one offered any comment.

Information was scarce, but not entirely absent. We learned at least that the site was originally designed by a famous British architect, funded by a wealthy merchant whose entire family lived there until they fled due to war, leaving the property vacant.

However, we hadn't managed to track down the merchant’s history. That aspect was currently a dead end due to the chaos of those times, but Pi Hou'er showed no signs of quitting.

This gave me an odd sensation: that we were among the very first group to inhabit that place after it became empty, and likely the last, given that we were all destined to die there under mysterious circumstances.

Since the issues surrounding Wu Qian’s family wouldn't resolve quickly, we prepared to visit the neighbors from across the hall, Uncle Ye.

Unexpectedly, Uncle Ye’s family had already moved from the address Pi Hou'er had found, and we couldn't track down his current location.

With no other leads, we had to return to Wu Qian’s house.

Downstairs, I couldn't help but look at the spot where the person had fallen from above. Even after so many days, a faint, irregular black stain remained on the ground, making my whole body tense up.

No one was home at Wu Qian’s place. A neighbor told us that the person who fell was actually Wu Qian's mother. I was secretly stunned; I couldn't believe the figure on the ground that day had been a woman.

We then learned that Wu Qian’s father had recently disappeared without a trace. It was peculiar; he vanished on his way to work one day. After reporting it, the police searched for a long time with no results.

"Where is Wu Qian?" I asked the neighbor.

Pi Hou'er kept wiping the cold sweat from his face.

The final piece of information was almost unbelievable: after being away for a short time, Wu Qian had been admitted to a mental hospital.

For the sake of our investigation, Pi Hou'er and I decided to visit West City Psychiatric Hospital. Even though my memory is fading, that experience remains so deeply etched in my mind that I can never forget it.

The doctor in charge of Wu Qian was named Doctor Wang. We told him we were Wu Qian’s friends and wanted to see him. Initially, Doctor Wang seemed reluctant, mentioning that Wu Qian had become somewhat aggressive, having injured both doctors and nurses.

Under our insistence, he finally conceded reluctantly, "If you must see him, fine, but you can only visit from outside the door."

At least it was a chance to see him, so we tentatively agreed.

As we left Doctor Wang’s office, I asked him, "Does Wu Qian have any other behavioral patterns?"

He frowned, thought for a moment, and said, "Besides intermittent aggressive episodes, he often caresses his body, as if he’s in pain somewhere. But since arriving, he's mostly silent. We ask him nothing, so we have no idea if there are specific areas causing him discomfort."

As we spoke, Doctor Wang led us down a grayish-white corridor. From the tightly shut rooms on either side, screams and cries occasionally echoed. Without experiencing it firsthand, one couldn't imagine the scene—it was like being in a world gone mad. The small glass windows on the patient doors were welded with fine metal mesh. As we passed the rooms, we saw patients standing inside, staring intently at us. Those indescribably eerie gazes gave me a sudden feeling: it wasn't us observing them; it was them observing us.

We reached almost the very end of the corridor when Doctor Wang said, "This is the one."

Pi Hou'er and I carefully approached the door. Through the small glass window, I saw a man sitting on the cot in the corner, his hair a mess, so gaunt he looked like skin stretched over bone.

I couldn't believe my eyes. How could he have wasted away to resemble a skeleton wearing human skin in such a short time? How was this physically possible under normal circumstances?

From the side, I could see his sunken eyes, shadowed all around like a raccoon’s, and his gaze appeared listless and vacant.

"Wh-Why is he like this?" I couldn't help but ask Doctor Wang, astonished.

He looked somewhat uneasy. "Wu Qian hasn't eaten or drunk anything since he arrived. He even pulls out the IV lines when we try to give him a nutrient infusion, as if he’s determined to starve himself to death."

Pi Hou'er stood silently beside me, staring fixedly at Wu Qian inside the room. I turned my head to ask for his thoughts, but in that split second of turning, my gaze accidentally swept across the reflection of the room in the small windowpane.

Instantly, my entire body went rigid, and my eyes snapped wide open involuntarily.

There was supposed to be only Wu Qian sitting on the cot in the room, but the reflection in the glass showed two figures.