Following Xiao Ma across the street, walking along the curb for a while, he then mysteriously slipped into a narrow alleyway.

Seeing his furtive movements, I thought to myself that this guy certainly had an unusual agenda; perhaps he was still engaged in underground drug deals, and with Boss Tong's death, he had likely taken over his business.

Thinking this, I stealthily watched Xiao Ma from the alley entrance until he reached the end and turned into a doorway before I followed.

The reason for my caution was that in such narrow Beijing hutongs, if I showed myself behind him, I would be easily spotted, which would inevitably alert him.

However, if I kept a distance, it would be extremely easy to lose sight of him.

Sure enough, when I reached the wooden door at the end of the hutong, it was already tightly locked from the inside.

I carefully placed my palm against the wooden door and pushed hard. The door creaked, sounding as if it were severely decayed. With my current superhuman strength, even a slight increase in force would shatter it.

If that happened, the person inside would surely become vigilant, and my investigation would be hindered.

To be honest, such wooden doors are rare in Beijing now because they are difficult to secure against theft.

No matter how sturdy a wooden door is, over time it will rot.

Those that remain are usually relics from Tongli that were spared demolition, and most of them are quite old.

The door before me was no exception; I could no longer discern its original color. Beneath the mottled old paint, the darkened wood was more prominent. Many advertisements once pasted on the door had peeled away with the rain, leaving only faintly visible characters.

I truly could not imagine what lay inside this door—perhaps the back entrance to an old courtyard, or maybe a storage room, or even an abandoned toilet. In any case, it would not be a place of splendor or luxury.

I pressed my ear slightly against the wood and heard voices from within. Although the distance was too great to make out the words, I noticed something unusual: the sound seemed to come from only one person, the same man muttering continuously.

I recognized Xiao Ma's voice and was certain that the person talking to himself inside was him, but what on earth he was doing, I had no idea.

I had no choice but to listen while looking for any cracks in the door that might allow me a peek.

I actually managed to find a gap, about as wide as a finger, near the height of my knee.

I squatted down and strained to look inside. The view was pitch black, save for a patch of yellow Nianli writhing on the ground, resembling a bizarre, serpentine human shape.

"What in the world is this? Does Xiao Ma have some strange quirk, crawling around on the floor behind this door?" I muttered to myself, my curiosity becoming hard to suppress.

Yet, I still didn't rush in, because this kind of Nianli from Xiao Ma suggested he was not a normal human.

Ever since I could distinguish the colors of Nian Ti, I had noticed that almost all ordinary humans possessed white Nianli; the extremely wicked had a trace of black; but yellow Nian was generally only found in animals—the highly aggressive kind.

Could it be that Xiao Ma wasn't human at all, but one of the legendary Yao guai?

I had seen Yao guai before, but those existed only in illusions. Witnessing such a strange occurrence with my own eyes was a first.

As I pondered this, I saw the yellow Nian gradually turn white, and then the figure of Xiao Ma, which had been lying on the ground, slowly shifted to a standing position.

I couldn't help but wonder: had this fellow transformed from an animal back into a person again?

Just as I had this thought, Xiao Ma began walking toward the door.

Seeing his gait was bizarre, swaying like a snake, I felt a strange sensation rise within me.

But since he was about to open the door and come out, it was best for me to hide first.

So, I quickly retreated from the hutong, positioning myself near the entrance, pretending to be on the phone, and watched for whoever emerged.

I was certain Xiao Ma would come out because this hutong was a dead end. Although there were two doors inside, the large iron gate opposite the wooden door was chained shut, the chain almost rusted solid; normally, no one would enter or exit from there.

Yet, after waiting at the alley entrance for a long time, no one emerged.

Just as I was about to venture back in, I suddenly saw a pure young girl in a denim jacket walking toward me from inside the hutong.

I froze for a moment as the girl walked past me.

I felt puzzled, wondering where this girl had come from. Could she have come out of that wooden door? Did someone actually live behind that wooden door? Had I seen things incorrectly?

After the girl walked further away, I prepared to go back into the hutong for another look.

Walking to the end, I found that neither the wooden door nor the large iron gate opposite had moved; the wooden door remained firmly shut.

I squatted down again to check the situation inside the wooden door and found that there was no movement at all.

Listening intently by pressing my ear against it, I heard no unusual sounds either.

"Damn it... he got away!" I murmured to myself.

This time, I abandoned all restraint and kicked the door open with a forceful kick.

Upon entering, I half expected to find a family mid-meal, staring at me, so I could tell them I had stumbled in by accident.

Instead, the view before me was utterly black, impossible to see anything even with my hand outstretched.

Although I could see nothing, the pervasive, peculiar odor in the air warned me of immense danger here.

Frankly, this smell was not pleasant, but it left a deep impression on me.

As a child, when I was playing in a graveyard with classmates, I accidentally fell into a grave pit. Though I didn't see a corpse's head, I was scared half to death.

That was because inside the empty grave pit, there was a snake shed, over two meters long.

To this day, I remember its repulsive, coiled form and the pungent stench.

Now, the same kind of nausea-inducing snake-shed smell drifted before my nose.

This time, it was incredibly strong, almost rushing me, making me stagger back several steps.

I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight, suddenly spotting a shimmering green figure lying on the ground, startling me so much I nearly jumped out of my skin.

The figure was prostrate, face down, in a posture resembling the deep bowing rituals performed by pilgrims in Tibet.

However, this glowing green person currently exuded an aura of death and showed no sign of moving.

"It's a dead body..." I thought silently, then asked myself, "Why is the posture so strange, and the skin color so unusual?"

Thinking this, I moved closer to the prone corpse and realized that the green light reflecting off him wasn't his skin color, but rather layer upon layer of protrusions resembling snake scales.

These minute scales covered the entire man, making the hair on my arms stand on end.

Smelling the air and seeing the corpse covered in scales, I suddenly had a flash of realization: "This isn't a dead body! It's a giant snake shed!"

Indeed, once I had this thought, I noticed an extremely thin black fissure running along the back of the "person" lying on the floor.

I had nothing on me and didn't want to touch the foul-smelling thing with my hands, so I kicked it up with my foot.

The shed rolled a few times on the ground, limp like an over-deflated inflatable toy.

The split on its back opened and closed as it tumbled, squeezing out some viscous necrotic fluid.

In an instant, the overwhelming stench intensified tenfold.

"Damn it! It must have just shed, how disgusting!"

I scanned the area with my phone's light and discovered that this was a long-abandoned corridor.

Perhaps when the building was renovated, this passage was repurposed for storage.

It held a few old bicycles, some shredded plastic swimming rings, wooden shelving units, and stacks of old newspapers.

These items blocked the other end of the corridor, and since no one had entered through the back wooden door, it had become a naturally sealed space.

This area had likely been untouched for a decade or more, covered everywhere in a thick layer of dust.

Besides the humanoid snake shed, I saw other older, dirty, and repulsive remnants of snake molting.

Although I didn't know what creature had shed its skin here, this place had clearly become its lair.

Aside from garbage that would coat my hands in grime, there was nothing else suspicious. Xiao Ma was gone.

So, I lingered no longer, preparing to retreat first.

At that moment, turning around, I realized the snake shed on the ground had vanished.

This shock was significant because I had securely bolted the door from the inside when I entered, meaning no one could have come in.

I checked the door; it was still latched, confirming no one had entered.

Then the snake shed...

Driven by instinct, I looked up above me.

What I saw was alarming: the eerie human face imprinted on the shed was staring down at me with empty eyes, hanging inverted from the wall, its body trembling slightly.

Seeing the shed seemingly come alive, I was momentarily speechless, my eyes wide open, just staring at the ceiling.

Then, several drops of sticky, foul-smelling necrotic fluid dripped from the shed's eye sockets, splattering right onto my face, nearly driving me mad.

I frantically took out tissues to wipe the mucus from my face while retreating a few steps.

At that moment, in my vision, a trace of yellow Nian appeared within the previously lifeless humanoid snake shed.

The shed had resurrected! I was so shocked I nearly froze.

I spat on the ground a few times, vigorously wiping my face clean. My mind raced, deciding whether to flee immediately or observe further.

But time for deliberation was up; the snake shed clinging to the wall was rapidly sliding down toward me.

Watching that ugly, utterly bizarre face rush toward me, my anger finally flared. I curled my fingers and, grabbing the thing from the wall with invisible force, slammed it violently onto the floor.

The thing struggled to rise, so I immediately lunged forward with a straight punch, sending it tumbling backward several times with a shrill, strange cry.