The two men reached the stairwell.
The iron door to the third floor hung open, unleashing a putrid stench—identical to the corpse fluid dripping in their room. The reek of rotting flesh.
Liu Chengfeng gagged, covering his nose as they ascended. On the third floor, the stench intensified. He doubled over, vomiting his dinner onto the sticky floor.
Ning Qiushui patted his back. "Corpse fluid," he muttered, surveying the darkness. "The entire floor's coated."
Their shoes squelched through viscous sludge as they approached the first room. Moonlight revealed a nightmare: dozens of decaying corpses piled like grotesque sculptures. Some fresh and bloody, others skeletal with clinging hair. All bore intact heads frozen in eerie grins.
"Fuck…" Liu Chengfeng staggered back, trembling. He flung open other doors—identical scenes of carnage. Wang Yuning and Ya Mo's mutilated bodies lay among the masses, their flesh carved by blade and fork.
"All the villa's original residents…" Ning Qiushui gazed at the darkened neighboring houses. "We're not the first caretakers. Those guest rooms downstairs… meant for others like us."
Liu Chengfeng leaned against the wall, ghost-pale. "Let's go back… If it returns—"
"Truth's close," Ning Qiushui interrupted. "Don't you want to know what devoured an entire community?"
They pressed onward, finding a pristine study at the corridor's end. Dust swirled as they entered. A small skeleton—likely a teenage girl—crouched in the corner, clutching a teddy bear with obsidian eyes.
"No fork marks," Ning Qiushui observed. "Starved or dehydrated." He pointed at rusted window bars. "Parents installed these to protect her… ended up trapping her."
Liu Chengfeng shuddered, imagining the girl's final days. His flashlight beam caught something beneath the skeleton: "Look! Behind her—there's something!"