"Su Xuan, the clock has chimed."

Just after sealing the rope, Long Xiwén looked toward Su Xuan.

"Yeah!"

Su Xuan nodded, picked up the Ruyi Stick, and walked out of the room.

Long Xiwén hurriedly followed.

If that thing was trying to convey some message to them, then by the time they reached the living room where the clock was kept, they would likely see something astonishing again, just like what Auntie Li had described earlier—seeing a spirit hall...

"Shh!"

As they went down the stairs from the second floor, Su Xuan suddenly made a silencing gesture.

Walking behind him, Long Xiwén immediately held her breath and fell silent. She turned her gaze to the living room, and her pupils constricted.

A spirit hall!

A spirit hall had indeed appeared in the living room!

There were many wreaths around the hall, with elegiac couplets written on them, and lifelike paper effigies. The whole scene was arranged very formally.

But both of them knew it was fake.

In front of the spirit hall lay a wooden plank covered with a white cloth, outlining the figure of a person.

"Little Wén, it's laid out such a grand scene for us, clearly putting on a play. We'd be rude not to play along."

Su Xuan swaggered over and sat down on a chair, settling in to watch the show.

Long Xiwén also mustered her courage and sat beside Su Xuan.

The two of them stared intently at the white cloth.

It seems the thing under the white cloth is baffled, too. You two are just sitting there watching so politely... how am I supposed to scare you now?!

TICK. TOCK.

TICK. TOCK.

Time slipped by, minute by minute.

Su Xuan and Long Xiwén sat motionlessly, and the thing under the white cloth didn't move either.

The atmosphere, which was originally quite terrifying, now somehow exuded an air of awkwardness.

Su Xuan gazed at the white cloth and said, "Start your performance!"

Damn it! Rushing me, are you?! Fine! Fine! I'll perform for you now!

Suddenly, the thing under the white cloth moved!

A person sat up!

The white cloth then slid off the wooden plank.

The figure looked just like the severed head from before.

CREAK!

The figure was a woman with disheveled hair. She turned her head mechanically, looked at Su Xuan and Long Xiwén, and then made a bizarre gesture.

She actually squatted on the wooden plank in a defecating posture.

"Su Xuan, maybe you shouldn't watch."

"The scene is rather indecent," Long Xiwén whispered to Su Xuan.

Su Xuan pursed his lips and turned his gaze away for a moment, but then snapped it back!

Childbirth!

The woman was actually giving birth!

A wrinkled baby was born right there on the wooden plank!

After giving birth, the woman collapsed, lying listlessly without moving, as if dead.

SQUEAK! SQUEAK!

The newborn child, however, stood up straight and began to shriek strangely.

Its appearance was terrifying. Its entire body was covered with eyes, as if it wanted to see everything in the world with perfect clarity.

"It must be the one..." Su Xuan said to Long Xiwén while looking at the child. "It must be the true source of the villa's haunting. I guess it has finally decided to meet us face-to-face."

"Mm," Long Xiwén nodded, though it was unclear if she truly understood.

The child suddenly jumped off the wooden plank and ran off in a certain direction!

"Come on, follow it!"

Su Xuan grabbed the Ruyi Stick, got up, and gave chase.

He chased it all the way to the villa's basement.

The basement had been converted into a wine cellar. Wine cabinets lined all four walls.

The child, ignoring Su Xuan and Long Xiwén in pursuit, punched and kicked the wine cabinets with a look of intense hatred.

The next second, the child suddenly crashed into a wine cabinet and vanished from sight.

"There must be a secret behind the wine cabinet."

Su Xuan pushed the wine cabinet aside, revealing the wall behind it.

But it was just a wall, nothing more.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Su Xuan tapped the wall with the Ruyi Stick. The sound was hollow. He said to Long Xiwén, "This wall is hollow."

BOOM!

Before Long Xiwén could react, Su Xuan forcefully swung the Ruyi Stick and smashed it against the wall.

A spiderweb of cracks spread across the surface.

Su Xuan struck it again.

CRASH!

The wall crumbled, revealing a pitch-black hole.

Su Xuan took out his phone, turned on its flashlight, and shone it inside. A strange expression crossed his face.

The hole opened into a space of about seven or eight square meters. Inside was a row of wooden planks for beds, a dilapidated desk, and even a toilet.

There was nothing else.

"Su Xuan, this looks like a prison cell!" Long Xiwén whispered. "It seems like someone was imprisoned here. More than one person, actually."

"Mm." Su Xuan nodded and stepped into the "prison cell."

Long Xiwén followed him inside, turning on her own phone's flashlight to look around.

But after a long while, they still hadn't found any valuable clues.

However, Su Xuan did notice something unusual. One of the walls was very clean, as if it had been scrubbed clean.

"If my guess is right, there used to be some very important information on this wall, but someone deliberately wiped it clean."

Su Xuan lightly traced his finger across the wall, his expression showing a hint of regret.

Just then, the child suddenly appeared.

All the eyes on its body suddenly glowed with red light, illuminating the wall and revealing a series of images on it.

The first image showed a bearded man throwing a woman into the cell.

In the second image, the man threw another woman into the cell.

In the third image, a third woman was thrown in...

By the sixth image, there were a total of six women in the prison cell.

Su Xuan and Long Xiwén continued to watch the images unfold.

They saw one of the women was pregnant, her belly large. She knelt before the man, her hands clasped as if begging him to release her. But the man strangled her with a rope, right in front of the other women.

The man began digging a hole in the cell floor with a shovel.

He dumped the pregnant woman into the hole and buried her.

That was where the images ended.

Su Xuan and Long Xiwén both looked down at the floor.

Su Xuan tapped the floor with the Ruyi Stick, pinpointed a location, and said to Long Xiwén, "Call your people. We've found the true source."

Su Xuan then added, "The previous owner of this villa was a true devil."

Long Xiwén nodded and immediately made a phone call.

A short time later, many police officers arrived at the villa. They entered the cell and dug up a skeleton from beneath the floor.

What made the scene even more disturbing was the discovery of a second skeleton nestled within the first one's pelvis: the bones of a fully formed child.

That night, Auntie Li was also brought over for questioning.

But Auntie Li claimed to know nothing about the underground prison cell, saying that it had nothing to do with her.

However, when Long Xiwén investigated Auntie Li's identity, she uncovered an even greater secret...

[This plot is adapted from a real event, which some of you may have seen in the news.]

[It could be said that hell is empty, and the devils are here on earth~]

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