Chapter Three: The Evil Spirit

Watching the elevator doors close and descend, the burly man’s face twisted with rage. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he turned, ready to hurl curses at Qi Chen.

“You didn’t notice? As soon as the elevator left, the sound vanished,” Qi Chen cut in, blocking the words at the tip of the man’s tongue.

“What… what do you mean?” The man swallowed hard, recalling Qi Chen’s recent actions. “There was danger in the elevator? Hiss—”

Suddenly, the burly man collapsed, clutching each foot with his hands, a cry of unbearable pain escaping his lips.

Qi Chen quickly turned to look. The blood-red high heels embedded on the man’s feet had grown even taller than before. The heels now reached nearly ten centimeters, inflicting excruciating pain on the balls of his feet—twisting an ankle seemed almost inevitable with every step.

Worse, these shoes didn’t fit him at all.

They were nothing short of torture devices.

“Can you stand?” Qi Chen reached out to help, but the man could barely move. He, too, sensed something was wrong.

“There’s something pressing down on my feet!” the man cried, gripping his twisted feet. He still couldn’t see the bloody red shadows—only the grotesquely deformed shape of his own feet.

Ding-dong!

The sudden chime made both men stiffen. The elevator carrying the bespectacled trio had returned.

Clang!

The doors slid open, spilling harsh white light into the corridor, illuminating the faces of Qi Chen and the burly man.

This time, there was no need for Qi Chen to warn him. The burly man fell silent of his own accord.

The elevator before them was a scene from hell—crimson soaked every surface, and the stench of blood was so thick it made them want to retch.

“Move!” Qi Chen saw nothing overtly supernatural within, but he knew better than to linger. He seized the burly man by the collar and dragged him toward the stairwell.

The man gritted his teeth, enduring the agony in his feet, pushing against the floor to ease Qi Chen’s burden.

Fortunately, the emergency exit was unlocked. Qi Chen hauled the man inside, gently closed the door behind them, and finally exhaled in relief.

“Thank you, brother…” In the darkness, the man’s voice was low and strained with pain. “My name’s Huang Xu. I’m the building’s security guard.”

“Qi Chen. Here for an interview.”

After this brief exchange, silence fell once more, but Qi Chen still sensed something was off.

Despite the pitch darkness of the stairwell, he could see everything around him almost as clearly as in daylight. How could he possibly possess such night vision?

“Enough noise…” Qi Chen pressed his fingers to his temples. The low, guttural roar in his mind grew clearer, as if something was about to burst from his skull. His heart pounded wildly, a strange impulse surging through him with each beat.

He couldn’t tell if this was terror. All he wanted was to punch something—anything to vent his agitation.

Yet he feared making a sound that would attract whatever unknown entity lurked in the building.

“What kind of world is this? Even a job interview has to be this difficult?” Qi Chen leaned against the wall, its coldness seeping through his thin shirt, calming his nerves.

“Huang, what exactly happened with the previous cases in this building?” Unwilling to wait for death, Qi Chen tried to gather as much information as possible.

Huang Xu did not disappoint.

As a security guard, he was familiar with the recent cases.

“There was a serial killer. Targeted women in high heels in the building—got away with it seven or eight times. The local precinct sent officers multiple times but never caught him.

“Later, I heard some special city unit took him out here in the building.

“I’m just a guard, so I don’t know all the details,” Huang Xu winced, the blood-red heels on his feet still growing, nearly flattening his feet with pain searing through his ankles.

“But… I once found a victim, her shoes looked like the killer had smeared them in fresh blood.”

Swish!

The corridor’s motion sensor lights suddenly flickered on, their harsh glow crawling up the walls, while faint, rhythmic footsteps drifted up from below.

Huang Xu’s face turned ashen; Qi Chen’s skin prickled with goosebumps.

A chill, cold as death, crept from their feet to every inch of their bodies.

Tap. Tap.

Clear footsteps echoed from downstairs, each step perfectly spaced.

“Go!” Qi Chen hurried to support Huang Xu, glancing at the man’s feet—he froze instantly.

The high heels had stretched Huang’s feet until they were nearly flat; even if he tried to stand, only his toes could touch the ground.

Escape was impossible.

“You go. There should be another stairwell on this floor—if you hurry, maybe you’ll make it.” With the footsteps and the agony, Huang Xu was utterly defeated, his mind slipping away from the constant pain.

But Qi Chen didn’t hesitate. With a grunt, he hefted Huang Xu into his arms. His arms trembled violently—a grown man weighs easily over two hundred pounds.

Qi Chen had spent the past week living on the streets, barely eating enough to stave off hunger. Now, his strength gave out; he simply couldn’t carry Huang Xu away.

But Huang Xu had tried to save him earlier. Qi Chen couldn’t abandon a good person to die.

A good man shouldn’t be left for dead.

Tap-tap!

The deathly countdown of footsteps drew nearer; the white lights on the walls flickered erratically.

Qi Chen bit down hard, staring as a figure with black hair and a white dress appeared on the stairs below.

Huang Xu, clutched in his arms, stared too—on the verge of madness, he could finally see what defied human understanding.

“A ghost! A ghost!”

The woman in white jerked her head up, bloodshot eyes bulging from their sockets. Her mouth gaped, spitting a jet of black liquid.

A shrill scream pierced the air!

The corridor lights went out in an instant. Huang Xu let out a terrified shout.

But in Qi Chen’s ears, a deeper roar sounded—more terrifying still:

“ROAR!!”

It was like the crack of an eggshell—something burst forth from Qi Chen’s body.

Bang!

A muffled collision, mingled with a heart-rending scream. The corridor lights flared on again.

The woman in white was gone.

Huang Xu, limp in his arms, had lost consciousness, but Qi Chen stared fixedly ahead.

A tall, powerful phantom floated before him—broad shoulders, muscular limbs, every line of its body perfectly sculpted.

“A… substitute? An evil spirit?!”

…