Chapter 252: Xu Qin's Curse

The Doctor’s 2 medical reports read like normal reports and were done professionally until Han Fei saw the entry on the 25th.  ‘I shouldn’t have eaten the writer?’ With the connection to Dreamer’s drawing, Han Fei believed the Doctor was one of the two who killed Spider. ‘In real life, Spider had murdered all of his subpersonas, why is it the opposite in the cryptic world? Furthermore, based on what I’m reading the subpersonas have murdered Spider more than once and the murders were brutal and macabre.’

He continued to read the report to get to know the Doctor better.

“February 26th, intense pain came from the stomach. There’s only a layer of skin left on my stomach. My body is like a balloon blown to the max, ready to burst at any moment.

“February 27th, most of the patients have died, no one can live more than a month. After I inspected their bodies, I realized all of the victims’ stomachs had split open, it was as if something had crawled out from them. Strangely enough, all the victims were heading towards this apartment building before they died, they collapsed on the journey here and died. Based on this information, I can be certain that he is back. I find it hard to believe that he is so hard to kill.

“February 28th, the plant was destroyed, the people who lost their jobs scattered in the alley. The rumours about the dirty meat had spread like wildfire. To stop this chaos, to return everything to normal, I have to figure out a way to kill him again.” The Doctor wrote down many things in this second medical journal. It was clear that he was not in a good condition. The last few pages were stained with blood, it appeared like he coughed on them when he was writing them.

‘The doctor’s aim is the writer so why the sudden change of target to Xu Qin? Furthermore, this Doctor’s mind is a bit insane, the factory was manufacturing human meat and all the workers are pig-faced monsters but the Doctor appeared to be unable to see that. He instead saw the monsters as fellow kin.’ The boundary between human and animal was blurred at Cattle Alley, Han Fei couldn’t help but wonder if the doctor had become a pig-faced monster himself. When the beast won over humanity, he would think everything that happened inside Cattle Alley was perfectly normal because he too had become an animal with a mask.

Han Fei was still considering the connection when a loud boom came from downstairs and the whole building shook. The layout of the rooms at the House of the Butcher was crooked and senseless. Beyond the window of the Doctor’s room was another room. Trapped in this maze, Han Fei had no idea what happened outside the building. Han Fei hurriedly turned back to the Dreamer, “After Xu Qin came to this place, where did she go next?” Before the Dreamer could speak, the building was rammed into again. It felt like the building could collapse at any moment.

Hugging his head, the Dreamer curled up at the corner. He was like a child abandoned by the world. This subpersona represented the loneliness and sense of abandonment in Spider. He also represented the remaining childlike innocence in the man.

“Only by finding Xu Qin that we can live, we’ll all die if we can’t find her.” Han Fei squatted down beside the Dreamer. The boy knew many things but he had not told Han Fei everything. Han Fei chose to believe the kid because Xu Qin believed in him. Furthermore, the boy did not exhibit the symptoms described by the Doctor so he probably didn’t participate in their crazy rituals.

“You’re not purposely trying to buy time, are you?” Han Fei placed Rest in Peace on the boy’s shoulder and he demanded in a chilling tone, “Honestly, I’m not interested at all in the tenants here, I don’t wish to kill any of you. I don’t care whether you’re good or not. The main reason I came here is to bring her back. I don’t care what the plan is, if you intend to stop me, then I’ll have to kill you.” The pairs of pale arms materialized. A special pressure came from Han Fei’s knife, it could expose any kind of sin.

After reading the Doctor’s medical reports, Han Fei knew that there was not one sane person at this building, he needed to find Xu Qin as soon as possible. With the knife placed on his neck, the Dreamer’s hands shook. He was terrified. Taking out the pen and paper, the Dreamer drew several quick paintings. The general idea was, after Xu Qin saw the doctor’s medical reports, the curse and mask of the chef started to go out of control. When she exited the room, the people waiting for her outside the room ambushed her to try to grab her mask. Eventually they all disappeared down the corridor.

Studying the simple paintings, Han Fei had no idea whether he could trust the Dreamer or not. He had the boy lead the way and stealthily took out the red paper doll from his inventory. At the House of the Butcher, there was some kind of inhibition that dampened the connection between the doll and Xu Qin. They had to be extremely close before the doll would react. After leaving the Doctor’s place, the Dreamer headed down the direction Xu Qin took while Han Fei followed behind him with the knife.

Even though he had jhis neighbours with him, Han Fei didn’t have much confidence because he was going up against a whole building of butchers. The ramming against the building continued. The interior of the building was slowly morphing into the living compound in real life. Spider had personally walked through these corridors and steps before. As they passed the rooms, Han Fei started to see blood. But the strange thing was, about 10 seconds after the blood stained the wall, they would disappear as if consumed by the building itself.

‘No wonder I haven’t seen any blood on the way.’ He reached out to touch the wall and he was surprised to feel a human warmth. In fact he could even feel the heartbeat underneath. ‘The building has come alive?’

The building was cleaning up the bodies and blood but even so, the blood started to pool around Han Fei. He was heading down a path towards death. They came to the first floor where the blood was so thick that the building couldn’t operate fast enough to clean them. The paper doll in his pocket finally reacted and showed a beautiful smile. The Dreamer stopped moving. Han Fei passed through another room carefully and turned to look at the door at the end of the corridor.

Blood leaked out from the edges of the old door. Before the blood could hit the ground, the building had already sucked it dry. ‘Xu Qin is behind this door.’ Han Fei pushed the door open. The disappearing red appeared to have gathered inside this room. 3 monsters in pig masks were staring at the centre of the room.

At the place where the blood was thickest stood a woman. Her body was pierced through by 12 table knives. Blood formed red vines and weaved into a shield around her. Her pale skin was slashed open and her face was a mix of madness and illness. At that moment, she held her last knife above her heart. As the knife neared the heart, an endless curse surfaced from her skin. With this last knife, all the curse would be released from her body!