Chapter 24: The Blood Corpse

In the end, with a heart full of anxiety, he decided to stay, clinging to a faint hope. The group had certainly enjoyed themselves with abandon, the revelry beginning a little after eight and not quieting down until well past one in the morning. If the night hadn’t grown cooler and if several of them weren’t already drunk out of their minds, the party might have continued even longer.

The scene was chaotic in the extreme: empty bottles and food containers were strewn everywhere around the pool, and the short, dark-skinned boy named Du Zhou had vomited several times. Once they’d had their fill of fun and drink, everyone went off to rest—there were more than enough empty rooms to go around. Every room from the second to the third floor was up for grabs, and with two couples among them, there would be plenty left over.

Qi Yan took a room beside the study on the second floor, with Li Ruoke directly opposite him. Yang Han and his girlfriend, Cheng Ziyue, claimed the master bedroom on the same floor, while the other couple, Wang Yudong and his girlfriend, Shi Xiaoxue, stayed on the third. As for Du Zhou, drunk as a skunk, he collapsed alone on the sofa in the first-floor living room; it wasn’t cold enough to worry, so a thin blanket would suffice.

All the lights inside and out were switched off, leaving the mess from the party to be cleaned up in the morning by hired hands—no one cared. The house, once so noisy, fell into silence as everyone settled down. The soundproofing was excellent; not even the chirping of insects outside could be heard.

But Qi Yan couldn’t sleep. He hadn’t drunk much, and it wasn’t that he was unused to strange beds—the room itself was perfectly comfortable. It was just that he was used to late nights, and more than that, the uneasy feeling that had come over him as soon as he’d entered the villa had never really faded. Now, in the deep quiet, it was even more pronounced, as if two or three ants were crawling restlessly across his heart.

He returned to his room at half past one, showered, and then tossed and turned in bed until after two, completely unable to sleep. Finally, he gave up and resorted to scrolling through his phone. He tried to watch a show on an app, but after a long wait, nothing loaded. On closer inspection, he realized…the internet was down.

That was odd—surely the Wi-Fi shouldn’t be off? He checked again and saw that even the signal bars were gone; not a single bar remained.

“What the hell is going on?”

Meanwhile, in another room, Li Ruoke was also struggling to sleep. She was exhausted, but little Shirley kept fussing no matter how much she tried to soothe her. Though the baby’s cries weren’t loud, the constant noise was wearing her down.

Yang Han and his girlfriend, Cheng Ziyue, had just finished making love, their bodies slick with sweat.

“Ah—I just remembered, isn’t the air conditioning still on downstairs? Du Zhou is out cold on the sofa. If he sleeps in that cold draft all night, he’ll be sick tomorrow,” Cheng Ziyue suddenly said.

Yang Han, lighting a cigarette post-coitus, lifted his eyelids lazily. “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. He won’t catch cold.”

“Well, since I remembered before sleeping, I’ll go turn it off.” With that, Cheng Ziyue slipped on her underwear and a nightgown.

Yang Han still didn’t move, grinning as he replied, “My wife’s got such a kind heart.”

Cheng Ziyue shot back with a laugh, “You’re just lazy. These are your friends, after all. Go shower—I’ll be right back.”

Since she was already familiar with the villa’s layout, Cheng Ziyue didn’t bother turning on any lights so as not to disturb anyone. She simply used her phone’s flashlight as she made her way downstairs.

On the third floor, Wang Yudong and Shi Xiaoxue were also awake, but unlike Yang Han and Cheng Ziyue, they weren’t kept up by intimacy. Instead, they were embroiled in an argument.

Shi Xiaoxue stood at the window, arms crossed, staring out into the night, her expression shrouded in gloom. Though they were arguing, their voices were low and calm, as if the air itself had grown cold. “When we go back tomorrow…you don’t need to call me anymore. Let’s just end it. I don’t want to fight—it’s pointless.”

Her tone was firm, icy even. No one would have guessed that just a short while ago, they’d seemed perfectly fine at the party; now, things had turned on a dime.

Wang Yudong sat at the edge of the bed, brow furrowed. “When…did you find out?”

Shi Xiaoxue’s face was still blank. She took a deep breath. “I knew a month ago.”

“Then why did you wait until now to confront me?” he asked, stunned.

She, holding in all her anger and frustration, grew more impatient the more he pressed. “Trying to save face for everyone! If this comes out, no one will look good.”

“How ridiculous. I knew everything, yet still had to pretend nothing was wrong, force a smile… But that’s enough. I can’t take it anymore. I really can’t… Don’t worry, I won’t say a word to anyone.”

With that, she couldn’t be bothered to continue. She grabbed her phone and left the room.

Wang Yudong didn’t follow. No sooner had Shi Xiaoxue closed the door behind her than she leaned against the wall in the darkness and began to sob quietly.

Though she kept telling herself he wasn’t worth her tears, once the truth was out, she couldn’t help but cry. She wept for over ten minutes, stifling her sobs so the others wouldn’t hear.

Once she’d finally calmed herself, she wiped her tears and walked to the window facing the front courtyard, intending to open it for some air.

But as she leaned out and looked down, she saw that the water in the pool had turned murky.

Even without the lights on, the pool, lined with blue tiles, should have been a pale color. Now, though…it was pitch black.

She rubbed her eyes, focused her gaze, and looked again—only to see a body floating on the surface, drifting like a leaf…

Meanwhile, Yang Han stepped out of the bathroom, freshly showered, and wondered why Cheng Ziyue had been gone so long. His question was interrupted by a piercing scream from the third floor.

Despite the villa’s excellent soundproofing, the scream was impossible to miss. Everyone who was still awake heard it. Qi Yan, startled, leaped to his feet to investigate just as Li Ruoke, bleary-eyed, emerged from her room, grumbling, “What’s going on… Someone upstairs into S&M now?”

Qi Yan, however, was alarmed. “That’s not a sound you make doing S&M!”

He and Li Ruoke weren’t the only ones. Yang Han appeared as well, glancing at the stairs and then at them. “Have you seen Ziyue? She went downstairs to turn off the air conditioner ages ago and hasn’t come back… Who’s screaming? Is it Xiaoxue? Did Wang Yudong hit her?”

A deep sense of dread exploded in Qi Yan’s chest at the sound of that scream, sending a chill down his spine. He didn’t have time to think—he just shouted, “Hurry, let’s check upstairs!”

The three of them rushed up to find Shi Xiaoxue curled up on the floor, hugging her knees, shaking uncontrollably.

“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you asleep—what are you screaming for?” Yang Han asked, mystified.

Shi Xiaoxue, struck dumb by terror, could only raise a trembling hand and point at the window.

Qi Yan and the others hurried to the window and looked down, immediately noticing the strange change in the pool. He exchanged a glance with Li Ruoke, and the two of them dashed down to the first floor, flung open the door, and ran to the pool’s edge. The moment they stepped outside, a thick, metallic stench of blood hit them, so overpowering it drowned out even the lingering scent of barbecue from the party.

The lighting was poor, so they switched on their phone flashlights and shone them over the water’s surface—

Qi Yan inhaled sharply.

“My god!” Li Ruoke exclaimed, eyes wide in horror.

Floating on the water was indeed a “person,” but the body was a bloody, mangled mess, facedown, limbs splayed in a star shape.

It was impossible to make out who it was, because—this corpse bore not a single scrap of clothing, nor a patch of skin. Yes, not a single bit of skin remained…

The entire outer layer had been completely flayed away, exposing only crimson muscle wrapped around bone—a mass of red flesh.

And the reason the pool had changed color was obvious: the body’s blood had gushed out, staining the clear water a deep, blackish red…