After stuffing the soil from the garden into the bowl, Little Eight ran back into Apartment 1 with the bowl. She took out the flower seeds and gently buried them into the bowl. Her innocent eyes stared at the bowl as if her laser focus could persuade the flower to grow and bloom from the rotting soil. “Little Eight…” Wei Youfu stood guardedly beside the girl. When he saw the girl plant the flower seeds, pain crossed his eyes and sudden tiredness overwhelmed him. He turned to look out at the city covered in darkness. Leaning against the wall, Wei Youfu thought back to his recent memories.
Light finally shone through his life dipped in his darkness. That man was like the flower seed buried in the rotten soil, it was able to bloom despite its circumstance. No one thought it was possible but he was able to surpass everyone’s expectation and brought them hope. “Perhaps he’ll never return again.” Wei Youfu studied the world outside the lobby and the darkness that stretched down the horizon. His heart chilled. “I thought I would never experience the loss of family again now that I’m here but…”
Bang! A loud crash shattered the silence. Wei Youfu turned to the source and his eyes widened in shock! Han Fei was back! The man who had gone missing for a whole day had returned carrying a coffin!
“What the fuck?!” Wei Youfu couldn’t believe his eyes. The figure was so familiar. Even carrying a leaking coffin, he ran as fast as ever!
“Youfu! Open the door! Quick!” A shout tore out from Han Fei’s lips. Hearing the familiar voice, Wei Youfu immediately moved to oblige.
Han Fei rushed into the lobby and dropped the coffin to the ground. “Go and help me get everyone! I’ve invited the convenience store’s boss to join us!”
“The convenience store’s boss?” Wei Youfu was baffled. Moments earlier, he was lamenting the loss of his family, naturally he needed time to adjust himself. Seeing Wei Youfu standing there frozen, Han Fei hurried up the stairs despite the open wounds on his shoulders and back. “Never mind, help me guard over the coffin! Be careful around it!”
He raced all the way up the stairs. He knocked on all the important doors and Han Fei’s voice echoed throughout the building. “Xu Qin!” “Ying Yue!”
One after another dangerous presence awakened. A wave of Yin energy rushed downstairs.
The coffin which was dropped at the lobby was still leaking blood. A sound emitted from inside the coffin. Wei Youfu and Little Eight took a step back, they could sense an immense anger from inside the coffin.
“What has our building manager done to it?” Blood seeped out from the cracks to cover the entire coffin. The coffin started to shatter and an enormous curse as well as resentment blasted against the wall. When it reached the climax, the coffin on the ground exploded!
A blood red paper doll stood amidst the pile of body parts. It was heavily wounded but its eyes carried such heavy resentment. At the last moment of its intense battle at the Ziggurat, its consciousness suddenly wavered. It let its guard down and the paper doll was heavily injured by its tenants. It knew something wrong must have happened at the convenience store. It wanted to return but it couldn’t let itself be too distracted lest it was consumed by the tenants at the Ziggurat. However, as the bad omen within its mind grew, the doll decided to abandon its body at the Ziggurat and returned to its real body. For that, it had paid heavily.
However, when it opened its eyes, something even more shocking awaited it. It was not inside the convenience store! Its coffin had been moved to some place completely unfamiliar! The convenience store was laid with curses. Any outsider entering the warehouse would be torn apart by the paper dolls. Its employees had all been cursed. Technically they wouldn't be able to leave the convenience store without its permission unless they wished for a long and painful death. This should not have happened! Its coffin should still be inside the convenience store!
This was the first time the convenience store boss had been exposed to such a dire situation. With a splitting headache, it glared fiendishly at Little Eight and Wei Youfu, it still had no idea what went wrong. Well, the answer arrived 10 seconds later when Han Fei returned back to the lobby. Blood coursed through the doll’s body and its eyes were practically spitting fire. “It’s you!”
The ghost tattoo on Han Fei’s body pleaded heavily for mercy. “If you’ve awakened one minute earlier, then it’ll be over for me. Such a shame…”
“Nothing has changed! You’ll still die!” Ever since the convenience store boss gained sentience, it had never been so enraged. Han Fei was the employee it personally recruited several hours ago. It could sense a wealth of humanity on Han Fei. Its plan was to consume Han Fei but it had underestimated the cunningness of human nature. Only a few hours had passed since Han Fei’s recruitment but the doll already found itself in the biggest danger it had ever been in! “Die!” Han Fei retreated from the raging boss. “Sis, I’ve used a lot of effort to bring this thing for you.”
The sharp table knife sheared through the red curse. A fresh wound appeared on the paper doll. The boss leaped away from Han Fei. It sensed the same presence as itself on Xu Qin, they were both curses manifest!
“Die, you’ll all die!” The lingering body parts gathered onto the boss’ body. Its body grew in size. Faces started to appear on the paper body. When its body grew about 2 metres tall, it charged madly at Han Fei. The boss lost its cool from anger. Even if it was to die, it’d bring Han Fei down with it. The paper was shredded by the table knife but it did not slow the boss down. Since it was made of paper, it could fold its body any ways it wanted. As long as its core was not injured, it was invincible.
‘Even when it’s heavily injured, it can still put up such a fight?’ The boss’ arm charged at Han Fei. The arm was sliced through by the knife. But the stump immediately refolded out a new arm. The broken arm that fell to the ground did not disappear either, instead it unfolded and refolded itself into smaller paper dolls and leaped at Han Fei. The knife cut through the boss’ body. Paper fluttered like snow but the paper snippets did not die. They morphed into small paper dolls and glared venomously at Han Fei.
‘The paper doll is a master at curses, I mustn’t be too careless.’ Han Fei activated the ghost tattoo to cover his body in Yin energy. He even took out a cigarette from his inventory and prepared to light it if necessary. There were so many paper dolls, Xu Qin could not hold all of them back on her own. Just as the paper dolls jumped at Han Fei, a sad sob came from the stairs and a thin boy walked out. He looked frail and weak but he possessed a unique power. Every paper doll that came into his proximity would slump lazily to the ground. Their resentment would disappear, leaving behind a sad face. The boy had the ability to infuse his own overwhelming sadness into cursed objects and other ghosts, causing emotional damage.
Not far away from the boy, a giant eye suddenly opened on the mottled wall. A different world was reflected inside the dark gaze. Every doll that dared to approach Han Fei was sucked into the black prison inside the empty gaze.
“A Curse Amalgamation and 2 Lingering Spirits?” The boss was stunned, but there was no way out now. The hatred in its eyes was palpable. The doll knew this night was probably its last. It glared viciously at the tenants of Apartment 1. “You’ll all pay before you can kill me! Other than this curse, I’ll not leave anything for you!”
The boss’ body suddenly expanded as it sucked every last bit of energy from the bodies inside the coffin. Black names surfaced on its body. Using its own blood, it painted the faces of everyone present on its paper body.
“Someone stops it! It is trying to curse us with its death! It’s the ultimate skill for any cursed object!” Xu Qin shouted loudly. Her knives flew but they did not hit the paper doll’s core. While she panicked, a presence that dwarfed everything else slowly appeared.
8 large arms slammed against the ground. The 3 story tall red spectre squashed the paper doll. It used the most primitive method to stop the boss. With one after another heavy punches, it shattered the doll’s consciousness! It was brutal, straight-forward and most importantly, effective!
Despair coalesced, the spectre’s every punch carried 8 different kinds of pain. The whole apartment shook. In just 5 seconds, the paper dolls were pounded into dust and only the initial palm-sized blood red doll remained. Impressive amount of Yin energy and resentment oozed out from the doll’s cracked body. It was absorbed by the neighbouring tenants. The Yin energy that the boss had gathered since it gained sentience was shared by the tenants of Apartment 1, everyone smiled satisfactorily.
When no energy could be sensed from the doll anymore, they surrounded the convenience store’s former boss. The boss’ consciousness had been shattered, now the doll had reverted to a normal cursed object.
