Han Fei was quite spooked to turn back and be greeted by something like this. After all, he was the closest to the toilet.
“Haven’t we dumped it inside the trashcan already?”
“It’s useless, the red dress will always return…” Brother Hwa’s face was frighteningly pale like something bad was crowding his mind.
“Then how did the other guards deal with it? Burn it? Cut it into pieces? Bury it?”
“It’s all useless. That last time it appeared, the people inside the security room at Building 1 continued to die in strange accidents until the last guard remained. Only then it stopped appearing.” Brother Hwa shrunk his neck and said carefully. “It felt like a blood ritual, only death and blood could chase it away.” Brother Hwa’s words turned the young guard and Han Fei’s expression blue. No one knew where the red dress came from but its appearance meant death. This thing was even scarier than the actual curse. Compared to the young guard, Han Fei was more familiar with the situation of the guards at Ziggurat. Based on the information he got from Yi Ming Security Company, all the guards at Ziggurat were specially picked ‘pots’. The meaning of their existence was to nurture the human cocoons with humanity so that they could bloom with the most brilliant ‘flower’. The Butterfly didn’t care about these guards’ lives. It changed their memory and dropped the guards inside Ziggurat, everything it had done, it was for the human cocoons. As long as it could raise even 1 percent to cultivate the flower, it didn’t mind killing millions of innocent guards.
“Then what should we do now? We can’t just let it stay here, can we?” The young guard hesitated. “How about we try to destroy it more permanently this time? We’ll burn it and then bury its ashes.”
“It’s useless, it will still return.” Brother Hwa took a quick glance at the young guard’s neck and then he shook his head violently to keep his mind clear. The sudden appearance of the red dress had flustered Brother Hwa.
“I have a suggestion…” Han Fei raised his arm with difficulty and offered. “Didn’t you say the 1st floor is very dangerous? Many strange things have happened there?”
“Yes, do not go to the first floor after dark, that is the unwritten rule among us guards.” Brother Hwa had no idea what Han Fei was trying to say.
“Then do you know which room is the most dangerous?” As if afraid of the red dress himself, Han Fei slowly nudged his body over and whispered, “How about we leave the red dress inside the most dangerous room?” Both the young guard and Brother Hwa were stunned. “You are a genius!” Brother Hwa’s eyes lit up, but he was soon conflicted again. “But we do not have the keys to any of the rooms.”
“Then we can just slide it through the gap in the door. If that doesn’t work, we can cut up the dress and shove them into every single room in this building.” Han Fei’s suggestion was alluring. To be fair, he came up with this idea because he knew there was no tenant at the Ziggurat who was innocent.
“That’s not a good idea… What if the tenants find out…”
“Then we’ll just leave the pieces inside unoccupied rooms which are suspected to be haunted. This way, we won’t hurt the tenants. After all, we’re not bad people, we’re just looking out for ourselves.” Han Fei still couldn’t leave the game. He had to be very careful.
“You… have a point.” Brother Hwa nodded. “That is a method we have not attempted before.”
“But if the red dress is so dangerous like Brother Hwa said, and we send it into the other haunted rooms, would it cause chain effects? Like having the ghosts in those rooms to come haunt us instead?” The young guard was worried.
“It’s all up to our luck now, isn’t it?” Han Fei had no confidence either. He scanned the patrol schedule. Building 1 had 24 floors and there were 3 rooms that had two 4’s in its room number—1044, 1144, 1244. These 3 rooms should be the most dangerous rooms in Building 1. Han Fei felt he was quite ‘lucky’, at the start of his mission, he was already inside 1 of them.
“We better make our move now. The longer the red dress stays here, the more unsettled I feel.” Brother Hwa walked towards the toilet. His sweat basically made his uniform his second skin. He was clearly very afraid but he needed to maintain the appearance of a senior before Han Fei. Brother Hwa mumbled something on his lips, it sounded like he was asking for protection from all the Gods he knew. After a series of chanting, he removed the red dress from the hook in the toilet. Even just holding it, Brother Hwa’s arms couldn’t stop shaking. He wanted to maintain the confidence of a senior but he realized he couldn’t even walk normally. His legs were going numb. He felt like the red dress was looking at him.
“Is it dyed in blood?” Han Fei asked with interest.
“It’s just a normal red dress, or at least it looks that way.” Brother Hwa walked shakingly out from the toilet. “The most dangerous room on the 1st floor is 1004. It’s an empty room. The delivery monster that I saw earlier was leaning against that door. I suspect that it was the previous owner of Room 1004 who murdered the deliveryman.” Holding the red dress, Brother Hwa walked to the door. “Xiao Fang, help me open this door and grab a pair of scissors. We’ll go together and get this done with as soon as possible.”
“Okay.”
Brother Hwa and Xiao Fang took 15 minutes to get ready both mentally and physically, but just as they were going to leave, footsteps came from the corridor. Then knocking came from the room next door and a spine-tingling male voice came from outside. “Is anyone home? Your delivery is here…”
Hearing that, Brother Hwa and Xiao Fang appeared frozen. They stood at the door and didn’t even dare to breathe too loudly. “Is anyone home? Is anyone? Is anyone home!” The knocking was insistent until a latch sprung. It appeared like the door had finally opened. The voice disappeared instantly. Brother Hwa and Xiao Fang shared a look and they saw the cold sweat on each other’s face.
“Should we… wait for a moment before we leave?”
“We should dress Bai Sinian’s wounds first before we do anything else. If we leave him in this state any longer, his condition will worsen.”
“Brother Hwa, you’ve thought about this further than I do. No wonder you’re the senior.”
The 2 guards retreated to the toilet and hung the red dress back. They took out the med kit from the cupboard and started to bandage Han Fei’s wound. Seeing how cowardly these two guards were, Han Fei couldn’t help but smile helplessly. He wanted to tell them the truth. The reason the other ghosts didn’t come to Room 1044 was not because it was safe but this room was where the real danger lay! This was one of the 3 most dangerous rooms at Building 1, not even ghosts dared to come near it!
Brother Hwa and Xiao Fang took their sweet time to deal with Han Fei’s wounds. After a half an hour and there was no more sound from the corridor, they put away the med kit and prepared to leave. “Xiao Fang, we need to be fast. The moment we slide the dress into the door, we have to run back. We mustn’t stay on the first floor one moment longer.” Even though Brother Hwa’s own legs were shaking, he didn’t forget about his junior.
“Okay.”
The two guards cheered each other on and then they picked up the red dress and left Room 1044. Once the door closed, Han Fei’s previously weakened gaze sharpened immediately. He stood up and inspected his wounds. The wounds left behind by the black mist were mostly on his cheeks, neck and arms. The death intention within them punctured Han Fei, and prevented the wounds from fully healing. Before the death was siphoned out, Han Fei was practically disfigured. This was fatal for an actor but Han Fei just brushed it off. In fact, he was thankful because this way no one would have recognized him and he could play the role of Bai Sinian even more easily. “The wounds look ghastly but they are not deep. They do not affect me that much.” After resting for so long, Han Fei’s stamina had basically recovered. He walked around Room 1044, trying to look for clues and information. But he only took a few steps when he whipped his head around because he felt someone was watching him. His eyes scanned the room before they settled on the toilet. “Haven’t Brother Hwa and Xiao Fang already taken away the dress?”
The lights inside the guard room flickered and then went out. Han Fei stood in the darkness alone. He quickly leaned against the wall and stayed motionless. At this crucial moment, the guard room door was knocked on and the eerie voice followed. “Is anyone home? Your delivery is here…”
