The bathroom door was left half-ajar. The bleeding man was standing at the spot where the red dress occupied earlier. His body appeared to be boneless as he hung there limply. Blood trickled down his shirt and dripped to the ground, dyeing the white tiles red. Han Fei felt a pair of hands closing around his throat, suffocating himself. His limbs were getting cold. His eyes froze at the sight before him. It was not a red dress in the darkness but a man drenched in blood. The wounds were hidden under the guard uniform while the blood soaked his shirt. The man kept his head lowered. From his face shape, he looked very similar to Xiao Fang. The windows in the bathroom were probably left open because Han Fei could feel the draft coming from it.
The guard who was hanging inside the toilet suddenly lifted his arms, he sought out a pair of sharp scissors from his pocket!
The scissors were stuck with blood and red pieces of clothing, Xiao Fang did say he wanted to use the scissors to shred the red dress. Holding the scissors, the man started to shear through his skin. The blood oozed out immediately but the guard didn’t seem to feel the pain. He moved faster and faster, like he was unable to control himself.
Han Fei’s heart raced, he wanted to warn the man but Han Fei was frozen to the spot on the couch. He was unable to speak or move. He struggled as best as he could and at the last moment, the red pattern on Han Fei’s arm started to move. It felt like needles were piercing his skin and that woke Han Fei up immediately. He screamed and Brother Hwa who had fallen asleep jumped up from the ground. He scanned the flashlight around.
“The toilet! Save Xiao Fang!” Right after Han Fei said that, they heard Xiao Fang’s wails coming from inside the toilet. He collapsed on the ground with new wounds on his body.
“Xiao Fang, why did you come into the toilet in the middle of the night to do something like this?” Seeing the state Xiao Fang was in, Brother Hwa was frightened.
“I don’t know. I fell asleep and got caught in a dream, I saw the red dress return. I wanted to destroy it, cut it with scissors and bury it into the ground…” Xiao Fang’s eyes were red and his face grimaced from the pain. “When I woke up, I’m already here. Brother Hwa, what is going on? Am I being haunted by the red dress?” Xiao Fang’s voice was brimming with fear. Before Han Fei suggested that they drop the red dress at another room, Xiao Fang did suggest they should cut the dress with scissors. Now the dress was not cut, but Xiao Fang himself was cut!
Taking in the state of his junior, Brother Hwa was both afraid and pained. He leaned closer to help with his junior’s wound when his footsteps halted as something came into his view, “Xiao, Xiao Fang, behind you!” Xiao Fang, who was already scared witless, turned around when he heard that. He shouldn’t have because he almost peed himself due to what he saw. The red dress was stuck to his back, like a drowning person, pulling down a victim into the depths with them.
Xiao Fang screamed and quickly pulled the dress off himself. He was about to drop the dress on the ground when the incident that happened to him earlier entered his mind. With extreme caution, he eventually placed the red dress gingerly inside the bathtub.
“What should we do now? It has not only returned, the color on it has grown brighter like it has sucked on more blood.” Xiao Fang collapsed on the toilet floor. His eyes filled with panic.
Brother Hwa said numbly, “Everything will repeat itself. The red dress will only stop when there’s only one of us left.” He then moved to grab the medkit and helped dress Xiao Fang’s wounds. The red dress was quite kind in a way because the wounds were only surface wounds. They looked appalling but they weren’t fatal.
“Brother Hwa, what exactly did happen last time?” Han Fei was curious about Brother Hwa’s previous experience. The man looked fearful whenever the subject came up. After a long hesitation, Brother Hwa opened his mouth, “The red dress last appeared a few months ago. At the time, Building 1 had 4 security guards, 2 seniors and 2 juniors. I can still remember the details clearly. The earlier half of the night was normal but the red dress suddenly appeared after midnight…” He sighed, “At first, we dumped the red dress inside the trashcan. But during our late midnight patrol, one of the juniors suddenly tripped over the window and fell to his death. The location of his death was right at the trashcan where the tenants here used to recycle and separate their junk. At first, the 3 of us didn’t make the connection.
“The red dress kept reappearing after that. It was always there. Accidents happened to the 2 other guards and when I was the only one left, the red dress suddenly disappeared.” There were so many missing details in Brother Hwa’s story that Han Fei had trouble believing the red dress had disappeared on its own. He suspected Brother Hwa had omitted crucial parts of his story. Plus the man didn’t explain how the two other guards died. Han Fei had reasons to believe it was Brother Hwa who had murdered them. Most people were good in their hearts but when one’s life was on the line, one would choose the safety of oneself over others.
Humanity was constantly tested at the Ziggurat to cultivate the most beautiful flower, that was the purpose of the flower ‘pots’. The atmosphere inside the room tensed. Xiao Fang wanted to cry, he had the feeling he would be the first to die. “I’ve interacted with the red dress the most, it will not let me be…” While Xiao Fang was caught in his despair, he saw the weak Han Fei reach towards the red dress inside the bathtub. “You’re the only one who hasn’t touched it. I’d advise you to stay away from it.”
“I want to test something.” This was the first time Han Fei held the red dress. He placed it in his palm, feeling the sensation of the cloth. The tailoring of the dress was normal and it didn’t use great material but it was smooth to the touch. Han Fei felt like he was touching baby skin. The dress didn’t have much pattern but they were delicate. The original owner appeared to like the dress a lot because even though it looked drenched in blood, a fragrance still lingered on it.
“What… what kind of testing do you have in mind?” Brother Hwa asked. The way he looked at Han Fei was how one would look at a crazy person.
“One moment.” Han Fei carried the red dress into the bedroom. He lifted up the bedsheet and placed the dress under the bed. “Let’s close the light and leave this room.” Han Fei knew that the room would be different when the light was off but he wanted to know if the red dress could deal with the thing left behind by the deliveryman. If the red dress accepted this offer, then Han Fei could try to negotiate with it.
Before the other 2 guards knew what Han Fei was doing, Han Fei switched off the lights and they were ushered out from the room. Just as the door closed behind them, a terrible wail came from inside Room 1044. The scream lasted for a minute. It caused all 3 guards to shiver uncontrollably. When the yelling stopped, Han Fei hid behind Brother Han as the 3 of them re-entered the room.
The lights were switched back on and everything looked normal inside the bedroom. But when Han Fei lifted up the bedsheet, everyone shivered in cold sweat. The red dress was still lying where it was but there was a large pool of blood underneath the bed, like a blood-filled balloon was squeezed and popped.
“Do you remember what I said earlier? The deliveryman has left something inside the room, that something probably has been dealt with.” Han Fei lifted up the red dress. “This dress not only kills people, it also kills ghosts. Perhaps we shouldn’t antagonize it but try to coexist with it.”
“Coexist with a dress?”
“I’ll explain it in a different way.” Han Fei held the red dress solemnly, “Maybe Room 1044 is originally her room, we’re just her tenants. Since we’re her tenants, is it not normal for her to claim rent from us?”
“It is.” Xiao Fang and Brother Hwa nodded.
“Money is meaningless to them so our life is the rent. If we don’t want to die, perhaps we should find another way to pay her rent? Like sacrificing something else inside the building?” Han Fei formulated an idea. “She appears to like the ‘food’ dropped by the deliveryman. Before we were even out the door, she already started her feast. In that case, why not deliver to her the deliveryman himself?”
“The deliveryman?” Brother Hwa didn’t even know what to say.
“As the guards, we have the responsibility to keep this neighbourhood safe. The red dress is our tenant and the deliveryman has trespassed into this neighbourhood, entering the tenants’ room without permission. Shouldn’t that be punished?” Han Fei’s argument was very reasonable. He slowly persuaded Brother Hwa and Xiao Fang to his side. Without realizing it, Han Fei had become the core of this group. “It is now time for late midnight patrol, let’s go together.”
With Brother Hwa and Xiao Fang watching with shock, Han Fei folded the red dress nicely. Only then they realized, when Han Fei said ‘together’, he included the red dress as well.
