IWBL: Chapter 184

“Then they opened the door again but there was still no person visible outside the door. In addition, the sound of footsteps instantly disappeared.

“However, unlike last time, there was a bloody handprint on the door handle.

“The blood was fresh and spread down the doorknob. It looked like a person had just held the doorknob in order to look at what was inside the box.”

“Then the other guests who stayed in the box saw something that shouldn’t have appeared in the MV.”

“It was a song that was popular all over the country and they had seen the MV countless times. This time, behind the singer, there was a ghost whose face couldn’t be seen clearly.”

The door of this KTV’s private room was semi-transparent and very heavy. The door frame was wrapped in a gold rim and the glass had drawings of fascinating flowers and branches pasted on it, blocking eyes from the outside into the box. Even so, the people in the box could vaguely see the outside from the inside.

Pan Jiming noticed Xiao Li’s gaze on the box and explained even before the question could be asked. “When the guests in the box came to me, I have also asked them if they had looked through the box door when they heard footsteps. They said they didn’t see anything through the box door so they opened it.”

“This time, the guests in the box were a bit panicked. One of them went out to find the manager at the front bar but as he walked out of the box, he noticed that the footsteps behind him were following him.”

“It was 1:30 and there were no other guests in the area. This made them alarmed. One guest ran forward in a panic but the footsteps behind him followed him and were about to catch up with him.”

“He didn’t pay attention to his feet and fell heavily. This fall happened to attract the attention of a waiter nearby. He told the waiter about the matter and the waiter asked the manager to check the monitoring, but there was nothing on it. All that could be seen was the guest coming out of the box twice. The second time he came out, there was blood on the door handle.”

“The manager sent me a message at this time and I paid the guests some money. This thing is very taboo in our business world and we would rather believe it than be disbelieving about it. I went looking for the Ye family but they have no time recently.”

“After that, I stepped up the patrols at night but in less than three days, this incident happened again. In desperation, I could only close my business and wait for news from Ye Zeqing.”

Pan Jiming finished it all in one breath and tentatively asked Xiao Li, “Master, do you need any tools?”

“Where is the box?” Xiao Li continued walking forward without any hesitation. “Just help me open that room.”

Pan Jiming hesitated. He was quite worried that the overly young and harmless-looking teenager in front of him would encounter an accident. However, in the previous phone call, Ye Zeqing had asked him to unconditionally listen to Moriarty. Pan Jiming gritted his teeth and agreed.

The KTV box where the accident had occurred was the third box to the left in Area A. It was a large box with two karaoke machines and four microphones. It could accommodate more than 10 people.

The entire KTV was brightly lit but the box was deliberately dimmed down. The buttons on the side could create an atmosphere close to a concern. The screen that just turned on was playing a fire drill.

Xiao Li closed the door of the box, placed his school bag on the sofa and unzipped it. The little black cat meowed with dissatisfaction and jumped out, shaking his fur. He comforted all the fluff on his body and used his small pink nose to smell around and explore the box.

Pan Jiming looked at the cat hesitantly. Then he thought about how black cats had warded off evil spirits since ancient times and said nothing.

Xiao Li seemed to realize that Pan Jiming hadn’t left. He held down Tan Li in his pocket and wondered. “…You want to stay here?”

Pan Jiming panicked. “Is there any taboo for me to avoid?”

Ye Zeqing had fiercely praised Xiao Li on the phone, saying that staying by the young man’s side was the safest place. This was the highest praise for a young man like Ye Zeqing and it made Pan Jiming not want to leave Xiao Li.

“…There is no special taboo but there might be some things you wouldn’t like.” Xiao Li thought about it and replied honestly.

“What is it?” Pan Jiming asked cautiously. “If you are worried that I will leak secrets, this won’t happen. I have business dealings with the Ye family and I’m very strict about such things.”

“Well, if you want to stay then you can.”

He released the hand pressing on his pocket.

The doll came out of the pocket, gradually growing and becoming a normal human figure. Tan Li stood stiffly in front of one of the karaoke machines. Every time she pressed with a finger, she paused for a long time and her head cocked to the side as if recalling how to use this.

Zhou Ying saw this new and interesting thing and also broke away from the phone. A pale hand stretched out from the phone and turned into a child sitting on the sofa.

He was like the little boy from The Grudge, with almost no pupils. Zhou Ying had lived in an orphanage since he was a child and had never been in contact with a KTV at all. He leaned against Tan Li curiously but was much more active than her. He picked up the microphone and patted it. Then he reached out his arms to mess with the song selections.

The flattened light ghost rolled onto the marble tabletop, squeezed the menu out of the cardholder and found the best viewing position.

Pan Jiming, “……”

He wasn’t someone without knowledge. He had seen Ye Zeqing using ghosts but those ghosts were all dark shadows and required multiple magic circles to control. The ghosts that appeared in front of him now were, um, very different.

The temperature of the room was clearly set to 27 degrees but Pan Jiming inexplicably felt cold, especially when the female ghost became excited and her head turned around 360 degrees. Pan Jiming chose to close his eyes.

A top song on the charts was randomly selected and a dynamic rhythm flowed out. The music accompaniment with the original voice erased filled the box intensely.

Tan Li held the microphone without opening her mouth. She mechanically patted the microphone and watched with interested eyes.

Perhaps it was because the music was too intense. The woman in the ancient painting couldn’t bear it and ran out with the stick person. She had never encountered such things before and stood quietly, watching Tan Li’s movements and the screen. Then she became interested when she saw an opera piece. The opera ‘Dreaming in the Garden’ was ranked 32nd.

Xiao Li sat quietly and took this moment to finish his homework in a bizarre environment. He casually looked at the MV in front of him and his phone.

Pan Jiming suddenly felt like he was having a long dream.

The change occurred at one in the morning. In the corridor where all the waiters had been removed, there was a sound of footsteps getting closer. Pan Jiming heard this and trembled. He tensed up and instinctively looked at Xiao Li.

Xiao Li also heard it. He didn’t move and leaned back on the sofa while intently watching the MV in front of him.

This was an MV of a love song that was once a smash hit. The plot was about a boy often teasing a girl on campus, such as sprinkling leaves on her face while the girl was lying under a tree. In fact, the boy had a crush on the girl.

Yet even when the two people graduated, the boy didn’t say it and hid it in his heart. The turning point was a year later when they met in a coffee store and smiled at each other. The plot is simple and dog-blooded but the melody of the song was very catchy.

Tan Li and the ancient woman watched seriously but Zhou Ying wasn’t interested.

The footsteps were getting closer to the door. They moved to the door of this box, walked back and then turned around again. It sounded like a ‘person’ walking back and forth.

Xiao Li still ignored it but Zhou Ying cocked his head and looked at the door.

The footsteps outside kept moving faster and faster and finally stopped completely at the door of the room and started to jump up and down.

Just then, the MV in the box changed. It was originally showing the girl working at the coffee store while the boy hid in a corner and watched her. However, behind the boy was the window of an old-fashioned building.

The window was originally tightly closed. Just as the footsteps outside the box intensified, one hand pushed open the window from the inside. The hands were blood-red and two bloody handprints were left on the window. Bright red blood flowed down the window and stained the edge of the window red.

Zhou Ying’s eyes were a bit puzzled. He didn’t quite understand why this scene suddenly appeared in the simple and beautiful MV plot.

The light accompaniment also changed. It started with some simple ‘hissing’ sounds and then became footsteps that shouldn’t exist, similar to the sound outside the door.

However, Xiao Li still didn’t move and stayed where he was like the pause button was pressed.

After one minute, the song was coming to an end. Perhaps it couldn’t hold back any longer or was curious about why the people inside still refused to come out. Just then, the door of the box was opened from the outside.

A blood-red, malicious eye appeared in the crack of the door.

The first thing it saw was a light bulb lying on the table. Not only that, but the light bulb had also adjusted its brightness according to the rhythm of the song. It was very bright when there was a stressed note and very dark when it was bass.

The blood-red eye flashed with confusion and looked at the other side.

There was a young girl with a pale face and stiff movements. She was wearing big, off-season cotton clothes and exuded a cold breath. Her back was to the door but she seemed to be aware of the peeping. Her head turned 180 degrees and looked straight at this eye.

Next to the girl was a little boy. His hands were tangled together like two twisted sticks and he stared questioningly at the bloody handprints in the MV. In addition, there was a special looking stick person, a woman in costume, a middle-aged man shrinking back while watching them and…

A black-haired teenager who refused to give it attention.

The blood-red eye, “???”

They didn’t seem to be… the type of guests who would often come to KTV?

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