Chapter Forty-Four: Damn, This Is a Repeat Offender! [Please Bookmark and Recommend]

Li Can had no time to think. After setting down the diary, he immediately went to the bedroom to check. At the foot of the bed, he saw a large chunk of shattered plaster lying on the floor.

It was clear it had fallen from the wall.

Raising his flashlight, he looked upward and found that the lower corner of one of the posters was curling outward. Through the gap, he could vaguely see a depression in the wall behind it.

At first, Li Can paid it no mind. After all, old houses often suffered from peeling plaster. But just as he was about to look away, another piece of plaster fell, this time from behind a different poster.

Crack—

The crisp sound seemed to trigger a chain reaction; more plaster rained down from behind the posters, like a fine shower of wall dust.

Li Can sensed something was wrong. He reached out, grabbed one of the posters, and tore it down forcefully.

Rip—

What he saw behind it made even his usually steady nerves recoil in horror, a chill creeping up from his heart.

Behind the fallen plaster was a human skull, crushed flat, with fissures webbing out from the eye sockets, the jaws misaligned and the teeth grotesquely deformed.

Just a single glance was enough to reveal the brutality of the perpetrator.

After a brief silence, Li Can began tearing down the posters from the wall one by one—over fifty in total. Some posters brought chunks of plaster down with them as they were removed, while others did not. Yet anyone with eyes could see that the color of those patches was markedly different from the original wall, evidence of fresh paint covering them.

With that, the secret hidden beneath was laid bare.

More than fifty posters, over thirty depressions, and inside each one was a bone—hand bones, leg bones, ribs, kneecaps, and, most disturbingly, numerous fractured vertebrae.

Though the bones were from different parts of the body, they all shared a gruesome trait: they had been forcibly flattened, some even crushed into splinters.

Standing in the bedroom, Li Can felt as if he were in hell itself.

All around him, every fragment of bone seemed to silently recount the agony endured in life and the cruelty of the killer, making his blood run cold.

Fortunately, Li Can did not suffer from trypophobia, or he might have broken down on the spot.

The stench of death in the room grew stronger.

“No wonder I could smell it before but could never find the source—it had long since seeped into the walls themselves.”

With this realization, Li Can left the bedroom and tore down all the posters throughout the apartment, including those in the kitchen and bathroom.

As he suspected,

bones were hidden everywhere.

What was even more bizarre was that among the bones were not just one, but several skulls—some human, some animal, and one human skull clearly smaller than normal.

“Such atrocities cry out to heaven and earth!” Li Can felt his chest tighten. He wanted to look away, but there was nowhere in the room he could avoid the sight.

“Judging by the diary’s contents, Liu Huadong must have heeded his cousin’s advice, taken a job as a teacher at a certain school, then gotten into trouble during his time there, eventually attracting the attention of a monster who came to kill him.

“Afterward, the monster used some uncanny means to assume Liu Huadong’s identity and, in secret, continued to prey at will.

“In other words, everything happened within the past few months, and that was just when Su Rui had opened her business.

“The only clue to the monster’s whereabouts is that cousin who runs a decoration company in the Flowerfield District. Whether or not he’s the monster in disguise, he’s definitely linked to the school.

“As for confirming the cousin’s true identity…”

Li Can returned to the bedroom, his gaze locking onto the phone lying powered off on the nightstand.

“This must be Liu Huadong’s phone. His cousin’s contact information will be in there. Once I find him, I can follow the trail and uncover the school’s location—my next target… I mean, the next lead.

“Given Liu Huadong’s fate, that school is definitely anything but ordinary.”

Pocketing the phone and charger, Li Can didn’t linger. He left the apartment, diary in hand.

He had no intention of immediately reporting what he’d found to the police—not now, and certainly not by himself.

Police involvement would only disrupt his plans, and, knowing nothing of the truth, they might stir up a public uproar, tipping off those involved and giving them time to escape or prepare.

Of course, Li Can didn’t plan to hide this forever. When the time was right, he would inform the authorities—anonymously.

His only worry was whether the police would notice the existence of the monster.

If they did, how would they react? Expose it or cover it up?

Passing the stairwell between the seventh and sixth floors, Li Can suddenly felt a chill and glanced toward the gap beneath a wooden door.

In the dimness,

he seemed to glimpse two deep, silvery-black shadows within, as if the elderly deaf-mute man was standing just behind the door.

But when he shone his flashlight, the gap was empty—nothing there.

“Why am I so jumpy tonight?”

Shaking his head, Li Can hurried down the stairs before anyone spotted him.

As soon as he stepped out of the building,

the cool night breeze swept away his earlier suffocation, and he couldn’t help but take a few deep breaths of fresh air.

“Stay in a place like that long enough and you’d go mad,” he muttered, shaking his head as he made his way back toward the fence. He was just about to vault over when a low, mocking laugh sounded nearby.

“Heh, sneaking into a residential area in the dead of night—couldn’t be up to anything good, could you?”

Li Can’s heart sank. He turned and saw a figure squatting in the shadows not far away, cigarette glowing in one hand, a gleaming machete in the other.

“What’s wrong? Feeling guilty?” the man taunted, rising unhurriedly and stepping into the moonlight. It was Falcon, the man in the baseball cap.

Ever since Li Can had disrupted his gathering that night, Falcon had nursed a grudge. If not for his sensitive status, he’d have pulled out his blade on the spot—why let Zhao Gang and the others laugh at his expense?

He had to get his pride back, to show everyone that crossing him meant being ready to die by the blade.

Unfortunately, his attempt in the early hours of the previous day had failed—his target had anticipated him and set traps, leaving him with a wounded thigh and no choice but to retreat.

But heaven rewards the persistent. Now, at last, he’d found his chance—an excellent one at that.

He’d originally planned to break in after Li Can was asleep, hack him up and flee.

But instead, he’d seen Li Can sneaking out and scaling the fence into the residential area. The darkness made it hard to see exactly how he’d managed to get over the tall wall, but his skill was obvious.

A repeat offender, no doubt.

“Were you waiting for me on purpose?” Li Can narrowed his eyes.

“It’s the middle of the night—who else would I wait for?” Falcon exhaled a slow plume of smoke. “So, what did you steal? If it’s worth anything, I’ll let you go tonight, as long as you hand it over.”

“Stealing?” A strange look crossed Li Can’s face. “Did you see me go into Building 11?”

“So, you did steal something from Building 11.” Falcon’s smile grew meaningful.

At that moment, Li Can also began to smile.

(To be continued…)