Chapter 078: Who Is Directing This Drama

Drip, drip.

The sound of water falling into the sink echoed from the depths of darkness—clear and pleasant, yet somehow chilling to the bone.

Su Cheng stood outside the bathroom, glancing at the time on his phone. It had already been ten minutes since Sayaka entered. Apart from the sound of dripping water, there was no other movement inside; the atmosphere grew increasingly uneasy.

Minute by minute ticked by. Just as Su Cheng’s patience was wearing thin, a woman’s voice suddenly sounded from within.

“Cheng-kun, come in for a moment.”

He recognized Sayaka’s voice, but it felt strangely different from before. Her tone seemed to carry an uncanny, seductive allure, as if laced with a strange magic.

The beguiling sound made Su Cheng’s mind waver for a moment. He was about to open the door when a sudden jolt of clarity snapped him back to his senses.

Sayaka was inviting him into the bathroom with her?

What kind of bizarre development was this!

Even though horror games were full of clichés, they at least maintained a sense of propriety—nothing salacious like in certain movies ever really happened.

There was definitely a ghost in there!

Su Cheng took a deep breath, letting the icy air fill his lungs and clear his mind.

“If you need something, just say it from there—I can hear you,” he replied, speaking to the “ghost” inside impersonating Sayaka through the closed door.

After a moment’s silence, the woman’s voice drifted back from behind the door, soft and sweet, as if making up an excuse after realizing Su Cheng wasn’t fooled.

“Come in first, I need your help with something.”

Su Cheng paused, then replied dryly from outside, “Did you fall into the toilet and get blown up? Sorry, can’t help you with that.”

Inside, the voice fell silent, as if unsure how to respond. The air around him grew still.

He waited a few moments, and when the voice finally faded away, Su Cheng opened the door and stepped inside.

At some point, the bathroom light had gone out. A sliver of moonlight streamed through the window, casting a pale frost across the room.

But within, there wasn’t even the shadow of a ghost.

Su Cheng approached the sink. The faucet hadn’t been fully turned off and was still dripping—drip, drip.

Under the cold moonlight, he saw that what trickled from the tap was not water, but thick, dark red blood.

As he drew closer, the blood began to fall more rapidly, quickly pooling in the basin and spilling over with a gurgling rush.

Then, in the mirror before him, a pale human face suddenly appeared.

The reflection wore a sinister, twisted smile, its features rigid and corpse-like.

Most chilling of all, it was the face of Tomoko Matsumura as she looked before death.

“Back from the dead?”

A black shadow flashed across the moonlight, darting at Su Cheng from behind.

Crash!

Su Cheng’s figure flickered aside, and the zombified Tomoko Matsumura crashed headlong into the mirror, shattering it into jagged shards.

Sharp fragments gouged her face, and tar-black blood oozed from beneath her skin, smearing her visage.

“Clack, clack, clack...”

Tilting her head at an unnatural angle, the wound in her throat—slashed open by a fruit knife—emitted a hideous, rasping laughter. Like a zombie in a horror film, she leapt toward Su Cheng with grotesque, jerking hops.

Dodging nimbly, Su Cheng lunged and threw himself against the wooden door.

But the door seemed sealed by some supernatural force—brute strength could not break it.

“Someone really wants me dead... but is the killer human, or something else?”

There was no time to ponder. The ghostly Tomoko Matsumura lunged at him, her icy hands clamping tightly around his neck.

Her grip was monstrous, the strength of her corpse-like fingers like iron pincers—once caught, there was no escape.

Under normal circumstances, a person suffocating like this would lose consciousness in less than ten seconds from lack of oxygen to the brain.

As the sensation of suffocation crept in, Su Cheng’s face turned ashen, his consciousness growing hazy.

Then, he reached out, gripped the ghost’s fingers, and with a violent twist—

Crack!

The sound of bones snapping rang out as one by one, Su Cheng broke her long, slender fingers, leaving them dangling uselessly.

Suddenly, a jet-black hand shot out, delivering a mighty blow that sent the corpse flying.

Coughing violently after swatting away the corpse, Su Cheng sucked in deep, gasping breaths until the dizziness faded.

That ghastly, chicken-like cackling erupted once more. The corpse’s mouth gaped open, and a blood-red tongue snaked out, trailing to the floor.

Like a venomous serpent, it whipped toward Su Cheng!

The crimson tongue slammed into the door with a thunderous bang, splintering a huge hole straight through the wood.

Seizing the moment, Su Cheng dodged her attack, sprang forward, and in an instant was before her.

He thrust his hand into the corpse’s mouth, gripped the bloody tongue, and yanked hard!

Oily, black blood spurted from her mouth as Su Cheng tore the tongue out by force.

The severed tongue writhed on the floor with an eerie squeak, twisting like a decapitated viper. Soon, it dissolved into a foul, bloody puddle.

Stripped of her tongue, the corpse’s twisted smile faded, her expression contorting with rage as she clawed savagely at Su Cheng.

“Still not behaving?”

Su Cheng slammed his palm into the corpse’s head, nearly smashing it to pulp.

Roar!

A furious, guttural growl erupted. The ghostly woman, her pride as a vengeful spirit wounded, hurled herself at him in rage.

“Weren’t you just prancing around a moment ago? Go on—keep jumping!” Su Cheng swatted her aside as if she were a fly, sending her crashing into the door with a loud smack.

The commotion they made in the bathroom was enormous; it was impossible for the other guests in the guesthouse not to notice. Yet, strangely, no one came to check. Clearly, someone had deliberately isolated the sound from this side.

Now, a pained look twisted across the corpse’s face. In the center of her forehead, a shadowy black worm appeared.

A cold light flashed in Su Cheng’s pitch-black eyes. In a blur, he pressed his hand to her face.

Two black fingers jabbed into her brow, seized the squirming, worm-like shadow, and yanked it out.

As soon as the creature was pulled free, Tomoko Matsumura’s body instantly went limp.

“A worm?”

Su Cheng stared at the black worm pinched between his fingers.

It looked as though it were woven from shadow itself, exuding a bizarre aura as it wriggled and writhed in his grasp.

“So this ghost worm was controlling Tomoko Matsumura’s corpse... but where did it come from?” At that moment, the worm slipped free of Su Cheng’s fingers, trying to burrow into the corpse on the floor.

As it wriggled away, Su Cheng swiftly snatched it up again and crushed it in his palm.

With a faint pop, the ghostly worm dissipated into smoke.

After destroying the worm, Su Cheng found Sayaka unconscious in the stall beside the bathroom.

He checked her chest.

Her heart was still beating—she was just frightened into a faint.

Then, as Su Cheng gazed at Tomoko Matsumura’s corpse, a forgotten detail surfaced in his mind.

When he’d examined her body earlier in the lounge, he recalled that her corpse had already been cold.

Her blood, too, was cold...

Normally, a freshly dead body wouldn’t turn cold so quickly.

This meant Tomoko Matsumura had most likely been murdered long before.

The killer had used the ghost worm to control her corpse, staging a suicide right in front of them.

So, who orchestrated this macabre play?