Chapter 107: Death in a Dream

Creak—

The door slowly opened.

Standing in the doorway was exactly that black, faceless, slender ghostly figure, tall and thin like a spider.

"No...... don't......"

A warm liquid gushed uncontrollably from the base of Liu Ya's thighs, soaking her pajamas, and a foul odor instantly filled the small security room.

She had lost bladder control.

That self-righteous pride, that disregard for life, was crushed to dust before the absolute, incomprehensible fear.

She lay limp on the cold floor like a fish out of water, making unintelligible gurgling sounds from her throat, even begging for mercy becoming a luxury.

The ghostly figure made no unnecessary movements.

It simply stood there.

Then, one of its arms elongated at an unbelievable speed and length, instantly stretching across several meters to precisely grip Liu Ya's neck.

That hand was pallid and ice-cold, lacking any human warmth, more like a piece of rotting deadwood.

A huge force lifted her whole body halfway into the air.

The feeling of suffocation made Liu Ya's face swell to a purplish-red; she instinctively struggled, trying to scratch that arm with her hands, but could only leave a few faint white marks on it.

She thought she would be strangled to death just like that.

But it didn't happen.

The slender ghostly figure did not kill her immediately.

It seemed to enjoy watching its prey struggle on the brink of death.

In Liu Ya's gradually blurring vision, the ghostly figure's other hand reached over and pinched her right pinky.

"Crack!"

A sharp, scalp-tingling bone-cracking sound rang out.

An indescribable intense pain instantly shot through Liu Ya's nerve endings!

"Ah——!"

From the choked throat came a half-sound, horrific wail.

This was only the beginning.

"Crack!" ring finger

"Crack!" middle finger

"Crack!" index finger

"Crack!" thumb

Just like snapping a cheap plastic toy, the ghostly figure, with extreme patience and ritualistic manner, broke every bone in her right hand, one finger, one joint at a time.

Waves of excruciating pain, like the fiercest surf, repeatedly washed over her fragile consciousness.

She wanted to pass out, but the force choking her throat kept her just conscious enough to clearly feel the agony of each inch of bone being broken.

Next came the wrist.

Then the elbow.

Shoulder......

The slender ghostly figure was like the most ruthless surgeon, performing a vivisection on her.

It precisely tore apart each of her joints, every inch of tendon.

Liu Ya's consciousness was completely torn apart and drowned in boundless agony and despair.

In the real-world bedroom.

Liu Ya, lying on the pink big bed, began to violently convulse in her sleep, the amplitude so great that the entire bed frame creaked.

Her eyes flew open, but her pupils had dilated to lose focus, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Her heart pounded like an out-of-control drumbeat, racing wildly for a few seconds before suddenly falling still.

Her breathing also stopped.

All of this happened in utter silence.

Early the next morning.

Liu Jianjun sat at the dining table, habitually glancing at his watch.

It was seven-thirty.

His daughter Liu Ya's bedroom door remained tightly shut.

"That girl, overslept again."

He shook his head helplessly, got up, walked to his daughter's door, and knocked.

"Thud thud thud."

"Xiaoya, get up, you'll be late for school!"

There was no response from the room.

Liu Jianjun frowned and knocked harder.

"Xiaoya? Can you hear me?"

Still, there was only silence.

Just then, Liu Jianjun faintly smelled a foul odor.

A hint of unsettling dread began to rise in his heart.

He took out his phone and dialed his daughter's number.

"Beep...... beep...... The number you dialed is not answered; please try again later......"

A cold, system‑generated female voice came through, making Liu Jianjun's heart drop sharply.

Something's off.

Very off.

From what he knows of his daughter, even if she were staying in bed, she wouldn't ignore the phone entirely.

A keen intuition inherited from his veteran police detective self let him smell a dangerous aura, growing stronger.

He no longer hesitated, stepped back two paces, and kicked the door hard!

The door swung violently for a moment, but the lock was unusually solid, unmoving.

Liu Jianjun's unease instantly swelled to the extreme.

He couldn't afford to think further, turned and rushed into his study, rummaging through drawers until he finally found the spare key chain.

His hand began to tremble involuntarily, ever so slightly.

"It's okay, it's okay... it must be that girl throwing a tantrum or something..."

He comforted himself in his mind while inserting the key into the lock.

"Click."

The sound of the lock turning was especially grating at that moment.

He took a deep breath and, trembling, pushed the door open.

A foul stench, a mix of excrement and an indescribable rotting odor, hit his face instantly, nearly making him vomit on the spot.

The room remained as tidy as before, pink wallpaper, cute dolls—everything exactly as he remembered.

But when his gaze fell on the bed, he felt struck by a thunderclap from the heavens, freezing instantly in place.

His pupils contracted sharply, his mind went blank.

The sight on the bed made the veteran police detective, accustomed to countless crime scenes, feel a chill crawl over his scalp and his stomach churn.

His daughter Liu Ya lay on her back on the bed.

Her eyes bulged, filled with snarling blood vessels, as if she had seen the most terrifying thing before death.

From the corners of her eyes, nostrils, and mouth streamed a murky unknown fluid, mixing saliva and tear stains, soaking a large area of the pillow.

The sheets were a mess, yellow‑white matter mingled together, emitting a nauseating stench.

Her expression was frozen at the peak of terror before death, her face still bearing wet tear tracks.

The corpse was unbearably tragic, filled with an indescribable Weird.

Liu Jianjun staggered to the bedside, trembling as he reached out toward his daughter's breath.

A wave of cold.

He then felt for her carotid pulse.

Rigid, cold, long devoid of any beat.

"Ah—!!!"

A scream suppressed to the extreme, beast‑like, erupted from Liu Jianjun's throat.

His beloved daughter.

He held his precious daughter in his palm for fear of dropping her, and kept her in his mouth for fear she would melt.

Just like that... dead?

She died in the room he had locked from the inside, died right under the eyes of this Deputy Detachment Chief of criminal investigation!

A massive wave of anger and grief instantly engulfed him.