Chapter 9: Father

Boom!

Something in Zhao Wei's mind exploded completely.

It's not a hallucination!

It's not a mental breakdown!

That thing is real! And it has already set its gaze on his most treasured daughter!

"Don't be scared, baby, don't be scared... don't be scared!" Zhao Wei's voice trembled uncontrollably as he clutched his daughter tightly, pressing his back against the empty ceiling as if that could block the malicious stare.

His wife, the woman who a moment ago thought her husband had gone mad, now sees the pure, unmistakably genuine terror on their daughter's face.

She opened her mouth, about to say something.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

As fear grew in her heart.

That background noise that belonged only to Zhao Wei, the heartbeat that had tormented him for countless days and nights, at this moment pierced her ears with crystal clarity!

The woman's complexion turned ghostly white in an instant.

She clutched her ears fiercely, staring at Zhao Wei in horror, her eyes filled with disbelief.

"You... you heard it too?" Zhao Wei read everything from his wife's expression, and despair flooded him like a tide.

It's over.

This home has become a haunted house.

There's no way out now!

"Call the police! Quickly call the police!" The wife finally broke down, letting out a chilling scream.

Zhao Wei fumbled for his phone, his fingers shaking so much he couldn't unlock the screen; after several attempts he finally dialed the well‑known number.

"Hello! Police? Help! There's a ghost! My house has a ghost!" His voice was hoarse, filled with incoherent terror.

The operator on the other end clearly had seen it all, speaking with a professional calm and a barely perceptible hint of perfunctory indifference.

"Sir, please stay calm and state your address clearly... alright, we have recorded it and will dispatch someone as soon as possible to assess the situation."

The call ended.

Waiting became the ultimate torment.

The once‑warm home now feels like a massive cage slowly tightening.

The three of them curled up on the living‑room sofa, daring not even to turn off the light.

Yet the bright light failed to provide any sense of safety, instead stretching the shadows in the corners into something ever more eerie.

From the corner of Zhao Wei's eye, he could always glimpse those shadows writhing.

It was as if countless black poisonous snakes lurked in the corners and beneath the furniture; whenever he turned his head, those writhing shadows would instantly solidify back into ordinary shapes.

The "thump thump" of the heartbeat no longer kept a steady rhythm.

Sometimes it raced like war drums, echoing from the walls on all sides, making one's scalp tingle.

Other times it became slow and heavy, thudding once, then again, coming from beneath their feet, from deep within the floor, as if a massive living thing were being buried beneath the building's foundations.

A faint, elusive scent began to permeate the air.

It was the smell of Formalin mixed with earth, the odor only found in mortuary rooms and cemeteries.

The room's temperature dropped at an unnaturally rapid pace; despite it being an early‑summer night, Zhao Wei felt as if he were standing naked in a freezer, his breath turning to white mist.

"Dad... I'm cold..." The daughter's little face turned purple with cold, her teeth chattering.

Zhao Wei, terrified, held his wife and daughter tightly, using his last bit of body heat to warm them.

At that moment.

"Bang!"

The lights in the whole house seemed to have been switched off at once, plunging everything into darkness.

The world fell into a pitch‑black darkness where one couldn't see a hand in front of them.

In the death‑like silence, the heartbeat‑like "thump thump" suddenly ceased.

Absolute darkness.

Absolute silence.

The next second.

Thump Thump Thump!

A series of sounds like a sudden gale and rain, louder, deeper, and more oppressive than all previous noises combined, exploded simultaneously in everyone's mind and heart!

"Aaaah—!"

The fear suppressed to its limit burst at this moment into a collective, heart‑rending scream that echoed through the entire room.

【Target: Zhao Wei】

【SAN: 0/100】

【Murder Rule Phase Two "Manifestation", conditions met.】

Sizzle...... Sizzle......

The living‑room TV screen suddenly lit up.

The flickering snowflakes became the only source of light in the darkness.

The lights began to flash wildly, alternating bright and dim, like an old tube with a bad connection.

A silhouette started to appear in the center of the living room.

Each time it lit up, the silhouette in the center of the living room solidified a little more.

Each time it went out and lit up again, it moved one step closer to the three people on the sofa.

When the light finally stabilized for the last time, a Weird person had already stood completely in the exact center of the living room.

It wore the striped Patient Gown it had on before death, its face pale and swollen, its eyes two hollows continuously dripping black blood-tears.

The black hole in its chest was like an Abyss that devours people.

Because of extreme terror, Zhao Wei's wife and daughter's SAN values had already plummeted below the critical point.

They, too, had seen this terrifying entity crawling out of hell!

"Ah...... ghost...... ghost......"

The wife's scream caught in her throat, turning into a despairing whimper; she held her daughter, rolled her eyes, and fainted dead away.

Zhao Wei could run.

But for some unknown reason, he didn't; instead, at the moment his sanity shattered, he gave rise to unprecedented courage.

This man, who had indirectly taken many lives and could even be said to be utterly wicked.

Even if his teeth chattered, tears streamed down, and even his pants grew damp.

Yet he still stubbornly blocked himself in front of his wife and daughter, protecting them.

He watched helplessly as the monster with the hollow chest stepped toward him, one slow step at a time.

Those two black eye sockets stared fixedly at him.

The Cavity Person came before Zhao Wei.

It slowly raised that illusory, deathly pale hand covered in livor mortis.

Then, under Zhao Wei's horrified, about-to-burst gaze, it slowly "inserted" its hand into his chest.

No wound.

No blood.

Zhao Wei felt only an indescribable extreme cold that instantly spread from his heart to his whole body.

He could clearly feel that the organ in his chest—its "life," its "concept"—was being drawn away bit by bit.

Zhao Wei's body suddenly stiffened.

His pupils instantly dilated to the limit.

He slumped limp onto the sofa, his head drooping helplessly.

He struggled against his heavy eyelids, gazing at his wife and daughter who had fainted, and strained to reach out to touch them.

In the next instant, boundless darkness mercilessly consumed him completely.

At the other end of the city, in Chu Che's apartment.

He leisurely leaned back in the chair before his desk, before the dark‑blue screen on which he had just finished broadcasting the "judgment" of Zhao Wei.

"Truly interesting...... as an unqualified human being judged, and as a qualified father dying?"

【Obtained 'Karma': 1200】

A warm current, far vaster and purer than last time by multiples, surged into Chu Che's body, washing through his limbs and bones.

Every cell was cheering, every cell was jumping with joy.

The exhilaration of this power's rapid growth was more intoxicating than the world's top‑tier drug.

He comfortably narrowed his eyes, the corner of his mouth uncontrollably curling into a faint, trembling arc.

Just as he closed his eyes to enjoy the gift of power.

Buzz—

The phone's vibration sound abruptly broke this moment of tranquility.

Chu Che furrowed his brow slightly, opened his eyes with some displeasure, and picked up the phone.

Caller ID showed——"Father".

The pleasure and heat in his eyes instantly faded, replaced by a stillness like an ancient well.

He answered the call.

"Hey, Dad."

From the other end came a man's voice, slightly weathered and tinged with cautious carefulness.

"A-Che...... didn't disturb your rest, did we?"

"No, just finished." Chu Che's tone was gentle, with not a single fault to be found.

"All right, all right......" Father on the other end gave a dry chuckle twice, as if organizing his words, "Well...... A-Che, Aunt Wang introduced you to a girl, her relative's daughter, a suitable match and a nice person...... this weekend, how about...... meeting up?"

Father's tone was probing, laden with apology.

Chu Che's thoughts flickered with a moment of dazedness.

He recalled that rainy night not long after his mother's death.

When Father learned from others that he had personally implanted the heart meant to save his wife into his enemy's body, the usually gentle man got roaring drunk and for the first time laid hands on him.

That beating with fists and kicks nearly took half his life.

But it was precisely that beating that utterly shattered the last fragile vestige of his humanity.

From that day on, he began learning to conceal everything, to become "perfect," to become a tool devoid of genuine emotion and incapable of mistake.

And Father, looking afterward at his son who seemed to have died overnight, his eyes filled with endless regret and heartache.

He knew the son had undergone the surgery unknowingly, already blaming himself to the point of utter despair.

He himself had personally broken the son's spine and shattered his soul.

Over these years, Father has continually sought to make amends, to let him return to being a person of flesh and blood.

Father hopes he can build his own family, have someone to heal him, so he won't keep using that near‑self‑torturous way to "atone".

Chu Che pushed his glasses, the lenses shielding the fleeting complex emotion in his eyes.

Father.

It could be said to be the last anchor of his humanity in this world.

He spoke into the phone, in his usual gentle tone, replying softly:

"Alright."

Then, just handle it casually.