Nightmare Assault Chapter 404: Continuation

After they left, the woman walked towards the elevator, but Jiang Cheng stopped her. “Let’s use the stairs.” He added, “Exercise is good for the body.” The woman glanced at Jiang Cheng strangely but acquiesced.

When they were gone, the people in the office had an easier time talking. They started to look for the clues and Lin Chen’s scripts. Qiao Yu’s brother naturally came over to help. Before Hua Luo could stop him, Wan Xiaoning said, “Please be the lookout for us.” She nodded and finished in a gentle tone, “Thank you.”

Despite her gentle tone, she didn’t allow Qiao Yu’s brother to reject her. She turned and focused on her things. Qiao Yu’s brother looked awkward. Hua Luo turned to shoot a look at Chu Jiu. The latter understood the issue. Hua Luo went to search around the woman’s office table. Wan Xiaoning checked the shelves. Chu Jiu didn’t wander far. She kept an eye on Qiao Yu’s brother.

Qiao Yu’s brother felt wronged, but he held his tongue. He knew that following these people might be the only way to figure out the truth behind his brother’s death. He sat obediently on the couch and played his role as a lookout well.

The woman’s photocopied script was left on the table. The man grabbed it out of curiosity. It didn’t take long for his face to pale, especially when he read the chapter about the shadow that couldn’t be seen. The background in the comic was his cafe. The panels were scary. It felt like they were alive. He could feel the chill in his heart. It was an indescribable… sense of reality.

At that moment, Chu Jiu’s voice came over, “Stay still.”

“Okay.” The man abandoned the papers. His attention was drawn by the envelope abandoned on the couch. It was left at the spot where the woman was previously seated. The man looked possessed as he reached for the envelope. The moment he held the envelope, he frowned. The weight didn’t feel right. He pinched his fingers. Through the envelope, he felt a certain thickness. Out of curiosity, the man shook the contents out of the envelope. A few papers fell out.

“Hmm?”

Chu Jiu instantly noticed this. She darted forward to grab the papers. “Did they come from inside the envelope?” She didn’t look at them but asked the man.

“Yea…” The man scratched his head. His eyes kept wandering to the papers.

At that moment, two voices said in unison, “Found it!”

Hua Luo hurried over with an envelope. The envelope had Hua Luo’s name and the address of Room 808, Ping An Apartment’s Building Three.

Wan Xiaoning was more direct. She held about ten pages of paper. They appeared to be more of Lin Chen’s drafts. Clearly, they didn’t expect to find so many clues.

Everyone went to check out Wan Xiaoning’s illustration. To everyone’s surprise, it was a new horror story. The name was called cocoon. The setting was at a mall’s underground warehouse. The workers continued to discover hair on the floor. They were long and belonged to a female. However, people rarely visited the warehouse, and those who did were mostly male. Why would there be so many long hairs?

As confused as they were, the workers didn’t think much of it. After all, nothing else was out of place. One day, a worker heard that someone was looking for their missing pet dog. The night security guard remembered that he had heard a strange intermittent sound at night. He used a peculiar description. It sounded like someone was sucking continuously on an empty cup.

Finally, a person disappeared. It was the security guard who claimed to have heard the strange sounds. The mall boss told everyone that the guard had been hired by their competition. He was asked to spread the rumours as a scare tactic. He told everyone to calm down. He’d catch the guard and have him confess everything. He even promised everyone that he’d stay overnight to bust the rumours.

Hearing the promises from the boss, everyone found confidence. The night soon arrived. The worker, who was sleeping at home, suddenly received a call from a client stating that a large business was coming in. He hesitated before caving to the old client’s request. He agreed to return to the warehouse to check the inventory. When he drove to the mall, he noticed the security room’s light was still on, but the place was abandoned. The boss and the guard were gone. Had they left on a patrol?

He went underground and switched on the flashlight. He walked towards the warehouse. His storage unit was further in because it was cheaper. After a while, he had a bad feeling. However, he was unwilling to give up the business. The client was his old client. He tightened his grip on his clothes and kept going. However, when he took a turn, he heard a strange sound. It was as described by the old guard!

The intermittent sucking sound was unsettling. It came from his unit. When he walked closer, he noticed a light pouring out of the space. “Is someone here?” The man asked as he approached the door. He saw someone inside aiming the flashlight at him. The man was blinded, but through the gaps in his fingers, he recognised the person as the mall’s boss. He wore leather shoes and grey pants. This was his standard get-up.

The man was furious. Without his permission, how could the boss enter his storage unit at night? Was he trying to steal?

The man stomped forward with questions. He also told the boss to switch off the flashlight because it was making him feel dizzy.

However, the boss didn’t seem to hear him. The man reached the boss’s side and snatched the flashlight. The next second, the man was stunned. The boss’s legs were suspended. Only the tips of his shoes touched the ground. They kept twitching. With shaking hands, he slowly aimed the flashlight upwards. Then, he saw something that would scar him forever. The boss’s eyes were gone.

His nose, eye sockets, ears and mouth were stuffed with hair. The hairs appeared to be alive as they wiggled and made a suckling sound. The boss’s body rapidly mummified. His limbs danced irregularly.

He aimed the flashlight at the ceiling. Stuck to the roof of the warehouse was a giant cocoon. Endless black hairs shot out of the cocoon. There were small cocoons around the big ones. They were tightly transfixed to the ceiling. A dry arm poked out of one of them. That should be the first missing guard. As for the smaller cocoons, they probably carried the missing pets.

The warehouse had a tall, domed roof. The lights were dim, so no one noticed that something this scary was hiding up there.

Slowly, the giant cocoon in the middle started to move. Then, a head peeked out. The mouth gaped open, and a bolt of hair shot at the man.

“That… is…” Chu Jiu’s face whitened when she saw the human head that poked out of the cocoon.

“It’s Yu Lan!”