Chapter 56: Resentment of the Death Curse (Part Six)

"Hello? Hello? Mr. Stack?"

Little Red Riding Hood held her smartphone, asking anxiously, but only the sound of crackling static came through the other end of the line.

At this moment, disguised as funeral home staff alongside Solstice, she was visiting the home of Yoshimi Sakai's classmate in the eastern district, trying to persuade Yoshimi Sakai to come with them to handle the funeral arrangements.

In the eyes of the world, Yoshimi Sakai's older brother, Haruka Sakai, had first brutally murdered his wife before plunging to his death from a rooftop. Such a severe criminal case spread rapidly through this medium-sized city.

The home had already become a crime scene, still bearing police tape. Unable to return to her house and forced to face the strange, probing gazes of teachers and classmates at school every day, Yoshimi Sakai was on the verge of a psychological breakdown.

It was her good friend, Aiki Miyazaki, who had persuaded her parents to let Yoshimi stay with them temporarily—at least until the police removed the crime scene tape.

"The three elements of a Grudge: the connection point, the medium, and the amplifier. The system listing Yoshimi Sakai on the protection roster means she has already been infected by the medium and cursed. And the rainy weather is the amplifier."

Solstice slowly stood up from the sofa, glanced at the intensifying rain outside the window, and pressed her lips together slightly.

Little Red Riding Hood anxiously said, "Miss Solstice, Mr. Stack has been attacked. We need to go rescue him—"

"It's too far; we won't make it in time. Besides, we have trouble right here."

Solstice walked up to the bedroom door and yanked it wide open.

The room should have contained only Yoshimi Sakai and Aiki Miyazaki, who were supposed to be counting the available money on hand to pay for the funeral expenses.

However, at this moment, the sliding closet door in the corner of the bedroom stood wide open, and pairs of pale, corpse-like arms grabbed at the two girls' limbs, dragging them deep into the recesses of the closet.

A fierce gale poured into the room through the window, fluttering the hem of Solstice's thick white tulle dress. She reached beneath her skirt and pulled out... a rotary minigun.

Externally, this machine gun imitated the original General Electric M134, but because it fired 5.56mm rounds, the overall weapon was scaled down a size, making it much lighter and capable of being handheld.

Furthermore, a mechanical exoskeleton connected from the gun handle to her arm helped absorb and reduce the recoil.

The surface of the gun body was covered in layers of yellow paper Taoist talismans, meant to banish evil spirits.

"Stand back."

Solstice turned sideways, shouldered the machine gun with both hands, and forcefully pulled the trigger.

*Zzzzzzt—*

A direct current motor drove the barrels spinning at high speed, and a metal belt of 5.56mm rounds grazed past the bodies of Yoshimi Sakai and Yuko Miyazaki, roaring violently into the depths of the closet.

The cardboard closet doors were completely incapable of withstanding the rain of bullets and instantly shattered into debris.

The pale arms struck by the shrapnel burst into billowing black smoke, releasing their grip on the two girls and causing them to collapse onto the floor.

"Take them. Let's move."

Muzzle flashes continuously flickered, illuminating the freckles on Solstice's face. Maintaining a cold expression, she sustained suppressing fire against the closet to cover Little Red Riding Hood as the latter pulled the two girls up and quickly retreated from the room.

***

At the same exact moment, an apartment building in the southern district.

"I'm home."

Kazuya Suzuki, a company employee in his twenties, dragged his exhausted body—weary from mandatory overtime—and opened his front door, greeted not by the usual aroma of home-cooked meals.

"Honey, you're back."

His newlywed wife, Yuko Suzuki, wore an expression of nervous excitement. She was tinkering with a video camera, extracting the cassette tape inside and inserting it into a player. "Come over here quickly and look at this home video I recorded."

"Why are you messing with this kind of stuff again?!"

Kazuya Suzuki was genuinely growing angry. It was tragic enough that his parents had died in an accidental drowning a month ago, but recently his wife had also become superstitious, always feeling that the positions of items in the house were slightly off. It was as if someone had sneaked into the apartment while the couple was at work and rummaged through their things.

Even though the neighbors all claimed they saw no burglars, and they had changed the door locks two or three times, Yuko Suzuki simply felt something was wrong. She had deliberately purchased a video camera, hidden it in the gap of the living room bookcase, and continuously filmed the interior of their home while they were at work.

"Honey, just come and look."

Yuko Suzuki stubbornly pulled her husband down onto the sofa, picked up the remote control, and pressed the fast-forward button.

The surveillance footage played at an accelerated speed, with the current time displayed in the upper right corner of the screen.

Nine o'clock, eleven o'clock, two in the afternoon...

The video content showed no abnormalities whatsoever, save for the faint sound of rain. Kazuya Suzuki said impatiently, "I told you so, you're just over-think—"

*Thud!*

A knocking sound suddenly echoed from inside the television, startling the couple so violently that they both shivered.

*Thud-thud!*

In the surveillance footage, two more knocks rang out, followed immediately by the sound of the doorknob being frantically rattled. It sounded as though someone was desperately trying to force the door open.

Yuko Suzuki instinctively hugged her husband's arm tighter. Kazuya Suzuki's face turned slightly pale as he forced a calm demeanor. "It's fine, the door locks have already been replaced."

Just as he said, the sound of the doorknob turning stopped after a few successive attempts.

Kazuya Suzuki let out a sigh of relief and said, "See? I told you, it must be some neighbor's kid pulling a prank. I'll report it to the neighborhood association tomorrow..."

Before his voice faded, the image on the screen suddenly darkened.

A human-shaped dark shadow could be seen slowly sliding beneath the gap of the security door and into the apartment.

This figure was extremely thin and light, as if devoid of weight. It crawled slowly along the floor, entered the living room, and gradually stood up.

It was a strange teenage boy wearing a high school uniform, with entirely white eyes and an ashen complexion. The uniform he wore belonged to a local school in the city.

Yuko Suzuki let out a scream, drawing her feet back from the floor and curling into her husband's embrace. Kazuya Suzuki stood frozen like a goose gripped by the neck, his eyes wide, trembling all over, unable to utter a single word.

In the surveillance footage, the boy stood blankly in front of the camera lens, scanned the living room once, and then flattened out again before crawling underneath the sofa.

A moment later, the genuine sound of a key unlocking the door echoed from outside. Yuko Suzuki, who had returned home from work earlier than her husband, stepped into the living room and took the camera out of the bookcase. The footage ended there.

"..."

Kazuya Suzuki felt ice-cold all over. He slowly lowered his head to look at the sofa he was currently sitting on.

The surveillance video had cut off right after Yuko Suzuki came home, which meant... that *thing* was hiding right beneath the sofa at this very moment.

*Rustle—*

As if to confirm his suspicion, a flattened, pale human face slowly poked out from the gap beneath the sofa, locking eyes with Kazuya Suzuki.

A scream pierced through the room. Kazuya Suzuki was grabbed by the ankles with terrifying, brute force and dragged beneath the sofa.

Paralyzed by fright, Yuko Suzuki gripped her husband's arm with all her might, yet still failed to stop her husband from inching into the darkness.

*Boom!*

The security door was violently kicked open. Li Sheng glanced at the situation inside the room, lowered his body, and charged forward.

Instead of trying to pull Kazuya Suzuki out, he grabbed the edge of the sofa and hoisted the entire piece of furniture—along with the occupant beneath it—high above his head.

The sofa was lifted into the air, brilliant light flooded the room, and shadows had nowhere to hide.

"What the hell, a 2D paper-cut anime character!"

Li Sheng muttered in genuine amazement as he looked at the flattened figure on the floor. Casually tossing the sofa aside, he retrieved one of the items he had prepared for this mission from his inventory slot.

A pair of brass knuckles wrapped tightly in talismans.

"Judging by your appearance, you were still in high school when you died, right? School bullying is truly terrifying."

With that, Li Sheng put on the brass knuckles and began raining heavy punches down upon the phantom.