Feast on the Living

"Plea... sing... isn't it?"

Piak!

As soon as Liu Xiaodan acted weirdly, they heard the sound of breaking bones. Liu Xiaodan just crushed Cheng Hei's fist in his hold, and the big man screamed in pain as well.

At the same time, a symphony of screams echoed all over the room as if the static noise of a radio. The temperature had also dipped too low that everyone felt like they were inside a cold room instead... where the lights were dancing as they flicked on and off.

"Mother... your mother..." Liu Xiaodan repeated a bunch of words from Cheng Hei again, and the Black Boss was surprised to be face-to-face with his horizontal head.

Cheng Hei screamed again as he tried to get away, but Liu Xiaodan grabbed onto his good arm. No matter how much Cheng Hei pulled, Liu Xiaodan wasn't even budging. Not to mention that he was already floating just to match Cheng Hei's height by then.

"Monster! You're a monster!" Cheng Hei screamed, using all his force to break away from the iron grip on the other hand. His heartbeat was racing as his mind was starting to go into a flurry. The skin holding him was cold like a body in the morgue.

"Monster..." Liu Xiaodan repeated. His grip on Cheng Hei's arm strengthened, and the man screamed once more, even louder than the symphony of voices coming from the room.

He felt the bones in his arm were broken in one wave. His arm grew limp as his muscles were ruptured by the broken bones. What's worse... his skin wriggled as if multiple things were trying to escape from beneath his skin. It didn't take a minute before sharp wood sprouted from Cheng Hei's arm!

Like big-ass splinters, wood jutted out of his skin; Cheng Hei losing his voice while keeping his mouth open for a scream. He was horrified by what was happening, and he wished he was just having a terrible dream. His bladder had already given up, and he felt warm liquid dripped down his leg.

Rip!

Cheng Hei couldn't take it anymore as he gave his arm one last tug to escape. However, he didn't count on his arm ripping it half as he did so. He then fell to the floor, having spasms all over before fainting until he died from blood loss.

The other goons were frozen stiff when Liu Xiaodan started. When Cheng Hei fell, they all panicked. They ran to the door, but they saw a figure standing before it. His beautiful face had a smile on, and his hands were behind him and keeping the doors closed. His long-lashed purple eyes stared at them seductively and as it fluttered.

However, most of them stopped in their tracks; the newbies stopped because others did. Dong Qiu even swallowed his saliva... "T-Tang Mingming?!"

"Xiaodan, can you do Ming a favor?" Tang Mingming chuckled before blood gushed out from the holes of his head.

"Kill!" His horrifying voice rushed out and made everyone else feel more terrorized.

They also saw a black shadow grow from behind him and assaulted them with its invisible hands. The nearest goon didn't know when a big sharp object poked through him, but his stomach was already holed the next second. When he faced the wall, he saw the big shadow's hand through his own around the stomach.

Dong Qiu then screamed as he ran to the far end of the audio-visual room. He wanted to try the front double door, but he was met by another figure. It was a long-haired person wearing what looked like a black plastic poncho. She lifted her face and showed that she, in fact, had none. It was as if it was scraped off of her, which killed her. She then chased Dong Qiu who ran back to his people.

Brother Niu and Qin Rong weren't around and were probably manning the fort while Cheng Hei was out here. They had no idea that doing this was actually saving themselves.

The black shadow kept on killing the small goons while Liu Xiaodan remained suspended in the air. Even the other ghosts were attacking those who ventured nearby.

The other goons tried to run past the long-haired lady. Even if they got past her, multiple lesser ghosts grabbed them from the sides and from the chairs. When they were held down, the long-haired ghost would catch them. Her hair would wrap around them and send them to cardiac arrest.

The audio-visual room was indeed a scary place to be, they said. It was where the dead would feast on the living, they said.

...

After a few minutes, the hysteria and screams had quieted down.

Liu Xiaodan woke up after finding himself on the floor. He opened his eyes fully and used his hands to block out the light coming from the ceiling. When he sat up, he realized that he was still at the empty space at the back of the audio-visual room. The machine was safely at the side while the presences of the ghosts were rather weak.

When his eyes panned to the side again, he almost had a heart attack when Tang Mingming suddenly peeked from the edge of his vision. Liu Xiaodan then stared at him with a bitter grin. "Ming... I passed out. Where are they?"

"Hehe, the little fella took all of them. He said something about you being upset if he left traces of dead people around." Tang Mingming still smiled like he was not discovered just yet. "Say, why would something like that obey a living person?"

"He's my son." Li Xiaodan only smiled again before looking around. This time, he saw the shadow of a third person in the room. He looked at it and smiled as well. "You must be Jun?"

"Jun rarely talks—"

"Thank you for helping."

Tang Mingming was shocked as he heard Jun spoke. He then pouted. "Yi Junhai! You can talk long words, and you don't even talk to me?!"

Liu Xiaodan reached out. "Uhm, hey... I think it's not like that. He's... he couldn't do it because he needed to expend a lot of energy to make a sound. Don't be so mad at him."

Only one pair of eyes was darted towards Liu Xiaodan, but he felt the weight of two gazes at his face. Tang Mingming then smiled again. "Hehe, you're even defending one of us from the other. You must be a very good medium, Xiaodan."

He then scratched a cheek. "Sorry about what happened in Cheng pig's room. I made you go through a terrible thing."

"Oh? That was you?" Liu Xiaodan only raised his brows. He then looked at the two figures with him in the audio-visual room. "You two seem to be stronger than most ghosts I've met before. Most of them barely moved like a human anymore. How long have you been stuck here?"

"Playing crossover saint, are we?" Tang Mingming only hummed with a smile. "Sadly, we can't escape. We're stuck here for eight years now, and that's all because of Cheng pig. Staying in the prison is okay for me as long as I'm with Jun."

"You don't want to be free?"

"Free?" Tang Mingming only cast his eyes down. "We used to be free, and we were judged and prosecuted. At least here, some people just leave us alone even if we fool around everywhere we want to."

Liu Xiaodan understood him not because he was unconventional himself; it was more of finding the place to be free from the eyes of society. In this place, he could freely interact with Guangru, and the worse he could get was the guards thinking that he was a loony.

Also... he was allowed to kill. Hehe, those who ran into the knife in his hand deserved their ends.

As if that thought hurt his head, he shot a hand to his forehead. He suddenly remembered that drowning resentment he felt earlier. Cheng Hei threatened to touch Wu Qianqian, and Liu Xiaodan lost it.

His sense of protection surged so much that he was knocked unconscious. However, he felt that he had done something awful again.

Knock, knock.

The three darted their gazes at the door of the audio-visual room. Liu Xiaodan got up and opened the door with a crack, only to see one of the guards that normally fetched him for a visit. The guard had his brows furrowed, but Liu Xiaodan could feel the wave of fear that kept on washing over the guard.

"Liu Xiaodan, it's dinner time. Stop watching and return the reels before coming to dinner. After dinner, you're not allowed to use the audio-visual room anymore. Continue in the morning." He tried to sound as stern as ever, but it was easy to see that he was scared. More when he spotted another figure inside the room.

"Ah, sure. Thank you for calling me." Liu Xiaodan left the door open before he spotted that the trolley had the five reels already. The machine was also stored for keeping as well. He smiled at Tang Mingming and Yi Junhai before leaving the place with the trolley.

As he locked the audio-visual room and rolled the trolley along the hallway, he saw Guangru hop on from the side and sat at the front edge of the trolley as if enjoying the ride.

Today was too exhausting, and so he even yawned and rubbed his eyes as if a child that ran out of battery. If only there was no guard next to him, the father would reach out to pet him.

The guard discreetly sighed as he didn't have to stand outside the audio-visual room for a long time. However, he felt rather disturbed that they were walking on their own in such an empty hallway. For some reason, he felt his legs freeze and couldn't help but reach out to grab Liu Xiaodan's arm.

Liu Xiaodan was surprised, and he turned to the guard. He was about to ask when the guard gestured a hush sign at the other man. He then whispered with a bit of embarrassment from the fear he felt, "We should probably walk faster. I don't like coming here at night."

Wu... wu... something cried somewhere in the distance.

The guard froze some more as he even stepped back. His eyes quivered in fear as he realized they stopped at exactly another haunted spot in those hallways.

Liu Xiaodan only looked at the adjacent hallway that the man was looking at and saw a huge double door at the end. There were also black bags near the door as if it was where the trash piled up before being taken out.

To his surprise, a bag moved and fell open. The knot loosened... and a white hand extended. A woman with long black hair crawled out, but she stopped just with her naked torso out from the big black bag.

She lifted her face covered by hair and stared at the man and at Liu Xiaodan. The guard fell to the ground and was about to scream when the woman moved back inside the bag again.

Unknown to the guard, her voice had been echoing in Liu Xiaodan's ears. She kept on saying 'face'.

"They found someone who could help them," Guangru spoke from the edge of the trolley. He then looked at his father who returned his gaze. "Are you going to help them, Baba?"

"If I can..."