At first, the knocking was slow—just a few dull thuds—but it quickly grew louder and faster, each bang so intense that it made our eardrums ache. I could tell that if we didn’t open the door soon, it might be torn off its hinges.

Xu Meng was frozen, clutching me tightly, her eyes wide with terror as she stared at the door. It was clear the paper man had scared her badly.

I wasn’t having it. I was a real person, and I wasn’t about to let a paper man intimidate me.

I stood up, and Xu Meng followed suit, staying behind me with a tight grip on my shirt. I approached the peephole, but just as I reached it, the knocking stopped.

I swallowed, feeling the atmosphere shift. Something felt wrong, but I peered through the peephole anyway.

Oddly, the hallway lights were off, and all I could see through the peephole was pitch black. I wasn’t sure if it was because no one was out there, or if the darkness was just so deep that I couldn’t see anything. Regardless, I didn’t see the man in the suit Xu Meng had described.

Just as I was about to step back, something appeared outside the peephole. A lantern, but not just any lantern—it was wrapped in a strange, textured skin.

Wait, that texture... it looked familiar.

Hold on, was that... human skin? A human skin lantern?

“Why is your face so pale? What did you see?” Xu Meng noticed my shock, though she was still terrified herself.

I didn’t want to scare her by telling her what I saw—a human skin lantern—so I kept quiet.

The figure holding the lantern was an old woman. Her silver hair hung in unkempt strands, her skin was rough and wrinkled like old tree bark, and her forehead was lined with bulging veins. Under the eerie greenish light of the lantern, her face became even more disturbing, like something straight out of a horror movie.

“Are you the ghost lady?” I asked from behind the door.

“The ghost lady? Who is that?” Xu Meng asked, confused.

Xu Meng still didn’t know who the ghost lady was. It was only after she returned home that night that the ghost lady had appeared.

“The ghost lady is the one who cursed you with the Corpse Fetus,” I explained. I realized it was time Xu Meng knew the truth—she deserved to understand what was happening to her, rather than staying in the dark.

The old woman outside the door finally spoke, her voice slow and deliberate: “The master sent me to play with you. The game starts now! Hehehe…”

Her laugh was sharp and unnerving, and the sight of her toothless mouth made it even worse.

“Master?” That caught my attention—so she wasn’t the ghost lady after all? Could she be another paper man? And what did she mean by “the game”?

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Suddenly, the old woman did something horrifying. She reached up and grabbed her own eye, then yanked it out of its socket with a sickening, wet sound. Blood splattered onto the door.

“Hehehe…” She laughed again, this time with even more malice.

She pressed her own eyeball against the peephole, completely blocking our view. From then on, all we could see through the peephole was a grotesque, blood-covered eye.

“What happened?” Xu Meng asked frantically, noticing that I had stepped away from the peephole.

I explained, “The old woman blocked the peephole with her eye. We can’t see anything now.”

“An old woman?” Xu Meng asked, puzzled. “Wasn’t it supposed to be the man in the suit with the knife?”

Xu Meng crouched down to peer through the peephole, but the instant her face pressed against it, a shrill, blood-curdling scream erupted from her.

That’s when we heard something else: footsteps. Dozens of footsteps, shuffling around outside. There had to be at least ten of them, maybe more. I couldn’t tell exactly since the peephole was blocked, but the sound was overwhelming. It was too dangerous to open the door now.

After what felt like an eternity, the footsteps finally stopped, and in their place, a series of eerie, cold laughs filled the air. It sounded like one person, but there were many voices mixed in. The laughs were jarring, unsettling.

We didn’t dare approach the door. Xu Meng continued to clutch my sleeve, and we both stood there, trying to steady our breathing.

Then, without warning, the lights went out with a loud pop. The room was plunged into total darkness. Xu Meng panicked and let out a scream.

“Don’t panic,” I said. “Find the light switch.”

We both fumbled in the dark, feeling for the switch, but when we found it and pressed it, nothing happened. The lights were dead.

“Where’s the circuit breaker?” I asked, but Xu Meng didn’t answer. Instead, she pointed toward the balcony.

I turned, following her finger. There, in the dim darkness outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, was a figure—a man in a suit, holding a long, gleaming knife.

The man in the suit—he had finally arrived. But how the hell did he get to the fifteenth floor?

“He… he’s floating up. I… I saw it,” Xu Meng stammered, her eyes wide with horror.

Floating? From the fifteenth floor? No way. That could only mean one thing—he was a paper man, just like the ghost lady said. He couldn’t have gotten there any other way.

The sliding door to the balcony wasn’t locked, and with a swift motion, the man in the suit pushed it open.

“Tang Hao, what do we do? He’s here!” Xu Meng trembled, clutching me desperately.

“What else is there to do? We fight. Paper man or not, we’ll take him on,” I said, grabbing a fruit knife from the table. It wasn’t as long as his, but it would have to do.

“Tell me now—Corpse Fetus—are you keeping it or not?” the man in the suit said, his voice cold and mechanical, like a broken recording.

Xu Meng didn’t respond, hiding behind me. The man in the suit repeated, “If you don’t answer, you die.”

“Damn you! I won’t keep it. Now get lost!” I shouted, then lunged at him with the knife.

I drove the fruit knife directly into his chest, expecting him to recoil in pain. But instead, the knife made a soft swoosh sound, as if it had plunged into paper. The man didn’t even flinch. No blood, no injury—he was fine, like nothing had happened.

“Now it’s my turn!” the man in the suit said, his tone growing colder. With a swift motion, he swung his knife at my head.

I barely managed to dodge. I wasn’t made of paper, and if that knife hit me, I’d be bleeding for sure.

But he didn’t stop. He came after me, relentlessly stabbing with his blade. I tried to pull the knife out of his chest, but he didn’t give me a chance. Instead, he kicked me hard in the stomach.

The force sent me flying backward, crashing into the coffee table and knocking over the sofa. I hit the floor hard, groaning in pain. Blood spilled from my mouth, and I rolled around, trying to get back on my feet.

The man in the suit didn’t relent. He continued to stab at me, but I wasn’t going to let him win. I grabbed a lighter from my pocket.

“You’re a paper man, right? Let’s see if you’re afraid of fire!” I shouted.

The man froze for a moment, his eyes wide with panic. I threw the lighter at him. The paper of his body caught fire instantly with a sharp whoosh, and before he could even scream, he was completely engulfed in flames.

In moments, he was reduced to a pile of ash.