The King of Curses

Chapter 8 Sudden Mutation
After An Zhizhen and Cen Dongsheng parted ways, they were on their way back to their room.

She met a young couple near the stairwell, holding hands and looking very affectionate. The wife's belly was round and bulging, and it was obvious that she was several months pregnant and was about to give birth.

An Zhizhen is a celebrity in the community. Many residents know her and have received her help, including this couple. An Zhizhen has provided them with pregnancy maintenance advice several times.

The couple saw her at the elevator and greeted her warmly.

"Doctor An, you seem very happy. Did something good happen recently?"

The wife said with a smile.

"Eh, is there?"

"Yeah, I see the corners of your mouth are always curled up."

An Zhizhen, who was reminded, touched her lips in surprise.

...Really, she showed an uncontrollable expression unconsciously. Was she too happy?

The husband turned around and smiled at his wife and said:
"I saw her sitting with that young man by the flower bed downstairs, chatting for the entire afternoon."

"How could it be...it's not that exaggerated."

She said this, but the curve of her lips did not shrink.

"There's still a few years difference between him and me, but it wasn't until recently that I realized we have a lot in common."

"My dear and I were like that at the beginning. We felt like we were from different worlds. But after we really sat down and talked, we felt that we were destined to be together."

"You two should stop showing off your affection in front of me. It really makes me, a single person, envious."

An Zhizhen pushed the door of the stairwell casually, but found that it wouldn't move.

"You're joking. With Dr. An's conditions, if you really want to find a man, the people chasing you will line up from top to bottom of the building."

"I might be jealous of other women, but Dr. An... I really can't be jealous of you." The pregnant wife looked at An Zhizhen's face carefully, with indescribable amazement in her eyes, "If I were a man, I would definitely be crazy about you."

"I think you're almost a woman. I can't take my eyes off you." The husband complained.

"Ha ha!"

The three of them were joking when An Zhizhen pushed the door next to him again, but it still wouldn't open.

"What's going on? Is it locked?" An Zhizhen blinked. "It doesn't look like it. It feels like there's something blocking the door."

"I can't help it. I remember there was a problem last time, and we hired someone to fix it. Old neighborhoods are prone to problems of one kind or another... Come on, dear, let's go through the other door."

The couple left.

An Zhizhen was left alone, feeling somewhat worried.

"I was thinking of finding a place to throw away the trash in room 310... Never mind, I'll think about it in a couple of days."

……

It's going to be night.

An Zhizhen was wearing a snow-white spinning nightgown and was sitting lazily on the sofa, supporting her chin with one hand and turning the pages of a book with the other.

There was no main light in the room, only a desk lamp providing a dim glow, illuminating the woman's flawless white jade face and her graceful figure shrouded in a veil-like shadow. She was quiet, beautiful and charming, like an oil painting.

Everything was silent. The only sound in the still night was the rustling of pages.

After a while, An Zhizhen frowned slightly, as if she had encountered an intractable puzzlement, and...

The trouble of being disturbed.

"I'm so hungry... so hungry... so hungry..."

A woman's hoarse and resentful voice came faintly from the direction of the corridor through the door, sometimes approaching and sometimes moving away. At the same time, it was accompanied by the sound of footsteps walking back and forth, as if she was wandering quietly in the corridor in front of her door.

An Zhizhen sighed, put down the academic monograph he was halfway through, put on slippers, and walked towards the door.

There was a small window on the security door that could be opened. After she opened it and saw that there was no one outside, she shouted loudly outside:

"Ms. Zhou, I've already told you that although you need to control your diet to lose weight, excessive dieting can have serious adverse effects on your body. In addition, it's equally important to maintain normal sleep habits and duration. Now it's time for you to go to bed and rest. Did you hear me?"

The staggering footsteps paused for a moment. Then, the owner of the footsteps turned around and walked towards this side quickly.

The woman's appearance soon appeared in her eyes.

"You are... Miss Zhou?"

An Zhizhen's pupils dilated slightly.

No wonder she almost didn't recognize him at first glance. The "Miss Zhou" facing her outside the door was wearing only a dirty nightgown, thin and frail, like a bag of bones, with dry and curly hair and bulging veins on her arms.

It looked like he hadn't washed for a long time, his whole body was dirty and he looked in very bad condition.

She remembered that she had met Miss Zhou a few weeks ago. At that time, she was still the plump type. How come after just one week... she looked so different?
"It's so late, aren't you going home? You're affecting the normal lives of the neighbors around you."

Miss Zhou did not answer. She turned her head stiffly and slowly. Her neck was like a rusty machine. An Zhizhen even heard a "crunching" sound.

A pair of blood-white eyes bulged out from beneath her dirty hair. She stared straight at the woman behind the door. There was an unspeakable viciousness in her eyes.

An Zhizhen took a step back unconsciously.

"...Look at you, you're so hungry that your body shape is abnormal. The hunger caused by excessive dieting will affect your mood and easily cause anxiety and depression..."

Miss Zhou grinned, revealing a row of white teeth, then suddenly pounced forward with her whole body, punching the door panel, followed by another heavy punch.

"Dong dong dong dong dong dong!"

Miss Zhou pounded on An Zhizhen's door with her fist without mercy, while pressing her face against the window. The facial expression on the glass was distorted, and the malice in her pupils almost burst into flames.

"Open the door...open the door for me! I'm so hungry...I'm so hungry! Open the door quickly!"

"...Just like you now, you have become a manic patient."

An Zhizhen immediately closed the window.

"Knock knock knock! Knock knock knock!" But the knocking sound never stopped. It started with banging on the door with fists, and then ended with ramming it with the body.

An Zhizhen even heard a creepy sound of bones cracking. The woman outside the door didn't seem to care at all about her body becoming tattered, and she was trying to use her flesh and blood to break the door open.

"Open the door, open the door! Let me eat, let me eat!"

With her unremitting efforts, a shallow dent appeared on the security door. If this continued, the door lock would be knocked open before the door.

An Zhizhen began to consider whether to take a kitchen knife for self-defense, so she walked towards the kitchen.

……

Miss Zhou's distorted and shrill screams echoed through the night, alarming people in the entire community.

Soon, several lights outside the corridor lit up one after another, and some neighbors who were awakened pushed the door open to check what was going on.

"What are you yelling about at this hour? Are you going to let me sleep?"

The person closest to the scene was a middle-aged man holding a flashlight, wearing a white T-shirt that couldn't hide his beer belly, and walking towards them in slippers with an unhappy look on his face.

The beam of light from the flashlight shone on Miss Zhou's face. The woman subconsciously covered it with her hands, but the corners of her mouth unconsciously curled up.

The saliva flowed uncontrollably from the corners of her mouth, proving that she was...really hungry. "So hungry, so hungry...I want to eat something..."

"Hey, you, what's wrong with you...?"

The man noticed that something seemed to be wrong, and there was hesitation in his tone of questioning.

"I'm so hungry. I'm so hungry..."

Miss Zhou had no intention of answering. She just made a wild-animal snoring sound in her throat and staggered towards the man.

"Wait……!"

Before the man could stop it, he saw a dark shadow rushing towards his face.

He subconsciously wanted to reach out to block it, but the other party's movement was too swift - the next moment, the man felt a sharp pain in his arm.

"Uhhhhh?!"

He suddenly screamed.

The flashlight fell in panic and pain, illuminating Miss Zhou's pale face. The woman was like a mad dog, opening her mouth wide and biting the man's hand fiercely, her hideous face covered with blood spurting from the wound.

In pain, the man subconsciously kicked her with his feet, swung his arms, and hit her back of the head with his other hand. However, Miss Zhou seemed oblivious to this and continued to bite her arm hard, even swinging her cheeks like a real beast and tearing off a piece of flesh from her arm.

“It hurts…?! W-What the hell… are you crazy…”

The man covered the bleeding wound, looked at the bite marks on his arm where a large piece of flesh was missing, and stepped back in a mixture of anger and panic.

Miss Zhou stood there, slowly and leisurely eating the human flesh in her mouth, swallowing it into her stomach as if she were savoring a delicacy.

Her mouth opened wide again and she wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth.

Looking at the middle-aged man who turned around and tried to escape, her pupils flashed with a bloodthirsty light.

With her back arched and her limbs spread out, the woman climbed up the wall like a spider, then pounced out quickly, pinning the running man to the ground.

……

The dim corridor was submerged in the night, stretching into the distance as if without end.

Under the boundless night sky, the lonely Xiaokang Building is like a U-shaped maze, with neither the sky nor the ground touching.

Screaming, shouting, crying, swallowing and chewing... the sounds happening in this building swayed like phantoms and eventually disappeared in the night wind, unable to be heard by the outside world.

*
As soon as An Zhizhen returned to the door from the kitchen, she heard the man's terrified roar.

She hesitated for a moment, and after making sure that there was no one outside, she took the kitchen knife in her hand and carefully used the handle to push the door open a crack.

Then, she saw a shocking scene:
Miss Zhou threw her neighbor to the ground and opened her mouth wide to bite the man's neck. It was like a scene from a horror movie.

For a moment, blood and flesh splattered everywhere, and the scene was horrific.

The crushed man struggled a few times at first, but after more than ten seconds he completely lost his strength, and a pool of thick blood spread out under his body.

"What's happening here?"

An Zhizhen closed the door, locked it, and pushed the sofa to the door.

She likes watching horror movies, which naturally include various zombie movies, but she never expected to see the horrifying scene of "cannibalism" in real life.

From her perspective as a professional doctor and physiological science researcher, she finds it even more incredible.

"She seemed to keep saying 'I'm so hungry', so because she was so hungry...she started eating people? No, that doesn't make sense at all."

An Zhizhen stood behind the door and waited for a while, but heard no other sound.

The corridor became quiet again. The silent night enveloped the apartment building, as if nothing had happened.

The cruel scene she had just witnessed seemed like a nightmare.

There should be other residents in this corridor... What about them? Did they see it like me, feel scared, and hide in their rooms without making any noise?
She turned on her cell phone to try to call the police, but found there was no signal.

An Zhizhen frowned and thought for a moment, then changed the number again. This time it was Cen Dongsheng, and the call actually went through, but the signal was very weak.

"Dongsheng, I..."

Before she could continue, she heard hurried footsteps coming from the phone, and the young man's low voice reminded:
"Don't be afraid, Sister Zhizhen... Shasha... Stay home, don't go out... Shasha... I'm here to save you now."

"Eh? You came to see me...wait, this is dangerous--"

Communication was interrupted.

When she tried again, she could no longer dial any number.

An Zhizhen was stunned for a moment, then hurried to the door.

*
Miss Zhou was lying on the corpse, eating with relish. Suddenly, as if she heard something, she raised her head alertly.

The cold light reflected from the surrounding glass dimly illuminated a horrifying face, her mouth covered in blood, flesh and brain matter.

Footsteps sounded not far away, approaching her at a leisurely pace.

Miss Zhou suddenly raised her head, jumped onto the stair railing at the side, and looked at the other end of the dark corridor.

……

A young man walked out of the darkness.

He looked to be no more than twenty years old, very young, with a close-cropped haircut, a tall and strong physique, and a tough temperament that gave one the impression that "this guy is a good fighter", and his expression was too calm to be that of a passionate young man of his age.

Even when he saw the bloody corpse lying on the ground, his expression did not change much. He just murmured in a low voice:
"…Possessed?"

The woman crouched on the stair railing like a beast, baring her teeth at him as if to intimidate him. From Miss Zhou's demeanor and movements, there was no sign of being human at all.

At this moment, a door not far behind the two of them suddenly opened, and An Zhizhen stuck his head out and shouted at him anxiously:
"Go back quickly! No... Come here and hide inside the house! That woman is too dangerous, she can eat people!"

"Ok, I know."

Cen Dongsheng simply answered this question briefly.

At the same time, Miss Zhou pounced towards him with a fierce and swift movement that was unbelievable.

however……

"boom."

The young man stretched out his hand and just caught the woman's head, causing his momentum to slow down and his feet to sway off the ground.

This scene looked like he grabbed Miss Zhou's head with one hand and lifted her into the air.

His palm was broad, with thick knuckles, and his five fingers were spread out, covering her face and sinking deeply into the woman's facial flesh.

Miss Zhou wanted to open her mouth and bite, but these five fingers were like steel bars, locking her movements tightly.

Then, Cen Dongsheng grabbed Miss Zhou's head and threw her against the wall.

"boom!"

A hole was smashed directly into the wall, and the tile fragments flew everywhere. The woman's head plunged into the spider-web-like crack.

(End of this chapter)