A debt-ridden tycoon inherits a luxury mansion, but the tenants are not human.

The underground parking garage was quiet, but the space was too large to see the end. He walked around for a long time and saw nothing but a few parked cars and dim lights. In the distance, the beams of flashlights flashed, and two patrolling security guards were walking towards him. Chen Mo quickly slipped into the shadow of a concrete pillar and, taking advantage of the blind spot, quietly withdrew from the underground parking garage.

It was already 7 a.m. when he came out. After staying up all night, Chen Mo felt that his legs were so heavy that he could not lift them. The rising sun made him squint. The square was already full of people hurrying by during the morning rush hour.

A young couple walked by hand in hand. The girl wore a diamond ring on her ring finger, which sparkled in the sunlight. The boy said something, and the girl smiled and leaned on his shoulder.

Chen Mo looked away, took out his phone to call home, hesitated for a long time on the dial button, and finally pressed the lock screen button. What could he say? He could say that his son had inherited a haunted house and was now desperately trying to find a ring for a woman who had been dead for 24 years, which would surely give his mother a heart attack.

He sighed helplessly, put his phone back in his pocket, and decided to go back to the old house first.

On the bus, Chen Mo leaned against the window and closed his eyes to rest. As soon as he closed his eyes, those lingering shadows became clearer. In the middle of the carriage, a woman in an old-fashioned cheongsam stood with her back to him, her shoulders trembling slightly as if she were sobbing. An old man squatted by the exit door, repeatedly swiping his card, but his hands were empty.

He suddenly opened his eyes, and the blurry figures were still swaying in the carriage. He decided to stay awake and turned to stare at the street scene rushing past the window. The car passed through an old red-brick residential area, and from the fourth-floor window of one of the buildings, a blurry figure was waving at him. He immediately turned his head away and stopped looking, letting the car leave the red-brick buildings behind.

I returned to Qing Shi Lane in a daze. It was almost evening, and the setting sun dyed the stone road a dark orange-red. The shadow of the old house at No. 17 was stretched long, casting a huge black shadow on the ground.

Pushing open the heavy wooden door, the old woman's illusory figure was indeed still there in the corner of the main room. This time, she raised her head and waved at him. Chen Mo stopped in his tracks, suppressing his discomfort, and slowly approached.

Following the illusory figure's guidance, he crouched down and felt around inside the legs of the eight-immortal table. His fingertips touched a hard knot, and with a forceful pry, he found a yellowed old plastic button in his palm. He placed the button on the table, and the old woman's illusory figure slowly nodded, its form gradually fading until it finally melted into the dim air.

After staring at the button for a few seconds, Chen Mo put it in his pocket, considering it a small fulfillment of his obsession. He turned and hurried upstairs, carrying the iron box hidden in the drawer back to the main room. Lifting the mottled lid, Lin Xiulan's last letter came into view once again.

"As long as the ring is there, our hearts will always be together."

His gaze shifted from the letter to the family photo underneath. Lin Xiulan, in her early thirties, was holding a baby and smiling gently. The thin silver ring on her left ring finger was particularly eye-catching. Chen Mo stared at the ring for a long time, and then, as if possessed, he stretched out his index finger and gently pressed the tip of his finger on the spot where the ring was in the photo.

The surrounding light suddenly brightened, and the cold and dark old house room instantly disappeared, replaced by a bright and unfamiliar living room. Chen Mo looked around and saw typical 5s furnishings: a wooden sofa, a glass coffee table, and a bulky CRT television. The old calendar on the wall was clearly set to May 10, 1998.

At the dressing table, a woman in a floral shirt stood with her back to him. She picked up a small velvet box from the table, took out a silver ring, carefully slipped it onto her ring finger, and gazed at herself in the mirror for a long time before a satisfied smile appeared on her lips.

The surrounding scenery rippled and shattered like water, then reformed, revealing a bustling department store. Lin Xiulan was standing in front of a row of old-fashioned glass counters, looking down to select watches. Just as she took out her wallet to pay, her left hand accidentally hit the edge of the glass counter, and her silver ring slipped off her finger with a few crisp "clinks" as it rolled down the floor tiles and into the gap at the bottom of the counter.

Lin Xiulan hurriedly squatted down to reach for it, but the gap was too narrow. She anxiously called the sales clerk for help, and the two of them worked together to lift the heavy wooden base of the glass cabinet, but they could only move it a little bit. She lay on the cold floor tiles, desperately reaching her arm into the gap. Her fingertips were only a few centimeters away from that silver light, but she couldn't reach it no matter what she did.

The despair hadn't subsided when the scene twisted again. The pungent smell of disinfectant filled her nostrils. This time it was a hospital ward. Lin Xiulan, lying on the hospital bed, was so thin she was unrecognizable. Her hands trembled as she pulled a yellowed wedding photo from under her pillow. Her thumb rubbed the ring on her finger in the photo, and tears fell silently down her cheeks.

Beside the bed, a haggard-looking man gripped her other hand tightly, biting his lip as tears streamed down his face.

Lin Xiulan looked at him and said with all her might, "Asheng... I'm sorry... I lost the ring..."

The man shook his head, choking back tears, and said, "It's alright, Xiulan, it's alright. The ring isn't important, you are."

"But...you said...as long as the ring is there, my heart is there..."

My heart will always be with you.

The man held her hand tightly. "It's fine without a ring."

Lin Xiulan's lips trembled as she tried to speak, but she had completely exhausted her strength. Her eyes slowly closed, and the last tear slid down her cheek.

All the images collapsed at that moment.

Chen Mo jerked his hand back as if electrocuted, slumped onto the bench, and gasped for breath. A layer of cold sweat had seeped from his forehead. The despair and regret seeped into his bones, almost suffocating him. His heart clenched, and he looked down at his hand, his fingertips still trembling slightly.

"Touching memories..."

Chen Mo muttered to himself, "This is the truth of my abilities. The price of obtaining clues is that I must peel away the dead's obsessions and personally experience that heart-wrenching emotional resonance."

"Clang~ Clang~"

The old clock in the main room struck seven, and outside the window, night had already fallen.

Chen Mo leaned back in his chair, forcing himself to calm down. The image kept replaying in his mind: the ring rolling down and getting stuck deep in the gap at the bottom of an old-fashioned glass display case. Those wooden-base display cases from the 1990s usually had a baseboard at the bottom, leaving a blind spot between the base and the floor. Once the ring rolled in, it was very easy for it to get stuck in the gap between the base and the floor tiles. As long as that display case wasn't forcibly dismantled and cleared when the department store was demolished, the ring would most likely have remained hidden in that secret corner.

Time has passed, and the department store has long been razed to the ground. The whereabouts of the old furniture are impossible to trace. Perhaps it has long since turned into rotten wood under the ruins, or perhaps it has flowed into some second-hand market. Undeterred, he took out his mobile phone and entered "Old Town Department Store Second-hand Goods Disposal 2005" into the search box.

Amidst a screen full of irrelevant information, he patiently scrolled through more than a dozen pages before finally catching a clue in an old post on a local forum: "The department store was demolished in 2005, and all the old furniture and counters inside were transported to a second-hand market in the west of the city for disposal. My family bought a glass counter, and we're still using it."

The post was made in 2009.

Chen Mo's heart skipped a beat. He quickly clicked on the poster's profile page. The username was "Old Zhang's Secondhand Goods," and the profile picture was a selfie of a slightly weathered middle-aged man. He immediately sent a private message: "Hello, do you still have the glass display case from the department store you bought at the West City Secondhand Market in 2005?"

The chat interface was completely silent; the other party hadn't come online for a long time. Chen Mo stood up impatiently and paced back and forth in the main room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the ghostly figure in work clothes pacing restlessly at the bottom of the stairs, perfectly mimicking his steps. This eerie sense of synchronization suffocated him. He simply pushed open the door and went into the yard, took out his cigarette case, and lit one. The night breeze was slightly cool, and the spark between his fingers flickered in the darkness.

A sudden vibration came from his pocket. He pulled out his phone with high hopes, but instead of a private message reply, a local news notification popped up: "New Archaeological Discovery in the City: Republic of China Era Coins Unearthed at Wanda Plaza Construction Site in Old Town..."

The article states that Wanda Plaza recently underwent underground pipeline renovation. During the excavation of the foundation, the construction team unexpectedly unearthed a batch of copper coins and miscellaneous items from the Republic of China era. These items have now been handed over to the cultural relics department. A site survey map is attached at the bottom of the news article, showing the bottom of the pit as muddy and littered with rusty metal lumps and broken porcelain pieces.

Chen Mo's gaze swept across the edge of the photo, then his eyes suddenly fixed on it. He quickly expanded his fingers on the screen, zooming in on that inconspicuous corner. The small arc of the silver-white metal object half-embedded in the mud was clearly the opening of a ring.

With a tremor of his fingertips, the half-burnt cigarette fell onto the bluestone slab.

If this ring hadn't gotten stuck in the counter back then, but instead fallen into a deep crevice in the foundation of the department store... then it would have just seen the light of day yesterday, only to be packed up and transported away as an artifact the next day. He anxiously scrolled to the end of the news article, searching for the whereabouts of the item. The last line in bold boldface read: "All unearthed items have been transferred to the Archaeological Institute under the Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics for safekeeping."

The address of the Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics Archaeological Research Institute was firmly imprinted in his mind. Chen Mo turned off the screen, crushed the cigarette butt on the ground, and looked up at the night sky. Thick clouds obscured the starlight, leaving only the eerie dark red reflected by the city's neon lights. Through the crack of the half-closed door of the main room, the halo of kerosene lamp stubbornly spilled out, spreading a small patch of warm yellow on the bluestone slab.

Chen Mo went back into the house, closed the courtyard gate, locked the iron box back into the drawer, and dragged his tired body up to the second floor.

Lying flat on the hard wooden bed, the whereabouts of the ring kept replaying in his mind. If the item really ended up in the archaeological institute's warehouse, how could he get it out? Should he forge an identity and sneak in, or simply climb over the wall and pick the lock at night? Extreme drowsiness eventually overcame his chaotic thoughts, and his consciousness gradually sank into darkness.

The dream was thick and oppressive. Lin Xiulan's figure wandered among the ruins of the department store, her back hunched, digging through every broken brick and tile with her bare hands. Suddenly, the woman in the ruins stopped, staring straight at Chen Mo. Her face was blurry, but two streaks of bloody tears streamed down her face. Her lips moved silently, and judging from the shape of her mouth, she was clearly pleading: "Help me..."

The scene abruptly ended.

Chen Mo suddenly opened his eyes, sat up with heavy breathing. It was still pitch black outside the window. He grabbed his phone and saw that the time on the screen was 3:21 a.m.

On the lock screen, there was an unread message notification. Opening the forum, I saw Old Zhang's reply: "The counter is still there, in my warehouse. Do you want to buy it?"

Chen Mo carefully considered his words and quickly typed: "I'm not buying it. It's just that someone who was very important to me lost a silver ring at the counter back then, and I want to go see if it's still there under the counter."

After a moment of silence, the other end replied: "Okay. Tomorrow at 3 PM, at the West City Secondhand Market. Call me when you get there, 138..."

After replying with a thank you, Chen Mo tossed his phone onto the pillow and lay back down on the bed, staring wide-eyed at the mottled ceiling.

The clues have split into two. Tomorrow afternoon, we'll first go to the counter in the west of the city. If we find nothing there, we'll have to turn our attention to the archaeological institute. If we fail to find anything on both sides... these ten days will probably be his death day.

The night wind blew through the dilapidated window frames, and the wooden structure of the old house creaked with a teeth-grinding sound. In a daze, a faint sigh came from the depths of the main room downstairs.

Chen Mo wrapped himself tightly in the blanket, turned over to face the wall, and in the darkness, the dark blue mark below his collarbone, which represented his identity as the landlord, shimmered faintly with his breath.