I, the screenwriter, have experienced a resurgence of inspiration.

……

The scalding ghost made a strange "hoarse" sound from its throat and took a step towards Kang Xiaojia—it seemed to be able to tell which of the two was not to be trifled with.

The melted flesh fell down as it moved, dripping onto the ground and immediately sizzling and burning small pits.

"Be careful!"

Chen Xi braced himself against the edge of the bed with one hand, lifted his body into the air, and lashed out with his right leg like a whip, kicking the scalding ghost hard in the lower back.

She was wearing training pants, the cuffs of which were rotten from the heat, and even through the fabric, you could feel the scorching temperature.

"Bang!"

The kick was so powerful that it sent the scalding ghost staggering back several steps, crashing heavily onto the folding table—the stack of rice cakes fell to the ground, shattering into a puddle of white paste that slowly spread with the sugar water.

The red and white bits of roasted meat inside dissolved into the sugar syrup.

"The cop..."

The scalding ghost stared at Chen Xi with his murky eyes, forcing out two words that were tinged with fear and resentment:

"You're a cop..."

He had been arrested by the police before he died, and his death was marked by an instinctive fear.

The scalding ghost glanced longingly at the props in Chen Xi's hand, took two steps back, and pressed himself against the wall, as if trying to shrink back into the kitchen.

Want to run?

Chen Xi didn't give it any chance at all.

She pulled the trigger, but the gun didn't fire. Chen Xi acted decisively, raising her hand and slamming it hard against the metal corner of the bed.

"Team Leader Chen!"

Kang Xiaojia let out a soft cry, but Chen Xi seemed to feel no pain, and aimed again expressionlessly—the bloodstain in the center of her palm connected directly to the gun barrel, and blood seeped in.

[Blood Bullet Reloaded: "Constable" Yang Blood, deals +5% damage to low-level evil spirits]

Chen Xi gripped the gun with both hands, the sights firmly locked onto the scalding ghost's forehead:

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Three shots were fired in quick succession, each one dull and muffled, each stained with blood.

The bullet hit the same spot precisely, blood exploded, the yang blood burned away the yin evil, and a "sizzling" sound was heard, and black smoke immediately rose from that piece of flesh.

"Holy crap—!!"

The scalded ghost let out a shrill scream, and three bloody holes exploded in its head, spraying out black and red liquid!

Its massive body swayed, as if its bones had been removed, and crashed to the ground with a loud thud.

The skin and flesh melted at a visible speed, turning into a pool of reddish-yellow viscous paste—like shattered strawberry jelly—slowly seeping into the cracks in the floor.

In the end, only a few tattered work clothes remained, scattered along the edge of the slurry.

[System Notification: Player "Chen Xi" has defeated a low-level Scalding Fiend, achieving the first kill in the dungeon!]

[Rewards: 5-slot expansion backpack, glass marble, 1 Blood Replenishing Pill, 1 Qi Boosting Pill]

[Glass marbles (iron): When ingested, they can astringe yang energy and block out breathing sounds. Effective against yin evil spirits below the level of fierce ghosts. A single marble lasts for twenty minutes.]

[Blood-Replenishing Pill: Restores 50 points of health upon consumption.]

[Qi-Boosting Pill: Restores 30 points of mana after consumption.]

……

First kill reward?

Chen Xi stared at the rotten flesh, put down the gun, and shook her numb wrist—this gun was different from ordinary guns; the recoil was considerable, and even she felt a bit sore and swollen after firing three shots.

"Captain Chen, are you alright...?"

Kang Xiaojia climbed off the bed, her face still a little pale, but she held Chen Xi's hand and began emergency treatment:

"I brought a first-aid kit!"

As a "doctor," the Special Investigation Bureau naturally equipped her with the item "an inexhaustible medical kit."

Although the medicine inside was just ordinary wound medicine, with Kang Xiaojia's healing boost, the wound on Chen Xi's palm scabbed over at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Walk around it, the ground is sticky."

Chen Xi stopped her and tucked his gun into his waistband: "Check if there are any props among the body parts."

"Okay!"

Kang Xiaojia nodded, obediently picked up an old wooden stick from the corner of the wall, and, suppressing her nausea, squatted down next to the puddle of sludge and rummaged through it.

The sticky paste, carrying the sweet and fishy smell of the soup, not only made people dizzy, but the roasted meat pieces inside were also likely to evoke unpleasant associations.

Kang Xiaojia held her breath and rummaged around for a long time before finally managing to pull out a pair of black rubber shoes.

The shoes were a slightly worn style, with thick rubber surfaces and some sugar stains on the uppers, but they weren't corroded by the sulfuric acid-like bodily fluids.

【Item: Silent Rubber Shoe Covers (Durability 6/10)】

(These were the fishmonger's favorite shoe covers; wearing them silenced his footsteps and reduced his presence.)

"Take it."

Chen Xi moved her wrist. "Walk quietly, so you won't be easily spotted by the strange creature."

"Thank you, Captain Chen!" Kang Xiaojia didn't mind the dirt on it at all and happily took it and put it on.

It's the perfect size, and it moves silently on the ground, like a nimble cat.

Chen Xi walked to the wall and picked up the photo frame that had fallen to the ground—the glass was broken, but the photo inside was still intact.

The man with the thick lips above was gone, leaving only the woman and the student.

The woman's face was still blurry, but her eyes were much more terrified than before. She shifted her position, as if trying to escape from Chen Xi's grasp.

As for the student riding on the man's neck, he is now suspended in mid-air, in an even more bizarre posture.

He lowered his head, his dark eyes staring straight at the camera, as if he were staring at the person looking at the photo.

A family of three, now only two are ghosts.

So the person she just killed was the male homeowner.

Chen Xi frowned, wondering if burning the photos would count as damaging the facilities in the house. In the end, she could only give up, turned the photos upside down on the table, and weighed them down with a soup pot.

As long as the other party doesn't provoke her, there's not much she can do.

Chen Xi glanced at the old clock hanging on the wall; the hour hand pointed to 3:45.

The second night patrol will begin in 15 minutes at 4:00.

Completely unable to sleep, Chen Xi was about to get up and go next door to ask what was going on when she heard Jiang Chen knocking on the door:

"Captain Chen, something's happened to Wang Lei and the others."

……

……

"Help me, help me, I don't want to die!"

The door to room 1703 was locked from the inside, and Wang Lei's cries for help could be faintly heard through the door.

"Captain, the walls are eating people! This room is going to eat people!"

"Lin Jianguo has been eaten!!"

Without saying a word, Chen Xi slammed his shoulder against the door.

"Bang!"

The already rotten wooden door was smashed open, and the scene inside left everyone frozen in place, a chill instantly running down their spines:

1703 was still that "clean" room.

The two beds were arranged neatly, but the bed near the door was empty.

Lin Jianguo has disappeared.

On the wall where he slept, there was a complete black human-shaped imprint.

The mark was deep and the outline was clear, so clear that it looked like it was drawn on.

Wang Lei was half-hanging on the wall next to the bed inside.

His right side, which belongs to the human body, has been completely embedded in the wall.

From cheeks, shoulders, and arms to waist, hips, and thighs, everything blended into the wall, blurring the boundaries.

The exposed paper-made parts were still being slowly sucked in by the wall—the paper-like parts were sinking in little by little, and the edges of the paper were being "chewed" by the wall until they were almost curled up.

He is being slowly "eaten" away.

Wang Lei was terrified; tears streamed down his face from the left eye of the paper effigy, mixing with pulp and soaking half of his body.

"Captain Chen...save me...I don't want to die..."

"I don't want to be eaten... pull me out of here..."

He could only open and close his left mouth, making him look both strange and pitiful.

"Don't move."

Chen Xi walked over quickly, squatted down, and carefully observed the boundary between him and the wall:

The boundary was sticky, like melted asphalt, and slightly wriggling.

If you look closely, the wall undulates slightly, gently and slowly, like the peristalsis of a stomach wall.

"Deadlifts definitely won't work."

Jiang Chen also squatted down, his brows furrowed: "If you pull on Wang Lei's half of his body, it will break; the paper part is too brittle."

"What can we do? We can't just stand by and watch him get sucked in, can we?" Zheng Wenxuan said anxiously.

Wang Lei cried even harder: "Don't leave me... I don't want to die... Captain Chen, please..."

"Captain Chen, how about trying this to soften it? It's a bit hot, but at least I can treat burns."

Kang Xiaojia, as if remembering something, ran to the next room and brought back a pot of hot sugar water:

"This wall is movable, so it should be able to hold sugar water, right?"

Everyone thought the little girl's idea was whimsical, but Chen Xi took the pot of sugar water and, with a spoon, slowly smeared it on the wall around Wang Lei's body, as if spreading honey.

[belch--]

At first, it didn't have much effect, but slowly, the wall suddenly made a hissing sound, and half of Wang Lei's body was "spit out" a large part of it.

Then, the wall came to a standstill.

"It works! It works!"

Zheng Wenxuan excitedly pumped his fist, while Jiang Chen remained silent.

Chen Xi glanced at the wall. "Jiang Chen, find a knife."

"have."

Jiang Chen immediately got up, opened the drawer of the old table and rummaged through it. Inside, there were old newspapers, ropes, nails, and a rusty fruit knife lying in the back.

The blade isn't particularly sharp, but it's sharp enough.

He immediately handed over the knife.

Chen Xi took the knife, pointing the tip at the point where Wang Lei's body met the wall: "Bear with it, it might hurt a little."

Wang Lei nodded frantically: "I'll endure it! I can endure it! Cut it quickly! Cut it quickly!"

Chen Xi made a quick decision, aimed the tip of the knife at the intersection, and steadily cut downwards.

"rustle--"

"Rustling..."

The sound of the blade cutting into the cardboard was very soft, like cutting cardboard.

Wang Lei was in so much pain that his whole body trembled and spasmed, but he gritted his teeth and dared not groan loudly, for fear of disturbing the "thing" inside the wall.

A few minutes later, with a soft "hiss," the last bit of skin and flesh that couldn't be pulled out was severed.

Wang Lei fell down, and a piece of flesh was cleanly sliced ​​off his right arm, which looked terrifying and extremely horrifying.

Fortunately, he survived.

Even though the timing wasn't right, Jiang Chen couldn't help but sigh at how resilient this guy was.

They're still alive.

……

……

Kang Xiaojia quickly stepped forward and applied hemostatic medicine to Wang Lei's arm, but the area where the paper offering had been melted and torn by the sugar water and tears showed no reaction at all.

"Captain Chen, the paper-like part... I can't cure it." Kang Xiaojia said softly, her tone somewhat guilty.

"It's not your fault." Chen Xi shook his head: "His paper doll transformation is a rule-based curse, not an ordinary external injury."

As he spoke, Chen Xi stood up and walked to the wall where Lin Jianguo had disappeared to examine it carefully.

The wall was still undulating slightly, but the human-shaped mark had faded so much that it was almost invisible.

She tried smearing sugar water on the wall, but it didn't work at all.

Up close, you can smell a faint stench of blood mixed with the smell of plaster seeping from inside the wall.

There were still some very fine bits of stuff stuck to the wall:

A few bits of cloth fiber, half a fingernail, bone fragments as fine as dust, and a few strands of black hair.

It was as if an invisible, nano-sized strainer had ground Lin Jianguo into a pulp.

It filtered out little by little and then seeped into the wall.

Even the bones were ground into powder and filtered clean.

A grown man weighing over 140 pounds is gone just like that.

Kang Xiaojia covered her mouth, almost vomiting.

Zheng Wenxuan's face also turned pale.

He had seen many gruesome corpses, but this way of dying—being crushed into mud and sucked into a wall while still alive—was more horrifying than any crime scene.