【I have a haunted house】Chapter 17: The Fu'an Apartment

Wang Qi had been persistently advising Nick to leave. From the perspective of a stranger, his enthusiasm was overly conspicuous.

Nick did not immediately comply. After hearing Wang Qi's story, he began to feel an unsettling sense that the man was concealing something.

"I've told you everything I can," Wang Qi said, "It's not too late to leave now. After midnight, the apartment building will change into something else entirely." With that, Wang Qi brushed the dust off his clothes and turned to walk away.

It wasn't until Wang Qi’s figure disappeared into the night that Nick finally realized. His initial intention had been to gather information from the tenants within the building, but now, instead of finding answers, his confusion had only deepened.

"There's something seriously wrong with that man... is he really just crazy?" Nick thought to himself, recalling the murky, exhausted look in Wang Qi’s eyes. It was a gaze that betrayed untold fatigue and suffering—something that could not be faked. "It seems he truly loved his wife."

Nick turned back, passing the room of the woman on the first floor. He hesitated for a moment before tentatively knocking on her door.

"Hey, new guy," came no response from the door. Instead, a tall, thin man appeared at the half-open door of a room across the hall.

He appeared to be in his thirties, disheveled, with unkempt hair and a beard that nearly blended together. A tattoo of a peony could be seen on the back of his exposed hand.

"Who are you?" Nick asked, turning around warily.

"That guy who posted a missing person notice is not a tenant here. Something’s off about him," the tall man said, tapping his temple. "Don’t believe anything he says. Keeping too close to him will bring trouble."

Nick had never seen the tall man before. Though he appeared unkempt, his tone was the most sensible of anyone Nick had encountered.

"That guy’s behavior is certainly strange, but he may be just deeply affected by his wife’s disappearance."

"Did he tell you his fiancée went missing near the apartment building?"

"Yes."

"And did he say that the police told him so, which is why he keeps searching here?"

"Exactly."

"Heh," the tall man chuckled softly. "I’ve lived here for nine months, and I’ve never seen a single police officer. That crazy man is just lying to you, talking about ghosts and vengeful spirits—pure nonsense."

He pulled a cheap cigarette from his pocket and lit it. "There’s no such thing as ghosts in this world. Most of the time, people are just pretending. Now, it’s late. You’d better head back to your room."

Nick thanked him and turned to leave.

As he ascended the stairs, his mind was in turmoil. "One of them must be lying. But who?"

Perhaps he was too absorbed in his thoughts, for when he finally came to, he realized he had reached the third floor.

The chipped numbers on the corner of the landing were barely visible, and the motion-sensor light above flickered dimly. Nick glanced around—the floor had never been renovated. The ground was filthy, littered with burn marks. The walls were severely peeling, as if they bore the scars of past torment.

"Why hasn’t the third floor been renovated? Was it due to lack of funds, or is there another reason?"

The light quickly turned off, plunging the entire apartment into darkness.

Having worked in haunted houses for years, Nick was accustomed to the dark. He remained calm, pulling out his phone. Just as he was about to turn on the flashlight, he saw a figure swiftly cross the pitch-black corridor.

"Who's there?" he called, shining the light in the direction of the figure, but it was already gone.

Nick considered searching further, but just then, footsteps echoed from below.

"Is it the landlord?" If the irritable, one-legged landlord saw him idling on the third floor, he would surely be scolded. Nick hesitated, put his phone away, and quietly retreated to the second floor.

As he rounded the corner of the stairs, he spotted a short, plump middle-aged man carrying a basin, emerging from one of the second-floor rooms. The man had been humming to himself, but upon noticing Nick, his expression stiffened, and he quickly lowered his head, walking past without a word.

"What’s that supposed to mean? Do I really look that frightening?" Nick thought to himself as he returned to his room, tossing his backpack on the bed. "This entire apartment seems full of odd people. Everyone looks like a potential murderer..."

An unsettling thought suddenly struck him, causing him to sit up abruptly. "The task on my phone only asked me to find the murderer, but it never said how many there are. Come to think of it, there might be more than one! After all, this involves a family massacre—the possibility of a group crime is high. I need to investigate the case further."

Nick pulled out his phone and began searching. His conversation with Wang Qi hadn't been entirely fruitless—at least he had learned one thing: the apartment had once been called Fu'an Apartments.

He entered "Jiujiang Fu'an Apartments" in the search bar, scrolling through several pages before alarming headlines leapt into view.

"Family of Four Killed in Massacre! Murderer Vanishes Without a Trace?!"

"Accident or Murder? What Caused the Fire at Fu'an Apartments?"

"Bodies Hidden in the Building, Uncovering a Larger Conspiracy!"

Nick continued reading through all the information related to Fu'an Apartments. A chill ran through him as the gravity of the situation settled in. Reality was often far more terrifying than fiction—because this had actually happened. And one day, it might happen to him.

Five years ago, villagers had reported a fire at Fu'an Apartments, prompting a call to the fire department. After the fire was extinguished, the investigation began, initially a routine procedure to assess the damage.

However, as the investigation progressed, more and more inconsistencies emerged.

The concrete was cracked, and the glass shards were small with faint burn marks, indicating that the fire had burned with great intensity and spread rapidly. There were multiple, unrelated points of origin, a classic sign of arson.

The nature of the case quickly shifted, and the local police intervened. Amid the charred remnants of the building, they discovered the bodies of four people—the family who had run the apartment.

The case caused quite a stir at the time. The police did their best, but due to the fire’s destruction of the scene, no trace of a fifth person could be found, let alone a murderer.

The building was sealed off for an entire year, and according to relevant laws, it was eventually handed over to the deceased owner’s father. It was at that point that Fu'an Apartments was renamed to Ping'an Apartments.

"A family of four burned to death, and the murderer remains free—no wonder there are ghost stories surrounding this place," Nick thought, finally piecing together the case from years ago. His eyes lingered on the webpage when he suddenly noticed a detail. "The report says the original owner was 41 when he died. If the building was handed over to his father afterward, the current owner should be in his sixties or seventies by now."