The door clicked shut behind me. Standing beside the altar table, I realized my forehead was slick with cold sweat.


    "Mr. Gao, are you alright? May I proceed with the questions?" The voice from behind the paper mask was devoid of warmth—more a demand than a question.


    "Y-yes, of course. Go ahead." Something was very wrong. My focus shifted to planning an escape route. Becoming a host for the Netherworld Showroom? Not a chance in hell.


    "Mr. Gao, the following questions require your utmost sincerity. If your answers fail to satisfy us… you may never leave this place." He paused, picking up the crumpled flyer on the table. "Just like the true owner of this card—Xia Chi."


    Xia Chi! Xia Qingzhi’s brother! So he really was killed here!  My pulse spiked. Are the Jiang City police completely useless? How could a grown man vanish without a trace?!


    Xia Qingzhi hadn’t lied. But why was there no record of her brother in the household registry? Why did even her own family have no memory of him? The inconsistencies were maddening.


    "Mr. Gao, please listen carefully." This time, the speaker was the figure on the left. The three were identical in build, distinguishable only by the varying degrees of wear on their paper masks.


    "When I was thirteen, I killed my little sister because her crying annoyed me. I threw her body into the well outside. The next day, it was gone.


    Five years later, I killed a friend over a petty argument and dumped his body in the same well. The next day, it vanished.


    Ten years later, I got a woman pregnant while drunk. When she became a nuisance, I killed her and disposed of her in the well. The next day, the body disappeared.


    Fifteen years later, I murdered my boss after he reprimanded me. Into the well. The next day—gone.


    Twenty years later, I grew tired of caring for my bedridden mother. So I killed her too. Threw her into the well.


    But the next day… her body was still there. I checked on the third day, the fourth—every day after. It never disappeared."


    "Mr. Gao, your first test is to tell me: Why didn’t my mother’s body vanish?"


    "What kind of question is this?!" I’d absorbed every word, yet the answer eluded me. This wasn’t a job interview—it felt like a psychological test for criminals. Their flat, matter-of-fact tone unnerved me, as if an invisible hand were tightening around my throat in the dark.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    "Thirty seconds have passed. Provide your answer."


    Steeling myself, I pieced together the sparse clues.


    "Every time you disposed of a body, it vanished the next day—except your mother’s. The only logical explanation is… **your mother was the one cleaning up after you.** She removed the other bodies. But once she was dead, no one was left to hide your crimes."


    I stole a glance at the masked figure. No reaction.


    "Proceed to the second question." No confirmation, no denial—just relentless momentum.


    "Have you heard of ‘snuff films’? Underground recordings filled with real torture and murder, circulated only among certain circles. Some say the killers themselves film these atrocities.


    One night, while drinking, a friend boasted he owned such tapes. Like a glutton risking death for fugu or scorpion delicacies, my curiosity got the better of me. I begged to watch.


    He invited me to a secluded cabin in the mountains. I arrived on time; he was thirty minutes late.


    ‘Sorry, sorry! My youngest spiked a fever—refused to take his medicine.’


    ‘Kids, right? I get it.’


    ‘Haha, let’s begin.’


    The film played. The backdrop was a child’s agonized sobs and manic laughter. A ten-year-old, tortured for twenty minutes by a masked killer before dying. The brutality was too much. I shut it off midway, shouting:


    ‘How can you watch this?! You’re a parent yourself!’


    My friend chuckled, unfazed. ‘Yeah, I’ve got two kids. So what?’"


    "Mr. Gao, your task is to deduce: Does the narrator survive the cabin?"


    Compared to the first riddle, this one dripped with even more derangement.


    "Just watching a film shouldn’t be fatal… unless—" A detail snagged my attention. The friend claimed he had two children. Yet his excuse for being late was ‘my youngest (third) was sick.’ If he only had two, where was the third?


    "The friend was thirty minutes late. The child in the film was tortured for twenty minutes… Was the masked killer the friend himself?!"  The realization chilled me.


    "Mr. Gao, time’s up."


    "I believe the narrator doesn’t leave alive. He likely becomes the second victim in his friend’s snuff collection…"


    The air grew heavier. I loosened my collar, gripping the defunct taser in my pocket.


    "Good. Third question."


    "They were childhood sweethearts, dreaming of growing old together. At thirty-five, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Holding the report, she laughed through tears. She didn’t smoke, had no vices—why cancer?


    Visiting his office, she found her favorite dried nuts in his drawer… beside a bottle of pills. The label was damning. She wept.


    Three days later, she lit birthday candles for him—though he wasn’t there. Thirty-four long candles, one short. Smiling through tears, she whispered: ‘You’ve lost weight.’"


    "Explain why she said he’d ‘lost weight.’"


    This one felt familiar, but the answer danced just out of reach. After turning it over, I ventured a macabre guess:


    "The man was poisoning her nuts with carcinogens. When she discovered the betrayal, she killed him.  Rendered his fat into candle wax—but there wasn’t enough for thirty-five. Hence, ‘you’ve lost weight.’"


    "Creative. Fourth question."


    "After cheating, I pushed my girlfriend from the sixth floor, staging her death as suicide. The police bought it. But guilt haunted me—I swore she’d return.


    On the seventh-day funeral rite, a mystic warned: ‘The vengeful dead come tonight. Hide under your bed. If she finds you, you’re doomed.’


    At midnight, a ‘thud… thud… thud’ echoed—like a basketball bouncing. When the bedroom door creaked open, I knew I was dead."


    "What did the narrator see that sealed his fate?"


    "If she died, how could she—? Wait…" The riddle hinged on her being undead—or worse.


    "Just answer."


    My mind raced beyond the puzzle.   Why these questions? What’s their goal?


    "Assuming the scenario holds… she fell headfirst. The ‘thuds’ were her head bouncing up the stairs. When the door opened, the man under the bed saw her upside-down face peering at him. That’s why he knew it was over."


    "Excellent. One final question." All three spoke in unison—a synchronization so perfect it was grotesque.


    Sweat dripped from my jaw. The masked figures leaned forward.


    "Mr. Gao… do you believe in ghosts?"