I kept mentally convincing myself to take a step forward, yet my feet wouldn't move. After countless attempts to lift my leg, I suddenly felt a force behind me shove me forward, sending me crashing into the door.
Turning around, I saw nothing behind me. However, I noticed that the ghost mist, which had only reached my ankles earlier, was now up to my thighs. At this rate, it would soon fill the entire room.
I had no idea where the gentleman had gone. He only instructed me to search the room for something that didn't belong but hadn't explained what to do if I found it.
With that realization, my fear lessened slightly. I stepped into the master bedroom and began searching cautiously. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a porcelain cup hitting the ground behind me.
"Who's there?" I instinctively turned around, but there was no one. Through the ghost mist, I could vaguely see that the porcelain cup had shattered on the floor. There was no sign of the long-haired ghost, so who had knocked over the cup?
As I approached, I noticed the cup still contained water. Although I didn't taste it, the faint scent of cold tea lingered in the air.
I reached down to pick up the shards, worried I might accidentally step on them later. In my carelessness, I cut my hand, and blood began to drip from the wound.
Just then, the jade pendant around my neck grew hot again but quickly cooled down.
"What's with this pendant?" I muttered, then suddenly remembered: every time the pendant heated up, I encountered something supernatural. Could it mean…
Realizing the possibility, I immediately grew alert, scanning every corner of the room. Part of me hoped to find something; another part prayed I wouldn't.
Just as I turned to check behind me, a black shape lunged at me. Instinctively, I raised my hand to block it.
"Meow—"
"Ahh! Help me, sir!"
The sharp cry of a cat broke the silence, and my scream echoed through the apartment.
After being pushed away, the cat landed on the bed and turned to look at me. I stared back, realizing it was a black cat with bright green eyes.
"So, it's just a cat…"
Hearing my scream, the gentleman rushed into the room. His expression changed drastically upon seeing the cat. "Step back! Quickly!"
Before I could react, a chilling sensation gripped my limbs. I felt something grab my calf—a hand, or at least something resembling one, with the strength of an adult. It was trying to pull me down.
Panicking, I clung tightly to the corner of the wall. Looking down, I saw a pale hand with crimson-painted nails gripping me. Yet I couldn't see the hand's owner. Holding onto the bed frame for dear life, I felt the force pulling me downward—toward a pitch-black hole, not the floor below.
The gentleman quickly struck the hand with a wooden stick, causing it to emit smoke and release its grip on my leg. I scrambled back, only to find the hand had disappeared entirely.
"What was that thing?" I asked, shaken.
The gentleman's grave expression was unlike anything I'd seen before.
"Has something happened? You don't look well."
"That black cat—did it attack you? Are you injured anywhere?"
I shook my head, explaining that my hand was cut by the porcelain shards, not the cat.
Hearing this, the gentleman visibly relaxed. "I was just about to search the apartment for a basement. I found one, but couldn't open it. I came back for a key, only to hear you calling for help."
"A basement?"
It wasn't unusual for a large apartment like this to have a basement, likely for storing seldom-used items. But why would it concern the gentleman so much?
"Did you notice something unusual about the basement?" I asked.
"There was a peculiar fragrance emanating from it—too alluring to be natural. I wanted to investigate."
So while I was scared half to death here, he was busy following a scent? What could it possibly be? Either way, the priority was to get out of here.
"What should we do now? The female ghost still hasn't shown up."
"Who said she hasn't? Didn't she just try to kill you?"
His words confused me. I was certain I hadn't seen the terrifying female ghost at all.
"Really? But..." As I spoke, I recalled the green-eyed black cat that had attacked me earlier. Could the ghost be connected to the cat?
"You're not entirely stupid," he said. "The cat itself isn't trying to kill you. It's the ghost possessing it."
His words confirmed my suspicion. I glanced nervously around, worried the cat might leap out of nowhere and claw my arteries open.
"So ghosts can possess animals," I murmured. I'd seen movies where black cats caused corpses to reanimate or strange events to occur, but now it seemed there was some truth to it.
The ghost mist grew denser. Both the gentleman and I had likely inhaled more of it than we realized. Although I didn't doubt the ghost's presence, she remained unseen. Instead, she seemed to be watching our every move, while we remained unaware of hers.
The person behind this was after my jade pendant, and the ghost had repeatedly tried to kill me. Yet here I stood, and the ghost remained eerily patient. She didn't behave like a vengeful spirit driven solely by the urge for revenge.
I shared my thoughts with the gentleman, who nodded in agreement. "Vengeful spirits lack consciousness. Even if they're manipulated, they can't be fully controlled. The mastermind hasn't acted yet—they're clearly planning something else."
As time ticked by, the long-haired ghost's absence left me increasingly uneasy.