Autophagy

Song Lei took the body parts out of the fridge. The quake had stopped a few seconds ago, so he had to take out the body parts before it started again. Song Lei didn't like staying near furniture while the quake was happening.

After taking the body parts out, Song Lei started pondering about how he would feed the demon.

'How can I feed a demon when I can't even find its body?' Song Lei thought. 'Maybe I should turn off the light. Is that how it works?'

Song Lei put the body parts in a corner of the room and turned off the light. After turning off the lights, Song Lei crouched next to the bed and started waiting. He couldn't see anything regardless so he closed his eyes and listened.

The room started shaking again, but this time the quake was weaker and there were strange noises.

*CRUNCH!

Song Lei frowned and kept waiting. When the quake was over, he went over to the switch and turned the lights on.

'Wow!' Lei was surprised. The body parts he left at the corner of the room were already gone. Leaving some bloodstains behind. 'This is pretty efficient!'

[Congratulations! You have managed to befriend a quake demon! As long as you keep feeding him, he will be your friend.]

Song Lei read the lines and swiped them away. Some other lines of text appeared instantly.

[Congratulations! You've managed to exorcise a "Wandering Soul" You've gained Exp!]

[Congratulations! You've managed to exorcise a Wandering Soul"...

[Congratulations! You've managed to...

[Congratulations! You've accumulated enough Exp and leveled up. You've gained 2 stat points.]

'Oh? Is this because of how I charged ahead in the hallway? I must've killed a lot of low-strength ghosts. Am I just lucky or is this knife much better than what I thought?' Initially, Song Lei had thought that the knife would be a coinflip item that he could only use as a last choice. 'That may not be the case...'

Maybe the phrase 'It may or may not be able to hurt an ethereal being' meant that it was dependant on the level of the ghost, rather than luck.

'Whatever...' Thought Song Lei. He was pretty tired from all the things that happened. He had to sleep and recuperate.

Song Lei laid on the bed and brought up the system.

[Body]: 1 +

[Mind]: 4 +

[Soul]: 2 +

'I wonder what soul does?' Song Lei was pretty skeptical about the soul stat. It was a surreal stat that couldn't easily be understood. He wanted to try it out by spending some points but he couldn't spend his points carelessly. 'I guess I'll play it safe.'

Song Lei spent his 2 stat points on body and mind. His muscles started convulsing and the tingling feeling in his spine came back to him.

[Body]: 2

[Mind]: 5

[Soul]: 2

After the convulsing and tingling stopped, Song Lei felt his mind becoming much clearer. Although he was incredibly tired, he could still think just fine. The glass pieces stuck into his hands were pushed out and his hands healed just a bit. Even though it wasn't a full recovery, he could use his hand more freely.

Song Lei checked out all the cupboards and the closet. After looking for some time, he found an analog clock. It was 5 a.m at that moment. He didn't know whether the clock was right or not. Xiang Yimu had asked him what he was doing out in the hallway at 4 a.m. Considering that almost an hour had gone by, the clock must have been right unless Xiang Yimu was lying.

Song Lei went back to the bed and put the clock on the ground next to the bed.

'I should sleep.'

He didn't know whether it was a good idea to sleep in the same room with a demon or not but he had no other choice. Song Lei slowly dozed off...

...

Song Lei woke up. His eyelids felt incredibly heavy. He slowly sat down on the bed and rubbed his eyes.

'That was the worst sleep I've ever had in my entire life.'

He was in a room clad with talismans. This was enough to give any normal human nightmares but that was not the end. With no window or ventilation, the air in the room was very humid. Song Lei had trouble breathing even while doing nothing.

'Well, I should be happy that I can at least sleep,' Song Lei thought.

He got out of bed and opened the fridge to feed the quake demon. After making sure the stuff he left was eaten, Song Lei started getting ready to go out. He didn't have any food. So he had to scavenge for some. His best bet was going to room 1401, the only living human he knew of here was Xiang Yimu. If he couldn't find any food there, he didn't know where he could.

*GROWL

'I'm hungry...'

Song Lei looked at the analog clock.

'It's 10 a.m. I've slept for 5 hours. I wouldn't wake up this early normally. Is it because I'm in a different body or did the points I spent on body make the difference?'

After resting a little bit more, Song Lei was ready to go. He held his knife up and pulled the handle of the door.

*Creak

'I should oil this door.'

Song Lei glanced into the hallway. It was empty, like the things with Xiang Yimu didn't happen at all, the hallway was eerily silent.

Song Lei stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. He quickly walked to room 1401 while being as silent as he can. After reaching the door, he opened it and looked inside.

'Nothing out of place.'

He quickly went inside and closed the door behind him. He was using a match he had found back in his room as a light source.

'It's here!'

Song Lei searched a little bit and found his phone. Fortunately, it wasn't broken as flip phones were usually more durable than smartphones.

After picking up his phone, Song Lei turned the flashlight on and looked around the room.

'Ugh...' Lei quickly held his nose and frowned. 'Disgusting.'

The room's walls were clad with some gooey substance mixed with blood. Xiang Yimu's body was nowhere to be seen.

'Is there a window?' When he first went out of the room, Song Lei's initial intention was to find a window that he could look out of. He couldn't inspect the walls because of the gooey substance. He had to look around for a long time.

'It's here!' Song Lei cleaned the walls with his hands. 'Fuck!'

The window was blocked with planks of uneven sizes. There were no gaps between those so he couldn't see outside. Song Lei sighed.

'He has probably lived here for much longer than me. He must have a pretty good reason for blocking the window.'

Song Lei kept searching around the room and found Xiang Yimu's katana. He picked it up expecting a system message but to his surprise, nothing came up.

'Is it not a special item? Maybe it's just a normal katana.'

Song Lei left the katana on the ground and started rummaging through the cupboards. There were some canned food and a can opener, he threw them in his backpack.. After he looked through every single cupboard, Song Lei looked in the closet.

The closet had some clothing and weird-looking talismans in it.

[You've picked up a special consumable! A divine talisman can protect your soul from being attacked. Its effect diminishes as the attacker's level goes up.]

'Great! Now I have something that can protect me against things I can't see.'

Song Lei opened the fridge and found some vegetables in it.

'I wonder where he gets these things from?'

*Click

Song Lei started sweating. He quickly turned his flashlight off and hid under the bed. Fortunately, there was nothing waiting for him under the bed. The door of the room creaked open

'Fuck! I didn't hear wrong! Someone is here!'

Footsteps started getting closer....

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