Chapter 1 The Beginning

Bang!

The red-dressed humanoid puppet wielded the utility knife in its hand, splitting the ceramic flower pot on its head, along with the weight pressing it down, into two.

The qi blade emitted from the utility knife even extended outwards, severing and tearing apart the corner-missing sofa in front, revealing the wood and cotton inside.

However, Li Ang's movements were a fraction faster. The strobe light mode of his flashlight directly enveloped the humanoid puppet.

The latter, extremely unwilling, waved the blade in its hand. Its movements rapidly slowed under the intense light, finally freezing completely, stiffening in place, unmoving.

"...Tch."

Li Ang continued to shine the flashlight on it for a few more seconds, confirming that the puppet was no longer moving.

Then, he switched the flashlight beam back to constant brightness, to avoid scorching his own glasses. "Last time, the light froze it directly.

This time, there's a delay. It takes a while to freeze completely.

According to the tattoo's information, the effective sealing time for the first flashlight exposure was twenty minutes, the second was ten minutes, so the third will be five minutes.

A few more times, and I might have to keep the flashlight on it all the time..."

The entire room clearly held more than just the wooden puppet as a threat.

The gutted rabbit corpse in the bathroom, its internal organs devoured, was the best proof of that—the black cat had burrowed into the ventilation duct, and the original family members responsible for raising the black cat had yet to make an appearance.

Time was limited, and there was no time to delay.

Li Ang ascended the stairs, heading towards the second floor, with a meat cleaver in his right hand and his left-hand fingers lightly resting on the flashlight button, ready to switch to strobe mode at any moment.

The expected deadly danger did not appear. Li Ang smoothly ascended the stairs, looking left and right.

The structure of the second floor was generally similar to that of the first floor, divided into four rooms, each with anime stickers on the door.

The sticker contents were:

The silhouette of a boy and a girl holding hands;

Books;

A cat playing on a cat tree;

A silhouette of a man holding a woman in a wedding dress;

Judging from the patterns on the stickers,

These four rooms should be the children's bedroom, study, cat's room, and master bedroom.

Among them, the doors to the children's bedroom and the cat's room were open.

The study door had a lock installed, the lock cylinder hole was very small.

The master bedroom was equipped with an electronic combination lock, requiring a specific password to open.

The four rooms were located on either side of the corridor, with a window at each end of the corridor.

Li Ang stood by the window and looked out, able to see the starry sky, the second floor of the neighboring house, and the tree with a homemade swing in the courtyard.

"The window can't be broken..."

Li Ang frowned, gently tapping the steel-hard window glass with his fingernail. The system prompt of indestructibility appeared again in his vision.

He picked up the flashlight and pressed it against the window.

The light could penetrate the glass normally, shining into the corridor window of the neighboring house, forming a beam of light.

Li Ang stood in place, using the flashlight to shine back and forth on the windows of the various rooms in the neighboring house.

After waiting for a moment, the lights in the neighbor's house did not turn on.

"If there's someone in the neighbor's house, this kind of nuisance should attract them, right?

Or is there no one in the neighbor's house, or is this space not the real world at all..."

Li Ang went to the other side of the corridor and harassed the neighbor's house to the right with lights, with no response.

"Ugh... no response from the neighbor on the right either. Looks like there's no need to waste time looking for tape to put an SOS signal on the window."

He looked up at the starry sky. "The positions of these stars in the sky have changed. Time seems to be passing normally, but it can't be completely confirmed."

There are countless horror-themed literary works in the world. If it's a villain with a physical form like Jason or a chainsaw murderer, that's fine,

But if it's ghosts, goblins, monsters, or even irrational abnormal curses,

Then the variety of methods is difficult to predict.

At this stage of the script mission, Li Ang only had a few vague guesses in his mind.

Maybe this script mission is a box world set up by aliens to study human abnormal behavior, and there are hundreds or thousands of alien scientists watching the human reality show starring him.

Before mastering more information, anything is possible.

Of course, if it can really be confirmed that it's a reality show, with Li Ang's integrity, he might do something like constantly cursing and drawing Mickey Mouse on his chest to make the reality show program censor and silence it.

Li Ang shook his head and first walked into the open pet room.

The pet room wasn't large. It had hardwood floors, light green painted walls, a floor-to-ceiling window, and a balcony behind the floor-to-ceiling window. Two lounge chairs were placed on the balcony for humans to bask in the sun and pet cats.

As for the room, there was a cat tree with a small bed, a cat bed, a litter box, and a cat's water fountain—which could be imagined as a small fountain.

Since cats prefer to drink running water rather than still water, some families buy this type of pet water fountain, which can also filter impurities, soften the water, and facilitate cleaning.

Li Ang carefully searched the room. The cat tree and pet bed did indeed have a lot of black and white cat hair.

"This is the black cat's room."

Li Ang said to himself, "Judging from its appearance, that black cat should be an American Shorthair.

There's no cat food in the room.

The bags and cans for cat food are all in the kitchen downstairs, including the cat's food bowl.

Hmm... considering it from the pet owner's perspective is normal. Putting cat food in the same room as the cat would tempt it to steal food, right?

And letting the cat run up and down the stairs more is also good for it to lose weight and stay fit."

Li Ang knew a little about raising cats.

Unlike Chai Chai, who prefers dogs, Li Ang was a cat lover.

The main reason he didn't raise a cat was that the conditions didn't allow it. He was afraid that raising a cat would damage the landlord's house—another important reason was that Li Ang had to "travel" frequently.

To make up for the regret, Li Ang kept a modem at home.

Anyway, they're both cats, there's no difference.

From this perspective, Chai Chai should be considered the third member of the family, and would still be ranked behind that modem.

While thinking, Li Ang used the small shovel next to the litter box to poke around the contents of the litter box.

"There's nothing but litter in the litter box, but this litter hasn't been changed for a long time. There are obvious signs of dampness.

Considering how much the homeowners cherish the cat, that shouldn't be the case.

Has the black cat learned to use the toilet, or has the black cat escaped and left the house for some time?"

Li Ang pondered for a moment, then put down the litter box.

The litter box was filled with tofu cat litter, the basic component being pea fiber, which looked like small, white, slender cylinders.

This type of cat litter has good water absorption, can quickly clump, and can be flushed into the toilet, so it is widely used.

"Judging from the miserable state of the bathroom on the first floor, that black cat is not simple, and may be more deadly than the humanoid puppet.

If I carry a spoonful of unused cat litter with me, and suddenly throw it out when it attacks, is it possible to make it mistakenly believe that it has encountered a fecal attack, thereby retreating and giving way..."

Li Ang thought for a while, then gave up this destructive plan comparable to "mopping with poop." It wasn't that he didn't like playing with cat litter.

It was that the black cat might smell the cat litter and instead expose himself in advance.

"Tch, it's a pity that there's no catnip in the house. Otherwise, I'd give that black cat a piece when the time comes and have it help me deal with the other weird things in the house."

Li Ang muttered, stood up, walked out of the pet room, and entered the children's bedroom.

The area of the children's bedroom was about a circle larger than the pet room.

The walls of the bedroom were covered with green stickers, and two children's beds were placed on the floor, located on the left and right sides of the room.

The pillows, sheets, duvet covers, and other items on the two beds were pink and blue, respectively.

They seemed to be prepared for the two children in the photo.

"Two desks are placed at the foot of the two beds. Judging from the items placed on the desks, the two children don't have the same hobbies.

One likes Barbie dolls and Hello Kitty, and the other likes Transformers and Lego toys."

Li Ang glanced at the decorations on the desks. Unlike the wooden puppet on the first floor, the toys on the children's desks showed no signs of coming to life.

"Hmm... these toys don't change under the light.

Looks like it shouldn't be a Toy Story setting—where these toys come to life after leaving human sight or something."

Li Ang casually picked up two Transformers toys, pinched Optimus Prime and Megatron by the back of the neck, and made them fly around, gently colliding with each other.

At the same time, he kept making "whoosh, whoosh, whoosh" and "bang, bang, bang" sound effects to simulate a fierce battle.

"Okay, business is important."

Li Ang put down the Transformers and turned to look at other places in the children's bedroom.

In the corner of the bedroom, there was a huge wardrobe, which looked very much like the wardrobe in *The Chronicles of Narnia*.

Next to the blue bed—presumably the bed of the family's son—was a not-so-sophisticated telescope. A science book on astronomy was dropped on the floor. The cover featured Copernicus.

"A telescope for children to play with."

Li Ang put his eyes to the telescope and looked at the sky through the window of the children's bedroom.

He didn't know if it was a problem with the quality of the telescope itself or if the glass was too thick, but he couldn't see a clear view of the stars through the telescope.

Li Ang put down the telescope and picked up the book on the ground.

This astronomy science book, like the books in the parlor on the first floor, only had the first half, not the second half.

But on the title page of the book, a line was written in English.

[Robin, may you always look up at the stars and have the courage to explore the future]

"Hmm? This handwriting..."

Li Ang carefully identified the words on the title page and looked at his left arm.

No, the words on the title page were not the same handwriting as the tattoo that had appeared on his arm before and had not yet faded.

"The publication date of this book is January 2017, and the paper is relatively new, not inherited.

In other words, this book was given to his son Robin by the male owner of the family."

Li Ang paused, looked at the picture of Copernicus on the cover of the book, and complained: "Fortunately, it's Copernicus that's printed and not Bruno, otherwise this book would be really weird."

In the real world, some Eastern public intellectuals and unprincipled literary youth magazines often promote the Polish astronomer Copernicus of the Renaissance, because he proposed the heliocentric theory and was regarded as an enemy and heretic by the church, and was burned to death.

However, in fact, although Copernicus was considered by the Roman Curia that his heliocentric theory violated the Bible, the conflict between the two sides did not reach the point of irreconcilability—Copernicus himself was a priest who also studied theology, and died peacefully at the age of seventy.

The one who was burned to death was Copernicus's successor, Giordano Bruno. His attitude was more radical, and he was not a priest himself. In the end, he was wanted as a heretic and died in Rome's Campo de' Fiori.

"Okay, it seems this Robin likes astronomy, then what?"

Li Ang put down the book and looked at the ceiling.

The ceiling of the children's bedroom was also decorated.

On the girl's side, the ceiling was painted with exquisite Disney-style princess paintings.

On the boy's side, there were no paintings on the ceiling. Instead, there was a chandelier-like device.

Eight spheres of different sizes were hung from the ceiling by thin threads.

At the bottom of each thread, there were interconnected grooves, which looked like they could slide along the grooves.

"This family is quite indulgent with their children."

Li Ang raised an eyebrow and walked into the bedroom, pressing the light button.

Click—

Along with the sound of the button, the chandelier device on the ceiling lit up—the largest sphere, symbolizing the sun, emitted a gentle and non-glaring light-yellow light.

It really looked like the sun.

Li Ang walked forward, directly stepped on the children's bed, and went to move the "sun."

He found that it could be moved.

The wires tying the luminous sphere could move back and forth, left and right, along the grooves.

"The biggest one is the sun, so the other ones are the other planets in the solar system.

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn."

Li Ang played with this seemingly exquisite solar system model for a while, then jumped off the bed and looked at the huge Narnia-style wardrobe in the corner of the room.

He walked forward, opened the wardrobe, and the inside was divided into left and right sides. The left side was filled with the boy's clothes, pants, and socks, and the right side was filled with the girl's.

Since the wardrobe was very large, placing two sets of clothes didn't seem crowded.

"There's the smell of mothballs in the closet. I didn't find a secret door by pressing the back of the closet. Okay, it's not the wardrobe in *The Chronicles of Narnia* that can travel to another world.

Hmm? Wait, this is..."

Li Ang's palm swiped across the inside of the wardrobe door, clearly feeling neat scratches. Judging from the position, depth, and length of the scratches, they looked like they were scratched by human fingernails.

Immediately, countless possibilities that could cause this situation flashed through his mind.

"Neighbor Lao Wang? A perverted serial killer? An alien hiding in the closet with a cat?"

Li Ang pondered for a moment, then pushed aside the clothes hangers in the closet, and sure enough, he saw the concave traces left by footprints on the pile of clothes at the bottom of the closet.

Someone, or something, had been hiding in the closet.

Hu Die Lan