Basement.

Hong Hong had read the service manual and knew that this old-fashioned villa had a basement.

At ground level, there were very small windows.

The decaying wooden door had rust-laden chains casually wrapped around the handle.

As the door was pushed open, a long creak echoed, and the musty, rotting smell surged forth.

Inside was eerily dark, with the phone’s flashlight illuminating only a few meters ahead.

A flash of lightning streaked across, revealing hazy shadows inside, almost like someone was there!!!

"Who?!!" Majie, leading the charge, yelled furiously and began wildly swinging and thrusting the stick in his hand.

Hu Mo, who followed closely behind, frantically searched the walls for a switch.

He shakily pressed all the suspected switch points on the wall with his phone in hand, only to find each was a squishy bug bursting with fluid upon being pressed, making him scream.

The swaying light made the shadowy figure across the room seem to rush at us!

The collective fear within everyone exploded at that moment: "Ah!!!"

Unable to bear it any longer, I pushed Hu Mo aside and yanked a rope hanging by the door.

Click!

I gambled and won.

It was one of the oldest pull-string light fixtures.

The old-fashioned bulb overhead flickered a few times before finally lighting up.

The sudden brightness made all of us involuntarily close our eyes momentarily.

Upon reopening them, the scene before us made everyone gasp, the chill creeping into our bones and spreading throughout our bodies.

In the center of the basement, directly under the light, a blackboard hung in mid-air.

The object we mistook for a person was likely the swaying blackboard.

Several lines of text, written in blood-red paint on the blackboard, looked like they were bleeding and were extremely unsettling.

Even more eerie, surrounding the blackboard were several sets of desks and chairs.

On each desk and chair set sat a monkey doll, facing not the blackboard but staring straight at us!

Their glassy eyes seemed to move!

Wait, no, the foremost monkey doll didn’t have a head!

Faced with each other, we suppressed our fear and approached the blackboard.

Finally, we saw the writing clearly:

Five little monkeys swinging in the trees, teasing Mr. Crocodile, "You can't catch me, you can't catch me!"

Along came Mr. Crocodile, as quiet as can be and SNAPPED that monkey right out of that tree!

Four little monkeys swinging in the trees, teasing Mr. Crocodile, "You can't catch me, you can't catch me!"

Along came Mr. Crocodile, as quiet as can be and…

The nursery rhyme stopped there.

I knew this nursery rhyme.

From five little monkeys to none.

Mr. Crocodile ate each monkey in turn.

The person hiding in the dark, they already killed Xu Haolong, and next, they plan to kill each one of us one by one…

"What is this?!"

Yu Duola pulled down a hardboard from behind the blackboard,

flipped it over.

Then she froze.

It was still a graduation photo of our entire senior class.

There was nothing unusual about the original photo; every senior class would have one taken.

We had received this photo too.

But, the photo Yu Duola pulled down was different; there was someone in it who absolutely shouldn’t be there.

Yu Duola raised her head and looked at me, her face drained of color, her lips deathly pale.

"This is... Teacher Zhang... How can she be in the photo... She clearly... In our first year... Jumped off the building!!!"

Click!

Suddenly, everything went dark.

The power went out.