My fist clenched tightly, and I said to Feng Chunsheng, "That tree is going to harm someone."

He said, "Yes, this death tree is a death tree. Is it going to eat her?"

We saw that the death tree's branch was directly wrapped around the pregnant woman. The branch rolled down to the roots, and then countless leaves covered her.

"Oh. Come on, let's go help," I shouted at him.

He was a little afraid at the moment, and he wasn't sure if he should rush to rescue the woman.

I patted his shoulder, and he just pulled me toward the door.

I said we had to hurry. I rushed to the kitchen and found two knives on a shelf. I gave him one, and then frantically ran downstairs.

We ran downstairs and cautiously walked up to the death tree, knives in hand.

I saw, under the roots of the death tree, the leaves wrapped around that pregnant woman. I also saw that the roots of the death tree were exuding a dark green liquid and white smoke.

Feng Chunsheng and I looked over and saw the pregnant woman's legs sticking out.

"Grab a leg and pull," I said to him.

He nodded.

The two of us quickly rushed up and grabbed the pregnant woman's feet, straining to pull her out. When we got her out, I found that the pregnant woman's head had been melted by the sap of the death tree. Her melted skin smelled fishy and made us nauseous.

As we were pulling the pregnant woman out, her pajamas were rolled up a lot, exposing the shiny belly.

What did we see?

I saw the pregnant woman's belly had half of a cat's tail sticking out of it.

Looking carefully, I saw a dense stitch on her belly.

It turned out that she was not pregnant, but someone had stuffed a cat in her belly and then sewed it in.

As for why the cat's tail was exposed, I was not quite sure.

When Feng Chunsheng and I saw that cat's tail, we were scared and stunned.

Then, two branches stretched down again, grabbed the woman, and pulled her up to the top of the locust tree. After a burst of flickering, branches opened again. Not a trace of the woman was left.

"The flesh was disintegrated, but what about the bones?"

I hastened to look at the tree. I found that at the top of the locust tree, in the lushest place, was the woman's skull. The tree secreted something, and the head bone quickly changed color.

In the end, the skull was completely connected to the death tree, forming something like a tumor.

Then the tumor-like thing quickly developed into a branch.

"No wonder the death tree is so dense. Whenever it eats a person, it grows a new branch." I thought it had quite a lot of branches already How many people did the death tree eat?

While I was thinking about this, a branch of the death tree suddenly started winding towards me.

"Idiot, don't just stand there!"

Feng Chunsheng pulled me away, and the two of us dodged the branches of the death tree and ran back into the house.

I looked at the death tree. This thing was really terrible. The death tree really ate people.

Before I entered this courtyard, the female ghosts that I saw were probably the ghosts of those who were eaten by the death tree.

And the formation of the cat ghost was probably because the cats were sewn into the bellies of those women.

I asked him, "Why was a cat sewed up in that woman's belly? And why was half of its tail exposed?"

"Why would I know that?" he said. "But... One thing's for sure - the woman who had the cat sewn inside her was dead before the death tree dragged her down."

Then he said, "The woman was dragged out from the third floor of the windowsill. Was the person who killed the woman a tenant on the third floor?"

When he said that, I thought about Wei Xiaoyu and her boyfriend.

Earlier, Liu Qinghua had said that the programmer lived on the third floor.

Now, the programmer was playing outside with Wei Xiaoyu.

"I have to go to the third floor to see," I said to Feng Chunsheng.

He nodded, "Let's go together. That programmer doesn't seem like a good person."

A woman with a cat sewn into her belly appeared on the third floor. This definitely had something to do with that programmer.

Feng Chunsheng and I quickly ran to the third floor.

Because it was still dark - probably only around four o'clock in the morning - I turned on my phone's flashlight and took a look at the door of the third floor apartment.

When the light came on, I was scared. On that door was affixed a mask of a woman's face.

Although it was only a handicraft, it was so pale it really frightened me.

I took a step back, then reached out and touched the mask. As soon as I touched it, I immediately took my hand off it and said to Feng Chunsheng with some surprise, "This mask was made by cutting open a human skull."

"Are you sure?" he asked me.

I said to him: "After Li Xiangbo was fired from his job as a chef, he got a job cremating corpses. He told me that a person's bone was like art. If polished a little, it could have a mirror-like sheen. When touched, it would still feel chilly."

He said this person was indeed very magical, and then he asked me, "Is Li Xiangbo still cremating bodies?"

"No, he was fired after seven or eight days. After all, Li Xiangbo used to be a chef, and then went to a funeral parlor. Whenever he cremated a body, he always liked to ask if anyone added chili. So he was fired." I laughed.

Feng Chunsheng also laughed. The atmosphere suddenly felt a lot less terrifying.

I said to him, "This programmer uses a person's skull as a doorplate. This guy is not simple."

"Indeed." He patted directly on both sides of the door frame. "This guy know something. He is probably not a simple programmer; he should also be in the ghost business."

"What's up?" I asked him.

He pointed to the wooden card on either side of the door frame and said, "These are peach wood charms against evil. This man definitely knows something about ghosts."

I asked him what a peach wood charm was.

He said that the role of the red couplets of the Chinese Spring Festival was not as simple as mere auspicious words. The predecessors of red couplets were actually used to block evil spirits, and were called peach wood charms. In ancient times, every household put up peach wood charms.

Peach wood charms were made of peach wood. It was the best. With Taoist incantations, it could easily suppress evil. There was a poem called 'the new peach for an old symbol', which referred to a peach wood charm. However, after Zhu Yuanzhang became the emperor, the peach wood charms were replaced by the red couplets.

"Now, not many people know about those peach wood charms. This programmer does. You tell me whether that's strange or not."

I said, "Of course it's weird. This man is not a good person. If we could get through this door, everything else will be a cakewalk."

"We can," he said.

"How?" I asked him.

He pointed to the lock on the door and said, "This is a marble lock, it is easy to open. Do you have an ear pick?"

I said yes.

He said, "Give it here."

He took my metal ear pick, broke it, and fiddled around the lock with it. The door opened.

When the door clicked, I asked him, "Where did you learn to do this?"

He said happily that he had been begging for years. Sometimes there was not enough to eat. When people are hungry, they always have to learn a few bad skills.

I looked at him, "You laugh about it. You stole people's things and didn't get caught by the police. You are lucky."

"Don't talk nonsense, come in." He pulled me into the room, and closed the door.

As soon as he closed the door, we saw two pairs of oily green eyes across the room, staring at us.

I was mortified.

I held up the phone and turned on light. I was relieved - the two pairs of oily green eyes were two cats.

"Leave, leave, leave." I drove the cats away.

Feng Chunsheng suddenly said, "Perhaps that man was sewing these cats in women's bellies." He pointed at the two black cats.

I took a breath. This programmer was not normal. Could Wei Xianyu have been?

I couldn't even think about it.

Feng Chunsheng rummaged around and searched the room.

Although he made a lot of noise, everything was put back in its original position.

This guy was a pretty crafty thief.

In the past, a locksmith came to my tattoo shop. He was also a thief once, and then changed his business. While he was there, he boasted said that a small thief was only thinking of how to make money as soon as possible. The real big thief was not the same.

Those capable thieves were good at hiding. When they finished, the master wouldn't notice anything amiss when they returned to their home. This was the true craft.

This man was not easy.

Suddenly, he said to me, "Shui, come here and look at this."

I crept over to him.

He handed me a photo album.

I opened it and had a look. The album was full of various women's photos. I told him, "That's not good. You spy on others; your heart is really dirty."

"Just see if you recognize any of them."

I was stunned, "Who in this photo album could I have met?"

He reminded me: "You said you saw a lot of female ghosts under the death tree. I just want you to see if there is any woman in this album who looks like the female ghost you saw."

I quickly opened the album and looked through it again.