“Oh my god.” Seeing the wall full of torture instruments, Diane took a step back in fear.

“Why are these things here?” She nervously grabbed her boyfriend’s arm.

“I don’t know.” Martin sighed and said, “But I think I know why my grandmother refused to recognize my mother.”

Martin looked around the entire basement and whispered, “If it were me, I would also want my children far away from these things.”

Although Martin didn’t know what these things were all about, he was sure that there was a terrible story behind these torture instruments.

“Dear.” Seeing Martin’s downcast expression, Diane reached out and held his hand, trying to comfort him. Martin didn’t say anything and tightly squeezed her hand.

“By the way, dear, Ellie and I found something that you might be interested in.” Seeing her boyfriend in a bad mood, Diane suddenly remembered why she came to find him.

This morning, Martin, Allen, and Jin planned to go to the forest to practice shooting. Since Diane didn’t like those things, she stayed in the house with Ellie who also didn’t want to go out.

“What did you find?” Martin asked curiously.

“Let’s leave this place first.” Diane glanced at the basement and shuddered slightly. She didn’t like this place, and the torture instruments of unknown use were enough to make any normal civilized person uncomfortable.

Martin and the others also felt uncomfortable staying here, so they followed Diane out of the basement.

“Where did you find this?” Walking behind, Jin saw Zheng Wei holding a doll and couldn’t help but ask, “You’ve been holding it since earlier, is there something wrong with it?”

“I found it in the basement just now. It should belong to Martin’s grandmother, I’ve seen it in the photos.” Zheng Wei looked at the doll in his hand.

“I don’t know why it was in the basement.” The apple-faced doll lay in Zheng Wei’s hand, staring at him with big blue eyes, and her faded red lips made her smiling face somewhat eerie.

“Can I take a look?” Jin looked at the doll and suddenly spoke.

“Of course you can, it doesn’t belong to me.” Zheng Wei handed the doll to Jin and asked strangely, “But what do you need it for?”

“I can’t say for sure.” Jin took the doll and seemed to be thinking about something. “Maybe I need to take a closer look.”

Before Jin finished speaking, Diane, who was walking ahead, stopped at the door of a room.

“Last night, Ellie found this study while cleaning up.” Diane opened the door. “Today, Ellie and I planned to come and find some books to read, but we found something.”

“Ellie, I brought Martin and them here.” Diane walked into the study and said to Ellie. 

“You haven’t left yet?” Ellie raised her head from the book, somewhat puzzled, and asked.

“They were delayed by something, I’ll tell you later.” Diane picked up a wooden box from a bookshelf and placed it on the desk. 

“It’s this thing.” Diane said and looked at Martin and the others.

Several people gathered around the desk and looked at the box, speculating on what was inside. 

Diane opened the box. “Ellie and I found this box, and there are some photos inside.”

“I’ve already looked at them before, dear, I hope you don’t mind.” Diane took out a photo from inside and handed it to Martin. “I found something strange about these photos.”

Martin frowned as he looked at the photo. Zheng Wei and Allen, who were standing beside him, also looked thoughtful.

It was a family portrait, a family portrait that had been cut. The position where the male head of the household should have been was cut off with scissors, leaving only a missing gap.

“Not just this one.” Diane took out several more from the box and handed them to Allen and Zheng Wei. “All of the photos are like this.”

Zheng Wei looked at the photo in his hand. The woman in the photo was the ghost he had seen last night. In the photo, she stared blankly at the camera, with her mouth unnaturally curved into a stiff smile. It was supposed to be a photo of two people, but the person standing next to her was cut out, leaving only a hand with a man’s ring on her waist, proving that he had once existed.

“All the photos with the male owner have been cut,” Diane said.

Zheng Wei reached for a few more in the box and found that as Diane had said, every photo had one person cut out, and according to the remaining hand and the ring on it, it could be discovered that they were all the same person.

The male owner of this house, Mr. Hersman.

“Their expressions seem very strange…” Zheng Wei looked at these photos, feeling an indescribable feeling. “It’s like, like…”

In these photos, everyone had been carefully dressed up, looking like an ordinary family. They were cuddling together intimately, smiling at the camera. But their smiles were stiff and strange like they had been carved onto their faces by someone holding a sharp knife.

Zheng Wei didn’t know how to describe his feelings. He just felt that there was something hidden in the smile of each person in the photo.

“They’re afraid.” Allen, who had been looking down at the photos, suddenly spoke up in a strange voice.

Allen was right. Although these family members were all smiling, their expressions made people feel very empty, as if they were trying hard to endure something. Their big, wide-open eyes were filled with fear and cowardice as if they were fearing something.

“Afraid?” Martin looked at Allen in confusion. “What are they afraid of?”

“I think I know what they’re afraid of.” A voice came from the door. The people gathered around the table turned to look at the speaker.

“Jin?”