Jin stood at the doorway of the study, holding a doll in his hand.

“Jin?” Zheng Wei looked at Jin with confusion. “How did you know what they are afraid of?”

“The doll told me,” Jin lifted the detachable parts of the doll in his hand.

“I had a similar doll when I was a child,” Jin walked over and placed the doll on the table.

“You can detach the head and body of this kind of doll, like this,” Jin demonstrated by showing them the headless body of the doll in his hand.

“There is a twistable cap on its neck. Since the body of the doll is hollow, you can put things inside through this cap. I used it to store the chocolates I stole from the fridge when I was young,” 

Jin unscrewed the cap on the doll’s neck and poured out a stack of folded paper from inside.

“This should be a little girl’s secret diary,” Jin picked out two unfolded pages from the pile of paper and placed them face up on the table.

“I just read these two pages,” Jin made a strange expression of disbelief and disgust. “I think they can explain a lot of things.”

The others looked at the pieces of paper on the table and found two lines of writing on each.

“On Monday, Paul was taken to that room because he did not return before 10 p.m.”

“Jamie told me that Paul’s last wound had not healed yet, and he was worried if Paul could make it through.”

“On Sunday, my wound got infected, and I thought I was going to die.”

 “Colleen kept crying, and I didn’t want to die.”

The words on the paper were delicate, but the strokes were messy. The chaotic lines and the meaning of the words were heart-wrenching.

The group gathered around the table and, without speaking, began to unfold the remaining notes.

Soon all the notes were laid out and pieced together to form a chilling story.

“On Sunday, it was Jamie’s turn. Poor Jamie, he just got the prayer wrong and was taken to that room.”

“His screams made me and Colleen shiver, but we couldn’t do anything. Oh God, please save us.”

“On Thursday, does God really exist? If he does, why does he turn a blind eye to us, who are living in hell?”

“No matter what we do, he will always find an excuse to punish us. I’ve known this for a long.. long time!” 

“On Wednesday, if I die one day, I hope my body can leave this hell.”

“On Tuesday, Mom’s nails were pulled out and she can’t touch water, but she still has to make dinner for us. Colleen and I wanted to help her, but he stopped us.”

“He’s getting crazier and crazier, he never used to leave wounds in places where clothes can’t cover, but now he doesn’t care. We’ll eventually die at his hands.”

“On Friday, I dreamt that I killed him and escaped this house with Colleen. It was a rare beautiful dream.” 

“I want to kill him, I think about it all the time.”

“On Monday, I met a boy named Thomas.”

“On Thursday, I’m meeting Thomas in the forest. Colleen says I’m crazy, but she still wants to help me keep it a secret. Lovely Colleen, my good sister.”

“On Sunday, when I met with Thomas, I saw Paul with a girl. I told him I would help him keep the secret and I hope we can both find happiness because everyone in this family deserves to be loved except for that person.”

“On Friday, Paul’s love affair was discovered.”

“On Tuesday, Paul had already been locked up for five days. I can’t imagine what he went through.”

“On Thursday, Paul was finally released, but he could never be with that girl again. He took away the most important thing from Paul. He’s a devil, a living devil!”

“On Wednesday, I got pregnant.”

“On Wednesday, I have to leave here. He won’t let me keep this child. I can’t allow this to happen. I have to protect my child.”

Some of these notes have dates, some do not. But each note and each word reveals the same pain and despair.

Looking at those sporadic records, everyone present fell silent.

“If I’m not mistaken, the person who wrote these notes should be Martin’s grandmother, Roland Hersman,” Zheng Wei was the first to break the silence.

“As for the ‘he’ mentioned in the notes…,” Zheng Wei looked at the pile of notes and said with some difficulty, “It should be her father, Mr. Hersman.”

As he spoke, he felt his stomach churning, the truth made him want to vomit.

Zheng Wei remembered the ghosts from last night, their behavior, and their fragmented conversations. Combined with these records on the notes and the information gathered, Zheng Wei was able to roughly infer what had happened forty years ago.

Forty years ago, Roland Hersman did not escape from her father’s clutches. Her mentally unstable father likely discovered her pregnancy and, in a fit of rage, locked her up in the basement.

Mr. Hersman likely wanted to kill the child in Roland’s belly, and perhaps even Roland herself. That’s why her mother and siblings said things like “save her.” They likely wanted to stop Mr. Hersman from killing Roland and, in the process, perished alongside him.

Death did not put an end to Mr. Hersman’s evil deeds, and forty years later he returned to this world as a malevolent spirit. However, this was something that Zheng Wei could not tell anyone else.

Zheng Wei was shocked by these revelations. What kind of person could do such things to their own family? He couldn’t understand.

“I suspect that the person who killed this entire family forty years ago is probably Mr. Hersman.” Zheng Wei looked at his friends, each with a different expression, and voiced his guess.

The different rooms on the upper and lower floors, the four ghosts from last night, the cut-up photos, and these notes – all the clues pointed to a clear answer.

The evil spirit on the farm was always only Mr. Hersman himself.